In Texas even the DOGS drive pickup Trucks . . .

In Texas, apparently Beagles can drive. How he gets those little stubby legs down to the pedals is a mystery to me. I laughed so hard when I saw this little guy toodling northbound on U.S. 281 I almost didn't get the picture. (He sure looks like he's having a ball, doesn't he?)


Had a small nightmare of a bureacratic tussle happen this afternoon. Julian has been getting nasty automated e-mails from the Northeast Independant School District (NEISD) reminding him he needed a new tetanus shot, so I picked him up from a school meeting and we went to the "Express Med" clinic at the main University Hospital branch. (Ariane works at Uiversity Hospital, so we have Insurance through them.) We signed in the clinic just after 12pm and waited.

After 40 minutes of being ignored by the three (3!) receptionists behind the desk -- apparently their cellphones and hospital gossip were more important than the patients -- a male nurse came out and told us that Julian needed the "TDP" vaccine, and that they didn't have it at that clinic. Now, as a nurse who has previously worked in an Immunizations clinic, I knew that the TDP vaccine (which protects against Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis -- or whooping cough -- thus the acronym TDP) is for children under 12 years old, which I mentioned to him. He clarified this with the doctor, who insisted there was a new vaccine for adolescents that their clinic did not have, so we would have to go to the Downtown Clinic.

So off we went to the Downtown Clinic, known as "Brady Green". Brady Green is about the same age as my hometown hospital, Porter Memorial, and reminds me a lot of the 1960's version of Porter Memorial, so I usually enjoy a chance to go there. So we signed in about 1pm and waited.

And waited. And read the paper. Then we palyed computer solitaire on my Palm Pilot.

Then, -- we waited some more.

About 3:30pm -- 2-and-a-half hours later -- the receptionist (whose name was Esmerelda Zapatas) informed us that we had signed in on the wrong sheet -- so we would have to go to the Pediatric Waiting Room now. Mind you, there's been NOBODY at the desk of this clinic to direct us when we arrived or since -- and she's getting all bent out of shape with us because somebody knocked over the signs at the desk. So we sat down in the Pediatric Waiting area and began a game of musical chairs lasting another hour. First we had to do the paperwork to get Julian into the system. Then she called us back to explain that we were in "the wrong type of clinic." Apparently University Hospital has Free Clinics for the indigent (where we were currently) and other clinics for the employees -- so our Insurance wouldn't work here --and we would have to pay for his immunization! In a "Free Clinic."

Note to my family and friends: this is the point where I stopped speaking to this nut-job for fear I would raise my voice and call her a naughty name. So you can imagine how pissed I was by now.

Then there were subsequent trips about every five minutes to (a) sign a paper to have our $15.00 co-pay deducted from Ariane's paycheck -- (b) another to assume financial liability if our insurance wouldn't pay, and (c) finally to tell us they didn't actually have the vaccine Julian needed. All the while she's going on and on in acronyms and jargon that I wouldn't have understood if I hadn't worked at University Hospital myself for a year and been a nurse -- and I'm wondering how frustrated the poor schmucks who walk in off the street must be listening to this whine-bag make excuses and baffle them with b.s.

At this point I can physically taste the bile in my throat -- and the urge to strangle Ms. Esmerelda is becoming ever more difficult to override.

At this point a lovely older nurse named Dolores Nolan came out and took Julian back to give him the Tetanus shot. She had heard there was "an immunization needed doing" and took care of us quickly and efficiently. She explaine that there was, indeed, a new "Adolescent Tetanus Shot (called the "TDaP") which is why the doctor at the first clinic was confused -- but that the Health System has not actually RECEIVED the vaccine yet. She updated our shot records, gave us a copy of the Immunization form they send to the Health Department, and gave us a new shot record they use down here in South Texas.

A real gem, that Dolores. I'm writing a letter to the CEO of University Hospital demanding she get a raise.



