I live in Mordor.

Woke up to drizzle and cool weather.  Left for San Diego at noon and it was still cloudy but no drizzle.  On the way home, hit Oceanside and it was drizzle, gloom and 60 degrees straight into our driveway.  It's May 29th for crying out loud!!!!

Summer.  Now.

The Blair Witch Surf Check.

Surfline is third in line on sites I check every morning.  First email, then Weather Channel, then Surfline.  Granted, I haven't surfed in an unmentionable amount of time, but I'm still on the lookout for that first day back.  It definitely isn't today.  Drizzly, cloudy, 1-2', AND it's Friday and let's not forget that 79% of South Orange County doesn't work on Fridays.  

So they run this 30-second video loop every day for the morning surf check.  I think they've been having a hard time finding someone to commit long term to getting up at the butt crack of dawn, stare at the surf in any conditions long enough to make an educated report AND video it. We're on round #32 of roving surf reporters and I think the qualifications for being an eye-on-the surf reporter have been drastically reduced to: 

a) must be able to write intelligently

b) don't start the report with a greeting in pidgin english

c) must have a pulse.

This is the first week of the new report and for weeks they've been apologizing for the lack of video and how they're working on it and it would be up this week with better quality.  That is up for debate.  Behold, the new video surf report.  Wow is one word for it.  Another thought is: the Trestles people must be angry.

Now, I have 101 responses to these video reports and all of them are sarcastic.  Here's the top 5:

1) I'm pretty sure my 5 yr-old niece can film better than this.

2) If people get video induced motion sickness and nausea, will they not go surf and the lineup will be less crowded?

3) One word: tripod.

4) If you're filming the surf, zeroing in on a pack of dudes bobbing in the middle of a gray, overcast ocean with no reference to shore or horizon and then losing focus and swaying like a tree branch in the breeze when a set comes in tells me nothing other than you have no idea how to work a video camera.

5) I'm pretty sure the crew of the Blair Witch Project filmed better than this, and they were running away from witches (also up for debate), not standing stationary on a shoreline.

I'm just going to stick with the written report and use my imagination on how it looks.  My brain doesn't fade out of focus or bob up and down like a buoy.

Trial run.

After the extreme negativity of my last few posts, I'm going to lamely try to redeem myself.

We might be getting a dog.  Might.

The Tall One has grown up with dogs, dogs that live on famously in family lore and create quite the benchmark for all future dogs in the family.  He REALLY wants a dog.

I grew up with (in this order): two finches, a rabbit, a cockatiel possessed by Satan and a horse. Interspersed through that were appearances by dogs: Lady the Husky was before my brain laid down the highways for memory formation, Cookie the Cocker Spaniel that lasted a whole week before we gave her back, Sheba the Queensland Heeler that was the pet of a stepsister, and my dad and stepmom went through two Golden Retrievers: Zoo and Lady.  But I didn't live full-time with my dad, so that was like part-time dog ownership.  As you can see, I'm a little concerned about this next step in life.

Backing up, I was told that when I could keep an orchid alive, we could then get a goldfish, and then a dog, and then kids could be brought up for discussion.  Now, the Tall One was setting me up for failure because I was, in fact, an orchid slayer.  Until last summer, when the orchid I decapitated grew a flower stalk... and flowered.  It just did it again, too.  Now, a goldfish is a total filibuster of sorts-  those things are genetically programmed to die anywhere from 2 days to 2 years.  But, apparently we're skipping the fish and going straight to dog.

The proposed victim is a 1yr-old yellow lab that the owners don't have enough time for and it's crated an unholy amount of each day.  The dog is housebroken but that might be it.  My mother-in-law suggested the dog to us and the Tall One took the bait.  He's been in talks with his mom about this dog.  I just found out in an email that we might be having the trial run.  I also learned that he likes to jump up, play all the time and run around the house chewing on anything that isn't bolted to the floor.  Truth be told, this sounds like my worst nightmare.  I like to sleep in and be lazy.  This thing's going to have to be run around for HOURS each day so he's mellow.  I know I'm trying to lose my "nursing school baby" weight and all, but that's not really how I envisioned it going down.  And lab=dog hair, and dog hair means I'm swiffering the floor waaaay more than I do right now.  I don't know if I'm ready to have dog hair attached to everything I own.

