Incessant Babbling, in Livejournal flavor

I got the job at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and I started last Monday. This whole week was various orientations, starting with hospital orientation on Monday. It wasn't bad, kinda boring. I'm in the care coordination department, so the rest of the week (and the rest of next week) is orientation to THAT department. I've never had so much orientation in my life. All in all, I think it's a good thing. I'll be able to actually DO my job starting out, rather than learning it as I go. I've also learned more about general hospital social work, as compared to psych social work.

As far as that goes, everytime I'm introduced, they say, "Colleen will be the new social worker on adult psych." Then whomever I'm being introduced to gives me a look with wide eyes and says, "Oh.... psyyyychhh...." Evidently, those that hate to work psych really hate it. I, however, love it. I've only briefly been on the unit (under 5 minutes or so), but it's pretty swank, compared to the other psych units I've seen. It was also very quiet, which is also a little different than most psych units. The other social worker said everyone was in group, i.e. not out making noise. And groups? I don't have to do them! Whoo hoo! Everyone I've met so far has been really nice. There are two other people in my orientation group: a bachelor's level social worker and a nurse case manager. It's nice to be with some new people, and has made lunch less lonely.

One thing that's getting to me is the sheer size of the hospital, though. I have to be walking at least 2 miles a day. Which is ok, I really don't mind walking, except for I can't wear sneakers. I have to dress in "business casual", which has mostly meant dark slacks and button-down shirts. My Nikes don't really complement that ensemble. Now my challenge is to find some shoes I can really walk in that are comfortable, and don't give me blisters (the two can be independent of one another. I have plenty of shoes that are greatly comfortable until you've walked in them too long, and then the blisters arise. Ouch.) I do think I'll be wearing sneakers to and from my office (quite a hike), and keeping some comfortable yet appropriate shoes in my office. I like my office, although it has no window. Nice furniture. The whole hospital is really sweet, actually. Everything looks newer. There's a Dominos, and the cafeteria serves a wide variety of tasty food with nutritious choices that isn't too badly priced. And I had an Odwalla Strawberry Lemonde Friday, so I was pretty happy. They are expensive, but yummy. I highly recommend them if you can find it. It tastes like summer.

I'm also having some trouble adjusting to my sleep schedule. I don't have to be there at 7:30 yet, but I'm still getting up before 7 to get to Winston-Salem on time. I think by Friday I was starting to get in the hang of it, and hopefully that'll continue to improve as time goes on. My natural body clock seems to want me to sleep from 1 am until about 10:30 am, at least. I am working to reset it. Melatonin has been pretty helpful, in addition to the benadryl I've taken for years (I've always had trouble getting to sleep, and the benadryl also helps with allergies.)

I'm still not really jiving with Greensboro. I like Winston-Salem, where I work. If nothing else, there's a Harris Teeter, which is comparable to Kroger. All the other grocery stores (and Wal Mart Superstores) suck. Food Lion had ONE TYPE of spinach dip. I know, that doesn't matter to most people, but it did to me, esp. considering that one type was not good. And ok, I don't eat sushi, but I liked having a sushi bar and a decent selection of cheeses at my fingertips. And some honest-to-God crusty breads. Really, I don't think this is too much to ask. We've been having trouble finding local restaurants that we like, too. I try to eat outside the metaphorical box at least some of the time, but the local food here has mostly fallen flat (with the exception of Country BBQ. That's some good stuff.) I guess we'll be sticking closer to chains, and I will continue to cook fabulous food to make up for the dearth of other foods.

We have someone's pet rabbit inhabiting our yard at times. It's obvious it's tame, and it's black and white spotted, which doesn't happen with natural bunnies (they tend to be brown or grey.) Originally it had a friend with it. It was so odd. I took Jay to school the Friday before last, and when I came back there were these two rabbits just hanging out in my driveway. One of them (who was white with one dark spot) hopped up to me, let me pet it, and started eating clover between my feet. I haven't seen that one since then, though. The other ones shows up sporadically. If I see him again, we're going to try to trap him, as a tame bunny is not safe in the wild. Well, any bunny isn't safe around Princess. However, we are interested in having a rabbit, if the animals wouldn't hurt it. It's possible, but it'd be a hassle. And our landlord would not like it, I'm sure.

