ButterflyKick: Nurse, Writer, Story Teller.

Barley.

2012-06-14T00:00:00.003-05:00

Barley.

Santa Strikes Again.

2011-12-05T10:18:00.001-06:00

Remember - from last post, she pretty much sneered at me and said that I was lying. Since then she has held fast to this belief, taking every opportunity possible to prove me wrong.
We went to the Santa Sailboat parade thingy on the bayou where Santa arrived by some manner of redneck boat and then drunkenly threw candy canes from the boat to the kids on the dock.

Ease up on the egg nog!

Most of the candy canes went on to the fish in the bayou. I said, "See? Real Santa wouldn't pollute the water with plastic wrappers! Plus there are no reindeer!" She said, "Of course not, Dummy! Reindeer FLY, they don't SWIM." Duh.

Wait til she sees this!

Warming Up to Christmas, Scrinch -Style

2011-11-25T20:06:00.001-06:00

I am just warming up to Christmas-Holiday-ish stuff.
It's not that I'm exactly a Scrooge, per se, but I haven't caught up with all the festivities because I like to bathe in my sense of smug, condescending pah-tooey at all the consumerism and what-not. Oh, that's pretty much the complete description of Scroogery, isn't it?

Sorry. Female Grinch was the closest pic I could find to the me-Scrooge reference. Work with me, huh?

I had some identity crisis in my youth. Conflict of beliefs: Christian vs. Non-Christian, and then I was seriously traumatized to wait up all night for Santa and not discover that he was not real, but that he had skipped us. With all the carols claiming he wouldn't bring presents if you were bad, and then waiting up all night for him to appear and him being a no-show, I naturally assumed I had been very, very bad. So on Christmas Eve 1979, my Christmas Spirt meter took a nose dive, and never quite recovered, especially since Hannukah Harry left no gifts, either.
The next morning, there were pajamas. Socks. Underwear. Oranges and walnuts in stockings. No Princess Leia double bun-wig. No Strawberry Shortcake lipgloss. It was all very anticlimactic and the bitter seed was planted. I joined the forces of the Grinch [except I hated him for yanking poor Max around].

Now that I have a Wee One, I decided to break all the rules. I let her plunge into Christmas as far as she wants while I buck The System. Determined that she should not suffer the cruelty of dependence on self esteem from Santa, I told her early on that there wasn't any Santa. That people pretend-believed for fun.
Her response was that I was completely out of the loop, she had someone on the inside, who had phoned Santa directly. We've argued about this numerous times, I've pleaded with her, even told her that I am Santa. All to no avail.

So my other semi-stick-it-to-da-man Christmas thing is that I buy presents from Thanksgiving through December 17th and put on my Santa hat and give them to her along the way. She's usually right there when I buy them, too. This makes it fun because I am the kind of person who can't WAIT to give presents, plus I hate wrapping! On her end, she gets the cool stuff that the other kids all have to wait for, which makes her kinda zoomin'. Zoomin' in grade school is very important, if you don't remember. I made that expression up just now, but I think it works. [Dec 17th because she always flies out of state for Christmas. That's custody stuff].

Anyhow, here's a review I wrote of one of the toys she just got. If you're thinking of buying the Barbie Secret Password Journal, consider this:

Good luck getting your child back into the diary once she closes it. Despite saying the correct password roughly eleventy jillion times in different voices, at different distances, at different pitches, the snooty British double oh seven voice repeats "Password does not match. Please enter your password." The second time you fail, annoying sirens blast and something to the effect of "New intruder!" narcs on you, even though you're just trying to help a seven year old open her journal full of super secret heart doodles.
Whatever technology they have employed here to protect such secrets as "Bubble gum is my favrit lollipop," rest assured that it is safe. Hackers beware, Barbie is no dumb blonde when it comes to security.
Protectors of liberty and leaders of the western world, Barbie is on to something here. Perhaps a meeting of the minds is in order. A lunch at the Pentagon? Our freedom may very well depend on the superior cyber-steel password technology known to Barbie.
In the meantime, we'll be sitting here, resisting the urge to throw the journal against the wall to break it open and shut up The Voice.
P.S. It wouldn't hurt to take a look at Ken, too.

Thanksgiving - Let The Games Begin!

2011-11-24T18:30:00.001-06:00

It’s just not Thanksgiving til you realize that peculiar scent accompanying your turkey plate is…

Well, let me give you the set up first: I was at what would effectively be the “kiddie table”. A coffee table used to conserve space for the buffet-style Thanksgiving. And to be sure, everything was lovely. Traditional fare: buttery potatoes, corn, stuffing [unstuffed, of course because it’s apparently unsafe these days, despite years of stuffing in turkeys which we all survived], pumpkin custard.

The different aromas enjoin in a briney, herbed scent that tempts everyone for hours until dinner is finally ready.

So we kneeled around the coffee table and I noticed just a slightly –different- scent mingling among the steaming plates. A little off. But perhaps I was being ungrateful on this holiday of gratefulness and thanks. Was it a secret family recipe?

My nose scanned the air again to detect the origin. It may be said that I have a well tuned palate and detect the pure chocolate created from the bean plucked from an Ecuadorian rainforest compared to the inferior bean adulterated with *gulp* vanillin.

This scent was a bit sour. Sour cream in the mashed potatoes? I leaned over to Little Daughter’s plate to discreetly sniff since I don’t eat mashed potatoes.

No. The scent trail stopped. Not from the potatoes.

Was it perhaps...of human origin?

<><><><> <><><><> <><><><>

Good God. We haven't even had the lima beans yet.

No. It lingered and wasn't -you know- of the inner workings.

A little acidic. Maybe a sweet and sour preparation with delicate rice vinegar?

Absolutely not. There was beginning to be nothing delicate about this…smell.

I panned the table and peered into the kitchen again on the pretense of fixing a drink. Was there a foreign dish that made its way into the celebration? A donation, perhaps?

Curiously, the sour aroma faded as a approached the kitchen instead of getting stronger! The culprit was not there!

We ate. Tentatively. Nothing at the table could be assigned to the scent. But they say that 70% of your sense of taste is through your sense of smell. And it just was making me feel a little ill, to be absolutely honest. Where had I smelled this before?

It followed me. Was *I* perhaps guilty of contributing the offense? Were those around me too polite to say so?!
The horror of that thought made my face hot. I turned my head to disguise what surely was my skin blushing in my own disgust. When I did, sure enough the whiff emanated from my very own butt.
Gah!
It couldn't be! I'm fully in control of my faculties, and besides, it's understood that in my delicacy, I do not perform certain functions. Ever. Never ever.
Impossible!
My butt was a victim! Framed! In the cruelest of ways, it was a set-up.
I had sat in something foul.