So, to celebrate our freedom Julian and I had Dinner at P.F. Chang's chinese restaurant (I had the calamari and fried rice -- Julian had the lettuce wraps and corn fill), and we went to see the movie Elizabethtown with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. It's funny, uplifting, and romantic -- but not your average chick-flick. At times it was laugh-out-loud funny as the foibles of family, dating, courtship, and facing your own mortality plays out in rapid succession on the screen. But it also has lots of moments guys will appreciate -- like Orlando Bloom's hilarious encounter with a drunken, over-the-top groom whilst he's trying to steal the groom's beer from a drunken per-wedding party. (The slogan "24/7" takes on new meaning after seeing theis bizarre wedding party at the Brown Hotel in Elizabethtown, which backdrops the Dunst/Bloom romance.) I went to see it because Kirsten Dunst is a babe and the plot looked good -- but this movie is so good it made even me like the much-hated Susan Sarandon.

Great movie. Very much recommended -- you should most definitely see it if you get the chance. In fact, make the time for it.

~~JD~~~

Saturday Musings and Fifteenth Birthdays

Julian turned fifteen years old Thursday, which was a great surprise to me. I'm astonished his mother or I didn't kill him long before this.

He actually had a surprise or two for his birthday this year. He wanted a figurine of the Starfire character from the Teen Titans, but the one he wanted was a $250.00 maquette statue that was a bit pricey after his Sony MP3 Player he received a week early.
(You can see the product description by clicking on the title of this post above.) He also loves to eat out and was fairly certain we'd do it again for his birthday, but his mother was determined to surprise him, saying "We are NOT going to go out for dinner this year!"

So his mother and I both arranged to be off on Thursday and after dropping him at school, we cleaned the house and went to Target (for a folding Papa-San chair for his room, a new hassock, and a wooden wall shelf), Wal-Mart (for new bed linens and decorations), Bob's Comics (for a smaller, less expensive paperweight version of Starfire), and a Chinese Restaurant for his favorite Take-Out. We cleaned his room thoroughly (no small task -- how the HECK did he get it so dirty since moving in 2 months ago???) and redecorated it with his new linens, chair, hassock, and Starfire prominently displayed on her new oak shelf on the wall. We also put Halloween lights up on the windows and had them all plugged in, ready to go when he came home.


The bed linens are particularly nice, made from a fabric called "Microfiber" that looks like suede, feels like silk, and is machine washable -- very nice and luxurious -- not to mention affordable.


His first words when he sat on the bed were "I feel like a Millionaire!" So, it was worth it, I guess. (Heh.) Well, he did make First Chair in Orchestra with his violin, so I expect he deserved some reward for the hard work.


Some small changes to the 'blog: I've added two links to the massive amount of Internet Debris on my 'blog. The First is "The Radio Equalizer" a blog on the server I post with also -- by Brian Maloney, a radio host out of Michigan, I believe. Brian is also one of the insiders in the radio industry and has some fascinating stories of the crap going on behind-the-scenes at various and sundry places, like Air America and the hardball tactics being used by ABC Radio Corporate with their local hosts. (Those of you from the Chicago area might remember how Garry Meier was forced off the air at WLS-AM through these same tactics two years ago while being half of the top-rated duo on Afternoon Drive in Chicago. Well, same stuff, different day -- just in San Francisco this time.) Fascinating and intelligent reading.

The second new link is "Protest Warriors.com," which teaches budding neo-conservatives how to use the Left's own tacticts against them. They cite using the ACLU's own website as a reference point for information (Love It!), how to sneak into Leftist demonstrations and disrupt them with counter protest (something the Left isn't used to doing or seeing -- with hilarious results); as well as first-person accounts of some of the Lefty forces of Indoctrination confronted by neo-cons with their own side of Free Speech. Love these folks. Scroll down the Left-Hand side to the "Favorite 'Blogs" section to find them.

