BUSH DIARY NOVEMBER 1995

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER 1995:

10-3: OJ was acquitted.  I can only hope to have that kind of lawyer talent available if I were ever in that much trouble.

10-3: It is official, Barrow official voted itself WET. Native Village of Barrow is so upset that they are debating eliminating gthe city government (first white Mayor of Barrow) George is Mayor of the Borough. At any rate one of their arguments was that the ballots were not translated into Inupiat.  Um, have the ballots ever been translated?  No. Time to start.

I ran my little report comparing the last dry weekend to the first wet weekend.  The last dry weekend had five ETOH related visits.  The first wet weekend had 13 ETOH visits.

I heard that the airlines have several pallets of booze waiting to be shipped here after November first.  Oh Lordy.

10-12: Permanent Fund was announced in the amount of $990.00.  Alaska Air offered their usual offer of three air fares.  I got in line and purchased the tickets. Cannot use them until January.  There are no blackout dates and must be used by December 1996.  No problem.

Happy Birthday Charlie!! Called him to wish him happy and got into a mild argument about how old he is.  I was, as usual, computing from a wrong date.  Erk.

Halloween:  I got a treat at work.  The area techie folks flew up with the new SCO UNIX computer.  They are still doing a little fine tuning.

10-23:  House dream with a burglary.

Monday: was a very busy day, six discharges over the weekend, a bit of transcription.  Some fruitless running around for paper work to get two billing people hired. Not sure how I was tasked with this, perhaps I did not walk fast, frown or rattle papers enough.

Got my annual exam today, tetanus good for ten years, annual flu shot, labs etc.  Mammo scheduled for November.  They fly the techs and machinery up here and it is done in the Health building. 

Court house:  Tim went to court all prepared today prepared to be called to testify as a witness for the cab driver.  He was riding in a cab that got stopped by PSO for passing a school bus flashing red lights.  Tim was surprised to discover that such is a class B misdemeanor.  Fine 1000 dollars.  Courts are a bit backed up.

Sudden trip: Tim's ticket is burning a hole in his pocket, he and Bradford are going to Anchorage for some down time.
We had a one hour power outage on Saturday morning.  The UPS power cell began beeping until the power came back on.  Glad to know something worked as it should.
The power is not clean and there are surges so we have the computer on that UPS.

Okay that is all for November.  Goodnight, Folks.

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER 1995:

10-3: What a strange day. OJ verdict came back not guilty.  I would have voted for conviction on the blood evidence.  But then I didn't have to sit in the jury for a whole damn year.  I would have kept out the camera's.  But that was a judge decision.

Same day:  All of Barrow got to vote on the alcohol ban.  We both voted at City Hall. Update: Looks like the ban will repealed with a 4% margin.  Mayor's office finally heard all the arguments and the liquor ban was repealed at 12:30 a.m. Oh dear.

Baseball game: I was channel surfing about 8 pm last night and watched the Yankee's game versus Mariner's.  The game went 15 innings!!!

Lordy:  Complaint of Mary Jo and family taking showers at the hospital over the weekend.  I have seen that tiny house.  I am sure there is no bathtub or shower facilities.  Pretty sure they use a honey bucket.  Counseling and apologies all around.  An agreement has been reached with the service unit director so Mary Jo and her family can take showers once a week.  They are on water truck deliveries only.

I think a public bath house would do well in Barrow. All of the villages have them. There is a meter in each shower that runs about 3 minutes on 50 cents.  Wash fast!!

Recent meeting:  NSB Health department held a retreat.  It took two guys all day long to take the group through consensus building to form health groups for the villages and deadline 90 days. The gentleman is named Satish.  The mayor likes him a lot to the tune of $250.00 an hour.  Someone told me that his Inupiaq nickname means "worm". Note to self, do no ask for nick name.  (evil smirk).

Dental misery.  Poor man had to give me four injections. When the last one didn't quite do the job, I gurgled, "hurry."

Eww got another job.  I have been asked to be acting coordinator for the billing department.  That job consists of signing time sheets, listen to complaints, some paper work.  Somebody slap me when it's over.

Baseball: Mariners lost to Cleveland 4 nothing  As Howard Cosell never said "Baseball will break your heart."

Banking news:  We got a letter from National Bank of Alaska stating that Smart Pay program was no longer. The vendor performing that has dropped the service suddenly and unexpectedly.  Where oh where did I put the darn check book!?!?!

Going to step out on the sunny balcony and enjoy this balmy September. G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY SEPTEMBER 1995

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER 1995:

10-3: What a strange day. OJ verdict came back not guilty.  I would have voted for conviction on the blood evidence.  But then I didn't have to sit in the jury for a whole damn year.  I would have kept out the camera's.  But that was a judge decision.

Same day:  All of Barrow got to vote on the alcohol ban.  We both voted at City Hall. Update: Looks like the ban will repealed with a 4% margin.  Mayor's office finally heard all the arguments and the liquor ban was repealed at 12:30 a.m. Oh dear.

Baseball game: I was channel surfing about 8 pm last night and watched the Yankee's game versus Mariner's.  The game went 15 innings!!!

Lordy:  Complaint of Mary Jo and family taking showers at the hospital over the weekend.  I have seen that tiny house.  I am sure there is no bathtub or shower facilities.  Pretty sure they use a honey bucket.  Counseling and apologies all around.  An agreement has been reached with the service unit director so Mary Jo and her family can take showers once a week.  They are on water truck deliveries only.

I think a public bath house would do well in Barrow. All of the villages have them. There is a meter in each shower that runs about 3 minutes on 50 cents.  Wash fast!!

Recent meeting:  NSB Health department held a retreat.  It took two guys all day long to take the group through consensus building to form health groups for the villages and deadline 90 days. The gentleman is named Satish.  The mayor likes him a lot to the tune of $250.00 an hour.  Someone told me that his Inupiaq nickname means "worm". Note to self, do not ask for nick name.  (evil smirk).

Dental misery.  Poor man had to give me four injections. When the last one didn't quite do the job, I gurgled, "hurry."

