Ok, can anybody tell me anything about the annoying detour on Richmond and W. Ferry that makes me late for work every morning since I forget about it? The road has been blocked for just that one block, for the entire week. And I see ZERO signs of construction, road work, anything. Does anyone know anything about this? Google was not helpful.

Ok, so the season of giving and getting and gluttony is officially upon us. I went to Target this morning (not as horrible as I was expecting) only to see bratty little kids out in full force. I saw one boy, 10 or so, yell at his mom- "Mom. MOM. MOM!! Skates! That's what I need. New skates. And not the crappy ones!" as he drags her down the aisle. Then he goes "and I want them NOW. I am SO not getting my speed up on the skates I have!" I wanted to slap him.

Anyway, so it made me realize that it's probably time to start thinking about christmas/holiday shopping.

And I remembered the perfect gift for the impossible-to-shop-for person that has everything.

Check out Heifer International . I've been giving people gift-donations from there for a few years.. I always wonder how much it actually helps when I send $20 to the Red Cross or whatever- but this one makes me happy. You "buy" an animal (chicks, ducks, rabbits, llamas, goats, sheep, heifers, etc., they even have bees, and trees- from like $20 up to "an ark" for $5000), and they give the animal(s) to a family in a developing country, and teach them how to raise it, breed it, etc. And part of the deal is that the family has to give one of their animal's babies to another family in the village to keep the whole thing going. You can buy a pair of ducks, and they teach the family how to raise the eggs, or a goat and they teach them how to milk it and make cheese and stuff.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
Hope you all had some quality time with family/friends (and, of course, stuffed your yaps). That fog last night was surreal! Felt like Silent Hill.

I had to work this morning, annoying. Was supposed to have sat/sun off, though, since I have no patients in the hospital, which would have been nice. But oh no, at the last second someone decided to schedule a (non-emergent) case for 9am today, and of course the guy needs to be admitted, so now I need to go in sat/sun to see him. Not for long, but just enough that I can't leave town. Bastards. There was a reason the OR schedule was wide open today- to let people have some time with their families. Ah well, no use complaining.

But so after work I came home and spent some quality time with my new little friends, Cinnamon and Sugar. (yes, those are their real names. My landlords got them from N's boss- she said "he had 2 rabbits, now he has 20, so everyone is getting christmas presents.") I just thought "yup, that's what rabbits do". Also, I don't think giving animals as presents is a good thing to do. And, I don't like that they have to be banished to the basement, but whatever.

But anyway, so I gave them each some play time and brought them upstairs for photo shoots. First they were a little shy, but then they warmed up and hippity-hopped all over. Eventually were so comfortable the just plopped down for little bunny-naps.

So Tony, I hope you are prepared for another cute attack.
(sorry if there are too many pix. I actually took 65, so this is edited.)


Sugar. She's albino. Supposedly have flemish-something, half angora.




Bath time.




Being tall.


Miss Cinnamon.


Despite their soft little feet, they have some claws under there!!




I just love the little cottontail.












A split second before this they were giving each other a little bunny kiss.

I'm thankful for little lovey furry creatures. :)

So a recent chat has me thinking...

Why do we write these things?
Someone asked me that the other day, and before I could answer, he said "ego".
And at first I was annoyed that he would say that.
I thought "it is NOT about my ego! I write just to get things off my chest... just to put thoughts on paper... to vent... to get advice..."

But then I realized that I could do the first three of those things with a pen and a notebook, or with a non-public text file.

But somehow that's not as fun.
Because deep down- yes, I want people to read my journal. And I guess I assume that at least some people do. And, whether it's right or wrong, I often write as if I know people will read it. And to some level I tailor what I say to that effect. I try not to piss people off, or hurt them, etc. I also try not to write things that I will be (too) embarrassed about if someone reads them. And, yes, I try to be funny and interesting and maybe a little bit scandalous at times.

I like to think I don't care what they think- but of course I do. I don't want people to think I'm boring. Or fat. or stupid. or mean. etc etc.

