Monday, October 17, 2011

A day in the life of Utter Chaos.

So here is how my day went.

First, I got up and got dressed for my meeting. The irony of the fact that I'm scheduled for a two day seminar about Relationship Development the day after my divorce became final does not escape me. Anyway, I get up, get dressed, and man, do I look cute. Dress, accessories, tights, boots -- I feel great. So I drive up to Community North -- about 20 minutes away -- park, walk into the Professional Building, and make my way up to the room where the meeting is.

But the room is occupied by a bunch of corporate types. Not peons like me. I walk in, they all stare at me, and I realize I must be in the wrong room. Walk out. No, not wrong room. Wrong DAY. Turned out it's tomorrow, not today. Oh man.............

So I drive home, walk in, and Mom is there doing laundry. She's surprised to see me, but even more surprised to see that I walk straight into my room, still looking cute, and walk out wearing khakis and a polo -- my work uniform. "Why did you change," says Mom. "You looked so cute." ::sigh:: (I told you I looked cute.)

So, I text the co-workers, cause now I need to get a lineup of patients to see, since no one gave me anyone for today, since I was in a meeting all day. I get a quick list of four patients, and start making calls. Keep in mind that I get paid mileage when I arrive at the first house, so when you're a homecare nurse, you want to have at least one visit close to home. Only none of these are -- they're all over 15 miles away. Oh MAN! So, I start making calls, and no one answers. As in, three of four people don't answer. The fourth one answers, but doesn't want to be seen till late afternoon. What the heck am I gonna do till then?

So I call scheduling, and they give me two more patients. I call and get them scheduled -- they're 15 miles away too, so forget the mileage for today. I drive down the hospital and get a call about yet another patient, so I call that one and schedule. Her daughter is mad, cause she apparently wanted her mom to be seen at 9am, but the message was never received. I didn't find out about her mom till after 10, so there was nothing I could do but listen to her unload on me, with frequent "but I know it's not your fault but......" Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing HER, cause she is on fire. Let's just say there were more miscommunications that were going to make this a potentially powderkeg of a visit. Went right along with my day thus far.

I go do the first visit and it goes well. Second visit, ok. I go see the one with the crabby daughter, and it even goes well. The daughter had given up the ghost and went to bed, so I was in and out. I was supposed to pick up some of our equipment, and I didn't realize till later that I had forgotten one piece. Greeeeaaaaat.

So off I go to Martinsville, which took about 45 minutes. Go to the address that's in the patient's profile, and see the name on the mailbox, as well as the number. I go to the door and knock, all while being madly barked at by their dog. No answer at the door. Knock knock again. No answer. I've now made peace with the dog. I go back to my car and call the patient and tell him "I'm here." He says ok, with an odd tone to his voice. Tells me not to park behind the physical therapist's car, cause she's just finishing up. At that point, I realize that there is no other car in the driveway. How can I be at the wrong house? The name is the same, and the number is the same. What the heck?

I pull out of the driveway, totally confused, and drive a bit further down the road, only to realize that there is ANOTHER mailbox next door with the same number and name on it. WHAT THE HECK? How can that be? Well, I pulled in and parked next to the PT's car. I never told the people that I'd been knocking on the neighbor's door. I wonder if the dog will tell them..........

About that time, I got a call telling me that the last of the patients I'd been trying to reach had finally called back and wanted to be seen. I thought I'd be done around 4, but this added another hour on to the already whacky day. Walk in, find out that the patient is a nurse who is trying to apply for a job in a department where a friend of mine is the manager. Small world. At least we had a nice visit, and everything went ok.

All in all, six patients, four dogs, two cats, a few vials of blood, and no lunch later, I came home and raked leaves. And tomorrow, I will be at Community North, looking cute. Hopefully all day this time.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Things you need to know as a result of Our Vacation