On my last bite of turkey, sitting across from me on the floor at the coffee table, my host’s son crinkled up his nose and said, “Mom, did you clean up all the dog vomit that was right here?”

<><><><> <><><><> <><><><>

He even looks a little queasy, doesn't he?

Mystery solved. But apparently he's not the kind of dog who vomits and then is thoughtful enough to eat it back up again.

Now that the ice was broken so to speak - I felt I could approach the subject freely.

"It's a little vomit-y over here," I said. But I was smiling. Kinda. We're friends, after all, and nurses. However, despite the conception that nurses have heard it all and don't blink at any foul topic, I draw the line at fresh vomit-y stains wafting sour bile two feet from Thanksgiving dinner. And my friend had just gone to all the trouble to prepare this lovely feast, so I naturally couldn't lodge a complaint without offering to clean it up myself.
She directed me to the baby wipes (??) and febreze Hawaiian Breeze.
For future reference? Baby wipes are not effective against vomit-y stains.
So the smell sort of went from ghastly sickening to sour-nursery with a touch of coconut.

And we liked our Thanksgiving and had fun. Maybe not the dog, who is outside trying to poo. No photo for that.
My friend just said she smelled something stinky inside, so it's time to investigate.
There are two other dogs that live here.

Packing Some Bird.

2011-11-21T08:54:00.001-06:00

At what length will you go to get your pet out into nature? To have him make big potty, get exercise, see the world as it would be for him had he been...a-hem...stray?
We leash and walk. They poop and we scoop. Some even have big handbags in which small dogs who have lost every measure of canine dignity are toted and glitzed with bows in their ears and diamond-ish collars.
We baby-talk them. Examine the food-bags to make sure they are getting the right amount of "crude fat" and "ash" and "protein" per serving, even though we don't have any earthly idea what that means.
In short, we baby these pets.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
I've been know to take a stick and poke at the left behinds of my dog's poo, just to make sure it was of normal consistency and without foreign inhabitants. I can only imagine what it looks like to passers-by to see a hottie [that's me] hunched over a steaming pile o' poo with a stick, concentrating, looking for a sign of irregularity, but I contend that since my dog could not speak, I had to inspect.

Fetching the poop is not necessary. I can get to it myself. Thankyouverymuch.

It's a labor of love.

Anyhow, today I found something extraordinary: a bird being granted the great outdoors by her guardian. Were her wings clipped? No. Was she on a leash? No. Did she fly away? No.

The little green parrot was contained in her own backpack. That right, on the back on a UWF student walking the natrue trail of the Edward Ball nature trail thingy. The back pack was ventilated and the parrot had a little log perch porch in there so she was swinging around in her own private jail cell while she admire the great outdoors and the free birds around her:

Now, I know I didn't get a very good photo, but it's very hard to sneak up on someone while they are backbacking and try to snap their bird.

Hopefully you can see the backpack and the parrot inside it, who was looking all "WTH am I doing in someone's backpack?"

You know that look people get when they are forced to ride in the back of a pick up truck and get that bitter look? You're the driver behind them and you enter into this unwilling relationship because there you are - eye to eye - just on account of the fact that you are next in line after these unfortunate [probable] teens who sit facing towards you. Just be glad we're not in a second world country or they would be rounding corners at breakneck speed and firing AK-47s into the air shouting [ enter your favourite coup d'etat slogan here]. That's kinda how this parrot looked. Like he wanted a revolution.

If it's possible for a bird to look embarrassed, this one achieved it.

Where's the most interesting place you've taken your pet?

School Nurse is BACK! Fun With Beeps: The Hearing Test

2011-11-16T14:54:00.001-06:00

Yes, it's another Note from the Frontline of Nursing.
You remember those days when you'd be sitting in Math class and Mrs. Peterson had that sullen look on her face because class was being disrupted. It was, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. One by one children came in and out swapping for the next alphabetical last name to get a ten minute vacation from those agonizing decimal points.
It was time for the school nurse to check your hearing.
Admit it, you got a non-innocent FAIL look on your face and said, "I thought I heard a beep in my right ear that time, but I'm not sure." All in the name of killing a few more moments of Math.
I did it, too.
Until I was the one on the other side of the machine.
Enter the 1963 Hear-o-Matic Deluxe. I'm fairly certain that our department hadn't upgraded the things since Pete Best was still with the Beatles.

The golden days of hearing tests. This is a typewriter. The little boy raises his hand when Nursey gets to the end of a sentence and the typewriter goes "ding!"

I took a cleaning wipe to the machine and wiped the grime of a million kids from it. Eww.

I calibrated the bulky Hear-o-Matic. We measured children at 250 to 5000 Hertz. Not the rental cars, but a highly technical audio thingy that has to do with measuring the conduction of sound wave thingies your hearing thingy. Trust me on this.
The problem was, when I set it at the standard guidelines, the wires to the headphones (can I just remind you that the headphones are eeewwww after they clamp onto a thousand heads?) got kind of worn and wouldn't transmit the beeps at the right pitch (which is the Hertz thingy.)

What's this mean for you, little student? Well, it means you will fail your hearing test, and I will have to send your mother a letter saying you can't hear shit, and she will freak out and the next day my phone will ring from 800 mothers and a few angry fathers who will demand to know which McNursing School I went to.

And this is how he's going to look again in a month when he gets the next letter that Norbert's BMI is 26 and he's clinically obese. Parents *love* that letter!

We don't want that.
So I called my boss and told her that the machine really wasn't working well and I couldn't hear the beep at 250 and 500 Hertz thingies.
"Easy fix!" she said. "Just turn the volume all the way up!"
Well. OK. But as far as I can tell, that kinda defeats the purpose of standardizing the Hertz and decibal levels for all the children.
Not that it mattered.
Not at all.

As you well remember, these tests included a little jaunt to somewhere quiet - usually the library. Well, I packed up my Samsonite looking case and trekked off to the library, which was the quietest area, but still not so quiet.
You see, it was a lovely Spring day, and to get some fresh air, windows and doors were propped open.
But I gave it my all.
By the 3rd student I saw the massive failure.
"You know how it works? You raise your hand each time you hear the beep. Right hand for right ear, left for left."
Agreed.
She raised her right hand. I lifted the headphone from her ear.
I said, "But I haven't even sent a signal. You at least have to wait for me to start the test before you start faking it."
Then I heard a beep. She said, "That was the beep. Don't you hear that?" She took the headphones out of my hand and clamped them to her skull again, listening for the beep.
And another, and another.
And she kept raising her damn hand.
A truck was backing up outside, beeping.
Beep=Beep=Beep=Beep

Oh, Mr. Trucker, How many children have you helped pass their hearing screenings?