I certainly wouldn't say I'm an exhibitionist- but part of me likes sharing my life here in a semi-anonymous way.

And that's just me.

I think people have all sorts of reasons, but I think my friend was actually right, I think ego comes into all of them to an extent.

And some people write just for attention. Which is fine. Who am I to judge. I just think that when you seek attention just for attention's sake, you should probably analyze your motives. And remember that not all attention is good attention. And, remember the boy that cried wolf. Eventually ridiculous stuff gets boring, and then you get NO attention.

ok, end of random introspection. Off to visit the bunnies!

Ok so yesterday I went for a walk/hike. Not too strenuous, except for all the stairs at the end. But I didn't slip or fall or anything, no bad steps, didn't twist my knees/ankles that I know of- but all day today my right ankle keeps seizing up on me. Like I'll just take a step and practically fall b/c I can't put weight on it. Then I'll sort of shake it out and it's fine for a while. Totally weird.

But even weirder-
So I just went downstairs to do laundry. Now, my basement is huge. The size of my apartment. And it's very odd. Half is totally unfinished, cement floor, etc. But at the same time it has a full kitchen and full bath. And there's a pool table down there, and a full bar. TV, stereo, and couch. Would be awesome for parties, but it needs to be all set up, which hasn't happened yet, for the last two years.
But in any case, there are these other weird back rooms that I never go in. But today I was looking for a screwdriver so I went back there-
And I found rabbits!
A cage with two bunnies in it!
WTF?!
I have no idea whose they are, what they're doing there, how long they've been there, or how long they're staying.
But they are so cute and friendly! i opened the cage and they hopped right over. The brown one practically jumped in my arms, so I held him for a while and petted him.
Amazing how five minutes cuddling an animal can make my day.
What an awesome surprise. I am totally going to go play with them all the time.

But I must say I think it's kind of shitty that the poor things are locked away in this freaky back room of the basement.

But I think this rivals the solarium as a cool surprise that I randomly stumbled upon, and it's in my own house no less.

Ok, time to switch laundry, and pet the wabs again. :)

Hope you all had a good weekend. :)

So when I finally left work last night, I walked out to my car... got to the parking lot... and then remembered I was on the ramp, like 4 blocks away. Dumbass. Oh and then got to my car, and got paged. Stupidly, I answered it. "hi, we need orders on the new patient" "ok, well, um, I'm not in the hospital anymore, and I'm not on call." "who is on call?" "Dr. N" "Yeah... well we called him, and he yelled at us and said to call you for you to do it." So I had to fucking go back in.

Then got home, and realized that even if do get thanksgiving off, I won't have time to go home to see my fam, and I imagined spending thanksgiving alone on my couch eating cereal. That was the last straw, and before I knew it I was crying. Just one of those days.

Maybe we need an (e:strip) loner thanksgiving dinner.

Today was not much better. Had to stay 5hr late. Guess I will NOT go out of town for my sacred whole-weekend-off.

But anyway the point of this random post is not [just] to bitch- but just to relay some of the shit that I hear at work.

I work with one guy, sort of my boss for the month, who is actually hysterical, but totally inappropriate. And I couldn't really care less.

But today I was feeling the the lung, and he asked if I could feel the tumor, and I said "yeah, it feels kind of hard"- and in reply got (of course ) "that's what she said".

Then at the end of the case I was putting in some injections, and did a few, then asked "can I get more?" and he said "I don't know... that's a pretty personal question... But, it IS fri, so I wish you luck."

There were also jokes about burying kittens just enough so their heads stick out, then running over their heads with the lawn mower.

I just thought later 'he's lucky none of the tight-ass nurses were in there, or he would be written up so fast.'

Update-
Duh- forgot the whole reason I wanted to post.
So I got an email today from my friend J- saying I won the Stranger than Fiction soundtrack from his blog (woohoo!). [I think I've posted it before, but he has a cool music blog, with a few free songs every couple days- ]
But anyway, he emailed to say I'd won. Then said sorry he's been out of touch, but that their friend T just died. And I replied "T? As in T that had sex with a random chick on the floor of my closet during mardi gras? DIED?!" And he said yup, that's the one.
The kid was 28.
Apparently he was epileptic, had a seizure in the shower, fell, hit his head, and drowned.

