Four Things Meme

Four jobs I would stink at:

Sales of any type (high pressure sales like cars, telemarketing, etc)
Clothing designer (as anyone who's ever seen how I dress can tell you)
Makeup lady at the department store (must! fight! urge! to make people up like clowns!)


Four pretend nicknames I make up for myself:

Actually, I've never made up a nickname for myself.

Four Movies I have watched over & over again:

Some Like It Hot
Bridget Jones's Diary
The Birdcage
Any Harry Potter movie

Four places I have lived:

Jacksonville, FL
Portland, OR
Moscow, Russia, USSR (at the time)
Vancouver WA

Four things I love to do on my weekends:

I don't have weekends.

Four TV shows I geek out to, or used to geek out to:

Survivor
NCIS
Any sitcom on when I'm making dinner
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Four alcoholic beverages I’ve enjoyed on vacations:

Margaritas
Beer
Margaritas
Beer

Four things I could NOT live without (besides oxygen, H20, and miscellaneous life-sustaining substances, included kids, and other family members):

Laptop
Glasses
Cellphone
Paper and pen (and it better be a good pen)

Four of my favorite foods:

Salad rolls
Ice cream
Really good kosher hot dogs
Anything chocolate

Four places I would rather be right now:

Disneyland
Mt. St. Helens, hiking around the lava beds
Juneau, visiting friends
England, visiting a friend and seeing everything

Surprise

Immediately upon replacing the last of the crucial items lost with my wallet, I found it languishing behind the driver's seat of the small car, buried beneath a pile of miscellaneous things (some trash, some toys, some... stuff). The small car that both I and my better half had searched. GRR!

But now I have a spankin' new library card which is far more decorative than the old one, and my new debit card is much prettier than its predecessor. So it was not all for naught.

Chickeny goodness, and meeples

So a few nights ago I was on the phone to my better half who was away and suddenly the back patio was crawling with chickens. Disgruntled chickens who were loafing about complaining and bellyaching. It being 9pm or so I felt compelled to check out their hut to see what was driving them out into the night, since typically they hit the sheets by about 7 and are not heard from again until morning.

I cracked open the back doors of their hut, which is in desperate need of cleanage, and found a small possum inside. Naturally, I did the only logical thing (after squeaking loudly and jumping backwards, involuntarily) -- I ran for the camera.



Once I had taken sufficient photos, I brandished a dollar-store water shooter (like a giant plastic syringe, which shoots about 30 feet and is a total deal if you ask me) that was lying in the yard and used it to poke the little varmint until it wandered down the ramp and scurried under the shed.

In the meantime, one of the chickens had discovered the vent from the gas fireplace. Turns out that it's warm all the time from the pilot light, and what nicer place for a chicken to homestead than beneath a yummy warm fireplace vent? And how nice of us to provide them with these lovely, cushiony pots of Gerber daisies upon which to roost!



There was a lot of grumbling as I carried each one back to the hut and then closed the door on them. Some of it even came from the chickens. Since then I have had to put them into their hut every night and am going to be relocating the Gerber daisies today since I do like them and would like to see them bloom again.

Today, Delia is watching a bit of Backyardigans while unclothed. I have tried to dress her but she has taken an anti-clothing stance today. Today's episode had a pirate theme and she excitedly yelled to me, "MAMA! I'M A PIRATE! WITH MEEPLES! AND I'M NAKED!" I offer photographic evidence of same:





By the way, meeples = nipples. Thanks to Grandma for teaching her this important anatomical term!

A Great Big Grown-Up Girl

Today, my tiny little baby girl went off to her first day of preschool. I dropped her off and the extremely nice teachers took over, making her a name tag and pinning it to her, showing her around, where is your cubby, where is the potty, all that. When she was settled and it was time for me to go, she barely gave me a look and off she ran to play with the kids and the toys, with hardly a thought for her poor bereft mother...

