Don't sit under the apple tree

Do you ever have one of those days where you wonder how the hell we’ve been evolving for so many years and yet everyone is still somehow so dumb? Yes, you say? Well, then you know how I feel.

We got two cases yesterday, one is an 85 year old woman that died in a hospital ER, and the other one is a 40-something year old that died as an inpatient. So, when someone dies in the ER the coroner has to be notified and they issue a number to the case and release the body so that the mortuary can pick it up. If they died in the ER of something like a car accident or shooting or something the deceased would obviously go to be autopsied, but a vast majority of the ER deaths are people that are taken in already in the process of dying (like with old people). So, the 85 year old died yesterday, and the idiot coroner won’t let us take her until they have word from her doctor that she was supposed to die. WTF? She’s fracking 85!! She was dying at home and the paramedics tried to resuscitate her while in route to the hospital and couldn’t, so she died. I’m going to be even more pissed when her death certificate comes back reading that she had COPD for years or something.

Then the 40-something year old that had been a resident of the hospital for a couple of weeks is being autopsied by the coroner for who knows what reason. You don’t get to live in a hospital when you’re healthy, obviously there was something wrong with her, and I doubt that the hospital didn’t know what she was sick from and what killed her. She was being treated for Christ’s sake.

Am I asking too much? Sometimes, even though I know I’m not, I just can’t help but wonder…

On a lighter note, my co-worker, Buck and I have been singing Doris Day all afternoon. She's my favorite singer of all time, and the title of the post is one of her awesome songs.

Good days

Yesterday I drove home with the windows down and the music blaring. It was the best. I think it was about 107 degrees out (I adore the heat), I had burned a new cd at work and had my current favorite song on, and was in a great mood. I picked up Clementine from my sister’s house and we went to the dollar store so that she could pick out five things as a reward for cleaning her whole room without being asked (which is a HUGE feat for a 2.5 year old and warrants positive reinforcement). She went ape shit about getting to choose five things, especially when she saw all the skeletons that were hanging up in the Halloween display (not sure why she is so into skulls and the sort). Anyway, we left there with toys that included a bright pink pair of plastic high heels, which she promptly put on and fell over in.

My bff came over, she gets her hair done in my town even though she lives an hour away (red hair = tons of upkeep), and she finished at about six, so she and I made some kick ass tri-tip tacos and had martinis while watching reruns of Bones. Fun times.

Today is awesome as well, I’ve been meeting with families and looking at my favorite artist’s (sorry, mom) website, wishing I was wealthy enough to get one of his prints. Maybe when I’m older…

Love, Me

I received an email last week from a gal asking me to participate in a blog post today. After reading the email (and replying just to see if it was some sort of scam) I decided that even though it wasn’t really “my thing” I would do it. She asked me to write a love letter to myself, and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to do it, and there are a few other gals doing it as well. See, I tend to be fairly self-confidant, but as I was thinking about it I’m not sure why I am that way. What is it about myself that I love? Why do I love those things? Anyway, here it is, my love letter to myself:

My Dearest Darling,
I have been thinking about you this week, tying to decide what I could possible tell you to let you know how awesome I think you are. It's funny though, I can't seem to find the right words. Since I've actually always liked that I'm good at lists, here is what I've come up with so far:

1. Your compassion. It isn’t always your best quality, but when you show compassion there’s no end to the care that you will give someone.
2. Your artistic abilities. You are always patient and meticulous in your artistic endeavors, whether it’s drawing a picture or rebuilding a face, you always do a good job.
3. Your ability to not be ashamed. Mostly I’m referring to the tramp stamp you got years ago, but you aren’t ashamed of yourself, and even better, you aren’t ashamed of your past self either.
4. Your friendliness. You have never met a stranger. Even when you sit next to someone at a bar that turns out to be super annoying and crazy, you can’t help but make friends.
5. The way you walk in heels. You’re just fracking sexy.
6. Your thoughtfulness. You always think of others, and whether it’s a little gift you pick up for your sister, a note you mail to a friend, or a text message to your favorite uncle, you let people know they were thought of, and it means something to them.
7. And finally, your passion. The things you love, you love to the extreme. Your hobbies aren’t just hobbies, they’re your everything. You are relentless in your desire for what you cherish and love.

You are an awesome girl, Doll Face, and you will continue to be awesome for years to come.

Love,
Me

Here are the others that are participating:

This is Where I Write - http://rantsnotdrugs.blogspot.com/

Ms. Bea's Helpful Hints Blog - http://msbeahaven.com/ms-beas-blog/

Twenty Twenty Hindsight - http://twentytwentyhindsight.com/

Rollertrain - http://rollertrain.tumblr.com/

Cherry Bomb - http://www.cherrybombnyc.com

A little sad

Every year for Christmas my parents have an "open door" policy of sorts. We have always had the immediate family do the Christmas Eve thing, where we open our gifts and hang out, and then Christmas morning is super laid-back (except for my mom who cooks kick-ass Swedish pancakes and bacon and sausage) and we all open stockings. So every year there are random people over for Christmas morning, friends, co-workers, whoever wants to come over, and we always have extra stockings for people that just show up. It seems weird I suppose, that this huge holiday is always spent with people that we might not even know (aunts and uncles will also bring folks over that we have never met), but it really is awesome. It's one of those things that I hope I do when I'm old like my parents, just have an open door to anyone, even if it's Christmas.

