Man Flowers

I have long thought that it wasn’t fair that guys had to buy women flowers and gifts like: jewelry, chocolate or lingerie (although that last one could be argued that they are actually buying themselves a gift…) I also don’t like the advertising campaigns that suggest that if an appropriate enough gift is offered we (female half of the race/gift recipient portion of the population) may deign to have sex with or kiss the gift bearer. Which… ok. I’m not a traditional gal. Most of you who have read me long enough to know that. But, seriously?!?
I don’t understand my female coworkers who say things like, “he’d better be buying me flowers” because he’s in so much trouble that only something that costs him a bunch of money will right the wrong that I’m feeling etc etc and “Oh, my husband didn’t do anything for me for ___ I’m so sad and/or upset at him…” My response is: What did you do for him for ___? And I wish I could just say: Did you buy him flowers for Valentine’s day?
But guys don’t want flowers for Valentine’s day. No, really. I’ve offered. And my husband doesn’t want jewelry. I’m not sure on the Chocolate one, however. I tried to find Cadbury Easter Eggs for him, but the store was sold out. (I know he loves those… next year I’ll just buy them as soon as I see them, horde them for a few weeks, and then put them in a heart shaped box. I know he’d like that. SEE?!?! See how easy it is to do something romantic for a guy!?! You have to think about it a little more, but then don’t you want him to think about you a bit more than just grabbing the first flowers he can find at the gas station?)
At any rate, Man Flowers. That is what this post is about.
Well, let’s look at girl flowers. They are amazing. They can mean like, a brazillion different things depending on which types you get. They can also mean like, a brazillion different things depending on the color, too. They can be shared. They can be delivered. That is such a happy feeling seeing someone walk through a door w/ a bunch of flowers, and then hearing your name called out. (And that adds in the bonus of everyone seeing and acknowledging that your other half thought about you enough to get you something) They can also be brought home yourself. (which gets you bonus points on walking in the door with them “hidden” behind your back and you get to see the happy on their faces) They can be shared (Well, the smell, visual can be shared)
After doing a VERY informal poll, I have come to the conclusion that the equivalent to girl flowers is Man Flowers or “Pizza” as I like to call it. I’ll work in random order w/ my aforementioned points. Pizza can be shared. With your Other Half in a romantic dinner kinda way after bringing it home and seeing the happy look on their face… or shared with their coworkers after a pizza is unexpectedly delivered. (imagine how happy they’d be if a pizza were delivered to their work, already paid for, just a few min before lunch time when they thought that they had forgotten their lunch at home…) And so the missing part is: They can mean different things depending on the type. So I’ve come up with a list (roughly… very VERY roughly) paralleling the Meanings of the Colors of Roses. (Feel free to come up w/ your own list. And, if you are wondering about the card or note, just write up a card and bring it with you when you go to the pizza place that will be delivering the pizza to order it. Put the card in a zip lock baggie, first though… just a thought) So – My List:

The Love Language of Pizza

Red Sauce – Is red like romantic Valentine’s Day so it stands for Romance.
Cheese – The goodness that holds everything together.
Pepperoni – Passion – the spiciness that makes us interesting
Mushrooms – Friendship – you know, says you’re a “fungi”
Olives – True Love – (when you mouth the words “Olive Juice” it looks like you’re saying “I Love You”
Anchovies – Lets break up

There are also combinations:
Sausage and Hamburger – the Longevity of a relationship – through rich (can afford sausage) and Poor (when you have to buy Hamburger instead)

Also, Beer. Beer is another type of Guy Flowers. You can buy it singly or by the dozen or half dozen. I’m sure you could come up with meanings for the different flavors, but I don’t like beer. At all. And so I’m coming up blank. (I guess there’s that joke about Coors Lite being like sex in a canoe – fucking close to water… but I’m not sure that it would work as a language of love… ooh! Ok, never mind. In the Love Language of Beer – Coors Lite is Lust. HA! But except for that, I’m coming up empty) So I’m just going to prove my love by walking in the door tonight w/ a 6 pack of one of the kinds he likes the most. (One of them is seasonal, and I’m not sure if it’s the right season anymore) Either way. It shows that I think about him, and I care about him. And I know what kind of things he likes. Oh, however, unlike Pizza, it’s probably harder to have it delivered. And if your Other works for any form of government or in a school district or any place that they could lose their job (armed forces/airport/any “real” jobs or whatever) don’t even try!

