BUSH DIARY APRIL 1998:

I finally got around to reading my first edition of Little Women, the book which I purchased in Sonoma.  I first read Little Women as a young teen and did note that the book was edited for "modern sensibilities".  

Hummm I wonder what I missed?  I was alert for anything which appeared new to me.  I noticed that there were three to four references to the "Nasty Irish".  Not exactly PC but apparently there were enough impoverished Irish starving from the potato famine that their presence was felt in the then current literature.   

There were a lot of one and two line snippets of conversation there and there which was dialog supplied by a minor character which constituted lively chatter.  

There were several instances in which either Jo, Margaret or Mrs. March exhorted Teddy to give up some bad habits such as smoking, billiards and drinking.  

There were several pages that were cut that had to do with the big scene where Jo refused Teddy's proposal of marriage.  He hid himself in his rooms.  Jo went to his grandfather to explain that she had refused.  Grandfather talked her into going to Teddy to talk to him through the door.  He would not come out after high words with his grandfather who had apparently physically shook him.  

The rest of the book was pretty much as I have read it many times.  Because Jo was such a bookworm I became of such books mentioned by title as "The Vicar of Wakefield" which I have read.  There is John Banyan's "Pilgrims Progress" as well as Belsham's Essays.  

I have always felt that an annotated Little Women would be a delightful thing to read because there are so many topical things about which I have no clue.  Perhaps (hint hint) some English Major needs a thesis subject?  Please?

I have been wading through several computer games.  I am getting better at findings things and solving clues. 

Keeping my nose to the grindstone at work.   Nothing exciting to report.

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY MARCH 1998

BUSH DIARY MARCH 1998:

Recap of  vacation:  It's a darn good thing that I like RAIN.  Sonoma was uber wet.  Weather stations ranting that this is the wettest spring since 1800. Oh my.   We did get about 2 /2 days of sunshine.  

Tim and I, two cats and five or six pieces of luggage arrived in Seattle after a spiffy flight from Anchorage. Go a rental and took off for Albany.  Visited with Carolyn and her husband accommodating for their 12 hour shifts of work. Ugh!!  I can't pay attention that long. 

Left ALbany on Feb 29 and drove to Sonoma by way of Ureka through the redwoods. It was gorgeous but a long 12 hour trip.  We chopped a good five hours off by getting back on I-5.  We floundered around in near dark and finally found Sonoma, checked in and collapsed. 

Visited with grandbaby who was rather good naturedly cutting some teeth.  We also toured a couple local in town wineries, one motto was "No wimpy wines".  Cool.

Drove to Petaluma to UPS to pick up a camera that I had ordered.  The camera is a Sony and has a 31/2 disc.
  
We also drove across Golden Gate Bridge because Tim had never seen it or been across it.  The toll is now 3 dollars.  I drove up Presidio drive took a right into the park, drove by the beach front and headed back across the bridge.  Yep, I did not forget how to get out of town.
  
We also went through the "five minute" tunnel to go visit Stinson beach.  There was some sort of bicycle marathon going on so we got off that route as quickly as possible. 


By the time we got back, a colony of ants was very busy hauling off cat food. Ick, ick ick!  

Got lost trying to find Christian Brothers winery, couldn't find it but did get gloriously lost up a very steep hill. Some fine houses way up there, where ever "There" was. 

We all went out to breakfast at the Bear Flag café in Sonoma.  They have a menu that could qualify as near jewel like.  I hd he spinach, leek and mushroom eggs Benedict with glorious Hollandaise sauce. Yum!

We were visiting a champagne cellar somewhere and the lady hostess asked where we were from.  Charlie said that Anthony was a native Sonoman. The lady asked, "What do you call people born in Napa?"  "Napa-kins!"

We also ate at a very nice Italian place "Off The Square" Mom and Pop place where they look insulted if you do not enjoy the food.

I really liked a Chinese place called "Golden Spring" They had romantic prawns.  I am in love with romantic prawns.

There was a used book store in town and I found a couple Louise May Alcott books, score!

We left there and drove back to Albany in eight hours.  After returning to Albany I decided to book a flight to Boise to visit with Mom for four days.  Ran around there cramming in as much fun as possible.  

Flew back and enjoyed more bits and pieces of places to go eat in and around Corvallis. 

While in Idaho Phil offered to buy the Mercury and I agreed.  We only ever use the thing a couple times a year. So will get paperwork off to the brother.

