sniffing play-doh.....

 worked PICU last night.  stressful week so when the girl gets stressed she sniffs play-doh.  don't judge.  haha.

 a few last shots from the beach the other day and then the rest will be of Byers Lake.

 we have hit the dog park the last few days.  Ivy seems to not be coughing anymore.  Tusker has had some coughing in the mornings but not much beyond that so i think they had a pretty abbreviated case of kennel cough. 

 worked my three nights. first two in the adult ICU and the last one in PICU.  raw emotion...you have no idea if you help some nights with all that but you try.  you can't fix some stuff and there are really no words...but you do the best you can.  will say a little prayer for them all. 

 started the slow process of taking out the dry wall, which seems like it will come off in little bits. working on a ladder above your head does take a toll on you...will be a work out.  will get her done though, even if it moves slower than desired.

 we took a hike around Byers Lake.  beautiful.

 i also managed to get my PALS and BLS computer stuff done so I'm good with that for a bit...just have the ACLS to get done.  mine isn't actually due for a few months though.  i had time though, which is pretty amazing.

 the first bridge on the hike is getting a bit rough.  they worried more about the far end, which has dropped down but is still passable.  the section at the closer end is the one that turned out to get my friend and she flipped into the water below.  the boards were loose. i think she would have recovered when the first board flipped up on her but she stepped back onto a second board that was also loose and flipped up on her.  thankfully, no injuries.

 we decided they should probably just pull those boards out so people see clearly they are gone and can then just step over the gaps.  mind the gap.

 this is the far end.

 the pups and i hit the dog park the last two days.  i had higher ambitions for today but i failed to wake up early enough. 

 it's been a bit of a week.  all this politics is stressful for so many.  i think for many women i know our experiences in the past have grumbled up a bit to cause some anxiety and stress.  we are supposed to have just left our molestation experiences behind us.  buried things to re-surface. 

 a few of my eldest brothers posts have caused stress to their daughters and nieces.  i think it is easy for others to forget that those wounds are always there below the surface.  when you defend someone like this nominee you can come off as seen as a bit clueless i guess.  he had a reputation in college and high school and i do suspect he may have little to no memory of the events that this woman or these women experienced with him.  that does not mean it doesn't bring in to question his ability to do this job.

 i do not believe he has the temperament.  i also believe he has falsely responded to many questions during this hearing and quite frankly the other, where he was evasive. the whole process has been evasive on the part of the the GOP members. so many documents that were just not released.  he was pretty clear that he is extremely partisan and that he can't control his animosity towards those who believe differently than himself, this is not an acceptable trait for on on the highest court.  he is in no way entitled to this position.  he may want it badly but he is  not entitled. 

 SNL did a hilarious skit on his portion of the hearing.  they nailed it completely.  must see for sure.

 just watching another clip now...joking that if you are trying to get on the highest court and are being accused of assaulting a woman while you were drunk, perhaps announcing over and over that you like beer and drank beer and that you worked out all the time with your buddies may not help your case ...haha.

 they also brought up all those new vocabulary words/phrases we all get to learn from the Religious Right GOP...thinks like boofing and devils triangle?  he totally lied about the meaning of these phrase, which i have no doubt, he totally knew exactly what they meant. he had put them in his yearbook comments.  he then tried to throw the yearbook staff under the bus like they took liberties with every ones statements in the book. I'm sure he was embarrassed to say that boofing?  is not farting but is instead giving yourself some sort of beer enema in front of his parents. or that the devils triangle isn't a "drinking game" but is another game where a girl is giving a blowjob to one guy while another guy is screwing her from behind..nice.  yes, he's supreme court material.

 how he has created his life into one of being a choir boy, that is great, but it doesn't erase the past. 

 you lie under oath it's a lie, even if it's about ridiculous stuff like boofing and devils triangles. 

 this is the level we have all been brought to in our nation.  the GOP wants to blame it all on the Dems...the have, for years, had difficulty taking any personal responsibility for what their party has brought to the mess at the table. 

 some women caught Senator Flake in an elevator and they made him at least take pause in what is happening on their little committee.  it's a disgrace...

