Me and my bad-a** parking sticker

So today was orientation for my new job.....ya know, I was gonna write this really long and amusing post about some other stuff too, but I got up at 5 AM today and I am no longer a fully functioning individual. So I'm gonna get straight to the point instead.

At the end of the day, I was realllllly excited about driving off the hospital campus, because today I received A) my parking sticker and B) my employee ID badge. And guess what. Employees. Park. Free. (Insert excessive celebratory dance here. Hey. It's the small things, am I right??) So when you drive off the main campus, the attendant looks for the little sticker on your windshield and then pushes the button that raises the long arm so you can drive through, releasing you into the world. That was SO gonna be me today. Except.

Except I decided to drive off the hospital campus going the BACK way instead. And apparently, the rules are a little different going the back way. I drove confidently to the gate and patiently waited while other people forked over their precious dollars to pay for parking. When it was my turn, I cruised triumphantly forward, anticipating the victorious raise of that long bar, just waiting for that delicious moment to happen. Look at me and my bad-a** parking sticker. And I waited........and waited. And nothing happened. Suddenly I heard shouting. I dumbly looked toward the attendant on my left, who was trying to get my attention. I unrolled my window and heard her say..."You HAVE. To SWIPE. Your BADGE." I rather intelligently responded with "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....where?" She points to a place somewhere behind me. Oh. For the love of crap. And of course, of COURSE, there is now a line of cars behind me, waiting for the dumb new girl to get out of the way. So I threw my car into park, slunk out of my seat, and shuffled the walk of shame to that space somewhere behind me where indeed, I was required to swipe my badge in order for that long bar to release me into the world.

In my case, that bar should have stayed down, down, down. I was clearly in no way ready to be released.

I made my own "You know you're...." list.

My carefully comprised first volume of "You know you're a nursing student when..." is finally available for the low, low price of...well...nothing. *cough* I do accept monetary donations, however. Sooooooooooooo. Without further ado, here it is.

1) Instead of typing the word "with", you look for the "c" with the little line over it.
2) In spin class, the guy on the bike next to you who doesn't have a water bottle becomes "at Risk for Deficient Fluid Volume". This happens everywhere.
3) Conversations about bodily functions/fluids with your nursing school friends are not only accepted, but expected; and followed-up by additional clarifying questions.
4) Your nursing school friends are more like family. You cry with them, you laugh with them, you agonize about the side effects of diuretics, ACE Inhibitors and Anticholinergics with them.
5) You've taken a multiple-choice test with 4 correct responses and have chosen the MOST correct response. 
6) You think of your previous stellar GPA with a hysterical little giggle, mentally lower your standards, and get excited when you score above the 75% needed to pass. 
7) The clinical uniform you were once really excited about wearing one day...becomes your most dreaded nightmare of polyester-starched, itchy-sweaty awfulness that is stripped off your body the nano-second you step inside your front door after clinical.
8) You're in the school cafeteria and ask someone politely to move their bag so you can roll your wheelie-backpack between 2 tables, and a young whippersnapper says to you "Wouldn't it be easier to PICK UP your backpack?" And you sweetly retort "How about YOU come and PICK UP 50 pounds of nursing school textbooks?" He says nothing.
9) If you could somehow manipulate the lab equipment to begin an IV infusion of coffee, you would TOTALLY do it.
10) Your vocabulary expands momentously to words you never thought to hear in conversation, but now roll off your tongue like you were born to say "I'm feeling tachycardic and diaphoretic about this exam!"

The Incident Involving the Dead Chicken

My sister sent me a really yummy-looking recipe that called for a whole chicken to be rubbed all over with spices and stuffed with a quartered lemon. Here it is: http://www.thelittlekitchen.net/2011/02/03/whole-chicken-in-a-slow-cooker/ (See? I can be a helpful blogger!)

Since I am ALL ABOUT easy recipes, I decided to make it. However, after this morning's ensuing fiasco, I have comprised a list of reasons that left me with this conclusion: I wouldn't survive half a New York minute on a farm. "Aw, Kris, I thought you were a tough girl." I AM TOUGH. AS PUDDING. Now, the chicken in this recipe was, like, a WHOLE chicken. The kind with a bag of quivering giblets in it. And the neck stuffed inside of the chicken's body, looking like some kind of awkward, inside-out....phallic...body part. For the record, chickens that are dead and have no feathers...are kind of freaky looking. They're all pale and headless with their awkward little wings. So yeah. Here's why I'm probably never going to be able to make this again, even though it was, like, the best meal I've made in a really long time. (As in, the last week.)

1) After nearly forgetting how many days the chicken was thawing in the fridge, I decided at 8 AM this morning that I absolutely MUST make this chicken today. And I only have 7 minutes to do the prep work. Lucky for me, hubs was willing to accommodate and assist my whirlwind preparations. MY HERO! (He insisted I put the hero part in the story. And it's true.)

2) As hubby rolls up his sleeves and plops the chicken in the sink to rinse it and pull out the *gag* giblets, and *double gag* cut off the *shudder* chicken's neck, I realize we are wearing twin faces of revulsion.

3) Hubs plops the rinsed corpse onto a plate so I can pat it dry with some paper towels. As I move my hands toward the pale carcass, an alarm in my head starts clanging. DO NOT <clang> TOUCH <clang> THIS <clang clang clang> NASTY SLIMY THING. My hands immediately retract. I try to go for it again. My hands again retract. Hubby laughs. I concentrate harder. CLANG CLANG CLANG.