And I packed my things up and went back to the clinic where there were much easier issues to deal with. Like a sudden outbreak of fevers in Mrs. Johnson's English Class That Is Having An Exam.

When Classifieds Go Wrong

2011-11-14T15:37:00.000-06:00

Here's a classified ad in our local paper. They left out some important information, so we can only hope that it's not some secret futuristic ad for something a little surreptitious. Our writing group used classified ads as a prompt and here is my story to go with the ad:

SMALL BLK/WHT GIRL MIX SHOTS $75 (850)xxx-xxxx

Lily and George looked at the ads for the seventeenth Sunday in a row, hoping to find the right addition to their second floor stucco apartment.
"Double check the directions, ok George?" Lily asked. They had looked up driving directions to meet breeders before, only to find themselves pointed the wrong way along one-way streets.
Earlier, the search for the perfect match brought anticipation and excitement each time they backed out of the driveway, but as they returned home empty-handed, it was becoming a source of disappointment. Still, they would look.
They never cared to find a pure bred. Lily preferred a light haired female because they weren't as surly as males, and at least if they shed the hair wouldn't be as noticable. Color and gender never mattered much to George, so long as they found the right temperment.
"This is it I guess," said George when they pulled through the gravel driveway, the stones crunching under the tires. "Cross your fingers that she's the one!" They linked pinkies.
The breeders stood in the threshold, welcoming George and Lily.
"There's just one left, but she's got really nice coloring. She's a little smaller than the others, but gentle and sweet," offered the woman, who was white. The man held the girl's hand, smiling.
It was clear to see that the girl's caramel complexion was a perfect blend of the two.
"Take your time," said the man, "Get to know her. It's a big decision."

Hello New Friends in Canada!

2011-11-13T22:15:00.001-06:00

I just noticed some new readers in Canada, one of my favorite countries. Are there friendlier people?
Welcome to my blog. Thanks for reading, and please let me know where in beautiful Canada you are!

When is it Time to Disown Your Uncle?

2011-11-12T20:03:00.001-06:00

Sometimes it has to be done. Tonight the decision was clear for me. I will never see that uncle again.

I could forgive the annoying trangressions that built up over time, things that seemed to heal with a little distance. But it just never got better. I heard it put something like this: Anyone can get survive a crisis; it’s the tiny, everyday ankle biting that will get you in the end.

So while there was nothing fatal with this uncle, tonight was enough, because he tampered with my food.

In the past, it was irritations like when I went hungry because he locked me out of the kitchen after ten p.m. It was “too late” to eat.

I forgave him when he ran up my credit card over what we agreed on, chalking it up to an innocent mistake.

It made me nervous, but I let it pass when his gang barked at me in whatever code they had, mocking me, I’m sure. They would pretend they couldn’t understand me, and stole my money when I tried to pay for food.

All under Uncle Jiang's direction.

On to tonight: Dinner.
Chicken Chow Mein. Exhibit A:

Uncle Jiang's Chinese Take Out

Chicken Chow Mein does not consist of a few spindly shreds from an anemic chicken (? somewhat suspect) smothered in onions. See the two bright orange threads there? Those are purely for medical reasons. They exist only so that the diner can rest assured that she has not suddenly gone color blind from the lack of real green chow mein vegetables.

On the other hand, Uncle Jiang may have been looking out for my best interests, knowing the wicked ways of men, perhaps he filled the chicken chow mein exclusively with onions to keep single men at a kilometer's distance. Oh Uncle Jiang! Have I completely misread you?

Exhibit B:

Egg Foo Young

Yes, that dark brown ca-ca on the upper left is the egg. Yes, I was so hungry that I hurried and ate some, lest Uncle Jiang chase me out of the kitchen at ten o'clock. Yes, my stomach is doing some Chinese martial art on itself.

See the brown "gravy" stuff? Egg Foo Young traditionally comes with a light brown gravy, thickened with a bit of cornstarch, and the barest hint of black pepper. Good gravy gives American style gravy a run for its money. This? Is sloppy, lazy bottled hoisin sauce poured into a styrofoam cup. You think I don't know, Uncle Jiang? You think you can pull the wool over my eyes and finely tuned palate? I have the taste buds of a thousand generations of picky eaters.

I think we're done here.

The Second Worst Costume Ever?

2011-11-12T15:38:00.001-06:00

OK, so most little girls were princesses and angels. It's not the worst costume, after all. Paging through the photo album in twenty years shouldn't be too traumatizing.

Because...

she originally wanted to be an Orca. After the Free Willy Movie, you know.
I hestitated, picturing what a killer whale costume might look like. But it was Halloween, so what the heck, right?
"Enjoy it while you can," I said, "because I promise - this will be the first and last time in your life you'll ever want people to point you out as a whale."
But there were no Free Willy costumes to be had.
So we went with a penguin.
"Look, it's Happy Feet!" people said, which I guess is a movie. And perhaps this is the last time she'll want to be known for her feet.

Best Food You've Never Tried: Elephant Foot

2011-11-09T13:57:00.003-06:00

"Elephant Foot"

I am here to announce that there is nothing I have tasted that is quite as delicious as a steaming plate of elephant foot in black bean sauce. A generous plateful of it, in boneless slices with deep brown savory gravy, and you'll swear you'll never go back to chicken again.

It's delicate and tender. The grain of the foot carries the sauce well and absorbs flavor. There's not a tough bit or piece of gristle or nastly cartilage to be found in well prepared elephant's foot. And when you're finished, you feel really comfortably satisfied, not just because you ate well, but because not a single elephant fell for your meal. And that's good karma.

Elephant's foot is a plant that tickles my soul. I've had it in some Chinese food, in Maryland, but have not been able to find it since moving south, which is is a double bummer since it's yumbalina AND it is supahhh fun to say "I just had some elephant foot in black bean sauce" and stump those who don't know about it.

That said, we have a pretty diverse natural food store in our area. I go in there and I meander down aisle by aisle for HOURS. While I can't get elephant's foot, there's a myriad of options for organic and veg and even humane certified meats.
Supplements and infusions aplenty. Those exotic juices and obscene looking vegetables might not be doing a blessed thing for you healthwise, but they're sure fun to try.

Who knew you could buy little balls of tea that, as you pour the steaming water over, they actually BLOOM into a beautiful flower right in your cup?!
The deli is always full of beautiful and exotic veg and non veg selections. The bulk foods are lovely and well stocked.
My only complaint is that consumption of healthy, sustainable foods should not have to make to refinance your house. I could practically buy a 20 crops of elephant's foot in Nigeria for what it costs to find a pound of it here.

And so - It's back to Walmart for me. Processed crap. Even the vegetarian food is pressed and battered to the point I cannot imagine it ever once belonged to the plant family.

