And a personal-questions post from the comments section....

One thing about having stitches in the back of your mouth: it makes it impossible to talk. Combine that with the totally stoned feeling one gets from Lortab, and the fact that I have to stay up for a while until the potatoes are done baking, and you get....

Answers, in no particular order.

Homemaker Man wanted to know about the worst hangover I've ever had, preferably on a work day.

I'm boring. I've had hangovers, and I've worked, but I've only done the two at once one time, and that was *years* ago. It was during the Divorce Debacle, and I'd gotten a little too frisky with the tequila. And because I'm a lightweight, "a little too frisky" meant two-and-a-half ounces of the stuff rather than two. The awful headache went away by nine o'clock, and I swore I'd never do it again, and I haven't.

Interesting side note: The Manhandler and Kitty-Kitty and a raft of other people were all sitting around the other day, trying to decide if they drank too much. I mentioned mildly that perhaps comparing one's own alcohol intake with that of other CCU nurses would lead to a skewed perception of what's normal. Nobody laughed; they all just looked thoughtful and nodded.

Crazed Nitwit asked for stories of when I was a brand-new nurse. Oh, Lord. How about the time I slipped as I came into the patient's room, bounced off several walls and a couple of pieces of equipment, and ended up in the doctor's lap?

Or the time I was wheeling a patient down a long, steep ramp on a stretcher and lost hold of the stretcher? I had to chase it madly down the hallway and grabbed it just before it went into a wall.

Or the day one of my patients got out of bed after his hip replacement, snuck downstairs with a friend, and went to McDonald's for a burger?

Or the infamous afternoon when I did the Happy-Nurse-Hip-Shake in the hallway, in a pair of ill-fitting drawstring scrubs, only to have my pants come down in front of a crowd of interviewing interns?

Do I *have* to talk about those days?

Messymimi wanted to know if I have any further plans for redecorating.

Not just now. I'd like to get the typewriters hung and a kitty-cube built so the cats can hang out outdoors, but that will have to wait until I've gotten over this hump. I refuse to plan redecorating projects when I'm altered, for fear of ending up with the room equivalent of an electric-blue harem-legged jumpsuit with studs and epaulets.

I really do need to do some gardening, though. Weeds are growing through the mulch in the front beds, the salvia needs to be cut back something fierce, and I need to prune the rose bush sooner rather than later. Plus, thanks to two solid weeks of horrible heat, I lost two butterfly bushes (though not the two I wouldn't have minded losing) and a Scotch broom.

Oooooo. The pain meds just kicked in, hard, so I need to go get horizontal for a bit.