The Neon Nurse's Charting

...if you look hard enough.

Dreamcloud's little trip to Rick the Car Doctor ended up costing us a little over $450. That was about double my worst estimate, so, not so grate, aktualy.

But one good thing was that it appeared the frozen-up ignition was not caused by anything Mike did. It just chose that moment in time to finally break down completely. (It had been acting up now and then since I got Dreamcloud -- seems to be a flaw of that particular model.) Also, the battery was on its last...whatever batteries have instead of legs. It had already run down again from when I had recharged it, meaning it had to be replaced as well. Though not physically drilled out, like the ignition tumbler.

So it was actually good, in a way, that Mike's fooling around revealed the battery problem. I have a meeting in Denver this weekend, and it would have really sucked for Dreamcloud to break down up there, where I wouldn't know which auto shops were honest and where I would probably have had to pay big city prices for the repairs!

Here's something else cheerful, although it isn't car-related. It's my favorite of four ads being tested in a few TV markets by the Center for American Progress. My nickname for the singer is "I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Dylan". Bookmark it to watch when you feel discouraged about the sad state America is in. Things have been worse, and they got better. They will again.

The upside always comes around sooner or later.

Here I am back from my not-exactly-planned holiday break. You know how it is, I bet, so I won't go on and on....

I ran across this today, a cute little runabout electric car called the Solar Bug.

"...for city dwellers or those people living in small towns, whose primary need is local transportation to and from work and local errands, it offers a trendy and environmentally friendly way to get around."

By my rough figures, at current gas/electricity prices, this would get me around on errands at 1/10th or less of what Dreamcloud costs to run!

The specs are right here.

Not that I am LIKELY to have a spare $15,000 next year when they go on the market...but if I did, I would sure think about buying one!

Mike, the clone, and I have spent the day hanging out and munching in a pleasant and peaceable fashion. Since we have not yet decided on where to get a new stove, we experimented with cooking our turkey in the crockpot. Not QUITE as tasty as the oven-roasted kind, we decided, but still pretty good.

Plus we had the usual dressing, potatoes, gravy and such, plus the one ESSENTIAL Thanksgiving food, Clown In A Blender.

You might know it by a different name. You make it by mixing 1 pint sour cream, one large or several small cans of pineapple tidbits and mandarin oranges (drained), half a bag of small colored marshmallows and a bag of flaked coconut. Some people add chopped walnuts, but I'm a bit allergic to them so we skip them.

So if you didn't have ANYTHING else to be thankful for, you could be glad I don't come around naming YOUR traditional family feast food!

Dreamcloud is still impersonating a giant paperweight out in my driveway. The recharging went fine, but when I tried to start him up, the ignition switch locked out. Could be related, could be coincidental to the battery drain incident. Me? Not so happy, especially since I had to Get Up Early and drive the clone to school in order to have a vehicle on hand for Mike's check-up.

Mike has, just by the way, grown 2 1/4 inches since July, making him 5' 9" and change. One of the ladies at the credit union recommended putting a brick on his head. Mike was not amused.

Just to fill in a little with something of more general entertainment value than My Tragic Life and My Large Child, here's a pretty cool photo from 1914.



You can read more about the bathouse HERE!

If you like eclectic, interesting old photos, I highly recommend Shorpy.com!

...might have been my head asploding.

I believe I have mentioned, now and then, about Mike starting to get interested in big boy things. Right now it's pick-up trucks, with the whole concept of driving coming in a close second.

A few weeks ago he started slipping outside to spend quality time with Dreamcloud, sitting in the driver's seat, heading out to a world of his own inside his head. I had made a casual check or two to assure myself the car wasn't actually being DRIVEN anywhere, but I didn't really mind him having some fun imagination time on his own. I honestly thought he had enough good sense to not mess with the controls and things. No, I have no explanation for my mental lapse.

Don't worry, nothing AWFUL happened -- not even to Mike when he got home from school today. It's just that I had a bunch of errands planned, and when I tried to fire ol' Dreamcloud up to go to town to do them...it was NadaZipZilchNothin' City.

So I am currently administering electricity to the battery via our handy dandy charger, which I was actually able to find, so WIN! there. Mike is very very sorry. Possibly more because this means I will NOT be spending any time today fixing his computer, which he somehow totally borked (I suspect illicit downloading of truck-related games) than because he understands my annoyance and frustration. But I'll take what I can get.