The house is finally sold. It only cost us $2500 at closing (!). That really sucked. Technically, we didn't lose money, but we only expected to have to pay more than a few hundred at closing. Stupid interest on loans.

Ok, this is pretty long, so I shall go and do laundry. WHOO HOOO!

Ok, I said I would blog more often. I'm trying not to be a liar. It's difficult... I'm not doing ANYthing right now.

I have a job interview on Monday with Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, which is about 25 miles away. It's a hospital social work job. I applied for 3, and I'm not sure which one I'm interviewing for. I'd like to get the job, but part of me is annoyed that it's $5-6 in gas per day. But if I got the job (for the masters level), I could afford a new car, and hopefully I could teach Jay to drive on an automatic.

I watched the movie Half Nelson this evening. It was not about wrestling. Color me surprised. I joined Blockbuster online, as we still don't have cable (but do on Monday!) In theory. I just realized that I have that interview on Monday, and have NO idea what time the cable people are coming. If I have to wait longer for cable, I might just die. I'm running out of episodic DVDs. So far I've done the first season of Weeds, Dead Like Me Season 1, and random The Office episodes. I even tried to read some of Jerry Seinfeld's book Seinlanguage to fill the Seinfeld void, but it just didn't do it.

The water here tastes like distilled feet, so we bought a water cooler with which to use bottled water. However, the water that came out of that tasted like distilled ass, and after calling the maker, they told us to return it to the store (evidently, water is not supposed to taste like distilled ass coming from their water coolers.) Which means we have to box it back up, return it, and it's going to be a pain. Why, yes, I am whiny today, why do you ask?

I now have a new phone. I couldn't afford a Blackberry plan on Cingular, so I went with a flip Nokia phone (no, I didn't get a Razr. I'm just not as cool as Aimee. Or my dad. hehe.) So far, so good, and it has good battery power. I ordered a (non-Bluetooth) headset to use, I just can't sit there holding it for long conversations, and you can't really do it on your shoulder like you can a land line.

We went to the Greensboro Public Library last week. It was very disappointing. We went to the main branch, and the selection is dismal (yet a whole row of Orson Scott Card books. He's a resident of Greensboro.) I've read a book called Weird Carolinas (kinda by the guys that do Weird NJ), and it was interesting. I really need to check out the other branches. Cross your fingers that they have a better selection. There were books still in circulation from 1907. I've seen that at university libraries, but never a public library, because most of them just don't have room for that much outdated materials. At least a third of the shelves there were empty. I hope we just came in the middle of a vast reorganization effort that required the shelves to be cleared. I cannot live without a decent library.

We're still unpacking. The stuff we need and use on a daily basis is out, but not some of the other stuff. The living room is complete and livable, though. As we're now living in the furniture capital of the world, we're hoping to score some new living room furniture when I get a job. We saw some cool stuff today at an Ashley (not Laura) Furniture Gallery, that was reasonably priced.

Oh, we have another contract on our house. It's way under what we were asking, and even under our "bottom price", but thanks to the subprime market, the stock market, Al Quaeda, Jerry Falwell, the aliens, Murphy Brown, and that random dude that lives down the street, we're taking the offer and running with it. The repairs they asked for are negligible, so that rocks. However, they came to do the appraisal yesterday, and when the appraiser got there, he found puddled water in the basement. GAH! No one had even been living there! What the hell? All we can figure out is that someone turned on something during the inspection, and a pipe or whatnot broke. So it's in the process of being fixed. It's so frustrating, we're not even living in the house anymore, and it's still draining money away from us, on TOP of the mortgage. It'll be awhile before we buy another house... I liked it, and I miss our house, but the market sucks and who knows where we're going to be for more than a few years at a time.

I really need to make friends in Greensboro. I even looked at Craiglist platonic personals. When I get a job, things will be a lot better, I'll at least have some more human interaction during the day. Not that I don't love and appreciate my pets, but they're awful conversationalists. (they're all conservatives, wouldn't you know?)