Prepare for political statement: Junk crap food is so readily available and cheap here in the US that *nowhere else in the world* will you find destitute, poor people who are clinically obsese. The truly poor of other nations are ravaged, and skinny.
I wonder if you offered a hungry person from a second or third world nation some yoghurt, how many would shy away, because they have a 'lactose thing'...
or a 'gluten thing'...
or a peanut allergy?

For we who eat so much meat, it would be a lovely experiment to try new foods such as the elephant's foot.

And who says you can't have a little fun freaking people out at first?

See why it's called Elephant's Foot?

This is Elephant's Foot. YUM!!

Golden Lettuce, Who Knew?

2011-11-07T19:30:00.000-06:00

So I went to Bagels del Sol because I had a coupon, and thank goodness I did, because if I had spent $17.68 for what we ate, I would have expected them to point and laugh as we walked out the door.
"Hot Ham and Cheese Sandwich" ? for $6.99, Little Daughter received exactly: 1 hard bagel
1 slice o' cheese
1 slice o' ham
and bagel chips. I'll get to them in a minute. Seriously, this place was ridiculously stingy. What are we, in some eastern bloc country in 1981? And after waiting nearly 15 minutes for her sandwich, you'd think at least the cheese would be hot and melty, right?
Ha, ha! Did I say it was $6.99 and under the "specialty" section? That's not pesos, that's American dollars.
I ordered the ...oh heck I don't know what's called, but it's got turkey (Ha ha!) lettuce, and cucumbers and cream cheese in a wrap.
They just didn't tell us it was a scavenger hunt for the meat. Because really? It was a freaking lettuce and cucumber wrap. Also for $6.99. OK, so it was the super crispy lettuce, I think they call it "Iceberg." What's that go for these days, anyhow? Cause I have to admit, there was, like, a *wedge* of Iceberg lettuce in my wrap. Complete mouthfuls of Iceberg. So I really shouldn't complain because I haven't checked the markets and for all I know, that Iceberg Lettuce could be like those gourmet truffle mushrooms from France. In that sense, $6.99 for a wedge of lettuce wrap is most likely a steal.
I probably shouldn't even be reviewing that because the secret will be out and people will line up around the corner for Wrap a la Iceberg.

IMAGE: Honestly? I googled "lettuce filled wrap" and this was the closest pic I could find to what I had. Why? Because nobody outside of Bagels del Sol makes such a mockery of their customers.

OK...
The chips.
People? I'm all about recycling. Use what you can. So it doesn't bother me at all that Lettuce del Sol slices their (day old?) bagels to make chips from them. But they can't just toss whatever they have into a bag of cajun spices willy-nilly and call it "good."
What I mean is - leftover cinnamon raisin bagels? They do not get the garlic/salt/papper treatment and slapped in the basket with a lettuce wrap. Cinnamon and garlic is bad, bad juju.

In fact, how about you keep the hot pepper spices for people who like hot pepper spices, instead of the *plate of a first grader*?? That's pretty much a NO BRAINER that a six year old won't want hot, firey garlicky, cinnamon chips with her one slice o' ham sandwich.

Now, I'm not saying that proper handwashing techniques weren't followed here.
But I AM saying that previously, we ate the same things we've been eating at our house with no issues. But when we came back from Bagels del Sol, within about two hours, some wicked stomach cramps set in.
Montezuma's revenge of the Lettuce Cups.
And then once it was out of out systems, we were fine. So, yeah, I guess I'm pointing a finger.
Or ten.

One Warning.

2011-11-07T13:55:00.000-06:00

It only took one warning.
But what would have happened next, if the warning went unheeded?
If anyone knows, in fact, the true protocol, please let me know. What would the Old Guard have done?
Thanks.

Bieber Baby Bulletin

2011-11-04T15:11:00.001-05:00

I don’t usually follow much pop star news (ok, I do, but just in the doctor’s waiting room) but the Bieber baby thing has an interesting twist.

The baby’s mother (for the love of Pete – when will the trashy term “baby mama” go away?) presents her case with the risk of charges for statutory rape of Bieber because he was under age when they supposedly had sex. (ARGHHH. The visual! Make it stop!)

If he was a victim per the law, why would he have to pay child support?

Is that like sentencing someone to house arrest for assault and making the victim pay the rent?

What do you think?

Happy Sandwich Day!

2011-11-02T17:49:00.000-05:00

What's your favorite sammy?

This, by the way, is said to be the World's Most Expensive Sandwich.
$197.00
Ka-CHING!

I like the Monte Cristo. And vegetarian sandwiches.

Tell me about yours!

Happy Day of the Dead!

2011-11-01T16:07:00.000-05:00

If You're Reading This, Dump Him, Wanda.

2011-10-30T18:34:00.001-05:00

With everyone having 764 “friends” online, will the word “friend” take on a new meaning in the dictionary? I mean, they’re not all really your friends, right? Or am I the only person with a couple hundred friends, none of whom I would recognize on the street?

We’re dependent on our electronics. I don’t smoke, rarely drink, never use drugs and have a bottle of Lortab somewhere that I never finished from surgery three years ago. (No, you may not buy it. I don’t even know where it is.) There are two things that I send me Jonesing: 1] chocolate (not Hershey’s, I don’t cut my chocolate with cheap ingredients like “vanillin” for Pete’s sake) and 2) the w-w-w-web. I must check it. I don’t care if I never see another phone or television. Everything I need is Netified.

In fact, I hate phones.

There was a time when I could leave the house and be cheerily separated from my phone. Now it’s tethered to me like a dog tag. If my child’s school calls and I’m not at the end of the line, ready to pick her up for some unforeseen mishap, I can practically hear the tsk-tsk and see CPS on speed dial.

So I don’t want to hear other people’s convos in public. There’s always one person who still has Headphone Syndrome, that is, when he has an audio device squished to his ear, he talks/sings obnoxiously loud.

Case in point, the Casanova in the coffeehouse yesterday.

I went to do some writing. Instead I was treated to half the convo of a seduction/baptism/trial. It sounds good…but wasn’t satisfying. A 5.79 combo meal where you get the apple dippers instead of fries.

“Oh, honey! I’m on my way out, I just calling to see what you doin’ now.”

“Yes…HMM MMM! OH If you and mine’s love gets together, nothing gonna stop us, BAM! Like a train! You see.”

“I want to treat you like the queen you is, an if I can’t do that, I got no business with you, you know what I mean, baby? But you see, you see. That’s why I tell you to trust me.”

“No, Wanda’s boyfriend did her WRONG, and I was there as a friend. You got to help your friends out, I would do the same for you, Baby.”

“But you ARE my baby, Baby.”

At this point he pulled out a Bible and flipped through it.