Eww got another job.  I have been asked to be acting coordinator for the billing department.  That job consists of signing time sheets, listen to complaints, some paper work.  Somebody slap me when it's over.

Baseball: Mariners lost to Cleveland 4 nothing  As Howard Cosell never said "Baseball will break your heart."

Banking news:  We got a letter from National Bank of Alaska stating that Smart Pay program was no longer. The vendor performing that has dropped the service suddenly and unexpectedly.  Where oh where did I put the darn check book!?!?!

Going to step out on the sunny balcony and enjoy this balmy September. G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY SEPTEMBER 1995

BUSH DIARY SEPTEMBER 1995:

Labor Day weekend:  Was noisy around the 12-plex.  All sorts of heavy duty equipment working the back scraping etc.  Keep the dirt level to cut down on places for mosquitoes to live.  Thanks Guys!

Workshop:  I will be attending a birth certificate workshop in a couple weeks.  Tim will accompany me.  Yay for us.  We have a shopping list.

NPR:  Discovered "Car Talk" hilarious.

Computer news:  Area tells me that the computer will be shipped soon with tech to do the install.  Hurry, hurry, hurry!!

Recap:  A whale was taken, a 57 foot (57 tons measures one ton per foot) landed on the beach by the Okpeaha crew.  A 49 foot whale was landed also.  They like to make mikiaq.  That is where whale meat and a pickled in blood.  This creates a sweet and sour taste and is quite a delicacy.

Went out to Arctic Pizza for my birthday. Watched a small barge ferry between the big barge and the beach.

Home news:  All the siblings made it home for a visit, except us.  They all went to Jackpot.  Mom and Dad were left sitting in the car at one point.  That only took over 40 years to happen. Phil and Jody won an eleven hundred last minute jackpot.  The others won small jackpots.

Dad was pooped when they got back and decided to see the VA.  He has been diagnosed with CA of the prostate, very slow over 20 years. He was checked in and they are going to try strontium 90 this binds to the hot spots in his bones.  Hemoglobin got bumped as well. 

Other news:  Nephew David got married to Amy George. They are both in the Navy.  She is shipping out to Mississippi.  He is based in San Diego.  Hmmm.

My friend, Barb Whelan, is taking off for Greece by way of Copenhagen and the various small Greek islands.  That girl can have fun in a room all by herself, so she will be immensely entertained.

Illness:  Mom called. Dad is in ICU at the VA.  His respirations were depressed because he was not absorbing the morphine. Um, I am pretty sure the respirations were depressed because of too MUCH morphine.  Cut back the dose dummies. Mom will stay in Boise with Paul and Wanda for a few days.

9-11:  Mom called to say that Dad was worse and to come home.  I canceled the trip to Anchorage and books a fast trip to Boise for (hold your breath) 1700 bucks.  Tim followed two days later as he had problems booking Bradford.

Mom and Carla picked me up at the airport.  Mom said they had done a CAT scan and the cancer has metastasized to his brain and was diffuse. We drove straight to the VA.  Dad was in surgical ward because medical was full.  He looked awful in that bed, NB tube, on oxygen. Hand grasping the bed rail.  I held his hand put my forehead there and wept and told him I loved him. He was awake but his eyes were not tracking.

The medical floor nurses were very kind to us.  They moved a broken bed into the room so he wouldn't get another patient. There were all of us kids (seven), Mom, various other relatives and visitors.  The nurses said that they hardly ever saw a family response such as ours.  

Dad roused gradually and was able to converse and we even played a couple hands of pinochle.  It looked like he would go into a temporary long term care situation so Carla, Jim and Ellen all went back home to, Seattle, Casper and Elizabeth respectively.

He was transferred to Hospice care at the VA and three days later he died 9-20-95. Everyone who had returned flew back as well as David who came from San  Diego.

We had a mercifully brief funeral.  One of the members of the VFW spoke briefly.  We were all too grief stricken to even tell funny stories. Those would come much later. The ladies of the VFW hall gave a dinner and about 50 people went over there. It was a very long day.

Mom is doing well.  She got a new eye prescription rather than undergo cataract surgery this soon.  Later this fall after she has seen her doctors she may decide on surgery. My return was for the 26th and away we returned to Barrow.  

There was one sort of amusement on the return flight. There were a couple of gentleman seated a couple rows in back of us.  They both had deep voices and burbled away in something Nordic.  I amused myself with their purpose.   They deplaned in Anchorage with their rifle cases.  Ah, of course.

Next day after getting home, Tim and I went out to Pepe's for breakfast and we were munching away when I heard a very familiar burble. It was the same two Nordic guys.  Apparently here in Barrow for some game.  Or maybe lookie loos.

Tim had a hard time getting a decent baked potato in Idaho. We ate dinner at GeriKen's one night.  Tim got a baked potato that was raw in places.  I myself got ice cold frozen halibut.  Would like this cooked please.  Ordered something else and got the halibut free.  geee

Carla recommended a Kinky Freidman book, "Armadillos and Old Lace".  The gumshoe was describing one of the characters.  "She was a grizzled old thing and got around on one of those Jerry Jeff aluminum walkers. Her name was Marsupial or something".  I laughed right out loud.  So rude.

A sad month.  Would rather not do that again.  G'night folks.

ALEXA AND DENZEL WASHINGTON

I really did not mean to buy anything at all over Black Friday, or Small Business Saturday and especially not on Cyber Monday.

However, I was innocently looking at my Facebook page and there was an advertisement for a 7 inch Fire Tablet for sale at $29.99.  With Alexa.  I truly did not care about that at all.  But I thought, hmmph, why do I need a tablet?  I have two Kindles  I keep one upstairs in the bedroom and one downstairs by my comfy chair.  Uh, I read a lot. Voraciously.  So I ordered the thing.

Got an email saying it would arrive Tuesday.  Got the USP knock on the door about 11 am Monday morning.  Wow, that was fast! 

Amazon could have sent it in a padded envelope but it came in what is probably their smallest cardboard box.  Speaking of Amazon cardboard boxes.  I emailed a comment a few months back suggesting that they recycle their boxes by sending a prepaid self addressed mailing address so they could reuse their boxes.  I got a polite reply thanking me for the suggestion and was told that upon request Amazon will send a prepaid postage shipping label so that I can mail what ever to where ever.  Uh that is truly tempting.

