viva la vie

I had a fantastic trip visiting Angry Dissenter in Vegas. The convention was okay, too, but the hilight of my trip was hanging out with my best friend and Odie the dog and NotGerald. Work can pay me to go on a trip with my friends any time.

I'm doing laundry and was just checking my email (with about one hundred messages to delete). Among other things I had a post-survey from the hotel where I stayed. It wasn't a bad stay or hotel, but one thing really rubbed me the wrong way. So much so that I told them what I thought about it during the last open-ended question about what they could have done to make my stay better. Here's my response:

*****
I know that it's a trend for hotels to suggest that its patrons not request new linen or towels due to energy conservation, and I do appreciate the water issues currently going on in Nevada. However, I have major problems with asking this of your patrons while none of the light bulbs in my room were energy efficient bulbs. Your grounds were beautiful, but if the hotel is sincerely concerned about the drought, is all the green necessary? How much energy does the light on top of the pyramid consume each night (you know, the one that can be seen from space)? I don't expect any hotel in Vegas to make great green strides, much less the Luxor, but I beg to ask what attempts the hotel is making to conserve energy other than asking its paying patrons to do it for them.

In terms of the big picture and lack of obvious attempts for energy conservation, I was offended by the card left in my bathroom that intended to make me feel guilty for wanting clean towels on my vacation. In my book, Luxor has been awarded two points for being tacky.
*****

Do I think this will make a difference? No.
Do I think it will make it past the two people whose jobs are to go through the surveys? No way.
Do I think anyone else has ever mentioned it in a post-stay questionaire? Possibly.
Do I think they will suddenly see the error in their ways and convert everything over to more Earth-friendly options? Highly doubful. In fact, I'd be more likely to put my savings on black and let it ride before they turned off the BIG light. And, honey, that ain't about to happen.
Do I feel better about my response, even knowing that nothing will be done about it? Yes; that's what they get for asking my opinion.

We really like the energy-efficient bulbs.

We went by the house today to see how it was coming along. The correct brick is stacked in the yard on several plats around the house. Inside, the walls have gotten their first coats of paint. It's starting to look like a real house; we're excited about moving this summer.

The Hater says I have to be finished typing so that I can come sit with him for a while before bed. I think it's safe to say that both he and Zoloft missed me. It's good to be back.

(enter, stage left)

We'd like to welcome Unequivocal Prowess' brand-spanking-new baby girl to the world!

6 lb 8oz
20 inches
small patch of blonde hair (must be the mailman!)

Both Baby and Mommy are doing great. Daddy is as proud as punch.

(And with that great news, I'm off to Vegas!)

leaving on a jet plane

But not until Sunday. I'm getting really excited about seeing Angry Dissenter in Vegas while I attend an oncology nursing conference. It's work and play!

The Hater is sad that he can't come with me. Frankly, me, too. My boss had said that he could come, too, and share the hotel room. We'd only have to pay for airfare... But he has to work. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

I don't gamble. It's not that I have ethical problems with it or relate it to the Romans playing dice for Jesus' clothes. I just get bored. Slot machines give me a headache; I don't like sitting at a table, waiting hours for a good hand in poker; The other card games are rigged for the house, and I like to have more of a chance to actually win. So it's safe to say that I won't be losing our savings to the strip.

However, The Hater has plans to send me with some of his poker money. He's dreaming about phone conversations with baseball parlays. That word amuses me because I always think of the french word, parle (with an accent on the end), the verb that means "to speak". I bet I can still conjugate it. (je parle, tu parle, elle/il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, elles parles)

And Mom and Dad said I'd never use French! Zut allors!

Today I'm sporting some new shoes with my scrubs. I want to try to break them in before the trip. They don't exactly match, but that's never bothered me before. I'd be more bothered with blisters sans bandaids.

I won't have internet access while I'm gone... but I'm not leaving until Sunday.

Which means I'll be packing either late Saturday night or in a rush Sunday morning...

rocking out: star power

The Hater and I have been playing Guitar Hero II for XBox 360. We're not very good, but we're having lots of fun playing with it. Last night he proudly displayed the stickers that he has so carefully placed on his guitar controller. We're both sporting VOLS stickers, too, which is important to point out.

He called around all of the Wal*Marts, Targets, Game Stops, Best Buys, and then Toys R Us stores in the city to find a copy of the game. He kept saying, someone must have it in stock. We drove 30 minutes to the south side of town to get a copy. On the way he confessed that he already had the second guitar controller in the trunk.

We've not yet unlocked Rocky Top.

