Happy Christmas!!

This is husband's kitty collection, today added a half dozen more collectibles, three of them are worthy of a giggle or two this trio all possess large whiskers with a bulb on the end.  I found three blue delft like porcelain kitty's playing with balls, all slightly different, found those in a downtown spot.  There are also several very nice three dimensional birthday cards featuring cats.  Go ahead click on picture to make BIG and take a closer look, please ignore the dust.

Also a couple somber discoveries, my brother in law brought his computer tool kit to look over my two aging computers.  The tower was pronounced dead as a doornail, the sound card and video card are dead, dead, DEAD.  He recommended getting a newer cheaper computer rather than try to find the OLDER MORE EXPENSIVE dead sound and video cards.  Huh, how about that!?

Also the lap top is glacially slow, only has a gig of memory, 50% of which is dedicated to programs I need to run, need more memory,  again the recommendation is that I invest in a newer cheaper computer.  Oh well tax refunds are coming in March.  Along with the unexpected expenses of getting the bathroom leak fixed.  If it ain't one thing, it's another, thanks Del.

SEASON'S GREETINGS, ETC.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday tomorrow, Brother James!

We are expecting visitors today, so am baking turkey today rather than tomorrow, have already prepared golden potato casserole, dressing, pumpkin pie, various condiments and a green salad of slaw.  Yummy. 

AND we have been visited by the Ghost of Plumbers past.  Husband noticed something and called me to witness.....
a drip over the kitchen sink and then directing ones eye upward, I seen clearly where it is dripping, I estimate the drip to come from the upstairs bathroom somewhere beneath the damn bathtub.  Hello?  Bateman Plumbing would you......

Decorating, etc.

We finally decided to decorate our department wreath in honor of Judy.  On a more criminal note, the kitchen's wreath consisted of a Nativity scene.  Someone kidnapped baby Jesus, no ransom note, nothing.  A plea to return baby Jesus was posted on the wreath.  The kitchen supervisor threatened damnation because the Nativity set was a personal item belonging to one of the chefs.  Eventually the mystery was solved, the kidnapper had stolen baby Jesus, wrapped it a Christmas gift under the employee tree in the dining room addressed to last year's baby Jesus kidnapper when the same crime was committed against the Nativity set from the surgery crew.  Cooler minds intervened, unwrapped baby Jesus, returned him to his rightful owner and re-wrapped the box and returned the gift to the tree.  Er, demented Gift of the Magi by O. Brother.

The sum total of my season's decorations. Done! Done! Done!

Little dance in the end zone done!

Oooh Picture windows....

The glaziers/construction crews got around to installing windows on the front upper level.  This will be the entrance for patients coming for laboratory tests and radiology examinations. 

This week has seen the Christmas decorations go up,  we are once again faced with decorating an artificial Christmas wreath. 

It lay around for well over a week while departments smartly hung their finished products.  This morning I suddenly thought that it might be nice if we decorated the wreath as a memorial wreath for Judy Kollen.  Everyone else fell in with the idea as no one else had had time to even think about the project. So, I went to the flower shop and the lady cheerfully gave me three yards each of wide black ribbon and thin red ribbon. There was also a nice fabric "window" with a lacy angel to hang in the middle.  I also had some red ornaments.  I went to the hospital and dragged home the wreath and the embossing machine.  I embossed three strips In Memoriam Judy Kollen 1939/2011, those all had peel and stick backing that went on the lace window very well.  The ribbons wrapped around the wreath and I used five or six shiny red plain ornaments to fill in the voids between the ribbon and voila, our finished wreath.  Housekeeping loaned us on those magic decoration hanging devices.  I will take a picture Sunday.

On a slightly different season note I have made two batches of fruit cake this year.  The first batch involved dragging out the various packets of dried fruit I had squirreled away and soaking the fruit in rum over night.  I found dried mangoes, raisins, dried cranberries, apricots, apples, pears, peaches, candied pineapple and cherries.  I also found pecans, cashews, Brazil nuts and walnuts.  Since this was a biggish batch I doubled the recipe and got 8 loaf pans.

