Tag team back again

I guess we are playing a little game of invisible tag-team since I am going to follow in the wake of Taradise and Mike and give some resolutions for the rest of my summer.  It's hard to think of things I still want to accomplish before the end of summer.  So I'm designating the end of my summer at the end of Sept.  

1.Get all my shoes shined for free at the hotel (one down, three to go).

2. Read something, anything with intelligent overtones.  

3. Keep my eyes open the entire time for the open heart surgery I get to see first hand tomorrow.

4. Be equally in love with someone else.

5. Buy myself something really expensive and frivolous.

6. Go with a center-part for my hair again.

7. Watch Batman.

8. Wake up before 10am everyday.

9. Sit, sit, sit on the porch as much as I can.

10. Just lay in the grass.

11. Stop rolling my eyes.

They all seem kind of generic and boring but to me they sound just right.  My summer has been anything but boring so far so I feel like I need to reverse the trend and just ahhhhhhhh.

The skin-care Olympics '08

I'm here at the beach in North Carolina soaking up the sun.  Or at least as much sun as SPF 45 allows me to soak up.  I decided two summers ago now that that would be my last summer to fully bronze myself.  Let's face it, the sun just isn't good for you in large amounts.  And I want to have firm, taught, wrinkle-less skin when I'm 50.  It can be done.  It will be done.  But not if I keep vacationing with these people.  I'm up against the impossible.  A skin type so dangerous it comes in second to Native American genes: Jewish skin.  They tan until they look dirty.  A tan sooo deep that they look like walking cadavers with their muscles exposed.  It is almost a sight to behold.  Never have I seen such tanning abilities!  If there were a tanning Olympics they would easily take first place in all the tanning events; best base tan, worst tan lines, deepest hue of red, disguising yourself as a different race, etc.  The Jamaican and Barbados teams would still be oiling up while this family easily coasted to the first place win.  A metals sweep.  

And then there is me.  Dark hair, pale skin.  I have the skin that thinks it's bacon and likes to crisp up in the sun.  Sure, I can tan a little.  But it gets to a point when it's more freckles than anything else.  And I don't keep it very well.  But I've come to terms with that.  I just will never get how I can walk into a room here with my forehead cherry red and have everyone tell me that I "got some nice color today" when at home everyone, especially my mother, would remark "oooh, you got burned today.  You need to wear sunblock.  You are going to look old and wrinkly if you keep doing that".  Tomatoe, tomato.  One of my favorite games is to put my arms next to my nephews and feel better about myself because they are practically see-through.  But here when I put my arms next to someone else's I am practically see-through.  And I will always be see-through here in Jewish skin land.  

WARNING: Due to the graphic nature of this blog, readers are advised

The reason I get to be Eloise and live in a hotel is because I work here.  There are 440 high school kids mostly from Texas staying here for 10 days because they want a career in the medical field.  What this means for me is long days, short night sleeps and seeing really, really gross things.  Yesterday the county medical investigator came and spoke to the students and brought pictures.  Really graphic pictures of homicidal investigations.  Bones, blood, maggots, shattered heads, stab wounds, etc.  I couldn't look at most of the pictures.  Especially the man in Alabama who had his head bashed in with a two by four.  No bueno.  Weird things happen in Alabama.  Remind me not to go there.  

Then we watched a live total knee replacement surgery where the kids got to ask the surgeon questions while he worked.  I thought I wouldn't be able to watch it but it was pretty amazing so I watched the whole thing - even when they got the drill out.  

But I saved the best for last.  There are a couple nights where we have about 20 speakers come to talk to groups of students about their specialties.  It isn't always physicians or residents so they can get an idea of other professions within the medical field.  We had an art therapist, someone on domestic violence, a woman who makes artificial limbs for children, yada, yada.  But the best one we had was a midwife who delivered her OWN five children before she was even a midwife.  Because "in the 70s they were still tying women down to the table to deliver" she told me before she spoke.  Um...were you at a veterinarians hospital?  That doesn't sound right.  So she became a midwife to help others.  So she speaks to the students and tells them how bad doctors and hospitals are and how she only had to pay $5 to become a midwife.  Awesome, tell the kids all they have to do is pay $5 to be able to deliver other peoples children.  Then she shows them a video of a water birth she did with a completely naked woman in kiddie pool with her husband massaging her back and her 3 year playing in the pool at the same time.  So a kid asks her if there is a chance for bacterial infection with the other child playing in the pool at the same time and she tells him "no, they're a family".  Last time I checked, bacteria was not bowing to family ties.  And the cherry on top was the slides she showed after the water birth of her own vagina.  That's right, her own vagina during birth.  The kids were all freaked out about her showing her own body parts.  Needless to say she is not being invited back.  But it made the rest of us laugh pretty hard.  

That story almost over-shadowed the MASSIVE hernia I saw today in an ER.  Nasty. 

D-Day

They're coming.  The kids are coming.  440 of them will descend on my home between the hours of 1-5 pm.  They will be invading my front lobby, my elevators, taking my granny smith apples from the front desk.  I mentioned this to a couple of British Airways pilots sharing the shuttle with us today and their response went a little like this: "expletive, are you joking?  Expletive, expletive, expletive....".  I think they are excited, and why shouldn't they be?  440 teenagers with raging hormones and big brothers to buy them alcohol is any hotel guests idea of a pleasant stay.  I'm just glad I'm getting payed to be here.  

We've been warned about the poor flight crews who stay here also.  Not warned about them, just warned about how terrible it is for them to be waken up in the middle of the day by 40 kids acting out triage from a fake disaster.  I've seen 3 different airlines represented here so far.  I met a flight attendant from KLM today and made sure to tell her that when I was on a long layover in Amsterdam I stayed away from the naughty bits of town.  Although someone told me yesterday that the prostitutes there have their own union.  I can only imagine what happens when they go on strike.  The whole city crippled begging the city to meet the demands of the prostitutes.  The garbage piles up, the backpackers begin to up-rise and the baguettes cease to be fresh.  We can't have that.  

Wish me luck!  

WELCOME HOME

I feel like Eloise.  I live in a hotel. 

 A nice hotel.  And the people who work he

re are so cordial!  "Yes ma'am, we will drive you wherever you want no charge".  "Yes ma'am, we can bring a refrigerator up to your room at no charge".  My own mini-fridge at no extra charge?  I'll take it!  True, it may smell faintly like Indian food inside but so do Indians and that doesn't stop me from talking to them.  I have this great corner room with windows that wrap around showcasing the almost flat Houston skyline.

My bed is GINORMOUS 

and I just know that if I run around the hotel in my little black skirt/suspenders outfit that the hotel guests and staff would just laugh and laugh at all the little pranks I pulled just like Eloise.  The only downfall seems to be the lack of dental floss at the front desk.  They told me I'd have to buy it in the gift shop.  What?!  Me?  Buy my own dental floss?  Preposterous.  I almost jumped across the front desk and slapped Olga for that one.   Oh....and there is one more problem here at the Houston Renaissance Marriott - they couldn't make the sun come out for the 4th of July.  Oh well, guess you can't have everything.

Or can you?  Cause I'm getting my shoes shined right now for free and enjoying complimentary beverages from my mini-fridge.  HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!