At any rate, back to the reveal.  Opened the generously sized box and there it was inside a slim orange envelope thing.  The tablet is the same size as my small Kindle and about half the weight.  Nice.  It came with the standard power plug in and charging cord.  

It plugged it in and wandered off to do something domestic. When I was done I pushed the power button and it fired up (Hah, see what I did....fired...)  It puttered around massaging the innards and registering etc.  I had to put a few apps in which included my Kindle app.  Well what do you know I have a Kindle!!!  Yay!!!

I puttered around the finally spoke the magic words, "Alexa, what time is it?"  "2:06 pm".  Well.

I asked Alexa to play "Equalizer",  She replied here is what I have and the movie was listed on Amazon Prime.  Hmmm I just might watch that later on.

I watched Jeopardy waiting for Final Jeopardy because I was going to cheat.  The question was who wrote "Garth".  The author lived in a certain town and his younger brothers name was Jason.  I asked Alexa who wrote Garth.  She showed me Garth Brooks.  Um, pretty sure that is not right.  The answer to the question was Nathanial Hawthorne.  Hell, I even Googled it later and that source did not immediately mention it. Tough question.

After that I asked Alexa to play Equalizer.

The movie opens with along morning shot over Boston, over head shot of that lovely modern bridge that looks like a fancy harp.  Bob McCall is puttering around getting ready to go to work.  He is a very precise man.  The razor goes just so on the sink.  He hangs the dish towel just so on the edge of the sink after he washed the dishes. He is not OCD, I know it when I see it.  

Bob works at a big store similar to Lowes.  But there are way more people employed there than in any Lowes that I have ever been.  Bob is just one the guy, schlepping wood, tools, supplies.  He is also helping one of the co-workers get in shape so he can apply for the Security Officer position at the store.  He is trying to lose weight and doing training.  Bob is on the softball team.

He has dinner every night at a corner diner right out of Boulevard of Dreams.  He sits at the same spot, sets out his cutlery just so and reads his book.  He is acquainted with one of the ladies of the night.  Her name is Olena.  They chat.

One evening same place, she is summoned by her pimp and Bob walks her to the car. Two Russian guys stand by the car. One guy gives him a card and says to call him if he needs a beautiful Russian girl.  He notes the license number.

He goes to the diner the next night and learns that Olena is in ICU.  She was badly beaten.

He goes to the ICU and sits with her.  He meets one of her friends who tells him that the pimp beat her because she hit him.  This was a lesson to the other girls.

Bob goes to the Russian club into the very plush office.  There are four heavily tattooed and armed Russian thugs and Mr. Big smarming the desk.  Bob offered 9800 cash to free Olena.  Mr. Big tosses it back.  Throws in gratuitous insults.  Bob turns to leave and pauses at the door. Checks his wrist watch and murmurs "30 seconds." Opens and closes it three times and then locks the door.  He turns and assesses the situation and walks back to within reach of the thugs.  He explodes, grabs gun, shoots guy, grabs other guys knives and stabs them.  Shoots Mr. Big. Checks his watch, it has been 30 seconds. He leaves calmly.

Bigger guy flies in from Russia on behalf of the Oligarch Mr. Pushkin.  He interviews the head corrupt cop who takes him to the head of the Irish mafia.  Russian kills the mafia head.  Cop takes out two other men.  The Italians are cooperating.  

In the meantime.  The Security guard trainee did not show up for work.  Bob goes to see what is going on.  He is helping his mom repair some fire damage at the restaurant.
Next scene shows two cops shaking down Mama for protection money.  Bob records all of that and after giving them some pugilistic attention tells them to return all of the money to all of the people or that recording goes to all available media.  They comply.

Security guy gets the job! Wears new uniform.  Congratulations from all around.

The Russian guy gets info from the girl who visited Olena in ICU, he then strangles her.  He then appears at Bobs apartment posing a cop.  Bob takes Russian guys picture.

He takes a trip to visit a friend in the country.  He asks her if she recognizes the Russian's picture.  She disappears and comes back in a helicopter with some files.  The Russian guy has a file.  Pushkin has a file land the corruption is government back by some well paid politicians. 

Bob leaves with the information and prepares.  The Russians invade his apartment.  It becomes  apparent that Bob actually has two apartments and is doing surveillance from the second apartment.

Things heat up.  Bob learns that there is an oil tanker in port belong to Pushkin. He blows it up.  

The Russian takes over the store and takes the employees as hostages unless Bob shows up.  He does so, manages take them out one by one.  

At the end of the chaos he just walks off into the street.  He shows up three days later in Russia at Pushkin's home.
Pushkin offers to buy him off and that is the end of the conversation.  Bob kills him and walks out.

Closing scene is Olena catching up with Bob and she has a job and her stitches come out in a couple days.  She tells him that she found an envelope with her name on it and it had ten thousand dollars in it.  They both agreed that it was hush money.  A new start.  Bob walks home.

He was a CIA agent who escaped a grisly death to retire.

Ooh I can hardly wait for Equalizer 2.  While this was a violent film, it was measured and restrained on his part and all of the bad guys deserved what ever got handed out.

BUSH DIARY AUGUST 1995

BUSH DIARY AUGUST 1995:

8-1:  Many PSO officers brought in a patient to ER who had had a seizure, he could not remember having a seizure and was really pissed off to wake up in restraints.  He screamed for over an hour before sedation kicked in.  He went home the next day.

Work wise things are much better.  I can almost see light at the end of the tunnel  I still have two dictations to transcribe.  Still have to deliver the death certificate, waiting for signature.  One of the consequences of delaying a death certificate is that the court house will not issue a burial permit until then.  I still have to run statistics for alcohol related visits for last month. I managed to squeeze in setting up two terminals on the X.25 pad so the two computers can communicate anywhere.

Heard a rumor we have a new Health Department Director.  The last one departed and everyone breathed easier.  New guy has worked in Alaska at least.

