That was prophetic.

Last night as I was typing how good "Jon" is with scissors, guess what he was doing? Oh, I know it's a long shot.... yep. Cutting. He took not 1, not 2 but 3!! pairs of scissors to his room to bed with him. I check on him while going to yell at the girls for staying up all night and.... what do my eyes spy.. tiny confetti sized paper everywhere. Someone body decided to cut into microscopic pieces his brother's book report. I have a deal here since nothing else works. Joey will do 5 book reports and do them well, Sonia will know her multiplication, Kayla will know her addition and subtraction and JM will read 3 letter words and apparently we also need to work on knowing his name.. and in return for said skills being done and learned by Tues, they get to go to Disney. Anyone who doesn't know said skills will have their ticket sold on Craigslist.


Today I went to the Base pool with my kids and 3 more strays I picked up along the way and 2 more we picked up at the pool. (that would be 9 kids if you're counting along) I actually ran out of seats in the truck today. Sonia swore she put suncreen on her face, but her face tells another story. We even bought her the SPF 50 stick because she says that one works the best, but somehow that does not seem to be the case. Either that or it's not waterproof. Maybe I better to re-read the package.

But before I do that, I've got to go round up a few kids and return them home. I'm done having the house of perpetual chaos. I'm looking for a house of peace, tranquility, sleeping kids and maybe a glass or two of wine. Or a bowl of ice cream. Although I think there are fewer calories in wine. Decisions, decisions, decisions....

Hot. Dang hot. Maybe Global warming is happening

I know I usually live in paradise, but it appears the thermostat here in paradise is broken in the record breaking hot direction. Compared to the place in Texas Larry want to moved to, it's not hot or muggy. But we've been here 4 years. In my mind is it both hot and muggy. It's been in the 90s.

In other miserable news, the cat has gone missing. I'm guessing it was either hawk or coyote food, but he went out one night and never came back. I feel bad about that. And that I had just spent the money to get the dang thing fixed and his shots. That was a very expensive meal for coyotes. And I feel bad. He wasn't that terrible for a cat.

In less miserable news, the kids are now swimming. And without $200 of lessons this summer. We did 2 private lessons I traded eggs for and that was all it took. Well, that and it's been dang hot so I've been willing to go to the pool. Alot. I've even been swimming in it.

Back on the miserable front, I applied for life insurance again. Apparently I am insurable, but at the "there's a chance you'll drop dead rate" and this frustrates me.  At the end of 20 years, I'll have paid the amount that they might pay Larry if I die between now and then.  It's frustrating because either I have something or I don't. If you're going to decide there's something wrong with me, go ahead and tell me that to my face and start the intraferon. If you're just going to put it in my medical chart and leave me oblivious, you're making it difficult to get life insurance. And pissing me off. I'm talking you to, oh team of interns at the hospital I've seen. *sigh* I'm going to have to make an apt to have a heart to heart with my "your new primary care doctor is" intern. I get the letter every July. I'm pretty sure they assign me the worse intern ever. But I've spouted my thoughts on military medicine before. It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm not a glowing fan.

Of course I've been operating in the bubble of I can't have "undefined demylenating disease" because no 2 neurologists can agree on it.  Tricare denied the last MRI ordered since I can't have this disease, but the life insurance policy is written that I must have it because I don't have a recent MRI documenting non-progression. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad, they wouldn't insure JM, either. They were adding riders for all the kids and he's also uninsurable. And he's only 5, he's got a lifetime of this crap ahead of him. Hopefully.

He's told the school he wants to be Jon at the kindergarten testing day. He also told him his last name was Michael. The teacher left parents outside for the testing, but had to come out to ask me "uh, what is your son's name really?" because Jon Michael wasn't on the roster. I'm not sure what else they asked him. He told me they had him cut with scissors and tell them the colors. Well, heck.. he's great with scissors- did you give him hair and/or bedsheets to cut? he's awesome at getting alot of cuts in on those. Colors? well, I thought he knew them but he was trying to tell me his black shoes were white. I though he was kidding, but he was really insistent. He'll probably be in the drooly wheelchair kindergarten class til November, just like his mother was. (ha. I should write about that someday. And people wonder why I'm weird.)

Well this weirdness has had enough internet for the night. Ramble at you later...

2 days left of school

And I think they just need to wave the white flag over the school of surrender. *I* am ready to wave the white flag. Although I didn't go help at Kayla's water day today, but Joey's water day is tomorrow and Sonia's was last week.