I made a second non alcoholic batch the next day with dried dates, raisins, cherry flavored cranberries, golden raisins, dried applies and walnuts.  House smelled pretty good.  Do be careful when you bite down, some of that fruit is a little on the crunchy side.

My inheiritance

Today Judy's son, Don, called to say that he was going to bring over some books that Judy wanted me to have.  Okay......

The back of his truck was FULL. OF. BOXES.

Sixteen of them.  Husband and I helped bring them inside.  I thanked Don and he left promising MORE BOXES.  That cleaned out the bedroom.  He said there were more books hidden way. Oh, dear.

My, God I had no idea she had collected so many books.  I will have to drag my laptop down stairs with the book collection program and the bar code scanner.  No idea how many individual books there are but I'm think close to a 1000, makes that used book store look better and better.  Need more shelves, need a very cheap rental downtown somewhere for a store front, either that or I start selling like crazy online.  

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE

This a variety of task chairs on display for testing and voting by the employees.  That first one looks hideously uncomfortable but rides surprisingly well.  

I like this one it is mesh material, very comfy and quite spendy,
I have great taste.

And how for something on a sad note.  Last Wednesday 11-23 my first boss lady here was killed in a car accident.  I will miss her, she retired a few years ago and got to enjoy a few years of fishing on the Coquille during the steel head and salmon runs.  I actually called her one day in 1999, husband and I had purchased the house here and since Y2K was looming, it seemed to be the better part of caution to relocate before the computers refused to work.  And my aren't we glad that worked out well.  Anyway husband was already here, I called CVH to see what if anything was available.  I networked with Judy.  She called me back a couple months later to say there would be a transcriptionist position open soon, was I interested, yeah, anything to pay the bills.   So I made arrangements to leave the frozen north and move to lovely rainy Southern Oregon Coast.  By the time I got here, late December, Judy was off with a bad sprained ankle or some darn thing.   I interviewed with the hospital administrator and the business office manager who hired me and I begged for a little vacation and started January 2000.  As it turned out I became acting manager almost immediately and sort of fell into the job.  Thank you, Judy, I hope there is a fishing stream and good book with your name on it.

On an electronic note; I opted to purchase the Kindle Fire.
It is much more than I hoped for.  I can access my books, I can access my email and I can access my blog.  Still have to edit blog at home but I am astounded by this little tech marvel.   The screen is lit, I. CAN. READ. IN. THE. DARK!!!!!

MOVIE REVIEW....

As is common with my viewing habits, I came across this film entirely by accident surfing the channels.  Ah hah! Let's see what this is all about.

The above picture is from Julie & Julia.  A young woman's husband challenges herself to cook all of Julia Child's recipes over the period of one year and blogs about it.  Interspersed are peeks into both of their lives.  I thought Meryl Streep did an outstanding job of looking 6 foot tall and only a little over the top portrayal of Julie Child, not quite a over the as that of SNL.  There were two instances during the film that truly deserved two hankies; the first one came along in the early years in Paris, Julia had just received a letter from her recently married sister announcing that she was pregnant.  Julia had always wanted children and burst into tears, as her husband comforted her, she sobbed briefly into his chest, patted him dearly and assured him that she was so happy.  I wept.

The second instance was near the end of the film, the young blogger couple had gone to visit the display of Julia Child's kitchen that had been donated to the Smithsonian (I could have the wrong museum here..) and they were taking picture and oohing and ahhing.   To one site was a portrait of Julie Child and during a close up, Julie looks up at the portrait sneaks a block of butter on the niche beneath and whispers, "I love you, Julia.".  I wept.

DONATING BLOOD

Yesterday was donate blood day at the community building.  I had  a 4:45 pm appointment and I walked in, handed over my donor card and didn't have to wait very long at all.  The whole thing took about an hour.  They were very busy.  There were four donation tables.  They take your blood pressure, pulse, weight and do a finger stick to check your hemoglobin.  Then you sit in front a computer and answer 49 questions about travel, exposure to Aids, drugs, etc.  I had to have help with one question, I inadvertently answered yes to did I take aspirin so the nice man had to sign on and get that straightened out.  After giving a pint, I got to go to the "canteen" area for juice and a cookie.  They ladies at the canteen very carefully disposed of the empty juice can because not do they recycle they take off the tabs for donation to Ronald McDonald houses.

