Field Report from the Land of the Fart Tubes

This fall, whilst unemployed and crising about what a waste my life was becoming, I made a Go. See. Do. list. This list has about 20 things on it that are all California-related and would make a good quick getaway... tide pools, rocks from Star Trek, whales, wineries. Last weekend, Mack and I headed up the coast to scratch Hearst Castle and Go Find Elephant Seals off the list.

The Hearst Castle sucks. The castle itself is amazing, but the zombified tour rule trap complete with the green screen photo opp at the beginning undoes all the good that might be in the castle.

These people are not loving it. Also, why are my boobs so huge. Ugh.

Luckily the elephant seals were such a thing to see that they made up for the lameness of the Hearst Castle.

You may not be aware, but I am a bit of an expert at animal behavior. I can pretty much walk up to any cluster of animals and start saying what they must be thinking. Luckily the elephant seals aren't a complicated species. They are fat. They are lazy. They do not want their kids or anyone else's kids pestering them. They think simple things, things like, "I just want to rest."

They are not full of shame, but they should be. Mack gave them the scientific name of Fart Tubes. When we first walked up on them it sounded like 100 whoopie cushions going off at once. The ladies were farting, the men were farting, even the babies were probably farting. It was pretty much a contest of who could get the most comfortable without apology.

The fat ladies would periodically flip sand onto their backs – and into the eyes of every seal within 6 feet of them, including their babies. If some damn pup got separated from its mom and tried to cozy up to another lady seal, she'd be all, "Oh no you don't, get on outta here," and bark and nip at the baby until it went away. 

Apparently the lady seals mate with a man seal, have a baby, nurse for 28 days, and then it's go time again. This is good for the seals because it saved them from extinction. But it's also bad for them because it means they have to do work. Work like this.

This man seal is thinking, "My god I am so sexy like this. And the noise I'm making that sounds like water sucking down a drain? Look at these ladies so unable to resist it."

Some of the man seals are go getters. Which is to say they leave the water and come onto the beach. Others are more enh about the whole breeding/energy expenditure thing. This man seal is enh.

He's thinking, "Yeah, this is good. I can sleep here just fine. Also, birdeeees."

Every now and then a man seal tries to woo another man seal's lady, and that shit is not okay. They try to be sneaky about it, like the two man seals at the water line above. Those seals are thinking, "If I just lay here really still that man seal with the 63 wives will think I'm a rock and then when he's sleeping, I can tap that."

In the middle of the photo, you can see the result of a man seal acting on his "tap that" thought. The Boss seal is like, "Oh no you didn't come up in the midst of my ladies. Do you see these scars on my neck? Do you know how powerful I am?" Then these two man seals make the drain sucking noise very seriously and somehow manage to cover all that distance between them with a single leap. Their bodies collide, they bite each other's necks, and then the one guy really regrets thinking the "tap that" thought and flops away.

There are some smaller coves nearby that are far less crowded, and the seals you find there are like the guy above. You can tell he's tapped a lot of ladies in his time because his neck is majorly scarred up. Now he's so over it and all he wants to do is sleep on a beach by himself and let those other idiots play the mating game. This guy is smiling in his sleep because a) his nose is freaky giant and b) he is not sharing his beach with a single other fart tube. He is thinking, "I win."

He does win, because this is the beach where he lives.

 And this is the sunset he gets to see.

 And when he dies, these are the buzzards that eat his body. They are thinking, "Smorgasbord."

Dulywed: Perfect Complements

The fires we've been having do magical things to the sky. The day gets cloaked in a warm orange light that makes the outside feel otherworldly, and the smoke makes clouds that bounce the already romantic light around in even prettier ways. Sure, houses are turning to ash and people are having asthma attacks, but, guys, the sky.

I went to the beach a few days ago to watch the sunset to see how it amped up the sky and just as I got to the sand a Jersey-like gorilla in a blue tank top looked at me and said, "Isn't it a beautiful night?"

Being neighborly I said, "Yep!" To which he replied, "Can I watch the sunset with you?"

Being impulsively awkward, I snort-laughed and kept walking toward the water.

I perched myself on the sand and watched the sky turn shades of pink, orange, red, and purple. I watched pelicans dive for their dinner and kept an eye out for the pod of dolphins that hangs out at the bottom of my street.

As I was about to get up to go, the gorilla bounded up behind me.

"I'm sorry but I just had to tell you you're amazing. You are so awesome."

If anyone ever wants to let me know I'm awesome, I'm happy to hear it. So I said, "Thanks. That's a very flattering thing to say."

Then he asked if I was married, I told him yes, and he let me know that he doesn't run all the way out to the water for anyone. I am just so amazing he had to come out and tell me.

I'm also so suave I said, "And now your tennis shoes are full of sand."

We exchanged niceties about where he's from and where I live and what he does for an ego-appropriate amount of time – about 2 minutes – and then he left and I headed home. Mack had come home from work while I was gone, so I promptly let him know that I am awesome and amazing and a muscleman personal trainer was so taken by me that he ran all the way out on the beach and ruined his tennis shoes to let me know.

We settled into our evening and a few minutes later, while Mack was recapping the highlights of his day, he said, "Your face looks clean today."