Water day? Oh, yes. The theme is water. They bring the fire dept here and they spray water and the kids get wet and they throw water balloon and have water related games. They didn't have this sort of thing when we were in school, that's for sure. I remember field day but that was a whole lot of 50 yard dashes and 3 legged races. Since when do you send your kid to school in a bathing suit? And since they have 1 water day for every 3 classes, the fire dept has been there for the past week. Good thing there wasn't something like a real fire in the area this week.

Oh, yes. The fire dept. That reminds me. This week I got to call 911 from work. That's always a blast. The guy was SICK SICK SICK and had called a cab to bring him to our clinic. The MA's realized that he wasn't doing well when he stumbled in the door,  brought him in a room and found me.

Mind you, I was in the wellness clinic. WELLNESS. But, hey, go ahead, call up gasping for breath, talk incoherently and get an apt for the wellness clinic. Because you're well. Riiiigght.

So, the cab brougheth and the ambulance taketh away. However in the meantime it took an hour. And the fire department came first. Then the Ambulance. I had 6 hunky ( I assume) guys in uniform blocking the hall and our gay nurse hovering checking them out (why I assume they were hunky). yeah. I love my job. 

That reminds me, I should go add up the hours I have and the hours I need and do some simple math.

Speaking of Math the awards ceremony that the note came home from school for Sonia's getting one was this am. Sonia got a writing award, one of the top 10% of creative writers in her grade. I assure you it wasn't handwriting. And an award for having 290 AR points (what they use to measure how much and how well you read- they take tests on the books they read and then are graded on those tests, ranked on how difficult the book is.

Now there are 6 teachers and each got up and announced their award (citizenship, math, reading, writing, something else I forgot and then the last teacher gets up and announced that she was giving out the perfect attendance award. The mom and dad pair I was sitting next to's daughter had not yet received her award (because if you're there, your kid is getting an award) and I could tell that perfect attendance wasn't the award they were wanting.  And the girl was sulking. Kinda like getting "nicest personality" in a beauty contest, although I'd prefer nicest personality if they MEANT I had the nicest personality and wasn't really just saying I was terrible.  We of course didn't get perfect attendance. We blew it the first week of school. hahaha.  Joey didn't get any award, which he took fairly well. Alot of kids didn't get an award and this really hasn't been his best year.

More salt in the wounds today was the girl scout cookie selling awards. Most girls sold enough to get a patch. 4 girls with my creative accounting got a Tshirt and Sonia and said perfect attendance girl got the 200- box of cookies giraffe. Of course I didn't want to sell 200 boxes. We ended up with 200 boxes because attendance girl and her mom kept selling cookies and we keep having to order more cases and I'd sell the remainder of the case at the countless booth sales we had. The booth sales rules said we had to have 2 adults and 2 kids. So having 2 girls dressed in uniforms and dragging Larry along at least twice we sold alot of cookies and all were credited to Sonia because Kayla's an unregistered girlscout in our troop.

This of course infuriated Kayla that she sold more cookies (and technically she did because she's not shy) that Sonia but Sonia got the coveted giraffe. So I spent a month looking for a stupid stuffed giraffe to give her. In retrospect I should have looked online, but I was really aiming for the same. But finally I found one and she's happy she has a giraffe even if it isn't the same. One of my scouts said "oh, I have that, but mine is a webkins" which told me it should have been easier for me to find than it was. Although I looked it up and the webkin giraffe was $50 and Kayla's was $6. So overall it wasn't a terrible choice.

So tomorrow Joey's teacher would like all the kids to bring water balloons to school.  Have I mentioned this girl hasn't got a really good grip on practicality as a family with kids? AND she suggested we transport them in containers filled with water to prevent them from breaking. Sure. I'll get right on that. I bought the water balloons. If I find 20 mintues tomorrow morning to fill them, I will. but if she thinks I'm going to haul a 50 lbs bucket of water balloons from the parking lot to school and add extra water to it... fuhgettabout it.

On the home garden front I've discovered you can dehydrate blackberries and dehydrated zucchini chips are pretty tasty and not a bad alternative to potato chips. Well, so I say. The kids still think Lays are better.

And we now have close to 50 quail. we will be selling them online. Because there's a new batch ready to hatch next week and we'll likely have 30 more. And to think, we though breeding rabbits would be exponential. This is faster, I think.

I was told to update my blog.

But you see, the trouble is I'm pretty uninspired about what to write about.

But here goes: A quick update from the week's events- Yesterday we went to an Indian Pow Wow. Or native American. Because I don't remember being to one and the kids have never gone to one.

