Where I've Been

Blogging has been dead last on my list of priorities lately. Here is where I've been since I last blogged before Going West:

Siesta Beach

AMAZING. White sand, gentle waves, partly cloudy sky, warm ocean breeze. It was paradise. I am seriously experiencing Florida withdrawls.

Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Illonois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah.

Luckily, the trip went smoothly. Joshua was an angel and handled the road trip just fine. We did manage to run out of gas about 50 yards from a gas station in Atlanta in the rain. We pushed the car the rest of the way and gassed up for $3.99/gallon. A few days later we drove past $2.79/gallon in Missouri! And that was weeks ago! It must be close to $2.00/gallon now. We also memorized the alphabet backwards (we can say it fast!), got pulled over for taillights that didn't work (we had no idea) and luckily just got a warning, my cell phone died and never came back to life, listened to the worst thriller novel ever that we picked up at a truck stop, and otherwise had a great time being cramped up together in a loaded-down Jetta for 3 days.

Apartment hunting

Blah. I hate apartment hunting. This time it was slightly more discouraging... the state of the economy has a lot more people looking to rent, so we found ourselves having to compete with a lot of other potential renters for all the good rental properties. After our top 3 choices got snatched away from us, we finally found a cute little duplex to rent from a young married couple. They have made a lot of improvements on it (new carpet, cabinets, floors, vanity, toilet, etc.), so even though it's a tad small for what we wanted it will be a great place to live. Now we just have to move in on Saturday. Yikes. Send all the able-bodied men our way!!!

David's Garage

At the beginning of the year, Jake's brother David got a piano for free from KSL. They stuck it in their garage with the intent of refinishing it. David's wife, Michelle, was pregnant at the time, and she told me, "If I don't have the piano refinished by the time this baby is born, you can have it." So, I patiently waited for her to have the baby, secretly hoping that she would not have time to do anything to it. Sure enough, the piano was forgotten with the hubbub of baby #4 and moving to a new home. They left the piano in their garage for me to have!!! Jake and I decided to fix it up since we have some time before we move and before work and school pick up in a few months. Not having the slightest clue of what to do, we headed to Home Depot, determined to transform the neglected piano into a work of art. 3 days, 13 hours of labor and $175 later, the piano is almost finished! It is now a beautiful black color and all that remains is to fix the legs and a wood panel on top and to get it tuned and I will have a piano!!! I studied classical piano for 12 years and I can't wait to brush up on my musical abilites again.

Driving, Working, Driving

Alas, we have but one car these days. Since we live in P-town and Jake works in the other P-town and I work in AF, all we do is drive all over Utah county. We wake up, I drop Jake and Josh off in P-town, then I drive to AF for work, then I pick them up in P-town and then we drive back to the other P-town. So, about 100 miles a day. Yeesh. DOES ANYONE HAVE AN EXTRA CAR THEY WANT TO GIVE AWAY??? I'm completely serious. We desperately need a second car. It's only going to get crazier.

Celebrating

Life, with all its craziness, is wonderful. Joshua is now 1 year old and walking all over the place. He says "mama" and is learning all kinds of things every day. We are again surrounded by friends and family here in Utah, and we've enjoyed catching up with everyone. We love each other and can't wait to see what this new phase of life will bring. Rock on.

Go West, Go West

It's 2:22 am, and we are almost finished packing up our belongings in preparation to drive across the country for the third time this summer. (Note: for us, it is still summer. We have been living in this denial for some time now.) My blogging has been sparse lately because we have been adventuring in the Florida Keys and otherwise busying ourselves with life. The Keys were amazing!! We went on a 4-hour snorkeling trip to the barrier reef off the coast of Key Largo. We put Joshua in a little floaty device and took him onto the reef with us! It was perfect: we didn't have to trade off watching him on the boat and miss out on precious snorkeling time, and Joshua was lulled to sleep by the ocean. We saw countless varieties of tropical fish, and at the very end we even saw a shark and a huge stingray! It was the highlight of the trip. We also ventured all the way down to Key West, where we watched the sunset from the famous Mallory Square and then observed the nightlife on Duval Street. Fortunately that part included dancing to a live salsa band! Joshua was a good boy and sat cooperatively in the stroller while we danced in the warm evening. (The picture of us was taken during the sunset, but the photo doesn't do it justice! It was absolutely beautiful.)