Holy fuck.

:(

Yvonne, tell us about your job!

What a fucking miserable day. :(
sucked sucked sucked.

had a long convo last night... a good one... but a few bits kind of left a bad taste in my mouth/filled me with doubt, so I slept badly and that started the day off on the wrong foot.
Then I got to work so late (since my power and thus alarm clock went out last night) I had to park on the ramp.
then realized in my rush out the door I forgot my wallet.
So I would have no money to get my car out of the garage at the end of the day.
Let alone eat (lunch is the highlight of my day, and it pisses me off to miss it).
But the money didn't matter since I couldn't get 5 seconds to myself for the whole damn day. Someone knocked on the door OF THE BATHROOM to ask me a (stupid) question even.
And I didn't get responses to emails that I was hoping for, which made me sad.

Then I guilt-tripped paul and tony into lending me money, but a friend came through at the last second. (thanks anyway guys).

Someone was being a royal bitch all day in clinic, and I tried to apply some of my new thoughts lately and tried to "have compassion" for her and imagine how unhappy she probably is, rather than just hate on her. I was not very successful.

I am starving and exhausted and have a killer headache and don't get to leave here til prob 730.

Ok, done whining.
Sorry for that little outburst.
phew, i feel better now.

J

Dear "guest"-

Fuck off.
and learn to spell.

[And since when is RELIGION about eating less and "excercising"?]

so my six-pack of magic hat had a coupon on it...
go to
to download a free cd.
you have to give them your email, etc, though in order for them to send you the link.

haven't listened to it yet, but it's what i would call hippie music- string cheese incident, umphrey's mcgee, etc.

not too much new here...
work work work, that's about it.
But I am now ATLS certified, so if you are ever in a mobile home and the propane tank explodes and sends you flying 15 feet into a wall, or you are ever a pregnant woman in a car crash, or if you get stabbed in the back and then fall through ice- just come to me. ;)

have been having a lot of conversations lately about... god who knows. sort of the meaning of life, religion, enlightenment... kind of wild stuff that I would usually sort of write off- but now it's got me thinking. Hmm. What IS it all about?? I think a big can of worms has been opened. I hope this is not a bad thing.

-J

Ok, so I decided that for about the first time in my life that I'd try to educate myself for this election. So I picked up the Voter's Guide at Spot today. I am about 30 seconds into it, and already it's making me crazy. God I hate politics. I always feel a little guilty for being so utterly uninformed about politics- but at the same time there's something to be said for my peace of mind, I think.

So I was studying, and reading a chapter about lung cancer, and there was the following in my book:

Primary tracheal tumors are unusual, frequent occurances.

Huh? Aren't unusual and frequent sort of opposites? eh, whatever.

And later it talked about how if you have to remove part of the trachea, in order to keep tension off the stitches while it heals, the usual thing to do is to sew the person's chin to his breastbone for 7 days.
I certainly hope I never have to do that. How horrifying.

Ok, but to my point-
I tend to be scientific and analytical about things. Pretty uncreative, and generally very skeptical of things I can't explain. Hence the whole atheism bit.

But was talking to a friend the other day, and got to talking about freaky math- chaos theory, fractals, etc. And the Fibonacci sequence. A simple sequence, where you start with 0,1 and then just add the previous two numbers together to get the next one. 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc. No big deal, simple, just some numbers, right?

Well... it turns out that if you plug this into mathematical modelling programs, it will predict, quite accurately, the way branches come off a tree. Or rivers fork and divide. Or the way the human lung is divided into smaller and smaller segments.

And then other equations can map out the stripes of a zebra or the pattern on a shell...

How freaking geek-cool is that?

Must say it kinda gives me goosebumps... Maybe there is something up there in charge of it all, after all. ;)

Here's a cool little article about it. (and this is not new news- this is from 1993).

p.s. paul that reminds me- what happened to the newsfeeds and stuff that used to be over on the right?