I can honestly say that genre of music isn't my favorite, but there was chanting drum music. And dancing. It was interesting to see the costumes, too. The highlight for me was the indian fry bread, which was just like the fried dough I missed so much from home.  For the kids it was all the vendors selling rocks, slingshots, beeds, and bows and arrows. Because they had their birthday money burning a hole in their pockets they spent it. there. The boys on weapons- Joey has a bow and arrow and JM has a slingshot. And surprisingly they both seem to work. Also surprisingly (or not) was they were not in fact made by native americans and were in fact made in China. So after going to 5 booths seeing all this Chinese stuff. I went to one of the guys selling stuff and said "you work here?" yes. "who owns here?" that guy over there. [walks to said guy] "you own this store?" well, my dad does.
And the conversation went "why don't you have stuff that's made my native americans or at least not from China" and the answer was because the chinese stuff was cheap and the native stuff was expensive.

And then on the way home I realized it's not just that the Native made stuff would be expensive, it's that there is no motive for the Natives to make stuff when they get paid just for being tribe members from their tribe's casino. So why would they make bows and arrows to make a $10 profit when they make $8000 just for being alive?

So, dear friends, if you know of a redneck who wants a business you can start making cheap bow and arrows and selling them with "made in the USA" stickers on them at these powwow events. Apparently there are quite a few of them.  Who knew?

So we got home with the weapons and so far no one has shot an eye out or broken a window. And I wonder where it was that we crossed the line from cautious parents to the ones that think "eh. They'll be alright" Not sure where that boundary was, but pretty sure we passed it some time ago.

In other kid news, we have 1 week left of school. Which means we have about 15 parties to go to during school. They have water day, pizza party day and end of school day. And after the huge stink about the kids and the election and if taxes aren't raised by XYZ referendum they won't have a whole week of school. And I think "are you kidding?" they can miss a week of school and not miss a thing. Like this last week of parties. Sonia's teacher stopped giving out homework about 4 weeks ago if not longer and Kayla's gave up the homework ghost 2 weeks ago. Joey's is the only one who seems to think that it's business as usual. We're not going to miss this much next year.

The cars have all been running this week, although driving them in and out of our neighborhood has proven to be a challenge with the construction. It's hard to explain but they moved the state highway our road turned off of 50 feet further from our street, made the old street an access street for about 50 feet and then a new street/ramp winds up a temporary road to the new light at the highway for our street and the strip mall to be able to get onto the highway. But the part from our street to the windy ramp thing has been under construction. Alot. They've dug and paved and dug and hit water mains and dug and it's just been a mess. And a hassle. But this week, they decided they were going to pave part of what's been dirt for 2 months, which meant they had people standing with stop signs on sticks preventing you from going anywhere which the truck dumped the pavement and the steam roller went over it. Of course they choose to start this right when everyone's trying to get out and get to work/school. A few times of going in and out of this and I was about to drive off road and around the nuttiness. As it was I started going back over the dirt "short cut" which is infact an empty lot we used to occasionally use to get to the strip mall and home when the traffic was bad. Which leads me to ask "this is supposed to improve our lives and the traffic?!"

So while it's easier to get out onto the state highway, getting to the state highway hasn't been easy. But we're supposed to have a straight shot to it when it's done. or so they say. 

Well, Folks, that's all there is to write.

Still here. Still crazy

And this week's gem from the kids- JM. JM specifically had been testing the limits of gravity. (an aside here, he's been going by Jonathan at his friends house/daycare, so he might no longer be JonMichael by the time school starts)

I don't know why he consistently needs to test to make sure gravity still is present in his life, but he does. Lately he's been jumping. From tall things, like top bunks. The boy is a thrill seeking daredevil and will not be getting a motorcycle or car that exceeds 45 mph until he gets this out of his system. Somedays I'm not sure he needs a bike, either since sidewalks and roads are just too mundane for his need to jump off stuff, like say side walks and retaining walls.

Anyway. Last night he comes crying to me that he hurt himself. (and I try hard not to roll my eyes and say "DUH! that's what happens when you TRY to hurt yourself) and as I ask him what happened he cries " I accidentally, accidentally, uh, accidentally, uh jumped. It hit my head"
No. No, son. You don't ACCIDENTALLY jump. Of all the things in life you can accidentally do, I'm pretty sure jumping is never on that list.

In further crazy news, the word is now on the street that we have chickens. The warden didn't know until we said something about it on Memorial day. He was pretty speachless on it but his wife said she thought it was great and was happy to take a dozen eggs from us.