I really don't want to suck at the whole dog thing.  I generally avoid things I might suck at, and I'm really worried I'm going to fail at dog ownership.  Can't we just skip the fish and dog levels and go straight to kids?  I'm all for just jumping in and learning kid skills by crash course.

What if it eats my veggie garden?!?  I just got more scared.

It's going to be OK, right?  I can do this, right?

Nurse Jackhole.

No, I'm not referring to myself.

So, now that I'm done with nursing school and all I've heard for awhile is how all these medical shows totally portray nurses in the wrong light and how all these misrepresentations have negatively impacted the amount of people going into nursing.  I'll be the first to admit, the docs on House are doing their jobs AND the nurses' job, but whatever.  WHO CARES.  It didn't stop me from going into nursing or the 400+ people that applied to Saddleback this past semester, just like it probably doesn't affect thousands of other aspiring nurses.  And you know why? Because it's not a NURSE show, it's a drama pretty much centered around DOCTORS.  

Well, Hollywood's not standing for it anymore.  Some nurse advocacy group somewhere complained loud and hard enough.  Coming soon to a channel near you will be shows like Hawthorne (with the "rn" highlighted because you know, she's an "RN" and those letters are in her name... eh, eh...) and the pukefest and terd-pile that is Nurse Jackie.  You can watch a sneak preview at Showtime's website.  I predict it will be the worst 28 minutes of your life and you will never have that time back.  I know this.

The website actually pumps it up with this enticing tagline: Surviving the chaotic grind of saving lives, this sharp-witted woman of substance knows how to handle it all.  With a white lie here, a bent rule there, and a steady dose of pain relievers, Jackie does what it takes to get the job done right.  Really?  This is the answer to years of nurse misrepresentation?  THIS is going to show nurses in a positive light and draw people into the field?

I'm sure someone, somewhere will snort and roll their eyes at my sheer disdain for this show- saying I need to loosen up, it's funny, it's not real and it's just entertainment.  They'll say she's hilarious and strong and calls it like it is.  I say it's trash, disparaging and just as damaging to the image of nursing as NOT using them like they should be in House.  She's the exact opposite of the nurse I want to be and she's the exact kind of nurse I wish would just retire because she's not fun to be around and there's plenty of new grads frothing at the mouth for her job and would do a much better job and wouldn't need to snort Oxycontin just to do it. 

Within the first 10 minutes of this show, she snorted some grains of a pain killer for her sore back before going on shift (illegal), forged the signature of a dead patient so they could harvest his organs (illegal), banged the pharmacist in the pharmacy (classy!), took the Oxy her "lover" offered her for her bad back that she aggravated during their med room tryst (karma!), told her MD buddy that she'd only do the heimlich maneuver on a restaurant patron if the MD bought lunch her lunch (wench!) and was generally snarly and foul-mouthed throughout the entire thing.  Later on, after talking to her nursing student while hanging a medication for a patient, she sends the student home after a long day, looks at the IV pump and proceeds to rip the whole cartridge and line out of the machine.  She looks at the patient and says "I almost killed you", while looking actually human and sorry, kisses the patient on the forehead and walks off.  You idiot. Three things could've avoided that happening:

1) Try verifying your patient's identity.  If you're going to have a nurse show, at least try to get it right, like making sure your characters are using the 5 Rights of Med Administration.

2) Maybe don't TALK while you're hanging meds.  

3) Just a thought, but DON'T DO DRUGS while working!!!!!

Didn't the tagline say she does things right?  Lies.

I then paused the show so that I could write all the above stuff.  That was a good thing, because I might have forgotten all of that after being fully repulsed by the last 8 minutes of the show. In that last 8 minutes, she steals money from a patient and Ugg boots from a co-worker and gives them to the girlfriend of the dead "organ donor"; runs into the pharmacist who gives her a Dr. Pepper, a Moon Pie and some Vicodin and they share a kiss goodnight; she then goes home where she gives the Moon Pie to her two little girls; and then to cap it all off, she slips on her wedding ring and walks into the kitchen where her husband gives her a loving smile and tells her he cooked dinner.  You lying, worthless whore.  Woman of substance?  Only if that substance is poop.

