This past week has been tough.
Was I busy at work? --No more than usual.....
Was I struggling through another Hell Week with a play? --Nope.
Were Rich and I at each other's throats? --Never.
The inevitable has happened.
Pip and her (now long-distance) boyfriend had a fight and went "on a break". Egad. The tears, the frustration, the heartbreak of it all. I'm SOOOO glad that I'm not 18 anymore.
In the end, the "break" lasted all of four days. He decided that studying on the pre-med track, trying to keep those grades in the A/B categories, being on his own at school, working a part-time job, trying to hang out with friends, and maintaining a long-distance relationship was too much for him to do. Since what he's actually enjoyed learning throughout high school was government, he's switching his major and is hoping to (eventually) teach government/ civics/ history at the high school level. Or possibly run for office someday.
Quite frankly, I had told Pip earlier that he didn't seem like any doctor I had ever known, let alone a SURGEON. (He had been hoping to go into neurosurgery.) I'm not saying that he wasn't smart enough (he is), it's the drive he was missing. I give doctors and surgeons a LOT of credit. In order to serve their patients, the MD misses out on a lot of life along the way. It's a very hard life that they're called to. I wouldn't want that job, nor would I particularly like to be married to one. (Thankfully, I'm not!)
So anyway, now that the tension is soothed home is a better place to be. Pip and Jefe have learned valuable lessons in communication, commitment, and (last but certainly not least) real life.
Thus endeth this week's Afterschool Special, "An Autumn Breakup".
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
The Shorn Q-Tip
I always feel kind of bad when I let slip the foibles my family members, so as part of the Parent Bloggers Network's current BlogBlast "Even Beauty Experts Make Mistakes" ( http://blog.parentbloggers.com), it's time to let off one of my own less than stellar moments.
Let me start by saying that I was a child of the 80's.
...I'm lying already.....
I was a TEENAGER of the 80's. ......now I'm not talking the mall-bang-Jon-Bon-Jovi-is-SO-mint late 80's. That era was for wussies. I'm talking the hardcore, punk/'New Romantic", we-just-bought-a-Wahl-and-aren't-afraid-to-use-it 1980's!! I suppose that I could write about the lovely lime-green Mohawk I strutted through the streets of Minneapolis with in my Mary Tyler Moore gone bad phase or my Robert Smith of the Cure black rat's nest that I ended the decade with, but I thought that I'd take y'all WAY back to the beginning of it all.
Grab a cup of cocoa, get settled in your chair, and prepare yourselves.......
My natural haircolor is a dark, dishwater blonde. It's not pretty. My personal opinion is that God gives people this haircolor when he runs out of ink in his special haircoloring markers. It's like a special dispensation to: "Ah, do what you can with it". So, by the time I was in eighth grade, I'd had enough. It wasn't light enough to be a pretty blonde and it had no sparkle like what brunettes have. I saved my babysitting money and in the summer of 1982 I went to Rexall Drugs and bought a box of "Deep Mahogany" Miss Clairol. While my parents were at work one Saturday morning, I transformed myself from drab to ......well..... kind of a 'dark grape' color.
Naturally, when my mom came home, she was furious. She took me to the salon to have the color stripped out of my hair. I remember that it was a long and smelly process and it left my hair remarkably straw-like afterwards. She forbade me from ever COLORING my hair again so long as I lived under her roof.
And I spent the summer babysitting to pay her back for the small fortune she had spent to turn my hair back to it's proper color.
*****If you think that this is the end of the story, just wait! It gets better!!*****
The salon used bleach back then to pull color out of hair. Now bleach doesn't just strip out artificially deposited color, mind you, it removes ALL color. It had taken them a couple of bleachings to pull out Miss Clairol (a tanacious woman, I tell you), then they had to put another color down to take the brassiness out. The color I left the salon with was NOT my natural. It was a deep golden with soft strawberry highlights. IT WAS NOT DRAB.
An awareness struck me. I was forbidden to PUT COLOR INTO my hair, by my mother's edict. However, TAKING THE COLOR OUT was an entirely different beast! And I looked gooood as a strawberry blonde!
So I proudly purchased my first bottle of Sun-In. From 1982-1983, I single handedly kept this company in business. Over the course of time (and 2-3 applications a week) my strawberry blonde went all the way to 'Nordic Blonde' without my mom ever remarking about it. Then, in the winter of 1983 I decided that I needed a perm.