Very cool. 

Christmas Cactus

This is the Christmas Cactus I have had for several years, as soon as the days begin to shorten, the blooms start forming and this year is the most blooms I have ever had.  Husband thinks it is blooming in appreciation for actually getting watered on a semi-occasional basis.  What ever works.

I am going to think peaceful thoughts, I am not going to envision choking anyone that I work with.  Really....I am going to Pray mightily that certain people get what they need most and if they can throw in a tenor solo (ten or more miles away and so low I cannot hear them) so much the better.

WALK ABOUT TODAY

Today I went walk about as I had a 9 am appointment at the clinic just down the hill.  I left a bit early in order to take a few pictures.  This is the west side of the building lower level.

The road has undergone a bit of construction this week, there were three great huge concrete box like structures brought and placed in trenches cut across the road, for under ground utilities, we had flaggers, and traffic has been one way for a couple of days now.

This is the view from the clinic parking lot looking up hill.  The part of the building that is standing out from the surface is where radiology and lab and respiratory therapy and maybe physical therapy will be located.  Mr. Z's office is on the floor beneath that in roughly the same location.

This is the view from the north end, if you will look very carefully you may notice that they have windows installed.  Good tight windows are a very good thing when it rains sideways here.

New art work

Today the auxiliary put up new art work, all photography.
This little beauty is a photo mounted on canvas.  It is gorgeous, NOT FOR SALE and the only thing that would make it better is if the pears were actually dripping juice.  I love still life this is all dark and moody like an old master.  Yumm!  Other artists have lovely nature shots of birds, trees, but give me a bowl of fruit any time.

Now let me describe lunch today. It being Halloween, dietary really got into the spirit of things.  We had beef stew inside a hollowed pumpkin, quite delicious.  The biscuits were lovely and light. There was green salad with cockroaches made of dates stuffed with cream cheese.   There was some nice green brain cottage cheese salad. The brown and black worms were made of jello.   There was an unappetizing serving of poopy diaper dip.  And the piece de resistance was the dog logs made of crispy rice cereal, very dark brown chocolate and candy corn.  Thank god they forgot to make the kitty litter cake.  The pumpkin contest had one outstanding entry, Beth in the business office sacrificed several hundred paper clips to make a very complex paisley pattern on the pumpkin, very pretty. I should have taken a picture of that, too. 

Um happy birth little 7th billion

Today is apparently the day that the seven BILLIONTH human will be born on this planet.
Apparently 1000 years ago, there were 300 million people in the entire world.  That is roughly the population of the USA at present.  Due to inventions in medicine, better food more people survived to reproduce, and here we have the current population.

My question is this, how much does the earth weigh?  Wikipedia says 6.585 x 10 to the 21st power.  Oh and I am sure we do pick up a few tons from meteor impacts on the surface, eh? Just a thought.


Gulp, given that nothing comes from nothing uh unless you live in the Quantum universe, do 7 billion people make the planet heavier?  I think there is a law of physics something like the conservation of energy and matter that covers this.

I'm thinking we need a plague before we consume everything and the planet is reduced a pile of dust and a few surviving microbes. 

A few years ago one of my roomies had a very nice picture hanging in the living room it was a landscape of the seashore, mountains, forest etc...until you walk up to and take a closer look, everything was covered with people...EVERYTHING. 

New structure

This odd looking "patio" was just built in the last couple of days, so far it has three walls and no roof.   It will hold the back up power generator for the new hospital.  It cuts off the view out of the medical records window, this view is from my desk.  I wonder if the will put in a new generator, maybe a big old Caterpillar thingy.
Should be very noisy.  I'm thinking the bushes probably need to come out if they plan to somehow put on doors to enclose it.  We shall see.

Bricks are going up all over the place

The nice stone facade is nearly up 100% around the building.  That is the upper floor entrance to the emergency room.  Fancy.

