I love raccoons. I really do. I once found two orphaned raccoons by the roadside and braved rabies, parasites and God-knows-what by walking up to them, picking them up, and putting them in my car. The two babies were skeleton thin and hungry. I kept them in the bathroom and called every wildlife rehabilitator in the area and pleaded with them to take the two little ones. I finally found one who would, on the promise that I would volunteer for a year so that she would keep them.

Yep, I am that crazy.

So me and the two little raccoons got in the car again and wandered away into the wilds of Western Massachusetts, where I met an extremely kind and giving lady who ran a wild animal orphanage out of her own home, on the edge of a state park. She was half-Apache and had moved to Massachusetts 10 years previously, and it was extremely interesting working for her. Under my care for that year were various foxes, a pheasant, opossums, White-tailed deer, skunks, a woodchuck and many, many raccoon babies.

The rehabilitator hadn’t been kidding when she said she was overrun with raccoons at the moment. She had 26 orphaned raccoons, and it was hilarious watching them at feeding time. They would run up to you in droves screaming for food and then their eyes would roll back in their heads as they greedily sucked on various bottles in absolute bliss and raccoon-abandon. They would grow up we knew, and get ornery as their hormones kicked in and would be better off in the wild…but for now these cute little ring-tails were our babies and we fed and cared for them as best we could.

Working there was an interesting year. I saw all sort of animals, and the beauty of the area was a thing to behold. The rehabilitator didn’t have any close neighbors, and the silence and beauty of the woods of Western Mass filled me with a certain and much needed peace I lacked while at school. My two babies grew up and the next summer came the day when we released them into the wild. They went boldy, quickly, instinctively off into the wild…as if they had been waiting for that day since I had picked them up. As perhaps they had.

I remember that winter bringing the feed buckets out, and I turned quickly as I heard something approach me rapidly through the snow. I was surprised to see a full-grown White Tail doe there, sticking her head in my feed bucket. It was one of the fawns I had raised earlier in the year, back to pay me a visit. It was pretty cool, having a free creature of the wild choose to run up to me, give me a lick, steal the food out of my bucket, and then return back to her secret ways in the woods.

What were the lives of the women like, I wonder? Where are our Amelia Earharts, our unsinkable Molly Browns, our Mata Haris and Jane Goodalls?

The considerable lack of information on the women in my family tree irritates me, as truly only half the story is there. Why is nothing handed down of the women? Those in our present time I know of, but what of the ladies in former years? Who were these crazy women who married WWI fighter pilots, or MIT Professors, or traveled around the country with ten children and a husband in tow so that they could sing and play music for the crowds? And why, really, is there so little information on them now…

“Everyone needs nurses!”

“You’ll get hired right out of graduation!”

LIES AND BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!

I will graduate from my RN program in July, which I am very excited and happy about. However, then follows the problem of employment. I have been searching for a job for after graduation since January. I’ve filled out approximately 100 applications, and I have gotten 2 interviews. For one position I applied to, over 450 applicants were competing for 71 spots opening up this summer for New Graduate RNs. I hear similar horror stories from my friends at school, and from Alumni who graduated last year. A recent study on hiring of New Graduate RNs found that it took the average new graduate 3-9 months to find employment after they graduate, even when they begin hunting for jobs long before.

Icky, Icky, Icky.

They are telling us that there is a nursing shortage, and we are being prepared for the “silver tsunami”, aka the “Aging Baby Boomer Population” which will evidently cripple our existing healthcare system. Yet the craptacular economy has made hospitals tighten their budgets, which made them hire less “costly” new graduate RNs. The economy also made many nurses delay retirement and move from part-time to full-time employment as the money crunch set in, also decreasing potential spots for new nurses. The combination of these events leaves new graduates totally screwed.

Persistance, they tell us. Just keep applying.

My hands are already sore from filling out applications, and financial worries heckle me like unrelenting harpies as graduation looms and the school cuts us all loose. Unless I’m incredibly lucky and land a position, I may have to be like a RN I recently worked with. She graduated during a recession in the 80′s, and was unable to find employment after school. So she waited 6 years and was hired right off the bat. Problem solved! Wait several years for the recession to hopefully be over! Yes, I am being slightly flippant. Yet if you find me working at McDonalds with my shiny new BSN degree on the wall and the letters “RN” after my name, don’t be surprised. And with this economy I’ll be damned happy to have that job too.  At this point, I’m just hoping to be employed somewhere, anywhere, after I graduate, even if it is unrelated to my current studies.

And that is the story of why I have  a pinched nerve in my neck.

Fin!

What will this year be like? Where will I go? Who will I see? What new experiences will be had?

I suppose 2011 is particularly bright for me because it is the year I have determined to check all old baggage and forget it at the airport. It is the year of moving on from more sorrowful things I have been carrying with me over the past few years. I’m devoting this year to M.Scribble’s own personal Health and Sanity.

I am therefore laying some ground rules for 2011:

1. No one I know is allowed to get sick, die or become miserable and unhappy in any shape or form. PERIOD.

2. There will be no hurricanes, nature or man-made, that will force me to evacuate the place I live, or give up my peace of mind.

3. I will get an enormous, sloppy, lovably ugly puppy.

4. I will get a new job and it will be good and the people will be good to work with.

5. I will focus on my own neglected health and sanity this year, and not everyone else’s.

6. I will spend as much time as possible with friends and family in an attempt to have as much fun as humanly possible.

7. These rules are subject to amendment, but not if it negatively affects current standards of sanity and well-being.

Onward, 2011!

Eclipse 12.22.2010

Stained Glass Trees

The First Freeze

It always shocks me to hear when someone in my High School class has died, and this girl has not been the first. There have been drunk driving accidents, and drug overdoses, and unexpected medical problems and even one or two lost at sea. Death is always a sad thing, but the fact that this girl, whom I remembered from 8 years ago as being such a happy individual, had killed herself, really bothered me. It just didn’t make sense, why would someone who seemed to have so much choose to end it all?

As the week unfolded more details and rumors of her life were revealed to me through the grapevine. Although on the surface she had seemed like a happy person, this girl had struggled with drugs. She had stolen and she had been arrested more than once. Her smiling photograph was the public curtain that concealed an unhappy and troubled life.

It made me wonder, it really did, about the paths that some of my High School friends had chosen and were choosing for themselves. It seemed that every year there is a new death, and the majority of those deaths seem related to alcohol and drug abuse. It made me think about what a fine line it is that we all walk between life and death. One moment we are still here, and then the next we are not.

Looking at my old friend’s face, I felt deeply sad. I would have wished so much more for her in life.

“White Tail Deer” November 20 2010

“Moon Geese” November 20 2010

When I lived in New Orleans and worked at a Veterinary Clinic down there, it was a habit of the staff to bring in food to celebrate the holidays. Near Thanksgiving my friend and co-worker brought in something called “Pumpkin Gooey Cake“. The moment that I put the first bite in my mouth I nearly collapsed from sheer appreciation of this sweet pumpkin confection. I liked it so much that I asked for the recipe, and found that it originally was on a Paula Dean cooking show.  This is one rich and delicious cake!

Pumpkin Gooey Cake

Paula Dean's Pumpkin Gooey Cake

Cake:

• 1 (18 1/4-ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 1 egg
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 (16-ounce) box powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions