who are you civil warring against?

 politics tends to come up with a certain very conservative minded co-worker.  as he began to speak of guns rights...not sure how that came up but he falls back to the usual canned answers of all guns rights advocates.  no point trying to introduce alternative ways of seeing this...anyway, he mentioned he is armed and ready for Civil War basically.  of course, i dropped the discussion at that point as again, there is not much point in it...but who does he plan to go after in his civil war..people such as myself, who are more liberal minded?  anyone who gets in the way of the agenda of the GOP? illegal aliens? legal citizens of alternate back grounds and colors? gays?  who does he think he will be killing with these guns he plans on taking into battle against his fellow citizens? 

 the "only the bad guys will have guns" argument is always silly to me.  most guns in our nation begin as legal guns.  due to lax controls and poor enforcement these guns often change hands often and then enter the illegal world.  less legal guns will eventually mean less illegal guns.  that is too rational though.

 at work, i never really know when one of the patients or their family members will become violent.  we have no metal detectors.  often people are coming in and out of our hospital...other than a few security guards scattered about and a few dogs that are apparently only on certain hours, not 24 hours yet...we are on our own.

 I've no doubt that knives and probably some guns as well enter unchecked and unknown.  all it takes is for the wrong person to get agitated and pull something out.  we are all surprised it doesn't happen in more ER's.  tempers flare in people who are in crisis or who are dealing with family in crisis...even if the crisis is really only in their head.  many people have an odd sense of what is really a crisis in their lives. 

 not too long ago i entered a patients room to find that patient was openly carrying a 10 inch blade...at the time he easily relinquished the potentially lethal weapon...not long after this, this patient became very agitated. that is just what i see. 

 if i lived on the street I'd be packing whatever weapon i could find.  they come in here layered up...who knows what lies in the many pockets in the many layers of clothing.

 anyway...it is funny to me that my co-worker doesn't seem to realize as he lightly banters about this civil war that he would be willing to participate in....the people he would be aiming his weapons at are no doubt people like myself...libtards and snowflakes.  the enemy of Christianity apparently. the horrid people who would like to preserve beauty rather than hand it over to major corporations...many of whom are based in other nations and would simply move the profits elsewhere.  horrid people who want to make sure that every child in America has access to healthcare and good education...terrible people like that...we should be killed, we should be eradicated.  how dare we want our tax dollars going to Social Security and Medicaid rather than to the building of more and more weapons and the war machine and the tearing down of our parks and the polluting of our waters. we must be stopped...i mean Moore and Trump clearly demonstrate that electing in libtards is far worse than voting in perverts and child molesters. 

 it was just an odd thing to hear.  it may come to civil war and a purging of libtards, snowflakes, gays and anyone who is not in the correct race/religion. 

 a comedian was doing a monologue about patriotism vs nationalism.  to be patriotic is to love your country.  to love all.  to want the country to grow and improve.  to be nationalistic is to say we are number one, we are the greatest...we are already there, we don't need to improve, we don't need any change.  it was Sarah Silverman. "nationalism equals flags, marching, blind allegiance".  some find this comforting and others may be made uncomfortable...

 "nationalistic movements tend to exploit patriotism for their own cause"...meaning if you say something like "make America Great again" you are drawing from peoples patriotism to sucker them into somehow believing they will be more patriotic if they follow you. simple but very different.  it was an interesting monologue for that reason...it's easy to think the two things are the same.  really being patriotic is more of a general love of country whereas nationalism tends to be more of a we are the best, brings in the us vs them mentality.

 work....3 nights, all in the ER.  funny how the days tend to blur a bit.  it was a mixture of taking regular ER patients and taking hold patients.  i had fun co-workers all week.  even though the one co-worker thinks much differently than i do.  we work well together and generally we just avoid those topics.  before the election this co-worker had mentioned that he only got his news from Fox.  that really tells me all i need to know.  he seems to have backed off this a bit. 