She's so not sentimental about these things. It's probably better this way, no teary scenes, no clinging and crying, but it still wrenches a bit. The first few times I dropped her off with others, at the gym club (once she was familiar enough with it not to freak out) or with friends or family, and she didn't cry or even seem dubious about my leaving, I wondered if she had an attachment disorder or something. But, she is always glad to see me and is a bit clingy at times, so she's probably fine.

At any rate, I did get a little choked up when I left without her. A little sniff, a tear in my eye, and then it was off to the mall for a haircut! Browsing the library for books, unhurried and thoughtful. A bite to eat. A stop at a shoe store advertising Crocs, because I am looking for the kind you can put an orthotic in. (They didn't have them but I did look at the incredibly ugly Z-Coil shoes, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I will end up in them when I start nursing school.)

Then, unthinkably, I ran out of things to do and came home, watched some TV, read a book.

As I sat on the couch, I saw a beautiful goldfinch light on the hummingbird feeder which made me want to blog, so here I am. I didn't get a picture, but you can bet I'll keep trying. :)

Taking my lumps

I have not blogged about this but shall, finally: I did not make it into nursing school.

I did not make it this time, because although I was led to believe that I had first 46 points and then 49 points (out of 53 total possible), I in fact had 43. The shock of getting a letter that said "no" when I had really expected one that said "yes" was so depressing that I just couldn't face blogging about it.

The cutoff for selection varies from deadline to deadline depending on the pool, they just total everyone up and skim off the top however many, but it has generally been in the neighborhood of 46 for the April deadline and lower for the October one. So you can see why I was pretty sure I'd get in, since I thought I had 49 points.

They start 3 new classes per year, 40 students in each, and the April deadline selects for Winter term, October for Spring and Fall. So had I made it, I would have been going in January. As it is, I now have 47 points and in two weeks I will have 50, which puts me definitely in for October, and I should start in April of next year though it could be September if there are 40 other applicants with 50 points or more and an earlier log-in date than mine. Which is the tiebreaker.

I had to make an appointment with advising anyway to fill out some paper for financial aid, so I had them go over my points and am now reasonably mollified, but it still stings a bit.

On the same day that this letter came and slapped me in my overly-confident, misinformed face, we also got one from the insurance company telling us that a medical bill was not covered. For 6600 dollars. So I was shocked, dismayed, and totally stressed out for the whole week.

Then we called about it and were informed that the bill is actually covered, though not the 500 dollar copay which we would have had to pay either way, so my week brightened considerably at that point.

May your weeks go better than that one did for me.

Power to the Poultrytariat!

We decided to clip the chickens' wings and let them roam the backyard at will. Today was the inaugural stomp around the yard -- sort of.

J. detached the chicken hut from the pen and pointed it out so the ramp to the doorway sticks out into the yard, thus enabling the birdies to step on out as they wish. But after two years of confinement to their smallish pen, they are a bit overwhelmed at having options and so far have declined to stray far from the pen. In fact they hang around under their house and in the pen enclosure when they are not inside their hut. Evidently the are just not getting it. One assumes that eventually they will.

We went out early this morning since it was so warm, and a smallish member of the household was so excited about the freeing of the banties that I was forced to run for the camera. I was looking at the paper and turned my head just in time to witness Delia hiking across the yard with a chicken under her arm. I have some idea, I think, of how the rest of the summer will be spent.

This 'n That

Took the baby to her 3 year checkup today, is has been confirmed that she is indeed tall and kinda skinny, and also healthy as a horse. 39.5 inches tall, 34.5 pounds, and very subdued yet cooperative during her appointment. Our child, who never ever shuts up, said nothing at all for the duration of her examination until a final, whispered "bye" when it was over. Immediately the door was closed she opened her wee mouth and chattered on about stickers and that thing they look in your ears with and so forth, until we got into the car whereupon she sang all the way home.

In other news, I made this car charm for a classmate. Kindly ignore the slightly tatty kitchen towel upon which it is displayed.





