e diel, 27 prill 2008

Playing catch up...

And actually having some time to do so!! Whoo Hoo! After ARC girls week from another place you don't want to go to ...it has been nice to not have the phone ring.



Friday morning Myself and another volunteer drove out to Eastbrook again and met with all the teachers at the school where the young boy attended that died in the fire last weekend. They do not have a guidance counselor on staff, so they are borrowing one from another school. We shared our perspective of the family, the brother and just basic psychological first aid for the students and the staff themselves. Really liked their superintendent, who got them all together for this, and who had done this with other staff before. And that folks was the end of the week, I went back to the office and closed it!!!!! Hillary was going to be at a wedding all weekend but everyone knew my number, I had checked all the weather service flooding reports and everything was status quo except the Canadian Border..and quite frankly...thats not exactly my chapter..so until it becomes bigger than they can handle...I was "going home"



Don went to his Dad's for the night to straighten out Red's finances and go out to camp and check on it...still snow and Ice on the camp road and in the lake!

Tyler had Becky over for dinner so Mark drove her and we had sausages and potato salad and a pre summer BBQ meal for a Friday night! Spring and Summer might actually be on its way!



Now its Sunday, and I have Guiness Brownies in the oven, a couple of sewing projects to do and some free time...what a luxury! Don't think Tyler is looking forward to going back to school but he is definitely on the down hill slide now..Graduation will be in about 6 weeks, with lots of stuff going on, in between including a trip to DC to get Care's stuff. Plus he is in the middle of his mural project, so he has something to keep him very occupied.
So happy Sunday all....

e mërkurë, 23 prill 2008

Day off!!!!

The ARC girl had a day off from ARC!! Fresh off two television appearances, phone interviews and basically the weekend from you know where...she took the day off and NO one was allowed to call her cell!!! AND it worked!! Ok, ok, I really don't need an agent, just mental health!!
Besides I promised Tyler I would be at his "Beck and Call" for the day.


Which meant Beck-y! New "friend". So we headed out and picked her up...(the daughter of a dear friend by the way!) and off to Bangor, for some shopping, lunch and a movie. First stop of course though the ARC office to meet Pat and Hillary. Tyler got the full scoop on how the "wanted" poster of his mother came to be, and Hillary and Lynn were overwhelmed by his height! (not that they wouldn't be, sorry girls you are short!). Then off to AC Moore to buy paint for his 8th grade project which is a large mural on one wall at the school. It is the first time a student has ever been given permission to do something like this. He had to take his design before the school board and principal for approval.
After that we had lunch at Chili's, where those two continued to chatter away, which they had been doing since I picked her up in Ellsworth.

Movie for the afternoon was Forgetting Sarah Marshall...funny, cute, and boy do they show alot in an R rated movie now...or am I just a 'conservative mother!!' Yikes! Ok, I know its not PG 13!
Then back to Becky and Marks house for some chili..(and some wine!)

All in All a great day, spent with two kids who just laughed and giggled the whole day, and I didnt have to think, cook, or answer the phone! Of course I did tell everyone if they did have messages for me not to call but just send it in an email...(19) when I got home...still worth the peace and quiet of a true mental health day!! (other than of course that consistent hum coming from those two kids who never ever stopped talking to each other!)

Back to work tommorow ...ARC girl

e hënë, 21 prill 2008

TM 4/19/08

Do All the Good you Can
By All the Means you Can
In All the Ways you Can
In All the Places you Can
At All the Times you Can
To All the People you Can
As Long as Ever you Can

-John Wesley 1791


All I can say.... after Saturday April 19th, and responding to a fire that resulted in the death of a
12 year old boy, his father the fire chief air lifted to Portland, and a large extended family dealing with their losses, and the complicated scene before them.

This work is hard at times, but I can honestly say that was truly the most complicated and difficult scene I will probably see in a long while. Jean Dickson was my right arm, and did an exceptional job for her first case...the fire departments really leaned on us to take care of certain aspects of the day...and we all functioned exceptionally within the chaos. Everything I have ever learned or read probably came into play. There is much more to do on this case, but for now ..

