In any case, that's where I've been. I would like to say that I'll be posting more often. I will certainly try, but seems I am in a funk right now. I will be putting up pictures of the most recent "Holy shit I feel old" day. Our daughter turned 9 on Saturday... and HOLY SHIT- Chuck E Cheese is a loud loud place. More on that later. Tchuss.

I will write a quick intro to Nurse Clown. She is the raggin ass bitch who comes on day shift. I swear to god, she walks so high on her aura of self righteousness it is actually amazing to watch- like a train wreck in slow motion. You can talk about people who think their shit don't stink, but this twat- she thinks her shit is perfect- maybe even miraculous. Her moral grandstanding attitude makes me wanna puke on her shoes. If there was one person I could take in the back and beat to a bloody stump and get away with it? It would be Nurse Clown... Yep, Nurse Crazy is a personal piss off... but bloodying Nurse Clown would be a greater service to all of humanity. I will on another occasion go into exactly how I came to the conclusion that she is the indignation holier than thou cunt that she is, but not now... I'll just piss myself off on this, "my Friday", before bed.

I also had the random thought today while taking the trash out... as the sun is just coming up, but not rising yet... The few clouds on the horizon, if you blur your vision a bit, look like pretty mountains in the distance.... Ha! Snap back to reality- no mountains just flat flat flat for as far as you can see. I miss mountains. A few months back I was on a trip to another village a few miles from here- I was panicking and on the cell with the hub. He said, "Well do you see any landmarks?" To which I not so calmly replied, "What?! What fucking landmarks?! There's nothing here. The only thing I can see is... The curvature of the earth!" He started laughing at me... and I realized I miss mountains, and valleys with well defined cities in them.

Anyways...just a few random thoughts. I should be around more soon, as the kids are out of school the end of this week- and them being around always adds excitement... insanity that needs an outlet.

Maybe it is just the exasperation talking- a crazy night busting ass, calming residents from dementia induced screaming, and shit explosions, call light bingo of the other residents not really sure of what they want.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that she is a hard ass, or just a bitch- it's just how she does absolutely everyfuckingthing she applies herself to from the moment she gets there until I leave. I have come to the conclusion that she has some serious undiagnosed psychiatric condition that make her the way she is. Compulsive, borderline obsessive. Why else would it take anyone 45 minutes to fill out a fucking form? Some people who seem compulsive aren't really- they are neat freaks, or big on attention to detail- but they still get their shit done. This woman gets so wrapped up in her shit that she gets tunnel vision, scatterbrained, and will write a report before she writes a report. No joke, she writes it out on a piece of paper, then copies it into the chart. Now if you have meds to give out, vitals to take, paper work to record on 15-20 people... isn't that a bit of a stretch? God forbid if something happens with one of the residents and she has to go check on them (keep them up for an hour to take their pulse?). Her shit is in a constant state of chaos. I think it must be awfully noisy inside her head- like a blind man tripping through a stack of empty cans on a tile floor.

Seriously, how can anyone who has been in nursing for 30+ years need to sit for 3 hours and look up medical terminology in a dictionary to fill out a chart? Keep in mind, in a nursing home, the conditions one sees on a day to day basis don't change that much- not like we are in the diagnostics wing of some exotic diseases hospital. It's a fucking nursing home... and these reports are on residents she has been working with for months if not years- what the fuck is she looking up?! Her report for a single shift (keep in mind it is a shift the resident has SLEPT through) takes up 75% of the page. By way of comparison, the day shift's notes take up 6 or 7 lines, and document no less information.

This woman knows she is supposed to have Col. Cornflake greased up in time for me to get him out of bed and leave by 6 a.m. 90% of the time she doesn't get in there til 5:55. With her compulsive way of doing everything, we're DAMNED lucky if we can get in there before 6:15. It's horseshit. I am spending more and more time running around in the mornings trying to get her petty projects done ahead of her so she can do her fucking job. It's a goddamned good thing that I am good at what I do, so I have time to do it- but I shouldn't have to. It is driving me insane. She is obsessive, which is disturbing to the residents. She is a control freak, which is a pain to me, and I have noticed a touch of passive aggressive tendencies towards me and my co-workers when we get our shit done before she has a chance to nit-pick about them.

