Progress

The City of Gulfport is actually installing its portion of a long-running sidewalk down by the beach. On BOTH sides of highway 90. People, this is huge! Unfortunately, they are going with concrete on the beach-side instead of the classic wooden boardwalk, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. I believe the sidewalk will be complete from Long Beach to Biloxi, maybe even more inclusive than that. They are working fast, and I can't wait to see the finished product. I took the dogs down yesterday to give it a whirl. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!!

Book update

Well this month has set me back. I have some catching up to do in March.

Book #9 of the year was "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. I am a huge Bryson fan, and I couldn't be happier that there are still several of his books out there that I haven't read yet . He can be laugh-out-loud funny. While he did not elicit that reaction in me nearly as much with this book, I enjoyed it just as much. Here, he is reunited with his old college buddy Katz (who first appeared in "Neither Here Nor There," his book about his European travels with Katz, which had Adam and I doubled over as we were reading it in Spanish hostels). They make an attempt to hike the entire Appalachian trail together, and hilarity ensues. Bryson is quite a bit more serious and introspective here than I am used to, but that is not a bad thing.

Book #10 was "The Importance of Being Earnest," by Oscar Wilde. This play is as funny today was it was when it was written in 1895. It is so fast-paced and you will all of a sudden find the play finished as you are enjoying yet another witty exchange. No societal institution is left unattacked. Wilde was a devil!

Book #11 was "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck. Brilliantly depressing as ever.

Book #12 was "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. Absurdism at its best. Camus presents a world in which no meaning or truth exists. Only things that can be experienced physically are real. The attempts of the main character, Meursault, to find any meaning are ultimately a total failure. He is the most disaffected yet honest character you will ever encounter, unyieldingly honest. A very disturbing book. It's hard to imagine anyone actually liking the main character, but you will feel something for him. And that will trouble you most likely.

Books #13 and 14, in progress, "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse and "The Tempest" by Shakespeare.

The Dirty South

Do you ever put on an album sort of randomly and without thinking and it ends up being more perfectly suited to your mood and your life on the whole for those 45 minutes than anything you could have possibly actively sought out? It is a phenomenon, and it happened to me yesterday morning. I got home around 7:30 from work, kissed my husband goodbye, and as he walked out the door, the rain came POURING down. In sheets. Cats and dogs. All that. It was brilliant. I opened all the windows, soothed my scared doggies, and put on the Drive-by Truckers "The Dirty South." It is an album for the South, by the South, and to the South. It is about the mythology of the South and the sober realities of everyday life down here. It is beautiful, and it's the first time I've actually listened to the album while physically in the South. I was hopeful for another stormy morning today so I could relive that experience, but it's probably better as a one-time deal.

New skills

People, I am learning to knit. My fabulous Aunt Judy showed me how to cast on and how to make a basic knitting stitch this past weekend in snowy Illinois. I am now the very proud new owner of my grandmother's knitting needles (or, knitting sticks, as I naively referred to them before I was wise to the jargon) and some extremely old yarn to practice with. Now that I am separated from my sensei Aunt Judy by hundreds of miles, I am seeking a new tutor. In the meantime, guess what I am using? Freakin' youtube!! How fabulous is that? There are loads of really decent videos on there that are superior in nearly every way to drawn diagrams in knitting books. Is this thoroughly modern of me or what? I love it! I have already been commissioned for a potholder by my friend Ryan in Chicago. I won't let you down!

And I'm proud to be an American...

where at least I know I'm free! And where I know I can count on the Girl Scouts of America to provide our great nation with a freakin' crapload of cookies, now trans-fat free. Way to keep with the times, GSA. The cookies have their own myspace page now too (seriously, check it out), so double kudos to keeping with the times! I have been bombarded at the hospital with eager moms trying to sell cookies for their daughters. I have resisted the urge because I have visions of myself devouring an entire sleeve of Thin Mints (frozen, of course) in one sitting. One lady claimed to have sold 900 boxes this month.(!) It is not an uncommon site to see someone pushing a cart loaded with cookies, making deliveries all over the hospital. It has been a long time since I have lived in a situation where Girl Scout cookies are such a prominent feature of life at this time of the year. In college and in Colorado, I wasn't working with or hanging out with a lot of people that had school-aged daughters. So it sorta slipped my mind for the past ten years that this goes on. Every year. For over 80 years.

One of my patients the other night got HOT while recalling how she was fired as a troop leader once the Girl Scouts of America found out she was a Canadian citizen. I got the feeling it was a long time ago, yet these feelings seemed so fresh. I found this oddly hilarious.

This invasion of my brain space by things Scout-related has also conjured up memories of my mother serving her role as the Webelo den mother when my brothers were moving up the ranks of the Boy Scouts. Somehow rice krispie treats are involved in this memory. I never managed to be part of the Girl Scout club. Never even a Brownie. I remember being quite jealous of Ashley because she got to be a Brownie and had that special crisp brown uniform with the sash and badges. I REALLY wish I had a picture handy of a young Ashley sporting her Brownie garb. Ash, am I wrong or did you have the poodle perm at that time? I can see it so clearly in my mind, and it is truly a thing of beauty.