Enough is Enough...

ARC girl

e mërkurë, 16 prill 2008

Calls, Concerts and Conferences..

Ok, there has to be an end to this constant roller coaster ride...called work...yesterday there were two conference calls one was 2 hours long! and I ended up driving to Bangor between them, to help out with an AFES case, ended up getting a fire call and I honestly don't remember what else..and then on the way home I get a call that the fire client lost...LOST the debit card! So I start to head back to the Ellsworth office to activate another one...just as I get to town, they call from Presque Isle to say he found it!! Good thing..I was heading home to pick up Tyler for a concert back in Ellsworth.

Jefferson Starship, which should have just renamed themselves (again!) Jefferson Airplane, because that's the music they did...and quite well...played at the little old Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth Maine. A friend and I took our two teenagers who seemed to just love it. There was a female singer who apparently had the role of Janis Joplin off Broadway and she did Grace Slick like nobody's business. She was worth the concert alone...one of the original members..looking like an old hippie straight out of Haight Ashbury had the audience roaring over his Catholic and Pope jokes...all in all an entertaining evening.

Speaking of which...the diva daughter calls during Conference call #3 this morning and says she is behind a barricade waiting for "his emminence" to drive by in the Pope mobile! An hour or so later I get a picture on my cell phone of the Pope in his little car driving by! So funny, we were in DC the day he was elected, on the campus of Catholic University..that was a trip..all of a sudden it was innundated with Press etc...almost three years ago exactly!

So tommorow I get a quick trip out of town for a conference on Friday on the clinical aspects of emergency preparedness, like how to treat patients with chemical, WMD or biological exposures!
Great breakfast topics!! Get home on Friday afternoon sometime and We head back down to Portland for the weekend on Saturday! Oh well I am not driving....
Thats it from the Ellsworth office today...ARC girl

e diel, 13 prill 2008

My Kingdom for a girl....

Don't get me wrong, I love all the boys who clutter up my house...but eventually all that testosterone, plus the husband with the basketball, baseball, golf whatever on TV...it all becomes a little loud, a little dirty and a little old. I begin to crave anything Pink or quiche or chick flicks and I start to count the days until Caroline lands evening out the gender gap in this household.

Tyler and friends are just about the funniest crew going, but they are tall, (most around 6 feet), loud, and messy! And boy do they eat! I left for the grocery store today, after picking up Ian, skate board and a some kinda long skate rail, and was told to get subrolls for sandwiches...Don said we had roast beef for lunch. So I arrive home..counter is cluttered with dishes, cheese, mayo covered knives and a cutting board. Well fine I can eat my sandwich in peace...after cleaning up their mess and putting the grocerys away, I take out one of the rolls I was instucted to buy and go to look for the roast beef....GONE!! I have rolls for a sandwich and nothing to put on them! Jeez!

A while later they reappear with vanilla cokes in their hands..."where did you get those?" Tyler said that he and his dad bought a case of them...(yuck...why not regular?) Tyler says they remind him of the store (my old business!) Ian says "they remind of the first video game he played"..he says this mumbling and I whirl around because I think I have heard something else and say "WHAT did you just say?" He looks at me quizically and repeats what he said. What did you think I said he asks me, by that time I had to tell them..I said I thought you said...

"It reminds me of the first time I got laid" The boys are hysterically laughing at this point because once again they have gotten me bad..and didnt even try!!

They are currently upstairs banging on guitars and making the kitchen ceiling shake....ugh!



So Friday was Ginny's retirement party...a fun time was had by all...Paul Clark and Dave Francoer came up from Portland, Pat Adams stopped running all over New England to come back to the chapter, several volunteers, our staff and John from the board..it was great. Paul and Lynn snapped a ton of pictures including one of Hill and I sneaking up and leaning on Ginnys shoulders! Should be cute! God knows she has been "our Mom" and we will miss her! Paul had Hillary feeling guilty all afternoon with his knee brace, and reminding her that if he had not knelt down in Augusta for her...it wouldn't have happened! She kept asking him if he wanted her seat!
And one month from now a Party for Suzan who leaves us at the end of the month to go to work for the Humane society! She has been a great Exec. but she is ready to move on..so things are definitely changing in ARC girls little world.