Love from Amazon?

I recently came up w/ the very brilliant idea of asking Amazon.com if they would donate a Kindle to our hospital for a raffle. I think that the Kindles are pretty dang nifty, and so I think a lot of people would like them. (For instance, I’m trying to see if I can purchase my school books for my Kindle b/c then I don’t have to pay quite so much, and I won’t have to lug it all over the place. You can also put notes, etc, in there, so it has highlighting capabilities. Also, when I need to write a paper w/ several points, I won’t need to dog ear the page, highlight the passage and then write down the page number under the point. I’ll just highlight it and then put a note called Point 1 or something, and then search for all Point 1s.)

At any rate, I thought, what sets KGH apart from the rest of the world w/ their hands out, begging for a freebie? Well, there’s the first part: Ketchikan. Not normally famous, except for the last few years, so I started out with that:

To whom it may concern:

I work in a small hospital in Ketchikan, Alaska. (Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Let me spark your memories a bit… I would have been able to see the “Bridge To Nowhere” out of my office window, however Russia is nowhere in sight. We’ve affectionately begun calling ourselves Nowhere, Alaska 99901)

Then I remembered that we are a not for profit, so I decided to toss that in, and add to the general overall charity of the work we do up here, and show off my long term dedication to the various projects that I am a part of:

Because we are a small non-profit, the Employee Council (of which I’ve been an active member for 8 years) has to raise all funds for our Christmas parties and a charity called Helping Hands, which tries to help fellow employees that would otherwise fall through the cracks. Yes, Nurses, CNAs and other hospital personnel have emergency medical bills, as well. However, due to the economy, we are having a harder time raising money.

Now what? Well, let’s butter them up a bit, and remind them, again, about where the economy stands. And I should probably thank them, too, huh?:

For my birthday my mother purchased a Kindle for me. I absolutely adore it! I wondered if Amazon.com could be sweet talked into donating a Kindle or a gift card for the amount of a Kindle to our hospital, so that we could raffle it off. Most people can still afford a 5$ raffle ticket.

Thank you for your time in considering us for this donation. I know that I, and all the others here at Ketchikan General Hospital would appreciate it.

Ok… That should do it, right? C’mon, Amazon!!! How many thousands of dollars have I spent on your products over the year?!? Even if you only make 1% (which your stocks show you make more than that!) off of all of my transactions, you still could afford it….

(update, this was sent in June of 2011...  It's now almost December of 2011...  I don't think they are going to do it)

YouTube Paranoia

So I just asked a friend:“Hey, am I a bad person if---“
Friend: Yes
Me: , no listen
F: no, you are.
M: ok, so if a friend of mine is going to the hospital for day surgery, and needs a ride home and I give her a ride home
F:…
M: and I bring a video camera with me?
F: oh? That? No. That’s fine. That’s expected, even.

so, sweet! she goes in tomorrow, gets out after lunch. Video should be up in time for dinner!

Phone conversation at my work

Me: Home health and Hospice, this is Carena...
unknown: Hey, little girl, want some candy?
Me: Yay! I love candy!
unknown: I need you to do me a favor...
Me: Yay! I love favors!!
unknown: ... or drinks... should I offer to buy you a drink?
Me: Yay! I love drinks!!
unknown: ...hrm... or maybe just buy you a drink and put a candy bar in it...?
Me: Yay! I love candy and I love drinks, so Yay!
unknown: Ok, I need you to fax me xyz list
Me: Yay! I love faxing
unknown: do you need my fax number?
Me: Yay! I love information!
unknown: do you even know who this is?
Me: Yay! I love mysteries!!
Unknown: this is Jamie
Me: Yay! I love Jamie!!!