So, yeah. I love my job. Nights when Nurse Crazy isn't there are a fucking dream- even when those nights are harried and hectic with the residents climbing curtains and eating wallpaper. I can cope, I can deal, I can leave in the morning with a smile on my face.

BTW- no one cares in admin. They have had hundreds of night CNAs com and go through a revolving door of employment in the last 10 years that she has been there... and they won't do anything about shit that she does (or doesn't do), so talking to the big heads won't help. Best I can do is keep my private little notes of shit on a day to day basis, and over time, maybe I can compile a body of evidence the state can use to give her a nice vacation. In a quiet place. With the nice young men in clean white coats.

On the other hand, usually for his present I buy him electronics... which I invariably fuck up every. Single. Time. I buy what I think is a great thing, and find out that I could have had the one up model for less money, or it is not compatible with our shit, or it is not what he wanted at all and it will collect dust in the wrapper til the second coming of Christ. This year, I decided to try something different...

As food is something I can't dick up, and there is really nothing electronic he is lacking- I googled up food places that might send something no less than awesome. The Lobster Guy. For once, being married to a Masshole paid off. For the low price of $149.00 I got him two 2 pound lobsters, a pound of scallops, a pound of shrimp, half a pound of crab meat and two massive servings of clam chowder.That price included overnight shipping. Taking into account we could go to Red Lobster and spend $125, it was a hell of a deal. The little crawly bastards are in the kitchen at this very moment waiting for their execution in the boilin' pot.

With the extras, I was thinking of looking up a recipe for seafood stuffing, but going into uncharted territory, adventures in seafood cooking, as it were, I don;t want to risk dicking it up. I am sure no matter how easy the recipe looks, it may not come out like that restaurant we ate at on the cape. I can always go with what I know- scallops cooked with bacon, scampi and... I don;t know what to do with the crab- he doesn't eat crab cakes.... fuck it, I'll throw it into the "chowda".

I am off to go make a cake with GREEN whipped cream icing. Just because we are postponing the corned beef tradition, doesn't mean we are going to put off the yearly torture of K2 with the green extras.

I guess his friend saw these accusations, and decided to get knee deep in the monkey shit fight. He used his name in his log on. (EPIC FAIL). So he also got e-jumped and beat up. Now, I didn't see those posts because when I checked the site, it was full of spam. SHITLOADS of spam posts... and the posts made by Epic-Fail Guy had been self deleted, see why below. Apparently he got somewhat nasty- calling people bitches and cunts and whatnot. See, if he had any finesse he would know how to deliver a burn like that without coming across as a gigantic prick. In any case...

Now, these two AAFES employees got all pissed off because they got e-reamed. I would be pissed too. Of course I would not be so upset as to GO HIRE A LAWYER. "They called me a cheater and beat me up on the internet playground! WAAAAAH!" Nor would I resort to spending time and getting my friends to spend time spam bombing a forum site, either. (The e-equal to nanny nanny boo boo?)

Now, I was somewhere between insulted, humored and dumbstruck having read the "lawyer letters". They are demanding I release the IP and contact information of the guy who posted the initial accusatory comments re:Staff Car. They can fuck themselves. I have no obligation nor intention of doing either. Seriously... how ballsy can one get?

Here's the crux. I live in America... the frigid hell hole part, but it is still American soil. My site is hosted in Utah. I even renewed it recently from here in the USA. There is a law on German books saying the owner of a site is responsible for it's content. Groovy. BUT- if said owner goes on that board and specifically says those opinions do not belong to the site owner, they are off the hook. In the US laws I am just plain not liable for things other people post. Either way my ass is covered. Even before I found out about all this bullshit, I had gone in and locked that thread. Once I had read the complaints by the assholes who stand accused- I even deleted their names out of the post. I thought that was damn sporting of me, as I am under no obligation to do so... I don't care, nor do I want to read about a monkey shit fight where people are getting their mothers called whores.

