It's a great day to be alive

In the words of Ozzy Osbourne, "mama, I'm comin' home". Or rather, we have arrived. Yes indeed, I have an excuse for not having posted in so long...we did it; we moved. Last week (or so) we were watching Cops 2.0 in the comfort of a rather spacious living room in a beautiful wood-trimmed house with almost too much natural light and a wide-open floorplan in a chilly northern Dallas suburb, with our truck tucked safely inside a garage. And we even had a silverware drawer.

This week, we would have tried to chase "1984" down with Cops 2.0 (except that it's not on) in a rather cozy (and, to my delight, warmer!), surprisingly homey 900 sq ft 2-bedroom apartment in not-as-chilly north and slightly west-of-dead-center San Antonio, with our truck tucked safely within an outdoor first-come-first-served parking space. We have vaulted ceilings in the living room and a breakfast bar in the kitchen. But we don't have a silverware drawer.

It's been a little over a week now, and the cats still haven't fully forgiven us, although they're starting to come around. I think they're feeding off our newfound positive energy, a kind of energy that can only come from living in a relaxed city where Nothing. Ever. Happens. (And we like it that way!) Sure, I reckon the positive energy can also come from having taken a single bus all the way downtown, walking around all day in the dry, warm 76-degree sun, visiting El Mercado and La Vilita shops and making some unique purchases. That can generate some kickin' R&R vibes.

It also helps that we've been surprisingly successful at recreating a setup similar to what we had at the house. We did our best to utilize as much of our same furniture as possible, and to settle into as familiar a routine as possible. Sucker that I am, I saved and brought all of Maddie's toys, and we quickly picked up Murphy's favorite organic milk. Not only did we bring their old scratching jungle gym, but we also bought an additional brand-new one. After several days straight of hiding under the bed, we think they're coming around.

San Antonio is very good to us. Part of that is simply because San Antonio is just plain cool. The other part of it, though, is due to the fact that we went in expecting what she could deliver--a quiet, simple town, with useful amenities but not flashy flambuoyant ones, where normal people could simply co-exist and be themselves, without a lot of brew-ha. It may not be glamorous, but if I wanted glamorous, I'd move to L.A. I obviously don't want glamorous. It's hardly all it's cracked up to be anyway--highly overrated and not worth the stress. If your idea of fun is taking a bus downtown and walking peacefully and uneventfully along the Riverwalk and you're content with that being the highlight of your week, then this town is for you. If you want a trendy hip theme lounge that raves until 4am with bleached spiky-haired yuppies with thousand-dollar outfits, or a big out-of-the-closet gay scene, or a big Persian population, or a well-publicized Green Movement, you'd best look elsewhere; this isn't the town for you.

Some adaptations have proven mildly interesting. For example, we found ourselves looking for grape jelly at one grocery store, only to wind up completely unsuccessful. And what sick oversight is it to neglect to build a silverware drawer into the kitchen blueprints? They did exist back in 1983, when this building was built, so there is hardly any excuse. At least we're DSL-capable. Definite plus! I'm sure there'll other interesting hiccups along the way that we'll have to adapt to.

Overall, I'm comfortable here. I can drive defensively, but without having to go on the defensive. I can be nice to people without getting shit on in return. We've met several of our neighbors already, and so far, they've all been nice. Unfortunately, there's no recycling protocol, at least at our complex. And it is so weird to revert back to apartment living, especially after so many years in our own house. But, I know that it's temporary. We'll eventually have a house again; it's just a matter of time. Maybe it'll even have vaulted ceilings and a breakfast bar. And it will have a silverware drawer!

25 CDs one should never be without - 4th edition

Never does a person have such an opportunity to assess all of their belongings in one shot as s/he does when s/he moves (and on a sidenote, never do so many objects considered "lost" get recovered). This is especially true with CDs. Since I rely primarily on the 120,000+ mp3s on my computer for my music fix, I don't pay attention to CDs much anymore. This does not mean, however, that I'll be getting rid of any, because there is something about having the physical media, complete with cover art and liner notes.