***Cue axe-murderer music here***
The stylist asked what I'd used to bleach my hair and I told her of my great Plum experiment. Was it her fault that she just accepted what I'd said? No. I didn't hold any of what transpired against her. It was my own misguided attempt at fashion. God had given me a "Wild" card for my hair and I had overplayed it.......
She wrapped my hair on the perm rods and applied the solution. It stunk, but all perms stink. When the 20 minute processing time was over, she took me back to the sink to rinse it out. I heard a couple of "plinks" as some of the rods slipped out of my hair and I happened to open my eyes to see the stylist gasp as the color ran out of her face. She stopped the water and ran to get help.
When the older woman (the manager, I'm guessing) came over to the sink she shook her head in an "I've seen THIS before" way. She put a stopper in the drain and started filling the basin up with water. She questioned me about the chemicals on my head much like Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. Under that kind of stress, naturally I broke down like an AMC Gremlin and admitted what I'd been doing to myself. She then explained the damage I'd been doing to my hair and how the perm process does not react well to Sun-In. She then went on further to say that the "plinks" I'd been hearing had indeed been the rollers falling off of my head. However, MY HAIR WAS STILL WRAPPED AROUND THEM.
They did the best that they could, of course, but the Sun-In had broken down the proteins in my hair so badly that once the perm solution opened the cuticle, there was nothing left to the hairstrand. I lost all of the rollers on my head save for the three in the very front. I guess that that was God's way of showing a little mercy to the stupidity of (wo)man.
I left the salon with a bald head (perfect for a northern Iowa great plains winter!), bangs resembling an exploded Q-Tip, and a note to my mother stating that I hadn't gone into the salon asking for this particular outcome.
Oh yeah, I was grounded.
This BlogBlast is sponsored by Harper Collins and the new beauty guide by Nadine Haobsh, "Beauty Confidential". ( http://www.beautyconfidentialthebook.com).
What's YOUR beauty don't? Share it with the world, link the above sites, and you might be a winner!
Let me start by saying that I was a child of the 80's.
...I'm lying already.....
I was a TEENAGER of the 80's. ......now I'm not talking the mall-bang-Jon-Bon-Jovi-is-SO-mint late 80's. That era was for wussies. I'm talking the hardcore, punk/'New Romantic", we-just-bought-a-Wahl-and-aren't-afraid-to-use-it 1980's!! I suppose that I could write about the lovely lime-green Mohawk I strutted through the streets of Minneapolis with in my Mary Tyler Moore gone bad phase or my Robert Smith of the Cure black rat's nest that I ended the decade with, but I thought that I'd take y'all WAY back to the beginning of it all.
Grab a cup of cocoa, get settled in your chair, and prepare yourselves.......
My natural haircolor is a dark, dishwater blonde. It's not pretty. My personal opinion is that God gives people this haircolor when he runs out of ink in his special haircoloring markers. It's like a special dispensation to: "Ah, do what you can with it". So, by the time I was in eighth grade, I'd had enough. It wasn't light enough to be a pretty blonde and it had no sparkle like what brunettes have. I saved my babysitting money and in the summer of 1982 I went to Rexall Drugs and bought a box of "Deep Mahogany" Miss Clairol. While my parents were at work one Saturday morning, I transformed myself from drab to ......well..... kind of a 'dark grape' color.
Naturally, when my mom came home, she was furious. She took me to the salon to have the color stripped out of my hair. I remember that it was a long and smelly process and it left my hair remarkably straw-like afterwards. She forbade me from ever COLORING my hair again so long as I lived under her roof.
And I spent the summer babysitting to pay her back for the small fortune she had spent to turn my hair back to it's proper color.
*****If you think that this is the end of the story, just wait! It gets better!!*****
The salon used bleach back then to pull color out of hair. Now bleach doesn't just strip out artificially deposited color, mind you, it removes ALL color. It had taken them a couple of bleachings to pull out Miss Clairol (a tanacious woman, I tell you), then they had to put another color down to take the brassiness out. The color I left the salon with was NOT my natural. It was a deep golden with soft strawberry highlights. IT WAS NOT DRAB.
An awareness struck me. I was forbidden to PUT COLOR INTO my hair, by my mother's edict. However, TAKING THE COLOR OUT was an entirely different beast! And I looked gooood as a strawberry blonde!
So I proudly purchased my first bottle of Sun-In. From 1982-1983, I single handedly kept this company in business. Over the course of time (and 2-3 applications a week) my strawberry blonde went all the way to 'Nordic Blonde' without my mom ever remarking about it. Then, in the winter of 1983 I decided that I needed a perm.