Let's just cut the crap- this show sucks.  And I'm actually offended it even exists.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a gung-ho, by-the-book new grad RN.  Nurse advocacy groups should be even more pissed off at this then they are at House, or ER or Grey's Anatomy. Nobody watches those shows for the nurses!  They watch them because Dr. House is a crank and funny, ER was a soap opera at best and had George Clooney, and Grey's Anatomy is an hour-long chick flick.

You know, if they want a real RN show, then they should just talk to me about my reality show idea.  Discovery Health, are you listening?  Follow around a group of nursing students through all 4 semesters, document all the crap they go through both studying and in clinical, how freakishly stressful it is finding a job while finishing school and end it on graduation.  THAT'S how you show real nursing.  

And on that note, can't wait to see how HawthoRNe manages to underwhelm (or better put, enrage) me.

Just turn off the TV...

Today is my anniversary.  Two years ago, I married the Tall One in what is easily the best decision of my life.

We celebrated by exchanging little gifts and then going to Mahe, a Japanese restaurant in the Dana Point Harbor that we discovered has quite possibly the most amazing happy hour EVER.  We shared a couple pieces of sushi, ate some calamari and shared a beer.  Lovely!  

And then we came home and I let him watch the Laker game already in progress.  It was on the DVR so he could watch every agonizing second of it.  I gave up early in the second quarter because I couldn't stand to watch Nuggets fans thing they're actually awesome.  So, I've been upstairs drinking wine and doing NCLEX questions.  100 questions a day, they say!

The Tall One is sitting downstairs, currently suffering through the 3rd quarter and I can hear him yelling at the TV, slapping his hand on his leg and angrily snapping his gum (we have bubble gum in this house?).  Unfortunately, I know what the 4th quarter holds for him and it's an ass-whooping that will kill the rest of my anniversary.  Damn you Denver!!!  I want so badly to tell him to just turn it off and call it a night, but I'm expressly forbidden to betray the ending.

But even worse than all that, is this:

Look at this douchebag.  You think the tattoos on this side are bad, they are only matched by the visual atrocity on the other side and the absurdity of his inner biceps that have WINGS tattooed on them because his nickname is "The Birdman".  Who the heck calls himself "The Birdman"?  This terd shows up with his hair like this for every game, and it never droops.  That's a truckload of hair product.  He's also got a soul patch flavor savor strip of hair under his lower lip, he runs like a girl, and when he does something he thinks is awesome he walks up the court flapping his arms like, you guessed, a bird.  How predictable.  Did I mention a couple of seasons ago, he was suspended by the NBA for drugs?  What a tool.

But at tonight's game, I learned how lame Denver fans are.  At the arena, there were kids that PURPOSELY had their hair styled like this guy and I clearly saw one kid with the hair and his arms covered in homemade Sharpie tattoos.  Where are the parents?!?  You're going to let your kid emulate some thugged out douche and then let them go out like that?!?  If my kid was, by an act of the devil, a Nuggets fan and he pulled this stunt- it would be shaved head, not a marker in the house and we'd for sure be canceling our cable.

I hate Denver.  Thanks for making my husband mad and ruining my anniversary.  

Now that I really didn't need to see.

Yesterday at Costco, I witnessed visual proof as to why I don't like shaking hands with strangers when walking into church.

While the Tall One waited for his pizza and hot dog combo to come up, behind him was a white, pasty dude with the moobs and fantastically bad tattoos.  I watched in horror as he stuck his hand into the back of his shorts and scratched the upper half of his buttcrack with the back of his hand.  For like 5 strokes at least.  And this was in the Costco food court on the Friday of a holiday weekend- it was packed!!!  Nobody works in south Orange County on a Friday anyway, but on a holiday Friday?!?  That place was crawling with people and ill-mannered and undisciplined children.  Just wrongness.

And then he put that arm and hand around his chick, and ordered fat food.  I just stood there frozen.  If I could say "Ew" in 73 different languages I'd have done it right there.

Dry heave, dry heave.

That's because they are, sweetie...

