BUSH DIARY APRIL 1996

BUSH DIARY APRIL 1996:

4-1: First day work as ASNA employee.  The ASNA finance guy came over to explain the new 401k.  I elected to maximize.  Yay, me, being all finance and stuff.

4-5: Got two checked today.  Got the last NSB pay stub.  Cashed out 502 hours of leave time.  Unca Sam got 38% of that.  Will have to scare up 500 bucks addition for filing this year.  Yeesh. Must mail by 4-8. Yikes.

Found out that rent is no longer withheld from pay check.  I pay rent to the Borough in the building next door.  That is doable.  Hope there will be the opportunity to pay electronically or something at some point.

Tuesday I was guest lecturer and Ilisagvik College.  I was invited to the business class to explain the filing system at the medical records department. They asked some good questions.  Then they came to the department for a tour.

ASNA's new personnel, David White, came to chat with us.  Is worked previously in Nome.  He is fired up to hire the New York lady for the manager position.  Ok what ever.  It will be refreshing to have someone do the hiring, procuring, housing etc.

Jeez, a whole week without Mary Jo.  She apparently quit without notifying us.  I talked her into coming back.  I will refer her to Borough counseling.  She has a lot of stresses in her life.

Final meeting for NSB stuff.  Signed mo paper.  Elected to keep Pers as is for the time being.

Real Estate.  Got a counter offer from Phil for the Emmett property.  I said okey dokey.  Now it is up to the other guy.

Carla called she has a job interview in Minneapolis for Target.  The store in question is located in Salt Lake City.  Huh.  Well that is a little closer to Seattle.

The hospital remodeling guys are back.  They left before Thanksgiving.  They are converting one patient room into true isolation which means reverse air flow. 

Birth certificate difficulties.  Had a Mom and Father signing an affidavit of paternity.  Got a call from the Mom wanting to fill out a new certificate.  Oh? Yeah he ain't the Daddy.  Sigh.  She came in.  Filled out another one.  Juneau wanted both of them.  I turned my back for a minute and the original one disappeared.  I documented that with an incident report.  Same mom brought in another man to fill out another affidavit.  I am pretty sure Juneau will not let that one stand.  Headache.

Travel plans are firming up for the wedding.  Still mulling appropriate cash gift as to type.  I cannot surprise them with a personal IRA, they hafta do that.  Mom and I will play tourista before and after the wedding.  Fun.

4-12: Spring Festival.  ASNA declared a half day off but UIC would not provide phone coverage so that fell to three of us in the department. 

New TDY doc whose last name is IP.  Someone quipped look what it says when you put Dr in front?  Giggle, giggle.

Da wedding. Tim escorted me to catch the plane.  Took the Hertz bus at SFO to the car lot.  I drove a little white Dodge Stratus.  Found Oakland and burned as I watched Alaska Airlines landing continuously there.  Had I known I would have flown directly there.  Sheesh. Picked up Mom and we hijacked one of those motorized people carrier things to take us to the front door.  
     We visited with my friend, Judy Jones, who picked us up for the day.  We tootled all over Sonoma county looking in at various vineyards. Much fun.  
     Went to Corte Madera and found a dress at Macy's.  I look like a large green float but what the heck.  
     We were all invited to Mike and Linda's house in Santa Rose.  Had not seen Mike for years and was shocked to discover that he has lost two top front teeth and not a denture in sight.  We had London broil, ravioli, tossed salad, cheese cake.  I noticed that she has a nice angel collection. I kept my mouth shut about MY angel collection. 

     Saturday was the wedding.  Went early and helped decorate a bit, went to our rooms and got gussied up and returned for the ceremony. It was great, visited with people I had not seen in 20 years. 

     I saw Grandma LaVann sitting and I went over to her and knelt down and asked, "Do you remember me?"  She gasped, "You look younger and fatter!"  I laughed and said, "Don't you know that fat is a preservative?"