There's an option to make and name a band, and then play through the game that way. We named our band "Gander*", where you can substitute the * for a particular ugly word. We know that Obmij will really like that one.

So everybody is going to have to come visit us and play the pretend guitar game, too, once we get the house finished. You know, join the band, get a mohawk. We'll plug in both guitars and you can take turns playing lead, rhythm or bass. It'll be stellar.

Speaking of lack of musical talent, is anyone else as disappointed in the American Idol group as we are this year? We think all but two could go ahead and be cut. There's one guy that The Hater calls "Justin Timberfake", and The Hater makes me fast-forward through his songs. We like Blake and Dolittle. We're not voting for anybody, but those are our favorites.

In the meantime I'm in the process of gathering information to start a music therapy-type support group for cancer survivors. It's still in the thinking-phase. I'm thinking that all of my thinking-phase projects are going to come due at the same time. How exciting that would be.

* I posted a similar version of this post last night, but blogger ate it.

Virginia Tech

Our hearts really go out to all of the students and faculty at Virginia Tech today after the shootings. We're thinking about all of those killed and their families, those hospitalized and their families, and the families of the students and faculty who may not have been physically harmed, but who will wear scars on their hearts for this tragedy. We're thinking of the family of the shooter, of his girlfriend. We're sending out healing vibrations to all of those who have been touched by the shooting that took place today.

And shame on you, George Bush, for turning this into an argument that Americans should carry weapons. You, and I mean this will all due respect and sincerety, are an idiot.

demanding

A certain spoiled kitty simply does not understand that I would like to type on the computer before I give her my complete, undivided attention. She's rotten like that.

We were getting low on cat food, so I stopped to get some on my way home from work. I couldn't remember if we were getting her the "hairball control" formula or the "indoor cat" formula, so I called The Hater, who insisted it was the latter. She really doesn't care so much as it's "chicken" flavor and the same brand. She gets upset if we change brands around on her. Like her mother, she's a creature of habit.

Twice this week I had permission from The Hater to take his car to work instead of my truck. I had some business meetings to attend in the city, and I knew it would be easier to maneuver the car into those little, perpendicular spaces as opposed to Harrison. And twice this week I remembered to take the car instead of the truck -- after I was already past the first red light outside of our apartment complex, poking along inside of Harrison. It was just far enough to know it was too far to turn back and swap Harrison for Esmerelda.

And twice The Hater sent me a text message along the same lines: Why did you not take the car? As if there was a more logical answer than: Because I forgot...

Zoloft has fallen asleep between my feet, curled into a furry ball and content to have shared attention, at least for now.

Does it make us bad parents if we didn't check to see if she had tainted food when that scare was in the news a couple of weeks ago? The Hater said he did look, but I hadn't even intended to peek. I figured that the Heinz-57 kitty would be tough enough to handle any boogers in her food.

Sister called last night with birthday wishes and also reported that her friend's TWO elderly dogs both died due to the tainted food. One apparently just died. The other one was already in kidney failure and is getting so bad they think they'll have to put him down, too. Isn't that just awful? I couldn't imagine losing both babies so closely together.

Speaking of birthdays and doghouses, The Hater forgot to give me birthday wishes on my birthday. We talked about it the night before, but it was afternoon of B-day before he sent me a text message. (Incidentally, this one was after the first text message, telling me I was in the doghouse because I forgot to take the car to work...) He bailed himself out pretty easily; we went to a fantastic Indian restaurant for supper.

And he has given me a house for my birthday! I'll probably get him house, too. You can bet our big, fancy 4th Anniversary celebration will revolve around house, as will Arbor Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas... at least for the next consecutive twenty-nine years.

Zoloft will be around for at least that long, but she'll probably grow more demanding.

busy busy weekend

This morning The Hater and I have been talking about how quickly the weekend flew by us...

Friday night after work we went with some friends to eat birthday dinner at Shogun, one of those Japanese places where they cook everything in a fancy way in front of you. It has a special name that starts with an "H", but I can't remember it this early before my morning caffiene. We had a good time.

Saturday we went to Norman to help host a baby shower for the couple previously mentioned. She's about to pop! They went home with a car full of gifts, and then we stole Daddy...

... and went to see Grindhouse! It was fantastic. If you're into horror flicks, it's a must see.

Yesterday we were invited to an Easter brunch with some friends. This is the same family that invites us to all of their family gatherings around the holidays because they know we don't have anybody else in the city with whom to celebrate. We had a great time.