The day of the grossness... you have been warned!

My day started off innocently enough. I'd been bringing the new puppy in to work w/ me, because, only weighing 8 lbs, he couldn't hold his bladder for extended periods of time, so I put him in a travel kennel and left him in my car. Because it was winter I kept a blanket in there and he was pretty happy. I just would take him on a 15 min walk twice a day and a 30 min walk once. (coinciding w/ smoke breaks and lunch breaks.)

I had a meeting planned w/ 2 other people, and because one of them didn't show up and the other was Turtle, we went outside for an outside meeting (read: outside having a smoke break, talking about work stuffs like we would have anyway.

So we let the dog out of the box and played around w/ him while we were talking about work. Well, the little shit made a beeline straight for this used condom (that he had found like 3 days prior, and chewed on, and I grabbed it out and tossed it (I thought) far away, and then he had found the prev day, but then it wsa kinda crackly b/c it had dried out (eewww! they dry out? yeah. I know!)

Well, he grabbed that damn, old, kinda crackly condom and ran away from us. I didn't have him on a leash b/c we would go to a less used part of the parking lot, and he was more timid back then and wasn't prone to wandering far. So we cornered him and I pried his little jaws open, and I thrust my fingers into his gaping maw full of razor sharp puppy teeth to go after a used condom (I was thinking of all the lovely diseases I was going to get if he nicked me w/ those teeth) and the condom was gone.

yeah. totally gone. He swallowed it.

A bit of drama later, I called the vet and the vet said to give him hydrogen peroxide, 2 tablespoons every 30 min until he pukes it up. Luckily for me, Mouse has a pattern, and so I let him into the office where he darts for a corner where I have a hidden container of water. Well, the nurse has a container of water. She's a dog person. She also has slippers and toys and bones and treats, just in case a 4 legged friend comes to visit. So he darts for the water, but I've secretly replaced it w/ H2O2, and the poor dumb schmuck drinks it all up. After less than 30 sec, he starts this wierd burping thing, and I put his leash on, and we go out for walkies.

The whole way up the hill he is bounding and jumping and having a wonderful time b/c this is the longest he's been out of the box all day. We are up the hill and about to go around the corner (we're going to walk the long block because that is approximatly a 20 min stroll.)

We get about 10 feet up around the corner and he suddenly stops and looks at me w/ this look on his face, all "Mom? I dont' feel so good." then out of no where it's all: BLEARGHKPF!!!! and this huge mass of foamy white like slides out of him, and there is the condom in the middle of it all. and I'm just, "so gross" And then he takes two steps and starts the heaving... and then I'm all. yep, I can't deal w/ this, so when he's done (ewww!) we turn right around and we'll do the short block, and we cross the street, and he starts heaving and I start thinking about it. He stops heaving and I start... then I puked. Then we go a bit further down the block and he goes into the grass out of the way and pukes a bit more, and it's all foamy bile, and stringy so it is still attached to his muzzle. And so, of course, I puke again. Then we continue walking. He puked a few more times. I stopped watching and tried not to hear it.

Then we got about a block w/ no incident, so I put him back in the box, and 20 min later went out and offered him water. He drank it.

He was all subdued, though. That made me sad.

Zombies

ok, so the other night when my husband came to bed he said I was sitting up. (Which is strange, but isn't the strangest thing I've ever done in my sleep)

He asked me what I was doing and I mumbled something that included the word "Zombie" and then I rolled over and bit my pillow and then started to snore.

(THIS could be the strangest thing I've ever done in my sleep...)

Have you ever read The Diamond Age?