This week is Pat Simmons (last!) Hurricane conference call...2 1/2 hours two days in a row..yippee and Pat Adams is having an afternoon "call in show" for us to ask questions about whats happening next in ARC land..so if I cant comprehend anything by Tuesday afternoon its because I have been on the phone..LITERALLY all day!
Tyler and I are going to see *Jefferson Starship* at the Grand that night with a friend and his daughter so that will break up the misery!!
Thursday I head to Portland for an early morning conference Friday on clinical treatment of Bio terrorism, WMD's etc...nice breakfast talk!

So that's it from my post here on Sunday afternoon on the Banks of the Benjamin....the Masters Golf tournament is on TV, the boys are banging on guitars and there are dirty skateboards and sneakers in the mud room....where is Lily Pulitzer when you need her? I need PINK!!
ARC girl

e martë, 8 prill 2008

Could it be....

Spring? Two days in a row...sunny, warm...pleasant....its almost too good to be true. Its Maine though and we all know Mother Nature will throw us a curve ball and that awful stuff they call
"poor mans fertilizer" or something like that..in other words the late spring snow storm will eventually happen.

In anycase the sun has made what could be a really rough week exceptionally pleasant for "moi".
Monday morning started with an email, that I was not expecting, in the form of a very late apology from a young man who should have never behaved the way he did in the first place...so 4 months later...I guess he can wait for me to respond to that email...cause I havent quite decided what to write yet....

Then there was ....yep...a fire...Saturday actually but in typical Hancock county fashion...oops. We didn't call the Red Cross...so I get the fire Chief on the phone, and then plan to head out to Sullivan...BUT not before going to my office to check on ......YOU GUESSED IT....the FURNACE!!! Yes, ARC girl stopped into the office on Sunday to take care of shelter drill messes and such, and no heat....so she goes down to the dreaded basement and finds out the oil tank is empty....OH JOY! Calls the building manager...the ever helpful Nancy...and leaves message...
Calls Hancock Oil on Monday morning who says...no cash no oil....The owner of this mall is about 800 years old and on his way out and living in New Jersey!! So I call Suzan, the Exec Director and she is not in a good mood and asks me what do I want her to do...well I say, I have called everyone...but my hands are tied otherwise and I do not have the check book! She then ordered some oil....and then a little later in the morning..She called a meeting and resigned her position as Exec Director!!! Yeow! (not because of the oil mind you!)

So Monday, is going well...fire client just barely got out of her house, lost several pets and all her and her husbands belongings...I saw the house...the fire was devastating. As all fires are, this burned very hot and hard from the looks of it. We are up to 127 fires now...a real record year and a huge strain on the disaster budget, director has resigned effective end of the month, Flooding is still imminent in the county and elsewhere, and the furnace...but its sunny.

Its Tuesday and Sunny again. and warm..Red Sox are back at Fenway, Tyler is out on his skate board every afternoon ....meetings today, new volunteer from CA who will be an excellent addition to our chapter with an ever decreasing staff of directors!! Someone asked me if I was going to leave today and I said "heck no...I am going to stay to watch this whole thing shake out, I certainly do not want any of their jobs, but it will be an interesting next few months...no service center, new emergency services dept...new executive director or acting director...BIA drill and of course that omnipresent threat of floods from 18 feet of snow in the county!!

So off to Bangor tommorow...get the car in for service and meetings at the office...maybe it will be Sunny again!!!

ARC girl has Spring fever!

e shtunë, 5 prill 2008

No rest for the weary...or is it the wicked?


So here they are in all their Glory...the Princesses of PTC....the disaster dynamic duo....ARC girl and the Gigabyte queen herself..Miss Hillary. We survived about 50 boyscouts, 20 something college students from New Brunswick, 12 or so PTC and two Portland Chapter volunteers, EMA directors from Hancock and Penobscot county, a slew of fire and police men, parents, scout leaders and a somewhat surly janitor! Oh and the Press and Sib #3 Kim in the Gym who happens to live in Brewer and of course had to see what was going on in the Gym!!



