Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Leaves, Christmas, Randomness, and things I let The Boy do that I probably shouldn't!

I know that you probably always have the sound off when you come to our blog because I have this strange obsession with inundating you with the awesome of Classical Music. Well, as I alluded to on Facebook, one of the reasons this post is so late in coming is because I changed the music that you will hear to be more in line with the season. Say Hello to 61 of my favorite Christmas Carols!!! Rather than dealing with those annoying commercials on Pandora, you can just leave our website up and it will play all day!!! Also, if you happen to get to listen to The Boars Head, it is my favorite Christmas Carol this year!!! Now back to your regularly...um irregularly scheduled blog update!




100 Stickers!!!!

   So the Boy is highly motivated by sticker charts, it worked great for potty training, and it cleaned up his school behavior, so we got to thinking, maybe we can teach the Boy to do all of those little things everyday that we would like him to do without us forcing him to do them. (Just a quick aside to parents, teachers, and anyone who has responsibility over minions: You cannot expect them to exhibit a behavior that you have not taught them to do. If you want your child to brush their teeth a certain way, you just can't tell them to "Go brush your teeth," or they will go do whatever they think that means. Ladies, have you ever asked you man to do something, and then we did it in a way that is nowhere near what you wanted? Well, we probably had no clue what you really wanted so we did what we thought it sounded like you wanted. Anyway, we are all really just like dogs, we need to be trained, and we respond well to rewards...not so well to newspaper.)
   
 We also like to use the sticker chart as an excuse to get the boy toys. Now our financial situation kind of stinks, and the boy was earning rewards to fast, so we decided that he was going to have to really work this time. He has 10 tasks that he has to do everyday, if he does them he gets a sticker, if we have to help him or make him, or ask him more than twice, no sticker. His tasks are: Get out of Bed (I bet you are thinking that your spouse could use that on their sticker chart), Eat Breakfast, Brush his Teeth, Earn all Smiley Faces at School (that is his school behavior chart), Eat his dinner, Take a bath (he doesn't do that every night), Put on his PJ's, Family Scripture Study, Brush his Teeth, and Say his prayers. (Yes, we know that Brushing his teeth is on there twice. See that comment up there about getting a child to brush his teeth correctly? We will be moving to the rolled up newspaper soon.)

   If he earns 10 stickers in a column he gets to have ice cream with Papa - which isn't really a reward because lets be honest, he has ice cream with Papa all the time. When he gets all 10 columns done he gets his real reward. He usually has this picked out right from the beginning, and so he has been talking about Ramone from Cars for quite a while. We actually went and bought Ramone last Monday, and all the boy had to do in order to earn him was get all smiley faces on Tuesday - the last day before Thanksgiving break...and he blew it. (Let's hope that he doesn't grow up to be a kicker.) He has a problem with Nap Time at school. He doesn't want to take a nap, which is fine, he doesn't have to sleep, but he has to quietly look at a book or do something that doesn't disrupt the other children who do sleep. Owen doesn't do quiet. This is the boy who frequently will walk into the room and proclaim, "It's Time to Get AWESOME!!!!" He was pretty upset that he didn't get Ramone (He didn't earn it, he doesn't get it. I know that I am the meanest parent ever (I'm the same guy who potty trained the boy by putting him back in a baby diaper) and I am sure he will need counseling later in life.) but he went back to school on Monday highly motivated, and even informed me that I needed to make a new sticker chart because he was going to get his last sticker. 

   When I went to pick Owen up after school, I had a suspicion that he probably was going to get all smilies, so I brought Ramone with me.  Sure enough, Owen came running out the door proclaiming that he got all smilies and he was going to get Ramone when we got home. I asked him, "What if I told you that Ramone wasn't at home anymore," to which he replied, "That would be lying." So I pulled Ramone out of where I had been hiding it, and the Boy squealed! Owen usually does not get too vocal with his excitement, he is the kind of boy that freaks out physically when he is excited - you know jumps all over you and acts like a hyperactive chihuahua - so maybe it was because he was in his seat, but he squealed with excitement. Now he just wishes that it was Friday so he could take Ramone for show and tell. And we did start a new chart - we took out Putting on PJ's because he does that without a fuss, and replaced it with Putting all of his toys away. He wants to earn all 10 stickers today, so we will see how he does. Oh, and he already has his next reward picked out...he wants Flo from Cars.

