Between my writing class, and the "sticker shock" of how much social workers allow themselves to be paid in Texas... I forgot about my blog!

If one more person tells me that "the cost of living is cheaper in Texas" I'll SCREAM! There is no way the cost of living is over $25000/per year less than Los Angeles. Of course, in LA I have a $1200 rent, but in Texas I plan to buy a home and guess who will have a $1200 mortgage? Where's the big cost of living difference?

Ok... enough of that.

I enrolled in a writing class, that deals with the basic structure of stories. I can see now why my writing leaves me. Sometimes I produce great stuff, which I now know is clearly by accident! Then I go thru spell where I can't get off first base? For that matter even hit the ball. Its cuz I didn't have a character I loved. One who's inner conflict would propel the plot. I would have an idea, a scene and would flounder in making it a story. That's what I did in this class. I had a scene I wanted to make a story out of... and have had a hard time with the rest of the process, like coming up with a clear protagonist and then the antagonist. After 4 classes its starting to come together. I'm so excited!!!

Can't wait to post my stuff! And then watch out world here I come! Well, gosh, I have to break into print now that I know I'l get paid squat in Texas!
 

This week as gone by with too much done, too fast.

First off, I still didn't have my Texas LCSW license on Monday, so I called. No answer. Tuesday I call, forever ringing then a syrupy sweet voice come on, "no one is available to take your call"... click. Wednesday, four rings and then the busy tone. Now I'm pissed. I go to the website's main page to get a main directory number since I'm being ignored by the licensing deparment. Suddenly in flashing red letters a new alert scrolls across... I click it... led to a new page that states the Regulatory building pipes busted and flooded. The building has been evacuated, recovery efforts in process and only the county inspection team can deem the building workable or not. GREAT!!!! What does this mean for my license. I need my license so I can apply and get a job, which I need before I can move out there!!
So I call the main numbe and am informed there is a command center. I call the command center and the lady remembers me from the week before. She can't recall if she got my stuff entered into the computer before the flooding though. She's not sure what can be done about my situation if it wasn't entered. Because at this time it doesn't look like they are going back to work in that building anytime soon.
In the mean time, there is a couple great jobs just posted, but I need this licens. I decide to fax in my resume and a fab cover letter that also explains the flooding situation. 45 minutes after faxing I get an email from the manager, asking to arrange a phone interview. WHAT!!! That was way faster than I expected. I was anticipating not hearing from them for a week or so. Interview is set for Monday! Then miracles of miracles, the lady from the licensing dept calls me at 7am this morning and says. I recovered your file, and your stuff was entered the afternoon prior to the pipes busting. She laughed and said, "here's your number.. now go get that Texas job!" YEAH

Still freaking out about Monday though!
 

Welcome to the first day of Summer!
This is the sadest day of the year, because I know that we will now start to lose minutes of daylight each day. Although with summer heat and so much summer fun, I won't let it get me completely down.

What's the happiet day??? Winter solstice. The day I celebrate the return of light to the land! Of course, you should know I was raised in Alaska... so Winter Solstice was and will always be a BIG DEAL!!!!!
 

I keep getting these "update your blog reminders", but I've really nothing to say.

Let's see.... Thursday was my birthday... and it passed with very little fanfare. My friends don't seem to get that I want to celebrate my birthday on my birthday. Next Friday? Well... its not my birthday, so why bother. They are of the mind that any day in the month of June we can celebrate my birthday. For me your birthday is the day your were born, that's the day to celebrate! Not the day before or after or the week before or after!

This comes from growing up with a sister whose birthday is 2 days before mine. Growing up we always celebrated our birthday together on the day in between our birthdays. Not until I was a tween and had my own group of friends did my birthday become MY BIRTHDAY on MY DAY. Up until age 11 or 12, my birthday memories are of .... celebrate her birthday with a small cake and couple presents on the 12th. I'm told I can open my presents too. I refused! Neighborhood block party on the 13th , and well, everyone exhausted by the 14th which is my day!
I guess that's why I'm such a stickler. My birthday will be celebrated on MY BIRTHDAY! No other date!

Do you think I'm stubborn??? Guess I had something to talk about after all!
 

Ok was it just me that did't know Sleeping Beauty was erotica???
I got my copy today, kinda dreading reading horror novel. They are not my fav genre.. but I did take on the dare. Only to read the back of the novel and find its erotica!!!

I'm curious enough... I'll go forth. But first must finish reading Eldest, the Eragon sequel. Too bad they made such a hatchet job out of the movie.
 