Ok, this is enough updatage for now. Recommend a good book for me to read, via comment/email/whatever. I'll just buy it if the freakin' library doesn't have it.

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Ok, I've told several people that I'd blog more now that I'm not in Kentucky, so I shall do so.

Moving was HELL. I THOUGHT we were organized and ready to go. Ha! No, we weren't. At all. We began loading the truck at about 2 pm, and finished at about 10 pm. And that doesn't include the stuff we have in storage (argh!) We didn't have room for it on the truck. Which is good, I suppose, as we also did not have room for it in the house. We have at least one couch too many, and possibly a chair added to that. Our goal is to eventually get a new sofa, and get rid of the old stuff, but for now that's on hold. My dad drove the truck down here (a 26' foot U-Haul with my car on a trailer behind it.) He did really well, until it came time to leave. At that point he gouged out part of the road at the bottom of the driveway at the new (rental) house. And hitting a telephone pole while returning the U-Haul. But he didn't actually know he was doing it at the time. Egads.

Prior to moving (about Monday), I developed a spectacular case of blepharitis. What's that, you ask? It's an infection of the eyelid. I'd had it before, when I first started working at Eastern State, but then it was just a crusty eyelid (icky enough in its own right.) However, this time was a whole other animal. My eyelid swelled up big time, and was almost swelled shut in the mornings. It itched and burned. I went to the doctor, and got antibiotics for it, oral and for the eye. It still seemed to get worse until Friday, when the swelling started going down. I had to wear my sunglasses at our going-away-dinner because I didn't want to expose those who were eating to the monstrosity that was my eye. I looked mega-cool. Or stoned. One of the two.

I had an interview today at Moses Cone Hospital, the big hospital system in Greensboro. It's for a medical social work job, with oncology and sickle cell patients, but they want to add a med-psych unit to that hospital, which would mean I would get to work with mentally ill patients again, which is my preference. <-- run-on sentence of the Gods. At the same time, a break would be good for me. The folks I was working with at Eastern State were the sickest of the sick, and I was starting to burn out a bit (although I still loved it.)

On the move down, dear Aimee transported the four cats. About half-way there, Eleanor pooped in her carrier. So we took her out to try to clean it, and she escaped! She ran across the parking lot under a car. I had to crawl on my tummy to get her, and literally drag her out. She is so discombubulated by the moving process. But she's safe now. She's been extra needy the past few days. Everytime we sit down, there's an Eleanor on us.

We're beginning to get things unpacked. The kitchen is done, which is good, because I'm so sick of eating out. I want home-cooked food. Tomorrow will be our first meal at home, I'm excited. I've been a bit depressed and hard to get moving, feeling that it's all workworkwork, and we have no cable to watch, the internet is up and down (down right now, in fact. I'll be posting this tomorrow when it's working. Time Warner lied to us about the technician guy coming out. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss Insight!) The office is semi-done. There are still boxes, but the computers/bookshelf/futon is set up. Princess seems a little depressed. I guess moving and Dad leaving made her sad. Poor girl. But she has a new neat (dog-escape proof!) backyard to play in. However, it's been SOOO hot (heat indices in the 100s) that we can't leave her out too long, with her thick coat.

(written the next day)...

Our adventures in internet have been... crappy? First, we signed up for Time Warner cable, as it was the fastest. They hooked it up, and it worked, but not in the outlet they thought it should work in. So another guy came to fix the outlet (he was supposed to be there between 7 am and noon. He got there at about 4). It worked for a second, then stopped working again. So we called, and spent 2 million years on hold for customer service. They say, "Someone will be out at about 6 to fix it." We call back at 7. "They're on their way, they'll be there in a few minutes." So we wait. 9 o'clock, we call back. Wait on hold for at least 15 minutes. "No, we have no record of anyone coming out to there. They're all done for the night. Someone will be there at 3:30 tomorrow." So we call today to confirm the appointment (with a long hold. Remember, we have no home phone now, only cell, so this is wasting valuable minutes.) They have no record of it, and can't get anyone here until Friday. What the junk? That was the final straw. If they'd just told us in the first place that someone would be there Friday, we wouldn't have been happy, but we would have dealt with it. So we cancelled our service and switched to a local wireless internet provider, who came 6 hours later and hooked everything up RIGHT. We get it for less money, and we get some sort of gift card for signing up. It's slower, but that does not matter to me nearly as much as horrid customer service.

