Flexibility

Several posts ago, I mentioned taking one or two occasional group fitness classes to get me out of work before the ripe ol' hour of 7pm.

One of these was boxing. The other a "relaxation" class that taught us how to stretch, rolling our bodies on foam rollers to mimic deep tissue massage, and increase our flexibility.

Have you ever foam-rolled? It's like rolling your body around a gigantic rolling pin.

My pal Vera and I, after reading the brochure on this "relaxation" class, thought it would be a great way to defrag after a crazy day. We both purchased new yoga pants for the occasion and she gifted me cute footies to wear in class.

Is it ironic that I wanted to pass out several times during the flexibility class and handled the boxing class pretty well (except for being sore for five days afterward)?

I learned something about myself in this so-called flexibility class...I'm not very flexible.

Like, at all.

A big fan of intense cardio and sometimes a fast-paced Pilates, I struggle with making time to stretch. As a result, I get hard muscles that won't stretch much without incurring some sort of injury. This is not good.

As the class contorted their bodies on the foam rollers, I looked over to see Vera all blissed out and relaxed, immediately getting the hang of this weird rolling experience.

I, on the other hand, struggled with the most basic of poses and exercises. The instructor hovered in my general neighborhood, offering little modifications that wouldn't tear my muscles or seriously wound my pride!

As I fought through the class, it got me thinking...I really hope I'm not this inflexible in the rest of my life. Is there some secret message that my tight muscles were supposed to impart on my even-tighter resolve?

Hmm. Maybe it's time to stretch and regain a greater sense of flexibility.

Or maybe I should just stick to boxing!

Slippers

If it weren't for the pink Cadillac slippers on Thursday night, I would have been in some serious pain.



As it was, I developed blisters on the bottoms of my feet from my ravishingly comfortable stilettos.

Thursday was the First Look for Charity, the opening night of the Chicago Auto Show, where we get all dolled up in black tie attire, sip champagne, and meander around $100k cars like we can afford anything more than a Camry.

It's one fancy gala. We're pretty much the riff-raff, but they don't discriminate as long as you pay the fees. And yes, Fabio was in attendance with his harem, although I missed him and his flowing locks!

The night started out excitingly engaged; people from all our area hospitals popped out of their respective woodwork to play for the evening. Congressmen, mayors, and benefactors milled around our hospital's hospitality suite. Hey, in Illinois, in an election year, that was the place to be. I watched in awe...those congressmen knew exactly when the flash of the camera would pop; they'd make eye contact with their prey of choice and one millisecond before the camera goes off, flip their Dentine smile toward the camera, somehow making it appear genuine and spontaneous.

That's the trick of the politicians.

It was just so authentic.

SO anyway, in this room full of important people, I saddled up to Nurse Jackie's husband and jokingly asked if he'd wait in the 30-40 minute line for my refill of Chardonnay. Several other women at our table requested the same. We figured we wouldn't see Mr. Jackie back for at least a half hour. Imagine our surprise when he emerged back at the table a minute later, gracefully balancing six glasses of wine!

He said he told the bartender it was for the congressmen!

And so we all got our wine refills.

We're keepin' it classy!

So after that dashing experience, Jack and I went up to the show room floor with a few friends from work. My first stop, of course, was at Ford, for their Mustang display.



Do they get any prettier?

We ambled between the Oktoberfest booth (who was giving out 16 oz pint glasses as souvenirs) and the sushi station, mixing authentic German brews with raw fish. I didn't know until later, that Jack was hoarding pint glasses and suddenly realized that we now have service for four.

No wonder that bag he carried grew so heavy!

The other highlight of the night was the drawing for the two Cadillac's. We matched exactly one number on each drawing and figured that we didn't really want a Caddie anyway. We're TOYOTA people.



On the way home, speeding along the Dan Ryan, I disputed Jack's plan to stop at the nearest White Castle (this is our tradition; nothing is funnier than walking into a White Castle when you're dressed to the nines and tuck napkins into your strapless gown so as not to dump mustard on yourself). I had to get up at the refreshing hour of 4 a.m. to get to Loyola by 8 a.m. for an annual ethics conference.

When I signed up, I forgot it was the morning after First Look.