     The wedding was conducted by a nondenominational lady Minister.  The only hitch was that the kids left the marriage license at the house, the maid of honor was sent to toss the place and return forthwith.
     Charlie was very handsome in his black tux and gray vest. Leslie wore a Victorian satin floor length dress with a froth lace trim peeking out at the hem.  The neck line was sweetheart. Her veil was finger tip with a dainty little widows peak hand securing with a spray of pearls and small white flowers.  They had matching wedding bands.  They took off for a mini honeymoon in Timber Cove.
     Monday Mom and I went to Petaluma to visit with all the Berglunds and Papageorgedapoulis folk.  We met Glynnie and Ted and the baby girl.  That evening we had dinner with Pat and Beth Doughtery. It was a catch up with everyone Monday.
     Tuesday Mom and I toured the Burbank gardens in Santa Rose.  We visited more with the married folk and said our goodbyes and packed to return home.   
     The trip to Oakland airport next morning it was raining and BUMPER TO BUMPER traffic.  I sweat bullets getting her to the airport.  Dropped her off and went south to the San Mateo bridge and north to SFO.
     Tim had flown to Anchorage to meet and have a break from Barrow.  The next morning he blissfully left the rental running and it locked automatically. Had to call someone to come unlock it and we did not miss our flight to Barrow.  It was a 50 dollar miracle. Got home okey.  Bradford had a hiccup the gate agent had to check for shots and flight cert from the vet.  Awk.

4-26: Lovely surprise at work. Lois Anderson sewed me a kuspuk and gave it to me.    I remember chatting with her about how much I would like to have one.  She told me to turn aroud.  She took her fist and measured from my neck to top of shoulder.  I think I am a three fist kuspuk.  Anyway I took off my knitted cap that she had admired and I gave it to her. I told her that my mom had knitted it for me.
     Other work, I have to prepare a death certificate for a woman who had just resigned from her position as State Representative.  She died of liver failure at age 46. She had been in treatment in California but wanted to die at home.  She mayor sent the Lear jet.  She was cremated in Anchorage.  The service was broadcast on KBRW and was five hours long.

Other work: Patrick is still on jury duty but managed to do census each evening after he got off jury duty.  Thank you!!! I have about 20 charts to get caught up.  The computer guys came to fix the PC that has the birth certificate loaded on it and they put in a new mother board, so am forced to wait on that and have four birth certificates waiting.

 Update:  Computer guys have to order new mother board.  I begged to have them swap out the bits I need to another PC so I could get current on birth certificates.  Got five caught up.  

Got a call to come get a check at NSB.  What check?  My life insurance had been cashed out.  That's a thing? Trotted to bank, made deposit.  What fun.

Have another trip planned to Kenai for the Alaska Health Information meeting. Will go visit Judy and Dean which is located on the Kenai peninsula.  Tim and I are booked into the Kenai Marriott.

House dream.  Mom and I visited Agatha Christies house. No murders were committed, no mysteries were solved.

Kenai Trip:  Tim, Bradford and I flew down on Alaska, and short hop on ERA to Kenai.  The Kenai Inn was NOT Marriott.  The bathroom was so small you had to step into the tub to close the door.  And it was HOT.  So we shopped at a big store and bought a box fan.  Some people moved to another place but Tim had settled in and once he is settled.....  Had lunch at Land's End which is a place out on the Homer Spit.  It was fascinating.   Visited with Judy and Dean at their very nice place.  Saw the infamous eagles nest which is about the size of your average Volkswagen.

Real estate:  I need to pay for a survey. ok.

Barge order: Tim has been busy preparing a barge order this year.  He has been busy ordering 25 cases of assorted goods from Span Alaska, scheduled to leave Seattle June and get to Barrow in August.

Sam and Lee's is open.  Chinese food place that burned down three years ago.  It was formerly a collection of Quonset huts.  This has been replaced by a very nice two story building, living quarters upstairs, eatery down stairs. I adore the Mongolian Beef.  Tim and I had dinner there for about 50 bucks. Spendy but delicious.

Happy April, G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY MARCH 1996

BUSH DIARY MARCH 1996:

3-7  Big Grand Opening Ceremony.  ASNA took over management of the hospital. Pepe's catered four huge table sized cakes.  I was unfortunately on a conference call.

3-8:  Lovely got yelled at by an irate father who assumed that the birth certificate would be sent to him.  No, sir, you have to apply to Juneau for that.  The Social Security card for the baby will be coming in the mail.  Thank you.

3-9:  Saturday breakfast at Pepe's. Wind chill is only minus  30.