I'll take a detour here, because I'm suddenly nostalgic for my childhood. Maybe it's the 6-8" of snow outside, I don't know. But anyway, it's tough to explain to people who have never collected CDs how fun it was. You can't explain how a record or CD collection with its artwork and liner notes actually brought your life a little more fulfillment as a teenager. The kids who've been able to just download off of Napster (back when it was free) or Kazaa (please tell me you're using the Lite versions) or worse--iTunes, are only getting a skeleton experience, while missing out on a lot of the subtle refinements.

I do enjoy downloading--I mean, if I had to rely only on record shops, how many times would I have had to go back and forth between the ends of the earth to locate a Zero 7 or a Dreams So Real CD? (And if I was lucky enough to actually find those Holy Grails, how much dough would I have had to part with to call them mine?) I also highly doubt I would've ever encountered artists now staples in my musical diet, such as Soda Stereo, Thievery Corporation, or Manu Chao. Not that the record companies actually like this border-free reign (along with its low, low pricetag); I'm sure they struggle to retain control whatever it is we watch and listen to. But I'm not entirely sure Britney Spears would have made any more money off of me than she would have had I not been able to broaden my horizons.

Nevertheless, this list is much more (disappointingly) mainstream/commercial than I would have liked it to be....although it does fit more congruently with my wave of nostalgia.

1. Mana - Donde Jugaran Los Ninos (1992)
2. Alanis Morrissette - Jagged Little Pill (1995)
3. Iio - Poetica (2005)
4. Beloved - Conscience (1993)
5. U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
6. Prince - Purple Rain (1984)
7. Smithereens - Blow Up (1991)
8. Cross Canadian Ragweed - Highway 377 (2001)
9. Madonna - Erotica (1992)
10. Dead Can Dance - Aion (1990)
11. Richard Marx - Repeat Offender (1989)
12. Llewellyn - Color Healing (2001)
13. Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears (1991)
14. Enya - Watermark (1988)
15. Tori Amos - Under the Pink (1994)
16. Cars - (s/t) (1978)
17. Mae Moore - Dragonfly (1995)
18. Survivor - Vital Signs (1984)
19. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Bloodsugarsexmagik (1991)
20. Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever (1989)
21. Kitaro - Ki (1979)
22. Great Big Sea - Play (1997)
23. Garth Brooks - No Fences (1990)
24. Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet (1993)
25. Roxette - Look Sharp! (1988)

Again, I'm blaming it on the snow.

Wrecking ball

Moving sucks. It doesn't matter who you are, it will always suck. Especially when going from a house to an apartment half its size. And especially if it's been in the same place for a long time.

We swore we'd never do this ourselves again, and it turns out we were right. A moving company is going to show up at the buttcrack of dark on Friday to load all of our stuff so securely into a moving truck that a cockroach wouldn't be able to move around in between the furniture or boxes. The only catch is, we're boxing everything up beforehand, which may require us to pull an all-nighter tonight, so this post isn't going to ramble on as long.

We're learning as we go. Since our stuff is being dispersed to three different places (our new apartment, our new office, and my parents' storage workshop an hour away from the first two places) it's necessary to mark the destination on each box. We figured it'd be a good idea (and it is) to use sticky labels of 2 different colors - pink for San Antonio and green for the workshop south of Austin. We further marked the San Antonio labels for A (apartment) or B (business), along with a short description of the contents of the box (important!) The tough part is trying to anticipate snags, such as should something not fit like we thought it would and it has to go into storage after all, and come up with contingency plans to adapt. We have to be ready for various surprises.

I'm surprised at how slow going the whole packing process can be. Cleaning out my office took the whole day, and it's not like it's a big office, and it's not like I dawdled much at all. I took enough time for breakfast and a couple of hours for lunch, and maybe a check-Facebook or pet-the-cat break here and there, but that's about it.

Bankers boxes, although expensive, are good. They're sturdy, they're uniform, they fit files perfectly (as they're designed to do), they're easily carried, and they stack very well. Our local grocery store not only puts its used boxes where the general public can have at them (and they're completely separated from other trash, etc), but they even organize them by size on a rack. We saved a ton of money by raiding the rack (at the end of a NOT-rainy day).

