Tag-schmag

I-tag, cyber tag, tag-schmag. It's apparently okay to tag someone who is not even aware they are participating in the game, unless the mere fact that I have a blog unwittingly pits me in the playing field. As my competitive nature will not allow me to walk away and not tag back, I give you six unknown (or little known) facts/tidbits about myself. I think that's the game we're playing unless the schoolyard bully changed the rules. Here's to you Stef...

1. When I was little I always wanted to have a broken leg (or broken anything for that matter). Here's the crazy part--my family had a rickety ceiling fan in the family room. I would turn it on high and lay underneath it hoping it would fall and somehow break my leg. Jumping off the roof would have been the more sure bet but apparently I didn't want it badly enough.

2. Oral/nasal secretions (aka thick spit/snot) gross me out. Something about them gives me the heebie jeebies yet I get great satisfaction of sucking them out of small children's/babies noses. Weird. I know.

3. I learned how to drive stick on a tractor. On my 14th birthday I flew to Whitman, Nebraska and worked on a ranch for the rest of the summer.

4. I spent way too much time as a child playing Scrabble. One of the lasting side effects is that I continually count up how much words would be worth in my head. I also have a weird tendency to alphabetize words in my head. Strange idiosyncrasy. (21 points. acdiinorssyy.)

5. Before Fergie (Stacy Ferguson) was famous she was on Kids Inc. in the 80's and I loved her! I named one of my favorite stuffed animals Stacy after her. Don't love her so much anymore.

6. I love practical jokes. This is not an open invitation, I prefer to be the planner rather than the recipient.

I now happily tag Bethany, Kymi, Heather, Renee, Jami, Btittney. Blog away.

What the...????

I have spent much of my twenties in awe of those people capable finding someone to marry. I mean really, how does it happen? The only explanation I can come up with is divine intervention. It really isn't possible any other way, I would still be floating state to state, lamenting about my 104th blind date, wondering how in the world there came to be so many socially awkward 26-30 year old men. But alas, just when you least expect it, BAM, divine intervention and I'm left wondering "what the....????" And I'm not just talking about the proton pack vacuum he's wearing on his back. Yep-that's him. Scott.

And I have promised a brief version of the proposal story (for those of you who don't know, I got engaged last weekend. Please pick your jaws up off the floor.)

My cousin Clint got married on December 15th in Salt Lake. Scott dropped me off at the airport here in Portland on the 14th and I was headed to the Mother Land. I arrived in Sale Lake and hit the ground running. I went straight form the rental car pickup to the LDS Distribution Center where my good friend Susan works and we headed off to lunch together. After lunch I made my way to Primary Children's to return some keys that I no longer need since I am no longer an employee there. :o( After visiting with some friends I made my way to Shannon's, co-conspirator #1. There I met up with Sue and Becky, co-conspirator #2. For weeks I had been looking forward to Friday night because I knew I would be partaking of some delicious, addictive pork from none other than Cafe Rio!! We met up with some friends there and as always had a grand time. One of the highlights was when Shelley held my hand for the picture. Classic. Cafe Rio was also playing some great music that night, right Shannon?

After enjoying some scrumptious Rio we made our way to Christi's for the annual Whit Elephant Christmas party. I was stoked to find out I would be in town for the party, it would make seeing my friends so much easier being that I was only going to be in town for 24 hours. It's always fun to see what gift will be fought over. In past years Brian's autographed picture, Nate and Kedrick's creations and the shrine to Brian have been highly valued gifts. This year was no different and I ended up with one of the night's hot items, the Chuck Norris, Nate and Kedrick t-shirt. Little did I know that the best gift was yet to come. As soon as the gift exchange portion of the party was over, Shannon let me know that it was time to run over to Becky's new condo to get a quick tour before Becky had to go to another party. We had planned on doing this earlier in the day since the condo was close to Christi's. We drove up to the condo and didn't even seem to notice how Shannon was hovering over me as she rang the doorbell. Don't stop reading, this is where it gets good. The door opens and What the...???? there's Scott standing in the door. I can only imagine what my face looked like, I have the propensity to make really ugly faces and being that I've never practiced complete shock and surprise in the mirror, I'm sure it was a good one. Before I could even ask what was going on Shannon was gone and Scott was leading me away from my rental car and over to his. He mentioned something about going to get dessert and as much as like dessert I was pretty sure he didn't fly from Portland to go get a sundae. We started driving and made our way to Memory Grove park. Now, mind you, it's almost 11pm and it's cold but we got out of the car to go for a little walk. The lampposts around the park still had their Christmas lights on and the snow on the ground made it light enough to see. We made our way around the path and came to a tree where Scott said something about seeing something in the tree. The first thought that popped into my head was "if he planted a ring in a tree, I'm never gonna find it in the dark." But as we got closer I saw what he was talking about. There in the tree were 18 roses. I went to retrieve the roses and when I turned around Scott was down on one knee and he proposed! I obviously said yes and we then made our way back to the car to try to defrost our fingers. :o)