***Cue axe-murderer music here***
The stylist asked what I'd used to bleach my hair and I told her of my great Plum experiment. Was it her fault that she just accepted what I'd said? No. I didn't hold any of what transpired against her. It was my own misguided attempt at fashion. God had given me a "Wild" card for my hair and I had overplayed it.......
She wrapped my hair on the perm rods and applied the solution. It stunk, but all perms stink. When the 20 minute processing time was over, she took me back to the sink to rinse it out. I heard a couple of "plinks" as some of the rods slipped out of my hair and I happened to open my eyes to see the stylist gasp as the color ran out of her face. She stopped the water and ran to get help.
When the older woman (the manager, I'm guessing) came over to the sink she shook her head in an "I've seen THIS before" way. She put a stopper in the drain and started filling the basin up with water. She questioned me about the chemicals on my head much like Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. Under that kind of stress, naturally I broke down like an AMC Gremlin and admitted what I'd been doing to myself. She then explained the damage I'd been doing to my hair and how the perm process does not react well to Sun-In. She then went on further to say that the "plinks" I'd been hearing had indeed been the rollers falling off of my head. However, MY HAIR WAS STILL WRAPPED AROUND THEM.
They did the best that they could, of course, but the Sun-In had broken down the proteins in my hair so badly that once the perm solution opened the cuticle, there was nothing left to the hairstrand. I lost all of the rollers on my head save for the three in the very front. I guess that that was God's way of showing a little mercy to the stupidity of (wo)man.
I left the salon with a bald head (perfect for a northern Iowa great plains winter!), bangs resembling an exploded Q-Tip, and a note to my mother stating that I hadn't gone into the salon asking for this particular outcome.
Oh yeah, I was grounded.
This BlogBlast is sponsored by Harper Collins and the new beauty guide by Nadine Haobsh, "Beauty Confidential". ( http://www.beautyconfidentialthebook.com).
What's YOUR beauty don't? Share it with the world, link the above sites, and you might be a winner!
Friday, September 28, 2007
From the Depths of Hell Week
Ah, mighty Hell Week...... How you make me want to throw in the towel and never go onstage again.....
I will not let you win.
Although I will whine like a toddler that you are kicking my ass this week.........
Since only two or three people out there ever read my blog (and I have a pretty good idea who you are), you know what I'm talking about. We've had rehearsals for the past two weeks from 6pm to 11pm Monday thru Friday. -Well except for last night and tonight. The call is at 5:30 (until 11pm).
Last weekend our town had a little 'founder's festival' kind of thing, so we had a float in the (three block) parade and a booth on the street. --I was in the booth from noon until 5 on Saturday. I did the parade the past two years and it's not worth my losing my Saturday morning to. Sunday, we had a tea with Belle and the enchanted objects from the castle. I left church early (hoping that God would understand) so that I could sell tickets to the show from noon until 5-ish.
In my spare time, I've been calling around for ushers and soliciting ad's from local businesses for the program.
Oh, and did I mention that our church had a Mass for Breast Cancer victims and caregivers this past Tuesday? I also sang for that (I came to play practice late).
And I managed to work a 42-hour week this week.
I hate to say this, but I'm too old for this shit. Sure, I used to work a 45-hour work week (as a hairstylist/salon manager, no less) and spend my evenings (every night-I kid you not) in bars and nightclubs --never getting home until 3am at the earliest-- but how the hell did I do it?
Dang it! I NEVER should have given up drinking!!
I will not let you win.
Although I will whine like a toddler that you are kicking my ass this week.........
Since only two or three people out there ever read my blog (and I have a pretty good idea who you are), you know what I'm talking about. We've had rehearsals for the past two weeks from 6pm to 11pm Monday thru Friday. -Well except for last night and tonight. The call is at 5:30 (until 11pm).
Last weekend our town had a little 'founder's festival' kind of thing, so we had a float in the (three block) parade and a booth on the street. --I was in the booth from noon until 5 on Saturday. I did the parade the past two years and it's not worth my losing my Saturday morning to. Sunday, we had a tea with Belle and the enchanted objects from the castle. I left church early (hoping that God would understand) so that I could sell tickets to the show from noon until 5-ish.
In my spare time, I've been calling around for ushers and soliciting ad's from local businesses for the program.
Oh, and did I mention that our church had a Mass for Breast Cancer victims and caregivers this past Tuesday? I also sang for that (I came to play practice late).
And I managed to work a 42-hour week this week.