“Listen! Listen, listen. I got to read you the Bible, and, where…No, LISTEN! The Bible SAYS you gots to love your neighbor! I find it. Yes, now – here it is. (Quotes whatever passage). You see? The Lord grants…No, yes, no, I don’t know where she be. I’m coming to you. Open the Old Testament!”

“No, you don’t need to be talking like that. She your SISTER.”

Yes, that’s what I said, Baby, oooooh-weeeeeee! We got together for a reason, and the Lord knows it. Now the future is a mystery, but you can’t let your sisters ruin it for you.”

This went on for a solid forty five minutes.

No writing was done.

If I must listen to half of a cell phone convo, I don’t want to hear about garden variety Jerry Springer material. If you’re going to be broadcasting your business, please make it about leading the Sierra Leone rebels through underground tunnels while hyenas sniffed your trail as you hustled the 829 carat diamond. THAT is worth listening to.

Over 18! Halloweenies!

2011-10-29T22:11:00.001-05:00

So I present to you the question of what, really, makes an adult? The magic number is supposed to be 18. But I’m seeing things that make me wonder if we need a Maturity Card like the old AMEX commercials. That is, Don’t Leave Home Without It.

Grow Up, he says!

I submit Exhibit A, Competitive Trick-or-Treating:

OK, not quite trick or treating. We had a Halloween Egg Haunt tonight whereby a big soccer field is fettered with orange and black plastic eggs filled with candy. The instructions were: “Parents, stay along the fence line and let the children run on the field at the end of the countdown.”

You know what’s coming, don’t you?

3…2…1…

Good Parents (A-hem. That would be me.) stayed on the fence line.

Bad Parents rushed the field like it was a championship game. At first they were moderately aggressive in coaching their children:

“COME ON, Bradley, there’s one RIGHT in front of you, son! How could you not see that one before the little Lady Gaga got it?”

Then the Bad Parents started to take matters into their own hands. They stood in front of eggs so other little kids couldn’t see them before their kid did. They started to corral the eggs oh-so-not-discretely around their feet, much like the Emperor Penguin balances eggs on his feet until they hatch:

IMAGE: He's supposed to be hiding that egg under there.

Then it was no-holds-barred for the Bad Parents. They outright DIVED for eggs, wiping out little princesses and vampires.

“Bradley, I got four eggs for you! Come here, quick!” pretend-whispered Bad Dad.

And that’s when the Good Parents had enough of this and went to settle up.

But it was a really curious thing; Brad’s Bad Dad was dressed like a freaky werewolf from hell, and Good Dad was kind of straight from work. Frankly, it didn’t look like an even match. In fact it seemed like all the Bad Parents were witches, monsters, zombies, or vampires and the ones on the fence line were in suits and ties. Typecasting? Life imitating art? Oh, why don't I have a camera at these moments?

So before we knew it, the officials were clearing the field, and some children had managed to get two eggs in their bag before Bad Dads stepped on their fingers. The offspring of the bully parents had like forty-three eggs each. Which I guess is okay, because inside was crap candy like Atomic Fireballs and Sweet Tarts, which nobody likes anyhow. (P.S. Sign of the times! Where’s the chocolate, people? I bird dog my child to bring me back CHOCOLATE, not stinking Atomic Fireballs! Am I right? Can I get a Wha-Wha?)

Do not send my child back with these in her Halloween bag, please.

I spent good money on a Disney princess costume and expect a little appreciation in the form of chocolate.

Immature? No! Just because I plunder the treat bag in the privacy of my own home does not make me immature. Does it?

Martial Smarts

2011-10-28T14:01:00.000-05:00

(For sake of familiarity, I'll refer to Korean martial arts terminology here. What? You don't know Korean?! OK - fumble along and I'll graciously provide explanation, just as a patient Master would do).
I always, always wanted to have a go at Martial Arts. I liked the clean white uniforms (doboks), the crazy HI-YA! shouting (kihaps), and the discipline that I sorely lacked (uuummm, present tense applies). For years I allowed my mind to tip toe around the thought of entering a studio (dojang) to inquire, but I was convinced that they would go all Cobra-Kai on me, like the bad dojang from the first Karate Kid, and I'd be standing there, doing the Crane with a jacked up leg dangling, thinking, "what the hell am I doing facing off with the Cobra-Kai guy? I'm 35 and have a three year old watching from the bleachers, not Ralph Macchio with his Sensei stoically channelling his ch'i power!"
Alas, I Entered the Dojang.
Since then, I've been pinned, joint-locked, thrown, flipped, tapped, kicked, punched, had pressure point squeezed, seen stars, bled, healed, and bled again. It's no easy task to start martial arts when you are well into adulthood and are under following delusions:
~people jump long distances in slow motion
~the only non Asian white person really good at MA is Chuck Norris, and soon after you will need to buy a Total Gym (WHICH I DID)
~every Asian person secretly knows MA, even the little old bendy ones with canes
~Grand Masters can kill you with a simple touch to your pinky.
The truth, as usual is more difficult to sort out. Of course, no one jumps in slow motion, but MA, is neither limited by race or age (case in point: me). And it might be a sort of cool urban legend that Asian people have some inherent martial arts gene, but that's kind of like saying that all French food is superb, and if you've ever had Ris de Cervelles au Beurre Noir (scrambled brains in brown butter), you know what I mean. It's just a stereotype.
Some martial artists are bickering endlessly about whose art is the "best", although I suspect that this is the younger crowd; the experienced practitioners tend to shy away from trivial arguments and focus on amerliorating themselves and their art. Me? I just like to be practice, as they say in Judo, "the gentle art of throwing". Shoulder throws, hip throws - just sail me through the air, preferably letting me gracefully land on a mat, sans injury.
I don't pretend to be an expert at subduing the opponent, but I had already done alot of stuff that, in my mind, qualified me at least halfway to black belt. These include:
~random falling, tripping, jumping, bumping, and toe-stubbing
~deflecting the octopus arms of over-eager dates
~scaling fences (of angry dogs)
~practicing various impossible yoga poses (Scorpion, anyone?)
~living on a diet of a bowl of rice a day for four months for that ascetic spitituality thing
~giving birth without drugs (or even without another person in the same room- (hello? definite black belt material) ~I owned ~I owned a sword - OK, a scimitar from my belly dancing days - (close enough)!
So, I forged ahead to the male dominated world of throw-downs. But like anything else, there are people in it who drool at the prospect of selling a student a coloured belt every few months. Note, I said selling not teaching. And it snowballs until the art is lost in commercialism and dragon symbols that would make even Bruce Lee turn in his grave.
(Not that purists and excellent instructors don't exist! In my humble experience, a great instructor makes the dojang environment welcoming, not intimidating. He or she is not punative, but encouraging, and is committed to success for students of many different abilities. He or she is also humourous and humble, recognizing insight and opportunities to learn from the newest white belt)!
Back to me, of course. I still seek the great SaBomNim who will guide my jump roundhouse kicks into sonic booms and my inner Asian spirit to enlightenment. Until then, I practice my breakfalls and ambushing snap kicks with aplomb, and try not to scream when I step on a squeaky cat toy in the middle of the night - which seems not to alarm my Ninja Within, but my tiny Grasshoppah...
PHOTO: I know - the form needs work. I still look pretty badass.