It was fun. I remember very little from the conference and took diligent, verbatim notes so I could re-educate myself later. I did, however, run into two of my ethicist pals from a neighboring Catholic healthcare system. My plan is to shadow them (if they'll let me!) and see what their worlds are like.

I arrived home later in the afternoon and immediately crashed. I knew Jack had a rough week because, when I emerged again, he had about six dishes cooking on the stove. My outlet is sleep. His is culinary arts.

I guess it COULD be worse!

And I'm finally allowing myself to blog because I finished a decent draft of my first theology paper (due tomorrow). I forgot how difficult it is to write a theology paper when you procrastinate to the last day!

Pope!

In the heat of a full-fledged email attack from several co-workers this week, I noticed one that had arrived from my graduate school, announcing my new, school-based email address and password.

"Well," I thought, "it's a good time for a quick break to check this out."

Plus, I've never had an email address from a seminary before. I briefly wondered if it would ask me to set up security questions pertaining to poverty, obedience, and chastity.

SO I scrolled down the email to copy and paste the default password, usually something like "1H4s9Dv48N."

But it wasn't. The default password was "Pope Benedict!"

Does everyone have "Pope Benedict" for a default? Or do they rotate the popes?

I'm glad the IT guys have fun with this and at least they didn't ask about my vow of obedience!

Lazy Day Meme

Well, I worked on Ethics all day yesterday and took today OFF. After church and grocery shopping, Jack and I hauled our lawn chairs outside to enjoy the freakishly warm 77 degree day. We practiced our sloth by sitting out there and watching our boring neighborhood...plus, it was warmer than our entire stay in Florida in February! So because I have a vacation vibe today, I'm takin' it easy. A blogger friend posted this last week and it looked like fun:


1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago, I was finishing college, starting my M.A. in Theology, planning my wedding, working three PT jobs, teaching Religious Education to second graders, and somehow, job searching. It seems like a lifetime ago! We went to Perkins a lot for desserts.

2. Five things on your to do list today:

a.) Process a contract for stat laboratory tests for dialysis patients (yawn).
b.) Restock the wine rack from our company last night. Two friends from work came over and we played a game called "Bananagram." It's a creative Scrabble with fewer rules. Insert a couple bottles of wine and we were laughing until we cried.
c.) Dust the bookcases in the den. I wrote "anarchy" in the dust last weekend and have a new obsession with Swiffer.
d.) Book my plane tickets to Fargo! Time to visit the cutest little Irish babe north of the Arctic Circle (well, not really, but you'd think it was with all the snow those poor folks get).
e.) Remind Jack to file our taxes. It's April 3. Gulp!

3. Five snacks you enjoy:

a.) Fresh strawberries and/or raspberries.
b.) freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (don't ask).
c.) soft peanut butter cookies.
d.) Laffy Taffy
e.) Doritos.

4.) Best movies of all time?

a.) Shawshank Redemption
b.) Top Gun
c.) The Matrix
d.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
e.) Rudy!

5.) What you would like to be doing in 25 years?

a.) Blogging from our sailboat in the Caribbean...
b.) Sitting poolside at our home on Anna Maria Island, Florida.
c.) Traveling the US on a motivational speaking tour.
d.) Enjoying my man and the life we have built together.
e.) Not worrying about how I look: my hair, my make-up, my weight--none of that crap.

Blizzard of Teamwork

"The sun is shining, the weather is sweet. Makes you want to move...your dancin' feet." -Bob Marley

Now that I've slept for 13 hours, I have my sense of humor back!

I did end up camping out at the hospital Tuesday night, throughout the blizzard. I worked a full ten hours with my "normal" job, then jumped into Incident Command. We had been doing regular conference calls throughout the day, to begin preparing for the storm. Yet, when it started getting bad outside around 2 p.m., few folks could actually believe the storm that was forecasted since Saturday, had materialized.

I was asked to be the Liaison and Safety Officer for the event. That basically means I was responsible for all the communication and organization of the event (I geek out about that stuff). As a hospital management team, we've been having Incident Command drills for the past few years...but this was the real thing.

So I figured out who was going to stay, from all of hospital management. Some people quickly disappeared and we never heard from them again. Some gave cheesy excuses. Some had to stay home because their spouses were snowplow operators or police or had kids at home. We ended up with about 25 individuals, across both of our campuses, who truly stepped up and kept the hospitals running through the storm. The storm really separated the wheat from the chaff and I know who all the go-to team players are now. (Well, you mostly knew who they were, but now you REALLY know!).