Today we went to Durham so that Jay could visit the Apple store and pick up a new laptop to begin his graduate studies with. The guy who helped us was child-molester-creepy. However, we did get a free-after-rebate iPod Nano. So we're now on our 3rd iPod. I feel so... geeky.

This morning Jay got a call from the head of the Econ department, informing that a class had been going on for three days and why wasn't Jay there? It's a math-econ bootcamp, really geared to people who may not have as strong of a math background as Jay does. Nobody told Jay that the class started two weeks before classes. On the online scheduling system, it states it starts on the same day as regular classes (8/20). So he's going tomorrow, but a bit freaked out. And it sucks, because we were planning on going to the zoo for his birthday, next Tuesday. We might try to go this weekend, if it's not so darned hot (it was 100 today. Without the heat index).

Ok, I think I'm really out of things to blog about. Everyone leave me copious comments so I feel like I'm in touch with the outside world again. I've got 5 days without cable. I'm dying!

Interesting fact: Ben Folds went to high school 25 miles from my house.

And graduation looms over me...

About a month until I am officially a graduate. You all shall call me
"Master McClanahan". OK, not really. No, not "Mistress McClanahan" either.
That just sounds dirty.

In "dorky news I have to share", I have been named Outstanding MSW Student
for the December 2006 graduating class, an honor which I share with one
other student (there was a tie in the faculty vote, and we had the same
GPA). I'm proud of it, but it still embarasses me somewhat. I also don't
feel completely worthy, because if I'd graduated in the spring, I would not
have been chosen for this. I shouldn't minimize it, though, so I'll just
shut up about that now.

We're looking for places to relocate so Jay can seek higher-higher
education... I think we have it narrowed down to:
1) Greensboro, NC
2) Milwaukee, WI
3) Madison, WI
4) Knoxville, TN
5) Evanston, IL
6) Chapel Hill, NC

If anyone has any good feedback about any of those cities, I'd appreciate
it. Evanston is for Northwestern, which is super-competitive, so it
probably won't be a real option. Which is good, because I looked at house
prices in the Chicago area, and almost choked.

I need to find a job. Argh. It sucks, because I don't want to interview and
say, "Yeah, I'll only be here for 7 months, at the most." I might try to
stay on at my research assistant job until we leave, and go ahead and get
licensed. I'm stressed about all this. There's a lot of change going on!

I am forcing myself to NOT do homework right now. It's not due for two weeks, and it's too late to be working on stuff like that, so I'm NOT GOING TO DO IT!

What else is going on around here? For some reason, I thought now would be a good time to redecorate the bathroom. I'm working (for pay) 20 hours a week, doing 20 hours a week at my practicum, and taking 9 hours worth of classes. Spare time does not exist in my world. So the kid came to replace the faucet last week, and I'm yet to get up the new towel bars, etc. Tomorrow, it shall be done, and I shall be happy!

I've decided to sell my body to medical science. My co-worker Emily came into our office a few weeks ago and told us about this clinical trial her sister works on. It pays roughly $500. It's to test the anthrax vaccine. It's the same vaccine they've been using for years (albeit contentiously), but usually they give 6 shots over a few months for immunity. For this study, they're giving 3 rounds of the vaccination, and testing to see if that provides enough antibodies. I had the first one last week, and it hurt like hell. My arm still hurts, and I have a pain in my neck, which may or may not be related to the damnable vaccine.

I saw Of Montreal last Friday. It was a free show at UK. Well, you were supposed to donate food, but it seems that my friend Alex and I were the only two that did that. They were interesting. At one point they did some performance piece where the lead singer went off stage, took off his shirt, and came back onstage. Then the chica keyboard player and someone else proceeded to wrap his torso in plastic wrap, and pretended to beat him with a whip. All the while, there were two of the band members to the side of the stage twirling parasols. It was quite surreal.

