Sunday, December 21, 2008

Three blog-worthy items.

(Picasa 3 rocks. Just so you know.)


Item #1: She's So Unusual.

This is Paige, my unique child. The number one reason I'm blogging today is to share with you this piece of correspondance I found sitting on our coffee table this morning. But first, a coffee table note from earlier in the week.

"Dear Santa I just want to say merry Christmas. P.S. I hope my brown stuff dog is fixed and I reall want it to look brand new. Here it is. From Paige Veen. Was I a good girl?"

The deal is, she's figured out that Santa's got a whole big workshop where he works on toys, so it only stands to reason, if the ear falls off your favorite 'stuff dog', sweet talk the man in red, and presto... free toy repairs.

And today:

Paige's handwriting: "Dear Santa can you come to my school pleas? Can you also write your anser right under these qustins pleas?"

Chantze's handwriting: "No I will not, I hate kids and school and really hate little girls that tell me to right this crap so stop asking."

I'm so proud of my son. It's exactly what I would have written if I'd found the note first.

Paige's handwriting (on back): "P.S. If I'm still coughing on Christmas can you get me cogh drops so I don't cought pleas?"

Item #2: Prescription for Ham.

Just thought I'd share this cuz it's had me chuckling for a few days now. One of the doctors I work with is super-rich, and super-busy, and super-generous, but super-busy. CRAZY busy. The man seems to like working with me and he's always sure to ask about my family, although I know he'll never remember their names. But that's okay. He makes up for it with that generousity thing I mentioned. Friday afternoon, at the end of our last surgery together, he's charting in the corner of the operating room and he's got his prescription pad out. He says, "Hey Ray, do you and your family like to eat ham?" (He's a foreigner, did I mention?) Then he's holding out a little slip of paper, "You take this to my butcher, he knows me, he will give you a nice ham."

He had honest-to-God written 'ham for Christmas' on one of his scripts. I was like, "Dude, did you just write me a prescription for meat?"

Item #3: Weather recap.


This was probably really irresponsible, but the snow was so high on my back deck, I had to grab the closest thing to demonstrate the scale of the depth. This photo probably cost me my best guitar. (The bottom edge that you can see -- that's eighteen inches up from my carpet -- crazy, no?)

29 comments:

Debra Lynn Shelton said...

Ray, First of all, I didn't know you're a musician. As you may know, I'm a musician, too. Can I tell you how wrong it is to stick a beloved guitar in the snow? You must let me know if it recovers from your masochistic measuring endeavor.

And, btw, what do you do in the OR? Are you a doc, nurse, or what? My husband's a pediatrician, although he works for a big pharma company in charge of safety for cancer meds. I can't wait to tell him about the RX for ham. Was that qd, bid, tid, or qid?

Sarah J Clark said...

1.) I love your little girls! That story was too sweet!

2.) You did NOT just stick your guitar in the snow! Shame. On. You.

I hope Santa sees that!

Ray Veen said...

Crap. You two commented while I was fixing the spelling errors. I feel like I've just been caught in my skivvies.

Debra - I am a 'surgical technologist', a.k.a. 'scrub nurse', a.k.a. 'scrub'. I usually just go by 'scrub'.

So the doctor didn't indicate a frequency, but I noticed that there was a spot to indicate refills -- I was tempted to circle ten.

He'd have probably thought that was funny.

Sarah - I have ASVS. It's only available on the underground tech market and it's expensive as all get out, but it's well worth it.

(ASVS stands for "Anti-Santa-Vision Shielding")

Ray Veen said...

DEBRA - I almost forgot. Go back a couple posts if you want to see a video of me playing guitar. Cuz I was the star of the whole thing -- those girls were just trying to hog the spotlight.

K. M. Walton said...

Christmas meat story = funny.

And, I really liked your son's response. Again, funny.

Bryan B. said...

Dude...your guitar?

VeeFlower said...

Poor guitar. I'm sure if you wiped it off really quickly it will be okay. My guitar always gets wet at beach parties (when the dew falls--no kidding) and so far it's survived.
Sweet, adorable, where-in-the-heck did-she-come-from Paige, I love her to pieces. Chantze is getting a piece of coal, though.
Did the Doc say if the ham could be shared with family? Just kiddin, we have our own!

Tracey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tracey said...

Your kids make me laugh.

You call that snow?! I laugh at your snow!!! In fact I am typing this from a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere with my hubby & kids because the highways are closed due to a snowstorm (we were on our way home from Christmas with my inlaws).

Vikki said...

See, now this is why I'm tempted to have more kids. Watching them mess with each other like that would be priceless.

And, um...please confirm that you've removed the poor defenseless guitar from the snow so my eye can stop twitching.

Ray Veen said...

KM - My son inherited my sense of humor which is weird considering I adopted him.

Bryan - Yeah. The guitar. It made a weird cracking noise about three seconds after I stuck it in the snow. Don't know what that was but it seems okay now.