I just realized that was an incredibly long block of writing without any pictures, so lets get on to something that lends itself better to pictures: 

Leaves! 
We have 16 oak trees in our yard (it used to be 17 but we cut one down...I've complained a lot about that experience, so if you have been following us you probably know that.) That means 16 oak trees dump their leaves in my yard every year, plus I am pretty sure some of my neighbor's trees dump theirs as well. Last year we filled over 130 bags of leaves and had probably that many again, except that Snowmaggedon came. The good thing about that is that the snow knocked out our fence, which led to a conversation with the gentleman who lives behind us, which led to permission to drag our leaves through his property to the forest on the other side! I had been out a couple of times trying to get ahead of the leaves as they fall, but then we had a good wind come through and dumped most of the leaves so I was getting out my rake when I heard the greatest noise ever coming from my neighbor Nan's house. Nan had gone out and bought a leaf blower!!! 

Nan is just about the greatest neighbor ever. She helped talk us into buying this house in the first place: we were here looking at it for a second time and she came out to beg us to move in, I guess the last people weren't the best. (When you have people sleeping in the shed, run a mariachi band in your back yard, and use the upstairs as a brothel, the neighbors tend to not like you.) In addition to just being an awesome neighbor, Nan lets me use her lawnmower, so when she came over to talk to me I knew that she was going to let me borrow her leaf blower as well. It isn't the most powerful, and I found that there is a little bit of a learning curve when dealing with leaves and wind, but in the end, I have a giant pile of leaves waiting for me to load them onto a tarp for the trip to the woods.

 I would like to mention that this nice sunny picture was taken on the same day that the North-West part of the country was getting snowed on!

 The front yard was easy compared to what awaited me in the back yard.

 What the Hell? A washer and dryer fell out of my tree!!!!
(Oh wait, nope, those are the broken ones that came with the house that I took out of the shed and now I don't know what to do with them so I am just leaving them in the middle of my yard like the white trash I am!!)

 Just a picture of me slowly moving my pile of leaves across the yard...kind of boring, not sure why I put it in, but it is here...

Things got a lot more interesting once Owen and his best friend Dean came out to play! 
(I really need to have a talk with Dean's dad because that follow through has some serious potential, that boy might be a natural!)

 The leaf blower is a little on the loud side (it is electric so it isn't like those gas powered backpack ones that the have at the University...if only I could get my hands on one of those...) but the allure of a gigantic leaf pile strengthened the boy's courage and they came out to play!

 Where did they go? Remember how I said that there was a learning curve with the leaf blower? Well, I learned some fun things, such as how to get a giant pile of leaves resting on a cushion of air until one expert flick send the entire pile flying forward, covering everything in their path! (You can see the leftover leaves there on the right to get an idea of how big the leaf wall was that came at them.)

This must have been a fun game because I buried them for probably 30 minutes without them getting tired of it!

The giant pile of leaves did lead to a tremendously terrifying experience for me later in the week. I had been out working on the Christmas Lights while Beki went to the store. (By the way, Beki is doing fine, she is still a little weak, but she is not dead and is back at school.) The Boy had been playing outside with me, but he wanted to go inside and play on the computer, so I told him that if he wanted to go in, I would clean up outside and then come in and make dinner. It took me about 30 minutes to get everything in order, and I was a little surprised when I came in and Owen was not at the computer. I figured that he must be in his room playing with his trains...not there. Maybe he was in the bathroom...not there. My house is a box, so after checking upstairs, there was no other place that he could be inside. Now I am known for loosing things around the house, and I am awful at finding things, but how on earth had I lost the Boy? I thought maybe he came back out while I wasn't watching and he was playing in the street. (Now before you get any ideas about calling social services, we live at the end of a cul-de-sac, so the kids play in the street. Besides, it won't do you any good, I've been trying to get a hold of Social Services for a week and a half and they never answer.) I went up and down the street and even checked with the neighbors...no Owen. 

    At this point I am thinking, "Awesome...well it took me 4 years longer than I thought it would for me to loose him," and then I got to thinking about the leaf pile. Maybe the Boy was tromping through the leaves and he just kept going out through the neighbors yard and  into the forest. I went out back to the leaf pile and while I could see signs that he had been back there, he was nowhere in sight. I figured that I would go look through the forest first before I decided to call search and rescue, and while I was on my way past the leaf pile, a little grey spot caught my eye. The Boy was perfectly still, completely buried in leaves, and all that was showing was the very top of his hat. "Great, he's dead, probably trampled by rabid deer." (We do have a lot of deer that wander through our yard, not sure if they are rabid or not.) Well it turns out that he was not dead, but that he had been playing in the leaves, and had burrowed down and become so comfortable that he decided to take a nap. When I picked him up he was cross and informed me, "Papa! I'm sleeping!" Beki was curious why the boy was sleeping in his outside coat and completely covered in leaves when she got home, and after I told her my terrifying tale of terror, she responded exactly as I would have in her shoes, "Did you take pictures?" I regretfully admit that in my euphoric joy of finding my son still alive, I totally forgot to take pictures of him asleep in the leaf pile. Rest assured that if he pulls this stunt again, I will be properly armed for your amusement!