Anyway, for our last hurrah, we will spend a day at Siesta Key, home of the Whitest Sand on Earth. It should be lovely. :) And then the real fun begins, as we attempt to make the 2500+ mile journey to Utah in 3 days. Goodbye, Florida!

Monopoly Is The Worst

There are few board games I enjoy playing less than Monopoly. During the handful of times I have forced myself to endure an entire game, it usually proceeds like this: I go about my merry little Monopoly life, earning paper money, buying a property here and there, letting other people pay me rent from time to time, getting money for passing Go, and occasionally winning some extra money by landing on Free Parking. Of course Monopoly life has its setbacks-- the occasional trip to jail, paying extra taxes because you drew a bad Chance card, or paying another player rent when you land on their property. But all in all, it's not so bad at first. All the players get along, everyone makes money, and Monopoly life carries on in relative peace and happiness.

Then someone-- usually my brother or another savvy male player-- manages to trick me into allowing them to obtain a monopoly. They sweeten the deal by trading me some worthless property or by giving me cash, but they assure me it is for my benefit. The next thing I know, I'm broke, stuck in jail, and forced to watch while the other player gleefully purchases the entire board, builds hotels everywhere, and then laughs hysterically while the rest of us go bankrupt. And then Monopoly life as I knew it is over; one person wins everything, and all the other players lose everything. I do not understand how this game is ever supposed to be enjoyable.

As much as I hate the game, apparently you can learn a lot from Monopoly. Sometimes, you can even watch it be played out in real life. These days, all you have to do is glance at the headlines. Not too long ago, saying our economy was headed for financial disaster was considered doomsdayish. Now that the state of our economy is a little more socially acceptable to speak of, I feel a little freed up to share my opinions on the matter. :)

I personally think that massive government "bailouts" (purchases) that rival the likes of interventions made during the Great Depression are like putting a band-aid over a hemorrhaging wound. It remedies the situation only temporarily, and it does absolutely nothing to alleviate the real problem... which in this case is massive inflation, a toxic subprime mortgage industry, record-breaking debt at both consumer and national levels, and an ever-weakening dollar. Bailing out giant financial corporations with Monopoly money (literally... the dollar is backed by nothing but thin air) and passing the $1 trillion bill down to the consumer in the form of higher taxes will do little to cure the ailing economy. These days, the average family can barely afford to buy food and gas after they have paid their mortgages and monthly bills, much less cover the bill for a desperate corporate bailout. Why should the poor have to bail out the rich?

What we have here is a life-sized game of Monopoly: the savvy Feds are purchasing "properties" right and left while the rest of the country wallows in debt, high taxes, and an inflated dollar. In terms of Monopoly, the rest of the country is still broke, stuck in jail, and waiting to be bailed out. The more the Feds own as a result of their bailouts, the closer they come to owning a Monopoly and the closer free capitalism comes to its death. They already own the majority of American mortgages and they are well on their way to owning most of the financial giants in the country (Countrywide, Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, etc etc have all been bailed out with more coming soon to a headline near you).

It does you little good to have a Get Out of Jail Free card if you step out into your freedom to find that you don't really own anything anymore, you have no borrowing or trading power, capitalism is dwindling away, and you can't buy much with what little money you have. Now, I'm not saying that the goverment will gleefully wreak havoc once it owns a Monopoly; however, the idea of that much "property" and power being in the hands of a single entity is rather disconcerting to me. The entire purpose of free capitalism is to spread the wealth into the hands of the American people, to ensure a free market, to check and balance the economy, and to check and balance the power of the big players. Instead, debt is being spread to the American consumers, free market principles are being violated, the economy is hanging by a thread, and the big players are getting bailed out.