Anyway, for the last five or six years our friends that we hang and drink with on weekends with the two daughters have come for Christmas, as their families are agnostic and don't really do Christmas, and it has been fun. The girls make it fun just because they're kids and it's tons of fun to shop for things to stuff their stockings, and their parents make it fun because they always seem to have this I-haven't-had-a-Christmas-this-fun-since-I-was-a-kid look on their faces when we sit down for breakfast. My mom says that her brothers would have a Swedish pancake eating contest every Christmas morning when they were younger, so I started that with the girls, complete with a trophy that gets engraved each year with the winner and their pancake number that whomever wins takes home, and it's just awesome.

So, this family that comes each year, they bring their (the dad's) mentally retarded uncle, Ben, from Oregon or somewhere, and he has a blast with us. He's not easy to understand, and every year we give him a blanket or something like that, not knowing him well enough to get him something truely thoughtful, but it's always nice to have him there, and the girls adore their great uncle, so good times are had by all. Anyway, Ben died today, after falling and breaking his neck last week, and it's just a bit sad. I'm sad for me, because I know that he's gone and it makes me wonder what happens next, I'm sad for the girls because while I believe in honesty with kids it sucks to have to actually be honest with them and tell them that he's just not coming back, I'm sad for my mom who was sad when I told her and I couldn't take that away from her, and I'm sad for the girls' parents who are going to miss him worse than the rest of us. Rest in peace, Ben, you will be missed.

Argh.

I had one of those families today that made me want to shoot someone. The son of the deceased was the only one to come in and make arrangements, and he was really nice, however, he was also very nervous. Now you might be thinking, “Of course he was nervous, Doll, I would be too if I were a sixty-something single man with no social skills and I was sitting across from you in that rockin’ black with white pinstripes skirt suit and your new shoes,” but this was different. He is one of those socially stunted guys that one often feels sorry for but can’t seem to like anyway, that always makes people around him feel strange. Anyhoo, he was making arrangements for his father’s funeral and it was all I could do to not tell him that I will be waiting in the office and to come get me when he could get through a sentence without interrupting himself so that we could get some work done.

And now that I’m writing it I feel bad because he’s no longer here and not annoying the shit out of me, and his dad is dead, and I’m just complaining, but there it is, one little bit of myself that isn’t perfect.

In which I realize I'm too old for drinking games

The hubby, daughter and I went to visit his parents this weekend. We own a house downtown in the town we lived in before and our renters moved out so we needed to go through the house and figure out what repairs needed to be done, as well as find new renters. We had put a sign up the weekend before and had a few people scheduled to come by and look at the place. It’s an adorable house, a Craftsman bungalow built in 1917, and the neighborhood is awesome, so we haven’t had any problems renting it (now if we could only get someone to buy it), and by 2 in the afternoon on Saturday we had it rented to a nice couple with two teenage sons. We are going back this weekend to show them how the pool pump works and to meet a repair guy there to replace a ceiling fan and a few lights. It’s very strange being a landlord.

Anyway, we got to see some of our old neighbors which was nice. Its one of those neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone else, so we’ve been missed, as have they. The weather was perfect, probably about 98 or so on Saturday, so there were quite a few of the old neighbors out walking.

Hubby and I decided that we would go out Saturday night and let his parents hang with Clementine (our daughter). We called up the gal that we had hired as a receptionist at the funeral home that we used to work in and she said she was having a few friends over to play beer pong and hang out. She’s pretty young, about 21 or 22, and all her friends that were there were young also, and this is what I realized:

1. I am not young anymore
2. Beer pong is not my Olympic sport
3. Coors/Miller/Bud are not my friends and make me appreciate my Costco brand microbrew multipack.
4. Our friend throwing the party, she is totally hot, but I forgot how hard it was for her to think. Funny though.

Sunday was nice, Clem stayed with the in-laws and hubby and I went back to the rental to have the new tenants sign the lease forms. The man renting the house is a farmer, he and his brother have vineyards about an hour away, as well as some large vineyards un in Napa, and he brought us a huge flat of the best grapes I’ve ever eaten.

Driving home from the in-laws we stopped in a town about an hour from our home so that I could go see the Harry Potter movie with one of my besties while Clem and daddy chilled at her house. One of her girlfriends came with us and we watched the movie (which was good) and then went out for a cocktail at the restaurant across the street. It was funny, we were sitting at the bar, looking quite a bit like Charlie’s Angels (blonde, brunette, and a red head) and I asked my gals to wink at the older guy across the bar so that our martinis would get paid for. We all laughed, knowing that we’d never do it, and not two minutes later was one of the guys right next to us introducing himself and ordering a martini. He was telling us that it was one of his son’s 21st birthday today and that he had been hanging out at the bar earlier and that we just missed him, then he bought our drinks, flirted relentlessly with us, and invited us over to his house for an ‘after party.’ We declined and thanked him for his generosity (they were top shelf) and told him that we hoped to run into him again. Anyway, that’s about it for my weekend, and I should have a funeral-related post in a bit.

New shoes

I had an extra fifteen minutes to kill today at lunch so I went to the Payless Shoe store down the street from the office and bought these bad girls for ten bucks:


Yay for shoes!!!