Sunday, December 2, 2018

BUSH DIARY DECEMBER 1995

BUSH DIARY DECEMBER 1995:

Count the Angels contest.  No one guessed the number of angels flying about in the department.  It was 287. And I drew names and handed out the mobiles.  Six people left happy-ish.

12-2:  Christmas craft fair.  Tim and I went after going to the PO.  There was ll sorts of wonderful stuff.  I purchased an Eskimo doll family, Papa in a fur parka, Mama in her Kuspuk and baby riding in back.   They all have ivory faces.  They were $55 each with extra for the doll stands. T

im looked at a nice silver fox fur hat for $150 but I could not talk him into it. August Aga made "dream boxes"  They are pieces of drift wood, hollowed out, trimmed the ends with baleen, attached various bits of ivory on the outside and made a fastener out of leather thongs and a carved ivory whale.  The box is to hold small items or big dreams.

We received our Harry and David package today.  It was a small two person giftg basket containing two apples, two pears, Edam cheese summer sausage, honey mustard, almonds.  Nummy.  The Deluxe Tower comes closer to Christmas.  Update: The Tower came and we devoured everything but the chocolate covered cherries and the chocolate decadence cake.

12-3:  Five year anniversary with NSB.  That went pretty fast.  The only change will be that my leave time will acrue at 0.1600 hours for every hour worked. That works out to a little bit over 13 days per year.  That with 14 or 15 Federal and Borough holidays, the stuff racks up, it is very hard to schedule time off that is not work related.  Poor me.  I am not required to use it or lose it.  Some day a bean counter will point out that the total leave owed to employees is a liability and they will have to institute limits.  However, the native folk have no problem taking off all the time so it all balances out in the end.  Relax, bean counters.

Feel like making cookies:  Got ingredients for raisin, oatmeal, walnut cookies.  Must reward man who braves Polar bears to take out garbage at 3 am.  Brrr.

Thrilling financial news:  The assembly has approved a 2.6 million appropriate for raises.  That will be nice just before Christmas.  Could be anywhere from $1600 to 2500.  Nice.

MOVIE REVIEW;  I highly recommend "The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert". One of the stars is Hugo Weaving. I love him! The story is about three drag queens who drive a bus to Alice Springs to perform at the casino.  Hugo's young son goes with and discovers that Dad cross dresses.  They have all sorts of adventures.  At one point they broke down in a town along the way. Bernadette minced up to the mechanic and exclaimed over his dog.. "Oooh what is his name?"  The mechanic grumbles, "Herpes...if he is good, he will heal."  I fell over laughing.  There is also a memorable scene were the mechanics wife performs by dancing on the bar and propelling ping pong balls from her nether orifices.  The queens are horrified.  Again, I laughed.  Please rent this jewel.

Bad day at work:  Jinky tearfully asked for leave to go to PI.  I hopes that she will return as she is leaving her children here.  Mary Jo did not come in.  Her husband has started not letting her leave the house when he is in his .  She cannot leave or call. He made her quit her other job at Pull Tabs.   Jesse called and said she did not get to sleep and she would be in later.  Then she called back to say that she was too busy.  Thanks for calling.... Time sheet day had to get them rounded up, signed off and schlepped to accounting.  The rest of the day was busy with over 40 walk ins that afternoon. Oy.

Next day at work:  Jinky waived me down and said that someone wouldn't leave the department. It was someone inebriated fresh from dental, bloody dripping from mouth.  I can't believe dental worked on a drunk patient, so I think he just liberally helped himself between dental and the hospital, which is only about 30 yards!! I told him I woud pull his chart and take it to pharmacy and pointed OUT to him.  I asked pharmacy what they did with him.  They put plain Tylenol in a pill bottle with all sort of labels and he left happy.

Very interesting recipe:  Patrick is back to work. Today there was one of the lulls i conversation where his voice floated clearly and we heard, " One of my aunts has a delicious recipe for Hamburger Dildo." For a moment it got very quiet, you could have heard a pin drop.  Conversation resumed and I asked Patrick to recount the recipe.  You take a large dill pickle and coat it in ground hamburger and brown it in the frying pan.  A simple white sauce is prepared and poured over the Dildo.  Garnish with two medium parboiled Vidalia onions. Patrick's unt Margaret is a very straight laced fundamental Christian. She originally produced the recipe and called it "Hamburger Dill Roll".  The family gleefully renamed the dish.  I am sure she murmers the appropriate verse which includes many smitings when ever her dish is called out at table. 