So, there you have it. We'll be getting married March 22nd in the Mount Timpanogos temple in American Fork, Utah!! Holy Crap! I'm getting married!

Bring on the blog wars

It has been brought to my attention that after a lengthy span of peace, the blog wars are resuming. Sad, sad day. Stef Star- I hope you are prepared for the onslaught that may ensue. Lohra- please don't disappoint, in my opinion you could be on the verge of victory. Shellinskaya- I'm asking that you take it easy on the rest of us, we are mere mortals.
Go, fight, win--Oh wait, is that football? Crap, we need a warcry.

Where Bees Come to Die...

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man," said Albert Einstein.

I was quite intrigued this summer by all of the attention the disappearing bees were getting. Apparently we are on the verge of a "bee apocalypse" as one journalist put it. I believe the correct name for the phenomenon is "colony collapse disorder." Honey bees everywhere are not returning there hives, threatening mankind's very survival cue to their vital contribution to plant pollination. I spent my summer captivated by subject. Trying to learn more as to where the bees were going and how this would impact my life. Would I need to start a more vigorous food storage plan? I spoke with my friend Kelly who has her own bee hive (yep, she has her own bees) and she said that Bill the beekeeper (yep, Bill the beekeeper) had lost many of his hives this last year as well. There was an international summit held so scientists could analyze the problem and find a solution. In fact, they believe that "colony collapse disorder" may be related to a virus or parasite. Research continues.
I almost feel the need to hold a news conference. Because I know what's happening to the bees.

It goes a little something like this:

Bees enter house through window (we think)

Bees have unfortunate encounter with grease splatter guard

Bees Die.

More Bees Die.

Notice in the last picture there are 12 dead bees. 12. (it may look like 13 but one bee was cut in half.) That's a small number, in 2 days Krystin and my combined efforts resulted in the death of more than 30 bees.

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man," said Albert Einstein.

4 short years, my apologies world. But we can't have all these bees in our house, especially when Bobby is ridiculously afraid of them. Although it is entertaining to watch him hide under covers and cower on all fours, it's just not okay. At least now we know where all the bees are going. Don't turn me in.

A Big Favor

UPDATE: The transplant has been postponed until next week. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!


This post will be quick and to the point. Next week my uncle is scheduled to have a kidney transplant, he will be receiving the kidney from my other uncle. It is a high risk transplant and my uncle could use all of the prayers he can get. If you wouldn't mind keeping him in your prayers my family and I would greatly appreciate it.

Gotta Get Ahead

I have a problem. I have what some may call a competitive spirit. It doesn't always come out but when it does, watch out! This morning as I was getting off the tram I found myself practically racing a woman into the hospital. When I realized what I was doing, I took a big deep breath and then sped up even more. The best part about this was this woman was not someone I should feel the need to compete with. She was probably 60 or so with white hair and wearing a reflective vest and rain pants. But darn it, she was fast!!! I did claim victory however, well sort of, we were actually headed in opposite directions but I reached my turn first. Ridiculous behavior. Absolutely ridiculous.
I don't know why it happens and I can never predict when it will appear. Although I have noticed a trend when it comes to sports, board games, fast walking and anything else that could have a potential winner. What's my deal? I like to blame most of my negative character traits on the fact that I am a middle child. Not that I rely heavily on the analysis of birth order but I have to blame it on something and my birth order was completely out of my control.
So, I'm going to try to turn a new leaf. No more speedwalking with old ladies, and maybe I will let Bobby win at a game of Scattergories one of these days. I can't let him win at Scrabble but Scattergories I think I could do. maybe. and if not, please don't hold it against me.