And finally, I've stopped allowing comments to the postings. Apparently one of the new ways for advertising leeches to rip you off is a new variation of the e-mail "spam" theory -- they post bogus comments with links to their websites. I discovered they were bogus when (a) one of them was referencing something I hadn't even talked about, and (b) a comment turned up on a post I hadn't even completed yet! So, since they've ruined this for the bloggers as well now, I've just cut them off by eliminating the comments sections. E-mail me if you want to say "Hi!"


Oh, and my Cat says "Hello!"

Aftermath: life Slowly returns to "Normal" . . .

Hopefully you can read the wording on the sign; it reads "Delays on Routes to Houston." This alternated with "IH-10 closed at Baton Rouge Louisiana."

No Kidding? Texas Department of Transportation: Masters of the fine art of understatement.

The "Special Needs" Shelter I was working part-time at has closed as they continue to consolidate the remaining refugees at Kelly AFB. Governor Perry has made it quite clear that any and all refugees who want housing in Texas, however temporary, are damned well going to get an apartment, house, trailer, nursing home, or whatever they want, and right now! Probably less than a third of the original Katrina refugees are left at Kelly and the number of Rita refugees is markedly less.

An interesting vignette or two from the disaster zones: one of our elders at Northwest Church is originally from Mississippi. His home church had the roof torn off during Katrina, so we arranged to purchase all the materials to replace the roof and sent it on it's way the first week. When he got there they replaced the roof as congregation members cooordinated relief efforts from the parking lot; serving up barbecue on grills as meat markets donated their stocks that would've gone bad without electricity anyway. (Fortunately for us, God had seen fit for our congregation to pay off our mortgage last month, so we had the cash on hand to do that for them.)

Meanwhle, Max Lucado's Oak Hills Church has been quietly finding refugee families that want to stay in San Antonio and completely furnishing their new apartments/homes with furniture, kitchen items, clothing, and everything they need to start over. They've done it for an uncounted number of familes so far -- and I'm sure they'll try to continue to do it anonymously as long as loudmouths like me don't ruin it.

Two interesting things of a Nursing nature that tie into this as well. One of the reasons I cut back on my volunteering towards the end was the incredible inflexibility of my co-workers. The "Hospital Nurses" couldn't seem to get over the fact that the clinic would frequently shut down when there weren't enough nurses to cover 24/7. To me this seemed to be the logical outcome when (a) you're dealing with volunteer help, and (b) it's a First Aid Clinic -- not a hospital ward, for crying out loud.

The other was the attitude some of the evacuees displayed. One of the Nurses I work with told me that when she was distributing clothing to a 10-year-old-girl, the girl replied "I don't wear Levis, I wear Fubus.."

The nurse asked her, "Honey -- where's your suitcase?"

The girl replied, "I ain't got no suitcase."

The nurse said to her "That's right sugar -- and you ain't got no Fubus, either. These are brand-new Levis -- still got the tags on and everything-- that somebody paid good money so you wouldn't be walking around naked -- like you're about to be if you turn down these Levi's again." The girl took the Levis. When the girl's mother heard what happened she apologized profusely -- said the girl had never had a pair of Fubu jeans in her life.

So, more than a few frustrations, as you might imagine.

Meanwhile, our planned expedition to Galveston this weekend did not come off as planned, as you might guess. Instead we went north 40 miles to San Marcos Texas, which has no less than two huge outlet malls. Ariane and I got some new scrubs for work, and I found a Dickies outlet store (I always wear white Dickies pants with my scrub tops; looks professionally "Nurse-y", and doesn't feel as weird as scrub pants.) Ariane found a "Le Creuset" kitchenware store and dropped the appropriate hints so that I know where to shop for Christmas; a mere 83 days, 4 hours, 1 miute, and 29 seconds away as I write this.

The weather has returned to what passes for normal in South Texas this time of year: blue skies, 90+ degrees, and more sunshine than should be legal.

So, all is well -- if not peachy!