I do admit, I was jealous and a bit bitter at my colleagues who didn't even bother to check in. I knew they were at home, in front of their fireplaces, drinking hot cocoa. But in a time like this, you have to put all of that aside. Jack buoyed my spirits and I tried to pass along that enthusiasm. Whether we like it or not, it's our time to shine.

Our team, composed of about 14 people, was stationed at one campus (the central command post) with another group of 11 at the other campus across town. The night started quietly enough, with everyone in high spirits. We watched The Weather Channel in our command post (in one of our conference rooms...I will never view that conference room the same way ever again!) and teleconferenced with the other campus every two hours to discuss staffing, safety, electricity, and other resources. The command structure worked beautifully.

Then I was asked by the Incident Commander, to take over the helm of things throughout the night hours. So it was me and the Director of Security who ran the command post from 11 p.m. through 4 a.m. The most exciting things that happened were that the other campus lost partial power and their roof started leaking. The other, more scary thing happening was that we could not get staff in. So we were running very short on ER and ICU nurses; those in house were given beds, food, and clean scrubs and we worked them to the bone. We had people for 36 hours and while it wasn't ideal by any means, everyone came together when we needed them the most.

At the 4:00 a.m. conference call between campuses, someone said, "Man, this feels like Groundhog's Day, the movie." We all looked at each other and laughed because it WAS Groundhog's Day. And that darn rat probably did see his shadow. Oh wait, we don't even know that the Chicago groundhog predicted because they canceled the event at Brookfield Zoo!

Anyway, I finally went to my office to sleep at about 4:30 a.m. and slept until 8. It was the best sleep I ever got. I'll never view my office the same, either!

Rousing myself, I then joined one of our doctors who stayed in-house, to round on the units. People were in surprisingly good spirits and Doc really rallied the troops. We snapped pictures of every group of people, from the hospital operators to the weary EMS workers to the cafeteria workers who kept us all fed to the bleary-eyed nurses leaving to catch a few hours' sleep in an unused unit. It was touching.

By late morning on Wednesday, the storm was winding down. More and more staff were able to come in and relieve the exhausted crews on every unit and department. We had a few 4x4's that hospital Security officers were using to go pick up ICU and ER nurses from home. While the crazy part of the storm was over, patients were starting to flood the ER's because they could now get to the hospital.

Seeing that things were under control, I send out a couple last communication blasts, reassigned some beds for staff, and packed up to go home. I offered to stay another night, but our Command structure worked so well that things were quickly returning to normalcy. A few folks wanted to stay, so I left. Some wonderful saint dug my car out for me so I could zip right out of there.

Luckily, the drive home wasn't too harrowing. There were few cars on the road and I drove in the middle of two lanes. Arriving home, Jack took my bags, handed me my pj's and robe, and sent me off to a long, hot shower. After my shower, I quickly checked my blackberry one last time and saw that the Command post was closing and all officers were headed home. I was so happy. We made it!

And that is how a team is born. All day, people have been emailing each other, thanking them for the great work in keeping the hospitals functioning.

Me? I've been at home, on the couch, enjoying hot cocoa! Back to the grind tomorrow!

A Trippin' Soiree

Okay, time for the few vacation stories that don't involve male strippers, hitch-hiking, or the bribes we had to pay movie stars to just leave us alone already!

Just kidding, Jack!

The Edge and I (sounds like "the King and I," eh?) had a great time on our recent five-day beach getaway.



On the first day, The Edge and I quickly drove from the airport to our condo, rushing to land our feet in the sand. After a quick grocery store run, we smashed vacation records by being happily strewn about in our lounge chairs within 2 hours of landing in Florida. That night, it was dinner at a beachside grille, at which we dug our feet in the sand and knocked back a couple hurricanes.

