Category: Someone’s gotta say it

A Nurse Assaulted

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, Catching women being brave, Someone's gotta say it

Maybe you’ve seen this video by now. The one where Alex Wubbles, a nurse at University Hospital in Salt Lake City, is assaulted and arrested by a police officer while she is at work, doing her job, protecting her patient. Thank God that there is a video account of this so that everyone is free to see exactly what happened without the filters of backpedaling and rhetoric and false recounting of the events by anyone. You can also read more about the event in the The Washington Post article by clicking here.

This is an example of bullying, plain and simple.

Someone wanted to force the nurse to act in a way that was in violation of her ethics, morals, and values. The nurse, Alex, calmly reasoned with the individual who was making the demands and presented evidence to support her conclusion that what she was being asked to do was in violation of all of the above, as well as the rules of the facility in which she worked. Her decision was to decline the demanded blood draw for her unconscious patient.

The officer tried to bully Alex into doing what he wanted, and she held her ground with grace. And then the office lost his temper, and this is when it all falls apart, and Alex is assaulted by the bully.

Judge for yourself (be forewarned that this is upsetting):

One observation I have is that the gentleman in the white shirt not only stood by her, but tried to intervene to help her; he was an active bystander. The situation might have turned out even worse if he wasn’t actively trying to defuse the situation and help his coworker.

I leave you with this quote from Renee Thompson‘s blog (Nurses Unite Against the View but What About Each Other? Posted by Renee ThompsonSept 22, 2015):

Be like Alex; be BRAVE.

My slip is showing

by Karen, posted in books, no fear, quest for the best, Someone's gotta say it, writing

I have recently become aware of some minor formatting issues with my book, which I will be addressing in the next printing.

😀

Wasn’t that mature of me? An amazingly calm reaction, since my inner critic and inner perfectionist are usually hard at work full-time, preventing me from letting anyone see my fiction writing, never mind noticing that, hello? It’s not perfect. Indeed, they worked quite successfully in tandem to prevent me from publishing One Brave Thing… for years.

After I first published it, I had this nagging feeling of…I don’t know. Something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Until one day, suddenly, I could: I felt like my slip was showing!  When you put your art of any kind out into the world, you are taking a risk. You are revealing parts of yourself that you have never before revealed. People will tell you what they think of your efforts. Some will not convey this information in a nice way at all. But some will do it in such an amazingly caring, wonderful, loving, joyful way that it will make you want to weep.

The latter more than outweighs the former.

I have found these words (I am paraphrasing Jack Canfield here):

  Some people will say yes, and others will say no. So what.

Maybe there are times when you are feeling imperfect, too.  Here’s a motivational audio by David McGraw based on Jack Canfield’s Success Principles that I love. Maybe you will, too!


So thank you to my friend, Kathy, who did One Brave Thing and let me know that I had a tiny bit of spinach in my teeth. And for now, my first book shall remain perfect in its imperfection.

Like me. 🙂

 

TWC is the Devil

by Karen, posted in Someone's gotta say it

IMG_2965I hate TWC. I am making the equivalent of a car payment to them every month for my “Triple Play” bundle, and you know what I am getting for all that money? Crappy equipment that malfunctions every day and is practically disposable. I am driving to the TWC office at least bimonthly to swap out my DVR box, my other cable boxes, my computer modem.

I am getting intermittent internet, despite the fact that I am paying extra for the “Turbo” (cool name, right? It sucks. It’s meaningless. It should be called “Spot”, for the spotty connection that it delivers). I get static-y phone reception when I’m on my land line. If I try to record TV programs, it’s like Roulette. Will it tape? Will it not?

I never know.

You might be thinking, “Why doesn’t she just call them to get it straightened out?”

Whenever I have done that, they remotely break something else. I hang up after up to an hour on the call with the same problem I called about, plus the new one that they created.

You might be thinking, “Why doesn’t she take her business elsewhere?” Because Southern Maine is held hostage by TWC.

Monopoly-thy name is TWC.

Woe is us. Seriously, the thought occurred to me this past week that maybe we should, you know, move.

Please consider being a guest blogger on Sharpen Your Knives!

by Karen, posted in Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships, Someone's gotta say it

This is where women can come to vent about their (past, present, maybe even future?) husbands’…idiosyncrasies.

