Nada.

So, now that I'm a workin' girl (tee hee) it seems I have less time to work on the blog. To be honest, that's not entirely true. I actually have probably the same amount of time, or possibly more, but the powers that be have not yet seen it fit to bestow upon me access to the computer at work. Feels a little like the Stone Age, actually. Or at least what I imagine it must have been like to be a Social Services Director in the Stone Age.

Anyway, not a whole lot of interesting stuff happening 'round our compound this week. (Certainly nothing as interesting as bright green, pulpy vomit. Cool, Scott.) I got my diploma in the mail today, which is cool. Once I can get my friggin' camera cord to work, I'll post a picture of it or something. Lupe is getting huge. If I was a good mom, I'd put in a couple of pictures of her, too. Until then, imagine a bigger version of the last pictures I posted.

In 18 or so years of schooling, I never managed to acquire any sort of study habits. I'm into binging and purging. (Not the eating disorder kind. Obviously.) Blessed with a fabulous short term memory, I generally retain information just long enough to regurgitate it in essay/exam form and on I go. Works pretty well in the public education system, however it also leaves me with a sort of paralyzing fear that someday, somewhere, someone is going to stand up, point at me, and yell "HEY! WE'VE GOT A DUMB CRAP HERE!" and everyone will know I've been faking it all along.

I guess I'm thinking about all of this because I have to take my state licensure exam one week from today. Please wish me luck. I can't handle the exposure.

Finally, I'm gotta bring home some bacon.

First of all, a shout out to my youngest sister Megan who, while too young to contribute to this blog personally, nevertheless has inspired everyone around her to use "gotta" instead of "going to" in every possible situation. Yes, Monk, we're gotta have milkshakes.

But anyway, I'm no longer among the ranks of the unemployed. While I try to steer clear of the off-hand, flippant religious assumptions about the world, sometimes crazy things happen. Like how sometimes a mostly broken car magically passes inspection right after you get caught up on your tithing. Or how maybe when the family could really use some good news, a not-yet-licensed social worker somehow gets hired as the Social Services Director of a long-term care facility.

I don't want to hear any guff from all y'all about how there aren't actually any other social workers in the facility for me to be manager over. I'm still MANAGEMENT. Can I get a what-what?

So we're really lucky and I'm really excited and more than just a little bit scared. Had my first day today, and it seems like it'll be great. I passed the drug test and got introduced to most of my coworkers as "Chrissy" (which, as it turns out, is a name I absolutely have no patience for.) I'll finally be helping Husband win our bread. Oh, and after 90 days, the approximately 47 million Americans without health insurance will drop to approximately 46,999,998. (That's especially meaningful since now if Paddy cracks his head open again, we can actually get him some stitches instead of that sweet action butterfly bandage he got last time.)

I'll let you know when I get an ID badge. That's when you know it's official.

In loving memory

"Grampa Trim"

May 30, 1948- August 15, 2007

Funeral services will be held on Monday, August 20th in the Murray 22nd Ward, 619 W. 5750 So., Murray, at 11:00 a.m. Friends may call Sunday, August 19th from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Jenkins-Soffe Mortuary, 4760 So. State Street, Murray, and at the church from 10:00-10:45 a.m. prior to services on Monday.
Thanks to all for your kind words, thoughts, and prayers. You may visit the obituary here.
Sometimes, life happens. And there is simply nothing else to say.

Surgery

As Wendy mentioned in her comment on the last post, watching prime time programming is often much more educational than you might think. For one, I'm now a genius at crime scenes. Criminals 'round the world- beware! I will find that stray epithelial or partial print. Professional that I am, I was horridly disappointed when Paddy's car was stolen 18 months ago and the officers didn't bother to check for shoe impressions or even dust the car the theives had left next to it for fingerprints. C'mon, guys, I know better than that. If I but had access to CODIS...

But, I digress. Television, particularly my madre's obsession with the "ER" of yesteryear, (before the tank rolled down the streets of Chicago and ruined it for any viewers with any sense of reality) has turned out to be quite handy. For example:

My 7 and a half year old sister, Megan, is a tender soul. Thus, her soft heart was nearly shattered yesterday when my parent's household had a medical emergency. This is a photograph of a very intact stuffed Husky dog from Build-A-Bear.


This one is actually Maddi's dog, Brody, but he serves as a good example. Megan's dog, Morgan, used to be identical. That is, until she accidentally left it in the yard with Lupe and her doggie-aunt, Indy. The carnage:

Disheveled, and missing an eye... and a nasty looking laceration on the lower back.

Worst of all, piles of stuffing and (gasp) the heart.

(The careful observer will note the right eyeball nestled in the cotton tufts. Sadly, there is not enough remaining tissue on the eye to safely reconnect it to the socket. The optic nerve appears to have been totally severed, and significant damage was done to the eye itself by the offenders.)