I hate to say this, but I'm too old for this shit. Sure, I used to work a 45-hour work week (as a hairstylist/salon manager, no less) and spend my evenings (every night-I kid you not) in bars and nightclubs --never getting home until 3am at the earliest-- but how the hell did I do it?
Dang it! I NEVER should have given up drinking!!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Settling.....
I swear to God that's the story of my life. Settling. I want the best, but I settle for what I can afford.
Case in point....
The home computer died the other month. Hubbie and I decided that we were tired of Microsoft and wanted to get an operating system that wasn't so retarded. We wanted a Mac. We saved our money, we hoped, we dreamed.....
Then the water pump went out on the old car (Sherwood). Since Pip will need this to get to and from school (occasionally -- sometimes Hubbie needs it to drive into work), we needed to get it fixed. (($457))
Followed by the State of Ohio letting us know that we'd figured our taxes wrong and needed to cut them a check by the 20th for $89.
There went everything we'd saved for the new computer.
So we settled. We went to Best Buy and bought the cheapest thing we could find. I'm sure that the technology in it is long outdated, but at least it has that new, "Vista" operating system.
In case you're curious -- it sucks.
But now I can pay my bills and balance my checkbook at home again. I suppose that that's a plus.
I don't mean to sound whiny or spoiled. We have a roof over our heads, we eat 3 meals a day (not provided by the government), and from time to time we are actually able to go out and have a little fun. I'm just getting SO friggin' tired of having to settle for second best! (...or third... or that stupid Vista thing...)
We're back to saving for the Mac again, but it's a lot harder when Pip is with us. Especially since the Senior Portrait Industry is just NOT set up for shared children. (Seriously! It's cheaper for each household to buy their own package than it is to split a larger one since they don't allow you to substitute another friggin' 8 x 10 for a useless set of wallets!)
I don't suppose that I could get Pip to settle for a nice picture taken with my cell phone?
Case in point....
The home computer died the other month. Hubbie and I decided that we were tired of Microsoft and wanted to get an operating system that wasn't so retarded. We wanted a Mac. We saved our money, we hoped, we dreamed.....
Then the water pump went out on the old car (Sherwood). Since Pip will need this to get to and from school (occasionally -- sometimes Hubbie needs it to drive into work), we needed to get it fixed. (($457))
Followed by the State of Ohio letting us know that we'd figured our taxes wrong and needed to cut them a check by the 20th for $89.
There went everything we'd saved for the new computer.
So we settled. We went to Best Buy and bought the cheapest thing we could find. I'm sure that the technology in it is long outdated, but at least it has that new, "Vista" operating system.
In case you're curious -- it sucks.
But now I can pay my bills and balance my checkbook at home again. I suppose that that's a plus.
I don't mean to sound whiny or spoiled. We have a roof over our heads, we eat 3 meals a day (not provided by the government), and from time to time we are actually able to go out and have a little fun. I'm just getting SO friggin' tired of having to settle for second best! (...or third... or that stupid Vista thing...)
We're back to saving for the Mac again, but it's a lot harder when Pip is with us. Especially since the Senior Portrait Industry is just NOT set up for shared children. (Seriously! It's cheaper for each household to buy their own package than it is to split a larger one since they don't allow you to substitute another friggin' 8 x 10 for a useless set of wallets!)
I don't suppose that I could get Pip to settle for a nice picture taken with my cell phone?
Friday, August 3, 2007
I Have the Best Friend -- EVER!!
So I got home from work last night and brought in the mail.
There was a padded manilla envelope shoved into the mailbox, but I didn't think much of it. My husband is CONSTANTLY buying books and stuff online and I'm generally bringing one or two of these in a week anyway.
I put it on the counter where he could find it when he got home and sorted through the rest of the junk mail, bills, and college info (Pip gets TONS of "Look at us!" college shit weekly). When I turned back to put the bills in our inbox, I noticed the writing on the package looked suspiciously like Kimba's writing. I looked closer and it was! The envelope was for me!
I tore into the package like Rosie O'Donnell tearing into a package of Ring-Dings and there it was-- an iPod Shuffle. I read the note enclosed. Since she already had a Nano and I was still saving my duckets to buy one of my own, she sent me the Shuffle!
But wait!! It gets better!!!
She charged it and put some songs on it for me!!!!
Thank You Kimba!!!!!! You're the best friend EVER!!!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Be Our Guest!
I can hardly believe it.
Somehow I made it into the local community theater's next production, "Beauty and the Beast". This surprises the hell out of me because I didn't really prepare well for auditions. --I suppose that's what happens when you work full time, are involved with outside the home activities, and don't want to keep your husband up past midnight as you hammer away at music (our apartment is tiny, so even if you're in the next room, you're only 12 feet away from each other). I almost didn't waste the director's time, but changed my mind in the 9th hour.