You know what I’m talking about.

Share your stories, anonymously or not, with other like-minded individuals. Sharp stories, edgy entreaties, and amusing anecdotes are welcome.

It’s easy to be part of  Sharpen Your Knives

  1. Subscribe to SYK.
  2. Submit your story to kmcwrites@gmail.com.
  3. Remember to say whether your identity should be kept mum!

That’s it. Complete the above steps and you’re in.

The goal: hopefully by sharing our stories we’ll discover that we are in all in good company with our (minor! oh so minor!) daily frustrations and irritations…and if we dump them here, we can (hopefully) avoid dumping them on our spouses.

:)

Tell your friends!

Keep your submissions around 200-400 words if possible (but shorter pieces are also fine!). As editor, I reserve the right to edit for typos, grammar, and length.

Great audiobook

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, friends, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships, Someone's gotta say it

I just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. Lisa Scottoline,whom I’d never heard of, spoke right to me and many of my issues. Even though she’s twice divorced (nope, not me), she lives with 5 dogs (nope, I live with 3 humans…and chickens!) has 1 child (I have 2), has seen 50 come and go, (nope, I’m currently Staring Down 50), I could see myself in so many of her stories. This book is comprised of just that: many stories from her life. One of my favorites is the one about being a cookbook collector. I, myself, am a Closet Cookbook Collector-well, maybe not so closeted. I love to read them, buy them, share them, compare them. What I rarely do, however, is COOK from them. I have my favorite go-to recipes to which I gravitate toward by default. You know, the ones that I can make without having to think too much? Those. She does the same thing!! I felt so much better after that!! The only reason that I didn’t give this book 5 stars is because I didn’t feel the same way about the chapters that were written by her daughter, Francesca. They weren’t bad; they just weren’t me.

Have it your way

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, Marriage, quest for the best, Someone's gotta say it

I was recently reminded that going to the gym on an empty stomach is (for me) never a good idea. In a subconscious effort to undo any potential good my time at the gym may have afforded me, I headed over to Burger King for the special.
                                         Two Breakfast Sandwiches for $3

This is a special that their rival (McD’s) runs often as well. Here’s the difference: When I went to McD’s with my husband and tried to get one of the breakfast sandwiches without cheese, they said (wait for it….), “No.”. They explained to me how they would have to charge me full price for both sandwiches if I asked them to leave the cheese off one of them.

Really? Really?

Fast forward to today at Burger King. I ordered my 2 sandwiches, asking for the cheese to be left off one of them, and guess what? That’s what they did! And they didn’t charge me extra! And they never batted an eye!

BK: 1, McD’s: 0

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*NOTE: I complained on the McD’s website after that and I got a very nice free meal (and a grudging apology, but I let that slide) of 2 breakfast sandwiches for $3.00, one of which was without cheese, to make up for it.

🙂

Wicked good? Not!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, health, local fun, no fear, restaurants, Someone's gotta say it, tweens
Ew. Just...ew.

I recently visited a popular restaurant in Wells, one that I go to frequently. Usually I go with my husband but this time I was with  my daughter. We went there on Saturday. My twelve-year-old picked the restaurant and was excited to be going out for lunch with her mom.

My preference is always to sit in a booth, but they were all filled, so we agreed to take one of three small, two-seater tables in the center aisle. Before we ordered a booth opened up to our right, and we asked our server if we could move there. “Sure, if it’s not spoken for already,” she said. “I’ll go check.” We watched her talk to a woman in a Wicked Good! sweatshirt who was making the judgment calls at the door in terms of who sat where.

After a few moments, our waitress returned, apologetic. “A larger party is waiting to sit there,” she said. Really? There was no one at the door.  This is an establishment that does not take reservations. I say again, “Really?”

Okay, so we stay put. We order. The table sits vacant. Two more parties of two (women) come in, ask for the booth, and are given the same story by the girl at the door in the Wicked Good! sweatshirt. They take small tables like my daughter and I did.

But then….a party of two (wait for it….) men come in. At first, the Wicked Good! girl gives them the same story that the rest of us (women) got…but then she says, “Well, all right,” to them, and proceeds to sit this party of two (men) in the booth that my daughter and I couldn’t have (not to mention the other 4 women that asked for it).