Day two, we spent the majority of the blazingly hot day out at the beach, under beach umbrellas. Desperate to cool off from the 90+ degree heat, we wondered into the Gulf. The Gulf was as still as a pond, with 2-3 inch waves lapping quietly up to shore. We crept forward and I marveled at how clear the water was...even with water up to my chest, I could still see my feet. That's par for the course in Grand Cayman, but pretty odd off the coast of Florida. As The Edge and I lazily paddled around the water, we both noticed our hands sort of hitting "something." It felt like patches of thick water and I thought I was repeatedly brushing the ties on the sides of my suit bottoms. The Edge then looked down and we both immediately realized we were swimming in a sea of jellyfish!

Yes, jellyfish. We both sprinted out of the water and I quickly ran to my blackberry and googled "please tell me there are such things as non-stinging jellyfish!" Nope, there are not...but these guys weren't adults yet. Whew.

Back on the beach, we turned our chairs around to watch a wedding taking place about 100 yards away, in the sand. We watched a man escort a woman down the "aisle;" she was wearing a moderately-fancy white dress. Then another man escorted a woman down the aisle and she was wearing a full, cathedral-length sparkly white gown. The Edge and I sort of looked at each other like, "Hmm, that's weird. Why is one bridesmaid wearing a white dress and where is the guy the cathedral-length-dress-wearer is marrying?"

Then it hit us both (at the same instant) that we were witnessing a lesbian wedding. On the beach.

The next day, we entered our same routine of beach and pool-hopping, only to witness a Discover Channel experience taking place out to sea. We spotted a pod of dolphins a hundred yards offshore and squealed with glee at their appearance (hey, it was cool!). Then we watched in horror as the pod attacked a school of fish and the fish went flying feet up into the air (either in escape or to get away from the predators!). I only wished I had one of those time-elapsed cameras! For lunch that day, we visited a po-dunk, on-the-bay "restaurant" that was fabled to have the best fish on the Island. It did and that fish will withstand any taste test. That night at dinner, we chose a place known for their seafood, if only for the goal of trying to upstage the fish we tried for lunch. Dinner was good, but the bottle of wine we shared probably had something to do with that! Oh, that afternoon, we went bodyboarding. The jellyfish were gone by that point (at least, they appeared to be!)



The day after that, we again did our same beach/pool practice. I think I could take a month-long vacation and keep up that same routine the entire time....morning run, have coffee, go to beach, go back to condo for lunch makings, go to pool, go back to condo, shower, go to dinner, and take a quick dip in the pool before bed.

In fact, that's what I plan to do in early February when Jack and I go back to The Island!

The last thing I want to mention is the oh-so-beautiful sunsets. The Gulf coast is the best place to see sunsets and we took so many pics of the setting sun.



However, they all sort of look alike after a while. so I started messing with my camera settings:



See? Who wouldn't want a picture of a sunset while on LSD? :)

The trip was wonderful, girl time appreciated. But it's time to return (full speed!) to the daily grind!

Taking A Break

Excuse me, can you please pass the sunscreen?

Quote Journal: Happiness

"You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy." -Eric Hoffer

This quote really speaks to materialism and peoples' collecting (or boasting) about things to make themselves happy. I agree with Mr. Hoffer in that it doesn't work that way.

The intangibles are what make us happy. The love, laughter, trust, loyalty, and memories make us happy. And I also think that happiness is a choice. A HARD choice but nonetheless, a choice.

So I'm deciding to be happy today...Despite the fact that my house is still in limbo, I didn't get a lick of work accomplished today (or this week) at work, and I'm pretty sure I will have to fire another employee on Monday (my third). Because you know what? I'm still alive and kickin', Jack is in Chicago with me this weekend, we have plans to "just hang out," and may visit the beach nearby this weekend. Oh! And my new book on Chicago mobster history arrived today! It was $3.39 used and I cannot wait to curl up on my chaise lounger and read about mob history in the sun!

Yes, I'm a gangster history geek. Urban history interests me, too. I recently discovered that I have a slight affinity for Great Lakes shipwrecks! I'm currently reading The Great Bridge by James McCullough and it's just fascinating. Along with my $3.39 book on mob history, I also picked up another history book about the settlement of Chicago back in the mid 1800's. That book was $4.25 used. The reason why I'm posting the prices for my new books is because I just finished telling you how happiness cannot be captured by acquiring stuff!

Hypocrisy! Heresy!

In all seriousness, it still feels like I'm being torn apart by my life. But today, I'm choosing to change my attitude and rebel by joking around with Jack and reading mob history on my deck!

