Cheryl's space

When tropical storm Edouard was bearing down on us the typical thing happened. Everyone all of a sudden had to run to Walmart to get water, batteries, food, etc. Then they had to stand in line for up to 3 hours to check out. Some complained it was over six hours. Most non perishables were gone quickly. I did not run out into the bedlam. I save milk cartons and had filled all of them with fresh tap water. Enough for myself and daughters household to survive for a week. I then filled up the garbage cans-the plastic version that hold like 50 gallons of water. We had 3 around so there was 150 gallons of water ready to flush toilets with. We have been through the routine so many times. I have many shelves of canned goods and a lot of charcoal in case anyone wants to heat something up. I have batteries and the usual supplies. So I did not venture out.

There was a mother and her grown daughter who rushed to Walmart after they got off work. The daughter proclaimed to her mother that they were out of f***ing batteries already. A fire captain in his uniform overheard the daughter and mother talking. I guess he was looking for batteries also. He stopped the women and arrested her and issued her a citation. He even handcuffed her. Of course she and her mother were shocked since they had threatened nobody and were just casually talking to each other. They also were shocked because he was not a police officer and was a fire fighter.

First the mother and daughter kind of blew him off, not knowing if he was just a nut case dressed up in a uniform who had ordered the wrong uniform and got a fire fighter uniform instead. He was ordering the daughter out of the store with him to go to his car. So they tried to ignore him like a person would ignore someone in front of them hallucinating and saying crazy stuff. Now I don’t know if her saying f***ing was more of an insult to his sensitivities or if their thinking he was a nut case was more insulting. I mean what would you do if some big guy in a uniform wanted to arrest you and take you to his car where he claims he has his citation book and wants to put his handcuffs on you. There was a tropical storm coming and these people had kids waiting for them and stuff to do before the storm hit. Like feed the kids and buy batteries.

Anyhow as the deal progressed and he got demanding a crowd appeared. Well of course Walmart was already crowded so nothing had to happen for a crowd to form. Nobody was in danger and they were just watching. The daughter then started talking to him and he said it is a crime to swear in public (BTW it is not a crime) and he finally convinced her that if she continued disrespecting an officer worse things would happen to her. So she and her mother and the crowd followed him out to his car. Just a regular car not a police cruiser. She turned to the following cwowd and said to them…can you fu**ing believe this he is arresting me for saying fu**ing?

Since she swore again he decided she was dangerous and he handcuffed her to his car handle. He said she might have hit him over the head with her purse if he had not handcuffed her. Of course this is now better than cable TV. People are pulling out their digital cameras getting the picture to sell to CNN. I certainly would have been snapping away if I was there. Anyhow the fire department guy ruffles through junk in his car with her handcuffed to the car. He pulls out a citation book and fills out a ticket for her. He then unlocks her handcuffs and allows her and her mother to leave. He finishes his shopping goes back to the fire station.

So that is our 2^nd top news story around here. My question is with a tropical storm that is said to become a hurricane in a few hours does not the fire chief have something better he needs to be doing? Does he have PMS or something. Why did the crowd not start chanting f**k or some such thing to let him know he was pretty much over the top with his abuse of authority?

The biggest story was about the pastor and his wife of Lakewood Church in Houston. Lakewood Church is a non denominational church that is in the Summit. That is the 100,000 seat basketball stadium that was rented to the church. They pay 11.5 million a month in rent and paid 75 million to renovate it. They have 47,000 members and then another that many who have not drank the cool aid yet and signed away parts of their salary to the cause. Now Houston and the Houston area hosts some huge churches and congregations. Of the biggest 100 in the world Houston has ten of them. You can watch our church services on TV around the world and the pastor’s write books and become multi millionaires.

Anyhow, all that being said this is what happened. The  pastor and his  wife were flying back to Houston with their children. One of the kids threw up in the seat on the tray. Johnny on the spot stewardess hands wife some towels at which time wife becomes irate telling the stewardess to clean it up. Stewardess pretends she did not hear that command and then wife gets up out of her seat to exert her authority. Wife gets in stewardess face to tell her to clean it up.  Said other stuff but who cares.   Stewardess reacts like a deer staring into the headlights. So wife tries to get another stewardess in second class to come over and clean it up. That stewardess lives in my neighborhood. She runs off since she is not assigned to 1^st class. She does not want to get involved in it and she wants to protect her job as she knows who these people are.

Finally the wife takes the towels and wipes up the vomit. End of story you would think and just say "another day at the office".

Well staring in the headlight stewardess files a lawsuit for what she decides is 10% of the worth of the celebrity wife. It is $400,000. Stewardess says that she was pushed and traumatized. She had to see a therapist to deal with the trauma and it hampered her at work thinking another customer was going to assault her. She also lost her respect for pastors and churches and essentially lost her religion.