When you get up before sunrise to take on this little endeavor, keep in mind that at some point, no matter how evenly you pace yourself, the exhaustion and even a little tinnitus from the fumes of fluorine from the permanent markers with which you've been scribbling away on boxes will indeed set in, and you will have to stop and veg out. Watch Family Guy and munch away on a Hershey's Dark Chocolate bar (giant is recommended). Do open a window to air out the fumes, though; you want to wake up after that catnap.

Why (NOT) Parker: picking apart the "Parker Difference"

I know, I know, I keep ripping on Parker (College of Chiropractic, that is). Hindsight is 20/20 and the grass is always greener and everything happens for a reason and all that. I get it. But let's face it. If you're considering becoming a chiropractic doctor or you've already decided to become one and now it just comes down to which school you should choose, I think that there's a gaping lack of information out there, and the scant information you do find may be, well, potentially misleading. And as for ripping on my alma mater? Well, if they didn't just spoonfeed me a whole bunch of material...

It's interesting to be a fly on the wall during one of their guided tours (given by carefully hand-selected yes-men and women, of course). You hear all sorts of propaganda, some of it true, some half-true, and some outright false. The entourage meandered through a small seating area just off the main kitchen, where I happened to be having lunch and I wanted so badly to set the record straight, right then and there, but for reasons I can't explain, I didn't. What I heard prompted me to visit the school's website out of morbid curiosity, just to see exactly how big a load of junk they're selling to the would-be chiro hopefuls. What I saw on the website wasn't much of an improvement. So, in my typical message-in-a-bottle mode (writing something and hitting the "post" button, hoping someone someday stumbles upon it), I bring you their list, copy-pasted word-for-word (in italics), followed by my comments (honest yet subjective, from my own perspective and based on my own experience).

* Doctor of Chiropractic degree as well as a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy and Bachelor of Science of Health and Wellness
This is true. And, they're real degrees, not some fly-by-night "credits unlikely to transfer" like the tech institute junk you see on Cops commercial breaks on G4. Understand, though, that the requirements for the two Bachelor degrees are very similar, so chances are decent that if you qualify for one of them, you may very well qualify for the other.

* Nine techniques that correct vertebral subluxations
Oh really? I've been waiting to pick this one apart. First, let's get one thing straight. Chiropractic doctors do not ordinarily fix subluxations. A subluxation is a partial dislocation, implicating a degree of "significant structural displacement", and chances are decent that it'll take someone besides a DC to reset it. Now, segmental disfunction, on the other hand (which is what DCs like to call subluxation even though it's a complete misnomer), is what a chiropractic doctor specializes in fixing.
Now that the semantics are out of the way and we're all on the same page, let's talk about those 9 techniques. Frankly, as much as I like AK, it is not an adjusting techinque. It's more of a diagnostic tool, and as effective as it is (and it really is), it's currently not as accepted in so-called scientific circles as it should be. So AK doesn't really correct any vertebral (or any other) problem. It is, however, a good way of re-testing.
How about the 8 other techniques? Here's the deal: it's a crash course, at best. It's very hard to get really good (or even competent) at any one of them, because in 15 weeks, you get to meet maybe 12 times (due to finals, holidays, other breaks, inservices, weather, assemblies, etc etc). Class time isn't spent all that well (including lab time), and you don't get to adjust much in lab. Classes and labs are too big for the professors to spend adequate time answering questions and ironing out common mistakes. It's really more of an introduction to the technique, and it's not like you get another trimester's worth of instruction after that intro tri - you're on your own to practice, although they put the fear of God into you to not even do that.

* Advanced chiropractic business and practice-building courses
OK, sure, if you call a trimester of theoretical Medicare or a discussion of Triple Net "advanced". Not to diss the Business classes, the prof was indeed decent and I'm sure he's teaching what the school told him to teach. I did find his discussion of how rent was calculated very useful, although it seems as though others weren't as clear on it as I was, because in visiting some in the progress of setting up their practices, they were confused about exactly how much they were paying and whether or not that was a good deal. As for insurance and Medicare, well, the prof teaches it as it's done by the book, but hardly any doc actually does it that way. Sure, they might be playing with fire, but I think as long as you stay ethical and on the gray/white side of the law you're fine. In short, the biz classes were OK, but nothing I'd call "advanced".