And that is marriage. Strangers compliment you with words like "awesome" and "amazing"; your husband offers up "clean."

Hot. Dry. Magical. Deserts.

That time I went with my parents to Joshua Tree, which was funny because my mom hates deserts, and we ended up visiting a place where Gram Parsons died and drank Chai tea made by the hotel receptionist's family and drew a bus for Lilly on the public art project and went to a concert of some guys who "used to jam with Gram" and sat by a fire outside and looked at stars and nothing was planned and everything was perfect. Except my mom still hates deserts.

 

The Nicest Thing Anyone's Ever Done for Me

My mom, dad and Shan came to visit me the day after Christmas. Let me just say, though, that the holidays didn't feel anything like the holidays this year. I worked on all of them, it was sunny and warm all season, and we didn't go to a single party. But when my flesh packages arrived, it was all merriment.

We saw seals in La Jolla, hunted for gas lamps in San Diego, whale watched at Point Vicente, climbed rocks at Joshua Tree, jammed to music in Pioneertown, and ate more good food than I do even when it feels holidayish. But one of the memories I will forever cherish about their visit came on New Year's Eve.

I was coming off my second 12-hour-shift and was about to die of tired when I opened the door to my apartment. My house was gleaming it was so clean. Every speck of laundry was done AND put away. The light in the refrigerator was working again. They had stocked us with actual Kleenexes, name brand laundry detergent, and a smell-good spray for the bathroom.

On every flat surface there were plates and bowls filled with my favorite things. In the kitchen, Shannon was mixing up some appley whiskey champagney cocktail – because I love apples, whiskey, and champagne.

 

My lovies had been working all day to build this NYE / anniversary celebration for me and Mack. We usually acknowledge our anniversary around Thanksgiving, but for my family, our wedding was on NYE in Jamaica. And the celebration that they put together was even better than the wedding that prompted it.

The spread consisted of orange walnut butter, pomegranate salsa, stuffed artichokes, toasted margherita bread with fancy olive oil and vinegar, chunky guacamole, smoked salmon with spicy horseradish mustard, multiple cheese plates (including one with red pepper jelly and brie and one with Stilton blue cheese), and a blueberry pie. They even put out some Taco Doritos, which might be the reason I get the 'Betes someday.

My favorite way to eat is bite sized. I love to put things together in different combinations and proportions to come up with "the perfect bite." I'd pick noshing on little bits of lots of different things over heaping helpings of a few any day. And if I can eat those bites on a carbohydrate-based edible utensil, even better.

This surprise celebration was so thoughtful and such a testament to how well my family knows, understands, and supports who I am and what I love that it didn't even matter that Mack wasn't there to be a part of it. They are the people who implant happiness inside of me and who can turn an ordinary evening into a lasting memory. They are the best presents I've ever been given, and if things don't work out with Mack and me, I'm marrying one of them.

LeaRNing

I'm officially a nurse. Not because I have an RN or because I have a job in an ER, but because I had my first healthcare associated meltdown.

I started my job in early December. We spent three weeks on a computer doing modules. Modules about things like respiratory emergencies and dangerous rashes and electrolyte imbalances. Then we were issued a preceptor and began working in the ER.

My first day was in trauma.

I did more stuff on my first day in trauma than I did in all of nursing school. Foley catheters, NG tubes, C-spine stabilization, chest compressions... all on actual human beings. Since that first day I've had patients in handcuffs, patients who've died totally unexpectedly, patients who've survived against all reason, patients who've called me an ugly bitch, and patients who've told me they'd remember me for the rest of their lives. I was the first person a soon-to-be-mom just back from ultrasound told she was having twins, and I was the last person a septic heroin addict told he wanted to go home. I've heard people actually say, "Wear gloves because there is sputum all over that curtain," and "The fetus is intact."

My days as an ER nurse are full of intense ups and downs, and my skills – nursing, social, and communication – seem 10 years premature for this position. That was the root of my meltdown. I was overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge, by insecurity about my abilities, by my helplessness at granting a dying man's last wish, by the extremes of life that pass by me on a daily basis. The closest I've come to this breadth of humanity is riding the bus in Los Angeles; now it is my job to look at their penises and put electrodes on their boobs. And I don't even speak Spanish.

I'm not sure where they're going to fall yet, but I definitely have strong feelings about this job. I want to be good at it, to learn all there is to learn – about the medicine stuff and the social stuff – but I also need about 15 more layers of skin and about 6 more sets of batteries put in my body. I'm not sure what my limits are in total, but I know I reached a level of them the other day.

My preceptor, a veteran who's been at this for more than a decade and can lead a code without batting an eye, sensed my meltdown. She said, "We're good, right? You're okay?" and when she did, that little bit of momma that makes you feel safe to explode reached out and patted me on the back and my face wrinkled up and I hid under my jacket. She led me to the med room and talked me off the ledge, and while we were in there, another nurse came in, saw I had lost it, and gave me a high five. "You're not officially a nurse until you lose it," she said. 

I've done a lot of jobs in my life, and all of them have had their challenging moments. But nothing that I have ever done is like nursing. Nothing has ever pushed me to be the best I can be in so many ways as nursing does. And nothing has ever made me feel like such a failure either.