In smaller gamebird land, Sonia's class hatched quail also, and it appears there are 25 of them. Although they move so fast it's hard and the kids won't stop touching them and picking them up, I'm not sure I have an accurate count yet.  Kayla's class flock of 12  is now 3 weeks old and half way to mature and laying. Our incubator can house something like 100 quail eggs, so really, we're just getting started on our exponential experiment.

Although this week I was in a sleep deprived daze, apparently, when I went to feed and water them. I removed the water bottles, added food and left the door of the last cage unlatched thinking I was coming right back with the water. Although I forgot what I was doing, left the water bottles out and the door open. So we're down a quail from that. I caught one who didn't go far but another has never been seen or heard from again. So if I keep this up, exponentially growing won't happen.

The kids have 9 days left to school, Sonia's been nominated for some sort of award, so I'll be at her award ceremony next week to see what said award is. I'm guessing it will be for the child that had read every book in her teacher's class room and nearly all in the library or something like that. I'll let you know what it ends up being.

Both cars have been running this week. And we've had some mexican friends here to do a tiered landscaping project between our wall and the actually property line/ditch. Larry' hoping to get a few more feet of gardening space out of it and possibly netting it to keep all things squirrel related out of the garden. If that doens't work we have a friend who thinks it would be a blast to sit on our back wall with a beer and bb gun and target practice all night. Actually I think I'll go get some beer tomorrow and invite him over.

I don't wonder why people look at us in disbelief when they ask what DH or I do and I tell them he's a dr and I'm a nurse practitioner. We;'re wayy to redneck hillbilly for those sort of refined professions. We should be taxidermists with a side plumbing business or something like that. Or we should just recruit more redneck hillbillies for medicine. Yeah. I'm voting for option b. Or option c- look for a different job since medicine isn't what it's all cracked up to be. And that's a post for a day after I have my 540 hours to get my furnishing number and my paperwork signed off. Until that time it's OPSEC still. Nothing to see here. move along. Check back later.

Whelp. Still employed

And my arsenal of stories has grown.

In fact one of the MDs I work with has been writing books and let me read them. I'm honored and inspired. Not to become an OB as much as to write about my experiences. I know, Mom and Dad that you've told me FOREVER that I should write. I just might. I'd start online here but well.. I still hesitate about the whole patient privacy thing. In fact I heard about a patient suing a dr for writing a story that was about her even without any identifying information.

To which I ask...... if there wasn't any identifying information:
a. how did you know it was you
b. why did the dr admit it was you when you said it was you?
c. why did the Dr use his (or her, but I think it was a his) real name in authoring the book?

Because as I see it, if I write a book under an assumed name in a fictitious town with identifying information changed about my identifying information lacking patient there wouldn't be a problem, right?  Because if SuzyQ patient in Podunk imaginary town Georgia written by fictional person who has never lived in Georgia is going to be hard to prove by Juanita in Southern CA that the story is about her. Right?

However... Since this blog wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where I was, who I was and where I work... I'll just maintain OPSEC or whatever that stupid acronmym is the military uses for internet silence on all things important. So nothing to read here, move along now.

In other worlds, the kids have been surviving the standardized test month of school. And when the rest of the testing is done it's pretty much party til the end of the school year as far as the kids (and parents) are concerned. Of course we have one teacher this year who I'm pretty sure will be still assigning and grading homework on the second to last day of school, but I'm really hoping the aliens will return the human and take the robot they left in her place back to space. oh dear. I just wrote that. whelp... It's not a patient and violating patient confidentialty and I'd say that all identifying informaiton is removed, but who am I kidding? I only have 1 kid who has a teacher who could possibly be mistaken for robot barbie teacher. So, yes, Miss S, I am talking about you. Can you please check your back and turn the switch back to "human" from "busy homework monseter" thanks. 

Kayla's egg hatching project went well, although day 3 into the chicks being in the room her teacher decided the smell was just too much so we took them home. They live under an open window right now til they get moved out to the shed. Although in her class we promised the kids they could take one home if their parents approved. So we might not have too many to keep. Although we're going to try to keep the recessive gene ones if possible.

And since things went so well with Kayla's class, Sonia's class now has the full incubator in her room. This of course is genius because a.) we're not paying the electric bill b.) the kids all get to see life and c.) the teachers think we're crazy but a little cool. Probably alot crazy. But we have at least a little coolness factor. In fact all I need to do is walk around school campus with a cat carrier or hampster case full of quail and I'm the pied piper of elementary school. I bet if I showed up with a bus I could take a few dozen kids with me. Of course I would also get arrested. So I'm rethinking that plan. That and the fact that it's darn near impossible for me to manuver the excursion around the parking lot at school I could imagine what an actual yellow bus might be like.