ADD Discourses

For your entertainment, I present you with another round of randomness spewing forth from my brain (a brain with ADD, I might add):

1. A brief discourse on Facebook: In short, I'm thinking about giving it up. It's a drama-creator and time-sucker. If aliens wanted to take over the earth, they'd just friend everybody, take over their profiles, and assume our identities through our online profiles. Okay, it's not that bad. What bothers me is the sheer time and thought people put into this. And for what? When are you going to look back on the 392 hours you recently spent on FB and say, "Oh, that was even better than the time I went snorkeling in the Cayman Islands!" My other beef is with status updates. I do this myself...when I think I have a status update worthy of gracing my 220+ friends with, I repeat it in my head several times to make sure it is communicated well (lest I have a typo or grammatical error!). I even think about the audiences represented in my "friend" base and quickly assess whether the status would offend anyone. I wouldn't have wasted the mental cells on this dilemma in the pre-FB era.

2. On the necessity of frequent vacations: As one who's been blessed with almost more vacations than I can count, I'm at that point in my life where my body, mind, and emotions are threatening to crack apart like grains of sandstone. I've been pushing myself harder than I ever have before and the uncertainty of my life situation is grinding me to a pulp. While it's only a couple weeks until we leave for a gloriously relaxing vacation, my mind is already transporting me to a land of sunshine, sunscreen, ocean waves, pool frolicking, and frozen margaritas. On Thursday (am a bit ashamed to admit this), I sat in a big executive meeting and planned out the rough agenda of our vacation and, more importantly, which sundresses I want to pack for the trip. I think it's my brain's defense mechanism. If it shuts down and visualizes chaise loungers and fluffy beach reads, it won't crumble. Plus, I get to go on vacation with Jack and spend an entire TEN days with him!

Of course that meeting was important. But I'll have to check the meeting minutes to see what was discussed! Wait, I think I'm responsible for that meeting's minutes!

3. On the forgotten "coolness quotient" of my family: on Saturday night, SkyBlue and Lou hosted the First Annual K'vas party. K'vas, for you non-Eastern-Europeans, is sauerkraut soup and it's pronounced "Ka-vass." It sounds worse than it is; it's actually a soup made with ham and kraut juice. Line your bowl with polish egg noodles and you're set. We all grew up on this unique soup and through marriage (and repeat exposures), Jack even relishes K'vas.

Since SkyBlue didn't make K'vas all winter, she offered to make it this weekend before it got too warm outside. Sensing the opportunity for a party, she invited everyone over...Mom D, my aunt, Zibby and Brady's girlfriends, and of course, us. So it was a fun party that was highlighted by the Wii and Wii Resort. Have you tried the canoeing game on that? It's HARD. After doing our usual run at 100-pin bowling, everyone tried canoeing, cycling, and even basketball.

I woke up with sore shoulders and arms on Sunday morning; now I remember why!

4. On the realization that this, too, shall pass: I worked 14.5 hours today and I keep wondering if my body will ever adjust to these long days (yawn...taking 5 seconds to swig warm milk to counter balance the Diet Mt. Dew. In fact, is it bad when your dinner meeting runs so late that you are actually starving when you get home and eat a second dinner? I'm just sayin'!)To cope, I'm still reminding myself that this crazy time in my life isn't going to last forever. In fact, I will look back on this time with nostalgia and gratitude, that I survived and sometimes flourished in the process. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And whatever does kill you, well, you can probably sue them for medical malpractice or negligence!

Empty Wine Goblets and Drained Souls

I had a phenomenal weekend. I feel rested, emotionally-fulfilled, nostalgic, and torn to shreds.

So I probably owe you a story if I'm going to use that many descriptive words, right?

One of my very best friends, Bewley, visited me in Chicago this weekend. She was my roommate in Ireland, we traveled Europe together, and we just "get" each other. We have such similar personalities that, at times, we don't need words and can rely solely on reading each others' facial expressions. I noticed last night, after having taken one of those cheesy self-portraits at arms-length, that our faces are even similarly shaped. Yep, we were cut from the same cloth.