The little bejeweled handbag charm was in my arsenal from a shopping trip some time ago, awaiting matching with its rightful owner. I typically go to a local pub after class on Friday nights and spend an hour or so having a nosh with this girl from my class, and she recently obtained for me a free pass to this cool exhibit, so I thought, I should make her a little bracelet or car charm or something. And then the handbag charm gave out a tiny shout from the bead box and that was it.

Being a car charm, its sole purpose in life is to dangle from the rear-view mirror of a car and look pretty. It is not imbued with magical powers... or is it?

Updated Cute Baby Pics!

Time for birthday photos! Enjoy!







Okay, these are puny because they are saved off the website for the place I go for pictures, but better than nothing. :)

Happy birthday my little scooby!

Today is Delia's 3rd birthday!

This morning I went in her room once I heard her in there warbling and murping as she does in the mornings. "Good morning!" I said to her. She hid her face with her hands to be funny. "Guess what today is?" I asked her. She peeked out from behind her fingers and said, "What?" And I told her, "Today is YOUR BIRTHDAY!" And she leaped up and shouted, "YAY!!!"

Because I am a terrible person and an even worse parent, it wasn't until I had brought her out for her morning Ovaltine that I realized we needed to scare up some kind of first-thing-in-the-morning giftie. Luckily, there were a few things laying around leftover from Christmas and so I was able to duck into the office and stuff a "Cootie" game into a gift bag. Honestly, why did anyone let me bring a poor defenseless baby into the world and then allow me to take it home from the hospital? Why?

She was thrilled with the game and happily spent the rest of the morning playing with the various bug legs and so forth. Today's Cootie, by the way, comes ready to snap together (as I doubt its ancestors did) and one set of its legs is outfitted in itsy bitsy rollerblades.

At that point I had to go to school and afterward, as planned, stopped by Target for her actual gifts: a kiddie pool, a swim suit, an outfit, and one of those big vinyl balls they sell in big cages from time to time at grocery stores and Targets and so forth.

I also replaced my wallet. I can put my stupid paper driver's license in it that the state of Washington gives you when you go in to the DMV. The real one comes in the mail a few days down the line. This time I chose a slightly larger wallet that has a little photo section in it for pictures of the baby. :)

We had some friends over who very kindly came despite a hectic day. BBQ pork ribs were eaten, as was potato salad and baked beans, and then she opened her various gifts, including a book and five bucks from her Aunt Doreen, the aforementioned items from her doting moms, and the crowning glory: from Karen and John and wee Baby Katie, a duck on a stick. You push the duck around in front of you and its flappy feet very satisfyingly slap the floor as it waddles on its (purposely) lopsided wheels.

Delia very obligingly yodeled with delight as she raced around the loop (kitchen has doorways at each end, allowing children to run in a circuit through the kitchen and living room, around and around, generally while screaming and giggling; it happens at every family gathering held in our house where two or more children are present, and sometimes even if no other children are present besides Delia). She took the duck, her new best friend, to bed with her.

Lest we, her long-suffering moms, feel slighted, she did seem happy with the pool and also held up her new swimsuit and pronounced it "pretty."

The big family party is next week, a joint party with her cousin Caleb who is turning 7 two weeks from now. So today was rather low-key, especially since her cousins across the street are at the beach this weekend as they always are Memorial Day weekend. But next week -- there will be super festivities. Possibly including a pinata. And definitely the kiddie pool if the weather is warm.

Photos to follow soon! :)

GRRRRR!

So my wallet went missing. I had it this morning, and then it was just gone.

This is such a colossal pain.

I called and cancelled the three cards in it and tomorrow must go get another driver's license. Eventually I'll have to get all my other stuff replaced, library card, HMO cards for me and the baby, etc.

This thing is, I HAD THE STUPID WALLET IN MY HANDS. I don't remember setting it anywhere strange like the shopping cart or the top of the car, it was in my pocket but now it's noplace it would normally be like the piano or the countertop or anywhere the baby might have squirrelled it away.

GRR!

Which Ambiguous Dyke Are You?

I'm Velma, which ambiguous dyke are you? Quiz by Turi.


... I'm actually kind of "post-gay," but it was an amusing quiz.