I guess if this is the worst Mike-related car problem we ever have, we'll be lucky.

OK, OK, we didn't actually shoot them all. Some we snuffed. But it was only because we all became POD people.

I am, of course, talking about the Points Of Dispersal exercise held in Colorado this weekend. Lamar was one of the chosen points. Our County Health Department and Nursing Service practiced a plan for handling a fast mass inoculation of the public by giving out free flu shots.

My friend and former nursing instructor asked if I would be a volunteer. They assigned me to be a Runner, which was kind of funny since even back when I was healthy, I never ran unless someone MADE me. Luckily, in this exercise my kind of Runner only needed to keep all the other workers in her area stocked up with stuff they needed. My team was at the starting point, so that meant I had to add blank forms to clipboards and walk up and down the sidewalk keeping the Passer-Outers (not their real title) supplied with clipboards and forms and pens.

It really went smoothly, especially when you consider that the top of the command chain is FEMA. The exercise was to go from 8:30 to 12 noon sharp, but there was already a line of cars waiting at the entrance to the fairgrounds at 7:45 when our team got there.

This was wholly a drive-through situation -- no pedestrians, no getting out of your car. It went like this: People would drive up to the first station, where we would give them a form for each individual who wanted a flu shot. Next, they were directed to the station where someone told the driver which line to get in. There were different ones depending on how many were in the car and whether there were children or not, because they staffed each lane differently, to keep everything moving quickly. Also, some kids got the nasal spray vaccine instead of the shot, so cars with kids were directed through lane 3 where they had that type on hand. After the vaccines were administered, people were sent to the observation area to wait (which is standard, to make sure no one has an allergic reaction).

So the drive-up experiment was a success. There was a long wait in line for the early birds, but once they got their forms, people were out in 20 minutes or less. Coming in cars DID use up gas, but on the other hand, people were not crowded into buildings to share germs, which would be a big concern in a real pandemic, and also no one had to stand in line for hours, as happened with the flu shot exercise our county participated in two years ago.

After we shut down at noon and put all the stuff away, we had what is called a "hotwash". You might think this was something fun to help us relax, like a communal shower or soak in a big hot tub. But sadly not. All we did was talk about our observations and make suggestions to improve the exercise. I went home dusty, sore, and with unfulfilled curiosity about the derivation of the term "hotwash". Does it ever come with a hotwax? Is there also a coldwash? No one ever tells me anything.

I didn't get around to posting about this until now because I was ZOSTED by the time we were done. I hadn't done any running, but I'd walked and stood up a LOT, and I FELT like I'd run 900 miles or so. I think maybe my FACE didn't hurt (except for my chapped lips) but the rest of the body was complaining so much, I didn't pay much attention to any quiet body parts. Happily, after staying in bed much of the day yesterday and then sleeping for 11 hours last night, I feel much better.

And we all got our shots for FREE, so YAY!

Here's another thing worth reposting I found when going through my old stuff adding tags. It's a meme for snap-shotting your life in specific increments. So of course the one I posted on 12-10-2003 won't work -- I have to rewrite. It has taken a long time, too, because of being buried under cascades of memories every step!

50 (!) years ago -- For being only 4, I have a lot of memories of our house in Kansas City. It was a duplex and our neighbors were good friends with my parents. Their girl Kim, my age, was probably my first best friend. I remember the backyard as HUGE, and I remember how thrilling it was when Dad and Bud put together a swingset for us. At this early age I was already showing signs of a fannish personality, being totally in love with Zorro, Whizzo (local TV clown), and Popeye. Yes, all three at once.

45 years ago -- Kids my age worry about atomic bomb attacks. Last month was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I strongly remember thinking that if we all got killed, it wouldn't matter if I didn't get my stupid 4th grade math homework done.

My fifth and final sibling had been born in February. My family lived on Hoffman Way in Thornton. I walked to school with my friends and was in a Brownie Scout troop. Little did I know that the mostly normal part of my life was almost over.