Thanksgiving was pretty low key around here. We had Thanksgiving Dinner thanks to my good friend Herbie and his wife Kris who felt that they wanted to help us out a little bit - this experience of being out of work has forced me to be more accepting of other people's help and charity, and there are so many people who are anxious and willing to help those in need. After Thanksgiving we got to participate in one of my favorite traditions:

Christmas Decorations!!
I am pretty good at holding off on Christmas until after Thanksgiving, probably because Thanksgiving is pretty important to me...I love food. (And apparently I love Costco's Pumpkin Pie - I haven't been a big pumpkin pie fan in the past, but I have eaten my share of this one!) But once dinner, napping and football are over it is time to bust out the Christmas Music and get to work on the tree. Now I will admit that things were a little too low key here this Thanksgiving, so my nap was way too long and I didn't get around to doing the Tree until the day after Thanksgiving...you know when the rest of you were out fighting the crowds and such?

 Yup, my tree comes in a box. My wife is allergic to the real ones, plus they cost more than my fake one did, and I use it every year. Most importantly, I don't have to drive any where to get my tree.

 I took this picture to set up a little before and after, but as I was taking it I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the Boy...he had been right here helping me fluff the branches...

 I was attracted to some movement and silly noises coming from the Christmas Tree Box...

 For those of you who think that children don't know what is going on in the PG13 movies you watch, Owen informed me that this was the bed that turns him into a blue person...guess what movie we watched a couple of weeks ago? (He actually fell asleep halfway through, but for his bed-time story the next night he wanted to know what happened in the story with the blue people.)

 Once the tree is up it is time to find the rest of the decorations...

 Or the little electric train that is in the Christmas box. It was like Christmas morning for Owen. He was so excited to find a new train, especially one that moved on its own. He was set for the rest of the day.

 So my thing with Christmas Trees is that they need to look good in the light...

 And then captivate you in the night. The Angel on top changes colors...I could watch it all night, and sometimes do! Also, we put our Christmas Village under the tree since it is too big to fit on the entertainment center and mantle anymore.

 For Family Home Evening on Monday we made a countdown chain, no only to give us another decoration, but we are focusing on traditions, because we want Christmas to be more than presents.

 Who would have thought that thread would blow the mind of a 4 year old? He was fascinated by this thing that he could barely see that I was using to hang the chain up with.

 Owen went to see Mommy, but forgot that he was hooked to the chain, lucky for us it had 26 loops on it!

 I know this picture is a little blurry, but look at that concentration on his face. I'm telling you, he was having a hard time adjusting to a world where thread exists!

 Once his mind grasped the concept of thread he was a great helper measuring out the thread for me.

With how much he likes sticker charts, the chain should be a hit!


Randomness!!!
So I try to organize these posts by topic, but sometimes there are just random pictures that don't really fit into anything, they just are awesome.

 If I am not mistaken, I am using Owen as my "Comfy Pillow" (He really is going to need counseling...we should probably get him started on that early.)


 Sometimes he can look really sweet and cute...

 But don't be fooled, it is just a guise he uses to trick you into thinking you could take a family picture...then you'll get this:

 Spaz...that is all I can say.

 We did get a "good" one...after about 8 tries.

Sunday evening was Stake Choir Practice, and Dean's mom is the director, which means that Owen and Dean get to hang out and play. Both families plan ahead and the kids are in their PJ's, but Owen planned ahead too and brought two of his Superhero capes for them to wear. I miss the days of Superhero capes...I have a blanket around me now, all I need is a safety pin....

And our final section today will be:

Things I Let The Boy do That I Probably Shouldn't!

I was trying to think of a clever way to introduce these pictures, but I guess that they just go along with the other things that the Boy has done such as: Hammer in nails (And my iPod), Paint the walls, and helped fix the plumbing.