In any case one of the men keeps messaging me asking me to release the information, and wraps it in a nice thin veil of threat of action from the (German) courts- i.e. "do it before it starts costing you money instead of time". (odd, as once you hire an attorney, aren't you supposed to let the attorney handle things?) So, I still find myself teetering between anger at his audacity and absolute hysterical laughter at his stupidity. Seriously, he has no, nil, nadda, zip, zero, zilch legal leg to stand on. It sounds kind of like this in my head..."BWAHAHAHHAHAHHAH... FUCK YOU! Bring it bitch!!"

Although the last message I got from him seemed somewhat more- I won't say nicer- but it was more pathetic; begging maybe. Now he wants to appeal to my empathy for working with an asshole. He promised it would be an epic downfall of this individual in the German Courts... even promised to make and send a youtube video of it. Wait, what?! You want to deprive a person of their job and livelihood during a global recession, maybe get him thrown in a German jail, and probably get him kicked out of Europe by losing his command sponsorship and be sent to the states with no job, no money and little prospects for survival... and that is somehow something to post on youtube? How about bragging to me that you will send it if I give up the information? You think MY site is mean and unfair? What the fuck is wrong with this guy? How god damned vindictive can you get?! I can be hateful, but fuck me, this guy is competing for a blue ribbon in the race to hell. Here's a crazy ass thought- wouldn't that make you even more liable and responsible for slander and shit than I am? Seriously dude... get help. Get it now, before we hear about you in a post office with an AK47.

In any case, I will keep y'all posted. He is just about to figure out that he fucked up when he tried to bully me with his "lawyer letters". I won't just enjoy teasing him like a matador with a cape... I will thoroughly enjoy destroying him and his buddy for being fuckin assholes. No matter how bad this guy he works with is, it can only pale in comparison to wanting to post his nemesis getting thrown in jail on youtube. I will say this whole matter has given me a really bad taste in my mouth for the "Professionals" in the AAFES IT Department. If any of the asshats who started this shit worked for me (the original shit flinger, or the 2 who are suing me), I'd see ALL 3 of them strung up by their balls in a tree over a bear pit.

How weird is it that more than half of my closest friends- I mean people I would take a ball bat to your head if you fucked with them kind of buddies- I have never actually "met"? Never sat down to have pie with them, couldn't pick them out of a picture line up, couldn't tell you what street they live on... but they are my playmates, confidants, and the majority of my social life. We have this couple we are great friends with. We met them online- every day we would get together and blow each others heads off with a sniper rifle, laughing our asses off as we did it. Finally got to meet them. They let our family stay with them for a week or so when we were in transit... It was fucking awesome, but in all reality, we didn't know a shitload of anything about their lifestyle, except what we had observed over a headset, and later on the phone. We pulled in to their driveway, and it was like driving up to a beloved family member's home. The kids called them "Uncle and Aunt".

I have made friends in lots of places... California, Indiana, and Florida... prolly 5 different towns down there, and these are people I trust to tell my secrets to, and consider them close enough to tell them to get bent if they piss me off, and know they won't stop coming around because of it. Next spring we are planning on all meeting up down near Orlando- even checking on a group rate for Disneyworld, because there are so many of us that want to get together.

So, while you see all this bullshit on TV about how the electronic age is making more people isolationists, I have to differ. Now, yes there are those freaks who feel the need to search for donkey-porn and spend 20 hours a day jerking off until they get callouses on they dicks... and those that use the internet friends to hide from their families, and cheat on their wives without technically "cheating"... I can't help but wonder if maybe this is the silent majority of the internet/gaming community that you don't hear about. Because I would take a bullet for my friends, even the ones who I have never seen... and know my life is richer for knowing them.

This week, I am trying to figure out why the fuck people live here... I mean, on purpose. It is -14 degrees outside, and the windchill is -35. For reference, most people set their freezers at 0, so imagine trying to take the trash out, or gas up the car in that. Mother nature doing her damndest to sandblast your face off with snow and ice in 20 mph winds, and it's colder than your kitchen appliance that is designed to freeze things. The frickon dog doesn't even want to get more than 10 feet from the door to go out and piss, and I think it nearly freezes her pee stream as it is leaving her body... On that note we are considering a dog treadmill... as the poor puppy never can go outside to play, run and get exercise. The place is so cold that I need an exercise machine- for the DOG.