After a long day at the office and a BIA drill meeting at EMMC we headed to the auditorium and set up, with in a half an hour the first casualty walks into my health office holding his hand and dripping blood into the sink....John Buckwalter! He was trying to open a cot that snapped on his finger tip...it was a nice little mess! Who would have thought I would do Staff health before the clients!! Luckily as far as nursing goes he was the worst of it...the rest were basically "bandaids for boyscouts"..kid you not!



The kids arrived just after the "power failure" and we went on the generator. Supper was spagetti and salad.. and then it was a kids everywhere...although some were working on merit badges. Noise level did get a little high on decibels in the gym...Lots of papers, TV and radio came around to talk to us...The EDGE, an alternative paper had their editor sleeping over with his son and a reporter there..they brought copies of their April fools edition which we were all sitting around reading about 9:30 (waiting on those late college kids) I got to the Horoscope page, read mine and thought wow, that was a good one, so I read a significant others and .....

IT WAS THE SAME HOROSCOPE!!!!!! They were all the same!! April Fools! Cell phone rang and Sib #3 had to come over and join the fun for a few minutes...she and Brenda Moody quickly hit it off and sat there making jokes back and forth! Kim said "really you guys nothing this exciting ever happens in Brewer!!" We had hit the big time...of course we couldn't convince her to stay...as the college kids started to arrive..one van at a time....

By 11 pm Hillary and I told the volunteers they were all set to be on their own and we headed to her apartment for a few hours sleep, but not without a glass of wine first! That of course was only about 4 hours and then we were back over there by 5:30 to help with breakfast checkout clean up and so forth.
All in all it was a great drill, we learned what we need and what we can do better and what we do well and that we really can open a shelter if need be...like when the St John floods in the next month or so!

ARC girl is quite exhausted, and she has a big dinner date tonight she cant really get out of as its been on the calendar for two months!!! Oh well...I guess I better get off this couch and find something decent to wear and some makeup for those dark circles under my eyes!!!

Keeps the flood waters at bay please....and dont start any fires....I am tired!!!

e mërkurë, 2 prill 2008

Bandaids for Boy Scouts

Oh I am soooo looking forward to Friday night when ARC girl and the Gigabyte queen, alias potato blossom, alias the New Emergency Services director of the Pine tree chapter..Miss Hillary and myself get to host 75 to 100 boy scouts at a shelter at the "posh" Brewer Auditorium. Oh and get this ...about 20 extra homeless college students from Canada who are supposed to be staying at UMO, and apparently there is no room there will also be "bunking with us"!

Big Daddy Paul, blew out his knee so he will not be coming up from Portland to take care of the kids..(Hillary and Gretchen), which means we have no one to whine to!! He does entertain Potato Blossom and Sunshine!...darn.

Patrick seems to think he's going to grab sib#3 who lives in Brewer and hit a few pubs and then finish up with a bar in the Parking lot...right! My friend Mark said he'd actually bartend inside...oh and that goes sooooo
well with ARC and Boy Scout law! He seems to think Hillary and I will need it....medicinally of course! Uh Huh. Guess I better check with the Chapter health Nurse about that!

Speaking of the Chapter Health Nurse...alias ARC girl..she spent the day making sure there were enough bandaids for the boys...as well as cough syrup, tylenol, ace bandages and... antidiarreah medicine in case we have those kind of issues! Packing up the chapter disaster health kit, and taking inventory. Of course she almost ended up a casualty herself when she unlocked the little ERV door and a 55mph wind gust blew one of the doors back at her head...she moved just in time!!

Tommorow after a trip to Seal Harbor for a meeting I will pack up the health kit and protocols and hope for the best and you all better be thinking about us...this is not a choice way to spend your Friday night you know!!!

ARC girl....whining already..and its only Wednesday night.....