This is the view out of the boss lady's window to the right, the curved wall is the driveway to the top level ER entrance.

Well that huge pile of rocks has been flattened and rearranged so that there is plenty of stable access for large machines to drive right up and lift stuff and supplies and workers into place.  The weather has held on beautifully, lovely Indian Summer, local weather calls for freeze warning tonight. 

Product review...kind of...

This past week I have been visited by one of the minor plagues, the common cold.  I worked part of Monday, part of Tuesday, Part of Wednesday, missed Thursday, worked part of Friday.  During this time I suffered the usual symptoms; migrating sore throat, migrating nasal congestion, migrating cough, migrating lung congestion. I had a PE teacher years ago give a student a hard time about her absence excuse from school, apparently her mother had written"Please excuse little Bunulla from school as she had a chest cold and a head cold".  The PE teacher yelped, "That's not possible to have a chest cold and head cold at the same time".  I got information for you, teach...yeah you can.  

Any way I dosed myself with the usual Alka Seltzer cold relief, some expectorant cough syrup, some sore throat lozenges...nuthin.   I finally purchased a box of Mucinex. First of all the commercials are one of the the MOST DISGUSTING COMMERCIALS on air...ever.  Well except for a certain nameless drippy cat food commercial from the 70's.  ANYway...I decided to gulp one down.  The first thing I noticed upon said gulping was INSTANT DEHYDRATION.  I could breath, thank you.  I needed to drink LOTS of water.

The active ingredient for each pill is 600 mgs of Guaifenesin...that's it!  So go google Guaifenesin and purchase that, same effect and you will not have supported the industry that created the gawdawful commercial.  Oh yeah, wear the blue mask, it won't protect anyone from the virus but it looks like you are trying and everyone will feel better and actually rebreathing your own air will keep you a little hydrated.

Cooking with ready made ingredients.

First of all these are not cinnamon rolls, those are stuffed biscuits.  Stuff with mushroom, sweet Italian sausage, shallots, 4 ounces of cream cheese and either Parsley or Cilantro.  If the left over herbs have turned all black on the cut edges, it is Cilantro.  I also made stuffed Portabello mushrooms using the same filling, popped in a 350 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes, I left the biscuits in longer than the package recommended 13 to 17 minutes, as I wanted them golden, brown and delicious.  And they were.  Husband actually preferred the mushrooms they were meatier.  This from the bread eating member of the family.

So next topic;   I used a new to me product the other night,  you have seen the commercial; a young couple are in the kitchen and a man appears outside their patio door, he comes in, the husband mutters, "Chris Angel?".  He says, come and put a package of microwave popcorn in the microwave, hits the popcorn button, gives a one eyed grimace, and the machine goes "ding".  He pulls out the popcorn and asks, "Do you know what this is?", The man says, "Its a bag of Orville Redenbacher popcorn.",  Chris Angel says, "Do you know what THIS is?" and swiftly dramatically pulls the top off the bag of popcorn.  The wife exclaims in an excited voice, "It's not a bag it's a bowl! How did you do that!?"

At that point I must interject MY experience with Orville's bowl in a bag concept.  I put my bag of microwave pop corn in the microwave, set the timer for 2 minutes and 15 seconds and waited.
Took out the bag, grasped the lid of the "bowl" and gently tugged, nuthin',  tugged a little harder, tugged VERY hard.  Got out a knife, to cut gently into the membrane, pretty tough, cut sharply into the membrane, still nuthin'.  I had visions of Norman Bates going at it with a very sharp knife..Shriek! Shriek! Shriek! Got out my KITCHEN SHEARS, and finally managed to snip a very raggedy hole in the container.  I poured the bowl of rapidly cooling popcorn into a REAL bowl and declared myself the winner!  There was no instant sleight of hand removal of the lid from the bowl, there was no magic.  But the rapidly cooling popcorn was tasty. 

BOOK REPORT..real book...real report

I was encouraged to read this book, "At Home" By Bill Bryson.