That's all I have for now. Adios, amigos!

We'e got baby!

Ok, we dont. Jay's sister, Lizzy, however gave birth to Abraham Ernest last night. He was 8 lbs, 14 oz. 22 inches long. They thought he was going to be 10 lbs, but luckily he was not. She had to have a c-section, as they tried to induce labor and it just didn't take. She had a few epidurals, and was having contractions, but not enough to get the big guy out.

It was touching seeing him, a half hour old. He was ripped out of his warm, soft surroundings and put into the cold, harsh lights of a hospital, but he seemed ok for all of that. I liken it to an alien abduction. He was looking around, trying to suck on everything. It's just so weird. One moment, he's in her tummy, the next he's real live person. It' all very humbling.

Dont worry, this has not aroused maternal instincts in me, but it has made me respect the power that we all hold inside ourselves *Cue "Circle of Life" from the Lion King* Lord, Im cheesy.

My 30th birthday was on May 23rd. I am now 30 years OLD. I had a nice birthday; on Saturday I had a birthday party, with lots of friends, food, and puppies. It was low-key, just as I wished. Thank you all who attended.

Jay and I went to Florida from Wednesday, May 31 until Sunday, June 4. Jay’s mom and sister were going at the same time, but we opted to fly, while they drove. I love flying, and it was fun doing it again. We flew from Lexington to Tampa, and stayed at a Ramada Inn in St. Petersburg, where Jay’s family is more or less based out of. I met his grandma for the first time. I really liked her. She reminds me a lot of my Grandma McClanahan. I also got to see his aunts, whom I had all met before. I met a few of his cousins, including his first cousins once-removed, Chloe and Calvin. Chloe is 6 and Calvin is 4. I used my play therapy skills playing with Chloe (which is basically just how to properly play with a young kid. It’s mostly reflective playing, rather than asking the kid, “What does that do? Why did you do that?” Instead, it’s more like, “What a good tower you built!” and then you build one just like it. I really think I should get practicum hours for the experience. Hehe.)

I had reserved a mid-sized car from a cheapo car rental place. We get there, and he said, “I’m upgrading you to a *mumble, mumble*”, which I thought was, “Grand Am”, which wasn’t an upgrade, but what we registered. So I shrug, go out to the parking lot, and it was a freaking Dodge Caravan. I felt like a soccer mom the whole time. We were only staying about four miles away from Jay’s family, though, so it wasn’t a bad drive.

Our hotel was semi-ghetto. The room smelled like smoke, but we burned a cookie-scented candle all night. The toilet didn’t fill right, and the refrigerator completely froze all the water we put into it (but only partially froze the sodas). There was something on my middle cover the first night, and I don’t even want to think about what it might have been. Ewww. However, it was fairly quiet, and although we didn’t take advantage of it, there was an Indian restaurant on the premises. The hotel is pet-friendly, but there was a nice printed sign by the exit to the restaurant kitchen.

“No Dog Crap By Kitchen”

Lovely.

We hung out with Jay’s family all day Wednesday and Thursday. We played games, looked at old family diaries, played with the kids, etc. On Friday we
went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the newest of the Disney parks. It was fun to be in a Disney park again, but it was like paying $67 a piece to go to the zoo. I rode Expedition Everest, the new roller coaster, twice. It was hot, and I thought at one point I was seriously going to be sick from not being able to cool down. However, it passed, and I lived.

Despite the fact I was out all day in the hot Florida sun, I did not get sunburned. We used that Coppertone Sport Continuous Spray stuff, and although it feels like you’re spraying gross hairspray all over your body, it really works. I’m pretty fair, and I didn’t have a hint of burn (or tan). I will stay wrinkle free!

On Saturday we went to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. It completely rocked. It wasn’t too big, but it’s the 2nd largest collection of Dali work in the world (the biggest is in his hometown of Catalan.) They had them under glass, so I was literally inches away from the paintings. You could see every brush stroke. Although I really enjoy his surrealism, I have to state that he was an excellent painter outside of that. He used light to his advantage, long before that stupid Thomas Kinkade called himself the “painter of light”. It was a really fun museum, and I highly recommend it if you’re ever on Florida’s West Coast.