School Nurse Curse

2011-10-27T20:09:00.001-05:00

So you think a school nurse just kisses boo-boos. Clamps the hearing test machine on the kids' heads once a year and presses the beep button. Maybe takes a temperature now and then. Essentially a “cush” job, right?

Indulge me. Let me tell you a few stories as a school nurse and why I will never, ever do it again.

Get your hot water going, because you’re going to want to take a bath when we’re done.

Let’s start with little “Jessica” age 5.

I was assigned an elementary school in a decent neighborhood and was in the clinic when a teacher brought Jessica inside. She was crying, hard, the kind of crying where they have the long strings of snot and get choked up.

“She ran into a post!” cried the teacher, and indeed an enormous egg shaped alien was sprouting from her forehead.

I brought little Jessica to the cot, and called for some ice. After checking her pupils and neurological checks, it was time to call the parents.

Contact number one disconnected.

Contact number two disconnected.

Emergency contact three didn’t speak English.

I spoke enough of her language to let her know we needed the parents to come for Jessica, and then returned to the girl. She was still so hysterical that she couldn’t hold the ice to her head.

I sat with her doing all the nursey things, holding the ice to her head, reassuring her with, “You’re ok,” and “Your parents are coming, don’t worry.”

I tipped my head to her head, cradling her and saying little things to make her laugh, and get her mind off her headache. We stayed this way a good hour, rocking and so forth. I was wondering where the parents were and I sat back from Jessica to tell her that I was going to call again. My hair band had come undone, and I swept my long hair out of my eyes, leaned back and….

heart

stopped.

Nope, nothing there.

Hundreds. There were hundreds. Her head was so infested with lice I almost thought they had to be some other bug. I never knew they could get that big. Sorta like goldfish? I guess if you just keep feeding them they grow as big as they want?

Really? Who thought this was an appropiate game?

In the nurses’ station we always had a super fine-tooth comb and magnifying glass to look for cooties. You could take a fly swatter to these things. And here I was, all along, head-to-head comforting little Jess for her freaking bump.

Well, inside I was screaming. I very nearly shoved her off my lap and onto the carpet in panic. But I contained myself and gently slip her off while I mouthed the words “LICE, YOU CHECK!” to a health tech in the office.

Okay, story break for a minute.

This health tech was a child of the 70’s and her mother had a thing for Sonny and Cher. To that end her mother wanted to name her “Chastity,” after You Know Who. Except for some reason her mother missed a “T” and ended up naming her “Chasity.” To avoid the constant explanations of why her name is Chasity, she goes by “Chas.”

IMAGE: NOT this one.

Now let’s put it all together.

She thought that when I silently mouthed the words “LICE, YOU CHECK!” that I was saying, “LIKE YOU, CHAS!” and she looked at me like I had just spit in her cornflakes.

So I got up, and right then the Daddy came in, carrying a little baby. All crawling with bugs.

As for me, I went immediately to CVS and bought bug shampoo. I stripped outside my door because I didn’t want to bring in ANYTHING I was wearing at the school. It didn’t matter to me who saw.

I never saw any cooties, but I didn’t care. The instructions said leave it on for 10 minutes, I left it on for 30. There was a hotline so I called it.

“Do you think any got on me?” I asked.

The man answered, “Well, head to head transmission *is* the most common way to get them.

“But I didn’t SEE any. Could I still have gotten them?” I asked.

“It’s possible. You’ll know in 10 days when eggs hatch!” he said, sort of excited, like they were his babies.

“What?! I don’t want eggs! I don’t want to wait 10 days! I need answers!”

I was starting to feel like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men when he says to Col. Jessup “I want the truth!”

And Col. Jessup says, “You can’t handle the truth!”

(about cooties in your hair)

Plus the pesticide fumes were hurting my eyes. I was talking to him with the stuff in my hair.

So we hung up and I started combing through, or rather combing out my hair. As it fell in clumps on the floor.

Never caught any bugs, thank goodness. But wait til I tell you about being a nurse at the beach. Remember the old saying about how urine helps jellyfish stings? Well…

A Spectator Sport Even I Can Love

2011-10-23T17:56:00.002-05:00

Ok, so “sports” is a six-letter four-letter word to me. Here’s my list of regretful sports:

· Baseball: I heard there’s a diamond in it somewhere, and that’s as far as I can appreciate it. The rest seems like waiting around for something to happen.

· Football: I object on linguistic basis. I’m going to have to agree with the rest of the world on this – soccer is football. I can’t think of an appropriate name for American football. But when the quarterback guy passes the ball under his legs, there’s a joke dying to be made.

IMAGE: YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW THE PICS THAT CAME UP FOR THIS GOOGLE SEARCH. PASS THE EYE BLEACH.

· Basketball: Somehow, when someone accidentally rakes a nail against a chalkboard, or a baby is crying people are ready to peel their faces off in protest. But give ‘em a court and some tall guys and they’ll listen to the wretched sound of rubber sneakers squeaking on a waxed floor for hours.

· Hockey: Sarah Palin.

· Boxing: Being a nurse, I have to resist the urge to jump in there and start dabbing eye cuts and calling for ice. And then scolding the guys for getting in a fight.

· Nascar: I drive in circles on a regular basis. I even have a major car manufacturer plastered on the front and back on my vehicle. The only “purse” money I get is the same 68 cents jingling around the bottom that I started out with.

Now, I realize I’m alienating sports fans. Rest assured, there’s a something we can agree on.

People watching. A spectator sport by definition.

I’m not going to go all “People of Walmart” on you. Those are consumers on the fringe, braving Walmart at 2AM to indulge in the passion of a hot pink unitard and leopard skin cowboy hat at 300 pounds. But our funny friends at the State Fair march out in broad daylight to indulge in gastronomic and entertainment monstrosities. To wit:

PHOTO: Do You Know What This Is? No, You Do Not.

Ok, so on the left is a chocolate covered strawberry. That was just a warm-up. The right, however, is…chocolate covered bacon. But everyone knows fair food is weird. Let’s move on.

“Honey, do you think he’s ready for the motorized scooter yet?”

Can you see this? That’s gotta be like a 7 or 8 year old in that stroller. And that’s the kind of stroller with the little sun shader thing. Shoot, I’m venturing into Walmart territory, aren’t I?

