Morning, dear, er, bear!

bear

Originally uploaded by KimberlyDawnWells

A 250-pound black bear wandered through my boyfriend’s backyard and across the street towards the high school in the city limits of Medford. It moseyed past the window like it was in no hurry. It looks really small in this photo, taken with a cell phone, but it was a good three feet tall on all fours.

The Chocolate Milk Puddle Mystery

Sunday was supposed to be my day off. I had been on ambulance call for 68 hours the previous week plus all my other regular meetings and work. I was floating in the pool at a friend’s house and the hospital needed someone to take a patient to a neighboring city for more care. So I went on my merry way and took the 3 1/2 hour transfer.

When I got home there was what looked like regurgitated chocolate milk on one of my bathroom mats, and a watery bloody mess on the other. Not. A. Clue. My dog and one cat seemed to be fine, and the other cat was missing but most likely outside. Or at least I was really hoping I wasn’t going to find him dead under the bed. I proceeded to clean up the mess, but for an hour I continued to find a puddle here, puddle there, drip-drip-drip here, drip-drip-drip there. It was all over my desk (barely missed my laptop, but ruined the pile of bills, how sad), the hallway floor, the stairs, the kitchen, and the coffee table in the living room. I was really starting to scratch my head when my one cat, who had been giving me a particularly sad puppy-dog face all night, but nothing too strange, started to lick herself. Oh no! She’d had kittens! I promptly put her outside, but not before stepping in a trail of blood she’d left from the food dish to the couch.

I haven’t found the kittens. I figure Missy (not-da-momma-anymore) and Rosie (dog) devoured them for a snack, which I hear is quite common. Which is fine with me – I don’t have time for kittens. But what a mess!

Folks, please remember to spay and neuter your pets.

I can haz internet?

I can haz internet?

The last few weeks have been spotty for internet service in central WI. The night before Memorial Day a storm created little messes all over town including a huge mess in my boyfriend’s yard. Sunday I ended up doing an ambulance transfer in a thunderstorm, Monday while I was gone it rained, and now it’s dark and looks like the sky is going to cave in. In the meantime, I’m never quite sure when I will or won’t have internet. I’ve been lucky that my electricity hasn’t gone out, but on the other side of town (less than a mile away, Medford is huge), they’ve had two outages lasting about two hours each and several thousand homes and businesses in different parts of metro areas east of us were without power for the weekend. But I could live without power (until my laptop battery died). I need internet.

Just about everything I do is based on using the internet. Squidoo, for work and fun, CafePress, Zazzle, Squidoo, articles, World of Warcraft, school work, Squidoo, fire reports, Flickr…ok and mostly Squidoo. When the internet goes down, I’m not a happy girl. This morning dial-up was even down, which doesn’t bode well for my boyfriend because all his classwork is online this summer.

With all the technology, you’d think they could build a better connection. How about just have wireless hubs around the city? Then as long as you had an account you could get wireless anywhere. How many laptop owners wouldn’t pay for that? True, you can do that in Manhattan where there’s a T-Mobile hotspot at every Starbucks on every block. But Medford is a little backwards that way. I can go to one of eight restaurants and get wireless internet (for free, too!) but they don’t have wireless at the library (the library, people!) or the hospital. The hospital actually tried to claim it had to do with security, because evidently if they had wireless internet someone could magically hack into their system easier than someone who lived in Georgia or Zimbabwe. *I* have wireless internet. Cost me $99 for a router. One time fee. And that was an expensive router. There’s a 10-digit code to log on, that I get to choose. Not that hard.

Which I supposed is all moot since the internet is (was) down. *sigh*

At least my house didn’t break in half.

How devastating!

Ouch!

toothpastefordinner.com

How not to pack like Kimberly

The last two times I was in New York City I packed pretty light. My first trip was two days, one night, and I took only a backpack. My second trip was six days, five nights, and even at that, for a girl who takes a fully loaded truck to the store (just kidding…kindof), I had only a carry-on sized suitcase and my purse. And I bought a laptop bag there (I didn’t own one). I mailed home a big bag of clothes and a box of books I bought. (I know, why’d I go to NY to buy books when Barnes and Noble ships them to me free?)

So on this four day, three night trip, I decided to give up on the two hours a day I spent repacking my tiny suitcase and brought the mother. It’s the biggest suitcase I own, but to its credit, not the biggest one I saw at the airport. I even decided to pamper myself and bring a blanket and towels (the hostel tries). From the moment I left my house at 2:45 CST, I regretted it.

Even after dragging the damn thing through CWA, MSP, and LGA, on the M60 to Harlem-125th, up two flights of stairs to the train platform, on the Metro-North Railroad to my meeting, on the train back to Marble Hill, up two flights of stairs to the subway platform, on the 1 train (subway) to 103rd street, and up seven flights of stairs to my hotel room, nothing was as bad as the realization that checkout is at 11 AM on Saturday and my flight doesn’t leave LGA until 6 PM. While, at best, that leaves only four hours for me to dink around Manhattan before getting on the bus back to LGA, four hours of lugging around a 49.5 lb suitcase and a rolling backpack which my boyfriend lovingly lent me because, “it’s on wheels!” isn’t yet sounding like fun.

My problem isn’t that I bring stuff I don’t need. I don’t pack a hair dryer. I don’t bring fourteen pairs of shoes. I don’t bring gadgets that I absolutely cannot live without, because I know where the drugstore is if I forget conditioner. I don’t pack food. I usually ship gifts in advance. My problem is I never seem to have the right version of whatever I do bring. Or enough.