Because of these similarities, we fought like sisters in Ireland and often competed against each other for the best grades (shocking, right?). She's now a PhD and can out-argue me in almost anything. I'm okay with that, because I can still verbally spar with her regarding human intuition and Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic or morality judgements in light of the Categorical Imperative. She understands and challenges me when I get on my Aristotelian soapbox and spout off managerial theories that I extrapolate from Nicomachean Ethics.

I picked her up on Thursday evening from the airport and we talked until 2:30 in the morning. It was the stuff of legendary girl sleepovers from years (decades!) past. We always had a habit of talking well into the night in Ireland (or I used to barge into her room and jump on her bed in the early morning after she got in late from a hot date), so this shouldn't have surprised me. We were hoarse when we finally went to bed.

On Friday, we reveled in the 70 degree temps, sipped wine on my deck, noshed on hors d'oeuvres, traced a nostalgic path through the history of our friendship, and relived our favorite memories from having backpacked Europe together. The best memories are from Scandinavia, Italy, and Wales! As the afternoon cooled into the 60's, we donned our best and went downtown for some Chicago flair. I took her to sushi in the Loop and we walked several miles around Chicago. After ducked into several places along the Mag Mile, we ended our evening at the Signature Lounge (where else?) on the 96th floor of Hancock. It's touristy, but it's a cool touristy spot!

Then on Saturday, she begged me to take a BodyCombat class in the morning. I obliged, but I foreshadowed the aching muscles that were sure to follow. They did! We enjoyed ourselves; what sort of long weekend is complete without beating up imaginary rapists and burglars? Jack joined our girl party on Saturday afternoon and we went to the Carraig that night or some awesome Irish atmosphere. The music wasn't traditional Irish, but it did create ambiance!

I was so sad to drop Bewley back off at the airport this morning. Her shining presence just served to remind me of my languishing loneliness in Chicagoland. With Jack living in SB and me out here in Chicago all by myself, well, it was just depressing to drop her off at the Departures Terminal and get back on the highway...

Jack tried to rescue me from my depression by taking me to mass and lunch. It sort of worked until we decided to tour several of the local condo/townhouse complexes nearby. It unhinged my soul, as I suddenly didn't feel ready to sell my house in SB and start a new life in Chicagoland. The condos are fancy. They look expensive and sterile. And they're not Home.

It was then that I realized that my house is a very expensive security blanket. During this fellowship, I had the option of quitting my job, returning to SB (tail between my legs), and starting over. While it was a minute possibility, I still had the option. If we formally move to Chicagoland, that security blanket will be whisked away like a magician yanking a tablecloth from beneath a stack of delicate and ornate dinnerware.

Returning to the Chicagoland bachelorette pad, I dissolved into a puddle of uncertainty and fear, unsure of where to look next. I had a wonderful chat with Elvis on Thursday; he asked if I'd be interested in managing several hospital departments in Bob the Builder's absence. This is completely wonderful. I need to get this experience. It helps crystallize the job situation, as I will most likely end up at St. Fozzie's. However, I still haven't received the formal, written offer with salary negotiations. It's also completely feasible that I spend a month or two past the end of my fellowship at St. Fozzie's and then get moved to another hospital within Muppetville.

There's no sense of stability. While I'm trying to view the silver lining of adventure and optimistic opportunity, it's scary to know you don't know where you're going to land.

While the job situation is fantastic and I still cannot believe the opportunities laying before me, at the end of the day, all that matters is that Jack and I get to live together again. Our marriage is wonderful, but it's time to move back in with each other. We MISS each other. Y'know, hence that whole married bit!

So we made our decision. Living together again is our highest priority. We are going to do whatever we need to do to make that happen. Every Sunday, when one of us must pack up our bags, say goodbye, and drive an hour and a half, it's horribly depressing. We need to know that our Sunday's of leaving each others' sides are about over...


*By the way, I'm pretty sure the image at the beginning of this post is the exact image from my Discover card. Good thing I cannot see a credit card number embossed on it!

IcyHot

I hope everyone had a very, merry Christmas. Our Christmas was very typical, in that, we all attended mass, ate ourselves silly with homemade Polish fare, drank several bottles of vino, and exchanged small, thoughtful, inexpensive gifts.

Yeah, then Jack bought me a Wii. With accessories.

