Honey, we need to talk

Sometimes I like to call my husband about really important things, which is how this conversation came about today:

"Tim, I wanted to tell you that I found the genuine jalapeno poppers at the ghetto Sentrey today when I went there to buy eggs."

"Cool. That um, really turned my whole day around."

"I know! So, I mean, something to live for."

"Great, well, maybe those will hit the spot for you."

"Yeah, or we could have some when you get home as a snack."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"'K well if anything else that's really important comes up, call me."

"Yeah, I will!"

"Bye."

"Bye."

(I'm sure we said "I love you" but I didn't want to gross you guys out.)

Things that go "bump" in the night

Last night I woke up from a dream that me and Tim were being held hostage in our house by terrorists (maybe someone has been watching a little too much 24, I don't know) because nature called. While in the bathroom, I hear a fairly loud, high pitched, mechanical whine. I'm an experienced insomniac, so I know that the trick of being able to go back to sleep after getting up is to not fully open your eyes, don't look at the clock, and don't do anything crazy, like start thinking. I decided that maybe it was the sound of street cleaners - which is impossible, they don't clean the streets in the winter, but I was trying my hardest to stay half asleep. Then I heard these crashing sounds, kind of like when the trash collectors come around and dump trash. Clearly people were cleaning snowy streets and emptying the trash at 1 am. It made sense to me.

I went back to bed, glad that our noise machine's "dolphin" background seemed to mute all of these strange sounds, and was about to fall back asleep when another crash came and Tim said, "What was that?"

The next thing we know we hear sirens coming down our street. My first thought: were those gunshots? This is Milwaukee. Tim said no (he's an authority on the sound of gunshots). We open our blinds and watch as a firetruck pulls up a couple of houses down from us. Then Tim says, "Um, they're getting out the hose. I think those sounds are that house burning down." We both get up at this point and go to our back window, where we see flames and smoke rising above the tops of the garages in our alleyway. Tim decided to investigate, while I stayed warm in our bed.

Please note that during this entire scenario, our faithful guard dog, Dirk, slept blissfully unaware in his bed.

Tim came back and reported that the neighbor's car was on fire in the alleyway, and was exploding. Really! And our other neighbor was out there taking pictures! And Tim had watched and then laughed hysterically as one of the firemen got hosed in the face on accident as he was standing by the car.

The lesson learned: If it's nighttime, and your car's blowing up, don't expect me or Dirk to get up or anything.

Happy thoughts

I know I've been a little grumpy about work lately, but there really are things that make me happy there during the day, so I thought I'd share them with you.

* My office is on the same floor as the nursing home unit, so I get to see all the activities they have in their day room. I love it when they have movie showings. They make popcorn, and have those heart attack-promoting puffed cheese balls, and sodas. I always wish I could get out my own wheelchair and kick back with some cheese balls, but the supervisor to my supervisor works down the hall and probably wouldn't appreciate it. The nursing home staff is always super nice to me though, and they like to tempt me, saying, "Come on in, take a load off for a minute." I smile, lean against the doorway, try to guess what movie they're watching, and say I better get back to work. Love those movie days.

* I like when I see employees being nice to veterans. Even though they are heroes, some veterans are harder to be nice to, because some are smelly and don't understand the meaning of "personal space" or "appropriate things to say on an elevator, or for that matter, anywhere". But people can still be nice to them, and it makes me happy.

* I like seeing Bob, the veteran who works on our unit. He makes the coffee in the family room, runs errands, escorts patients to their appointments, and fills up a bunch of water cups several times a day to give to the patients on our unit. He's really mellow, he doesn't like group situations, and he prefers that Christmas gifts be in the form of cash money. He always smiles and says he's "fine" when I say, "How are youuuuu, Baaaab?" in my best Wisconsin accent. I think he's great.

* There is this nursing aide (I think that's her position) that sometimes helps out on our unit. She is my favorite. Do you know why? Because on two occasions now she's told me, "You're so pretty! Do you model? You should model!" And on both occasions I've asked her if she wants to be best friends, but she just laughs and waves me away, but I'm serious. So maybe one day she'll be my best friend.

* I like chatting with my supervisor, Trisha, and the psychology fellow, Richelle. We have good chats, sometimes about funny things that happen at work, sometimes about serious life changes. We're able to talk about God and spirituality together, which I haven't really been able to do before at work, so that's really nice.

* I love watching our Nurse Practitioner at work. She is like a doctor/social worker/saint rolled into one. She is fabulous and has mad communication skillz. Maybe that sounds silly, but hello! This is the Palliative Care Unit! We have to talk about dying, not being independent anymore, finding nursing home placement, what cancer is doing to your body, how chemo is making you really weak...the list goes on of difficult topics that we have to address. So I'm sure you can imagine that when you have a medical professional that can not only explain the most complicated of physical processes in layman's terms, but also do it with a sincerity and concern that makes you want to weep (and you're not the one with a terminal illness), you have found someone that is very special.