Did I mention that it was two men who got the booth? I guess the Wicked Good! girl can’t do math. Hello? A party of two is not larger than a party of two.

To add insult to injury, when my fried seafood came, it was on a dirty plate.

Critters in the Attic Update

by Karen, posted in family, friends, no fear, Someone's gotta say it

Critter free, day three. I’m feeling hopeful and confident enough to say what we did to have driven them away for good.

  1. Well, there was some activity in my bathroom ceiling above the shower. I turned on the exhaust fan and left it running around the clock for a couple of days (okay, all week) and I didn’t hear them there again.
  2. Also, we blasted the TV (or the stereo, if there was nothing good on :)) near the end of the house from where we thought the varmints were coming and going…I think that helped.
  3. Interim measure (used when husband was away and I was on overload from sleep deprivation):   I slept with the pillow over my head to block out that scratching, scratching, scratching noise that made my stomach contents heave up into my lower esophagus….
  4. My husband made several trips up to the attic~ no easy feat. It entails hauling the ladder from the garage to the house, then up two flights of stairs to a closet in my office. He then had to squeeze through a very small cut out in the closet’s ceiling to get into the attic…no unlike how the squirrel must squeeze through an opening about the size of a quarter to get into the attic from outside in the first place. A sonic repellant was set up and lights were left on.
  5. Traps were set. Nothing was caught, but maybe the critters took the bait. We saw one squirrel in the front yard yesterday that was looking more than a little ragged. Yay.

What I learned as we talked with people about what to do about this problem is that almost everyone we know is dealing with it right now (or knows someone who is). This gave us a sense of camaraderie, a feeling that we weren’t in it alone. We were all rooting for each other and against the critters. Lots of people had advice and all of it was good. My motto:  “Try everything” was tempered by my husband’s motto: “Let’s think about it first,” a combination that has served us well over the years and did not let us down this time.

Heavy sigh

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, health, Someone's gotta say it

I watched a Dr. Oz episode that I taped last week, just for something mindless to do for an hour. I usually tape them every week, read what the topic is, then delete them without watching them. This time there was one I wanted to watch…something about losing weight and maybe becoming a millionaire…great! Sign me up for that, right?

So I watched that program describing Dr. Oz’s Transformation Nation. I was motivated! He’s partnering with Weight Watchers and the program is FREE. I went to the website last night to check it out. It’s actually very similar to the Weight Watchers online program, except that it calculates calories instead of PointsPlus. So, after about 3 hours of completing quizzes, entering lab data, and logging food and activities for the day, I was set to go. I uploaded my picture and started Day 1 of my Oz-blog.

Life was good…until this morning.

When I (still motivated, after getting on the scale and finding I’d lost a little over a pound) tried to log in to set up my food plan for the day, and found it that none of the info had been saved. The website didn’t recognize my email address.

Is all lost?? Is it true that you get what you pay for?? Should I just suck it up and pay Weight Watchers Online to build on what I started yesterday?

I hope not. In the meantime, while I wait to hear back from Dr. Oz’s customer support, I will try to stay motivated.

P.S. I’m not very optimistic about that.

*NOTE: Weight Watchers is currently waiving the joining fee “for a limited time”.

What do (married) men want?

by Karen, posted in Date night, Midlife Crisis, no fear, relationships, Someone's gotta say it
Blue string bikini

I don’t know about you, but when I go to the beach, I am most comfortable when almost every inch of me is covered from my chest to oh, say about mid-thigh. Let’s just say that I am a big fan of those skirted bathing suits, which my husband refers to as ‘mommy-suits’ (or in his less charitable moments, suits his grandmother wore).

I wouldn’t have been caught dead at the beach when I was in my early twenties in a bikini, never mind in my (very, very) late forties! So, imagine my surprise when  just last week I did exactly that: that thing that I thought I could not do.

That bikini in the photo to your left? Yep. That was on me. And not just in the back yard…I was out in public. At Wells Beach. In the day time.

The secret is this: you must have bikini confidence. Know you look good. Most of us women (I think) have a distorted views of ourselves, how we really look to others. What we see and what our husbands (or significant others) see are two very different things. It’s all about perspective.

State Farm has it wrong about what men want…it’s not a falcon. What  a (married) man wants ..is to see his wife at the beach in a bikini!

Who knew? 🙂