40 years ago -- I attend Rishel Junior High, and write a little for the school paper, mostly humor filler things like "Did you know Mr. New is really second-hand?" My letter to the Rocky Mountain News TV section protesting the cancellation of Star Trek got published -- my first pro media appearance, I think. Or at least the first thing I wrote, because my picture was in the paper with my sister's cat Patches at the cat show some time before that....

35 years ago -- I'm a newlywed (since August), living in a teeny apartment in Springfield, Missouri, married to the PsychoEx, working at the drop-off desks at the photo processing plant. I spend $5 a week for groceries for the two of us, which includes a pound of hamburger for Hamburger Helper on Sundays.

30 years ago -- Damaris is 4, Sterling is 2. Star Wars came out this year. I liked it. A lot. At the beginning of the year I met the clone via snail mail (we didn't call it that then, of course), thanks to a listing in the Star Trek Welcomittee newsletter. We met in person that summer at the first StarCon in Denver. I had been living and working on a greyhound farm in Missouri, but I moved back to Denver at the end of the summer. So at this time the kids and I were either living with my folks or in our tiny wee apartment in Capitol Hill.

25 years ago -- The kids and I now live in Lamar (with the clone) in another teensy place, with a completely insane landlady. It's cheap, though. I work at NEOPLAN, the bus manufacturer, installing electrical lines, and also writing the company newsletter.

20 years ago -- Look, you can see our house from here! We bought it three years ago (in 1984) and we still live in it today. We have a third child now, Kenny, technically a permanent foster care placement, but in reality, a Fan/GamerBoy who found his peeps. (He's an engineer now!)

NextGen Trek debuted this year. I tried real hard to like it, but I just couldn't.

15 years ago -- That Mr. Mike guy I often write about is 9 months old. Things look sort of stalled out in the legal wrangling about his eventual placement, plus various agencies are testing him and shaking their heads dubiously. So I am looking into adopting him. How hard can it be, right?

This summer, at tae kwon do camp, I managed a rare and semi-spectacular dislocation of my collarbone, showing off with a running/jumping forward roll. This will mean another delay of my black belt testing. *sigh*

10 years ago -- I am now a grandma, thanks to favorite grandson Zach. Until last year I was a nurse at our local hospital, but I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so that was that. Sterling and his fiancee Beth are busy with wedding plans for New Years Eve.

Thanks to a good friend giving us her old computer, I have been using it (for about a year and a half) to connect to this cool place called Delphi, and also a thing called Usenet. It's amazing!

There's a new show on TV that the clone likes, something weird about a high school girl who kills vampires. She hasn't talked me into trying it yet. I'm sure it's not at all the kind of thing I would like.

5 years ago -- I will now admit I have been helping myself out a little on some of these entries by doing research online. There are some gaps, though, so I'm not doing too well for 2002. I did find out that this is my 5th anniversary for starting NeonHearts.com as my independent online bookshop!

Uh...Mike is 10, and I have four grandkids.

1 year ago -- Between the last yearmark and this one, I have gotten WAY into politics. Here in Colorado we are a mile (or more) high over the results of the 2006 elections, where the Dems now control the state House, Senate and governorship for the first time since JFK was in office.

I also started reposting a long fic I fully intended to re-commence writing. Which I will. Some day. RealSoonNow....

1 month ago -- It's almost my birthday. I got a new dog (Smiley McFriendlypants) and we are hoping the Rockies win the World Series. Oh, well, maybe the DOG will work out....

1 week ago -- Mike is home from school not feeling well. I decide to make hot and sour soup, which starts me on the search of my LJ archives, which leads to this thing I'm typing now!

Yesterday -- I post of my desire for Diamond Balloon Fire Clock Milk. Other than that, an ordinary day of computer time, packing and mailing books, and grocery shopping. Oh, and I got my flu shot and volunteer packet for the vaccination marathon exercise Saturday.

Today -- Puttering around the house, writing this, getting all covered in nostalgia.

Tomorrow -- Getting up at 6am (*snarl*) to go be a volunteer at the disaster practice vaccination exercise.

Five places I've lived -- Denver, Lamar, and Pueblo, Colorado; Kansas City (born) and Springfield, Missouri (this is the same as last time)

I am going to save the other two parts of the meme for later, but in case you want to do them, they are "My top five biggest worries at the moment" and "The top five things I am looking forward to in 2008"

You should try this, it's fun!