4) After I somehow managed to survive the horror of patting the chicken dry, I then had to rub garlic and spices all over it. Essentially, giving the chicken an all-over body scrub-slash-massage. I got through this part with just a  few dry-heaves and with shrieking kept to a quiet minimum.

5) After I used barbecue tongs to jam the quartered lemon pieces inside the dead beast, (I refused to put my hand inside that thing) I needed to transfer the chicken to the crockpot. There's no easy way to complete this task except by just picking it up and putting it in the crockpot. Simple, right?

6) I grabbed the chicken, holding it at arms-length, hauled it up, gag-screamed, and practically threw it into the crockpot. The memory of the bones mushing all around under my hands haunts me hours later.

Ironically, I can have the most horribly gross conversation while eating a meal and not be even slightly fazed. However, somehow, the thought of a naked, floppy, goose-bumpy chicken was enough to make me act like a total side show. Well, at least hubby was amused. I'll close this little story with a heart-wrenching clipperoo of our g-chat conversation later in the day:

 Chris:  dinner will be yum yum.  :-)

 me:  I hope.

 Chris:  That was fun making it this morning. You are hilarious

 me:  It was a disaster

 Chris: it was insanely fun. you were so utterly appalled by handling the chicken, and you were like whirlwind x10

 me:  hahaha

 Chris:  your life brings endless joy to my life

 me:  did you tell your coworkers?

 Chris:  nah. Your aversion to touching a chicken is my little secret

The Whirlwind

Sometimes while I am doing stuff around the house, I'll hear hubby suddenly start laughing to himself. "What are you laughing at?!" I respond, resenting the whine I hear in my voice, already knowing exactly WHAT he is laughing at. It's me, of course. You see, dear reader, I have a problem. And admitting the problem is the first step to....oh, heck. Screw it. I refuse to change! REFUSE! I am a REBEL! A wild and free warrior princess who rules her castle with an iron fist! (Oh my gosh, hubby married a nut-job. Too bad for him he didn't figure it out until after he said "I do". HA! And now he's stuck!) Well, at least my cooking's pretty good. Minus the recent incident whereby a cup of brewed coffee grounds ended up in a recipe that called for brewed coffee. Not coffee GROUNDS. What. In the heck. Was I thinking. It actually wasn't that bad, if I ignored the little grainy bits that kept getting stuck in my teeth. Yum! Coffee ground sludge. Hey, it builds character. (Isn't that what moms are supposed to say after something highly unpleasant happens to their kid? "MOM, Johnny gave me a wedgie in the bathroom at recess, and then he did a flushie on me." What's a flushie, you ask? It's where some big bully with armpit stains and dried boogers on his collar turns you upside-down over the toilet and dunks your head in the water and then flushes, laughing gleefully like an evil troll, and then drops you and steals your lunch money. Oh, honey, it's all right...it builds character. I'll tell you where you can take your character. My soaking-wet toilet-water head non-lunch money wedgied self does NOT induce CHARACTER-building!)

Well, now that I've gotten THAT out of my system, back to the problem at hand. That is, the side of my personality that we shall forevermore refer to as, simply, The Whirlwind. The object of hubby's laughter. I may have mentioned it in a previous post, but when I start doing something, like cleaning up around the house, suddenly it becomes extremely important to start a chain of events that absolutely MUST be completed RIGHT THEN AND THERE. I can't just put away a pair of shoes and then sit back down and relax. Oh no. That would make too much sense. I put away the pair of shoes, and then reorganize the shoe rack, spot a leaf on the floor in the living room, sweep the living room, then since the broom is out, sweep the kitchen. Notice a cup on the counter, put it in the dishwasher, run the dishwasher, the sink looks dirty, OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO CLEAN THE SINK RIGHT NOW, WHERE IS THE BLEACH? IT'S IN THE LAUNDRY CLOSET. Go to laundry closet, get the bleach out; crap, there's a load of laundry that needs to get done, start the washing machine. Walk away from the washing machine, spot dust on the dining room table, wipe it off. Wait, why I am I holding a bottle of bleach? OH. YES. The kitchen sink. (I promise, I am not this insane when I am not The Whirlwind.)

Today, I made the irrational mistake of wandering into The Pit, a.k.a. hubby's office a.k.a. the spare bedroom. Sometimes I pretend in my head that hubby is like Pig-Pen from Peanuts, a cloud of dust and disaster following wherever he goes. In case he's reading this, JUST KIDDING!! And if he isn't reading this, I'M TOTALLY SERIOUS. Haha, just kidding. Or not. Anywho, I was walking into The Pit to tell him about something, and immediately my eagle-eyes noticed several things at once that needed to be straightened up. And The Whirlwind sprung (sprang?) forth, and it was an unfortunate sight, for since I noticed all these tasks to be completed simultaneously, the little neurons in my brain freaked out and could not decide what needed to happen first. So this is what happened instead. I staggered awkwardly toward a large empty cardboard box that was on the bed, tripped, knocked something else onto the ground and then stubbed my toe on it, somehow managed to shove the cardboard box off the bed as I fell on top of the bed in agony about my toe, clutched my toe and gasped "I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay" as my face jammed onto the bed, my upper lip mashed up toward my nose and cat hair filling my mouth. 

Well, I'm off for the night. I need to go fold the clean laundry. And start a new load. And there are jackets on the armchair that need to be hung in the closet. And....oh my gosh. I am so annoying. Someone PLEASE give me a flushie and steal my lunch money. It builds character.