* Technologically-advanced campus (web-enabled classrooms, podcasted lectures, wireless campus)
Our school is fairly technologically-endowed. Wi-fi went in a few trimesters before we started, so most of the bugs were ironed out by the time we came of age enough to realize we needed laptops to make it through (to ward off the boredom and monotony if nothing else). The campus-wide email system is pretty snazzy, too. Its only weakest link is the fact that they use M$ Outlook, which blows goats, but whaddaya do?
A word about the lecture podcasts, though: they almost imply that all lectures are podcast and this is not the case. In fact, in Tri 8, only 2 of our 7 or so classes were actually podcast. I believe it's left up to the professor's discretion. Also, I had problems accessing the podcasts. For a while they had a workaround link for those who didn't have iTunes, but I could never get it to work.

* Award-winning research facility whose partnerships include Harvard, Yale, University of Alabama, and other world-renown facilities
If we're so well-connected, why the f*ck aren't we more visible and respected? Why the hell aren't we getting referrals from UT Southwestern (the nearby allopathic medical school)? Why don't we at least have some sponsorship or something from those schools? You hear nothing about, and receive no benefit from, this claim beyond the website they're using to recruit you. We're not as respected as you're being led to believe--not as a profession, and certainly not the school. Side note: our research building is a tiny little non-descript building that nobody ever really ventured into. And is University of Alabama really a "world-renown" school??

* State-of-the-art gross anatomy lab and radiology facilities
I will totally vouch for this. Both of those facilities, and their faculty, rock the free world. This is probably the one edge Parker has over its competition.

* Unique internship opportunities with the Dallas VA hospital
Yes, for 1-2 lucky people. And as long as you're selected. Although now I hear that you still have to get your recruits (before, they were letting you off the hook for this nasty little requirement if you were in the VA program). And if you live anywhere west of 35 and north of 635, forget it - the commute will kill you. The VA is hit or miss. Some trimesters it's a dudly fail and other times it rocks your world. The intern who went from our class got about 2.5 times the required adjustments and about double the required physicals. PT credits, though, are feast or famine.

* Opportunity to perform on-site, supervised adjustments of athletes at Pan American and Olympic games
Again, for 1-2 lucky people (and you're only at the Olympics during Olympic years - although you might be working on Olympic athletes anytime). And again, it's all about hand-selection.

* Campus athletic facility and organized sports leagues
You mean the same athletic facility that shut down on August 12th, promised to re-open at the beginning of October, but was still shut down when we graduated in December, but yet still had to pay for in our tuition? That athletic facility? I had forgotten about that one. Up until then, it had been pretty nice. We took a walk-through shortly before it opened back up, to find a few things changed around, a couple doors and walls moved, and the interior peppered with a lot of new aesthetic designer decor. Was it worth the 4 months and million-plus pricetag? I dunno. I just know it still doesn't have a calf-raising machine!

* Networking opportunities (continuing education events, Parker Seminars, After Hours Clinic Visits, assemblies)
Ahhh, yes. You can network, all right....as long as you can stomach the typical Parker rhetoric. I reckon the first tri or 2, you can. You might even find it refreshing. But soon there becomes a dissonance between real life according to Parker and real life according to reality. One of the professors mentions a "chiro-bubble" in Tri 1 - he's right, all right - it's created by Parker itself! They sorta seem to live in la-la land. They seem to think that the world is locked headfirst into this "wellness revolution" and I'm here to tell you it's BS. They like to quote BJ a whole lot, and seriously, that's not where it's at. After I realized what PSPS was all about, I avoided it like the plague. Assemblies are basically a mini-PSPS that you don't have to travel for, but consist of the same BS regardless. One important difference, however: you are soooo not going to network at an assembly. There aren't any other field docs there! The only ppl who attend assemblies by and large are the Tri 1-8 student body, and that's because they're required to. After hours clinic visits are cool, but again, the school hand-selects those most capable of parroting the useless drivel. On the other hand, you can at least go for the experience, for the variety, to witness the example of an office. Even if it ends up being an example of what not to do, you might still get a couple good idea nuggets out of the (local) trip.

