Jackson Pollock Tanning

One more thought before bed...

I probably have so many freckles because I've been using the Jackson Pollock sprayer at the tanning salon...

Thoughts like this come readily to the sleep deprived.

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Letterman just said: "There were so many witnesses in the Anna Nicole Smith hearings that Jerry Springer couldn't find guests for his show."

Ouch!

Update on the week of typing

As for the stuff I'm supposed to get done this week:

• 75 minute presentation on Disease Reporting (due to print shop 2/20) -- DONE
• 60 minute presentation on Interviewing Skills for Public Health Investigators (due to print shop 2/20) --NOT EVEN BEGUN -- we'll be making copies sometime next week....
• 50 minute presentation on multidisciplinary response to outbreaks of diarrheal illness in long-term care facilities (due to print shop 2/20) -- DONE
• Tweaking last year's presentation for nurse training on mass casualty incident response (due to USC 2/24) --extended to next Monday
• More edits on school and childcare exclusion lists (due for posting on website by 2/28) --We had a three hour meeting where people argued about the societal consequences, yes, societal consequences, of each change. On track.
• Completing application for nursing continuing education credits for upcoming conference, including hounding other presenters who haven't turned in their sections (must be completed by 2/25) --Many, many hours on this, at work until 9:30 tonight, which meant missing most of 1st half of Duke game. On track. I've received all the bios (yay!)
• Creating kid-friendly brochure re: body piercing and rumors (needed in school ASAP, promised for 2/20) --DONE
• Unexpected additions, or things I forgot to mention last Friday:

Peanut butter outbreak calls, many, many calls.--Expanding--

Working statewide with many, many GI illness outbreaks -- Unending

Two on-call days, plus night call.--Continuing

Meetings, drives, etc. -- Unending

The Bulletin--Done

Blogging? A few moments stolen during the "suck-nd half" of the Duke Clempson game. We let a 20 point lead go down to 6! Now 5!

OK, looking better. 5 point lead with 6.5 seconds to go.

Izzy's not a bad commentator. So long as they keep broadcasting games without Dickie V, I'm glad to have Izzy offering opinions.

Final: 71-66. It's 11:20 -- time to head off to sleep to get ready for another day of not getting everything done.

Maybe I'll give up stressing for Lent. (How to do without giving up employment...?)

When we finally got to the movies-Jonestown

Well, we didn't get to the movies last Friday.

We went Sunday evening and saw Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. Not the feel-good-movie-of-the-year...I was especially struck with the need for accountability of leaders. There was just no one in a place to tell Jim Jones he'd left the bounds of sanity and orthodoxy and decency.

Watching the events unfold in this documentary, which showed a lot more of the back story of the group that I'd previously seen, still didn't lessen the impact of hearing: "Mother mother, mother, mother, don't be this way..." as you knew that infants were being wrenched from their mothers to be poisoned. I felt with/for those mothers, who were so distraught that they accepted "the Koolaid" rather than live without their children.

Powerful stuff. I'll likely not again refer to the events of November 18, 1978 as a mass suicide--watch to see why...

Check it out sometime when the video comes out, and make yourself watch it all the way through without interruptions. Read the sign in the Pavilion: Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it." Shudder once or twice and pray for the souls of those 909 poor people.

Double Blog Sandwich

I fully expect to get home from the movies later and discover two sets of blogs for today, one above and one below this post.

Not sure where the ones I launched into the ether via blog-by-email went. I'm sure they'll show up eventually. Maybe several copies...

If only getting the rest of the weekend's typing done were that easy.

If I'm always typing, why can't I find time to blog?

This past week's typing:

• Major edits and re-do's on the school and childcare exclusion lists
• Laborious re-write of on-call policy
• Several meetings on and a full-day exercise of the plan for closing schools in the event of an influenza pandemic, with multiple re-writes of the standard operating procedures for same
• Body piercing and rumor control
• Preparing for and giving keynote address on disaster preparedness competencies to student nurses
• Preparing for an delivering a classroom lecture on epidemiology to student nurses
• Drafts 3 through 6 of brochure for nurse training on mass casualty incident response
• Policies, always the policies
• The Bulletin
• Blogging? Not so much.

This weekend's typing

• 75 minute presentation on Disease Reporting (due to printshop 2/20)
• 60 minute presentation on Interviewing Skills for Public Health Investigators (due to printshop 2/20)
• 50 minute presentation on multidisciplinary response to outbreaks of diarrheal illness in long-term care facilities (due to printshop 2/20)
• Tweaking last year's presentation for nurse training on mass casualty incident response (due to USC 2/24)
• More edits on school and childcare exclusion lists (due for posting on website by 2/28)
• Completing application for nursing continuing education credits for upcoming conference, including hounding other presenters who haven't turned in their sections (must be completed by 2/25)
• Creating kid-friendly brochure re: body piercing and rumors (see above) from content approved today (needed in school ASAP, promised for 2/20)
• Blogging (well--maybe not.)

Things I really shouldn't know

School nurses should not accept responsibility for holding on to chastity belt keys, even when requested by parents.

Don't you wish you had my job?

Losses, But a Good Day

Last Sunday, I watched two basketball games. In each, the team for which I was rooting lost -- but I'll remember the day fondly.

After church, my Mom brought over three of my nieces (ages 8, 8 & 10) for brunch and b-ball. They knew waffles were on the menu, and when they arrived, one immediately asked: "where are the waffles?" I pointed out the table full of ingredients, and they got very excited. "We love coming to Aunt Lizzie's house -- she lets us cook!"