Subtitled "A short history of private life".  Mr.Bryson has written about life in a Church of England Vicarage in which he lived for a period of time.  He decided that he could write a history merely from the rooms of the house...and the garden.  So far I am up to the garden.  Capability Brown gets mentioned.

This book has been described as a good conversation.  I agree and I'm not through reading the thing.

So far my favorite excerpt is from the study and I quote exactly:

At times in the past attempts have been made to capitalize on bat's special qualities.  In the Second World War, the American military invested a great deal of time and money in an extraordinary plan to arm bats with tiny incendiary bombs and to release them in vast numbers -- as many as a million at a time -- from planes over Japan.  The idea was that the bats would roost in eaves and roof spaces, and that soon afterward tiny detonators on timers would go off and they would burst into flames, causing hundreds and thousands of fires.

  Creating sufficiently tiny bombs and timers required a great deal of experiment and ingenuity, but finally in the spring of 1943 work had progressed sufficiently that a trial was set to take place on Muroc Lake, California.  It would be putting it mildly to say that matters didn't go quite to plan.  Remarkably for an experiment, the bats were fully armed with live bomblets when released.  This proved not to be a good idea.  The bats failed to light on any of the designated targets, but did destroy all the hangars and most of the storage building at the Lake Muroc airport, as well as an army generals car.

Snort, giggle, hardy har har har.....

Justice for all....



I am not normally a heavy metal fan but I googled "And Justice For All" and this is what popped up.  Strange.

Recap of jury duty this week.  My number was called Tuesday evening.  I found some sketchy parking on the jail side of the complex and trudged to the juror room.  The room holds about 90 chairs and every chair was full.  O, joy.  The sign in method was fairly slick, (It was SO slick, I didn't even get a chance to read my  kindle at all), tell them your number, name, get a form to fill out for jury fee and take a seat.  We watched a fairly decent video entitled "Justice For All" and then we were roughly divided into three groups as there were three trials that day.  I went to the court just down the hall and listened to the opening remarks on a case involving reckless endangerment.  The alleged perp was accused of endangering two young boys, 12 and 8 I think.  A firearm was shot, and I was mildly puzzled that this made it to criminal court but again second guessing myself, I figured it was because a firearm was involved.  My assignment for the remainder of my time is to listen to the call in number each week night through the 14th.  O yay. 

VERY BUSY YET SOME MORE

 This week the protective "hallway" came down between the two buildings, we can see much better, more sunshine is let in. This view is towards the old main entrance of the hospital.  The larger opening in the new building is a temporary opening to allow the CT scanner and MRI scanner to go in.  

 This is the view from the main entranced looking South.
Eventually there will a meandering walk way between the two buildings.

This is the view from the extreme edge of the parking lot on the North end of the building.   The blue pickup is parked in the lane that will curve around the building into the top floor entrance of the emergency room.  The lower road where it splits will circle around the new building allowing a complete drive around the entire site once finished.  Those itty bitty trees down there are actually pretty tall, that level has been built up a good 40 feet and the is where the helicopter landing pad will be outlined in white paint.

Jury duty

Hard to believe that I have lived in Coquille for 10 years or better and just this week received a jury duty summons for two weeks in October.  The drill here is call in the number, if your juror number is called, show up for the day, do not wear cologne or perfume. 

I first served on a jury in Marin County, California late 60's, actually got selected for a trial involving a women charged with passing bad checks from someone Else's bank account.   It was quite an elaborate tussle.  Lots of testimony.  I'm sure she is out of jail by now.

Second and third experiences with jury duty was in Alaska. Once you have received two dividend checks from the state you name goes in the jury pool not for a measly two weeks but  FULL QUARTER of each year.  I served on one DUI, one assault,and one mistrial.  That trial was called a mistrial because the prosecutor was reading from something that the officer witness did not have a copy of.  So mistrial.

I served on a Federal trial held in Nome, Alaska.  It was a big deal.  There actually is a Federal Court house in Nome.  I asked when the last Federal trial was held in Nome, um, sixteen years ago.  I was briefly empaneled and excused. 

The very last week that I lived in Barrow, I was called for jury duty.  I was briefly empaneled. Perhaps it was the panic stricken look on my face that got me excused from that one.