Forecasts and wet dogs

I like to think of myself as an optimist. Maybe this is why I am unable to believe the weather forecast unless it is predicting a nice, sunny 75-80 degrees with little humidity (that's really not too much too ask.) So, last week as I was packing for my trip to Salt Lake for my cousin's wedding I did not believe that Saturday would be 52 degrees with possible rain showers. I mean really, Friday was 75 and Sunday was supposed to be 72. How could the day sandwiched in between be so different? Did I pack warm clothing? No. Did I pack an umbrella? No. I thought the fact that I was traveling for a wedding would assure good weather. How can you have an outdoor reception if it's raining or snowing for that matter?

But alas, it was not meant to be. The forecast was correct. Well actually, it was a little bit off. The temperature never reached 52 and the possible rain showers turned into torrential down pours with intermittent snow. Perfect for a wedding.

Clint and I at Devin's indoor reception.

The forecast in Oregon has not been much better. It looks something like this: Monday-rain, Tuesday-rain, Wednesday-rain, Thursday-rain. You get the picture. I've been trying to stay positive about the rain. I keep telling myself- I love the rain, i love the rain. I'm sure it's going to start working any day now. It really isn't that bad but I never really gave much thought to what it would be like to have a dog, in Portland, in the rain. It looks a little something like this:

This is after a short walk, for those of you dog owners out there, you know that when dogs are wet for some reason their energy level is exponentially increased. So not only are the dogs wet and smelly, they are real contenders for the Shih Tzu 500. (I'm sure there is one somewhere.)

So, let the forecasts continue, I can take it. Wet dogs and all. It's gonna be great!

To Commute or not Commute

For those of you who don't know, I work at Doernbecher Children's Hospital which is part of Oregon Health and Sciences University which will be referred to as OHSU from this point forward. OHSU is humongous and sits atop a lovely hill in Portland. The land was apparently donated because it sits along a fault line. Go figure, huge hospital and university perched atop a fault line on top of a hill, brilliant. This whole arrangement of massive buildings and lack of land means no real room for parking.

Here's the thing; I simply refuse to pay $10 a day to park at work. And this is not a good parking spot, this $10 gets you a spot in the farthest lot that is affectionately nicknamed the "get raped" lot. Lovely. At least a ten minute walk.

So- me wanting to save a buck or $30 a week, have been constantly scheming on how to avoid said fees. For my first contract I parked illegally in patient parking by rotating lots and making sure I beat the parking attendant. This was fairly successful until one fateful morning when I hit snooze one too many times and the parking attendant witnessed me getting out of my car, he must've been on to me. After two warning tickets, I got a real live OHSU Parking Services Parking ticket for $100.00. You gasp, but to me I was quite pleased, this was less than a third of what paying for parking would have been for the first 3 months.

This leads me to my second plan. There is a YMCA at the bottom of said hill. (Picture the bottom of Wasatch Blvd leading to the U of U hospital but worse and many more trees and bigger hills; maybe a bad comparison). Let's get to the point. My bro-in-law has a membership to the Y which entitles him to a parking pass there. Until today I was parking at the Y then hiking (this is not an exaggeration) to work. You may ask, what happened yesterday? Well, summer ended and daylight is sparse. I would continue to park at the Y but stumbling down a steep trail while gripping my pepperspray to ward off the homeless no longer seems like a good idea. And eventually the Y may catch on.

Here's where things start looking up. I am not the only one always trying to avoid paying to go to work and one of my coworkers has done much research on the subject. Said coworker found a lot close to the tram (multi million dollar project that connects downtown Portland to OHSU) that is only $3 a day, for the whole day! It's about a 7 minute walk to the tram (I timed it myself) and then I get to enjoy Portland in all it's glory. You can see all of the bridges and downtown Portland and it looks great in the sunrise. I had no idea what I was missing out on! And on top of that- the tram provides great opportunity for eavesdropping, one of my favorite past times. (Not in a bad, gossipy, nosy old-lady kind of way; more of a people are very amusing kind of way.) This morning I learned all about bad popcorn that sticks to your teeth, why we all work to get microwave ovens, Mr. Anderson and myriad of other interesting snippets.

So what if I have to leave my house at 0610 to make it to work by 0700, today it was well worth the hassle and the $3. I hope I feel the same way when the rain starts!