Anyhow, there is nothing really newsworthy about that story but it has been on the front page of our only newspaper in Houston. A paper for 4 milllion people.  I mean quotes of the actual proceedings and then news break-ins with breaking story updates on TV all week.

You see we no longer really get to find out what is happening in the world. Instead we get tabloid smut as news. Like I just turned on the TV and heard about John Edwards having an affair.  He is no longer even running for anything so what differernce does it make now.  Someone else pops in and starts talking about McCain having all kinds of affairs and sewing his ex wife and all kinds of smut.  I just wantto know what he is going to do about illegal immigration, the economy, the war, government corruption, and so on!

Anyhow that is the news from Lake Wobegone.

I dreamed last night that I bought a new camera. I can tell you the price and where I bought it. I was so into the dream that I did not hear my alarm clock. I woke a half hour late. I felt very happy about buying the camera and played with it for the hour drive to work. By the time I got to work I convinced myself that I was just a spoiled brat. I put it out of my head until I got home from work. I looked at my camera and then thought about my own retirement and wondered if I would be satisfied with it in a few years when I would not be in a position financially to just go out and blow that much money.

I then took the camera to the bay to snap a few pictures. It was hot and muggy but it has been a week since I have been out taking pictures. I took some mediocre pictures and then walked over to my neighbors to see if she made any dinner. She had plenty so I sat there and ate. I snapped a few pictures at her house and chatted for a while.

I don’t know if I am going to replace my camera but I might do it! It will get me back into photography and I need to switch my focus again from work. So now I am trying to justify this purchase. Looking at the health benefits because then I will be out walking miles a day. Right now I sit in front of the computer writing 12 hours a day. If I am not doing that I am at work telling everyone what and how to do this and that. I watched myself do that today as if I was out of my body. I wondered if I am sane and rational half way through a meeting.

I got a call on Saturday from our nurse saying one of the counselor’s took a client’s prescription and stapled a note to it that we were to not return it to the client or allow her to fill it. She was not letting the client have access to it and this client is a registered nurse. I told the nurse to over-ride the call and get the script filled since it had been 36 hours since she got the meds. She had hurt her back and the doctor gave her Vicoden. Not a good drug for an addict but that is something that the client and nurse needs to take up with the doctor. We do not have the authority to refuse medication.

I had written up this counselor six weeks ago for a similar situation with her refusing medication to a client. I immediately emailed the counselors supervisor and the counselor. I told the counselor to apply for clinical privileging as a medical doctor and prove she has the proper credentials and I would not report her to the state and would not fire her. If in fact she was practicing outside of the scope of her license she needs to quickly find alternative employment.

So today her supervisor was in the meeting and I asked her what she did about it. BTW the counselor emailed me back saying it was a lie and she did not do that. She blamed the client and the technician. The technician has been with us for about 10 years and had never tried to deny medical care for a client. So I called the technician yesterday and informed her that she was been accused of making that decision and refusing the client the medication. She freaked out and then two other witnesses came forward because they were on the speaker phone when the counselor called and ordered them to deny the client her medication.

Well I watched myself in this meeting as the CEO was trying to persuade me that the witnesses just misunderstood the phone conversation. I did not buy it and tried to get her to look at reality and how this is not a 1^st time situation. I got out the witness statements and gave them to the supervisor and told her to determine where to go with all of this. The CEO continued to try to get me to see that this was a really good person and yada yada yada. I put my hand up and said you are the boss so you decide what YOU are going to do about this. I divorced myself from the situation and handed her an incident report and told her to be sure and document her decisions and actions. I told her that the client who is a nurse is not stupid and surely is aware of her rights and the state would investigate. I left it there and then continued with my presentation. I just in that moment let it go.

So I was watching myself In this engagement and wondering why I was such an intense person and why I was reacting so much to this counselor lying and trying to set up others to take the fall. So right then and there I decided to buy a camera and begin disengaging myself more from the company. I told them I would not be in for the next few days since I had to much writing to do….

I should have listened to my dream before this. My dream was telling me to not get out of bed at 4:30 in the morning and go back to photography. I will but I will still have to be employed for the next 3 years. I don’t qualify for Medicare for that long and can’t be without health insurance. Three years is not long after considering I have been getting up and going to work pretty much every day for 48 years now. Three years is a walk in the park and I think I will get up early tomorrow to walk in the park… More pictures on the way!

The storm was not much of anything.  A lot of wind and 6.2 inches of rain.  No thunder or lightening.  No damaged houses or trees.  Consequently the only pictures I got were of the people watching variety. 