* Focus on wellness
Surely they jest! I totally beg to differ. They spew wellness out of one corner of their mouths, and especially during assemblies, but you're in for a rude awakening when you get to clinic: it's all pain-based! It's all symptom-based care, and your patients are pretty much reduced to file numbers with headaches, neck pain, or back pain. Pain, pain, pain. Oswestrys and Neck Disability Indices and QVAS scales. The intake paperwork focuses mostly on pain, too. I saved a couple blank copies just to remind myself of what not to do on our own intake forms. Wellness is not a part of patient care at our school. Everything focuses on chief complaints; if you can't find a complaint in (or to relate back to) a certain area, you can't adjust that area. If your Medicare patient has shoulder, elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle pain, he or she is SOL, because Medicare doesn't cover that. You don't get credit for extremity adjustments or extremity exams, but I didn't know this until I specifically asked, because they won't tell you. You can adjust extremities (for no credit) after your (no-credit) exam (and potentially x-rays too), but it's out of the goodness of your own heart (which I often did anyway, for that reason), and if you mark it on the fee slip, the patient pays extra (so, I never marked it - I just did it, like every other intern).

* Full financial aid available
Sure it is. They're a Title IX school. Just like every other accredited chiropractic university out there. That's hardly a selling point.

Now. Print this out, and take it with you, should you ever decide to attend a Parker open house and go on their little tour. Picture me across the cafeteria, mentally willing you to get in your truck and point it in a direction out of town and not look back. Maybe play with the tour guide a little first. Show him or her this printout. Get them to fess up. Watch them stutter as they don't know what to say. Ask to see a packet of initial patient paperwork, both external (i.e. that the patient fills out) and internal (i.e. the intern fills out on the patient to start their file). Maybe, just maybe, someday I won't have as much material about Parker to rip on. Believe it or not, I look forward to that.

Notes from lake wobegon

I'm back from the cyberdead! I'm not actually home yet. We're enjoying our dinner-induced endorphin brainbath, vegging out in front of a Family Guy marathon in a south suburban Kansas City motel.

I did it. I made that northbound wintertime trip I swore up and down (after 6 hours of driving literally white-knuckled through the entire state of Iowa one January) that I would never make. I'm just surprised that it only took 9 years to renege. The timing was all wrong. Sure, the temperature starts to pick up a little from its winter lows in February...in Texas. I mistakenly applied the same logic to Minnesota. I was dead wrong. Up there, it's like Old Man Winter saves his best for last. I wish he would DIAF.

It's surprising which memories came flooding back verbatim (precious few) and which aspects I had completely forgotten. You would think that I would've remembered my old stompin' grounds of about 8 years like the back of my hand, but noooo. Instead, my clearest navigational skills surfaced near the apartment we had only lived in for a single year.

I learned a few things. The first thing that hit me was the sheer GRAYNESS of everything whenever snow is involved, even if it's not currently snowing. Starting early in our trip, just north of the Red River that separates Texas from Oklahoma, there had been an unusual amount of snow on the ground, and this coincided directly with the realization of how utterly GRAY everything was. I couldn't get over it. If I would have taken a picture, there would have been no difference between the color and black-and-white modes. Every object had been reduced to a spot somewhere on the grayscale where color should have rightfully been.

This whole "winter" thing is for the birds, but yet the birds are smart enough to take off until the temperature becomes slightly bearable again. I also learned that not I, nor my husband, nor our truck, were properly winterized. This became painfully apparent when Grandpa asked what temperature our truck's radiator was set at. I stared blankly. "Radiator?" Northerners know the temperature their radiator can withstand like normal people know their blood pressure. I didn't even know you had to do such a thing. And a block heater? What was a staple in the Great White North had never crossed my mind.