Of course, I completely forgot to take any pics of them carefully measuring flour, sugar, baking soda, etc, pouring milk, beating eggs, etc. They took their jobs very seriously, but had loads of fun wearing Aunt Lizzie's apron collection and occasionally allowing Grandma to help out with stirring or cracking eggs.



They set the table with the china and pretty linens. We ate and told stupid jokes and talked about their Sunday School lessons (admitting when you've done wrong.) They made up a nickname for their Grandma and pretended all sorts of scenarios. Just exactly what preteens should do.



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We got everything cleaned up so Uncle Izzy wouldn't have to, and headed out to see the Carolina Women's game. When I informed them that the opposing team was LSU, the Princess* who was born in New Orleans decided she'd opt for them. Her sister and cousin cheered on Carolina -- everybody paid attention to the game so they could try and out-cheer each other.



What fun! Two of the girls played church league basketball this year, and their cousin attended several of their games. It's neat to see them admiring the skills of the female athletes, and paying attention to plays and strategies. One of the Carolina women got her 100th point during the game and those in the crowd who had been following her streak went a bit crazy. It was nice to also see cheerleaders at the women's game -- not what I'd seen in undergrad, but that was a while ago...



Sadly, the New Orleans niece's cheers were the most effective. LSU won 49 to 46.



After I got home and Mom drove the girls away, Izzy and I watched the Duke-Florida State game he had taped. As usual for the past few games, we (the Dukies) pulled out to an incredible 17 point lead early in the game, and let it slip away in the second half. (Izzy's coinage is the suck-ond half.) We didn't have the Clemson game miracle shots, though, and lost 68-67.

At least I got to see JJ honored.

So, two basketball losses** balanced against having three nieces and Mom over for waffles & an outing*** -- overall a good day.

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*These are the Princess Nieces for whom the annual Tea Party was started. Looks like we'll have the next one in early March. We're taking fancy dresses, tiaras, antique china, lots of pink food, tiny sandwiches, etc. Moms, daughters, nieces, grandmas, etc. , attend. It's pretty much the social event of the season.

** Nope, we didn't watch the Super Bowl. When there was a Masterpiece Theatre on??

***Me & possibly my Mini-Me during the outing...

Bits from Ads

At the end of a Staples commercial, just after the announcer says: "Now, get free installation of Windows Vista", the tiny print reads: "Free installation does not apply to Windows Vista."

There must have been more that I didn't read... **

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A local convenience store chain recently ran a contest to win a car or truck or something.

An ad I heard on the radio tonight included an interview with the winner, where the following was revealed...

"When I got the call that I had won, I got so excited I nearly fell out of my deer stand."

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** A check of the Staples website indicates that the free install doesn't include Vista Basic. Still funny, though....

God the Uncle

(Re-purposed a bit from a post I sent earlier to an email discussion group from our previous church.)

From an article appearing in the Durham Herald Sun

What do teens think they know about religion?

Moralistic therapeutic deism.

It's a mouthful, but it's a sociological way to describe how teens observe religion. It's also the subhead on a chapter called "God, Religion, Whatever" in a book about the first wave of research of the National Study of Youth and Religion.

According to the study, the creed of sorts for moralistic therapeutic deism includes a God who wants people to be good and nice, a life with goals of personal happiness, God's involvement if needed to solve a problem, and the belief that good people go to heaven when they die. ...

The study has used 3,000 phone surveys with teens ages 13 to 17, and followed up with one-on-one interviews with 267 of them in 45 states. ...

[The lead author of the study, Christian Smith (who will be speaking at Izzy's old school this Thursday), found] that most of those surveyed are not being taught what they are supposed to believe and the significance of it in their life. That includes those who attend religious services regularly.

"A lot don't really know what they believe and what difference it makes," Smith said. "My sense is that moralistic therapeutic deism represents larger transformations going on in Christian churches. It reflects something bigger that's happening." ...

"The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers and the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward," Smith wrote.

My reply/comment:

I was privileged to worship at [our old church] last Sunday, when [the ministry intern's] sermon on John 6 (feeding of 5000, "testing" of Philip) touched on some similar issues. It's not just teens who want this sort of (small g) god. We want a god who is nice, gives us stuff, solves problems, and has no expectation vis a' vis our behavior, attitudes, etc. [The ministry intern] mentioned in passing that that sort of relationship with God is not loving; it's neglect.

As I drove home Sunday afternoon, a thought (which may be original) occurred to me: We don't want to worship God the Father. We want a one-sided relationship with "God the Uncle."

Stereotypically, uncles give us stuff, take us places, cheer us on at ball games or recitals, teach us cool things that our parents won't, tolerate what our parents won't, and we can placate them with hand-drawn cards or cheap aftershave and they are happy just to have been remembered.

"God the Uncle" is cheap grace. God the Father "demands my soul, my life, my all" (as we sang last Sunday.) No wonder we lean away from Him.

Thoughts?

Birthday Video

Eliza's first year on Vimeo (link having a bit of trouble...)

Most folks who stop by this blog will never meet Eliza, at least not this side of Heaven.

Those who love children or stories of faith should take a look at the video her parents created for her 1st birthday.

(If the embedded link above doesn't work, go to the Vimeo link and, if nothing else, advance the video to 5:16. Gaze into those eyes that will first clearly focus on Jesus.)