I have been told this is the worst winter here in years. Fucking stellar news, that. This absolutely sucks- and... AND... it is not the worst of it yet, as "blizzard season" starts later in the year. Told a co-worker tonight that when it is 80 and they are all bitching and moaning about how hot it is, I am gonna be wearing a sweater and doing a jig. Christ on crutches... When is it going to get warm? I'll settle for "not butt-fucking cold", when does that start?

Today I want to introduce you to one of our officers of Annoying.

We have Colonel Call-light. This is the one person in there who makes me want to shove a pencil in my ear. I don't know what the fuck is up with this woman. She calls, on average nine or ten times a night. She says she has to pee. She fucking lies, because she doesn't have enough urine escape her body to classify it as a proper piss... barely a tinkle. I don't think she even gets a stream going- just a drip. And she does this shit All. Night. Long. The pisser is? She is ambulatory. Perfectly capable of getting up and into her chair and to the shitter on her own... She doesn't. OH- the other piss off? If she doesn't have her call light when she goes back to bed, she freaks the fuck out- i.e yelling and screaming for help as if someone just hacked her legs off. She makes sure she has that fucking light before she worries about having blankets.

I made the mistake once of asking her if she was feeling okay, could I call the nurse for her, as it seems she wasn't sleeping very well. She said, "What do you mean?" , and I told her she had been up 7 times already, and didn't seem to be resting. She hollered at me, "I HAVE NOT! I know better than that!" Um... What the f... why would I lie? What possible motivation would I have for making shit like this up? Seriously. She also asks you to repeat things... but it seems she only goes deaf when you are saying things she doesn't want to hear. If you are saying goodnight, in an normal voice, she hears just fine and responds in kind. But say something like, "You've not slept well. You've been up often, are you okay?.", and she is suddenly deaf as a post.

Col. Call-light also has a cough. Now, when I say cough you might think a normal sounding cough... maybe even a hack resembling croup. Oh, not this woman... She sounds like she is hacking up a cat. Let me see if I can give a proper summation of this noise... mix the honk of a goose, with the sound of a child puking, and stepping on a cat's tail... turn it up to about 80 decibels, and repeat. Now, she has no infection, no virus, no nasty shit she is coughing up; no COPD, no emphysema... she just feels the compulsive need to go from what starts as a normal cough to trying to hack-scream a loogie out of her throat. And it goes on for probably 20 minutes at a time. She wakes other residents up with her horrible whole-cat-hair-balls.

I have been known to mutter to myself, under my breath, when leaving her room for the umpteenth time, "See you in 30 minutes." I know it makes me terrible... but she drives me out of my fucking mind, and last night she was especially annoying... hack, piss, hack, cough, piss, piss, and once even it the light to have me help her lay down. Odd, as she had been laying down 15 minutes earlier. And every time I go in there she insists that she needs help to sit up. ARRRRGGGHHHH! She proceeded to call me back in there 20 minutes after that saying she had to piss. Again. And she said, "I need help sitting up." Fucking lies. She also yelled at me, telling me I wasn't helping her enough- she did this while I was supporting her bony ass from her bed to her chair.

So, yeah. That's the Colonel. Not the high point of my night. Or my job. Wiping ass ain't pretty- but most of them ave the courtesy to not yell at me when I am doing it, or demanding that I do it every 40 minutes all night long.

Stop telling me I will get used to it, when talking about the weather. It is not normal to walk outside and have my skin exposed to lower temperatures than in my household freezer. One does not adapt to seeing numbers on the weather channel that we were taught in elementary school as "imaginary numbers".

It is not something one "gets used to"; tolerates perhaps, but not "gets used to". Nor does one adjust to having breathing hurt, merely because you are outside. I don't think it is okay to be scared of pumping a full tank of gas for fear of freezing while waiting to fill. It is weird, when letting the dog out to pee, to have her come back in limping and whimpering because her little tootsies are half frozen.

"On par" does not include having to start the car 20 minutes before you want to leave in order to not freeze your bag ass off, have the windows fog up mid-trip, or ensure that you will be able to get the vehicle out of the driveway in the first place.

So, my blood will never run that thick, my skin never that tolerant. It is all a terrible lie. Please stop trying to blow smoke up my ass. I'll just hang out here next to my space heater and wait for spring.