Yup...that is my 4 year old son standing on a six foot step-ladder hanging lights on the roof. I was working when suddenly there he was wanting to know what I was doing.

Now I hate ladders, but the Boy is not fazed by them. I asked them if he was scared to be up on the ladder, to which he was like, "Papa, I climb a ladder every day on my bed." Good Point.

 Since he was up there I put him to work. He put on every other light...all the way across. (It was once we got done with the ladder that he said that he wanted to go inside but instead went and slept in the leaves.)

This last set of pictures doesn't need any explanation. I must tell you that I am extremely proud of this accomplishment, and at the same time extremely terrified!




The only thing that is stopping him from having ice cream whenever he wants is the fact that he can't reach the cups. (And of course the fear of Mommy) He can get the ice cream and the scoop. At the same time the only thing that is stopping him from bringing ME ice cream whenever I want is the fact that he can't reach the cups...maybe I should teach him?


I know that I haven't ranted about anything in a while, but I feel a pretty good sized rant coming on in the next few days.

Friday, November 19, 2010

The Post that I promised you Yesterday, but I am giving you today!

Yea, so I have a little bit of a problem with motivation these days. (Seriously, right after I wrote that first sentence I went and spent 10 minutes mindlessly surfing Facebook.) Speaking of Facebook, I am sure that some of you read about Beki and her trip to the Hospital, so I figure that I will start this post with that little narrative.

Beki gets a sinus infection twice a year - it is just one of those things that has always happened to her. Usually she is miserable for a week, then we take her to the doctor, who gives her drugs, which make her even more sick, until magically 3 days later she emerges from her sick semi-coma and is back to the real world. Well about two weeks ago Beki started to get sick. After a week of not getting better she went to the Student Health Center at the University (because we no longer have health insurance - thank you Prince George's County Public Schools) and they gave her some drugs. Around this same time The Boy was sent home from school with Pinkeye, and I came down with something as well. I was just waiting for the Monty Python guy to come around asking us to "Bring out your dead!"

Beki's first set of medication did nothing, well, except for make her want to puke, so she went back to the Health Center and they moved her to a different medication - which did nothing but make her even more nauseous. So this past Monday Beki was home in bed, The Boy, thanks to his medicine drops, was Pinkeye free (He didn't think that his eyes looked pink, he thought that he had Blueeye), and I was mindlessly trolling the internet looking for jobs that I am not going to get. When the time came to get Owen from school, I asked Beki if she wanted to go back to the Health Center, but she wasn't sure, so she stayed home. (Beki has a high tolerance for pain...she didn't even want to go to the hospital when she woke me up at 4:30am on the day that Owen was born.) While I was picking Owen up from School Beki changed her mind and phoned me to tell me to hurry home so that I could take her to the hospital.

(This next paragraph will cause one of two reactions: Either you will see it as the Hand of Providence, or as an "Amazing Coincidence.")
Our church meets in groups called "Wards" that are arranged geographically. A month ago our ward was split up amongst three other wards. This means that we have been going to church for the last few weeks with about 75% new people that we had never met before. (I know some of you are thinking, "Boo! Why are you talking about church? Well, wait and see.) Right after Beki got off of the phone with me, a lady from out Ward - who neither of us had ever met or spoken too - called Beki out of the blue. She said that she just felt that she should call and see if we needed any help with anything. I don't think Beki was making coherent sentences at that point, so Melinda (that is the lady's name) said that she would just come over. I was really confused as Beki tried to explain to me that someone was coming over, but sure enough some lady showed up and offered to take Owen while Beki and I went to the doctor. I am sure that you are screaming at your computer screen "Wait! You sent your child with someone that you didn't even know?!?" Yup...and they kept him for TWO DAYS!! (This is a great thing about church, I totally trust someone from church with my child. Of course it didn't hurt that we had checked and found that she was the Relief Society President.)

[FACEBOOK FAMILY FEUD BREAK!!!!!]

So, with the Boy taken care of (He was more than happy to go with Melinda when she mentioned that she had two little boys and lots of Toys!) I got Beki in the car and down to the Heath Center. I had to drop her off and then drive over to the parking garage, so I got back to the Health Center just in time for the doctor to tell me that they couldn't do anything else for her, and that I needed to take her to the Emergency Room. So back I went to the car, came back and picked her up, and then fought our way through traffic to the Hospital. The GPS said that it would only take 10 minutes to get there, but of course that would be if no one else was on the road...it took us a half hour. (I will have a whole little paragraph about driving at the end, it pisses me off sooooooooooo bad.) Once we got to the ER, we had to wait for TWO HOURS to be seen. Now, I know that two hours doesn't seem that unreasonable for being seen at the ER, and I agree, but it is the kind of people that were in the waiting room that has me so ticked off. (There will be a little paragraph about this too.)