Once back in Albany, Tim and I visited Enchanted Forest.  It is sort of a minor Disney land type place with rides and fun stuff to do.  

We went shopping and replaced our crappy luggage with stuff that has WHEELS.  Makes travel lots easier.  No scouting those luggage rack things.

We drove to Seattle in time for the noonish flight. We were told the weather in Barrow was marginal.  Oh goody, that means potential flyby and overnight in Fairbanks.  We did stay over night at the Fairbanks Regency, they take pets.  

Next day: We landed and deplaned at the brand spanking new Alaska Airlines terminal.  Got all that luggage and pets sorted out.  No phones installed yet.  Saw someone I knew and we snagged a ride with her. Yay!

Ooh good news at work, ASNA announced that we are getting a 2% and 2% merit raise. 

Got caught up at work with three birth certificates.  Yay!
Spring Festival is this week.  All sorts of stuff, games, races, prizes, parades!

Scandal of the week.  A city employee who organized everything took a mini vacation to Fairbanks, hooked up with a good looking guy, attempted to kiss him in in appropriate places and was promptly busted for a Federal sex crime. 

 

Unfortunately his wife works in outpatient.  She took emergency family leave and moved to San Diego.  There goes the better half of the pair for sure.

One of the guys at work told us that "Maddog" was coming back to work in Barrow  This is the guy who fell into the open hatch and hurt himself.  Yeah, applied for the plumbers job.  He has goals and want to manufacture a Prison version of a trivia game.  Hmmmm.

I must scurry back to work.
G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY FEBRUARY 1998

BUSH DIARY FEBRUARY 1998:

No room at the Inn:  The hospital has a two drawer morgue in the back hallway. We are full up. We had a suicide in Wainwright.  Someone coded in ER earlier this week. Wednesday I overheard one of the nurses calling around to various entities in town asking about freezer space because another body was coming at 8 pm.  Also we had an inpatient die of terminal CA and still had the space problem.  That patient is at NARL somewhere in one of their large capacity freezers.  

We have had whiteout conditions for two days and no one is anxious to go out and dig graves.  For graves here in Barrow there is a very large machine that is essentially a trencher, it chews through ice and tundra and does a very good job.   Same machine is used for laying underground power lines, gas lines and sewer lines.

I was fortunate on the death certificates I had to complete as family was available and very helpful in both cases.

Clinton joke:  Bill Clinton and the Pope both died at the same time.  There was a terrible mix up.  Bill was admitted to Heaven and the Pope went to Hell.  The mistake was discovered and both parties were brought to the Pearly Gates for the exchange.  St. Peter apologies all over himself telling the Pope how sorry he wa that he was sent to Hell by mistake and to make up for it he would personally introduce the Pope to the Virgin Mary.  Bill Clinton  muttered, "Oops."

February was a short month.  Brrr.

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1998

BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1998:

Happy New Year!!!

1-5: Two babies born over the weekend, NO paperwork taken care of so am making telephone chase and paper catchup.  One phone number not worky.  Put out general call amongst co-workers and one of the native ladies suggested calling her uncle.  Yeah, he was able to give me a good number.  BC number one all done.  Mom number two was from one of the villages and I finally tracked her down at one of the local hotels.  Got that info all documented and stuff.  I always thought being a medical record professional was part dictionary and part detective and I have not been proven wrong as of yet. 

Afternoon walk-in clinic was jam packed.  65 by 5 pm.

We have a pharmacy staffing problem.  ASNA told one guy not to return and that leaves the pharmacy not covered for a period of three or four days. Oopsie.  So got TDY guy up from Eagle River. Fortunately the pharmacy tech, Roxanne, is smart, fast and likes rushing around.

More Pharmacy mess: We had five pharmacists come and mostly go and the tech was out with a sick child and no data entry was done.  ASNA asked that one our ladies, Gwyn, to cross train in pharmacy data entry.  Well at least she does not have to pull charts or file.

My electronic birth certificate program is having hiccups.  I can do everything but download the BC to a disc.  I have a call into the tech person.  Help.

1-29: Potluck at work to welcome Patrick Pendleton back from medical leave.  I made tamale pie again it always goes over well. 

Boja went to the Vets to get spayed, a little woozy but she will be fine.

Upgrade at work: We have speedy connections at work now.  The computer guy upgraded us to something that will blow your hair back.