Real Deal:  Watched the Comedy Channel special "Real Deal" .  Six comedians sit around a poker table telling jokes whilest playing seven card stud, drinking, smoking and telling dirty stories.  The funniest one goes like this.

Three couples decide to go to Tahoe, stay at a hotel, gamble in the casino. There are only two rooms left and each has a king size bed.  They divided into boys and girls for sleeping arrangements.  They go out, have fun and retire for the evening.

In the middle of the night the guy in the middle of the bed suddenly wakes up and yells, "Let me out of here! I gotta go to my wife! Let me out of here!"

"Why do you have to go see your wife?" asks outside guy.

Middle guy says "I gotta see my wife, I have the biggest erection I've ever had in my life!  Let me out of here!"

Guy on the outside says "Well in that case you have to take me with you."

Middle guy exclaims, "What!? Why do I have to take you?"

Outside guy says, "You gotta take me because you have a hold of my erection."

First Sunset:  The sun set for the time in over 2000 hours on 8-2-95 at 2 am.  It stayed below the horizon for about 45 minutes.  The local Polar Bear club took a dip in the Chuckchi sea. Temp of both air and water was about 37 degrees F. Not an ice berg to be seen, they were all blown out to sea.

Of ALL the nerve and then some:  One of our nurses departed on emergency medical leave taking her several month old child with her.  She left her two teenage sons, dumb ad dumber, unsupervised in her apartment quarters here in Barrow since APRIL. That is FOUR months...unsupervised.  She has not resigned her position. She has not been back to work.  She even applied for work at ANMC.

The topper is that these two juveniles have been having parties, drugs, sex and rock and roll.  One of their more delightful habits has been to order a taxi-load of food from a restaurant and which the taxi delivers.  They then stiff the cabbie for the money and scamper off with the goods.  Pretty sure the PSO should be involved at this point.  One afternoon a Mr. John Lee, a very nice Korean cab driver made the delivery and the boys promised to pay and did not return.  Mr. Lee developed chest pain and was seen in ER and admitted with myocardial infarction.  He was transferred to Providence in Anchorage. 

Our CEO, Carolyn McClintock has been trying since May to get those boys out of here and back with ma-ma.  She tried calling PSO and Children and Youth Services who declined as the boys had not been abandoned. The kids claim that Mom calls them every few days or so. 

I'm not exactly sure what Carolyn did but I wouldn't put it past her to pop for a couple plane tickets herself just to get the little beasties out of Barrow.  I did hear that they only trashed the carpet.

The Bloom is coming off the alcohol ban.  There is a bit of a statistical rebound from the 85% drop in ETOH related visits since October 1994.  Gradually a little at a time there have been more visits.  It is not really bad as of yet. Don't know what is going on but there have only been four or five "busts" made here.  People have discovered they could not be arrested for being public drunks just for importing the stuff.  I still think it is a lot quieter in my neighborhood and PSO has not brought in any ETOH juvenile visits in quite some time and that is a very good thing.

Deadly weekend.  This past weekend previous to the first, one man died and his cousin came to town for the funeral and the visitor wound up getting stabbed to death in what the PSO thinks is an alcohol related incident.  Both are coroner's cases and we will probably have a murder case to try in a few months.  I haven't received a mail notice for jury duty, maybe they haven't caught up to my new name?
Area has for some god blessed reason expedited the computer purchase, it was upgraded from "routine" to "emergency".  He promised next day air.  Which in Barrow means takes one week.  

Monica took the new Health Department Director, Dan Middleton, for a tour of the department.  He was impressed with the need for a site manager for the computers.  He promised to put that in the budget. Thank you, management gods.

Grand Jury Duty:  Well lucky me, got a Grand Jury questionnaire in the mail. Filled it out and will be hearing which number I have and will have to call in for a certain amount of time.  Good thing about Grand Jury duty up here is that each case only takes a couple of days.

I have been working a split shift the last couple of days.  Thursday area send a billing module by GoldStreak.  The package got here last night.  I went in to work and popped the thing in and no worky, tape error.  Gah.

Am presently waiting this rainy Friday evening for a cartridge with the same info on it to arrive GoldStreak.  Cartridges are old and clunky but are extremely reliable.  So hope to get this printed out on the weekend.

8-26:  Saturday in Barrow, breakfast at Pepe's, walked to the hospital to computer stuff, still backing up.  went to AC, shopped, bought bananas 49 cents a pound, which is a bargain anywhere.  Went home and made banana bread.  I printed out the Bush Diary.  I got a call from Monica the computer was still not working.  Talked her through the back up process.  Did not hear back from her so all went well.

I might have to recruit another boss.  Monica took me aside to confide that she was actively looking for another job elsewhere.  She says she is mentally and physically exhausted.  She has been here almost a year and came up in good health with husband and child with a five year plan.  Now she is in increasingly poor health and has no husband and no five year plan. I sure have enjoyed having her for a supervisor, what a gem! 

Billers; Our contract billers have arrived in Barrow all bright eyed and bushy tailed.  There eyes glazed over a bit to see the two year back log of unbilled accounts. (Two years you say? Yep).  The prior method was to tear down the visits and mail the pinks to Albuquerque for input and there was a six month to one year delay.  So it was taken back on our end and the billing was handled by one or two clerks in admin and also by our coders when they had time. Thus the backing up of billing.  Oy. The billers make about 18 bucks and hour and probably think they have really stepped in do-re-mi.

We have a couple new nurses on board as well.  One is from Oregon. She brought her ten year old son and 300 pounds flour to make bread.  Um, something smells GOOOD.

Monday 8-28.  Phew 48 walk-in's. I always tell myself that I get to go home at 5 pm, everyone else is still here.  I am evil.

Weather has been unusually foggy.  The passengers are waiting to take off and the planes ain't landing.

We had media in town today covering the arrival of surplus military base stuff.  Senator Ted Stevens and Danial Inouye of Hawaii decided to make it so.  We were dreading MRE's but it turned out to be things like tongue depressors, bandages etc.  What did not get covered and probably should have is that the borough has donated gently used generators to Russia.  However the generators are still sitting undelivered over there awaiting import fees to be paid.  Comrade, do you take Wodka?

