L'aventure américaine

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...