Busy week: we had five babies.  I have been chasing paperwork all week.

And something new, Alaska has begun to accept three part affidavits of paternity.  There is a spot for the husband, a spot for the mother and a spot for the father.  The state decided that it was in the best interests of the infant to track all parties responsible for birth and legal standing.  Okay then.  Let me wrap my head around that one.

Our fun radiology tech, Ellen T got "fired" and "reassigned".  She was told it just was not working out. She was so much fun. Dammit.

Monica got some good news today.  ASNA is going to pay her student loans to the tune of 40K.  She got her RRA degree in St. Louis and it a spendy place to get educated.  She is now committed to two years in Barrow.  Thank you Monica!!

Just when you thought things were getting dull:  You may remember a few postings back I documented that Michael and Michelle wanted to be recognized in the computer system so I added that name under AKA in registration. 

Well, we had a thirty hour hostage situation on Friday the 13th (sigh).  Michael/Michelle broke into the house of the Gould family.  He threatened the man and his wife.  The wife managed to sneak out of the house about ten hours later and the husband sneaked out 30 minutes later.  Then the guy got tired and gave himself up.  Turns out the bad guy is not one of the regular bad acting characters.  He has been saving up for a sex change operation and decided to do some fund raising all by himself. He had a land deal with UIC fall through and he was upset.  This is the same person seen about town in full ninja outfit, black clothes, crossed swords on back etc. 

All righty then, that is just about enough about January.

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY DECEMBER 1997

BUSH DIARY DECEMBER 1997:

12-2:  Strange dream, went shopping for umbrella.
Tim's Birthday present arrived today, UPS had a huge box with a completely assembler Hermon Miller office chair.  It is slick, black, very 21st century.

Alcohol related statistics.  We have been tracking ETOH related visits since 1993.  Barrow has been damp, dry and went in the past three years.  October 97 was dry and had 30 outpatient ETOH related visits.  November 97 was damp and had 107 ETOH related visits. There was also a net gain in the non-drinking population during damp periods, misery loves company I guess.

12-5: Blistery weather the last couple of days.  Wind chill minus 50 projected with incoming blizzard.

We haz an IT guy a last!!! Rick Ingersol is here with his wife and two pre-teen kids.  He knows the RPMS system as well as the network stuff.  THank you God!!

The ice is officially in and frozen solid.

12-13: Computer problems at home, grand crashing.  Dell tech support was very helpful and recommended that we refrain from downloading shareware.  Thanks!

12-17:  Had to chase down National Bank of Alaska to ask where was my replacement debit card, please? They will put a rush on it.

12-17: Traveling dream.

Fruit cake rules.  Tim really likes my fruitcake recipe.  I like it because it does not have citron on which makes all fruitcake taste like nasty. I cooked a ham on Saturday and took the fallen apart bits to work for consumption. Success. brought back an empty crock pot.

Stupid travel dream, getting lost in a hotel dream.  Bother.

Hey I got cited in a serious publication.  Dr. Arva Chiu mailed me a copy of he JAMA article she and Dr. Perez submitted for publication.  The title is long "The Effect of Alcohol Related Visits in Barrow, Alaska by Local Option Laws". (gasp)

For several years now we have been tracking ETOH related visits at SSMH.  They collaborated and wrote the article.  The main author is actually a physician in California but the piece rambled on for several pages pointing out how the ETOH related visits dropped 80% when the local option law made it illegal.  The article was dedicated to Dr. Paul McCord and Dr. Tim Coalwell and yours truly as contributors.  How 'bout that I has been cited.

Weird baby sitting dream. Looking high and low for the other baby who I ultimately found sleeping in a laundry basket.

Book Review: I read a book written by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove. Title is "The Two Georges"  A novel of alternate America wherein the colonies never rebelled against England.  The title comes from a famous picture of George Washington and King George III posing amicably.  The  painting gets stolen.  There is a long distance chase via dirigible one leg was from Southern Alaska to Chicago.  And one of the authors could not resist an old Hollywood joke.  One of the sidekicks is a black guy named Sam Stanley who is in the lounge tinkling the ivories and playing a love song.  The other cop is nursing a broken heart and getting drunk. Sam sees him and stops playing and apologizes.  The heart broken cop says, "Play it again, Sam.".   And the plot was dialog driven and I figure that was the actor writing. 

