L'aventure américaine

Why did crazy Libertarians and Republicans and the odd Democrat have to take the benign "tea party" for their party name? It means that when a liberal Dem wants to actually have a real tea party, her friends get all worried that she's gone all right-wing on them. I'm taking the tea party back. I also wanted to include a picture of my Christmas cookies. I have been a cookie apprentice to the cookies masters for the past few years (that is my mother and her friend, Sandra Tokarski). A few days ago, I branched out on my own and produced 5 different kinds of sweet in one day. I was beat and sugared out. And I missed having a cookie apprentice who has to do the dishes at the end of the day...

I thought that I was a connoisseur of Christmas trees after years of diligently urging my parents and brother outside to chop down a tree while we sang, "O' Christmas Tree" and my dad recited "A Tree" by Joyce Kilmer . We would then drag it back to the house, my dad would fill a bucket with sand or gravel and Charles and I would hold the tree straight while he shoveled the filler in to hold it there. Afterwards, we would decorate it with cocktails and Christmas carols and Dad would subsequently take care of the watering. This was my first urban Christmas tree this year (last year I didn't have one), so I went with all good city and suburb folk to the nearest Home Depot and picked out my tree. People had had their trees trimmed so there were fir branches lying around, which I picked up and threw in my trunk in lieu of going out the white pine in the backyard to cut some greenery for the house (as I do at home). I was ambitious for my first tree and got a...

I had the bright idea that Odie and I should do a Christmas card together this year because I know that we both love the holiday season so much. So, one afternoon this week, I attempted to get a picture with my self-timer. I included the attempts below. Know that many are left out due to redundancy. And the camera was only knocked over one time! I chose this last one, although Odie didn't want me to. He said that he looked to mean and I told him, "Sometimes you are mean, Odie!" But he insisted that that wasn't in the holiday spirit. However, since he refused to cough up any money for the cards, his vote didn't count. I told him that he could pick the picture next time... but only if he pays.

It was my Phoenician year anniversary last Wednesday and I toasted myself a few times throughout the day. I just reviewed my postings from last year and revisited my Scottsdale neck of the woods yesterday when I took Odie to the vet. And I'm trying to reflect on lessons from my first year in Phoenix. 1. Do not run straight into Jumping Cholla cacti. (I actually learned this vicariously through Odie.) 2. If you leave a candle outside in the summer, you will have to fish inside the wax for the wick, which has long since sunk to the bottom. 3. Saguaro Cacti might be the coolest plants on earth (I have learned a lot of cactus facts.) 4. Odie may NEED shoes to run on the asphalt during the summer, but he doesn't like wearing them. 5. Inviting yourself to parties and camping trips pays off when you meet new friends. 6. Said parties and camping trips go down easier with a bit of beer. 7. Oncology is hard and sad and inspirational. 8. It's important to find a happiness/sadness b...

I am home for Halloween and got dressed up for the first time in a few years. However, my mom's enthusiasm and ability to scare small children far outshone the rest of us. It's so good to be home.

Dear Phoenix, I know that it's not my birthday yet, but I wanted to give you a preemptive thank you. Even though you threaten thunderstorms tomorrow, the high temperature is 86 degrees. While I appreciate your flashy wrapping paper of lighting and baseball-sized hail, a simple cold snap will do. However, I'm grateful no matter what the presentation and I look forward to enjoying a temperate day with you. Love, me

Birthdays are fun. Especially when you add wine and cheese to the mix. I threw my first party last night for my 28th and it was a success. I labeled all of my wines, my cheeses and got my Pandora station ready. I was a little worried when only two people had showed up at 7:30pm (the party "began" at 7pm), but more guests soon arrived with libations and fun. It was a rousing success and my little house held us all and my first birthday party in Phoenix was excellent. And so commenced my birthweek! Here are the remnants of the party. Macaroni and cheese will be on the menu for days to come.