As it is I got myself stuck in the parking garage at work today. Well, not REALLY stuck but just couldn't get it into one parking space. 2 and 1/2 the drive area, yes. Parking garages in Southern CA are not meant for anything larger than a Camry. Seriously. But if it wasn't so crowded here, we wouldn't need parking garages. That is my biggest annoyance with living here- sharing it with something like 6 million people. (documented, the actual number is higher than it appears) Working in the spanish speaking community clinic has tilted my perspective so it might not be 19 million undocumented, but it certainly feels that way somedays.

Larry and I are back to 2 cars, one of them being the truck. So which ever of us is driving the least is the one who drives the truck. Most days that would be me. This is because Larry's car has decided it's had enough of this reliable running thing and had enjoyed not 1, not 2 but now 3 visits to a mechanic this month. When Larry was gone to the field (military speak for he went camping in one of the desert locations with a bunch of Marines to play war or practice shooting stuff like at war) he took my car so I could take his ot the mechanic. We're lucky enough to live close to the bus line so droping a car of and taking the bus home isn't a huge issue. Time consuming, sure, but it does make you appreciate having your own reliable transportation. JM of course thinks it's a blast to take the train and bus home. So after dropping his car off I'd had the truck to drive last week and since it decided it missed it's good buddies there it threw a fit and a hose and is back there again.

We offered to lend a car to friends moving overseas who had to have their car shipped, so we were planning on being down to 2 cars anyway, but thankfully our friends haven't needed it but we're still practicing. It wouldn't be a problem at all if I wasn't working. It's this working stuff that kills me. Well.. Actually it's not even the working as much as it is the driving JM to his babysitter on the way to work. So next yr it'd be fine to walk the kids to school and the bus to work. I really love being close enough to use public transit. Just enough country to have chickens and just enough suburbs to be on a bus line. Best of both worlds. And no winter to boot. What's not to love?!

Speaking of chickens. Chicks are now off the heat and I'm faced with the fact athat we might have too many chickens. Like 4x the Official San diego city limits, although being county it's a bit harder to interpret the actual regulations and who might enforce what. the 2 we hatched are just the funniest looking things ever (go look on facebook) but we have a sinking suspecion that one might be a rooster, so sadly we might be saying goodbye sooner than later.

Still no goat, dog or outdoor cat. Or cow or horse. Although Sonia's birthday present horse back riding lesson is Friday, so we'll see. I hear horse manure is great for gardens.

MUST. NOT. DO, IT

Oh but I want to write about work stuff. Of course I can't share 99% of the stuff I want to narrate about. Hippa and all that.

However. I can share a few bits of helpful advice for those who work in the medical field.

1. If a 80 year old woman calls up saying she's having terrible stomach pains like labor pains she does not need to be seen by the  obstetrics clinic.  Shy of Abraham and Sarah I'm pretty sure she's not actually pregnant. Especially when she's had a hysterectomy.

2.  Similarly if someone calls up saying they passed out, hit their head and are bleeding and want to schedule their pap while they're on the phone with the clinic, the head injury is the more pressing issue. Really.
 
3.   Universally to do a pap smear, the patient cannot remain fully clothed. At least not from the waist down. 

4. When talking to patients who get care across the border, it's helpful to include details such as "they had surgery last week" And what said surgery was. Especially major surgery. 

5. The "I had a rash last month and what to know what it was" visit -  It's kinda hard to reverse time to see said rash, especially when the only description is "it was itchy" was it pink or red? no, it was itchy. Was it bumpy? no it was itchy.  When you looked at your skin, could you see anything? no it was only itchy. How long did you have it? I dunno, a day? Did it go away? yes. Has it ever come back? no.
They why are you here, again?
Dear schedulers- we can't travel in time, please don't give apts to evaluate resolved problems. It confuses those of us who think there is actually something to see or fix. And it's kinda hard to code for a "there could have been something but now it's gone" diagnosis. I haven't found the ICD9 code for that one, yet.

6. "El Aire" and it's sister "inflammada" -  it's the Pandora box that in involved with many ailments. There is no xray, test or drug you can use to rid one of these demons. In fact I'm thinking of marketing holy water capsules for it.  Actually Holy Water/Miralax capsules might do the trick???




To be continued..............