Usually by this point in Monopoly, when I am irritated that my brother is winning and I am losing, I look on the bright side: the insufferable game is almost over. In real life, I'm still frustrated that my Big Brother isn't exactly doing me any favors, but I look on the bright side: he just bought me some time. (Well, I just bought myself some time, since I am a taxpayer.) Instead of complete economic collapse, the Feds have bailed us out yet again with a Get Out of Jail Free card. It is what we do as we step outside into our freedom that is crucial. We have been given another chance to get our finances in order and to prepare ourselves in every way to be self-sufficient. There may not be a band-aid big enough to contain the hemorrhage, but sometimes a blood transfusion and some thick bandages can do the trick for a while as you try to stop the bleeding.

I'm trying to stay positive and to focus on creating a future of wealth and abundance for myself and my family. I've been given more time to prepare, and I'll take it. I will do what I can.

What do you think? What are your opinions?

The 6 Most Disgusting Things I Have Seen and Done as a Nurse

(WARNING: this post contains graphic content and is not for the faint of heart. If you are prone to throwing up, read this at your own risk. I'm serious.)

(WARNING: this is also a very long post.)


I began working in the field of healthcare 6 years ago this month. Something happened the other day (more on that incident later) that made me reflect on all the nasty, disgusting, vomit-worthy things I have seen and done as a CNA/nurse. It's a wonder that despite all those things, I have never once in my entire healthcare career even come close to vomiting on the job. I've never even gagged, dry heaved, or passed out. So, in honor of my 6 years in healthcare and with no further adieu, here is a list of The 6 Most Disgusting Things I Have Seen and Done as a Nurse (they are numbered for convenience and not really ranked because they are all winners):


6. On my first day of CNA clinicals, the nurse told me she needed my help with something. With no hint of what she needed me for, I followed her into a room that smelled like poop. Sure enough, a sickly hispanic man was lying in his bed... which was completely saturated with liquid fecal matter (diarrhea). He was literally lying in a bath of his own excrement. He also happened to be delirious, and he had managed to smear the poo all over his body. The nurse methodically stripped him naked (which was also the first time I ever saw a naked male patient) and told me to put on some gloves. After that point, I have little memory of what happened, except that the entire time I wished I could plug my nose (but couldn't, because my hands were covered in poo) and I hoped I wasn't staring too much at the man's nakedness (it didn't take long after that to be able to tune it out). This item represents not only this incident, but all of the other times that I have entered a patient's room to discover they are lying in a diarrhea bath in their bed. It's happened more times than I can remember.


5. On my second day of CNA clinicals, a nurse approached me and asked if I would like to help with a dressing change. "Sure," I said. What else was I going to say? I barely even knew what a dressing change was at that point. He handed me a gown, mask, and gloves, and snickered, "This is a bad one. You're not going to want to eat a cheeseburger tonight after this one." He continued to snicker as I clumsily donned the isolation attire. He was clearly looking forward to watching me throw up.


We entered the room and joined a group of about six other people who encircled the bed. At first I honestly didn't even know what I was looking at. The nurse who had recruited me explained, "This is a bed sore." I was confused; I learned in class that a bed sore was a skin ulcer that typically formed over a bony prominence such as the hip, the heel, or the elbow. This was a bed sore to end all other bed sores. The patient was lying on his belly with his back side exposed. The bed sore extended from a few inches below his shoulder blades and all the way down to his upper thighs. The nurse pointed at a whitish thing and said, "That is the sacrum." I gulped. Bone? He pointed again, "And that is the anus." It was only then that I noticed the hole where his butt cheeks should have been. As I watched in horror, poo oozed from the hole and a nurse across from us wiped it away with a washcloth. About 30 seconds after she wiped it, the hole oozed again, as it continued to do for the duration of my observation.


It is difficult to describe what a bed sore of that size looks like; however, those of you who understand how disgusting even a small bed sore can be will probably be able to imagine it. This one, naturally, was infected with probably every nosocomial superbug known to man. The saddest thing about it? The patient was a quadriplegic and had developed the ulcer as a result of negligence by his caretakers.