Renovations at long last.  It has taken eight years of planning but the plan to expand doctor's offices, treatment rooms, waiting rooms and the loading dock is being implemented. The supplies have arrived.  Lots of shifting around of personnel, mostly our coders.

So, plan to rest my fingers.  G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY JULY 1995

BUSH DIARY JULY 1995:

7-4: Mary Price, RN OP manager, won the Fourth of July footrace.  She is from Idaho. The Search and Rescue helicopter ferried all of the racers to the starting point at the monument about 13 miles south of town.  So half a marathon. The monument is a concrete pillar erected in memory of Will Rogers and Wiley Post who both died in a plane crash in 1935.  Mary came in first and won 500 bucks. They would have to have forced me ONTO the helicopter at gunpoint.

Dream: Last night I ran away from home and joined the circus.  We rehearsed for a clown act. One of the clowns shot out of a cannon straight out and directly into another cannon. When the clown hit the bottom there was an explosion and black dust flew everywhere.  I remember shouting, "Get the vacuum cleaner, we have to get him back together!"  I saw a pregnant midget lady she was shaped like a beachball.  WHERE does this stuff come from??

7-8 Mom called to tell me that Uncle Paul Horn had died of a stroke.  He had been receiving periodic transfusions for "confused red blood cells" which is apparently exactly what the hematologist gave as a diagnosis.  Pretty sure there are bigger medical terms to describe the condition. Paul and Ollie did not have children.  He was age 77.  I sent a card and flowers and a check to Mom to help out a little bit with expenses.  I then called Charlie to let him know.

Dream: Amusement park dream. Way complicated. 
Could the cavalry be coming to the rescue?  Spent Thursday diagnosis problems on our X.25 pad, the telecommunications thingie.  It was pronounced dead and the vendor will ship a new one.  Yay rah.

While in the midst of this diagnosing. I told the lady from Albuquerque that my TCU boxes were going bad.  She said she would look around and she called Friday to say she was shipping two of them to me.

Area has decided that our old system needs replacing and is spending 15k for a new computer and is sending a tech person to install.  Bid is going out and we may actually get a new one by next fiscal year on October 1.  Maybe.

ASNA:  Native Village of Barrow has signed off on the 638 agreement.  I maybe an ASNA employee by the end of the year.

Dream: Flying dream.

7-18: Temp 60 degrees, rained a lot.  We had honest to goodness THUNDER and lightening.  Thunder is quite rare up here this far north there is just not enough of a temperature gradient.  We got a mini stormlet of about 8 thunder claps.  Weather man reported previous thunder "storms" in 1989 and 1982.  People pulled over on the road to just watch the brief display.  Mary Jo told us that her husband wouldn't let her go outside to watch.

Price shocker: Noticed ad for oil change only 60 bucks, filter included.

7-19:  Weather has changed.  It is presently 31 degrees.  Puddles frozen.  Watch yer step!

Late report.  July 2.  Binky the polar bear who resided in the Anchorage zoo is dead.  He made international news last year when an Australian woman climbed the fence for a better look.  Binky snagged her by the leg and got her tennis shoe. The picture of him with the red tennis shoe in his made the paper and T-shirts!!  The T-shirts had "send more tourists" printed on them.  

Two hikers were killed by a bear on a trail which was subsequently closed.  The bears were not deemed a public hazard.  Um how does that work?

On the Newhalen river fisherman and bears are not mixing well.  A German tourist had his tent eaten with him inside.  Yikes!!  He got his arm gouged and scared about two years out of himself. Store your goods safely.  Clean fish away from your campsite.  

Star power:  James Whitmore came to town this week.  He visited the monument and talked with the elders.  He is famous for his interpretation of Will Rogers for the last 26 years. Whitmore and company ate at Arctic Pizza. One of them kept ordering wine and beer.  Sorry we are a dry community.  

Spring cleaning in the computer room: Swapped out the old X.25 pad and installed the new one.  Boxed of two small boxes of computer stuff and mailed it to area. There was a failure with pharmacy and I had to figure out which port had gone bad.  Also got some stuff from area to install another PC at the nurses station and fiddled around with that.  The computer room is now almost empty, I threw out five boxes of trash.

Hair cut!!

7-25:  Shopping dream.  I admired an elephant piggy bank. 

7-27: The powers that be decided that we should learn all about Total Quality Management.  A thing invented by a man named Deming.  He took his idea to post war Japan and turned some industries around from sheer efficiency. Ford did the same during the 60's. Quality is Job One.  Deming.  So now we will be busy applying the pertinent bits to health care. (sigh)

Boss is back!  Monica got back from Hawaii all nicely brown and freckled.  She stays here one week and then off to Albuquerque for RPMS stuff.  Her daughter is going to Girl Scout camp.  NSB underwrites Girl Scouts and sends them all to Fairbanks or Anchorage for a week, all expenses paid, air fare the whole shootin' match. Only in Alaska.

Strange but true: One of the stranger visitors we have had here recently made the Anchorage news paper.  The paper was doing a piece on the opening of the Dalton high or the Haul road as it is known.  Part of the piece dealt with Ricky Emerson.  He was the only red headed cerebral palsy, Amway salesman hitchhiking on the highway this summer.  Whenever he wanted a ride he would lie down in the middle of the road and shake.  He would get hauled here and there.  He told the same story in Barrow when he was shipped out of Deadwood.  He was going to sell Amway and on closer inspection it became apparent that had never experienced any of the cleansing properties of his product. He was admitted to the hospital and then discharged.  He is gone from Barrow carrying his little cardboard Alaska airline suitcase.  Some hitchhiker.

7-31:  The CEO requested that I attend the advanced CQI meeting.  This in addition to the pending death certificate, two dictations and end of the month report (sigh).  I learned all about nominal group consensus building so powerful that even Serbs, Croats and Bosnians benefited from the technique.  Ooo how international.

That's all the learnin' I could stand for July.  G'night folks.