There's a new spammeme out there, where the subject line is a series of nouns that ALMOST make some kind of sense.

Or maybe that's just me.

Tonight I got one advertising Diamond Balloon Fire Clock Milk.

"Dang," I said, after reading that off to the clone. "I'd buy that."

She snorted. "You'd DRINK it."

How well she knows me.

I had a couple of things I knew I HAD to remember to do -- guess that drove out the other things I generally try to remember to do. Like to post here.

I even had something ready to go. The other day I went looking for a recipe I'm pretty sure I wrote up at some point in time, but I couldn't find it. So I decided to start going through my old posts and adding tabs, at least on LiveJournal.

I found one interesting meme already, which I've started working on. It also occurred to me I could repost snippets from the past, being as how I'm into recycling and all.

Here's one now!

"Trying to find two specific books around here is only slightly less of a challenge than being asked to find two specific cat hairs shed by two specific cats on two specific days."

From 2003, but still sadly true.

Cat using teeth and claws to play--normal.

Cat using teeth and claws to play by popping bubble wrap--a little weird, right?

That would be Mike's little Sandy. Naturally she is too clever for me, and evaded my attempts to document her weird play with my camera. Sorry.

Mike had a sniffly nose last night. This morning, we both did. I let him stay home from school, but we were both better by this evening. Which is nice, but odd.

I decided to make hot and sour soup for dinner, to help drive off lurking cold germs. While I was shopping around the Wal-Mart, I said Mike could go look around on his own. When I had everything, I went to the toy section...no Mike. Went to computers and electronics...huh, no Mike there either.

Where did I find him? In Men's Clothing. 0.o

In other funny Mike news, we dropped by the Food Drive/Presidential Candidate poll, and I gave him some of my stars to vote with. I was going to ask if he wanted me to tell him about the various candidates, but he had his mind made up before I could get started.

For a second, I thought he was going for Obama, but then he chose to give his stars to Mike Gravel.

I guess Mikes have to stick together. :)

But, you know. Bees. Busy like them, anyway.

One of the projects I've been working on is done...or done for the moment. Our local Dems are now having a food and coat drive. It's really a fun way to do it -- I made a ballot board with all eight Dem candidates for President on it. When people bring in cans or coats, they get stickers to put by their favorite.

Other project is not so done. I still have a few rocks to push uphill on that one. So of course I got an idea today for yet ANOTHER project. If I get a green light from state Dem headquarters, I might be setting up a sort of group site for other Colorado counties to be able to have their own web pages like the one I made for Prowers County.

So I guess I might have to start learning CSS sooner than I expected. I wonder if it's a LOT harder than HTML?

Oh, well, learning new stuff keeps you from going ga-ga in your old age, they say. Although some other Theys might well say, "TOO LATE!"

I haven't made up my mind yet, on mine. I certainly didn't use much of it over the weekend. Almost everything I did, I did indoors. I put medicine in the pets' ears, brushed the oldest cat, wrote a brochure for a project our local Dems are doing (see codeneonblue.net for details if you're interested), listened to Mike tell his truck stories, stuff like that.

Probably ought to jump to bed now, because next week is going to be hectic. Unlike, you know, every other week I ever lived through....

I don't watch all that much TV. But the other day, it occurred to me that quite a few of the ones that have caught my interest use the technique of the voiceover, which either tells us what characters are thinking (Dexter, Veronica Mars) or informs us of the moral of the story, in case we are too dim to catch on without help (Gray's Anatomy, Heroes).

What I was wondering...what if somewhere in the over-arcing TV-verse, the VO Fairy got wasted one night and mixed the voice-overs up?

It seems to me there's a lot of potential comedy gold there, fanfic-wise. I don't have the time to mess with it myself, but if anyone is looking for a new idea, help yourself!

Our boy Mike has gotten a little too old for Halloween. But happily we have a holiday to somewhat take its place. November 1 was the day his adoption was FINALLY finalized (after a mere three years or so of legal wrangling), and thus it became, in our family, Michael Day!

We went out for pizza. That was Mike's choice, surprise, surprise.

Sometimes it seems like he was still tiny just a few days ago, and other times it's like he's been around forever, like there was never a time when he WASN'T here with us.

He drives me crazy sometimes, but I wouldn't trade him for ten thousand worlds of solid gold.