4. Melanie and I worked with each other as CNAs at a certain nursing home that shall remain unnamed. It was a rare occasion that we worked with each other on the same unit for the same shift, but it was on one of those rare days that this lovely experience happened. We have reminisced about it ever since. :)


We had a patient for quite some time who was a paraplegic and had developed a bed sore on his butt (ischial tuberosities) as a result of his own neglicence and poor hygeine. The sore grew until it had eaten away the depth of the tissue on his butt, creating an oval-shaped, infected, gaping hole. From there, a phenomenon called "tunneling" occurred, in which the infection spread to the adjacent tissues and ate away the flesh under the skin. It might be hard to picture it, but basically the sore extended under the skin in both directions away from the hole on his butt... up to his lower back and down his legs to his knees. That means that if you were to put your finger in the sore, you would eventually have to reach most of your forearm into the sore in order to reach the end of it. That is "tunneling." It's pretty much what it sounds like. The infection makes a tunnel under the skin.


The pus and fluid of his massively infected bed sore would accumulate in the tunneled space of the backs of his legs as he sat in his wheelchair and watched TV. Then, when it was time for a dressing change, he would swing himself onto the bed, subsequently squirting the fluid out of the hole on his butt and all over the bed and everything near it. We had to layer multiple towels and absorbent pads on the bed in order to catch most of it (and it still inevitably spilled over onto the floor). The smell of the fluid is absolutely indescribable. I have never, ever smelled anything worse. That is saying a lot, because I have smelled a great deal of nasty smells. This smell went beyond nasty and beyond any rotten smell my senses can conceive. It was this smell that sent another CNA (on a different day) running from the room to vomit.


So the story goes as follows: the patient's doctor came to assess his wound. He had Melanie and I position the patient on the bed (squirt, splash) so he could remove the guauze from the tunneled flesh. After he removed it and assessed the wound, he went to find the nurse to come and repack the wound. He returned and reported that the nurse was nowhere to be found (she had a tendency to disappear at crucial moments). "Well," he said matter-of-factly, "just repack the wound yourselves. Tell the nurse I stopped by." Then he threw his gloves in the trash and quickly left the room. Melanie and I just stared at each other in shock. After a moment we simultaneously shrugged our shoulders and began repacking the wound, shoving the gauze down, down, down his legs as far as we could shove it. It was so disgusting. What more can I say?

It is only in hindsight that we have realized how many laws we violated in following the doctor's orders to dress the wound. "Scope of practice," anyone? haha. Good times.


3. As a nurse in the burn unit, I saw a lot of nasty stuff. One in particular stands out in my mind as much for its uniqueness and absurdity as anything else. I was heading into the "tank room" to assist with a dressing change. The head wound care nurse walked beside me and whispered, "This is a really bad one. He has gangrene on his groin. Are you sure you want to help out?" I was pregnant at the time, and everyone was overly concerned that my gag reflex was weak. I assured him I was fine, now more curious than ever about the wound.


Once the dressings were removed from the "groin wound," I could only stare. I knew what was supposed to be there and what it should look like, but I was at a loss for explanation. It took me-- no kidding-- the entire length of the dressing change to figure out what had happened to the patient's "stuff." The gangrene had completely eaten away his scrotum, leaving his raw testicles exposed, not to mention every other tendon/muscle/tissue that exists down there. The outer layer of skin on his penis was also completely gone. I basically saw a man's groin with the flesh eaten away from it. I'm just gonna end this one now.


2. On the burn unit I once helped give post-mortum care to a patient who had died from a rare skin infection. The infection had eaten away most of the skin, even the eyelids and most of the nose, etc. As we began washing the body, we removed the dressings that covered nearly all of the patient's body. Since I was pregnant at the time, I had not worked with this patient much because the infection was so severe, and had therefore never seen the full extent of the infection. I was horrified to see, as we carefully removed the dressings, that the infection had eaten away not just the skin, but most of the flesh beneath it. All that remained was dead, rotten, gray-green tissue. Everywhere. Even the fingers and toes were black and shriveled. Dead. Everything was dead. And the smell of rotten flesh was almost unbearable. I couldn't eat that night. I had to block that one out of my mind for a long time. Even now I shiver just remembering it.