WEDDINGS:

Ye Gods and Little Fishhooks:

Weddings are expensive these days.  I have been watching a show called "Four Weddings"  Four brides attend each other's wedding and vote for best wedding.  The cameras follow them around from venue to venue and they vote on camera on the venue and the bridal gown.  The winning couple get a fabulous honeymoon somewhere.

In the meantime I am appalled at the expense and thinking these young ladies need to have indulgent daddy's who don't mind spending anywhere from 15k to 70k on the shindig.

I am thinking of the simplicity of my two weddings.  I would love to have had a cocktail hour or open bar.  The full dinner was nice.  The decorations were varied.  There were disc jockeys and bands.  The ceremonies had only a few fails, noisy trains, officiant overly involved, children running amok during the ceremony but nothing fatal.

As it was, my first wedding was largely hand made.  My Mom sewed my wedding dress.  It was a simple sleeveless satin sheath with a lace overlay.  Something borrowed was a girlfriends veil.  Another girlfriend  had the wedding cake done for me and she didn't let her dog eat it (old story).  I purchased a simple pair of satin heels.  I made my going away dress out of lovely blue raw silk.  Mother-in-law baked the Grooms cake which was a brown sugar thing and delish.
Grandma LaVann brought down tons of greenery from the ranch to decorate the Hall.  I don't remember what my bouquet consisted of but Helen had red waxy camellias growing in her yard but I don't think I was bold enough for that, it was probably daisies. 

My uncle Carl brought a case of wine.  Uncle Phil took pictures. Some rolls did not turn out and he wanted us to return to the church to pose for more. I reminded new husband to pay a small stipend to the priest.  

We honeymooned in a room nearby and went to the movies the next day to see "Patton"  I knew it was an Oscar winner.  I was haunted by the music.  We were married for five years and then had an amicable divorce.  I once saw a bumper sticker on the back of a Volkswagen van.  
It read "I start out slow and gradually, little by little, I die out completely."

My second wedding was even more casual.  My husband proposed in Barrow,Alaska and we had a civil ceremony in the courthouse.  This marriage has lasted quite a bit longer than the starter wedding.  We have been on a very long amicable honeymoon ever since.  Ain't romance wonderful?

PICK UP LINES

PICK UP LINES:  Lyrics by Royce Alden and Phil Berglund

My girlfriend said get a truck and buy all the elite,
Install A.I. and GPS to follow every street.
We had a good relationship by something just went wrong,
My truck took off all by itself, my jaw hanging like this song.

Come back little pick up, you know you was adored.
Come back little pick up, you was all I could afford.
Come back little pick up, come on back to me...
Come back little pick up, so you can set me free
so you can set me free.

I wished I had that upgrade to interrupt the ride.
I'll hafta spend my savings for a bike and for some pride. 
I'll gonna hire a coder to write a trick hack.
It'll take some fancy digits to bring that darn truck back.

So now by girl is riding shotgun, no one behind the wheel,
He honked and looked me in the eye,
how does that make you feel?
One thing he forgot to do was fill himself with gas.
So I come to the rescue and saved his sneaky ass.

Uninstall that A. I. Upgrade to a map.
Going back to old school, puppy in my lap.
My girl bonded with the truck and they are off to Sprain.
Don't wanna hear about dead batteries in the pouring rain.

REFRAIN:

Welcome back little pick up, you sure was adored.
Welcome back little pick up, you was all I could afford.
Welcome back little pick up, I'm glad you're back with me,
Welcome back little pick up, now you can set me free,
now you can set me free.

ADDENDUM:

I changed a word here and there for better scansion.  Phil provided the front and back to make it a true ballad.  Now if ONLY it had a tune, kind of bouncy, something on the order of "I've got a brand new girlfriend".  Yeah.

BUSH DIARY JUNE 1995:

Light at the end of the tunnel:  Friday 6-9 Got all caught up with outstanding charts, dictation etc.  Swapped out a printer and terminal and sent the broken ones to Anchorage.

Commission Corp:  Monica is thinking of joining Commission Corp.  She has been looking into it and with her military experience she will get about 9k extra and her taxable income will only be 41k.  I'm not at all sure how that works.  Its a Guvmint thing.

Price Shocker:  I stopped into Arctic Coast Trading Post and saw some halibut.  I asked the clerk if that price really was 13.50 per pound.  Yep.  Can I have ten fingers? Came to a buck a piece.  Yay!  I do love halibut.

Scurried over to Thrift Plan and withdraw enough to pay off car and the credit cards.  Hallelujah!!!

I had a weird dream about a little girl who would turn into a frog periodically.  She met a little old man who advised her to eat barley soup.  She was hunted by a hunter who wanted her frog self in order to sell her to a sorcerer for gold. I decided to write the story.

The Frog Girl and Vegetable Barley Soup.

Once upon a time, long ago, there was a pretty young girl with long brown hair and green eyes. Her name was Allison.  She had not always been a pretty young girl, at least not at first.  All her life she had lived in the woods and marshes.  She came from a family of Frog people. Like her, they were people sometimes and sometimes they were frogs.  She was orphaned as a very young frog when a harsh summer heat wave dried up most of the marsh.

She was hidden by her Frog parents in the wettest part of the bog.  She survived that terrible summer.  For five years she lived in the bog as her froggy self. On her fifth birthday she awoke and her human part had wakened as well.

She discovered that she could swim well as a human girl but she couldn't talk without making frog voice.  She sounded like a cricket. Chirpity! Chirpity!  Chirpit! and if she was angry it sounded like ribbbargh!

She frightened way the flies and other things she liked to eat when she was a frog so she never learned to speak except in froggish otherwise she was a very quiet little girl.

She lived happily in the marsh switching back and forth between her human frog self.  But her speech remained froggish.  Her human self didn't seem to need to speak.

One spring it was especially wet and rainy.  The marsh flooded.  She slipped and fell into the water and turned into her human girl self and splished and splashed happily.
  
A little old man passing through the marsh noticed the little girl playing in the water.  He pulled her from the water and felt that he had rescued her.  He said, "Well, you look like you could benefit from a cup of good vegetable soup." He set about making camp and preparing a fire to make some barley soup.