I run out of clean socks. I run out of appropriate pants to wear after I spill ice cream on my khakis. I fail to bring enough dress shirts to get me through surprise dinners. I freeze in the airplane or use last nights jeans as a pillow. I know, what’s wrong with that? Hey. This is supposed to be fun. If I wanted to rough it, I’d stay home and go camping.

I’m finally settled in at the hotel and on my way out to play for the evening. I’ve decided Sunday will have to be my walking tour day, or a sitting at Starbucks and working day, at least after 11. No biggie. Next time I’ll know better. Maybe.

Don’t do it, dude

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Originally uploaded by KimberlyDawnWells

Please refrain from using your remote controlled car on the airplane. This is very serious people. Anyone caught using a remote controlled toy car on the airplane will be deported. Or whatever they do when they catch people playing with remote controlled toy cars on airplanes.

There must be a lot of people who just haven’t gotten caught because that’s on the list of things I wouldn’t think to bring on an airplane. Like the leaf blower.

My new summer hobby

Summer is going to be busy with work and school and more work and some other projects, and now bow practice. My boyfriend bow hunts and got me interested in trying it out this fall. I’ve gun hunted for about 14 years, but never had someone to show me the ropes, er, strings, of bow hunting. Now I do, so I saved up my money and bought Bowtech’s Diamond Edge compound bow.

I’ve spent 30-40 minutes on target practice each of the last few days. My bow isn’t sighted in yet but I’m getting good groupings, even at 20 yards. Later this summer we’ll work on getting it sighted in. I’m currently pulling 40 pounds with a 29″ draw. It’s a good workout!

Attach writing to another action

A few years ago I was experiencing severe headaches caused by pinched nerves in my neck and shoulders. My chiropractor ordered me to stretch often. Not being as good a patient as I should be, I often forgot. Finally, I told him I was getting better at remembering since I started stretching every time I saw my dog or one of my two cats stretch. He thought it was such a great idea he told his other patients about it.

If it’s a challenge for you to find time to write, try attaching the action of writing with another errand, chore, or event.

• Each time you check your email, set a kitchen timer for 15 or 30 minutes and write.
• Every time you come home, jot down notes from your journey that you can use for character and scene building later.
• Before bed, take five minutes to make a list of ways to add realism, or fantasy, to your writing.

If you’re committed to writing during a certain time, in this case, while cooking dinner, for example, be sure to hold yourself to it. After all, if you don’t, you’re the only one who’s hurting.

Kids on Stupid Pills

Yesterday I pulled out of my driveway and turned right onto the second major road through town. At the next intersection, from my right, a kid just getting out of middle school for the day sped down the sidewalk on his bike and without pausing, looking, or breathing, proceeded across the two lane highway in front of 40 cars coming from either direction. What. The. Hell.

Turning out of the grocery store parking lot 20 minutes later, a group of 15 students ran across the four lane highway that runs through town. As I slammed on the brakes for them, the teen driving behind me nearly rear-ended me. She was too busy smoking. At the intersection 300 feet later, she nearly hit me again as I stopped in the left turn lane. She got as close as she could, slammed on the brakes, and sent the trunk of her car flying up in the air what seemed about a foot. She waved her hands frantically, appearing to flip me off, and turned to yell at someone in the back seat.

Is it just me, or are kids on stupid pills?

Evidently, though, adults are too. It’s peer review time at a local corporation and I’ve heard more stories lately about people who get poor reviews because nothing is ever their fault. “No one told me.” “I didn’t know.” “That’s not my job.”

I screw things up. And maybe it’s because no one told me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know. Maybe it’s because I was trying to help out with something that isn’t my job (that I’m not supposed to be doing). But I suck it up, take responsibility, and move on.

“But mommy, it’s not my fault I got hit by a semi riding my bike home from school.”
“But officer, it’s not my fault I rear-ended that truck. She’s the one who slammed on her brakes.”
“But boss, it’s not my fault I didn’t get the charts coded right.”

Unfortunately, there is no getting what you deserve for riding your bike across the street without looking. Do kids deserve to get killed for being stupid? There’s no lesson in that for anyone. It becomes a community tragedy, the driver is always at fault, and the kid is always the victim. How do you teach responsibility and discipline people for not paying attention while driving and only ALMOST getting in collisions? There’s only a 1 in 500 chance someone with enough authority to warn them will be around to witness it. How do you coach an employee who has the employment skills but not the social ones?

The bad news is this stuff raises my blood pressure something fierce. The good news is, I am never lacking book material.

Psyched about Psych

I was recently accepted into the Bachelor of Science in Psychology course through California Coast University. I’m totally psyched, no pun intended. I’m still waiting on my course matrix to be finalized but I’ve been reading up on the basics in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology. I’m no idiot or newbie to psychology – I took 7 psychology, sociology, and anthropology courses throughout high school and middle school – but it’s always good to catch up on terminology and see what’s new. I actually was able to get experience credit for ten classes and test out of seven, which greatly cut my tuition cost and the time it will take for me to finish. Plus, I get to spend more of my time in psych classes and less reviewing US history. Again. (Although I don’t mind math.)

I have a lot of fun reading about psychology and new things researchers are learning. Especially when it comes to child development, so much of what we take for granted is really a complex system of instinct and hormones and learned responses. For example, babies LEARN that milk comes from a nipple, so when they’re thirsty they’ll suck on a bottle, not their teddy bear or rattle. This is efficient. It makes sense. But they weren’t born knowing that. Impressive!

My first order of business is to create lenses about all the neat things I’m learning. What a great way to learn more! By researching and rewriting and applying the data, I’m sure I’ll be a pro in no time.