I sat with grandkids all day long.  We played Monopoly and watched the weather station.  Finally we ordered pizza and I took a walk down to the waters edge.  Nobody wanted to come along.  I did get a picture of a kid crossing the ditch with her bike and then a few of random people walking or playing on the beach.  No birds were around and there was just really nothing to take a picture of.  Tomorrow I will go back to work. 

I did get a lot of writing done today and I am almost done with my policy and procedure manual.  I am at page 539.  It is like a very boring novel.  We now have 9 different programs with 9 different funding streams and everyone of them have their own contract requirements.  I am still able to keep it straight in my head what I need to write for each program.  In a week or so I should be done with this project and then I need to get all my records in order.  I keep the safety and QA records and it is a whole lot of stuff.  I need to organize it and create a monthly report from it....  I need 12 reports.  That will take another week and then bring the state on for their inspection. 

Well that's it for now....

Over and Out!

Eudardo is coming for a visit. If you were planning on visiting Galveston or Houston then this is not a good time to come. Nobody here is leaving and we are not expecting company. The good news is that nobody is evacuating. The projected path is aiming almost right at my front door. It is expected that he will dump 10 inches of rain on us very quickly. Someone stole my raincoat at work but with that much rain what’s the point. He is supposed to turn into a hurricane before he comes ashore. If he comes in to the east of me that I am home free. If he hits me head on or goes to the west of me then I better button down the hatches. We will have 8 foot waves and high tide will be at 8 tomorrow morning. Weather permitting and if I won’t blow away I will get out there and get pictures. We are to have 60 to 80 mile per hour winds. At 8 tonight the ship channel closes and Shell Oil is evacuating their platforms out there in the bay. NASA closed at noon today so the employees could go home and get their property protected.

Eudardo’s storm bands will be coming in by midnight. Sea breeze thunder storms are popping up right now but those are not related to the storm. They happen almost every hot day.

So anyway I will try to update you all as this storm decides who to hit. My camera batteries are recharging right now and I just confirmed with a few news outlets that I will be here with my camera. I even charged up my Sony HDD AVCHD handycam. It is rare that I use it but I might for this storm.

I will be able to get online even if there is no power. I have a satellite card but the power on my laptop is limited so you will get brief updates with pictures maybe.

I keep saying I am going to retire but it is getting to be a far off echo. I keep writing grants and getting them. I thought I had a 50/50 get rate this year but suddenly that turned out to be 100%. That meant that we needed 450 beds and 500 outpatient slots. Then to my amazement we got a prevention grant so now I need space to serve 200 children. So at any given time after September we will have 450 to 500 residential women in treatment and about 600 outpatient clients. Over 1,000 women and their children in care every day of the week.

As soon as the grants came in and we signed them we went into over- drive and got space. We have secured 600 beds. We already had 250 of them and we pulled off a Coup Da'Ta of sorts. There is a large beautiful agency in town that opened up in 2005. I and my management team went to their opening back those years ago. I wanted to meet the people who laid out the millions to build the facility and I already knew who their CEO was and we all knew he would do something horrid eventually and end up in prison. He is on his way and as soon as I saw it in the newspaper we set up a meeting with the money donors. The main money guy had already donated several millions and was there daily trying to handle operations. He was the guy we needed to get to know….. We did get to know him very well. He is married and about 80 years old. His children are addicts and I treated his daughter when she was an adolescent. That was over 20 years ago. He remembered me. So since then he has been very committed to setting up substance abuse treatment centers. He dumped oodles of money in this place and it is beautiful. He is actually in the building architecture business and has designed many of the most famous buildings in the Houston area. That generates his multiple millions.

In the last few years he has been designing and constructing low income homes. He decided all parenting women need to own their own home so the clients who go through his program own their own homes after treatment. Well now it is our program. It was a fight between us and the Catholic Diocese. His son sits on the board of the Catholic Diocese. It goes to prove blood is not thicker than water…

About 8 years ago the catholic Diocese tried a Coup Da'Ta with our agency but we saw through it in time to deflect it. We were much smaller then and so they are really putting themselves out to associate with us now. The archbishop even is involved and so we invited him to be the speaker at our 50 year in business celebration. I was able to track down a nun who worked in our agency back in 1954. She was in a nursing home. We brought her to the event and I was able to update her on what has happened to the agency since she left in 1957…when I was 10 years old. She was interested but I don’t think she heard very much of it. I pushed her around in her wheel-chair and introduced her to everyone I ran into….Poor old gal! But it was a day out of the nursing home.

At this time we are the largest substance abuse treatment facility specifically designed for women in the country. Now the goal is to be the best!

So if I am missing in action now you know why…. (and another grant RFP just hit my desk) OMG!