PHOTO: Fair Beer. Watch Your Drink.

See the guy behind the counter on the right? See how he’s standing? Good. Now make sure your beer is COLD.

PHOTO: Milk some wood.

This poor little girl has been duped into milking a facsimile of a cow at the fair. What she is pulling on behind the painted planks is anyone’s guess. For Pete’s sake, I hope it’s a rubber surgical glove filled up with warm milk, and that’s all I’m saying about that.

PHOTO: Knit cap on steroids.

And Aunt Becky said, “I’ve got jes’ the thing fer when the State Fair comes ‘round! Hold on to it tight, or someone’ll steal this hat sure as cocks crow!”

See the people trying not to look?

PHOTO: Fair ride or Soviet-era jail?

Lastly, it’s just not a fair until someone gets stuck or maimed on one of these contraptions, is it?

Happy Fairing!

P.S.

If you see animals at your fair without shade, food or water or they are being taunted or hurt, please help them. Notify the livestock manager. Take cell pics for evidence. You’re the good guy. ;)

2011-10-23T17:34:00.001-05:00

Ok, so “sports” is a six-letter four-letter word to me. Here’s my list of regretful sports:

· Baseball: I heard there’s a diamond in it somewhere, and that’s as far as I can appreciate it. The rest seems like waiting around for something to happen.

IMAGE: YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW THE PICS THAT CAME UP FOR THIS GOOGLE SEARCH. PASS THE EYE BLEACH.

· Hockey: Sarah Palin.

· Boxing: Being a nurse, I have to resist the urge to jump in there and start dabbing eye cuts and calling for ice. And then scolding the guys for getting in a fight.

Now, I realize I’m alienating sports fans. Rest assured, there’s a something we can agree on.

People watching. A spectator sport by definition.

PHOTO: Do You Know What This Is? No, You Do Not.

Ok, so on the left is a chocolate covered strawberry. That was just a warm-up. The right, however, is…chocolate covered bacon. But everyone knows fair food is weird. Let’s move on.

“Honey, do you think he’s ready for the motorized scooter yet?”

PHOTO: Fair Beer. Watch Your Drink.

See the guy behind the counter on the right? See how he’s standing? Good. Now make sure your beer is COLD.

PHOTO: Milk some wood.

PHOTO: Knit cap on steroids.

And Aunt Becky said, “I’ve got jes’ the thing fer when the State Fair comes ‘round! Hold on to it tight, or someone’ll steal this hat sure as cocks crow!”

See the people trying not to look?

PHOTO: Fair ride or Soviet-era jail?

Lastly, it’s just not a fair until someone gets stuck or maimed on one of these contraptions, is it?

Happy Fairing!

P.S.

If you see animals at your fair without shade, food or water or they are being taunted or hurt, please help them. Notify the livestock manager. People visiting fairs have been prosecuted for abusing livestock on display before. Take cell pics and don’t ignore it because people around you do. You’re the good guy. ;)

Coffee Hell

2011-10-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

My friend Kelly in Alabama asks me how I stay up to write, what with being a single parent and all. She knows I don't like coffee, so what's the secret?

I admit that I frequent hipster cafes like Starbucks and Caribou, although for each one I feel my soul being anchored a little closer to Wall St to be traded with my wallet and the coffee beans. Criminal to pay through the nose for some java, but what can you do? I'm just as tethered to the social coffeehouse circle as the next person, and I don't even *like* coffee. I just need it. Here's to hoping they don't start regulating the juice of golden bean.

But as I said, it's not something I enjoy. I dress it up as much as I can with sweetener and soy milk and chocolate, and there's still no masking the awful burnt toast flavour. I'm concerned about it staining my teeth, so I usually accept the wayward glances as I sip it through I straw, and believe me somehow, the heat intensifies exponentially through a straw. To remedy that problem, I'd have to ice it down, but that would also dilute the caffeine, which is the buzz I'm chasing.

I used used to try to get the whole awful mess over with by purchasing instant coffee, taking a spoonful of the granules directly to my mouth and chasing it with a sip of water. I do NOT RECOMMEND. Let me say again, that was a BAD IDEA. First, if you can stand the horrible taste, it does not go away, even after several brushings. But those granules turn into a gummy, cement, gorilla-gluey type of mix with little bits of sandy type coffee that stay hard and go down the throat like shards of glass, and they stay stuck. Like for the next three hours.
Don't believe me?
OK, coffee cement be damned, you've done it. Now you have to deal with the fact that the instant coffee has made direct contact with your mucus membranes, and made a beeline for your bloodstream the moment you stared down that tablespoon of coffee granules and downed them. Within minutes the caffeine hit your brain and it went to overdrive, not in a good way. Your hands shake, your heart pounds. Why is everyone around you moving in slow motion? There things you are forgetting! Why is this meeting taking forever? Your pulse hums in your ears. Scribble, doodle, nerves, didn't we talk about this already? You look at your watch and see that, to your surprise, you've only been at work for ten minutes. You want to talk but your mouth can't catch up with your thoughts. No, you're too busy to talk. You're too busy trying to figure out what you are supposed to be doing that needs attention so fast. You just know you need to hurry. Then you get a little worried. And self-conscious. Do other people think you're acting funny? Is your face flushed? Why do you feel like you need to throw up? Well, at least, if you do, it might get that GRIT out of your throat! You really feel sick. And your breath, it's coffee, coffee, coffee.
And the crash begins...you cannot decide if food will help, or make you feel sicker. The fatigue you were trying to conquer is making a comeback, doubletime with nausea.
Well, in my case, I'm not a good sick person. People can tell when I don't feel good because I'm not tough. I'm no hero - I'll curl up in fetal position, flushed, heart racing and lay it all out there about how I did a really dumb thing with instant coffee just trying to stay awake, and feel so awful about it that I'll practially expect to be carted off in handcuffs for taking up work time.
So, after going to Human Resources for a "random" drug test (TOLDJA it was just coffee!) I'm back to Starbuck's - bending over with everyone else and having my....errr.....wallet cleaned out. For the sake of a cup of coffee. Oh, silly me - I meant a Venti Something Something Molitini Frolichotto.
(By the way, "Ventus" means "wind" in Latin, and I'm pretty sure that every time I order a "Venti" of anything, I'm just stupidly speaking some inside Italian joke for my money to be "Blown").
On principle, I refuse to buy a coffee maker. See, not only do I despise the taste of coffee, but I will not allow the overpowering scent of it to permeate my premises. So, to the ultra suave cafes I go for my buzz. It's a dirty truth, but detox is not an option.
For people like me, let's make sure these places stick around, lest the world run on instant coffee and dilated pupils and the brink of Armageddon.
See you at Starbucks. Or Hell. Whichever comes first.