So I call call the phone and if my number is called, I will take my fully charged Kindle for a day of reading and observation.  I 

MORE PICTURES OF THE HOSPITAL BUILD

This is the view outside the North exit, they have begun filling in the driveway with truckloads of fine sand, followed by generous application of hundreds of gallons of water.  The larger machines massaged the sand into a semblance of flatness.  I predict the layer will stop about 18 inches short of the top of the wall, in order to provide a barrier.  Gotta keep the ambulance from accidentally going over the edge.  Of course it would also be possible for some civilian to do the same, come around that corner, misjudge the speed and sail right out there....and no bunch of trees to stop the vehicle.

This is the view outside the window in medical records.  They just about have the building buttoned up, got on a layer of wallboard and Tyvek.   When the sun came out it was SO yellow we needed shades and we looked distinctly jaundiced.   We can no longer look over and see the guys taking their lunch break. 

Also brief review of a show on The Science Channel called

"Stuck With Hacket".  Premise is that what can a man do to create civilisation from junk.  Quite a bit actually.  Hacket was stuck in a junk yard next to a desert.  He decided to make a "dirt boat" utilizing obtainium (junk).  He assembled the pieces and parts, discovered he did not have a critical piece to connect the mast to the boat and actually made a mold of to hold molten metal and poured the piece he needed.  He hurt himself several times and finally got to sail his dirt boat, it looked really good and like a lot of fun.  I like this guy.

WORK SHOP....

When you sit near the front and bring your own camera, you don't wind up on other peoples cameras y'see.

This is the ICD10 workshop held in Albany, OR on 9-16-11 at the Expo building.   ICD10 is a diagnosis coding system originally invented by the World Health Organization to track statistics of disease outbreaks around the world. The USA has plowed through various versions of ICD8 and ICD9 and ignored the fact that the rest of the world is using ICD10 but not US.  Until 10-1-2013.  Yep, that is the magic date when Medicare will no longer accept bills coded in ICD9 and we must ICD10.  I was educated in the basics and while the guidelines are similar to ICD9, it will be difficult at first to get this pounded into my head.  Hey,wait a minute! Aren't you retiring someday?  Yeah, well about that.   Our contract coder really REALLY wants to retire before 10-01-13.  The only other people interested work in the business office, so I'm it.  I am hoping/prayer that we go with the Ingenix encoder with computer assisted coding so that I won't have a fart attack on 10-01-13. 

MORE WORK ON THE BUILD

The view above is next to the street, they are gradually building up so that the 360 turn around on the upper level can be completed.
Lots of very large dump trucks bringing loads of rock, dumping the rock, then a skip loader kind of thing daintily scraping the rock over the side to the lower level.  The guys below are tamping with rollers and putting down layers of membrane, that dirt ain't going anywhere.

A layer of brick work or stylish cement block has been put on the north side of the building, nice huh?  Also they are loading fiberboard of some kind in through the windows.

Wednesday parking very congested.  My ride gets me there and back to home.  Today it was quadruple parking at times what with the MRI van and patients.

Different level same view just off Fifth street. Very fast work.

This is the same view closer to the new building where the 360 turn around will drive right up to the entrance to the lab.  Handy.

Brick laying.

The workmen started putting stone work up on the north end of the building this week, very pretty. 

The parking lot has been an absolute zoo.  Triple parking etc.
Thank goodness I still got my ride on Wednesday. 

Also a couple days ago I woke up from an extremely colorful dream.  I was inside a Japanese style house.  As I walked outside onto the porch area, I could see many people using very colorful bits of paper making what appeared to be a giant origami.  There was a river running by the left of the house and some one was putting baskets into the stream and pushing them away with a long pole.  The baskets were filled with wrapped bundles.  Further upstream was a lovely Moon bridge.  As I looked up I saw a bi-wing airplane flying over head, I think it was made of bamboo.  It landed to the right of the house, folded its wings neatly up and over the body of the fuselage and putt putted over to park by the house.  I looked up and the house was situated in a beautiful little valley, the hills were shrouded in the morning glow of pink sunrise all misty and water colored.  I looked many of these symbols up at the dream interpretation site.  Origami generally means creativity.  Air planes landing means a plan has come to fruition.  A calm river means one is going with the flow.  A bridge means a transition point.  My oh my.  Well very entertaining.  No sound though. 

tastes better than it looks.