Naturally, the disaster occurs with no identifiable mother figure in the vicinity. Luckily, highly skilled surgeon-watcher Kris is on call.
The delicate reconstruction begins. Carefully, the blades of grass are removed from the cotton stuffing, which is then reinserted into the abdominal cavity via the back laceration. Precise stitching follows with silver medical thread. ("Lucky that we had gray!" an increasingly cheerful Megan exclaims.) Careful repairs begin on the upper right quadrant of the face. (Megan considers and then declines the offer for a prosthetic button eye.) Care is taken by the surgeon to avoid further matting of the dirty coat. (Read: Kris tries very hard not to touch or smell the fur soaked with dog slobber.)
And, with easy mother-like grace, Dr. Kris suggests the dog will be the very coolest one-eyed pirate dog on the block. ("Could it be a ballerina-pirate dog?" asks a concerned Megan. But of course.) (Not long after, the social worker in Kristie further suggests that the one-eyed ballerina-pirate dog will also make a very compassionate seeing eye dog for the blind.)
The patient is gently placed in a relaxing, bubbly jacuzzi that looks suspiciously like mom's front load washing machine.
After a cycle on "Air fluff, no heat", Morgan makes a full recovery.


Oh, and Megan gets to show off her wicked sweet temporary tatoo. Everyone wins.

Unemployment and Crime Scenes

So I'm unemployed. I wrapped up the temp position at my mom's office job while she was recuperating, and I am now without job. The first few days weren't so bad... I refinished my mom's kitchen cabinets (they went from 'truly hideous' to 'obviously done by an amatuer but still way better than before') and cleaned her carpets, and she was good enough to pay me, so I was still technically bringing home a little bit of bread for the ol' fam. For the last two days, however, I have been really, truly, solidly without income. I feel pretty guilty that once again Husband is left to support his well-educated but rarely gainfully employed wife. A question for the masses: if every position requires experience, how are the youth of the nation supposed to become contributing members of society?

Anywho, for the last two days I've spent my time cleaning our neglected house and following around after our dog with a Ziplock for her stinky poop. It reminds me of a Jerry Seinfeld stand-up bit where he suggests that if aliens are watching our society from afar, and they see one species picking up another species' crap in little baggies, who are they to assume is in charge? About the time I found myself folding laundry between throwing a slobbery tennis ball down our little hallway for her, I realized she absolutely is the boss of me.

Unfortunately, not in a way that means that she pays me. Then I'd be employed.

So that should explain why I don't have much to post about. Pretty much the biggest event in my life today is finding that Scott and Ashley and Davis and Angie have blogs for me to check. Oh, and I'm taking the Lupers to get vaccinated today.

OH! WAIT! Hold on a sec! I almost forgot! I totally do have something interesting to say!

Paddy and I took Lupe to the dog park on 5300 South in Murray last night. We like to walk on the Jordan River Parkway, too, but for some reason decided to hangout in the park instead. While we were there, we heard a loud popping sort of sound, and commented on how it sounded like gunshots. We didn't think much of it, though, and continued making small talk with the other owners. A few minutes later, we heard several sirens headed towards us. We commented that we were glad we hadn't walked down the Parkway. Some irritating know-it-all owner with an equally lame dog insisted it wasn't on the Parkway anyway, but was OBVIOUSLY in the Walden neighborhood. We saw several emergency vehicles turning into the neighborhood, and figured maybe it really had been gunshots we heard. Wow.

We wrapped up our conversation with Mr. I-Know-It-All-But-Not-Enough-To-Buy-A-Decent-Dog and left the park. We figured we'd head down the parkway and see if we could see the police car lights and all. (By the way, have you ever noticed that humans flock to those spinning red and blues like moths to a flame? I hate moths almost more than anything, but it's true.) We went under 53rd, and when we came out the other side, we found ourselves right in the midst of a police investigation! (Turns out Mr. Smarty Pants was way off. Totally right on the Parkway-- so THERE.) The vic (that's CSI-ese for 'victim', in case you're not as cool as me) was getting the whole CPR business, and before we knew it, they had taped off the sidewalk so we couldn't get back to our car. There was also an officer with a very large gun guarding the path. I don' t like guns even a little bit, so I steered clear. I considered offering some suggestions based on my extensive CSI knowledge, but decided it might be tacky. Pretty soon the AirMed helicopter landed right in front of us, and hung out there for a while because it turned out they weren't going to be much help for the unfortunate gentleman who had been shot.

After standing there for a while feeling really lame for wandering into a murder scene with our puppy, we finally circled around the park and headed back to the car via the intersection on 5300. Not our best decision making. However, we were less retarded than the 5-6 parents who were there letting their young children play on the slides and also watch the victim die 10 feet away. I'm not even joking.

Here's a sort of cruddy picture from the news.

If you could see us, we'd be right behind the vehicles between the pavilion and the slide, behind the youngsters with front row seats.

The whole event was terribly sad-- and for us, about the most dramatic thing we'd seen that day-- and I can't believe I almost forgot to post about it. We're pretty glad we stuck to the dog park.