1. As a new CNA in a nursing home, I often got delegated the most undesirable tasks by the rest of the staff. One morning, a veteran CNA motioned for me to follow her down the hall. "I have something for you to do," she whispered, trying not to smile. We stopped at an open door to a room at the end of the hall. A morbidly obese woman sat in an oversized, automatic wheelchair at the center of the room. I raised my eyebrows in question, and the CNA just said, "Look closely." It was then I noticed the trail of diarrhea leading from the floor where we stood to the back of her wheelchair. My eyes followed the poop trail up the back of the wheelchair to where it was oozing out from between the woman's obese rear end and the cushion of the chair. "Oh," I said, having no idea where to begin. The only thing I knew about this patient was that she weighed over 400 lbs. and could barely stand on her own.


The CNA stifled another smile and began gathering supplies: a walker, gloves, a garbage can, and several boxes of wipes. She placed the walker in front of the woman, the garbage can off to the side of the wheelchair, and the gloves and wipes on a small bedside table. She bent down and removed two extra garbage bags from the garbage can and handed them to me. "Here," she said, "put these on your arms." I did as she said, still not understanding what to do as she tied the open ends of the bags securely around my upper arms. Then she handed me two pairs of latex gloves. "Put these on, too." A smile slowly spread across her face, and I realized what she expected me to do. In that moment I hated her for making me do what I was about to do, and I hated being the rookie CNA. She turned and walked out of the room, chuckling to herself as she went.


I then proceeded, grunting and straining, to assist the 400-lb. woman to stand up with her walker. Diarrhea slid down her legs and onto the floor as she stood. "Uh... lean forward on the walker," I instructed, as the woman apologized profusely for the situation. I felt bad for her, but I felt worse for me. I then removed her saturated pants and wiped down the poopy wheelchair as quickly as I could. Then I turned toward the real task at hand: her enormous rear end.


You see, the... uh, crack... of a 400-lb. person's rear end is not like that of a normal butt. It's like an 18-inch deep crevice with rolls and folds and hidden places like the unchartered territory of... oh, I don't know. It's just gross. So... I dove in, garbage-bagged arms and all. Again and again I reached in and pulled out handful after handful of poop. I was literally up to my face in poopy buttcrack.


Just as I was wiping the last of the diarrhea from her enormous bottom, she cried, "Oh no! Oh no! I have to go again! I'm so sorry-- I-- I'm going again! Oh nooooo..." and she then proceeded to poop again... all over everything I had just sacrificed my dignity to wipe clean. I could only stare in horror. I wanted to cry. But I didn't. I just rebagged my arms and did it all over again. These days, I would get paid over $20/hour as a nurse for torture like that. Back then, I only got $8/hour. At least I got a great story out of the experience. It's one of my favorites.

****

Most likely, all of you will agree that these experiences are utterly disgusting. If you don't, you are probably a nurse.

So, after all of this, I have still never even so much as gagged on the job. In fact, until last October, I had not vomited since I was 7 years old and had the stomach flu. An hour before I went into labor, I ate an entire frozen pizza because I hadn't eaten all day. I regretted it when, at 2 am and 4 cm, I barfed all of it into a toilet in the labor and delivery triage room. I was sad to give up my vomit-free streak of 15 years, but I was in labor and didn't really care.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is how ridiculous it is that I don't even gag over experiences like those in my Top 6, but other comparatively mild unpleasantries will nearly make me puke. Case in point: as I was composing my last post, my child crawled over to the sliding doors by the computer and began playing with the window blinds. I soon heard those unmistakable noises that always indicate he has something in his mouth. I snatched him up and opened his mouth, expecting to see a stray goldfish cracker or something. Instead, I found the large, partially-chewed torso of a dead bug!! It was large enough for me to notice the stripes on its belly and that it had only one giant leg still attached. "Ewwww!!!!" I shrieked, and flung the bug torso across the room. I gagged and considered bolting for the bathroom, but Joshua smiled widely and I saw another particle in the corner of his mouth... I plucked out another giant leg, shrieked loudly, and again flung it across the room. I could tell that he still had more bug in his mouth by the way he was still drooling and chewing, but before I could reach my finger in his mouth again he swallowed it!!!!! Ahhhhh!!! I nearly lost it. Joshua found all of this hilarious.