Once we finally made it into a room things started to get better. The nurse Glenda (the good witch) was very nice and drugged the crap out of Beki, got her some pre-warmed blankets, and got everything taken care of so that she could turn out the lights (which Dr. Lopez immediately turned back on when she came in...it was kind of funny, except for the part where my wife was lying on a gurney in the Emergency Room.) Their initial thought was that her Sinus Infection had caused meningitis, so they took her off for a CAT Scan and then they  performed a Lumbar Puncture to take fluid samples. (Lumbar Puncture = Gigantic Needle) Once the tests were done we were going to have to wait for the results, so Beki was finally able to get some rest, as long as they kept giving her drugs for her headache. In the end the tests showed that there was no infection in Beki's brain, but the headache caused the doctor and nurse enough concern that we decided to admit Beki to the Hospital.

And then the positive experiance that we had enjoyed at the hospital ended. Apparently when you are sent up from the ER, all of the records that they have made about you don't go with you. So the Nurses upstairs had no idea that Beki was supposed to be on Drugs, and they wouldn't let her drink anything until the doctor showed up - which wasn't for another 6 hours - and they didn't listen Beki when she would try to tell them what was wrong. Add that too the Walrus in the other bed in the room (um, the Walrus gets her own paragraph at the end...roommate from hell!) and it was a long, miserable night for Beki. I got home from the hospital at 4am, and when I went back the next morning, Beki looked even worse than when I had left her the night before. See I always thought that the hospital should make things better, but I guess that I must be mistaken. The doctor ( a new one) finally came and took more samples, but it would take 24 hours to grow the culture, so that meant another day of the Walrus and really bad hospital food. (I tried some...it really is bad.

The next day Melinda brought Owen back, and we went to go see Mommy in the hospital. The doctor had decided that Beki has Aseptic Meningitis:


Aseptic meningitis, or sterile meningitis, is a condition in which the layers lining the brain, meninges, become inflamed and a pyogenic bacterial source is not to blame. Meningitis is diagnosed on a history of characteristic symptoms and certain examination findings (e.g., Kernig's sign). 
The term aseptic is frequently a misnomer, implying a lack of infection. On the contrary, many cases of aseptic meningitis represent infection with viruses[1] or mycobacteria that cannot be detected with routine methods. While the advent of polymerase chain reaction has increased the ability of clinicians to detect viruses such as enteroviruscytomegalovirus, and herpes virus in the CSF, many viruses can still escape detection. 
Aseptic meningitis can result from non-infectious causes; it is a relatively infrequent side effect of medications, and can be an early finding in autoimmune disease.
"Aseptic meningitis", like non-gonococcal urethritisnon-Hodgkin lymphoma and atypical pneumonia, merely states what a condition is not, not what a condition is. Terms such as viral meningitisbacterial meningitisfungal meningitis,neoplastic meningitis and drug-induced aseptic meningitis can provide more information about the condition, and without using one of these more specific terms, it is difficult to describe treatment options or prognosis.

Since it is probably viral there is not a whole lot that they can do for it, but they gave her some new medications and we got her ready to go home.
 Hanging out with Mommy on her Hospital Bed.

 Until the boy found the controls... first we go down...

 Then we go back up!

Mommy was ready to go change so we could go home!
While she is definitely doing better, she is still feeling pretty tired and weak, and her head is still bothering her, but as long as we can keep the Boy from bugging her to death, we should be ok.

Much happier to be home in our bed. (I know that she doesn't look like it, but she is.)

As I was looking at our pictures over the last few weeks, I found that we did do some fun things before everyone started getting sick. This summer we bought a kite for the Boy, but we never got around to using it. One day, while I was home sick in bed, Beki and Owen went out to the High School to fly the kite.
 We got the kite from Costco, so it is pretty hardcore.

 The Boy was very excited...

 Beki got it going first...so think about who that means was running the camera...he's got skills!

 Then it was the Boy's turn!

Run! The Dragon is going to get you!!!

 Not sure if this classifies as child abuse, but it was the boys idea. He told us that he was a puppy, and that his wrench was his bone, so I threw it...
 And he went and got it...

 And brought it back to me!