One of the sweetest old ladies you would ever wanna meet has a cold, and she was so kind to share it with my co-worker and me. The day after she coughed on us, we both came in with sniffles, sore throats, and coughs... It was like that cute matching thing friends do, without the cute... or the friends- as I really like this girl, but after working together only a handful of times can't call a friend yet. I have made a few friends... That is, people I would go grab a beer and breakfast at Denny's with. Oddly, they are either much younger or much older than I. Meh, I'll cope.

Let us count our blessings... Thus far, my part time schedule has managed to stay part time. My lunatic boss seems to be stepping up for her aides here and there, and is trying to help us out in our jobs by getting hers done a little more efficiently. That isn't to say she doesn't still remind me of a car stuck in the mud- with the wheels spinning to a blur, and the car not going anywhere- but the other day she actually went to bat for us when we had a fucked night (see above, re: river of shit) and weren't able to get two residents out of bed before we left.. as usual day-shift-bible-beating-zealot-bitch-nurse had a fit- and my night shift looney-nurse stood up for us. Neat.

I am also now official. I am certified by the State of North Dakota to wipe ass, make beds, brush dentures, and empty catheter bags. I passed my test. Next on my goal list is to get my EMT certification... One of the other CNAs wants to do it too, so it will be even more fun. Then I can also be certified to run IVs, ride in ambulances, strap people to gurneys, and scrape grey matter off sidewalks. What more could a girl ask for in life?

Had a whole new set of experiences this week though. Never before have I been driving at 15 mph, and had that speed feel extreme enough to have me white knuckling the steering wheel. Never before felt on the edge of pissing myself driving through the quiet streets of a neighborhood, as I had to find out that quadra-trac means I can, in fact, go right over that large piled up snow drift in the road.

A whole new experience also lay in the simple act of going out for a smoke, or to grab something out of my car. Now I know that extreme cold makes your nose runny when you get back into someplace warm. What I did not know was what it felt like to have the inside of my nose freeze. It felt like when you get crutsy boogers, but instead of it being something I could blow, it was all attached little bits of frozen hair. Inside my face. It's a really unsettling feeling.

I have also never known the discomfort of my eyes getting cold. Like frozen- like that ache you get on your ears playing in the snow- but on your eyelids. What the shit is that? So god damned cold that you can't use your eyes? This is the middle of the United States- not the base camp of K2. It totally sucks.

I took the trash out at work after it had been snowing big pretty flakes- so big that when they landed on my coat I could actually see the lacy hexagonal shapes. Anyway- in to the cold with the bag of piss'n'shit I went, wearing only a scarf and gloves- as I didn't expect to be out there but a second. When I finally was able to pry the frozen fucking lid open and got the bag hefted in, the lid dropped and an asston of snow came loose and coated me in a thick, white, cold powder of pissed off.

Anytime I am going to drive, I have to think 20 minutes ahead to start the car. The other day I only started it 10 minutes before I had to leave, and although the windows LOOKED defrosted, when we got in the car and left, the fuckers fogged back up and I couldn't see dick. All while heading down the highway at 65 mph. Had to pull it over and use a credit card to scrape off the glass on the inside. This of course is with the kids in the car and the 20 rapid fire stupid questions that go with a big event such as pulling over, so the ten minutes spent hating my life was compounded by my urge to tape them both to the car seat.

Also, I don't know if it is possible- and it may well be nothing more than a lingering virus- but I am finding myself nauseated quite a bit as of late, and wondering if maybe it isn't something to do with this butt-fucking cold. It's like a rolling queasiness too- like seasickness or morning sickness- it comes and goes, and about half the time I toss my cookies. I can't seem to get over it as it has been going on for over a week now. I'll be fine one day, then the next, spend day trying not to heave my guts up. Could be the cold, my dicked schedule, some kind of funk floating around with the residents/employees, my lack of time or energy to cook a lot lately... Hell- wish I could figure it- tired of puking.

Of course, I have yet to puke in the snow and make a pretty color spatter. That is on this week's list for the weird-shit-o-meter.