I felt like a kid again when I unwrapped the box on Christmas Eve. It completely surprised me and he sat there, laughing the entire time. However, that didn't stop him from hooking it up for me, right then and there, at 1 a.m. on Christmas morning! We played several games of tennis, boxed a couple rounds, and tried the water skiing game. The last time I received a game system was the original Nintendo on Christmas Day, 1989. I've always been a dedicated admirer of Mario and Luigi, so the Wii definitely intrigued me. Jack completely went against our agreement to spend the usual $50 on each other, but he figured that it's a gift that keeps on giving.

Agreed.

Case in point, we took said Wii to my folks' house on Christmas Day. At one point, we had all 10 of us playing Wii 100-pin bowling, taking turns. We eventually played Frisbee, tennis, archery, and even skydiving...and before we knew it, it was midnight.

Before I even went to bed on Christmas night, I was sore. My shoulders ached, my forearms were sore, and my calves ached. I thought I was in shape! It doesn't surprise me that such vigorous tennis matches made me sore. I did slather on the IcyHot before resuming my tennis training schedule Sunday afternoon!

Nothing says "newborn Savior" like some Wii-ing with your family!

Mickey's Christmas

On an off night from the conference, I attended Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at Disney's Magic Kingdom. It's been 8 years since I've been to Disney World and I forgot how magical it is. You walk into the park and then have to take a ferry or monorail to the actual park entrance. You're greeted by Mickey and Minnie and most of the young girls are in costume as their favorite Disney princess. Aside from the fact that Disney has completely infiltrated our culture and that the Disney experience has become a coming-of-age expectation, I was shocked to re-realize the prevalence of princesses. I'm not a neo-feminist Nazi or anything, but seriously? $79 for a chiffon Cinderella dress?

Once I got over myself and my feminist background, I started to relax. My conference buddy, Vera, went with me. It was snowing on Main Street, the park offered "free" hot chocolate and warm cookies, there was a Christmas parade, and the Cinderella castle was shrouded in icicle lights. Christmas carols (albeit, the secular ones) were piped into the park and despite the 68 degree temperature, it did feel Christmasy.

The party's hours were from 7pm-midnight. While most of the park was at the first parade, Vera and I went on several rides around the park. We walked on to every ride (a miracle for Disney) and rode our favorites multiple times. I love Splash Mountain and the Railroad rollercoaster. At one point in the evening, the ride operators didn't even make us get off the ride. So we rode the train rollercoaster three times in a row. It reminded me of Cedar Point's Gemini, my absolute favorite coaster. While on the coaster, I was quickly reminded of the adrenaline rush that comes from the tight corners an stomach-wrenching drops. Vera and I screamed like children, savoring every moment. We decided that we need a roller coaster at St. Fozzie's for employees to ride during breaks and lunches…the adrenaline rush really resets your bearings! $45M will fit in the budget, right?

Anyway, it was a great time at Disney. But when they do the extensive firework display at the end of the evening, I cannot help but picture the wads of cash everyone spends at the park exploding in the colorful displays!

Caption Needed

What would you write about this picture if you captured it on the highway? :)

Cookie Distributor

I had a sugar-laden, exciting day the other day! After 5 straight hours in meetings in the morning (the last of which was how to dispel a HIPAA violation that occurred on Facebook), I joined up with the Cookie Patrol.

Because St. Fozzie's patient satisfaction scores continue to increase and we want to help bolster this employee morale, administration hit the hallways and units today. We're visiting each employee on each shift, giving them hand-signed thank you cards from senior leadership and HUGE cd-sized wonderful chocolate chunk cookies. They're good cookies. Trust me, I KNOW my cookies.

Everyone was so appreciative and it always astounds me just how amazed employees are when they see administrators out there serving others. Obviously, it needs to happen more often. Administration gets this bad wrap for not being transparent…so this Cookie Patrol is proving to be a huge success.

However, the CCO (Chief Cookie Operator) told us it would only take a half hour to deliver our 'share' of the cookies to the various floors and departments. Two and a half hours later, I limped back to my office as I did not wear my sensible shoes! I purposely wore my cutest heels, knowing I would probably be sitting in the board room for a good part of the day. That was before I remembered Cookie Patrol! I felt like Monica on that episode of Friends, where she bought the killer boots and made Chandler carry her home! I already had rows of blisters on the tops of my toes from those shoes. AND, that was before second shift. I still had to visit the same departments on second shift. Gratefully, they assigned me all the first floor departments so I could hit everyone in one fell-swoop.

