R(etired)N

Generally, in Canada, hockey is the violent sport.

Unlike hockey and the Stanley cup celebrations....the Grey cup celebration is very peaceful - with fans of all teams coming together to celebrate in a non-violent manner.

Well, not this year.

What a surprise when 2 honoree's at a pre Grey Cup Alumni Luncheon Fundraiser went at it...



They are 73 years old!!!

The scuffle was the result of an ongoing feud between Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca ( Both Americans who played in the CFL league) stemming from a 1963 Grey Cup football game where one of Joe Kapp's running backs was knocked out by a late hit.

Watch the video! Kapp delivers a punch that knocks Mosca to the floor after Mosca hits Kapp in the face with his cane....

They are very lucky one of the two didn't break a hip!

Honestly, kids.

Play nice.

On a good note - British Columbia's BC Lions won the Grey Cup!

My niece is just learning the dangers of what happens when you start to learn about diseases.  She is training to be an esthetician.  They learn some of the same things that we do in nursing.....anatomy and physiology, diseases.......

Here is what she posted on her Facebook wall:


The arrow points to my reply.

I had to laugh because I happen to understand the phobias that develop with that extra knowledge about diseases and germs.

I have even blogged about it.  I have also blogged about my opinion about someone else's careless disregard for contagious diseases when they spread it to others around them.

Which leads me to the reason for this post.

Today is the Grey Cup and last week my husband invited a couple over that he interacts with through his work.

Unfortunately, what he didn't know is that last weekend on their way home from vacation,  she managed to develop an URI.  

When she phoned my husband the day before, I could hear her voice loud and clear over the phone from across the room.

She sounded terrible.  I assumed she was phoning to decline the invite today.

So yesterday afternoon,  when I was making out the grocery shopping list,  my husband mentioned that there were going to be seven of us........

My phobia starts to kick in.  "Your sick friend is coming????"

"Of course!" he states.

But......she sounded so sick!!! She can't be coming ....!!!

"Yes..".  a little more cautious, seeing my horrified face and sensing my phobia kicking into high gear. "They are..."

"Who goes visiting out in public when they are sick????!!!!"  I am starting to get panicky.  My husband is too....he sees what is coming....

 I tell him he has to find a way to "uninvite"  her.  After all, she's HIS sick friend....

So, trying to correct the situation, he emails a polite note to her:


"Sorry you aren't feeling well.  I can understand if you can't come tomorrow.  I can imagine you aren't feeling up to it....you sounded so sick yesterday on the phone.  You will need your rest to get better"

To which she emails back, "Oh no! It sounds worse than it is!!! We will be there!!!"

*SIGH*

So much for beating around the bush and hoping someone gets the hint.

Just to let you know - I won't be downstairs watching the game in the enclosed space of the Mancave.  Nope.   My girlfriend Jan is coming over - and her husband - and she and I will be upstairs watching on the smaller TV in our living room........

The month I was off  work sick last winter with an URI is still fresh in my mind and I am NOT going to expose myself to any bugs if I can help it.  I was traumatized. 

And - thing is - my girlfriend who is also an RN is almost as germophobic as I am.   I am wondering if I should warn her in advance.   It isn't as though she would want to be downstairs watching on the 110 inch theater screen anyway.  In fact, I suspect she will bring her iPad so she can play Angry Birds.

As for the food.....I won't be touching anything downstairs.   I have bought chips in small portion bags so there aren't bowls of shared food.  I will keep a stash of food upstairs so I don't have to go downstairs to get anything.

Why do people insist on going out when they are coughing and hacking and sound like crap?

Sometimes I curse nursing, and wish I were oblivious to those invisible germs out there and then I could be one of those stupid people who goes out and spreads those bugs to everyone in the community with no thought whatsoever.....

*SIGH*

Well, at least I could still laugh about someone else's developing phobia......

I'll let you know if I get sick.

I've already told my husband that if he gets sick.....I won't be his nurse.....

...when left to their own devices.

Mom was in the bathroom for a prolonged period of time and while preoccupied with getting sick.....her little boys, aged 1 and 3 - managed to get themselves into a whole lot of trouble.



I can't imagine what this would be like to clean up.

I think I will stick to the difficulties real snow brings.....

This company is coming out in early 2012 with this revolutionary product that I could actually use! Right now!



Go to their website and take a look at their videos - the applications for this product is incredible.

And no, it's not a joke or a spoof. It's real.

Ages 10 to 13, this brother/sister group - Angie,Gustavo and Abelardo Vazquez singing Adele's "Rolling in the Deep"

Talent plus!



She is only 10!

Just because it's that time of the year.

Our football season is wrapping up in Canada.


Today is the semi-final game between Edmonton and our team : the BC Lions.

OUR TEAM IS IN THE FINALS.

You would *think* that the brand-new stadium would be sold out, here in Vancouver, since it is the SEMI-FINAL (Western Final) in the Grey Cup challenge? 

This is a significant  game.


The stadium is super deluxe, holds up to 50K fans and last word has it that only 38K tickets ( costing anywhere from $35 to $85) have been sold.**   

Why?

Because tonight at 6 pm ( the football game is at 1:30)  the Vancouver Canucks hockey team is playing, and no one wants to miss a game, even though the Canucks aren't doing very well and by comparison it's only the start of the hockey season.

Despite the Lions probability of WINNING the Grey Cup next weekend  -  being played in right in Vancouver - there is a lackluster reaction here in BC.




Hockey trumps Football every time, in Canada........


And this, my friends, is why you will never see the same enthusiastic crowds for football at colleges* and high schools......as you see south of the border.