I must be messed up since I would prefer scooping diarrhea out of a 400-lb. woman's rear end to plucking a dead bug out of my child's mouth. Maybe I need help.

All I want for Christmas is a tandoor oven

The Indian food was a smashing success!! I feel a love affair with Indian food coming on. I can't wait to try more recipes! Jacob's only complaint was that I substituted half of the chicken with garbanzo beans (he didn't like the texture as much, although the flavor of the beans was great in this dish). I told him he should be thanking me for being so economically savvy; when a package of four little chicken breasts costs $6 at the grocery store, it only makes sense to cut the recipe requirements in half and substitute a can of beans (costing a mere 50 cents) for the protein. So here's the bottom line: garbanzo beans taste delicious with this recipe, but chicken tastes even better. It was such a tasty meal that I have decided to post the recipe for you all to try (here you go, Kaerlig). The recipes can be found on Allrecipes.com, but I did some slight variations that I think made the original recipes even better, so here is my version:

Curried Coconut Chicken

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2" pieces (original recipe calls for 2 lb. chicken)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. salt and pepper, or to taste
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 T curry powder
1 onion, thinly sliced and coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14-oz.) can coconut milk
1 (14.5-oz.) can diced tomatoes
1 (8-oz.) can tomato sauce
3 T brown sugar

1. In large skillet, stir together 2 T of the olive oil and curry powder on medium heat for 5 minutes. Reduce heat slightly and add onion, garlic, and the rest of the olive oil (or whatever amount of olive oil it takes to adequately coat the onions as they caramelize) and saute until onions are translucent and tender, stirring occasionally. Add other spices and diced tomatoes and cook 5 minutes longer.

2. Increase heat to medium and add chicken. Cook until center of chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear. Stir in coconut milk, tomato sauce, and sugar and reduce heat to medium-low, or whatever temperature keeps the sauce at a gentle simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens. Stir in garbanzo beans and continue to simmer until beans are heated through.

3. Serve over white rice with garlic naan and mango lassi. DELICIOUS!!

(My changes: 1 lb. chicken, garbanzo beans, more olive oil, cayenne pepper, and in general cooking the dish at a lower heat and for a longer period of time. You can cook it at a higher heat and in a shorter amount of time, but the flavors will not be as rich. And the best part about this dish is that it fed Jacob and I for 3 meals!!! Oh how I love leftovers.)

The garlic naan also turned out well, although not as good as the naan I have eaten at Indian restaurants. I used the recipe on Allrecipes.com called "Naan" submitted by Mic. I just don't feel like typing it out. :) I added 1/2 tsp. of baking soda to the dough to help it form bubbles as it cooked. My suggestions are to roll out the naan as thin as possible, otherwise the weight of the dough causes the bubbles to deflate soon after cooking. I might even increase the garlic to 3 cloves next time, just because I love garlic so much. I also think I will knead in some chopped fresh cilantro when I knead in the garlic. This is a great naan recipe, but I think the only way to make a fantastic naan is to use a tandoor oven... and who has one of those??

Although I ran to the store at the last minute to buy some mangoes for the mango lassi, I decided not to make it because the mangoes were not ripe enough. I figured it would be better to be patient and have a sweet, delicious mango lassi later in the week rather than a tart, sour lassi with the Indian meal. I am planning on using the recipe entitled "Mango Lassi II" submitted by Yonna. It looks delicious!

If any of you have any great Indian or other ethnic recipes you'd like to share, do pass them along! I'm so utterly bored with my American recipe rotation that I'm making it my personal mission to introduce a variety of dishes into my weekly menu. Happy Cooking!