Wedding plans are firming up.  Looks like I will fly into San Francisco and drive to Oakland to pick up Mom.  It has been a decade or two since I ran unfettered about the bay area.  Pretty sure I can find the place.

3-12: I asked brother Phil to look into a property in downtown Emmett.  It used to be the old railroad hotel and has lived as other entities over the years.   He will write an offer for me and we shall see where that gets us.

ASNA meeting:  Paper work, paper work, drowning in paper.  Also snafu regarding hiring new manager in medical records, three of us thought each one was doing the applications. Do over!!  I get to mail ASNA forms to the seven candidates.  Yay.

The toilet leaks.  Tim noticed the toilet leaking.  Housing came and fixed it with a hose clamp. thanky.

I learnt a new cuss word.  I was helping fix a PC for a new doc and something did not work and I muttered,
 "Oh fungoo!"
She gasped and asked where you from!? 
Uh,Idaho, why?
" I'm from Jersey and that's Italian for up your ass!"
Gotta watch my mouth.

Dream: Yard sale.

Four more babies got the certificates done and disc ready to ship to Juneau.  One of the Mom's refused the PKU and Hep B shot and would not name the child until she talked to the father who has moved to Arizona. We transferred a Mom who is going to deliver a ten pound baby by c-section.  Been there, done that.

And that is enough aboutl March.  G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY FEBRUARY 1996

BUSH DIARY FEBRUARY 1996:

2-2:  Had a meeting with ASNA reps, seems they want us to be ASNA employees by April first.

Wedding Vacation Plans:  have changed.  NSB will cash out my annual leave so that shoots my April vacation all to heck.  I will have to start all over accruing leave. I have revised my plans to attend Charlies wedding in California on the 21st.  I will take a week off for that and return as they may not have hired a manager by then.  Tim was extremely not interested in wearing a suit so he will stay home and cat sit Bradford.

ASNA Bennies:  We will get 100k term life insurance, same wages, Aetna health insurance and they will pay about 70 dollars per month per dependent. I will enroll in another Valic plan and sock away the maximum. 

Our TDY Pharmacist, Jerry Mahony flew from Barrow to Ohio last week.  We were notified that he was found dead in his apartment.  He had a bad heart and even though his doctors were all over him about diet and work restrictions, he ignored them.  He was a good guy but he particularly detested a non-smoking poster of Fabio that hung in Medical Records. He would occasional slap on yellow sticky paper with mustache, glasses, etc all over the poster.  Fabio was in pretty sad shape by the time Jerry was done with him.

Got employee evaluations done.  Why does it feel like I do this about every other month. Ugh!

Wedding plans:  Trying to coordinate with the other mom regarding style and color of dresses.  I am very grateful not to be arranging a wedding.  My only plan is to buy a dress at Nordies. Yay!

2-15:  Marie Caruso arrived to work on the X25 telecommunications pad thingie. It turned out the connection at the back was bad and she fixed it. She also discovered that the ports had not been set up. Fixed that.  I can now chat computer to computer with area and Albuquerque. 

Later that day in the middle of a big boring Safety meeting a full code was brought in, and promptly shipped to Anchorage.  Good job.

2-20:  Local initiative on banning alcohol.  Every one and their registered dog voted on Tuesday.  There was quite a turn out. About 900 votes yes to ban alcohol and about 700 voted against banning alcohol.  Therefore we are officially dry on 3-1-96:  People will have 60 days to use up (stash away) their supply.  It cost the City of Barrow 9k to hold this initiative.  This also means that all of the stores must store alcohol containing products away from the shelves such as mouth wash, vanilla extract etc.

Pull tabs:  Is an interesting business. Just about any one can open such a business as a fund raising venture. You are limited to one million in profit per year.  People need to be careful, story is told that a martial arts person started a pull tab business to open a martial arts academy, made four million bucks and blew town, no academy.  Yeppers.

Tax papers:  The Idaho tax lady sent back papers for us to sign and mail to the Feds. We get back 3800 dollars. Yay us old joint return folks.

February is a short month so G'night folks.

BUSH DIARYJANUARY 1996

BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1996

Jan 1:  Listened to the fireworks last night.  Sounded like cannon booming for quite a while.  We stayed home snug in beg, the wind chill was minus 65 a bit chilly.  One of the cab drivers was telling about going to watch and needing to wear his "Good" parka.  Yeah, the one with windows, four wheel drive and a heater?   Yeah.