Lies My Doctor Told Me.

2011-10-12T18:53:00.001-05:00

I am working on my third sore throat this fall. For some reason, I kick it for a little while, then I start hearing crackling noises in my right ear and I know the pain is about to rear its ugly head. Gargle with salt water, rinse and repeat times four. I don't have a doctor because I don't have insurance, but I did go to a local clinic and was proclaimed "fine". This time I've got that husky voice thing going on. Female Rod Stewart. Kathleen Turner. You get the idea.
I no longer own any tonsils or adenoids, having had them carved out and plopped in a medical waste bin when I was 23, under the guise of the old Ice Cream Myth. You know what I'm talking about - the one where they tell you that after you have your tonsils out, you can have all the ice cream, Jello, and pudding you want. I contentedly drifted off to surgery under this impression.

Imagine my surprise upon waking, when the scenario went *exactly* like this: Me, feeling like I inhaled Napalm with each breath, my throat gunking up and burning, combined with the grogginess and nausea of shaking off anesthesia. Enter the nurse, if not chipper, then at least, quick and nimble. From her pocket she produced two bags of

POTATO CHIPS.

Nurse: "Ok, You startin' to come out of now? Alright, as soon as you feel ready [read: NOW] I want you to start on some of these chips, and I'll check back and see how you're making out." She started to prance out as if that were totally normal. Surely she thought she was in the room with the patient who had a broken ankle but can eat chips? Not someone who just had her throat butchered?
I managed a grunt before she made to Base (that's the point at which nurses can safely pretend they don't hear your last request, and keep going down the hall) - the threshold of the door. She came back. I asked her about the ice cream, and she became stern. "No, no , no", Nurse Ratchet insisted as she started bending each finger back on one hand as a counting method, " We need you to eat chiiiiips, pretzellllls, tooooooast, crunchy and salty stuff." I laughed a little that she pulled off the joke so earnestly. "Well, if we have to go that route, can the ice cream be Rocky Road?", I asked. Not even a snicker. I looked at my then-boyfriend and croaked, "Are you in on this?", but he swore he wasn't.
The nurse explained the crunchy bits would scrape off bits of blood clots and keep the scabbing thin so that it would not all come off at once and hemorrhage. (Ewww, I know.) The salt is not compatible with many forms of bacteria, so the hope is that the salty food would keep bacteria down. (Thus the saltwater gargles for sore throats).
I mean HOW DID THEY KEEP THIS UNDER WRAPS FOR SO LONG?
Is this a conspiracy? Are they secretly wheeling people in for a tonsillectomy, knowing how freaking bad it hurts and pulling the old bait-n-switch with the ice cream? Or is this a new trend? Bad medicine?

IMAGE: I think I found my surgeon's school doodles:

So after my tonsillectomy, I followed orders and ate chips and felt like there was a battle with Ginsu knives going on in my throat.
Almost 20 years later, my tonsils are haunting me this summer and I'm losing my voice. But I'm going for some Heavenly Hash RIGHT NOW.

P.S. Did you ever wonder why the medical logo, caduceus, has snakes winding around it?

Hooter's vs. Harrah's - Get Your H's Straight, Priceline!

2011-10-10T13:46:00.000-05:00

OK, so this review of Hooters was from a couple of years ago, but so what? I was in Las Vegas 5 months ago, and it still rings true. It was listed as a 3 star hotel in Vegas. I'm on your side, people. Don't you fall for that 3 star crap!

Give the chicken their wings back - they are better on the chickens than in this sleazy dive.

Travel agent was meant to book my daughter and me at Harrah's. My former in-laws live in Vegas and I just wanted a halfway decent, inexpensive hotel to stay while I picked her up and visited. Going through Priceline, they must have gotten their H's confused, and I ended up booked at Hooter's. Non-refundable. No exchange. A-HEM. I called Hooters, and said, "Listen, I'm traveling to see former-in laws with my 4 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER, boobs is not what I intended for her to get in her mind as a career choice and this booking was a mistake". They insisted they are "FAMILY FRIENDLY" and would not refund.

Family friendly, my ass. Tito and Jenna Jameson the Porn Star were all over. Boobage to the max, like staying in a filthy huge frat house with a four year old. Plus the undisclosed $15/day resort fee, ummm, for what?
So I can sit in Dan Marino's Grill and order a kid's hamburger for 10 bucks? Or so I can sit in my shabby, moldy smelling room in which the air conditioner broke? The A/C broke, people. We are in the flippin' DESERT. An entire day and half a night without A/C.
The engineer guy came up finally and fixed it in the middle of the night while my daughter was sleeping, and fortunately whatever blasted out of the vent didn't give us Legionnaire's disease...BUT...then....there was no water. The next day...full day was completely without water. Again, this is the DESERT. I called downstairs and was reassured that it wasn't just *me*, half the hotel was without water. Oh thank God, I thought I was hallucinating. I feel so much better.

So to distract myself from the fact that I am getting the shaft, I decide to go online, check email find games for Little Daughter to play. They say it's free, but when I tried to log on from the room, it's another $10! Oh man, if I didn't have high blood pressure before, I certainly have it now. I called downstairs, and they said, "Well, it *is* free - some places around the pool you can catch a signal from the Motel 6". So I was envisioning myself with a little tinfoil hat trying not to get my laptop splashed, walking in circles til I picked up Internet. They do thoughtfully provide electrical outlets right next to the pool in case you want to plug in and have some drunk trip over your cord and yank your new HP laptop into the pool. Or perhaps they are offering do-it-yourself electroshock therapy (you supply the cord -they supply the outlet and water) to rev up that heartbeat. Takes Vegas entertainment to a whole new level.

Little daughter splashed around in the ICY COLD pool until a sparrow somehow took a nosedive into it. It must have been shocked by the temp, as it couldn't seem to flutter up and out over the pool, and the waterfall kept buffeting it underwater. Suddenly, it got sucked into the drain thingie on the side of the pool.

Maybe that's how Hooter's gets their wings. Anyhow, it was too far to reach, so, I couldn't let Little Daughter down by not saving the bird. I jumped out, took a few steps to uncover the closest filter lid and managed to reach birdie before she drowned. YAY! She dried off under a bush for a few minutes before flying off. That's my only happy Hooters story, and it's all about me saving a little bird.

Let me get back to flipping the bird to Hooters. In the end I got stuck with a bill over $400 for total CRAP. NEVER AGAIN.
ZERO STARS.
I hope it comes crashing down and all the boobs deflate like flaccid balloons.
Everytime we pass a Hooter's, Little Daughter points and yells "Mommy - that means boobies! Why are yours small?"
Die Hooters. Just die.