Allison had not seen any humans for at least five years.  He was little, old, and nearly bald with a rim of silvery hair pulled back in a band.  His eyes were all twinkling.

He dished her up a cup of soup and she drank it.  She had not every had anything hot before and she enjoyed it very much. She beamed and said, "Chirpity!"  As much as she drank her soup there seemed to be some left in the bottom and she kept trying to empty the cup.  At last she was so full that she fell right asleep in the little old man's camp snoring little chirpity noises.  

When she awoke, the little old man explained that he was a retired magician.  He told her that he had consulted his book of magic and had discovered that she was a very rare frog person. 

She nodded in agreement but was pleased to learn anything else.  She was just bursting with questions but the language problem.  She could not make him understand her Froggish.  It came out all ribbity and grumpity.  The magician waited until she became quiet.

He said, "Let me tell you what little I know about you."
She sat patiently combing her hair and generally tidying up her person.  He rambled on about her frog heritage.  She did not learn much more than what she already knew.  But she made a very good listener.  Basically she was able to between frog and girl when ever she wished.   She spoke Frog.  She did not speak any other language.

The magician did impart the remarkable fact that she could remain as a frog person if she ate a bowl of barley soup every day.  Well, she thought, she would have to do something about that.  

The magician gave her his cup and told her that it was enchanted so that once she put some of her barley soup into the cup that it would never run out.  That is a very handy thing.  

He also cautioned her to be aware of strangers.  Sorcerers were always sending strangers about the country looking for anything magical. A frog girl would certainly qualify as magical.    

The magician prepared to leave and she wistfully watched him leave.  He waved goodbye and said, "I almost forgot, marry the man named Robert!"

Well isn't that odd, she thought.

She decided that she needed to plant a garden so she could make barley vegetable soup.  She planted potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, garlic, parsnip, parsley and barley.  It was very hard work. She tended her garden all summer long.  For fun she practiced being a frog girl and jumping into the marsh for a quick cooling swim. '

 At the end of the summer she began harvesting her garden.  She picked onions and braided the long stems together and hung them up in a dry place.  The tomatoes grew ripe and she only picked a few for the pot of soup and let the rest of them dry in the sun.  The carrots and potatoes stayed in the ground waiting for the pot of soup, same for the parsley.  She cut the heads of the barley from their stems and rubbed off the husks.  There, almost ready for the soup.

One day a few months ago she had seen some deer licking at salt so she knew where to get some salt for the barley vegetable soup.  She could hardly wait!  

She prepared the pot and let the veggies simmer until tender.  She poured the vegetable barley soup into the enchanted cup and sipped the delicious brew.  Soup never tasted so good.  She had a cup of soup every day after that.

One delightful summer day, a young man came through the marsh.  He was a biologist and was studying the flora and fauna in the surrounding area.  He came near Allison's home.  She had made herself quite a comfortable home. 

 The young man was a fine fellow wise in the ways of the world. As he approached the marsh he had heard the distinctive call of a female mating pond frog.  

He specialized in studying this kind of frog and was delighted for the opportunity to see one.  He was very surprised when he saw Allison as she was making that frog call.

She was very startled to see the young man and remembered what the magician had told her about strangers. She let slip a froggish Cripity!

He didn't look threatening.  She held up her hand to signal for him to wait and she scurried into her home and fetched him a cup of barley vegetable soup.  

He took it gratefully and sipped and exclaimed, "My favorite! I love vegetable barley soup! Thank you.".  She smiled.


He looked at her thoughtfully and said "You don't speak human, do you?"
She shook her head no.
"You understand me though?" he asked.
She nodded her head and smiled brightly.
She cripity criped and tried to tell him that she only spoke Froggish.  He heard cripity crip.
He was pretty sure she understood him.

He began again, "My name is Robert...." She gasped and smiled.  She cripity criped "Ribbert" and sighed.  They were halfway in love.  The speech problem did not seem to be a problem for them and Robert decided to stay. He thought he would write a Froggish dictionary.  

They married themselves in the marsh and invited all the neighbors consisting of the flora and fauna. Over the years Robert watched Allison change back and forth between girl and frog many times.  Sometimes she forgot to eat a cup of vegetable barley soup.  He admired her singing voice and wrote a Frog opera and she sang for him.  They lived quite happily ever after.

THE END

Addendum: Coincidentally we had vegetable barley soup at work the next day.  I did not turn into a frog.

June 22:  We all received a surprise 500 dollar check from the Mayor in thanks for making his term so successful.  Well thank you, Mr. Mayor.  Trip to bank, stand in long line. Smile.

June 26: Today is Blanket Toss. I took the day off as I also had a dental appointment.  The dentist pulled  my right lower molar, the tooth was okay but the bone loss was not good, just slipped right out.   The dentist I saw was in the Health Building.  I made an appointment with the private dentists who flies up here EVERY week.  That will be tooth maintenance and cleaning etc. O joy.

Serious ailment:  Mom called to say that brother Jim was admitted to the hospital in Casper with viral meningitis.  I called him, he thought he would go home in a couple of days.  His mobile home also burned to the ground.  Thank goodness he had insurance and no one was injured.

Half Day Off.  Thursday was another half day for Blanket Toss.  I read later in the Sounder that Dick Butkus had come to Barrow for Blanket Toss. I wonder if he got on the blanket?

Vacation:  Jinky and Monica both leave on 7-5 for vacations of two months and three weeks respectively.  That will leave only me and Jesse in records. Mary Jo on the phones and Jeanne in coding.  Patrick is coming back next week or.  I hope.
Latest computer news and it ain't good.  I found out today that a thingy box located on the main computer is broke and needs to be replaced. I called Marie Caruso and she no can do.  THEY DO NOT MAKE THEM ANY MORE!!! Did hear rumor that area was working on a a replacement computer for Barrow.  Please be right, please be right.

6-30:  Had to be telephone girl all afternoon.  Mary Jo had to go sing at a funeral for one of her classmates. 

Art Evangelista works in Central Supply and doubles on evening shift at the front desk came in and relieved me.  Thanks Art!