You really should. I just Wiki’d it, and apparently it was shortlisted for a Nebula award and other really cool things. According to Wiki (and Wiki would never lie to us, right?): The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum belt on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. At age 4, Nell receives a stolen copy of an interactive book, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: aPropaedeutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c., originally intended for an aristocrat's child in the Neo-Victorian New Atlantis phyle. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth and Fiona, girls who receive similar books. The Primer is intended to intellectually steer its reader toward a more interesting life, as defined by "Equity Lord" Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, and grow up to be an effective member of society. The Primer also reacts to its owners' environment and teaches them what they need to know to survive and grow.
The Diamond Age is characterized by two intersecting, almost equally developed story lines: Nell's education through her independent work with the Primer, and the social downfall of engineer and designer of the Primer, John Percival Hackworth, who has made an illegal copy of the Primer for his own young daughter, Fiona. His crime becomes known both to Lord Finkle-McGraw and to Dr. X, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance the opposing goals of their tribes. The text also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. her four toy friends) onto archetypal folk tales stored in the primer's database. Although The Diamond Age explores the role of technology and personal relationships in child development, its deeper and darker themes also probe the relative values of cultures (which Stephenson explores in his other novels as well) and the shortcomings in communication between them.
I’m going to go a bit further into the book… I’d like to focus on the Primer. It was a book that was basically run by a woman who acted out all of the stories (spoken and movement) and who acted as a surrogate mother for this child. This is the part that really spoke to me. Of course, when I first read it, I had a child who was 4 years old, so maybe that is why I focused on that aspect a bit more. Overall, it’s an absolutely WONDERFUL example of cyberpunk (body modification, fantabulous buildings, etc etc) I highly recommend it. So, after all of that, you’re thinking this is a book review. NO!!! I don’t do book reviews!! Book reviews are boring. However I would suggest you read the following news article that I got from Slate.com:

Microsoft Introduces Milo, a Virtual Boy, to TED Global Conference "I want to introduce a new revolution in storytelling," veteran U.K. game designer Peter Molyneux told an audience at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Global Conference in Oxford on Tuesday. During his short presentation, Molyneux demonstrated his latest creation: a virtual boy. Milo, designed to be used with Microsoft's Kinect, a new hands-free Xbox 360 controller, responds to a person's body movements, voice, and emotions. Using a series of cameras, microphones, and sensors, Kinect interprets its user's intentions. "We're changing the mind of Milo constantly," Molyneux told the crowd. "No two people's Milos can be the same —you are actually sculpting a human being. Some of the things you are doing will change the course of his life." Created using Microsoft technology and artificial intelligence developed by Molyneux's Lionhead studios, Milo was designed after Molyneux decided he wanted to create something "that seemed alive, that would look me in the eyes, and feel real," according to the BBC Currently, Microsoft has no plans to release Milo, but Molyneux hinted that it could have commercial appeal. "His mind is based in the cloud," he said. "As millions of people use it, Milo will get smarter."

I then sent the article to my darling husband, b/c Milo TOTALLY sounds like the Primer!!

Darling Husband:
You know... The disturbing thing about this is that soon a computer program will have had more interaction with individual people than the sum total of people on the planet. The possible spiritual, cognitive, and social implications is mind-boggling. I mean... What if the construct doesn't like you?

Me:
Wow... that has just led me down the path of even further social insecurity... (Good job, Husband!) That had never even occurred to me... what if my iPhone doesn't like me, and that's why I'm not getting (or getting notified of) my texts in a timely manner...
This adds my resistentialism to my social anxiety... so I'm now afraid that inanimate objects not only may be out to get me and hate me, but they may just not like me... I'm not sure which is worse, b/c at least hate is a strong emotion... which is worse? To have someone/thing have a strong negative emotion about you, or just a passing distaste?!?
GAAAAHHHH!!!!

Darling Husband:
Well. The complexity of the programming of an iPhone is significantly less than what they are talking about. You could think that way, or acknowledge that you are deifying an overly hyped calculator. If you do choose to look at it that way... Maybe offer it a cookie?


Me:
Mmmm... primitive idol worship, or just realize that sometimes things break and there's nothing you can do about it thus moving towards a more nihilistic belief system... I'll go w/ the cookies.
What would an iPhone want? Well... so far my credit card number seems to satisfy it. I give it my CC#, and it gives me new entertainments. (Yeah... how is this not a potential religion?)