Now, I know there is some kind of law about them "forcing" me to work, and them not being able to do it. There are also laws about how many CNAs have to be on the floor. I don;t know how those work out as far as what supersedes what. And I was told when I was hired that I might have to pull shifts if there was "weather". So, this is fucking "weather" I guess?! Yay emergency pay. Fuck me with a fire hydrant.

My only hope is that my lunatic charge nurse can't get to work tonight from her castle of doom. God forbid I get stuck 16+ hours with that crazy bitch because she was able to get an escort of flying monkeys to bring her in on her broom.

All I can say is that I am seriously glad for a 4x4 car and a husband who grew up in a snowy place. Still, the secular girl is asking, nay begging... if you are a member of the faithful- pray, bitch- pray that I get home okay at some point in the next 24 hours, without having lost my mind, (or killed my boss).

The other fun run was to one of my favorite residents who looked like he went 5 rounds with Muhammad Ali, and lost. Worst. Bloody nose. Ever. We would start getting one part of the mess cleaned up, and he would start picking at it again and the bleeding would start again- all the while we had gone in there to clean up a poopy butt. At one point we just had to put him back to bed and wait for it to stop bleeding, for him to go to sleep and stop irritating it, and wait for it to dry up a bit. Went back an hour later and cleaned up his face- which once again resembled someone on the business end of a boxing glove. Got it cleaned up fairly well. And we're off again- Run the hell back to the puking lady, get her squared. Go to dress the early riser who half way thru getting dressed starts shitting- before I get her to the toilet. Fuckin A Grade AWESOME.

Also got to help change socks for a guy who started telling me about his sordid past with bi-polar disorder when he went manic and spent 135K of his mother's inheritance. Oh, and that he is schizophrenic- (shit hope he is medicated for that...) Bonus, and I am touching his feet... his nasty gross fucking dry flaky feet, with toenails that look like Fritos.

Then when looking over my schedule, I remembered that I signed up to work an extra 4 hour shift for December; yay Christmas money. Thursday night I was sick as a dog, and as luck would have it, a co-worker wanted to trade shifts for Saturday. It was a saving grace to be home trying to barf up a lung instead of at work. But wait- that afore mentioned 4 hour day shift... well it falls right after the shift I traded. So tomorrow, I will be pulling a 14 hour fucking day. Color me un-fucking-thrilled. I am now kicking myself in the ass for volunteering. Every time I do, it backfires in my face.

Also got my check stub... my incentive pay for last week is missing. Pricks. So, we'll have to get that fixed, won't we? The sonsabitches have yet to get my test scheduled for certification-I am pretty sure it is because once I am certed, they have to pay me more- and why not put that off for as long as possible, right? Rotten bastards.

At least I have a whole 15 hours before I have to go back, right? I wonder what normal people do at work.

This was the night from HELL. There wasn't a time that there wasn't a call light going off. Not. One. Minute. I ran my bag ass off all night. We had the usual 17 calls from the guy who likes to pee. Well, he likes to go to the bathroom- he never does anything in there... the back story is that he spends all day sleeping, and so instead of sleeping at night he lays there bored and has nothing better to do than think about peeing... when he isn't getting up to piss, he is ringing the light telling us he might have to piss soon. Fuck. Me. Then the other calls from... well... everybody. One even called me to tell me how good he felt, and how good he was sleeping. Awesome. I think. At least I didn't get a face fart- I did get my fingers pissed on, so, SCORE for me on the gross-o-meter.

It was just nuts. And a note to the kitchen staff. Please never ever again feed the residents shrimp. One of them said "It didn't taste very fresh". (In North fucking Dakota? No shit? Can you get any further from brackish shrimping waters?!) In any case- it makes for, shall we say, a shitty night, so please, I beg you- never again, m'kay? That's all I got to say about that.

I am beat- and wound up at the same time. My hand is fucking screaming bloody murder from my carpal tunnel- I may have to do a home amputation kit (available at the nearest True Value hardware store). I can't go to bed yet, either. I have to go the to pharmacy, and then to the store to buy last minute shit for Thursday's face stuffage, and then to the bank Fuck. Ing. Joy. Perhaps we can splurge on breakfast while were out. That is assuming I don't go face first into my eggs- or toss my food by thinking about that horrid things I smelled/saw/wiped up tonight.