Let Freedom Ring

In April I had a flight from Phoenix to Vegas. It was one of the last flights to leave from Phoenix that night. As I was waiting at the gate there was a lot of people gathering at the gate across the way and in the midst of them were a group of what appeared to be Junior ROTC members. They were junior high/high school age kids dressed in uniform. They formed two lines around the door of the gate. There was a general feeling of curiosity as to what was going on. Slowly more and more people gathered, including a slew of airport workers. I was beginning to wonder if some important politician was landing in Phoenix. As the doors opened and the plane passengers unboarded, it appeared to be any normal flight. No fanfare required. I thought that all of the passengers were off the plane as did the majority of the large audience. And then it happened, I heard something come from one of the young cadets and then saw an older couple coming down the lane, the crowd erupted in applause and I was still confused as I could not get a direct look and only saw their heads. The applause grew and then I could see; one of our troops was coming home, in a wheelchair, a double amputee. It was his parents whose heads I had seen earlier, accompanying their son home. I was touched. Here was a young man, probably not older than 23, arriving home to a life that will forever be changed because of his decision to serve his country.
Last night I watched the HBO special Alive Day. It can be downloaded from hbo.com. I can't stop thinking about these soldiers who have given so much for us to go about our daily lives free to live as we choose. I don't want this to be a post about pro-war or anti-war, I just wanted to pay my respect to those men and women who choose to serve their country and in doing so serving each of us. We have much to be grateful for.

Bird Lice and Fish Hooks

Well, word is out that this blog exists. I'm sure there was much disappointment in the fact that there was only one lowly post. Blogging I have come to find is much like journal writing. You start with great ambition and then when you slack off and don't write for months at a time it is hard to start back up again because you know how much stuff has been missed. Do you just start fresh and forget about the months that were not journaled or do you do a marathon journal entry trying to remember all the details that have been neglected. This is why I should not have started a blog, I am a terrible journal keeper!

That aside- I will go on to explain the title of this post (I know the suspense is killing you.) I had a nice little break from work in Portland and had a chance to spend a week in SLC and some time at home in Flag (Flagstaff, AZ for those of you not up on AZ city lingo.)

The trip to Salt Lake was great!! Even if I did work 3 shifts at Primary's. However, here's where the title comes in, I got to experience what I like to call "random acts of Kaydi's life." For some unknown reason, things happen in my life that I swear do not happen to other people. I can not say why this is, it just is. Perhaps I will go into some of these events in another post. Random act this trip would be the fact that I got fishhooked, yes, fishhooked while floating the Provo River. Not by a fisherman with a nice, clean hook but by a rusty, disgusting, fishgut infested old fishhook. It's been more than a week now and behind my knee has healed up nicely with no sign of infection, this is a reminder to all to get a current tetanus shot!

The second part of my vacation led me to Flagstaff, after a quick stop in Portland to pick up Zoe. I mean really, who doesn't love to fly with dogs? The trip was going quite well and Zoe although not a fan of Chloe (my parent's lhasa apso) seemed to enjoy getting into everything. Everything, including a pile of bird droppings that just happened to be infested with none other than bird lice. Yep, bird lice. I did not know that birds had their own lice, now I do. Thankfully, bird lice can not live on humans or dogs (or as the vet put it, "shouldn't be able to.") However those reassuring words did not keep me from itching for nearly the rest of my trip. Zoe didn't seem to notice.

And this is how life goes, randomly and not as expected but at least it's something to blog about!

Seriously?

So, here I am trying to blog and what do I do? Post an empty posting. Good job, way to go. I know that is impressive. Mind you, I did not mean to post a blank post, in fact I had actually typed something. But with my swift fingers I deleted and posted at the same time. The talent is mind boggling.
That aside, welcome to my blog! Anyone who knows me will know that me having a blog is a pretty far stretch and I think I may even hear distant laughing coming from 2910 S. Judith. Keep it down ladies.
Now, I'll be honest, I don't quite know what it is that I will be chronicling that could be blogworthy but I will be giving it an honest effort (for at least a good month.)
Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on in my life.
I moved to Portland (okay, okay, it's really Beaverton but no on would know where that is) in April. I took another travel nurse assignment out here. I work at Doernbecher's Children's Hospital in the PACU and am working on extending my contract until the end of November. My sister Krystin is the one who deserves the credit for getting me out here and I am living with her and her husband, Bobby. Kudos to Krystin!!
Portland has been awesome so far! It definitely exceeded my expectations. I was excited to live with Krystin but the city is fabulous and I've made some great friends.