"They be done toe dat up."

This was said to me last night by one of our nurse aides. She has a solid history of employing some extremely colorful and unique syntax and sentence constructions. I believe she meant something to the effect of "They have already torn that up," or, possibly, with a flash of dyslexia, "That toe has been done up by them." I don't really know. I wish you could all hear her speak. It is mind-bending.

Fun is...

Loading up your brand new ipod Touch with music and movies for a road trip to the cold & snowy Midwest. Adam and I leave tomorrow for a family wedding in Springfield, Illinois. Then we are probably heading up to Madison to see some of his family. It's been ages since I've been on the road, and I can't wait!!!

Speaking of Emmaline...

She broke my heart in a new way this past Saturday.

Emmaline's friend Natalie was over spending the night while I was over there hanging out. Cristi told me earlier that Natalie's family was moving to Texas in June and Emmaline didn't know about it yet. Well we were all in the kitchen and Natalie asks if she can go ahead and tell Emmaline the news. Cristi and I cut each other a quick glance, both in unspoken agreement that this was about to be one of those really hard growing-up moments for this sweet little perfect girl. So Natalie delivers the news, and my heart remains in a million shattered pieces all over that kitchen floor. Emmaline's eyes were searching everywhere for a place to fixate on so that she wouldn't cry, but then the floodgates broke and she was powerless against her sadness and just could not understand why her best friend had to move away. I had to leave the room. Twice. (Way to be strong, Aunt Laura) She buried her head in her mama's stomach, sobbing, and I have never respected anyone more than I respected Cristi at that moment for keeping it together. Then, when I thought I couldn't get any more heartsick, she leans down and gives little 7-month old, clueless Bram a big hug and says, "I need my Brammy!" How will I ever teach my own children how to face disappointment gracefully when I am whimpering in the bathroom over my 5-year old niece's little personal tragedy ?

Of course, ten minutes later, they were playing again and Emmaline was showing Natalie where Texas is on the map and they are talking excitedly about the trips they will take to see each other. Then Merritt, who has missed this entire exchange, comes stumbling onto the scene from her nap, half asleep, holding her blanket. Emmaline tells her the news, and she responds without batting an eye, "I knew that." Merritt, always one step ahead of the rest.

Book #8

Willa Cather. "My Antonia." Literary perfection. Had she added or omitted a single word, it would have been a shame.

I fell in love with this book in high school in 11th grade honors English (Ashley what was our teacher's name? I cannot remember for the life of me. Short little woman with short dark hair. Help!). I have always counted it a favorite. That preference has been totally reinforced. Any author who can make you WANT to live in Nebraska because of her incredible descriptions of the prairie is a damn good author. You can actually feel the pure prairie dirt sifting through your fingers with each turn of the page.

I have always been weak for nostalgia. It can be so painfully sweet to get tangled up in your own good memories, and sometimes I get myself so trapped in that labyrinthine mess of reminiscence that it is hard to find my way out and back to the here, the now. That is this book - the narrator looking back, yet moving forward. And all the time experiencing the pain and deliciousness that that entails.

The other HUGE bonus of re-reading this book was my discovery that the narrator's prairie grandmother, the strong farmer's wife who kills snakes without a blink and is the epitome of kindness to her neighbors, her name is Emmaline! This is the first time I have ever encountered my niece's name out in the world. I can't wait for Emmaline to read this book one day.

Some of my favorite passages:

After the narrator first moves to Nebraska from the east as a little boy to live with his grandparents after his parents' death:
"Between that earth and that sky, I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night: here, I felt, what would be would be."

Of the two rugged farmhands: "What good fellows they were, how much they knew, and how many things they had kept faith with!"

The narrator, reflecting on how long it had been since he last saw his childhood friend Antonia: "My business took me West several times every year, and it was always in the back of my mind that I would stop in Nebraska some day and go to see Antonia. But I kept putting it off until the next trip. I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years, one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."

Closing paragraph, after Jim has finally visited Antonia and met her husband and 8 children on their farm: "This was the road over which Antonia and I came on that night when we got off the train at Black Hawk and were bedded down in the straw, wondering children, being taken we knew not whither. I had only to close my eyes to hear the rumbling of the wagons in the dark, and to be again overcome by that obliterating strangeness. The feelings of that night were so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is. For Antonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past."