Grey Cup and a couple Mounties

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* The Vanier Cup Challenge is being held this Friday (our version of the College/University games) in Vancouver - and you can buy a ticket for as low as $17.  Lots for sale still!  The same ticket for an American College final is over ONE THOUSAND dollars for the cheapest seat!!! The most expensive is over $4K!!

** The Grey Cup final game - East vs West - is sold out - although Showtime states you can still buy.   (cost of Grey Cup tickets? $279  for the cheapest, sideline tickets are $695-$1200 and club sideline seats - $2400   In comparison, the American equivalent - Superbowl - tickets in the cheapseats start at $2300 - sideline tickets are $5100 and up, and club seats are $8000 to $20,000!!!! And, by the way, the $20K seats are sold out already - you are out of luck if you had intentions...... )

A friend of mine thought this photo I took would make a great Christmas card! I have to say, I love what he did with it! Meanwhile, our cat loves to make snowmen!  No, this isn't where he did his "business". He just likes to go out in the snow and play, and this is something he does.... Gathering the snow in a mound - a kitty snowman!

The first snowfall in the Vancouver area always garners a lot of attention.

For those who love skiing......get ready, because the mountains will be opening up before the end of the month!

Here are some snow scenes from all over our province!

What happens when you win a lottery and you work at the TV station that announces it? This aired live a couple weeks ago at our Local TV station here in British Columbia:



The story is quite heartwarming. Barry and his family live in a rental in a suburb of Vancouver, where it takes him at least an hour to drive to work.
His daughter went through 2 years of chemotherapy when she was diagnosed with Leukemia at age 4. Since then Barry has supported the BC Children's hospital Fundraisers.....and this is the rest of the story:


Everyone is happy for him - it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy! 
$2 Million or a $2.5 Million house....tax free (all lotteries/winnings in Canada are tax free).

I like what he says at the end of the first video above "wow...now I just made 20% of what  Roberto Luongo (goalie for the Vancouver Canucks Hockey team) makes..."   

Typical of a Sportscaster....  to bring the favorite Canadian Game into it..!

Today he appears on the Ellen Degeneres show with his boss - the quirky Squire Barnes.....

Here is my post on How Grandma Decided to be an R.N.

My cousin came to visit from Texas and brought along a HUGE surprise for me!

My Grandma-the-Nurse's nursing pins!!!!

"ver: tot CHR: verzorging van krankzinnigen" or  "Christian care for the insane"(per my aunt) Grandma worked at a psychiatric hospital

She graduated in June 1922 after 4 years of training

This is the Hospital at which she trained

This is the Star of David, given to the nurses who worked at the Jewish Hospital

The back of the pin.  Notice the initial lettering on the back of one of the points

Close-up of the initials:  "G.B." No one is really sure of what those initials stand for....

my Grandmother's Nursing Graduation photo: She is in the back row, 2nd from Left

As you already know, if you have been following my blog, that my grandmother was a Registered Nurse - trained in the Netherlands.

My cousin recently was visiting Paris, and on her trip she visited Ypres and brought me a Poppy from the famed museum there - "In Flanders Fields".  

When you enter the museum, you are given a card which you insert in various places throughout the museum, which allows you to follow the life of a person who happened to live around the area - and what happened to them during the Great War.

Roosje Vecht (Rosie Fight), or "Sleeping Beauty" as her friends called her, was one of these.

Thanks to Sjoel Elburg website

Roosje was born July 18,  1881 in Elberg, Netherlands into a very wealthy and strict orthodox Jewish family.    She was the oldest of 6.

Rosje was viewed as the "Black Sheep" of her family and as a young woman,  she fell in love with a non-Jewish man.   She was forbidden to marry due to her father's strict faith.  

Unhappy, she turned her back on an easy life to one of nursing.  Unsatisfied at a job as a private nurse she quit and was hired to work with the Red Cross in 1914 at the time when Germany invaded Belgium. 

The Netherlands was a neutral country at that time.

She chose to work at the "Iron Front" in a Belgian field hospital set up by a British contingent in Antwerp.   When Antwerp fell and was taken over by the Germans - she was forbidden to return to work in the field hospital.  

Determined, in the round-about way, she went to England -  and thus returned to her work in the Belgium field hospital which had now been moved to an unoccupied portion of Belgium close to the Front where war was being waged.  

The hospital was established in an Episcopal college in the city of Veurne, a town which was under constant barrage by German artillery fire.  As one can imagine, this was making the function of a hospital next to impossible and the decision was made to move it once again to Hoogstade. 

During this move, Rosje was wounded by shrapnel from a bomb dropped from an airplane.  Her upper leg was crushed.   Two ambulances were hit and two EMTs were killed. 

Rosje  was taken to another hospital where they amputated her leg.   She lamented to the doctors with whom she worked  - "Now my poor soldiers - I can no longer nurse them!"

Sadly, she died 24 hours later on January 24th 1915 - at age 33 - from loss of blood.

Five years later, she was reburied with Military honors in the Dutch-Isrealite cemetery in Muiderberg, Netherlands.  She was one of only a couple of Dutch civialians that was a casualty of the war*.  

Her gravemarker still can be found there (The grave is located in area D, row P grave number 165).

Three years after Rosje died, my grandmother started her nursing training.  I wonder if my grandmother heard about Rosje and her sacrifice, and if this inspired her to become an RN.

Today, I am thankful, not only for Our Canadian Troops, but anyone in the free world that sacrificed their lives and time for our Collective World Freedom.

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*Interestingly enough, most of her remaining family were killed during WW2, some at Auschwitz ... only one brother - Aaron -  survived.  He donated the lion statues from his house's gate to his home town in Goor.