Okay enough story telling for June.  G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY MAY 1995

BUSH DIARY MAY 1995:

Recap of vacation May:  Caught 3 pm flight to Anchorage, had a four hour layover. Settled comfortably into First Class.  Bradford snugged in his pet carrier, we heard not a peep out of him. We had dinner in courses, salad, main course of either chicken cordon bleu or wild game shish-ka-bob.  Delish. Got into Seattle about 10:30 pm and checked into Super 8.  It was so gorgeous the next day I talked Tim into cancelling the leg to Pendleton and rented a one way Ford Explorer and enjoyed the drive.

 We stayed a couple of days in Pendleton while Tim fussed over the Ford LTD and swore at the cigarette lighter as it shorted out he wanted to plug in his CB.  Does anyone use a CB these days? We took off on the road to Emmett and got into town early afternoon and checked into the Holiday Motel and called Mom and Dad.

 We dinked around until Thursday and took off early to take Dad to Jackpot for an overnight of gambling.  He played poker and craps as usual.  I played the slots and then got bored and read a book. Had the $1.93 breakfast of tough pancake and dried fried eggs. Yummy!!  I left my usual generous support for the State of Nevada.

 Shopping Summary:  Seems like we went shopping every other day.  We purchased and mailed several items.  Bought a new winter coat.

 The Ford shook and shuddered all the way to Boise after a mechanic looked it over and said he wouldn't spend a lot of money.  So we made a right turn and went to Nampa to Happy Day Used Cars, with a Happy salesman and purchased an 88 Mercury Sable wine colored.  A few nicks in the paint, a minor ding in the rear.  Drives nicely, gave it a real work out when we drove  to Tonasket, WA to visit Betty and Benn, Tim's sister and brother-in-law.

 I went to Nampa to the Idaho Medical Record convention for 15 hours of continuing education and visited with friends and colleagues.  I was also given the Outstanding Member Award, a plaque and everything fancy.  Somebody had to publish the State newsletter for about five years.

  

 Carla and Rick flew in for Mother's Day weekend.  Charles, Leslie and their goofy dog Dalmatian, Jasper, got the room next to us.  Charlie had not seen any of his friends in the 4 1/2 years since moving to California. He has grown a goatee and is a bit heavier, looks healthy.  They make a cute couple.

 We looked at a piece of property while home.  Phil is a real estate agent.  The property is downtown a building that was a former radio station and  an old railroad hotel upstairs.  Lots of small rooms.  The bathroom is split up into a toilet room, a tub room, a sink room etc.  It was a bit much and we declined.

 The weekend before Memorial Day, Jim, Anita, Derek and Jordan drove from Casper, Wyoming. Jim brought Jordan to the motel room.  He is nine months old and is an adorable butterball.  He looks exactly like his daddy at that age except for the gray eyes.  We visited with Richard and Cathy in Letha.

 We decided that three weeks and a few days in Emmett were more than enough so we picked and drove north to Couer D Alene.  We went west through Spokane then on to Tonasket through some gorgeous country.  I met both of Tim's sisters, Betty and Carolyn.  The guys played pool. 

 

 We drove south the Joseph.  We stayed overnight in Pendleton and parked the car in the yard at Tim's Dads house.  

We then took an itty bitty plane to Pasco with heightened security.  We sat in Seattle at the Alaska gate and watched people get off the plane from Anchorage.  First guy out the door was Rosie Grier!! He saw us smiling and came over and looked at the pet carrier and asked, "Is that a dawg?"

 We crawled onto the very full flight, settled into First Class and ate a cold salmon plate for dinner.  Two hour layover in Anchorage.  Saw lots of people I knew from Barrow coming and going.  It may be the biggest state but it is still a small world.  Lots of networking.  We got into Barrow and homed!!

 Next day schlepped home eight boxes from the PO.  We have many empty boxes now.  Hope they leave the premises soon.

 The plants survived!  The little watering things worked very well! For nearly a month absence. 

First Day of work:  Two deaths over the weekend and on birth.  Worked most of the day on census and tracking down info on the deaths and preparing certificates for the doctors to sign. There are still about ten charts floating around waiting for my part. Patrick Pendleton bailed me out by acting as telephone guy.  I also entered several new employees into the RPMS system as providers and users.  I got skills, yeah. 

Awful thing:  Monica had to do a fetal death certificate.  A woman came in and it became apparent that the baby was in trouble.  Search and Rescue were busy elsewhere and no commercial jets were in town.  The docs agonized over whether to do a c-section or not but none of them were qualified.  They had to wait helplessly while the heart beat dropped and then stopped before it was born.  I talked to one of the docs who is qualified but was gone at the time if he would have attempted a c-section.  He said he would have if the mom was in danger of bleeding to death but otherwise no. When I processed the chart later there was documentation of damage from alcohol.

The local paper said that seven whales had been taken so far during the Spring season.  The whaling captains ordered everyone off the ice as i was becoming dangerous.

Small World:  One of the visiting Pharmacy students is a young man named Aaron Roberts.  He said he went to school in Missouri. Oh where?  Near Lancaster. Get out of here. I have a distant cousin from there.  He actually knew them.   Cool.

Odd moments.  This occurred while I was gone.  One of the ordinarily nice enough guys working for UIC on night shift got a little organic, perhaps there was a little alcohol involved, anyway he got naked and danced for the nurses.  He was admitted and treated for psychotic behavior. He went south for a little stay at the Psychiatric spa.

Jeez. One the housekeepers assaulted Geri who was innocent of the charge of sleeping with the boyfriend. One of the nurses broke up the altercation.  Monica had a calm discussion as moderator between the two.  The housekeeper went ballistic.  Housekeeper was fired.  Ok people, settle down!

Computer Security:  Learned at Safety Committee that the former boss of hospital billing was trying to sneak into the computer long distance to fix a huge boo boo.  Some important file was deleted. I doubled checked to make sure her privileges were deleted.

Lord lovely:  Geri called at work Wednesday to tell me that she bailed Mary Jo out of jail. She got busted for shop lifting.  Gahhhhh.  Ok people, settle down!

That 's quite enough people, settle down!  G'night.