The down feather winter coat I had picked up almost as a novelty at Ross when the Dallas temperature hit the freezing mark suddenly transformed into this lifesaving hallelujah, and the single cold weather gear item I owned. I learned that boots were not an option; my sneakers just didn't hold up. They kept me warm and dry all right, but the tread was nearly useless. Snow is like cotton that won't come off your friggin' shoe.

I learned that it takes FOREVER to get anywhere in the winter, and my memories of traversing US 169 weren't just my imagination. It really does take longer. For one thing, you can't just turn the key in the ignition and go; you have to sit and let your truck warm up for several minutes, freezing your ass off the entire time. For another thing, you don't have a whole lot of visibility. Even without six bookcases in the bed of the truck completely obliterating the back window, there is so much grime and mist and gunk all over the windows and the side mirrors that several times I had to roll my windows down, stick my head out, and look behind me to make sure I could make my move without killing anyone.

While we're on the subject, here's a McNugget for the day: if the weather is less than desireable, you'd best get your headlights on, even during the day, especially if you drive a vehicle that is white, black, silver, or any shade of gray. Yes, I know you can see just fine. This isn't about you. This is about ME SEEING YOU so that when I want to change lanes and I check my mirrors and don't see anything, I don't knock right into your invisible ass. You see, when you don't have your lights on, you blend in with all of the bleak, dim, depressing, gray scenery around you and I can't tell if you're there or not. So, muster what's left of your survival instinct and turn on your damn lights!

Also, a special word to the hotrods in the SUVs... here's the deal: yes, I know you can go fast. I know you've got a V8 engine and you just can't wait to display your prowess. I also know that you have 4-wheel-drive and that this makes you invincible. Guess what: that's a bad combo. Excessive speed + a false sense of security (I don't care who you are, 4 moving tires on ice turning too fast for conditions is not any safer than 2 moving wheels on ice) = a disaster waiting to happen. As you careen out of control toward the ditch, please remember to dodge the innocent people in your path and take out only yourself and maybe a light pole. Then some wrecker will come and pick you out of the ditch like a snow booger for a hefty pricetag. 'K?

OK, I can breathe now.

In other news, Grandparents get really excited when they know you're coming. It's really neat to watch, and a really nice feeling. I gotta hand it to them, they went **All Out**. They caught wind of this gluten-free thing and started making interstate phone calls to various retired friends, making special trips to several grocery stores in search of Food I Could Eat. They became Label Nazis on my behalf. They were jazzed that I could eat Rice Krispies. This sure was a switch for them, and I felt really bad to throw them a monkey wrench like that. These are farmers-turned-welders-turned-carnies of German and Belgian heritage that ate wheat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Their generation didn't encounter the 21st century crap our generation has been faced with, and so they can't fathom that anyone would have a problem with a food that seemed so natural, so...American. My grandparents were all-too-understanding, and never judgmental. They didn't try to push things on me that they knew I couldn't have. I brought a supplement with me that I could pop a couple capsules and cheat a little--or do damage control if I unintentionally took a bite of something that any of us forgot I couldn't have. I'm entirely grateful for the special consideration, effort, and respect they showed the whole time.

Seeing family and friends was priceless, it really was. And it was worth the trip. At the end, though, although I always feel like I never have enough time, it was time to start back home just the same. I used to live in a cold place, with disgusting, grimy murk for at least 3-4 months out of the year, but no more. (At what point was weather that bad and for that long ever acceptable? My only excuse is that I didn't remember the beautiful south that I was missing. Funny, BTW, how many pompous northerners refer to us as the "dirty south". I do think they have a few facts backwards.) It's time to go back to my warm place, a place with temperatures at which the human species was designed to exist. A place more compatible with our psyche and our souls. I only wish I could scoop my family and friends and bring them with me, plunk them down in the middle of all this and say, "whaddaya think??" because I know they'd love it. But alas, my extended family is too settled where they are and is getting too old to make trips elsewhere. Some of my friends are lost causes, wearing their ability to stand the northern climate like a golldang badge, while others, well, I'm working on them bit by bit...