1. We have discovered that Thomas is the Fish God. Every time he gets into the water, schools of fishes swarm around him, and follow him wherever he goes. Every time. It's crazy.
2. Something about The King of all Chickens in a game of pseudo-pictionary is still cracking these kids up, two days later. I, however, slept thru it.
3. Raccoons climb palm trees. Who knew?
4. When Michael falls off a bed, he does NOT bounce.
5. Cell phones demagnetize hotel keys. This was a lesson not learned the first two or three times it happened.
6. Waffle House at 4:30am is a pretty funny place to be.
7. In Florida, liquor can't be sold in grocery stores. It can, however, be sold in a store with the same name as the grocery store, attached to the grocery store, but with a different entrance. And you thought Indiana had weird liquor laws.
9. . There is a store here called Condom Knowledge that I really wanted to investigate, but never did. ::sad face::
9. Avoid Nashville in rush hour at all costs. Seriously.
10. It is possible to have someone draw a huge penis in the sand -- along with HAHA -- on the beach front of a hotel balcony, and it will not be removed quickly. Note: this was NOT our artwork.
11. A dolphin sculpture created in the sand, with a huge wall around it, will be destroyed. The wall, however, will not. People are dumb.
12. No matter where you are in the water, the waves break about 15 feet away from where you are.
13. There must be, at all times, a man on the beach in a Speedo. And he is always too old and too heavy to even think of truly being able to carry it off.
14. You could be wakened in the morning and find that your hotel door is open. And people have been going to the elevator across from said door for over an hour. Probably all laughing at the people sleeping inside. Oh well, life is short.
15. Young children should be given bathroom rights first, lest they wake up the neighbors yelling "let me IN, I gotta POOP!" Repeatedly.
16. Give the parents the secret password to the alarm system before you leave, or the police WILL show up and try to arrest them. NOTE: this could make vacation infinitely more interesting, should you choose not to do it.
17. Colllege students WILL do homework on vacation. High school students will talk about it, then never do it.

I'm sure there are more, but I can't remember them at the moment, so perhaps I will add some later.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Also heard..........

Seth: "Why are fast food workers alwasy so lazy?"
Thomas: "Maybe because they are working fast food."
Seth: "Yeah, they all are so annoying."
::Michael, in back seat, is silent. With wide eyes::
Me: "You do realize that Michael worked fast food all last summer."
::Michael bursts out laughing::
Me: "Michael, are you planning to..."
Michael: "NO!"
Me: "You seem pretty emphatic about that."
::Michael nods::
Me: "So you guys had better be nicer about fast food workers, or Michael is gonna go all ninja on you."
Thomas: "I'm not seein' that."
Seth: "Yeah, I'm not seein' that at all."
Michael: "You can't see me cause I'm a ninja."
Touche, good sir. Touche.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

He fits right in.

Michael, Jill's boyfriend, is wonderful. I tell her all the time that she is never allowed to hurt him, because it would be like killing a puppy, he's so sweet. And he fits right in with us -- not that we're sweet, mind you, but the sense of humor is killer. Take this conversation, heard on the way to Panama City. Caution: it is partially in Nerdspeak.

Thomas: "Did you know that they have gotten particles to move faster than the speed of light? That's crazy."
Seth: "How did they do that?"
Thomas: "That particle accelerator they built."
Seth: "What's that?"
Thomas: "It accelerates particles, stupid."
Seth: "What for?"
Thomas: "So they can make things move really fast."
Michael: "So kinda like Nascar, only cool."

I love that boy.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Sethanese, thus far.

So yeah, we are on our way to a short fall break getaway that basically involves my feet, the Gulf and a beach chair. We have thus far made it to Evansville, where we are picking up The Girl and her main squeeze, and take off tomorrow after class.

Seth will be going to class with her. University of Southern Indiana may never be the same.

If you've done much reading about our past car trips, or about Seth in General, you should know that Seth is our main form of entertainment in the car, and tonight was no exception. I plugged in my iPod, and along came Michael Buble's "All I Do Is Dream of You." Here was the conversation that followed.

Me: "This song makes me smile."
Seth: "I like this guy, but he sounds so much like Barry Manilow."
Me: "Barry Manilow? What the heck?"
Seth: "Yeah. Or that other guy. I don't remember his name."
Me: "Frank Sinatra?"
Seth: "Yeah, him. I never remember his name."

After we got to Jill's apartment, a conversation about Hank Williams, Jr. ensued, which involved the word cattle calling.

Seth: "Cattle calling. Isn't that what construction workers do?"
::blank looks pointed at Seth from all four of us in the room::
Me: "Uh, I think you are thinking of cat calls, not cattle calls."

::sigh:: Apparently my child confuses hot women with cows. My chances of becoming a grandmother some day just dropped substantially.

We also discovered that Thomas didn't understand that the word "scarecrow" was derived from the idea that particular item Scares Crows. And when asked by his sister what "germane" means, The Heir to the Throne responded "it's what people from Germany are called." WOW. In all fairness, he ultimately pointed out that he meant Germanic, but I prefer the realization that Sethanese may have a cousin, as yet to be named.

As usual, this will be another interesting trip.