Not awesome is the fact that MTV is debuting a show called 16 & Pregnant.  I can't tell if it's going to give teen pregnancy a positive spin (i.e.: hey, it's OK, it happens a lot), take the neutral road or show crazed and hormonal teens just exactly what happens when they chuck the few functioning neurons in their brains out the door and start thinking with that whole region below the belt.

However, in the promo that they show religiously (and I know this because I've been sucked into a True Life marathon- how old am I?), they have this baby-faced teenaged girl declaring in the most southern drawl, "I just feel like everybody's starin' at me."  

Thaaaat's because they are.  We know what YOU'VE been up to- and it ain't studying geometry!!!!!!

My future children are already annoyed with me.  

When dorks buy cars.

Far be it from me to form a snap judgement, but I was live and in effect this afternoon while cruising through Laguna Niguel.

While driving down the illustrious Golden Lantern, I found myself behind a PT Cruiser (not my favorite vehicle) with about 5 hokey "check me out, I'm a surfer" stickers plastered on the back window, the most defining being the ubiquitous "Old Guys Surf" sticker.  But all that is minor, compared to what met my eyes when Old Guy depressed his brake pedal.

As Old Guy applied his brakes, what should've been a solid red rectangle in the top of his rear window, was this illuminated in red, "GOTSURF"  Swear on the Bible, I am not making this up nor would I EVER admit to even joking about doing this.  This doof actually took the time to get a sticker with GOTSURF cut out of it that would fit perfectly over his rear window brakelight.

Sigh.  Thing is, I've probably been out in the water with this guy at San Onofre at some point, and I'm sure he was nice.  But then again, he could've been the guy that, again, not making this up nor could I, yelled, "Cowabunga!" as he dropped into a waist-high mushburger.  Or hit me in the back with his board years ago.  Or so blantantly dropped in on me and never once looked over his shoulder (actually, that happens a LOT- look left people!!!!!).

GOTSURF.  Make me vomit...

I need a basketball in my hands!!!

Post season.  POST... season!!  Make some noise!!  Waaaoooooh!

What's better than graduating nursing school, the start of summer AND a having a job?  This commercial.  We laughed our butts off at this thing.  Awesome.  Awesome.  Awesome.

Beef and broccoli!  Waaaooooh!!!

Perhaps business clothes are not shareable...

I had an interview about a week and a half ago.  For my job searching, my friend Christy has loaned me her jacket that she used when she was looking for a new grad RN position.  Seeing as she got her dream job at her dream hospital and I have just a little to much superstition in my life for a Bible-believing church-goer, I figured perhaps it might give me a little luck as well.

So, the interview was at Christy's hospital for her department.  The interview went great, I survived, they didn't laugh me out of the building.  One of the panelists in the interview was one of the people that interviewed her when she was job searching.  Apparently something like this exchange went down a few days ago:

RN: So, we interviewed your friend, she's so great!

Christy: Right!  So how'd she do?

RN: Great!  So um, did she wear your jacket?

Christy: Um... yes.  

Honestly!!!!  Who remembers what someone wore for an interview over 6 months prior?!?  It's so awesome, I'm not even mad or bummed!  We laughed our butts off in the middle of the sale section at the Gap today!  I mean, I know we're friends, we farm together, do arts and crafts together and are slowly but surely ticking off the activities our husbands are going to forbid us to do together- but who makes the connection on a jacket?!?

Critical care nurses, that's who.  Putting those critical and observational skills to use!! 

Yeah, boy-eeeeee.

These are our citizens.

So, after watching three straight House episodes in an attempt to empty out the DVR library, normal television programming kicked in just in time for Deep Fried Paradise.

Just in time to watch some flush-faced, Midwestern good ol' boy hold a piece of chicken fried bacon dunked in gravy at eye level, stare lustfully and longingly at it while saying, "Fat on fat... heart attack waiting to happen."  And then eat it.

I waver between nausea at the stupidity of knowingly eating something that is so clearly bad for you and laughing while doing it... and wanting to thank them for my continued job security, you know, once the economy decides to stop taking a dump in my life and erasing all the job opportunities.  People will continue to eat crap, continue to not modify their modifiable risk factors and then I'll see them post coronary artery bypass surgery- monitoring their chest tubes, their mechanical ventilation, their urine output, their bandage changes, their vasoactive drips...

Nasty.