In May of this year, its been 20 years since high school graduation. In July, 5 of 8 girlfriends are getting together in a neutral place. Alaska is just too far and too expensive for some of us to go. One is missing, never heard from, one is pretty religious and feels she has nothing in common with us (or so I've heard), and I thought I'd call the 8th one. My best friend... or in text language my BFFE.
When we were 19, she moved to Hawaii where she met a man and had a couple kids, boys. Contact has been limited over the years, cards here and there, pictures, than nothing for about 10 years, until I went to Hawaii and surprised her two and half years ago. Or that's what I thought. She surprised me! Mother of 5! Count them 5, the youngest about 6 mos. Her first girl, she gave her my name as a middle name. Her second oldest realized that I was "the lady who newpaper picture is on our refridgerator." I almost cried. Then I discovered she homeschooled the kids!!
Since then, I've left messages, no return calls, no real surprise. I remember one summer she went north to be with her sister, never heard from her. Rumors circled our town of 8000 that she was pregnant!, So about 6 months ago I called and the phone was disconnected. Yesterday, I called my grandmother to have her call her mother and get contact info. Today I'm informed she lives in Eastern Washington, on 10 acres, building a home and is pregnant with number SEVEN!
All our adolescent dreams and plans... homeschooling 6 with 1 on the way on 10 acres of land is not what we dreamed aboutI Or were they only my dreams and plans? Even now I can hear her voice over the roar of a Hawaiin wave, "I always wanted to be a mom and have a big family. You wanted world." Those words shocked me then, they still shock me now. How bad of a friend was I? How much did I really know who she was in high school? How could I not have listened.
 

Remember that one little bug that took me down last week? Well he hung around. Actually hid is more like it. After I thought he was long gone, he jumped out of hiding and now I'm not allowed to go to work. Love that when a doctor says, "you can't work with patients, you'll get them sick." Ummm who do you think got me sick?
Anyway, I'm home with strep throat, ear infections and a good ole fashion sinus infection! Right now I'd give my sister away to just be able to swallow with out pain again! Thank god for sugar-free pudding!
Oh and no one volunteer to take my sister, you'll regret it... I"ll save that for another day.
 

Remember that one little bug that took me down last week? Well he hung around. Actually hid is more like it. After I thought he was long gone, he jumped out of hiding and now I'm not allowed to go to work. Love that when a doctor says, "you can't work with patients, you'll get them sick." Ummm who do you think got me sick?
Anyway, I'm home with strep throat, ear infections and a good ole fashion sinus infection! Right now I'd give my sister away to just be able to swallow with out pain again! Thank god for sugar-free pudding!
Oh and no one volunteer to take my sister, you'll regret it... I"ll save that for another day.
 

Ok, I know that death is part of my work, and many may not understand it. My boyfriend said a couple of weeks ago, that every day I walk thru a door that few ever go thru. I didn't really understand his comment until a few hours later when I was lotioning a lady's hand up attempting to take her wedding ring off and give to her grieving spouse. As I worked that simple gold band over her arthritic knuckle, I thought of the 57 years it had been on that finger. Of everything that gold band represented, everything it had seen and been thru. If only the gold band could talk.

I spent most of today with a spouse of a dying man. Maybe he won't die today, or tomorrow, but its coming. His leukemia is taking over and the end is inevitable. I sit close by, holding her hand as his wife of 60 years became enraged! Desperate he live, scared for her future without him, regrets for choosing to live in Mojave and not in a city, near medical centers, and her personal grief being stirred up. Grief that occurred in 1951 by the death of baby.

Then tonight my step-uncle calls, to tell me his mother died. He says he feels like an orphan now. His father (my step-grandfather) died 10 years ago. I am speechless. He called for my emotional support, a place to vent, and to apologize for not calling more often. I don't know how to comfort him. Death is part of life, but I can't say that. I can't say much of anything, I have both my parents. I've been intimately involved with 4 other people's death since I took that gold band off. All I say, is I'm sorry.
 

Ok, where ever in the country you are I'm sure the news has hit upon Los Angeles hospitals' homeless dumping. Shoot, 60 Minutes just did a big thing on it a few weeks ago.

Let's say I"M OVER IT!!!!! I am a social worker who works in an ER 3 nights a week. The homeless I see are not the family who lost their home due to being laid off. Not the family moving out to Cali from the devastation of Hurricanes or Tornados.

What I get are the schizophrenics, alchoholics, substance abusers, major depression, and other mental illness people who live on the streets. Oh and lets not forget smart. They know the city attorney is out to make a name for himself and won't hesitate to call the news if they must. They usually are found down on the sidewalk... sleeping or passed out when cops find them, call the paramedics who bring them to my ER. The sober up, they want to leave, they know the system, they get SSDI, they get thier meds, they have usual corner or abandoned Hollywood building they sleep in, they don't want to stop using their drugs and/or ETOH. Must of all they don't want a shelter. So what, may I ask, am I suppose to do??? Force them to change their ways?

And then there are the few, who want a bed to sleep in for the night, they want a shelter, but by the time they are sober, the shelters are full, so guess who stays in our ER's for the night, occupying a bed. Its a rule, if they request shelter, we must find it or allow them to stay in our ER. And they know it, cause guess who doesn't want a shelter in the AM? Sometimes we have 3-4 homeless sleeping in our ER and we have to turn away the ambulances, cause we are full. What if that is you in that ambulance with a heart attack, vicious dog bite, or your child having febrile seizures?

And me, the social worker, gets the call... to fix the homeless, spend 3 hours trying to get them into a sober living program, or temporary housing they don't want. In a day or 2 they'll go AMA or AWOL because they want to use. What about the family with the real emergency in the ER, the family that truly needs my support, compassion and decisiveness to help them thru their medical crisis. Sorry, go thank the City Attorney, I have to attend the homeless... cause god forbid, the news catches them being discharged to the streets, they'll want to know my name and I'll be subject to losing my license (which means career) and a rather large fine.

Gotta love politics! Maybe I should give taxi vouchers to the homeless to go live in the City Attorney's neighborhood.