Vee - The doctor said I could share it with people, but he specifically mentioned how ham is NOT for recovering open-heart patients. Sorry. You can watch us eat it if you like.

Tracey - Don't laugh at our snow, geez. It's impressive snow. And it seems like a lot when I'm shoveling it. So guess who just lost their robot-plow privaleges?

Vivi - The guitar froze to my deck. I'll have to wait til Spring to get it back. I'll let you know then if it's okay.

And I highly recommend multiple slaves. (er, I mean 'children' of course)

Tracey said...

ok. I'm sorry I laughed. Can I still borrow the robot-plow?

Anonymous said...

The letters to Santa were too cute...I hope her stuff dog gets fixed.

Chad and Carrie said...

Ray, Ever hear of a yard stick? It does a great job of letting you know exactly how deep the snow is. With your picture I am not so sure that I could trust the measurment.... I mean how do I know you don't play the Ukelale???

Madison said...

Aw, your kids sound so cute! There must never be a dull moment at your house! :D

Merry Christmas! :D

Ray Veen said...

Tracey - Consider your robot-plow privaleges re-bestowed. But only on a probationary basis. One more crack about our Michigan snow, and so help me...

Lisa - Cindy laughed in her face and tossed the stuff dog into the garbage can. You know how cruel she can be, right? We're all a little scared being snowed in here with her.

Chad - It was a guitar, I swear. At least it started out that way: now it really is ukelale-sized. Cuz as any guy knows -- sudden and bitter cold causes shrinkage.

Madison - We actually do have dull moments from time-to-time, only we call them, 'closet-quality-moments'. For the occasional peace and quiet, Cindy will lock all of our children in the closet with a five pound bag of potatoes which they have to peel in the dark before they can come back out.

You know how cruel she can be, right?

Anonymous said...

Is it okay to stick a guitar in the snow? Depends on how good you are at playing the guitar. Jimi Hendrix lit guitars on fire. Rock stars smash them all the time. And like abused women, guitars keep lining up to be played by these guys. So if you have a certain amount of skill, your guitar will forgive you.

Keri Mikulski said...

So cute.. :) The kids not the snow.

The guitar is kind of rock star bad assish. :)

bunnyjo georg said...

Awww-aw! She is so darn cute I wish you could bottle all that cuteness up, and I could sprinkle it all over myself every morning so I don't act like such a bitch. Ew, everytime I go and try to say something nice it comes out all snarky. Truly, though, I love that little darlin. Makes me wanna go out and get her a bigger prezzie for Christmas!

Do you think you could get the rich old doctor to write me an Rx for bacon from his butcher? That would be yum-yumier than stupid old ham.

Hey, if you ruin your guitar by sticking it in the snow, does that mean you are going to want your other one back that you lent me like 5 years ago? Cuz I need time to make repairs. ;)

shortensweet said...

Paige is such a little cutie. Chantze...well, i'm not sure what to say about him other than, job well done.

Your kids are going to need a shrink for sure.

Bring the ham to my new house. Oh wait, nevermind, I don't have a fridge. Tell paige to ask Santa for that for me.

Elizabeth said...

This snow is like the end of days. It's everywhere! Maybe the spaceship is coming...and your wish for robots is nigh.

Ray Veen said...

Blackbird - Yeah, I don't think my guitar will hold a grudge. It's perfectly aware of all the abuse I could expose it to, but choose not to.

Keri - Just the guitar? Cuz I was kind of going for bad assish myself.

Bunny - Tell me more about these guitar repairs. As long as it still looks good I'm okay, cuz that guitar was always a piece. It just looked cool.

Shorty - Actually, I picked the thing up today, and it's MONSTROUS. We might need some help on Christmas Eve (which, I just found out, I'm going to have off work).

Elizabeth - If there's a spaceship coming, it's most likely white. So let me know if you need some of my robots to defend your home.

colbymarshall said...

Haha both Santa letter and his "reply" were hilarious! Thanks for sharing that!

bunnyjo georg said...

Oh, don't worry about the repairs. It is how to get the smell out that has me concerned.

VeeFlower said...

Don't tell me B.J., the girls used it like they did the bongo drums and the hat and the secret toilet that was an overstuffed armchair?! LOL!

bunnyjo georg said...

There are worse things than a secret potty.

shortensweet said...

Right...like having it discovered.

VeeFlower said...

The secret potty remains one of my favorite hilarious memories. Sorry, but the things kids think to do and their reasoning for it is so crazy-funny....the secret potty ranks right up there with the time Grace cleaned the toilet with your toothbrush and when I gasped in dismay, she said, "That's okay, she never uses it." Now I have to close because my chest hurts from laughing....sorry....no cartoon could be as funny as real life!

Amy said...

WHERE can I find a doctor who will prescribe pork? WHERE??