Went in to work in self defense. Sorted a pile of charts into pharmacy, coding and filing.  Did one little discharge summary and three days worth of census and balanced my end of the month report.  Ah something accomplished.

1-2:  Still off gonna go out for one of our meals today.
Talked to Carla this weekend.  She is flying back and forth between Seattle and Ohio.  Much of a muchness regarding job interviews.  Feeling positive!

1-6:  Got the PFD application in the mail, I will submit name change with this one, also send off documents to tax lady in Idaho.

Different kind of computer problem:  We received a brand new 8000 thousand dollar embosser.  It embosses patient name, MR number, DOB and City on a plastic card.  This card is then used to emboss all sorts of papers that go into the medical record.   The embosser  came in a crate the size of a small Volkswagen.  Have the various pieces assembled and on the desk top.  I must teach a programmable keyboard. Help! I need a teenager.  Fortunately techno geek Joe is networking on this with me.  Wrestled with faxed directions on the keyboard. Finally got the keys programmed and got everything formatted and we are golden.

Embarrassment of riches helper wise.  We have a couple of students to help over the holidays.  Two kids have been farmed out to us and clinical and administration. One girl is pre-med and lovely in her concentration for small details.  The other girl is a delight, very social and an absolute nightmare with little concentration for small details.  Help, must. not. strangle. student!!!

Jan 10. Happy first anniversary to us.  We had dinner at Arctic Pizza. Tim had charbroiled halibut, I had the chicken marsala. Yum.  There was another couple there celebrating same date only 20 years longer. Congrats all around.

1-11:  I watched the 48 Hours segment on Barrow. We don't look as bad as we would have.  The cops rousted native drunks on the first wet weekend.  Interestingly enough we are having another vote regarding the wet/damp/dry issue in February.

1-12:  Just when you have heard everything.  Alaska Airlines has received several phoned in bomb threats. That with a fresh break in at a local construction company's dynamite shack prompted Alaska Airlines to wave off flights. One flight held at Prudhoe Bay and returned to Fairbanks. 

 PSO thought they knew who was making the threats. The whole 1300 block of Kongek Street was evacuated.  Evacuees who didn't have people to stay with were told to go to the Assembly of God Church.  The suspect finally surrendered.  Heard that PSO had not found the missing dynamite yet.  Update:  The suspects girl was leaving on an Alaska Air flight and he was making sure she didn't leave town.  Love is strange.

Computer trouble.  NSB sent over Network Support to fix the memory parity error (what ever that is) on the PC in medical records.  Still didn't fix it.

Saturday 1-13:  Brought home lots of mail and a Walmart order.  A plastic jar of peanut butter actually BROKE.  A skip loader must have run over the package. There was a boot print on the package. 

Monday 1-15: Martin Luther King day.  The blasting folk have been blasting at the gravel pit.  Much kaboom!!  Apparently the reason for the blasting was that the powers that be decided to use up all the rest of the dynamite before it got stolen.  Uh huh.

1-23-96: First sunrise in Barrow!! 1:20 pm, very pretty, got the usual 45 minutes of day light.  Whee!

Work: Busy with evaluations which look suspiciously like last years. (evil grin)

Messenger Feast was 5,6,7 of February. Much dancing, much games.  I like to watch the festivities on Eskimo channel.  Borough to spend 200k this year.  They plan to more or less hold the Feast every other year.

Housing: Mary Jo got some good news.  She was suddenly called and told that the she qualified for a house.  She was so happy she bawled all afternoon.  I can't blame her the kids were sleeping the rafters in their little house. The house will get built this summer  and they can be in it by October.

So that is all for January.  G'night folks.

HAPPY HANUKAH and GEORGE. H. W. BUSH

Happy Hanukah:

I haven't come to the Bush Diary where we got acquainted with a TDY Rabbi.

I do not remember the gentleman's name but he came to Barrow for a few months beginning in December.  He wore a nifty little fedora and had two locks before each ear.  He was also a D.O.  He quickly made friends. Horrified some of the nurses by having an OPEN FLAME IN A HOSPITAL. He burned a candle, perhaps eight of them for the menorah.