 He tried to have mommy throw it...she wasn't so sold on the idea.

 So the Boy helped her blow-dry her hair instead!

While I have been pretty cynical about our current financial situation and my lack of a job, we have been working very hard this month to focus on the things that we are thankful for, because there are a lot. To help us on our quest to be thankful, we built a Thankful Tree!

 We taped some construction paper together (Why isn't it brown you ask? Well, because the giant pack that we bought didn't have brown...go figure.) Then Beki drew a bare tree on it. (I know that I am the arts guy and my wife is the scientist, but she is a much better artist than I am.)

 However, I am AWESOME with the scissors!!

 Owen likes to cut too!!

 Our Thankful Tree doesn't look very Thankful at first...

 But each day we each write one thing that we are Thankful for on a leaf (Red for Owen, Orange for Beki, and Yellow for me) and stick it on the tree.

Here we are now...looking like a very thankful Thankful Tree!

Chris' Angry Rants - As mentioned above, I have quite a few that have been building up for some time. 

Rant #1 - Driving in DC

I am pretty sure that I have complained about this before, but driving here sucks SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad it will make your eyes bleed! I've been thinking about this for some time - I have a lot of time on my hands for thinking - and I have come to the realization that the driving problems out here aren't caused by lack of roads or too many cars. It is all about the people driving, and how they have no idea how on earth to drive. I am by no means a perfect driver, but I think that I do a very good job of getting from point A to point B. I pay attention to the things going on around me, get in the correct lane early, and don't do anything to distract my attention from the road. Most people here see their car as an extension of their office or home and they talk on the phone, read the paper, put on make-up, sleep, whatever while driving. And if it happens to rain, it just gets worse! (And it rains all the time here!) This is what it is like driving here:

Driving in the Rain:
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE

 Driving Downhill
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE


Driving UPHILL
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE


Driving in Traffic
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE


Driving out of Traffic
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE


Going through Green Lights:
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE
(Nothing pisses me off more than that one, the light is @#$%*&! Green!!!!!!!)


After Pulling out in Front of You:
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE


After Cutting you off without signaling:
Brake.....Brake...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaake, Brake, Braaake...Brake...Brake, Brake, Brake...BRAKE


It sucks sooo bad!!

Rant #2 - The ER Waiting Room
So there we are, in the waiting room at the Emergency Room, and as I look around the room I can't help but thinking that it looked like we were in the waiting room at your local family doctor's office. To me, if you are in the ER, you had better be bleeding, violently vomiting, unable to walk, or missing a limb. Most of the people who were in there probably just needed a visit to the regular doctor, but most of them probably don't think about going for preventative medicine. And in case you think I am just being mean, Nurse Glenda totally agrees with me, and they frequently send people away telling them to go see a doctor. 

Rant #3 - The Walrus
I know that you aren't supposed to judge people, and that you should be nice to everyone, but the woman that shared the hospital room with Beki was a Walrus. 
First, she was the size of one - nothing wrong with being morbidly obese, but when your morbid obesity give you diabetes, which you then ignore until things get so bad that you develop sores all over your feet and body to the point that you have spent FIVE MONTHS in a hospital bed, I am not going to have a lot of sympathy for you. 
Second, she screamed, moaned, whimpered and whined all night. Again, I understand that your choices in life have given you a treatable disease that if left untreated can make your life miserable - but you have been in the hospital for FIVE MONTHS, at some point you need to accept the consequences and man up! The first night Beki got no sleep because the Walrus was yelling for the nurse all night. The second night the Nurse went down to the Maintenance Department and got her some earplugs.
Third, she expected everyone to do everything for her. This almost led me to walkover there and see if there was some vital system that I could unplug to do us all a favor. I had just helped Beki get up out of bed with her IV cart so that she could go to the bathroom. As she is walking to the bathroom, the Walrus starts barking about her lights over her bed and not being able to turn them off and NEEDING my wife to turn them off for her. Before I could get around the curtain and punch the Walrus in the face, my darling and much kinder and Christlike than I wife went over, dislodged the control from under the Walrus and turned off the lights. She couldn't even operate the TV control. It took Owen about 7 seconds to figure it out, and he's 4!
At some point don't hospitals send people home? I am sure that the government is paying for her to be there - which could lead me to a whole new rant: How is it that everyone else can get the state to help them, but when I just want someone to help me make things work until I can get my employer to actually let me work, everyone ignores me? Maybe I should register as a Democrat instead of an Independent...