It was okay, though, because I teamed up with the CFO. He's this very poised and smart, yet very introverted guy. He stuffed his suit pockets with extra cookies until they bulged out at his sides. Anyone who saw him laughed and he's already being referred to as the Cookie Monster. They tried to call me that, too, but I changed it to Cookie Distributor!

Polish Food Rocks!

It's been a long day of preparing for the next four days. I have nearly non-stop meetings for the rest of the week and after meetings this morning, I savored a slower afternoon today. I am presenting three separate things at our Senior Leadership meeting tomorrow morning. I'm trying to carve a niche for myself while polishing my organizational and leadership skills. Game on, man! Game on!

Anyway, I had a fabulous weekend. My folks, brothers, and Jack came up to Chicagoland to visit ME! I was grateful to not have to drive (which is, in itself, a break!). On Friday night, Jack and I walked to a cute little sports bar around the corner from my house and watched the Cubs game. Then we walked to our parish's festival, which had a killer live band and massive beer tent (along with rides and games that seriously rivaled the 4-H fair).

Then on Saturday, my folks and brothers arrived and we drove over to Whiting, IN to visit the Pierogi festival. Yes, they dedicate a whole festival to Pierogi's and it's spotlighted all over The Food Network. The pierogi were fantastic. Not what we're used to in old-school South Bend, but still good. They were stuffed with meat, cheese, potato, onion, apricot, blueberry, or even mushrooms. In addition to eating pierogi, stuffed cabbage, kielbasa, and noodles & cabbage, we reveled in our Polish heritage. We drank frothy root beer, laughed at t-shirts that mock Tommy Hilfiger (they said Tommy Kowalski), giggled at other t-shirts that said "Nice Pierogis" across the chest, we bought ornaments shaped like little pierogi, and I even bought a couple strands of Polish mardi gras beads. Jack discovered "kebabs" while Zibby gnawed on a turkey leg and Brady ingested a substantial amount of ice cream.

So after we tired of the festival, we walked down to the lakeshore, which was only about three blocks away. After that, we took everyone on a tour of both St. Fozzie's campuses so they could get a visual of where I work. After that, we took them to Aurelio's to experience the best in Chicago's thin crust pizzas.

Basically, we ate all weekend! I might be needing that arterial roto-rooter after all! Think we can get a group rate?!

Seashells by the Seashore

All blogs are pretty self-centered, but this post is purely Dorrie-centered. I took a brief handwriting analysis yesterday morning (hey, I was between meetings and had already checked the weather.) I thought it was interesting and weirdly, spot-on.

They have you write the sentence, "She sells seashells by the seashore" in cursive. They look at how pointy your letters are, how "loopy" your "L's" and "E's" are, how big your writing is, its spacing, how it slants, etc.

This was my result:

You are open to new experiences and sociable. You are well-adjusted and adaptable to new situations as they arise. You are versatile, ambitious, and intellectually-probing. However, you restrict yourself as you are skeptical of emotional and illogical arguments. You practice rational thought and decision-making and expect others to do so, too.

It seems a bit contradictory, the part about being open to new experiences but guarded against emotional arguments. Many of these words apply to 94% of the population, but I thought it was pretty cool because it echoed my Myers-Briggs results (ENTJ)!

Joke Journal

The Board of SSFHS, feeling it was time for a shakeup, hired Jill Holiday to be the new CEO.

This new boss is determined to rid the institution of all slackers and bring real fiscal discipline. On a tour of the facilities, Jill notices a guy leaning on a wall near the staff lounge. The room is full of doctors, nurses and aides and she wants to let them know she means business!

The CEO walks up to the guy and asks, "And how much money do you make a week?" A little surprised, the young fellow looks at him and replies, "I make $300.00 a week. Why?" Jill, towering over the guy, then hands him $1,200 in cash and screams, "Here's four weeks pay, now GET OUT and don't come back!"

Feeling pretty good about her first firing, a slightly taller Jill looks around the room and asks, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-off did here?"

With a sheepish grin, one of the radiologists, mouth full of pepperoni, mutters, "He is the pizza delivery guy from Dominos..."