J turned out to be Peppermint Patty.

An Occasional Game

At our house, we like to play an amusing little game we like to call, "What Is That Smell?"

Recently I bought some packages of chicken and one of them went bad before the sell-by date. I thought it was the other package, which I had opened and used some of, so I threw the remainder of that package away. But the bad smell? Continued. Ugh.

So I searched in vain for more bad meats thinking, it can't be the other package of chicken. But it was. I returned it to the store and got a refund. Bad batch, pulled from shelf, sorry for the inconvenience, etc.

Returned home -- there is still a smell. What the...?! I spend all day sniffing around here and there, inside cupboards, drawers, poking around the kitchen. It smells like sour milk. Maybe the baby has stashed a sippy cup somewhere unusual? I look everywhere. Nothing.

Finally I want a glass of ice water and I go to the fridge which has an ice and water dispenser in the door. The smell is strong here. I glance downward. "HONEY!" I call out, joyfully -- "I FOUND THE BAD SMELL!" J bounds over, giddy with relief that our ordeal is all but over. I wave a hand at the dispenser. "Look!"

Someone -- and I think we all know whom, exactly -- has poured MILK into the little grate under the ice and water dispensers. The grate which covers a shallow well with no drain in it, meant merely to catch what little drips of water or chips of ice may fall while dispensing. The milk has become sour and horrible and practically pulsates with evilness.

Because I have the least sensitive gag reflex, I am elected to clean the mess up. It requires a spoon to remove the scummy, bubbly scab of nastiness, then a sponge and bucket of soapy water to wash out the remaining vile liquid, then a strong household cleaner to finish off the whole cleaning process. I somehow cut myself on the edge of the well and wonder what &%$#@ing moron designs something like this with razor-sharp edges, knowing that it will require occasional cleaning under more typical usage, i.e. even if no-one is pouring milk into it.

My strong constitution plus my mad ninja cleaning skills earn me dinner out.

Death

Friday night I was standing outside after anatomy lecture at the community college, talking to a friend from class, and we heard a man screaming. I mean really screaming. It was coming from an apartment building across the street. We became uneasy and she drove me around the block to my car, worrying if we should call 911, but when we got to my car there were 2 police cars there. One of them pulled into the parking lot of the apartment building so I figured it was handled and drove on home. It's a kind of a rough building, the people living there look as if they are lower-income, possibly formerly homeless, that sort of thing, so I hoped that the man was screaming at his voices or something. Fifteen years of working with the seriously mentally ill kind of inures you to screaming.

In the morning we returned for lab class and there were news crews in the college parking lot. Not a good sign. I checked the internet when I got home.

The man was screaming because someone was murdering him. He died of blunt force trauma. Someone, presumably the suspect, jumped out a 3rd story window to escape and was not caught.

I've been kind of freaked out. There was nothing I could have done. But to know that what I heard was him dying? That's an awful feeling. I hope he's in a better place.

News of a general sort

Since it has been some time since I posted, I thought I update you, my faithful reader(s), on the general household news. Mainly this is a ploy to put off cleaning the bunny cage, which is reaching critical mass as we speak. But anyway. *cough cough*

I passed my CNA test and am now a board-certified Certified Nursing Assistant. Whoopty-do! It's a requirement for nursing school, so I had to do it. I looked into an on-call job at one of the area hospitals in the mental health unit just for grins, and it pays to start about what I make working on-call in residential mental health. But goes up from there, whereas I am about topped out in residential. Something to think about.

Speaking of nursing school, I am crossing my fingers that I will be receiving a letter in about a month, telling me I've been accepted into the program that starts in January. I had been all in a lather about getting my transcript to the college in time for selection (April 1st) and then gotten this confusing letter from the Credential Evaluation dept., so I called them to clarify (all was well, no reason to panic) and then asked them oh so casually about my points... I was told by advising that I had 46 (out of 53) and just wanted to confirm this. The friendly and helpful young lady on the phone asked which class they had used to figure up this or that point total etc, and it turned out that I actually have 49 points. Oh, she says, you stand a good chance this time!