* I love rounds. I don't know if Richelle loves rounds, because she's smarter than me and doesn't have as many dumb questions as I do, but I love rounds. Rounds are when we get to sit with the Medical Director of our unit and talk about cases, as well as learn about different key issues in palliative care. I am a learning nerd and I have loved learning the palliative care vocab and using it on Tim (he thinks it's hott). Also the doctor lets me ask as many questions as I want. Also whenever he comes on the unit he asks me, "What's the word?" But it's less like a question and more like a, "What's up?" so I always say, "Nothing much", and then I'm never sure if that's the response he's looking for...

* I like it when the unit secretary, Patti, calls me, "Little Sara". Anyone that calls me little can also be my best friend as far as I'm concerned.

* I loved how today the Nurse Practitioner told me that I've been "an asset to the team". That made me happy.

So what you're saying is, there's no excuse for my "blonde moments"

This picture showcases my natural hair color, people (also my adorable niece Katie and hott sister-in-law, Ashleigh)! If you didn't know me in 8th grade, or before that, you have never seen my natural hair color. To be honest, I was slightly alarmed to discover that this, this, brown was my true color. Also I felt disappointed, cheated, old... I used to have golden blonde hair in 8th grade! Then my mom and I took on my hair coloring like some kind of out of control science project and I tried the spectrum from blue, to red, to hair that was so bleached it was white, to many shades of blonde and brown, and so on. Then in college I lived down the street from the Paul Mitchell hair school, and I continued with the experimentation, even going through a phase where I thought it was really cool to have all brown-purple hair except for two orangeish-yellowish streaks on each side of my head in the front. (Do you guys remember that? Why did no one stop me?)

When Tim first told his mom he had a girlfriend, she asked what I looked like. He had a hard time describing my hair color ("blonde, red, brown"). And it really was all those colors, because it was recovering from having it a hideous dark red brown, then getting hideous brassy highlights to attempt to lighten it, then finally paying the big bucks to have a pro gradually break up the disaster with varying shades of blonde and brown. Tim always talks about how much he liked my hair color and cut when we first met. I've told him it's impossible to recreate and we should just be glad we took pictures.

Now, for the first time since 8th grade, I have absolutely no dye in my hair. My dad commented, "It's really shiny. It looks healthy." He was shocked to discover it was my natural hair color, but the last time he had seen my hair it was bleached blonde and had the texture of straw, so he decided it was an improvement.

What do you guys think? Is it worth the saved cash?

4...4...4

I got tagged by Ashleigh.

A) Four places that I go to over and over:

1. Milwaukee VA (work)

2. The dog park

3. Mayfair Mall

4. My lunchbox (I eat a lot during the day at work)

B) Four people who email me regularly.

1. Erin, my friend deployed in Iraq

2. Facebook

3. My dad

4. Tim

C) Four of my favorite places to eat:

1. Gus's Sandwiches

2. Comet Cafe

3. Taco Temple

4. Anywhere that has good sashimi

D) Four places I would rather be right now:

(No particular order)

1. Santa Cruz area

2. Newport/Huntington Beach

3. Palm Springs

4. Hawaii

F) Four TV shows I watch

1. Monday, 24

2. Monday, House

3. Tuesday, Biggest Loser

4. Thursday, The Office

Long ago, in a faraway land

Many years ago I lived in sunny Southern California, where cold was 50 degrees.

I can't tell you how happy 38 degrees made me today. I even saw a guy in shorts at the dog park.

Gotta love the Midwest. Or don't. Or think it's great during the summer. Whatever.

Thank you for your much needed sympathy

Today I had to call the bank because Tim and I completely forgot about this one outgoing check we had written and overdrafted our account. This is really rare, don't worry Mom. Thanks to my mom I have learned the fine art of getting out of late fees, overdraft fees, early cancellation fees, and so on, so now we don't have to pay Wells Fargo $105 for our mistake. (Thank you, Mom!)

We thought we had already set up overdraft protection but hadn't, so I signed up for a credit card to use for that purpose. To do this the nice banker lady had to ask me about my employer, my occupation, and my gross monthly pay. She had to ask me twice about my gross monthly pay ("And is that weekly? Biweekly?") because I think she was a little shocked about what I make before taxes are taken out. I used to be shocked. I used to think, "I made more with my Bachelor's degree." Now I just don't care. I have a job, and it stresses me out less than my last job, and I work with heroes. Hah! I tried to explain to her though, "I'm in a fellowship so they don't pay me very much." She acted as though this explained everything, but let's face it, most people have no idea what a fellowship is.

Then she asked me how long I had been at this occupation. This required some thought. I worked before with my Bachelor's degree, but I guess technically I've only been able to call myself a "Social Worker" since getting my Master's - which has been about a year. She then asked me, "Do you like that job? It just seems so stressful!" "Yes, I do like my job, and yes, it is stressful." It felt nice to get some pity this morning as I sat in my sad, windowless office, with ugly flourescent lighting, and even uglier "scenic country" paintings on the wall. It felt especially nice because I've been wearing my full winter coat in here all day, since this room also used to be a closet and doesn't have a heating vent. And it's 6 degrees outside.