Puppy Therapy

Passed my Practicum yesterday. Huzzah! Relaxing in the sun for a bit with my fuzzbutts. 

Doggie Diary

This is so cute. :)

The machine is now angy. Ole! It is now blinded and mad.

I larfed and larfed at this. Hope you get a giggle.



The commentary is brilliant.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: why it's hard to get out of bed

The great thing about the pups is that they are up for whatever I want to do. Want to cook all day? They're right there to catch crumbs. Want to read? They'll curl up with me. Want to stay in bed? They're happy to oblige. 

From the dreadfully misunderstood lyrics department:

I must preface this by saying I grew up in the Mid-South area of Arkansas, Tennessee and all that, and Sweet Home Alabama was in heavy rotation on local rock/pop stations, like, ALWAYS. Anyway, I was a mere child when the song came out and I was blissfully unaware of the Neil Young/Southern Man* hoopla, so I didn't question when I thought

Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her
to be
well her legs is the youngest thing about her

  That lyric always made me picture haggard woman with a face and bustline like Willie Nelson and legs like Betty Grable.  I imagined that she'd seen some rough road, but that her legs had generally been left unmolested by the ravages of her rowdy southern lifestyle. I don't know-- heavy-duty sunblock? But you already knew I was throwed off.

In truth, grammar and indeed the very building blocks of our language can't be reasonably tested in pop and rock music, and who was I to question it? I think I didn't even learn about the whole southern man thing until my thirties or so.

Disclaimer: one of the absolute pinnacles of my rock-concert attending life was about 1992 or so when Sonic Youth and Social Distortion opened for Neil Young on an arena tour-- spectacular show. LOVED it. I went to see SY and SD, and found that I quite liked and respected Mr. Young as well. I love his soundtrack to one of my favorite films, Dead Man, and he has a few songs I really like, and all this in spite of his adenoidal whinging.
All that being said:

I hope Mr. Young will remember a Southern man don't need him around, anyhow.

*frankly, the joke has worn thin at this point.  All the stereotypes of Klan-card-carrying, knuckle-dragging, chest-thumping southerners who are eternally ignorant, horny and cousin-humping are patently offensive, generally, and expose those who put forth such dreck as the marginalizing, arrogant snobs they are. Of course, one could find living, mouth-breathing examples of every stereotype, but I only have to look as far as my own father as an example of an extremely evolved human being. He always told me I could be anything in life I wanted, and he also made it a point to tell me that he loves the fact that my mother is an incredibly intelligent person, and that he certainly didn't want a robot for a wife, and he values her ability to make her own choices.  Smart man, my Pop.  Mom too. :) 

I have no words

Tim Curry sings Davy Crockett. 



I'm picturing him in a certain costume...
I love his little asides. So wrong it's right.

Many blessings to Brigid...

I was saddened to hear of the death of her brother. As always, her post reporting his passing is long on inspiration and a celebration of much love and wonderful family feeling. She says so beautifully what I know we all feel, and the way we treasure the tiny, mundane memories of this and that with dear ones, but always times are underpinned with a unifying thread of shared experience and the love of dear ones.  May she and her family be blessed at this time.

A brief moment to self-indulge, and then it's onward and upward. Or is it onwards and upwards?

I forget.

Anyway...

I am really, really struggling with Pharmacology. This is not an exaggeration.  I have a test next week, and a final the following, and I MUST do well on those or I will not pass the course.  No kidding.

Oh, and there's a poster project that's due on Monday.  We've known about this project since the beginning of the semester, and on April 2, the professor assigned us to our groups with our respective poster subject. 

Our outline is due on Friday and the poster is to be presented on Monday.  My group has never met once.  I've posted on the discussion board repeatedly that we need to meet to get our concept together for the poster, and they literally have said things like "we have plenty of time" and "the outline's not due until Friday" (one of them said that on the board tonight - Tuesday-- at least SHE checked in).   I can't control other people.

