Yearly Archives: 2005

Ruth Joins the Prose Police

To celebrate having survived finals week, I am taking the entire day off and doing absolutely NOTHING productive. Okay, other than taking the two dogs and three cats to the vet to have their badly out-of-date shots updated. And throwing the occasional log on the fire so I don’t freeze… and going to work tonight at 7. But other than that, NOTHING. My first useless task was to actually read some of the news headlines that show up on my Google homepage when I start Firefox (my browser of choice). … Continue reading

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A Simple Smile

For those of you who don’t read Kelly Jo’s blog, the movie A Simple Smile, in which she plays me, is in post production. There are some clips online at http://www.itchymovie.com/asimplesmile.html. (The music is just for fill-in until the real music is ready, which is why it’s the same in all the clips. ) I even got to be in one scene when I showed up at the set after work one morning thinking I’d watch them film for an hour or two before I went home and crashed (for … Continue reading

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The Final Analysis

by Mother Theresa People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight. Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will … Continue reading

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Arts and Crafts a la Nursing School

For an assignment in one of my classes this term I gave a presentation on IUDs to a bunch of nurse practitioners who work in the Multnomah County teen health clinics. I did a PowerPoint presentation, and after every few slides I inserted one with a question. The idea was to give prizes to whoever got the right answer first, but of course then I had to figure out what to give as prizes. The default is usually candy, but that just seems wrong, since nurses are supposed to be … Continue reading

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My Attempt at Play Therapy

One of my classes this term is therapeutic communication. Since I’ve been too busy to post any new blog entries lately, I thought instead that I would share a recent assignment with you. (Names have been changed, just because.) I “borrowed” my friend Lisa’s two boys for this assignment. Andrew is six years old, and his brother Warren is four. I wasn’t really able to work with them one-on-one — we were at their house, and they were both too interested in what was going on to put up with … Continue reading

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Forty Eight Hours

I don’t think I’ve ever stayed awake for 48 hours before. I also think it will be a while before I attempt it again. But I had fun. Friday morning, I woke up as usual (after about 87 “snoozes” and 20 minutes of frantic pomeranian “would you WAKE UP ALREADY, you silly human!?!?!” hair-digging and ear-licking) at 7am. I was supposed to wake up at 6 to study for the final I had been too tired to study for the night before. Now that I’ve had the final, and know … Continue reading

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Modern-Day Conveniences

An elderly woman I was caring for at the hospital the other night had her call light on. When I went in to see what she needed, she told me rather desperately, “I have to go potty!” After determining that she thought she needed to urinate, I reminded her that she had a catheter, and that although sometimes irritation from the tube makes it feel like you need to go, you really don’t. She just looked at me blankly, so I explained what a catheter does, and that since she … Continue reading

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