Went shopping for ingredients for tamale pie.  I could NOT find frozen onion rings, so I experimented with a bag of those cute itty bitty baby potatoes.  These must be miniature Yukon Gold as they were still quite firm once cooked up.  I had three nice fresh tomatoes that I diced up and tossed along with the other ingredients.  I think it will taste better tomorrow, it just looks odd but smells wonderful!

Oooh, isn't it pretty?

These are some of the beams that have been craned into place on the roof of the new hospital building.  I went outside this morning and took this as the sun cleared the mountain in back of us.  Lovely day in the neighborhood.  We will be able to see the beams from inside the atrium once it is all enclosed. 

Very busy Tuesday

We received an official e-mail notification that no parking was allowed on the north side of 5th street, that is because there was a huge delivery of glue-lam beams. The crane was parked on the lip of land next to the current ER entry and swept several beams onto the building all day long.

They finally pried all the boards off the new cement wall that will eventually be back filled with rock and dirt and become the top floor ER entry.  That's gonna take a couple truck loads of dirt, 
I hope the dump trucks decide to drive between the two buildings rather than through the new parking lot, either way it will be a delicate operation. 

Oh yeah, the ladies in the department gleefully pointed out that  I made the front freakin' page of The World.  Gah!! Slow news day.

We had a nice little ceremony at work today....

A topping out ceremony.  Mr. Z spoke, a guest minister said a Power Prayer and we all scrambled to sign the beam, which was then hoisted into its final spot on the top of the building. 

Yeah I signed a building.  And from here it looks like all of our signatures are upside down.  

Just makin' soup

Just gazing about the kitchen cupboards and the fridge.  What to make?  What to make?  Hmm, have half a bag of split peas, have 3/4 of an onion, have garlic, have some cilantro frozen, have jalapeno pepper frozen, have frozen turkey stock and some boxed chicken stock.

Well get out favorite frying pan, chop onion, saute in butter, add chopped cilantro, add chopped jalapeno pepper, add two bags frozen turkey stock, use up last of boxed chicken stock in fridge.

Add couple teaspoons chopped garlic, add salt and pepper.  Simmer for 90 minutes. 

Topping...topping.  O! Have bag of dressing in freezer, pour out half a bag into largish casserole dish, sprinkle salt, pepper, sprinkle of chives and drizzle generously with olive oil, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Serve soup in bowl, top with fresh croutons.  Delicious.  Left overs are in fridge help yourself!

Busy week....

Wednesday morning, is when the MRI van parks in the up hill parking lot and takes up NINE employee parking spaces, so husband very kindly drives me to work.  However, THIS morning as we approached the clinic, there was a very long, long, LONG truck and trailer completely blocking fifth street.  So husband dropped me off at the clinic, and I walked up the street.  This is the rather misty early morning view of build from the street level as one puffs steadily up the 30 degree incline. Phew!

and this my friends, is the end view of the cement being boomed into the concrete forms that will ultimately be the sharp left turn into the second floor ER entrance.  I will update once the forms come off.  Tah!

All together now...We all live in a ...

YELLOW SUBMARINE, YELLOW SUBMARINE!

Yeah that wall board/insulation what ever is being speedily put up.

Couple of guys on a boom lift put them in place on the outside, another guy using some sort of electric expanding ladder/stairway is fastening them to the studs on the inside. Sure is a pretty bright yellow.   There goes the million dollar view....sigh....

Forms for pouring a LOT of concrete.

This impressive edifice is part of the form that looks like a minature version of Hoover dam will be the road to the top floor ambulance entrance.  That's going to take a lot of cement.  You can't get proper prospective but I took the picture just at the edge of the sidewalk right outside the medical records door, it is a drop of a good 30 feet to more cement that has already been poured on re-bar.  Oh my.