Other Phallic symbols:  Dr. Perez handed out gifties to everyone consisting of a yard long beef sausage including a bottle of hot mustard on the end.  Impressive yet scary atthe same.  Gotta get that man a woman.  He has been widowed for two years.

Planting Kitty Grass for Bradford. It grew quickly and smells wonderful.  We discovered that if we presented it too long that the hairballs for more interesting in an artistic sense. Erk.

Brainstorm:  Wouldn't it be wonderful is
fmemory plastic were able to be sprayed on hair, so that when you get bed head that with a little hand wave it remembers how it is goes and hey presto!

12-8 Another challenging day at work.  We had 53 walk-in's in the afternoon, still no Mary Jo. Jinky left going south for an indeterminate destination and unknown amount of time.  Eeek! Got three birth certificates saved to disc.  New method, we now input information on computer, that way if I make a mistake I can easily correct. I pop the discs in a protective jacket and mail it directly to Juneau. Thank you!! No more stink eye from court house clerk. 

Same day the Mayor handed out bonus checks. Mine was for $2700.  Wow!!

Business for Barrow: I think one of those Mailboxes for Rent would be a good idea.  People have to wait about six months just to get a PO box.  Yeppers.

Dream:  House dream and shopping.

Got a call from Charlie:  He announced that he and Leslie are getting married April 10, 1995.  Anyway that is the date so far, some things may change.  So the plan is fly to Boise visit in Emmett and drive to Sonoma for the wedding.  Bring cash for giftie, their property tax will be due about that time.

Carla called Saturday. She had a good interview with True Value and is hoping to be in Seattle by Christmas!!

The mayor has generously granted days before and after both Christmas and New Years and we don't have enough body dies to cover the phones.  Ron Nalikak and UIC came through in the pinch and provided bodies for phone coverage. Thank you!!!

Something new:  I learned how to do inpatient billing on the RPMS system. It is not hard to do the computer stuff. I just do not want to have to do the paperwork,  bill production, mailing etc.  I have gotten comfortable with the other bits and pieces of the regular job and this will add a little extra fun.  (Yeah I'm nuts)

Patrick decided to scamper off to Cincinnati to surprise his mom for the holidays.  I hate traveling when it gets crowded on the planes.  I am thinking about the 17 Brits who had a food fight and were promptly deported back to England upon landing. 

12-24: Went in to work for a couple hours in self defense.

Christmas Day dinner was wildly untraditional:  I put the ham in a low oven on Christmas eve.  When I pulled it out in the morning it didn't look or smell hammy.  I had cooked a pork shoulder!!! Tim doesn't eat pork.  So I decided to experiment. I rummaged through the freezer and found left over roasted red, green and yellow Bell peppers. A frozen Jalapeno pepper and four cups of frozen turkey stock.  Added fresh chopped onion, whole garlic.  It turned into Chile Verde, very mild but tasty.  I think I will make a large pot of rice and drag it all to work to share.
The rest of dinner was New York steak well done for Tim, steamed broccoli and grilled mushrooms.  

I also made Letha Fashauer's Fruit cake:  The secret is that there is no citron in it

2 cups sugar  2 cups flour, sifted.
8 eggs lightly beaten 4 tablespoons vanilla
1 lb dates chopped, floured 8 slices candied pineapple. cut up
1/2 candied red cherries 1/2 lb green candied cherries
1 cup broken walnuts 2 cups dried apricots chopped


Mix eggs and sugar, add vanilla, two cups flour.  The fruit and nuts should have been cut and mixed together in a larger bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into greased and parchment papered pans.  Pam works well.  Bake at 250 degrees for two hours for large loaf pan.  1 1/2 hours for small loaf pan.  Cool completely, brush with brandy and Contreau option, wrap well.  This is delicious.

My angel collection is growing.  Go a nesting angel from Gale and Rocky.  So cute  Thanks.

12-27: Culinary madness.  Took the Chile Verde and rice to work in the crock pot.  Plugged it in and had plenty of customers.  There was not much to take home.  Hooray!

We went to the craft fair at the Lion's Hall and Tim talked himself into buying the Fox hat.  There you go, only need to get him some Carharts.

Merry Christmas everyone.  G'night folks.

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