I visited Sedona for the first time this weekend and it was quite the getaway. I have heard about the vortexes (vertices... evidently both pronunciations are correct) and the red rocks, but mainly, I had heard that it was 10 degrees cooler there and I am sick of the heat here. Did you get that? The high is 107 degrees today. Honestly. Phoenix, for my birthday, I want a cool 85 degrees, okay? Okay. The Good Doctor (hereby referred to as TGD) took me on a weekend getaway and it was fabulous. We stayed at L'Auberge with a fantastic view of the Red Rocks and I learned what "turn-down service" was. I had the best scallops that I have ever tasted in my life and got to shower in an outdoor shower. Of course, I'm not quite sure why an outdoor shower is so luxurious, but for some reason, it was, so I used it the entire time. TGD and I hiked along the West Fork of Oak Creek and watched the sunset from Schnebly Hill. It was so beautiful up there on the red rocks and w...

The weather was bearable enough yesterday for a hike around South Mountain and Odie and I were excited to put our hiking shoes on once again. Midway through the hike, I commenced another Phoenician intitiation ritual when I saw my first rattlesnake. We were at the top of the mountain, a little off trail to get a better view and when we started the trek back, I saw a snake about the width of my wrist. Odie snuck forward to investigate and a head popped out and the rattle commenced. Say what you will about my dog, but when I use my panicked voiced to call him, he comes!! Unfortunately, the snake was blocking our only trail, so we had to hightail it off trail, going the long way around to avoid Mr. Rattler. (Upon further investigate on Google... I think that it was a Sidewinder Rattlesnake .) I think that I reached my target heart rate yesterday. In other, more mundane, news. I have promised house pictures for ages. Note my "Welcome to Adulthood" couch. I'm very pr...

I believe that I have made many of blog readers watch this already, but you should watch it again. The Oregon Trail Official Trailer Funniest thing I have seen in ages. Plus, who didn't name a character "Poopface"? In other news, I'm back in Phoenix and it is hot. (Shocking.) It's good to be back and Odie was quite pleased to see me. He peed all over the porch in a fine form of salutation!

As those of you who have seen me ride a bike, I am not the steadiest nor the most coordinated rider. Therefore, it was a small miracle that I hadn't yet taken a spill on Spinner while running Odie. Today was the day for that! However, you may rest assured that it was not Odie that pulled me over. It was more due to the fact that I was trying to put my bike helmet on while riding the bike and running my dog. I am a smart girl. Fortunately, I didn't sprain my wrist by landing on it. Instead, I kept my arm up to protect Odie, so therefore, fell on my face, shoulder and knee. I'm the only person I know who literally falls on her face so often. On a sidenote, I'm listening to the rain beat against the windows for the first time since I've lived in my little downtown abode. I am loving it.

I just finished "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver and had to laugh at myself as I teared up in the final paragraph. Reading about the author and her young daughter, dancing together after finding that their turkey mother just hatched her first brood of chicks, I reminisced about my first baby chicks as well. I started this book quite some time ago, but a bout with the stomach flu stopped me for awhile since I was having trouble reading about food without getting nauseous. It was good to pick it up back and remind myself again why I'm trying to change the way I eat. There is no need for me to stand a soapbox and talk about the benefits of eating locally while this book exists, so I will only encourage you all to read it (although most of my Indiana folk have, I think). Since starting the book, I have joined a CSA called Desert Roots Farm, which I highly recommend to anyone in the Phoenix area. I have also been serious about my visits to the Farmer'...

When one is getting a fever and has the chills, all you have to do is sit outside to combat them. I think that I was the only person in Arizona this weekend to put on long pants, wool socks, a sweatshirt and turn off my air conditioning. Fortunately, the fever has passed. However, the 110 degree weather has not.