This is just how this whole semester has been for me in this class, and this is completely beyond my control, and yet a portion of my grade hinges on it.  I've struggled to keep my chin up this semester, and I'm trying to claw my way out of it, but this is a moment when I could just throw my hands up and say "screw it! This was doomed from the start."

If I fail this class, this will delay my completion of the course by 6 months, but what will be, will be, at this point.  I'm studying my heart out now and until the very last on this, but the stress and frustration of being docked for arbitrary stuff like this feels so fundamentally defeating. Two weeks from Thursday this will all be over, and it can't come soon enough.

So, yeah, onwards and upwards. 

To quote something brilliant I saw earlier, "A chicken dreams of the day when they can cross the road without having their motives questioned." 

Something like that.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: my girls

Mochi and Praline

Mochi in the morning

This is my wake-up view:

This makes me happy. 

Overheard at Chez Phlegm:

Me: Hey! That looks like YOUR foot!
Himself: Actually, it does.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: a big, sweet baby

This 85 pound lapdog is Theo, a friend's 85 lb pit bull terrier. He is a big, smiling baby, with a tiny bull in a china shop tendency. His eyes are a beautiful color, and he's a sweetheart. 

Ridiculously pretty Stamitz Clarinet Concerto

I was half-listening to my Pandora channel (If It Ain't Baroque) when I was struck by the beauty of this particular piece.  16 minutes of sheer beauty.  Hope you'll like it - very nice for spring. Clarinet is much prettier than you'd think.

Just a quick update...

I may write more later, but my day is primarily consumed with school work.  I have my dosage calculation final in the morning and that leg of the semester will be done, so Huzzah!  I've done well on those, so I expect a good outcome.

I've got a lot of wrap-up work to do for my clinicals and that sort of thing. Those are elements of which I'm confident of passing, so they are really no sweat.  NOT that I'm blasé about them, but simply they are areas in which I'm the least shaky.

I have a test in Pharmacology on Monday that is mostly pulling focus right now.  Pharm has been a disaster for me, I will freely admit.  It's been tremendously frustrating. Never before have I felt the need for a "for dummies" version of something, but it's been quite defeating. Everything is so heavy and profoundly important to make sure you don't accidentally hurt a patient. It's stressful.

Got fantastic news on Tuesday when I went with a fellow student to discuss our research project with the professor.  The class is online so we'd never met her before. Turns out she is very impressed with our work, and said if we wish to do further literature reviews for submission to journals, she will be our faculty sponsor/editor, if we would like. She also suggested that we may wish a Nursing professor to sponsor us instead.  I'm a dance-with-the-one-wot-brung-ya sort, and while some are extremely supportive, I'm not sure the nursing faculty have the time or inclination to sponsor/edit for students for this sort of thing. Anyway, wrapping up the semester right now is the priority, but it's nice to know the prospect looms for the possibility of research in my field of interest, and it was heartening to feel like a faculty member was actively excited about my prospects. :)

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The pups are absolutely sweet, cuddly lambs. They've enjoyed many sun-bunny moments in the beautiful spring weather lately.  I try not to leave them in the sun too long, though, because I don't want them to get skin cancers or such-- do dogs get those? I'd rather not risk it.  Mochi has figured out how to harvest water bottles from my bedside table, so I have to chase her down and confiscate those occasionally. I'm eternally policing whatever she is chewing on at any moment.  Funny girl.  Chuy is a love-sponge, as always, and Praline is my little straight-A student, angelic girl.

Had a lovely dinner out with dear friends last night, and it was a nice break in the frenetic pace of everything.  It's incredible how jam-packed my days are, and all I'm doing is school.  Nursing school runs one ragged.

I've applied for a couple of summer jobs and I'm hopeful to hear from them both-- applied for part time so they won't be in conflict. One is a patient assistant at a large hospital that's just 12 hours / week, and the other is my old job at the company where I worked the past several years. If I get the hospital job, I will keep that throughout the remainder of my school in order to get more experience in the hospital setting. Fingers crossed.