Working Woman Blues

I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya (to steal the words of my favorite Onion columnist), but sometimes night shift just totally owns me. That is how it has felt for the past week. I miss, on average, a full night of sleep each week as I always try to stay up the day after my 3rd night shift, so I can go to sleep that night with Adam. They say night-shifters have a shorter lifespan than day-shifters, and I think this must be why. For a girl for whom sound sleep ranks right up there with puppies, ice cream, and starry skies as far as the finer things in life are concerned, believe me when I say that my days on night shift ar numbered. The money is just so much better, so for now, that's what it is. The VERY BEST thing about night shift though? I never ever have to wake up before the sun. And for those of you who know how hard it is for me to wake up in the morning, you know what an awesome thing that is.

So, this whole "being a nurse" thing is going pretty well. I remember sitting on the front stoop on a clear night at The Milton (the perfect house I shared with Mary in Boulder back in 03-04) with my friend John, telling him I was thinking about going to nursing school because I was becoming so unfulfilled at my job with The Princeton Review and couldn't imagine a lifetime of office jobs where I was always having to consider the bottom line. It's hard to remember a time when anyone has been so supportive of me than at that moment, when he was just dumbstruck that I, or anyone else that knew me, had not thought of this sooner because it was such the perfect marriage of me and a career. After running this new idea by most of my close loved ones, I was so encouraged and hopeful, which grew into total, utter confidence that this was the path I was meant to be on. And I never doubted it since.

Hardly a shift goes by where I don't feel that I've made a true connection with someone in need. I actually can help really sick people feel better. I can listen to someone who has felt totally ignored. I can make someone feel that they have what it takes to live with their condition. I can do the tiniest, simplest things that show I am paying attention to my patient, and those things make the biggest difference. Like wiping the crust out of someone's eyes who can't do that for themselves. Such a small thing, but huge at the same time. These parts of being a nurse, I've got it. And I love it. The other, bigger part, is knowing exactly what is going on with my patient's heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, guts, etc. Trying to remember the past medical history, lab values, current test results, medications, new orders, assessment details and how all of those things play together, and on 5 patients, well that is still challenging.

But I actually feel like a nurse now instead of an imposter. And that is major progress.

Mardi Gras Day #1

Here's what Adam and I have been up to for the last few days. Sunday began with us donning jheri-curl wigs and masks at a shop in the French Quarter.





Then we moved south on St. Charles to catch the end of one of the smaller parades, as we made our way to meet my brother for the beginning of Bacchus. I decided to practice harassing people for beads and taking opportunities from children, as I knew the competition would be much stiffer once the big floats started rolling by.



Finally, we found my brother and Bacchus begins. Hulk Hogan was the King of Bacchus this year, and, sadly, none of my pictures of him are decent enough to post. Joey, with much more experience under his belt, proved a formidable foe and showed me how it was done. Despite my jealousy at his superior bead-catching skills, I took the high road and did not hurt him, even managed to keep smiling and take a friendly picture.




Here I am with one of my last catches of the night before we had to drive back to Gulfport and rest up for two more days of the same.

Mardi Gras Day #2

Adam and I got to sleep in on Monday and regain our strength. We walked nearly 15 miles on Sunday, so we were pretty beat. We got up and had lunch at this little cafe down the road that is NEVER open on weekends, and then loaded up the dogs and headed out. We had to board the dogs for the first time ever, which was a huge bummer, but it worked out ok. We left them at a kennel north of New Orleans, which gave us the chance to drive across Lake Pontchartrain on the longest bridge in the world.



When we got to New Orleans, we headed up to Bourbon Street after checking into our hotel to set our eyes on the madness and chaos there. It was actually pretty tame compared to what I always imagined it would be, but then, it was only about 4:00 in the afternoon. You could move about easily, and we didn't see any vomit/urine/feces anywhere. We did see some boobs, but it wasn't excessive. You could feel the crowd thickening and getting drunker as it got darker.



We got out of there to head back down St. Charles to meet my brother again. Monday night's parade was Orpheus, and it was every bit as exciting and fun as Sunday night. Here is one of the flambeau carriers who was warning us ladies to "watch your weave" as he passed. Awesome.



Here I am competing with Joey's friend with the tuba next to me. Surprisingly, his tuba receptacle didn't get him any more beads or doubloons than the rest of us. But it did allow us to see what it looks like when you have a bunch of crap in the bottom of your tuba.




Being at these parades is so much fun, I can't even tell you. People get so into it! I want to go every year. Here is Joey with his prized catch of Monday night. Or at least it was prized until we realized it wasn't a wolf but a husky. Oh well. Still a good catch even if you are not an 80-year old woman hung up on beanie babies.



Lastly, here is me and my dear sweet husband who trekked all ove New Orleans carrying my heavy load of beads.

Mardi Gras Day #3

Yes, that is a black man in black face.


I want my own personal hand-held Jester.

Rough marketing.

The King of Zulu

This hungover horse totally regrets getting that tattoo last night.

I have not been this happy since our wedding. Until you catch a Zulu coconut, you can't understand.

Am I too old for a "deez nutz" joke? Yes? By about 15 years? Ok, then I won't.