I've broken both of my rules now. When I got a dog, I told Art Boy that if I ever called myself the dog's mother or put clothes on him, he could slap me across the face. I think that I may have said that he SHOULD slap me across the face if it came to that. Well, I now merit two solid slaps. I have filled out so much paperwork at Petsmart stating that I am the dog's parent and just got so used to the Petsmart employees calling me Odie's mom, that I started to doing to it too! (First it was for convenience's sake, but then it just seemed catchy.) Slap #1. This week, Odie, Spinner (my bike now has a name!) and I went to my new favorite lunch spot for a delicious (DELICIOUS!) sandwich. On the way back, Odie searched in vain for the shade and started prancing about and whining when on the asphalt. It has finally gotten hot enough in Phoenix to burn my dog's feet. And so, today, I looked for shoes for Odie. Slap #2. However, Petsmart didn't have shoes in O...

This weekend, I commenced in earnest, my quest to discover Arizona. I went camping with a friend from work and her friends in Show Low, Arizona where her boyfriend was doing a triatholon. Odie was very excited to go camping and waited outside with the tent and sleeping bag until I was finally ready as well. Our first stop ("our" referring to me and my pup) was at the Boyce-Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona. This was started in the 19th centure by a man who, with incredible foresite, wanted to preserve the desert flora for future generations. He included native species and also desert plants from around the world. This included a very rare tree called the Boojum Tree. (BOOJUM! What a great name!) It was named by a man who saw it and thought it might look like Lewis Carroll's imaginary boojum tree from "Jabberwocky." It is a weird looking thing, it's true. Odie and I then continued on to Globe, which features the Besh-ba-Gowa ruins from the Sala...

For the first time of my nomadic life, I changed my place of residence according to the government. This morning, I registered in Maricopa County in Phoenix, Arizona, smiled and received my Arizona Driver's License. I am registered to vote in this red, red state and am now part of Donate Life Arizona. Incidentally, did you know that you could register as a Tea Party member? This group of citizens is that official now? Wowza.

It has been a sad week at work and it can be hard to maintain a stable psyche on an oncology unit. I can't pretend to understand what my patients and their families are going through and sometimes I become overwhelmed with emotion at work. However, this exchange has kept a positive hope on my heart throughout this week. I had two patients two weeks ago who were sharing their hospital room, a curtain being their only divide. As far as I know, they didn't speak much, but they could hear each other's stories when I would come and assess them, talk to them or give them their medications. The man who had the window-bed was there because of an attempted suicide, so he was with a companion for 24 hours a day. He was also homeless. His roommate gleaned all of this information quickly, but did not request another room or say a thing about it. The roommate (who had the bed closest to the door) developed an infection that required a private room, so we proceeded to gather up his...

There can be no pictures of the inside while there are boxes everywhere, but, the outdoors are amenable to photos. Here is Odie in his brand-new yard. Incidentally, I think that Phoenix heat might be the recipe for a calm dog. He's been happily napping all day long in this 90 degree weather. Hurrah! Now I am off to meet friends for happy hour tacos. I'm venturing out at 4:15pm despite traffic. Why? 'Cause I can walk there.

I have had 10 addresses since I left home at 15. This doesn't include different dorm rooms or a period of homelessness during which I crashed on people's couches/spare beds for months at a time. I'm about to have another one. After all of those moves, you would think that I would either a) throw all of my stuff away, b) be better at packing, c) stop friggin' moving. However, I haven't done any of those, which is why I'm still procrastinating packing right now. Am I a serial mover? Do I have a problem?

I won't be going to the Jochim Easter Egg Hunt this year, but I decorated my eggs anyway. I am headed to a coworker's house to celebrate with some ham and drinks. I'll also bring my eggs and some undecorated ones as well so that we can perhaps decorate together. Nothing says the holidays like imposing your own traditions on another family!!

Odie and I took a nice hike yesterday and I was thrilled to see my first cactus in bloom (the beautiful Strawberry Hedgehog cactus) along with the ocotillo, full of green and red tips that I hadn't even imagined possible! It was quite the array of color from desert honeysuckle pink to brittlebrush and paperdaisy yellow to the purple of the desert lupine. Just delicious color all around! In other news, I might be moving again... Do I have a phobia for having the same address longer than 6 months?