No, not the 11th hour. That would have been rude.
I'm just in the chorus, but I kind of like it that way. You get more stage-time.
Just thought I'd share...
Somehow I made it into the local community theater's next production, "Beauty and the Beast". This surprises the hell out of me because I didn't really prepare well for auditions. --I suppose that's what happens when you work full time, are involved with outside the home activities, and don't want to keep your husband up past midnight as you hammer away at music (our apartment is tiny, so even if you're in the next room, you're only 12 feet away from each other). I almost didn't waste the director's time, but changed my mind in the 9th hour.
No, not the 11th hour. That would have been rude.
I'm just in the chorus, but I kind of like it that way. You get more stage-time.
Just thought I'd share...
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Secret's Out
I am the only full-time employee in my office. That's right, the only one here 8 hours a day, five days a week.
What that means in the medical office community is that I have to be able to learn (or at least sound intelligent about) a lot of various stuff.
Some of it is easy. Any one of us can handle routine med refills. I can give you an excuse slip for work. I can set you up an appointment to see a doctor and explain the basics of the nuclear stress test, echocardiogram, and heart catheterization. I handle all med records (scanning in, indexing, and entering in the computer --hooray for Electronic Health Records!!) in my office.
Some of it is a little more difficult. Reading doctor's handwriting, getting prior authorization from insurance companies (medical and prescription) for testing and meds, determining who gets an office visit and who is directed to the E/R for their chest pain, knowing which ICD-9 code will allow what kind of visit/lab/medication, and which ekg strips faxed from the event monitoring company need a doctor's review ASAP and which ones are safe to wait for my RN to address when she comes in.
I have had to learn what exactly is going on during the stress test and how the chemicals affect patients simply because they ask me questions and it seems kind of foolish to say, "I don't know, I just answer phones and collect copays. --Do you have that $20 with you or would you like me to bill you for it?"
I learned how to hook patients up to a holter monitor because when the primary docs from downstairs call for one it seems ridiculous to tell them that no one here can do it. --Not to mention that it's bad for business. So I learned to hook up and download holter monitors.
I'm not complaining. I'd rather be busy at work than waiting around trying to make my mental powers force the clock hands to move.
The one thing I've learned in life is that if you act like you know what you're doing, the general public will assume that you do.
So then today I get a call from our home office. It seems that the images from the nuclear stress tests that we did on Tuesday didn't load onto the server like they should have and would it be possible for me to re-load them and send them over to be viewed?
Apparently I give the impression that I'm secretly a Certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist.
Perhaps I should tone down the confidence a little, eh??
What that means in the medical office community is that I have to be able to learn (or at least sound intelligent about) a lot of various stuff.
Some of it is easy. Any one of us can handle routine med refills. I can give you an excuse slip for work. I can set you up an appointment to see a doctor and explain the basics of the nuclear stress test, echocardiogram, and heart catheterization. I handle all med records (scanning in, indexing, and entering in the computer --hooray for Electronic Health Records!!) in my office.
Some of it is a little more difficult. Reading doctor's handwriting, getting prior authorization from insurance companies (medical and prescription) for testing and meds, determining who gets an office visit and who is directed to the E/R for their chest pain, knowing which ICD-9 code will allow what kind of visit/lab/medication, and which ekg strips faxed from the event monitoring company need a doctor's review ASAP and which ones are safe to wait for my RN to address when she comes in.
I have had to learn what exactly is going on during the stress test and how the chemicals affect patients simply because they ask me questions and it seems kind of foolish to say, "I don't know, I just answer phones and collect copays. --Do you have that $20 with you or would you like me to bill you for it?"
I learned how to hook patients up to a holter monitor because when the primary docs from downstairs call for one it seems ridiculous to tell them that no one here can do it. --Not to mention that it's bad for business. So I learned to hook up and download holter monitors.
I'm not complaining. I'd rather be busy at work than waiting around trying to make my mental powers force the clock hands to move.
The one thing I've learned in life is that if you act like you know what you're doing, the general public will assume that you do.
So then today I get a call from our home office. It seems that the images from the nuclear stress tests that we did on Tuesday didn't load onto the server like they should have and would it be possible for me to re-load them and send them over to be viewed?
Apparently I give the impression that I'm secretly a Certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist.
Perhaps I should tone down the confidence a little, eh??
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