Security training today:  One of of the security consultants put on a white lab coat, wore a stethoscope and went to nursing and told them he was the TDY Dr.Cox and he was going to take the baby to x-ray for pictures. Okey dokey.  He wheeled away that baby.  Dennis Stevens, RN popped up soon asking about baby and the guy introduced himself.  That was scary. Normally the baby's don't even go in the nursery they all room in with the Mom's, so security is pretty well familied up.  But Mom was in Anchorage for a minor procedure and we were baby sitting.  I even got to hold the baby a little bit and feed her a bottle.  Cute.

Riven: playing it too much.  I am seeing the little left hand or right hand in my dreams.  Ugh.

End of December, Happy Holidays!

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY NOVEMBER 1997

BUSH DIARY NOVEMBER 1997:

11-1:  Barrow is officially damp, folks can possess alcohol, consume privately but not sell, trade or barter.  Like THAT would happen.

11-6: Went to the airport to meet Tim.  Plane was late and they announced that the flight out tonight was making a special flag stop at Prudhoe as they had equipment and personnel that just had to get delivered.  Unfortunately that would add an hour to everything.  Plane finally got in and Tim got off with Bradford and carryon.  No BOJA.  Tim went back to make baggage claim thing and Boja turned up, she was stowed in the Prudhoe Bay equipment.  All right then.  All is good.

Saturday 11-7:  Very bad day in Barrow.  A Hageland Air flight took off for Wainwright at 8:06 am and crashed killing all on board.  Sad part is that there was a coffin on board with family all going to Wainwright for the funeral.  The plane went down 100 yards off shore.  The whole town is in shock. 

Ron Nalikak was part of the recovery team and he was decompressing and describing some of the more horrific stuff.  They had to pull the plane out of the water.  All of the passengers were trapped in the front from the weight of the coffin which broke loose on impact.  Ron said that the metal coffin weighed about 500 pounds and actually bent in the middle.  They had to use the Jaws to cut the plane apart.  The jaws blade actually bent cutting apart some of the structures on the plane.  Thank God for Marines.

Going High Tech with the bus route.  North Slope Borough has been developing a bus map on channel 57.  It shows the three main bus routes and real time location so one could estimate when to start walking to the bus stop.  Very nice. 

Computer Game:  Holiday on Tuesday, Veteran's Day.  I got the sequel to Myst called Riven, very mysterious and lots of puzzles to solve.  I mostly navigate through the beautiful scenery. Only thing is it is a very big game,five discs. Have to stop from time to time to change discs.  Ugh.

Jury Duty: I got the duty through the end of January 1998.  What fun.  I have been called once but the parties settled before even calling in the jury.  Yay!

Most of the week before Thanksgiving was spent straightening out the bill pay services.  A set of replacement cards did not show up and I was using expired cards.  Then those cards were reported missing which started a cascade of closed cards and unpaid utilities.  So I spent some time trotting around Barrow paying by check and explaining the happenstance.  Erk.  

Pharmacy:  Payless did not send my meds.  After some floundering around I discovered that one of the lady doctors wrote me some scrips and all of them were sitting in the pharmacy at the hospital.   Then the Payless scrips showed up in the mail, now I got extra.  Yay, me.

Gotta rest up now, G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER 1997

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER 1997:

Another Patrick Story:  Patrick has been taking an evening class at Ilisagvik College.  One of the topics was on credit reporting.  Patrick decided to get his own credit report.  He was expecting a balance of $1700.  

He almost fell over when the little mechanical voice told him his balance was  $5300.  Much raising of eyebrows.  He promptly got in contact with a real live human representative of his credit card company and they looked at all charges over 100 dollars.  

One humongous one was for $3300 at a jewelry store.  As well as at a florist for 110 dollars.  Patrick called the store and they dug around and he told him that a couple of guys called in an order for some stuff and it would have worked except the one guy on parole got cold feet.  

So basically the store owner was not out anything and he credited Patrick with the 3300 dollars. Patrick contacted the local law in Eagle River who did some sleuthing and discovered that the two guys are ex-cons out on parole and they will be talking with the two lads. At one point it looked like one guy was locked up in pre-sentencing.  Patrick was hoping that part was true because is added to the story.  Nope. But he is getting his credit back under control.

Dr. Bob and family left last Friday.  Monica gets to move into their apartment in quarters.  She is thrilled, lower rent, no water bill, no taxi fare each way and she can walk to work in street clothes via nice heated hallway.