 I'm still hoping for Hannity to end up mixed up in something nefarious. would love to see that airbag deflated. 

 it has remained warmish, wet and icy.  i missed two days of walks this week, which is super rare...that generally only happens if i am sick.  even then i usually only skip one day. tough to get enthused.

 did make it to University Lake two days in a row now.  today it was dark by the time i finished up my walk.  i figured we would lose the tennis ball, but it survived. 

 stopped by work after to waste a drug i had accidentally left in my pocket.  i think i threw off the day shift showing up so early...better to waste that fast...of course, i was walking in the park with this small dose of a narcotic in my pocket in fear I'd be jumped and it would get stolen and I'd then be in big trouble. 

 as a female you learn to live a bit paranoid anyway.  i was in a park after dark.  i took a few side trails.  at one point a guy on a bike came up behind me.  your brain suddenly goes to defense mode.  i know men need to be aware of their surroundings as well, especially in big cities, but women and girls have to be hypervigilent in the art of self protection.

 i went home a few hours early one night, i walked with a purpose to my car, kept a watch all around me for potential safety issues.  places someone could hide. 

 most women i know do all this without really a thought to what all they do minute to minute to protect themselves. it becomes innate.  you glance under the car, look in the back seat, you lock the doors immediately. in every situation you learn over the years to try and prevent

 these are leftovers from the sunset the other night. 

 loved the colors and the reflections

 some ice in the pond below.

 the ice did make this walk easier.  usually there would have been loads of skiers and walkers out there on a weekend.  many avoided walking due to the ice. 

 i suspect there have been some broken bones this week from folks slipping on the ice or little car wrecks.

 always odd to hear dripping outside in the winter.  i think we hit the low 40's today and will again tomorrow...that is super warm to us. 

 helped out with an ICU patient in the ER before i took off early the other morning.  figured I'd just pop in.  it is funny, when you have worked ICU as long as i have you sort of go into the zone when you enter a room like that.  as i was leaving the same co-worker from above appeared impressed and he said something about how much i had appeared to be in my element in there.  last night again, around the other ER nurses, he made a comment that he got to watch me in action as an ICU nurse. 

 it is really nice to hear comments like that.  i mean as a single person i don't hear much by way of compliments. 

 I've never really been great at taking compliments but that doesn't mean i don't like hearing them from time to time. 

 i try to just smile and say thank you...even as part of me is questioning the validity of the compliment in my head.  surely they are just being nice and lying to me and don't really believe whatever they are complimenting me on...or worse that what they really mean is the opposite of what they just complimented me on.  I'm still in training...but it's not hopeless.

 looking back at the sunset from the trail.  kept worrying i had left too soon...the colors seemed to get even better...but it was getting darker and moose get harder to spot as it gets darker.

 it grayed out before i got back to the car though. 

 just a few from today's trek out at the University Lake.

 a few lit trees along the trail

 these are new in the ER...they are remodeling and adding to the Peds section. i was happy to see these cute walrus on the walls.

 looking down on my Christmas tree.

 the rest are from night two at Hunter Cabin

 of course, that is the big mountain

 my fellow cabin mates.  adorable!

 dinner from KR...thanks!!  it was tasty!

 the sunset evolved and just kept getting more and more beautiful

 here is the cabin....from the rear.

 laundry day, cat litter day.  the dog poop...well it's pretty much a lost cause this week.  always a week like that.  hopefully some snow comes and then i will have to recoup the lost poops in the spring.

 that is my exciting life. 

 we did a few walks without any jumping at all from Ivy Rose...today, she did a bit of leaping.  I'm sure my being tired didn't help.  also working a few nights means some extra energy. 

 they are high energy pups. 

 another look at Denali....too late in the year for any climbers to be out there.

 laundry is nearly complete...so nice. i love fresh sheet day...especially after we found a bed bug last night that had come from a clean linen cart tucked in a patient room.  gross.  i itched the rest of the night.  fumigation will happen. we taped off the room. 

grateful for:  A.  my work as a nurse, it makes me grateful for what i have every day   B. crawling into fresh sheets C.  simple Christmas entertainment that still makes me smile...watched the cartoon Grinch before i headed to work last night.