 Senator Hatch acts all pious but i have now heard some interesting stories of where his hands have been known to wander.  why do men have to get so gross when they are given power. i do hope we get some women in positions of power, our nation needs it.  these old white dudes need to retire. 

 so Flake left a meeting the other day...it was turning into yet another partisan screaming match.  he met with some Dems and it was decided the FBI should reopen the vetting process and check out these stories...well nobody is really sure at this point what the FBI will be allowed to investigate.  from what we know of the DC GOP they have some crazy plan up their sleeve to make sure to take the basic process off the rails in order to get their way. 

 the GOP is for sure a my way or the highway group. they are just convinced that they are always right, that their way is the only way, and that somehow they have the sole support of GOD. i don't think any God would want anything to do with this mess of a supreme court pick.  they have a list of similar total right wing nuts I'm sure who didn't drink so much in high school and college they attacked women and have no memory of it.

 we had another beautiful day today. this entire month has been amazing.  i know, i have not gotten in the big hikes that i keep seeing posted but i have still enjoyed the weather.

 I'll try to get more dry wall down tomorrow again.  that and the Monday walk of course.  I'd check the weather forecast but so far I'm just enjoying it day by day. should hit the grocery store tomorrow as well.

 kept thinking Tusker or Ivy would notice these salmon and go on the chase but they never did. 

 then we saw this family of swans.  so cute.

 at this point we are over half way around the lake. my friend is convinced the hike is much longer than the stated 5 mile loop.

 pups at the end of the boardwalk. 

 they have put in a brand new bridge at the other end of the lake.  pretty swanky. 

 while all this craziness was happening in the US, across the globe, in Indonesia, a rather large quake followed by a tsunami happened. the death toll last i saw was over 800 and sure to grow. 

 one friend just posted a photo of a note on their apartments trash area door, a bear is trapped inside...crazy life. 

 reading about a helicopter crash. i heard tonight that they have called off the search for survivors..there was only one, a teenager.  lost are his father, brother and the pilot of the helicopter.  sounds like it was a business helicopter.  they purchased it in Texas, brand new and were flying it back north.  the crash happened in southeast AK.  very sad.

 coast guard has been busy these past weeks it sounds like up here.  they rescued 5 people in an area out side of Bethel Tununak area.  they were in a skiff that had lost power and was taking on water.  they did not have enough life jackets for all on board.  40 mph winds and 6 foot seas in a skiff...that is a disaster waiting to happen. 

 a man went missing off a fishing vessel as well i guess, but the Coast Guard suspended that search as well.   in other local news a man from Tennessee died when his car hit a moose on the Parks highway. 

 more local news Track Palin, of the Sarah Palin family, was charged with assault and resisting arrest.  he's also had a history of attacking his father and there is another domestic abuse incident a few years back i think...i think this one was announced the same day Sarah flew out to one of Trump's rallies before he won.  i remember listening to her speak a bit, she sounded off the rails, it didn't make a lot of sense, the folks at his rally would probably not notice since they are used to listening to him speak.  i figured she'd drank the entire flight. 

 only the best of the best...hahahahaha.

 reading a story about a hunter who shot a bear up hill from him?  not sure what really that story is,  but must not have been a clean shot. thought i read the bear and a rock the bear caused to fall as he fell hit the hunter?  i think this one is new, probably in tomorrows paper. all kind of crazy happens out there.

 that poor little 10 year old that was found dead, was raped before she was killed it sounds like. sure hope this guy doesn't get a pass on this crime like the other recent case up here. so frustration.

 Ivy settles in for the night.  she looks pretty comfy on my bed!

 these are the start of the trek across the Denali Highway. 

 more to come but i shall head to bed. 

thankful for: A. the women in my life, blood or not, we become blood.  thanks for listening.  B. being able to bring comfort to those that need comfort, even if it is sometimes never enough.  C.  nieces, they are pretty amazing.