So yeah. The mailbox. Haunting. Every day. Even though the theoretical letter wouldn't come for another month or so.

Okay, so you know all the hoopla about the terrible two's and how awful they are? Don't you believe it! The terrible two's got nothing on the almost-3's. Suddenly everything we do is a struggle -- "Baby, come get dressed, we have to leave soon." (Baby runs down the hall laughing. I pursue and capture. Baby cries angrily and kicks her feet. Repeat ad nauseum.) "Baby, come eat your lunch." (Baby refuses and has a tantrum, then demands chocolate milk.) "Baby, don't pull the cat's fur." (Baby then kicks at cat, usually missing, but still.)

Mainly it's the refusal to cooperate when I'm trying to get her out the door that really fries me. Then once we are out she's generally fine. It's just dirty and wrong.

Another fun tradition: lingering in doorways. Like, throwing open the door exposes a brand new world so exciting and beautiful that she can't take it all in and must move so-o-o-o slo-o-o-o-owly as she exits the house (or wherever we are) that I trip over her and no amount of encouragement will expedite this process. This is especially fun at places where there might be others behind us waiting to leave also. Fortunately she is fairly adorable and most people's hearts explode as soon as they look upon her, so we get relatively few dirty looks. But still! Is it so hard to pick up your feet, little girl?!

Nice weather today, maybe I'll get to paint the shed ...

Easter, Anger, Canoe

First off: Easter was fun. Delia got a big basket of mostly toys from the very wise Easter Bunny who knew that she would get roughly forty-seven thousand pounds of candy from other sources. Sure enough, at egg hunts on Saturday (Grandma's) and Sunday (church), she got her fill of magic beans (her far superior name for otherwise ordinary jelly beans), chocolate foil-wrapped goodies, and the like. Someone fed her a chocolate-iced cupcake at the fellowship hour afterward, which she very sportingly ate in the manner of Henry the Eighth, even wearing a delightful goatee afterward. I will post the photo as soon as it makes its way to me. Last year she ate a cupcake no-hands-style, a photo of which ended up in the church newsletter. The tradition lives on!

Today J went to look at a canoe from an ad on craigslist. The seller was not home but someone else showed her the canoe, which she agreed to buy and offered to leave money down on it while she ran home to get the other car, some tie-downs, etc. No need, said the fellow.

We showed up at the house as planned only to find the canoe being loaded into somebody else's truck.

She jumps out and says, "I told the guy I was coming for it."

"Yeah," said the seller, "but you didn't leave any money." (In snotty tone of voice, as if this was the stupidest thing ever.)

"I offered to leave some but he said I didn't need to!" she protested. "I told him I'd be back with the other car. He said that was fine."

"Well, why didn't you bring the other car in the first place?" says the snotty jerk seller. (WTF does that have to do with anything?! We showed up at the exact same time as the other guy!)

"I was calling from work," says J, and gets disgustedly back in the car. We drive off angrily.

You know, that would have been a totally different experience if he'd just said something like, "Oh gosh, I'm sorry for the miscommunication but the guy that was here was supposed to take a deposit for it if you were going to have to come back later." Like, would that have been so damn hard, Mr. Jerkface Seller? He was so snotty I'm glad he didn't get our money for his stupid canoe.

So we drove on to a large, well-known local retailer and purchased a nicer and larger (and new) model of the canoe from them. Last year's model, virtually identical to this year's, but on clearance. J has this kind of luck where we show up to buy something and find it's on clearance, often not learning this until it has been rung up. We call it Secret Sale. Also, because we bought a boat, all boating accessories were ten percent off, so we got paddles and life jackets. All told we spent about 200 dollars more than we would have spent for the other boat -- but a) we got a nice new one, b) it has backrests and other niceties, and c) we didn't hand our money over to a total dickwad.

We even got the baby her own little paddle. And an adorable life jacket. Far cry from those ugly orange ones we had to wear as kids!

Gaaaah!

I just read on the college website that it will be about EIGHT WEEKS before I am notified whether or not I got in to the nursing program!