I just realized that I am in fact 88 years old. I now post about the weather? The WEATHER?! I have got to get out more.

I like to think that I'm pretty tolerant of different types of weather. This is probably not true, since I often find myself whining about cold rain and the temperature range between 35 and 50 degrees (it's awful). However, I always enjoy cold weather with snow and hot weather and thunderstorms and spring winds and fall crispness. But, I'm not sure that I've ever enjoyed weather like I am enjoying the Phoenix springtime. It takes all the best parts of spring: the green, the good smells of trees and flowers blooming, the blustery winds... and then it adds 25 degrees. So, I've got all the goods, plus 70 to 80 degree weather. Add that to palm trees and a pool and I'm living in a friggin' resort here. The only downside to this perfect weather is that when I compliment native Phoenicians on their fabulous spring, all that they can do is say, "Oh, you haven't experienced a summer here yet?? Just wait."

I made this video a couple of weeks ago, but had too much trouble uploading it. You can't tell, but this is in the middle of valley between Phoenix and Scottsdale, right off one of the main highways. Pretty neat, huh?

I'm afraid to say it, but my life currently revolves around bowel movements. You might think that this is common to all nurses, but I believe that the time that I spend cleaning up/helping enhance/facilitating bowel movements is much more than most. In the past week, I have spent around 13 hours repeatedly cleaning up bowel movements (that I caused, of course, with an enema). I have emptied several white buckets of more bowel movements. I have flushed away my own.* And lastly, I have recently switched Odie's dog food because of some unfortunate bowel movements (especially unfortunate when they greeted me after a 14 hour day of work) and thus I have been closely watching his bowel movements to make sure that his food agrees with him. It has come in all different shapes and sizes. Gross, you say? Nah... It's just poo. *I have started saving the water from my shower that is used while waiting for the water to get hot, it goes in a bucket, which I use to flush the toile...

I have worried that I'm old before my time quite often, but an incident yesterday solidified it. You see, it's true that I go to bed at 9pm. I sometimes drink warm milk and honey before I go to sleep. I regularly do crossword puzzles and thoroughly enjoy puzzles. My closest companion is my dog who often climbs onto my lap. I only buy shoes that are comfortable and bras that offer good support. However, yesterday, I found myself going 55mph in a 65mph zone for no reason. I was going under the speed limit for no reason . I committed one of my pet peeves and now I'm very afraid that my senior citizen neighbors are wearing off on me. Well, it's 6pm: a good hour past my dinner time. Must go eat some prunes and pudding.

Well, I'm thirteen days into 2010 and I've already burst out laughing, burst into tears and eaten so much that I thought I would burst multiple times. My good friend, Kristi, came to visit me here in Phoenix last week and it was a marvelous time. We had grand intentions about exploring great restaurants and buying good shoes and tasting wines (or something like that). Instead, we purchased four different kinds of cheese, drank several bottles of wine, and spent most of our time hiking around Phoenix and lazing in the hot tub (my first time). It was wonderful to giggle and share stories and be so comfortable with a friend from home. It was hard to say goodbye. However, her visit made me realize what a fun place I'm in. Whether it was sitting on my balcony in 70 degree whether or only spending $5.58 for 6 grapefruits, 2 tangelos and a heaping bag of greens, I came to appreciate some of the perks of sunny Arizona. On another note, I've been trying to brace myself for...

A new year has begun and this one will be rockin'. I celebrated in style last night in a totally different fashion than my last new year's party. This one was much trendier in downtown Phoenix with martinis and absinthe and bathrooms that were so hip that I couldn't figure out where they were. However, the people were fun, the food was good, and the drinks were plentiful. It was a good night and an excellent way to ring in the new year. And today, I sluggishly cleaned my apartment and put the Christmas decorations away. And here are the photos of this clean apartment with all of its sparse furnishings. 2010 commence!