Later on that afternoon, we went to the coolest huge used bookstore, Haslam’s. They had everything you could possibly want (and a resident cat). I recommend it almost as highly as I recommend the Dali Museum.

The few days before we left the AC was out, and it was hell. It was in the 90s those few days, and it was 87 degrees upstairs. Unbearable! This house was not meant to be cooled by natural means. The insulation is just too good. So we burnt up and sweated, and the guy came at 6:30 on Tuesday night, and fixed it. It took until the next morning to completely cool down the house. Might I note that I accurately diagnosed the problem, even if I didn’t quite fix it (although I was going about it the right way). Technically, the AC still worked, it just leaked ALL over the laundry room floor when it ran. I diagnosed that the drainage was stopped up, and we cut it open and tried to clean it. It did not fix the problem, however, and we knew it was time for professional help. The guy came and cleaned out the tubing, and it’s now nice and chilly in the house, just as it should be. My dad was here to watch the animals in my absence (he rocks that way), and he replaced the PVC pipe that I hacked through.

I got a lot of cool presents for my birthday, including clothes, books, a grill, sunglasses, and an iPod shuffle (the big iPod died a few weeks ago). One of my presents was the Little House on the Prairie bookset, which I used to have but have lost to time and mildew in my father’s attic. So I have been re-reading those, which makes me so happy I could dance. I’ve read them all a million times, and I’ve read biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder as well. She was a cool chick.

I think that’s all for now. Leave me fun comments.

I liked when Sarah did this, so I'm doing it now. I'm also using her rules.

*Step 1: Put your media player on random.
*Step 2: Pick your lines from the first 15 songs that play.
*Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from.
*Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

1. You can’t fool me I saw you when you came out. You’ve got your mama’s taste but you’ve got my mouth.

2. As long as the bottle was passed around, every man was feeling gay. O’leary came with the bagpipes, the music for to play.

3. Look around, could it bring somebody down if I never made a sound again.

4. Words that change their tune, though the story remains.

5. Later at night about quarter of ten, until the middle of June until the summer’s end, people gather to see the mighty rainbow knock them down.

6. I’ve got a cat named Easter, he says will you never learn.

7. And above 96th street, they're handing out smallpox blankets, so people don't freeze</strike>

8. No matter what your friends might say, we’ll find our way.

9. I can’t ignore it, although I try. The intrusive whisper fascinates me, here’s why.

10. Casinos are a ministry, handled governmentally, show your hand. I almost had a royal flush.

11. Forty-two stairs from the street, Crooked landing, crooked landlord, Narrow laneway filled with crooks.

12. And when the media tries to act your age. Don't be seduced, they're full of rage. Find your voice, do what it takes. Make sure you make lots of mistakes

13. Carve your name into my arm, instead of stressed I lie here charmed.

14. I want to be cool, tall, vulnerable and luscious. I would have it all if I'd only had this much. No need for Lucifer to fall if he'd learn to keep his mouth shut…I would be involved with you

15. Time won't stand by forever if I know it's true.
And I've learned not to say never, Or else I'll seem the fool

Stolen from Liz:
Contribute to my Johari window

Rick Roth, 1946-2006

In 1998, I was a member of the AAF Ad Competition Team, of which Rich Roth was the advisor. The sponsor that year was Hallmark, and by the end of the semester we were so fed up with greeting cards… however, we still had the actual competition to go to, and one early morning we all met at Rick and Jane’s house so that we could drive together to Columbus to the district competition.

I was overwhelmed by the Roth’s hospitality. Jane made us a breakfast buffet, and as we’re all getting ready to begin our journey, Professor Roth stopped us. He had a song he wanted us to hear, to fire us up. He put a record on the turntable (in 1998!) and turned up the volume. Out blasted Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best”. Sure, it was cheesy and corny, but I think it showed us all the belief he had in us. That was the first year UK went to the national AAF competition since the 1970s, and we could never have done it without Rick Roth to lead us. I will miss him, but the impact of the professor who truly cared about his students will be with me forever.