EIGHT WEEKS! DON'T THESE PEOPLE KNOW THAT I COULD EASILY DIE OF ANTICIPATION IN EIGHT LONG WEEKS OF WAITING AROUND FOR THEIR STUPID LETTER!!!!

EIGHT WEEKS?!!! WHAT KIND OF SADISTS ARE THEY?!

Shed! Bunnies! Helping!

J's brother is here building us a shed and doing various other jobs. He is a very skilled carpenter and has made us the cutest, snuggest little shed ever. As I blog this, he is out putting up gutters on the patio roof and the shed. He even built a little fence to keep the dogs away from the back fence! They like to go back there and bellow at the neighbors behind us, a practice that I find odious and beating-worthy. Alas, due to societal pressures not to inflict violence on others, am restricted to yelling and shaking my fist. Stupid non-violence.

We took the bunnies out yesterday for their first ever lawn excursion! The wire enclosure is finally free for use since it is no longer serving as our hillbilly gate (as J's brother crafted two wonderful gates for us his first day here). They were unhappy about how much J's brother's dog Busty wanted to eat them -- he was literally drooling as he watched them -- but seemed to enjoy the grass and the sun and all that.



Note the ugly bald patch on Exidor's back. It has started to grow back since we began putting more toys in the cage, so I'm pretty sure it was just that Cleo was grooming it off of him. She's very energetic.



The baby wanted to help so J's brother let her do various things. He's really great with kids. She also wanted to play with her bunnies so we let her be in with them for a few minutes. Tempting as it is, we do not generally keep her in a pen.... Note the shed in background. It will be painted a lovely green with blue trim, since trying to match it with the house didn't really work out. The siding on the house is nice but as a paint color, it would have been a murky blueish-gray. Ick. So J said I could paint it as I like! She is both kind and brave. There is a ladder rack on the long side against the fence, and there will be a 2x2' window on the long side in the photo. J's brother has a place he likes to get them for cheap so he roughed in the hole and he'll just saw out the siding and put the window in next time he's here.

Three more days of CNA class and then the board exam is the 21st of this month. Yay!

Clarification

To clarify previous post, I have 46 points as of this evaluation. The other points from the CNA course and the third term of A&P will not count for this evaluation since they will not be completed by last Sunday.

Am now haunting mailbox despite how utterly unrealistic it is to expect any news this early.

Nurst

Okay, so we calculated my nursing school admission requirement points as of the end of last term. I have 46 out of 53. Gaining my certification as a nursing assistant gives me four more points, and getting an A next term would bring me up all the way to the full 53.

J showed me the statistics about admission points for the past couple of evaluation periods and 100% of applicants with 46 points and above were admitted, in both periods. A fairly decent percentage (40ish, 50ish) of applicants with either 44 or 43 and above were admitted. The tiebreaking factor is a log-in date of application and I am not sure where my log-in date stands compared to others.

At any rate, it looks like I'm in... I should know in a week or two. I would start Winter term (January 2008).

GAAAAAAAAH!

Bunny Baldness

So poor Exidor is suffering from some baldness on his back, in an area he can't reach easily. I waded through some truly heartbreaking photos and descriptions of various bunny skin diseases on the internet, but none matched his symptoms: he has no redness, no itching, no crusty stuff anywhere. Just a big and ever expanding bald area on his back.

Turns out overgrooming by a bonded mate can cause this... and I have seen Cleo groom him pretty obsessively. And they are definitely bonded. They sleep in a little pile and groom one another all the time. I had suspected she might be just wearing his fur right off but wanted to get some validation elsewhere. The cure: exercise, toys, distractions. So, we are going to borrow a no-longer-needed kid enclosure that we're pretty sure J's sister still has and see if that contains them, and if not we'll find something else for the indoor exercise. I want something kind of enclosure-y because I find that just cordoning off part of the house is not sufficient, in that it takes me twenty minutes to catch the little dears when it's time for them to go back into their hutch.

Hurrah! He doesn't have the mange!