At this point in the original document I have a cute picture of grandson in his car carrier thing, what a cutie?  

10-6:  Tim deposited his check settle from his father's estate.  Together we might be able to come up with a down payment of some sort on property.  He will be looking at property with his sister, Carolyn, but is not too enthused about making a decision without me present.

Tim has been playing with  a program IBM VoiceType Simply Speaking Gold.  Close but no cigar so far.  He is still teaching the program his voice.

It feels like everyone is bailing out at work.  One of long time RN's, Bill Egan and his wife are moving to one of the villages, Nuiqsut. He will become a Village Health Aid and drop his credentials as a registered nurse. He says is burned out.  Get some rest, Bill.

10-7: Election day:  The burning issue yet again is whether or not to go damp or say dry.  Going damp won by 51 percent of the vote.  The City Council adopted an ordinance that special elections can only be held once a year.  So we won't wrangle over the same issue until NEXT October.

It was REAL drunk out last night. ER was already jumping with crying screaming drunk people.  Surprisingly we do not have a drunk tank there, that gets referred to PSO, they have been very busy.

There is actually a limit to how much liquor one can possess inside Barrow City the limits are five cases of beer, two cases of wine, one case of liquor.  Now there is a lot of paper work keeping track of who has ordered when and when.  Ugh.

Patrick called from the lower 48.  He had to undergo sudden surgery because his aneurysm is suddenly larger. He has Marfan's syndrome which is a connective tissue disorder disease which means he has to be alert things such a aneurysm's.  His Mom called and his surgery went well.  He will be out six to eight weeks.

I had a dream, I was talking with Judy Coltrin the whole time she was operating a piece of heavy duty equipment and was busy digging a trench.  (Smack head on desk.)

Monica is gone to Phoenix for the national MR meeting.  Warm there.

Tim left Sunday for Corvallis and Bradfords Iodine treatment.

Wednesday we had a murder in town.  A nephew killed his uncle. Method not disclosed.  Then Thursday morning pharmacy got a call from a little girl who said her Mom was cold.  The Cops went to that address and the mother had died.  Another coroner's case.

Thursday was also Dr. Maria Freeman's last day.  What a wonderful girl.  She actually takes time to type her own H&P's, I asked her once why she did that and she said that it helped her think about her patient better.  We went to her apartment for a potluck.  I took a dish of my famous tamale pie.  I told everyone that I was not taking it home.  And I didn't because the whole dish disappeared.  Later on one of the PHN nurses brought back the empty dish and begged for the recipe and it was so good she didn't want to share it with her children.  I make that recipe for Tim every once in a while.

Tim and Carolyn looked at a couple properties in North Bend. The driveway to the two car garage was too steep and one place the kitchen was too small.  Tim has tentatively named the new kitten Boja (bundle of joy alden).

10-18: Routine home chore things. I did tackle the wall of boxes and consolidated, rearranged and discarded a few.  Doing all this made the humidity drop to 21% so I fired up the Vornado to get things back under control.  

Patrick called the hospital about three times at 3 am on Monday, he was a little disoriented.  Called him Thursday and he was MUCH better, knew what day it was and everything.

Stupid dream involving a cat and a purse from which many things were missing.

Cooking gone awry.  I thought I had picked up a ham, it was a pork butt and promptly become destined to become Chiles Verde, took it all in my crock pot and brought back an empty crock pot.  I love when I don't have to deal with left overs.

Halloween Week:  Icky one of our former clerks got fired from her Pharmacy Tech job.  She had a disagreement with her native roommate, called PSO to be present when the girl came to move her stuff out of the apartment.  Then a whisper campaign started all about how Geri had told everyone what was in the girl's medical record.  Nope, I don't think so, but momentum took over and Geri was fired.

Halloween costumes.  Lots of people love to dress up.  Almost everyone did and had some cute ones as well. I wore a costume.  I wore a name tag that said Zen Nudist.  People would read the name tag and either look puzzled or laugh outright.  Didn't have to explain it to many folks.

UPS called and said I had packages.  Yay!  UPS does not deliver in Barrow, you gotta go pick it up. Got some stuff I had ordered also got the kit for the kitty tower and got that assembled, I have lots of left over pieces but it is a tall rectangle of carpet covered legs and arms with places for Bradford and Boja to play upon.

Tim called he and Carolyn attended a cat show and had a very good time. Now October is all done.  Sleepy time.