I'll Have a Second Helping of That

A few months ago, I had an epiphany of sorts and began making a lot of changes in my diet. The results were instantly successful for me: I had more energy, my digestive process regulated itself, my skin started to clear up (those funky red bumps I've had on my upper arms my whole life?-- almost completely gone!), and I no longer felt like I had to take a nap every day.

My dietary experimentation is still a work in progress, and I will just say this: it is so much fun!!!! I have been exploring all kinds of new recipes and trying my hand at different genres of food. Lately, my favorites have been Middle Eastern and Indian food. Last night I made Spicy Middle Eastern Beans and Rice. So easy, cheap, delicious, and healthy. Another new favorite of mine is Falafel with Cucumber Sauce. And on tonight's menu? Curried Coconut Chicken and Vegetables with Garlic Naan. I mean, I haven't even cooked it yet and I'm already so excited that I have to blog about it! Now I just need to figure out how to make a mango lassi or chai tea like they serve at the Bombay House. Ohhhh I am in heaven just thinking about all this delicious food. I don't expect to out-do a place like Bombay House, but I'll let y'all know how it turns out.

(Oh and by the way, I finally updated my playlist with some great new songs that I love right now. The first playlist was just something random I threw together when I first got into playlist.com. I like this one much better.)

No Babies Allowed

Today was the first time I have ever felt truly embarrassed as a result of the actions of my child. I was browsing around a health food store; it was really small with two narrow aisles and a small area in front of the check-out counter. To me, a health food store is roughly the equivalent of a Barnes & Noble bookstore: I can get lost in it for hours, lose track of time, and apparently lose track of what my child is doing at every moment.

I was weaving up and down the aisles, pushing Joshua in a stroller, not really planning on buying anything, and pleasantly dreaming about the day when I will have my own arsenal of herbs, supplements, and other remedies in my home. A lady standing in the front of the store said, "Oh! Somebody get a paper towel!" I looked down and saw a large puddle of clear liquid and a broken bottle. Joshua looked up at me innocently-- the obvious culprit. The woman behind the counter ran over and I handed her the broken bottle. "I am so sorry," was all I could think of to say. She didn't say anything; she was obviously upset. I just stood there and said "I'm sorry" a few more times as she mopped up the liquid in cold silence. Joshua had chosen a rather expensive item to destroy-- a bottle of potassium water. It doesn't sound like much, but it's quite pricey. There was no way I was about to offer to pay for it, so I waited for the woman to pull out the "You Break It You Buy It" card. I figured it was her job to fix situations like this one, so I said nothing more except an additional apology, and I continued my browsing.

The woman was watching my every move now. Feeling slightly guilty about the accident, I decided I had better purchase something. I picked up a bottle of organic peanut butter (that stuff is delicious) and headed down the last aisle to check out a few more things before deciding what to buy. The moment I stopped the stroller, Joshua's little hands went flying to the nearest object, which happened to be a small glass bottle of an herbal extract. I saw it as soon as she did and went to grab his hand away, but the woman dashed out from behind the counter with lightning speed and stood protectively in front of the items on display. "I'm sorry," she said, in a tight voice that was choked with frustration, "but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the aisles."

Leave the aisles? There was nowhere else to go in the store! As she stared me down, still standing protectively in the aisle, I realized she was asking me to leave. I looked at the floor and walked up to the counter. I handed her the peanut butter and my debit card, but she rolled her eyes and pointed to a hand-written sign on the cash register: "No credit cards for purchases under $10." I fumbled through my wallet for a small eternity and handed her the cash. Wordlessly, she shoved the receipt toward me without giving me my change. "Thanks," I mumbled, and hurried out the door.

Maybe I was feeling particularly sensitive today, but for some reason I felt so awful about the entire experience. I know it's not really a big deal. Heck, if she really wanted me to pay for the broken item she could have asked. I would not have protested. At least it wasn't something truly valuable, like, I don't know... an urn filled with a loved-one's ashes or something. But I'm beginning to understand why my mother taught me not to judge other moms because of their children. As I grew up the oldest of 5 children, she taught me that nothing is ever really perfect or predictable after you have kids. How right she was.