And then we went to see the house. They've got the texture stuff on the walls, so we're hoping that they'll be painting (the right colors) soon. The pendant lights have still not been cut out of the ceiling. (Do those actually get "cut" out?) The can lights in the kitchen have been cut out. The right brick still isn't in the yard, much less put up... but it's moving along, and that excites us.

We thougth we'd run by the mall, and realized it was closed for the holiday once we got there. The same for Target. So we had fancy frozen dinner for supper because we hadn't planned any better...

Busy. It's Monday; let's do it all over again!

cheese

Last night The Hater and I went to the mall to get some "real" clothes because I have to pose for some pictures today. Although scrubs would have been acceptable, we had been meaning to get some real clothes; this was the motivation we needed.

I may have gone shopping for real clothes for myself maybe twice since we've been married. Scrubs, on the other hand, I've shopped for three or four separate times. I'm just not into the clothes thing and would be content to blue jeans, a soft, well-worn UT t-shirt, and tennis shoes, which is usually what I wear when I'm not working. Unfortunately, society has a whole look-thing mentality, dress to impress, so that it really doesn't matter what you can do, as long as you look good while you're trying to do it. (Insert appropriate Capitalism-bad arguments here.)

Despite my irritation, I have complied. I am wearing real clothes today. I might even take lipstick to put on before the picture (usually I'm a chapstick girl).

It's a long walk from my truck to where I work; I'm taking some real shoes for that haul. We'll see how the whole heel-thing goes today. That in itself should be a good story.

surprises with color

The Hater and I signed our final contracts for the house this afternoon. It took about thirty minutes to initial and sign the thick stack of papers. We hope to close June 11th-ish.

While we were there we double checked all of the interior choices that we made several weeks ago. They gave us new drawings of the house after our changes had been applied to the plan.

Enter: Is that really what we want?

We chose our paint colors from the Sherwin-Williams book. Our walls are either "Retreat" or "Firewood", with the trim "Foggy Day". We thought that "retreat" was a slate blue and "firewood" was a neutral taupe (with "foggy day" being two shades lighter than "firewood" on the card). Everything looked fine while we were at the design meeting, being led by the fearless interior designer....

But since then we've gone to the S-W webpage where you can go through their "color visualizer" and pick out your colors, where they let you click and drag them to different walls to see how they look together in a fake room. This is where the strangeness come in---

1. "Retreat" showed up a silvery-gray, not a slate blue.
2. "Firewood" wasn't even in the database.
3. "Foggy Day" showed up a dark cotton blue, not a near-white neutral.

We're hoping that it wasn't the S-W company from which we chose the samples. We're going to email the design team tonight to make sure that this is just a misunderstanding; that we won't be moving into the wrong crayon box.

FYI: As long as we're discussing color, the front door will be "Fireweed", a rusty red that will never be mistaken for crimson.

PS: I had my PET/CT scan today. As far as fancy scans go, it went fine. I hope to hear back from my doctor's office by the end of the week with the results.

hide and go seek veins

We went out to the house yesterday to make sure it hadn't flooded away. We saw that orange churt had bathed the roads, but the house was still there -- and now it has walls! They've gotten it insulated and dry-walled, so that was exciting. I forgot my camera, so I'll go back out today after work to take some shots.

They still have two different plats of brick in the yard that we didn't choose; we're glad the wrong brick isn't on the house. The brick you see is the pattern that we chose, not what's in the yard.

We have no fantastic Monday plans. After work (and after I take pictures) we're going to go to my friend's house. She's going to start my IV for my scan tomorrow. She's a nurse with great IV skills and has started all of my IVs that I've needed since the c-bomb was dropped. It takes a lot off of my mind to know that I'll go in with an IV aready in place, even if she does have to stick me multiple times.

But the best part is that she has three English mastives. Huge dogs. I'm looking forward to petting the puppies! They are slobber monsters and love to give kisses.

Zoloft is never jealous when we come home smelling of other pets. She is such a good girl! (or maybe this is just an arguement that she's that much more demented)

I just put on my white nurse tennis shoes. These were a great sale find as I bought them for $4. This morning the laces broke on one of them, so it's now sporting a buddy bow in comparison to its mate. I've been wearing these because I wanted to see if I'd get this new job (which I did). I wanted to wait to see if I needed nurse clothes or regular clothes (which I now know I can wear both, but haven't gone shopping for either because I hate to shop). My problem now is that I'm either going to have to get some real nurse shoes with better support or laces for the shoes with poor support -- either way I will have to shop. If Sister was here I'd give her the specs and let her get them for me; she's the shopper.