Also went to another dear friend's house on Sunday to watch Game Of Thrones, as I don't get any sort of television at my house, let alone HBO.  SO thrilled it's back on - this is my all-time favorite show-- I love the complexity of the characters, but I also love how many strong women are power players and even warriors, and how a couple of the foremost have unwavering moral compasses (Dany and Arya). In spite of their history, though, I hope that Arya evolves to not want to kill the Hound.  He could have killed her summarily a thousand times over and has not, and though it's buried deep, he has his own moral code as well.  Anxious to see what happens on Sunday night, but for now I'm off to work on a research project. 
Have a great day!

The question of his sideburns is a chicken?/egg? conundrum

Civil war (General?) Ambrose Burnsides.

I'll let that marinate for a sec:

Did he cultivate those sideburns to love up to the name, or did the name predestine him to have beasting sideburns?

Those sideburns have their own microclimate! Guy walks down the street with sideburns like that, you know he's not afraid of anything. 

Fact IS often stranger than fiction. I grinned like a possum when I saw this fellow. Then again, perhaps he was compensating to the sparse hair in the upward-area, the Chevy Corvette not yet having been invented?

Odd, but true:

Research has turned into my best class.  By that I mean I'm consistently hitting it out of the park, the teacher seems very impressed with my work, an A is assured, and I haven't cried a single time over the class or its prospects.  Rather refreshing.

Chicken CPR - Jay Leno

Chicken CPR - Jay Leno : Video Clips From The Coolest One

This is so funny. :)

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Mochi selfie!

Such a cuddly little thing!

A good day for staying in.

The local BBQ joint makes the best ribs on earth, so I ordered a large order last night, nibbled around on a couple of them and brought them home. This morning I tumped the ribs into the crock pot with some garbanzo and white beans, and a roll of mild breakfast sausage. Also popped in some beef bullion gel and some roasted garlic, and it made up a fairly decent pot of beans.  Nice when the cooking is easy and tends itself.

It's cold and wet, which we desperately need in this drought-stricken place. A little on the chilly side, but I'll take it. At least I've got puppies to snuggle.
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Today I got out a bunch of perfume and decanted some samples for a couple of friends. I usually wear nitrile gloves for that task, but didn't bother today, for some reason.  My hands stink now, but it's a good kind of stink. It's a big stress-reliever to play around with the vials and bottles and girlie things. I need to do this more often.

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I knew things were going too well with my Research class.  Another person in my group is a go-getter and we've been lighting a fire the whole way under the other 5 group members. Unfortunately, they are mule-headed and lazy, so it looks like we're going to have to drag them kicking and screaming the whole way. This is disappointing, because the other go-getter and I sort of engineered things so that we'd finish our project early with room to spare and hopefully with a shoo-in for an A.  She and I have decided we'll do our utmost with the material we have, but that we won't do our work and theirs, too. Let the chips fall where they may.

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Recently discovered the insanely funny Squidbillies from Adult Swim. Profane in a way that is, for me, therapeutic.

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I've started sniffing around for a job, and I have to get serious about it. Hopefully I can find something I'll enjoy that won't make my summer stressful - I need a break from the high-tension existence. One down-side to my teeth meeting since my surgery is that now I can grit them.  Chipped a tooth a few weeks back.  Joy.

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Counting the minutes until semester is over.

In bed after 9AM with puppy dogs.

Feels wonderful. 

Gotta get up and study, though. 

I never skip class, but this tempts me.

After outside business and a hard day's breakfast, the pups always settle in for beauty sleep of a morning. The gingerlings are looking particularly cuddly, and I think it's stormy this morning. Still,  I'll be a good student and go to class. 

Update: in retrospect, not skipping class today was a mistake.