One day I was coming out of medical records just as he was passing and I called out, 
"Hey Rab! Happy Hanukah!"
Quick as a  whistle he turned and asked me mischievously, "What is eight great days of sex?"
I shook my nead no.
He chortled, "Hanakah Lewinsky!".
I laughed like a loon.

In memory of George. H.W. Bush I have the following more or less related things to say.  When I first came to Barrow I was impressed by all the buildings that were built on pilings.  The pilings were driven about 40 feet into the tundra. This insulated the heat from the buildings from melting into the tundra.  About the only buildings that were at ground level were the bank/courthouse and the air terminals.  Those were ground level for the skip loaders to bring in the pallets with luggage and freight.  The post office had a huge grid of metal stairs to climb up.  There was zero evidence of compliance with the American Disabilities Act.  The hospital did have a long zig zag wheel chair ramp that required lots of strong muscles or backs to actually get a chair up the ramp.  Kids loved to run up and down. I don't actually remember seeing a wheelchair patient. Ever in the nine years I lived there.

That's it for Monday December 3, 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.

BUSH DIARY NOVEMBER 1995

BUSH DIARY NOVEMBER 1995:

11-2:  Tim got back today on the morning jet.  He brought back a Kuspuk pattern, the pattern makes a cloth version of the parka and is used as a blousy dress with a pocket in front. I will start hunting for fun fabric.

Renovation at the hospital is pretty messy but we can see where the offices will go.  The new counter is 20 feet deep, plenty of room for folks to work out front.

Interesting development:  Carolyn called me to her office to produce some alcohol statistics for a "48 Hours" producer. They didn't film in the hospital but did ride with the PSO and took lights when lights flashed. Coincidentally there was a lot more action in ER. A man was stabbed to death in Atqasuk, alcohol related.

Hospital business:  We have certainly been busy.  We have been hit with a nasty virus.  We have four pediatric cases admitted all with Respiratory Syncitial Virus.  Lots of hacking and coughing in OPD and waiting room. There have been two medevac's each day three days running. We even had to have Life Flight come up from Anchorage to help out with all the cases including one kid with a hot appendix.

11-7: Mammogram accomplished.  Have to reschedule in six months for a small smooth nodule that needs to be monitored.  Crapola.

Holiday: 11-10 for Veterans Day, will get three days off but well all the work will still manage to wait patiently for moi.

Good news:  Patrick Pendleton called from Cleveland.  His aneurysm has been declared stable so he will be back to work on the 13th.  Yay!!!

11-14:  Getting caught up again.  Finally got all twenty discharged charts assembled, analyzed, coded and entered into the computer.  Win, win.

Dream: Intricate moving and decorating dream.  Brain is obviously rearranging stuff up there.  Erk.

Kitty health:  Bradford confined to bathroom for some serious hairball action and other GI distress.  He improved after a couple of days.

Government shutdown:  Memo told employees away from the station on business to return immediately until the budget is resolved.  Thank you President Clinton.

We had to fix a billing error.  For some reason every time someone came in to have stitches removed the visit incurred a certain ICD9 code that automatically generated a bill for 1500 bucks.  What!?!  I have no way to fix it on this end, it is all area.  It is a bit of program to which I have no access.

Thanksgiving coming up:  Shopping today to get all the goodies. My favorite part is left overs. Four days off in a row.  Monday will be heckish.

Last sunset of the year was on 11-18-95.


11-22: Blissfully short week for Thanksgiving.  I made two pumpkin pies, will cook a very small turkey only eight pounds, made cranberry orange jello relish.  We ate until torpid and missed all the parades and football games. Ah naps are good as well.

11-28: Tim's birthday, we celebrated with turkey pot pie, carrot cake and glasses of milk.  It got him "Batman Forever". We are also enjoying the first blizzard of the year.  Wind 60 mph with chill factor to 60 below. 

11-30:  A count the angels contest in the department  I took a book of angel mobiles and hung seven mobiles throughout the department and challenged everyone to count how many angels were on the mobiles.  

11-30:  Gawd we have a virus on the computer system!!! It is called Monkey virus.  Network guys will come in tomorrow to fix it. I got the disc and cleaned my PC and so it went. Had a couple instances of a couple PC's getting reinfected.  Need more Monkey disc here!

That is all for November,  I double checked, November fer sure.  G'night folks.