***WARNING: ANGRY RANT****

****Okay, this is the second warning and my disclaimer: This will be an angry, bitching rant and I am unapologetic. If you are easilly offended, read no further. And with that, I'm off.****

I called my dad's cell phone from work to give him some blood test results. A woman answers the phone who's voice I don't recognize.
Me: "Is C. Hanna there?"
L: "No, he's out of town, but this is his niece and I can give him a message if you want."
(Um, what? My dad barely talks to his brothers and sisters, he didn't leave his cell phone with one of their kids. By this point I'm so confused that I need to clarify.)
Me: "Is this C. HANNA?"
L, thinking I'm asking if SHE is C. Hanna (DUH!) answers: "No, this is C. Hanna's daughter."
(UM, WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!)
Me: "No, I'M C. Hanna's daughter. WHO is this?"
L: "Oh, this is his step daughter L."

The conversation ends civilly at that point because I'm at work. Here are my thoughts that WEREN'T said during this conversation because I was at work, but should've been:
"No, actually you're NOT C. Hanna's step daughter because our parents aren't married. I know that because if they were, I'd want to kill myself. Oh, woops, not the right person to say that to. Here's a tip: If you want to identify yourself so we'll know who you are, you can simply say "I'm the loser slacker mooch that lives with your dad and is a total pain in his ass." THEN I'll know who I'm talking to."

My whole life I've been proud to be my dad's daughter. He would come to talk in class, and I was like a peacock, so proud to show him off. I even remember when caller ID was new I was so excited because any time I called anyone my dad's name would show up. And even now, even when he came to the office to see the doctor I stopped him in front of every person we passed so I could tell my co-workers that this was my dad.

I can see why she would want to claim to be his daughter. But there's so many things that make it TOTALLY outlandish. First of all, there's a certain amount of class that goes along with being a Hanna. There's a HUGE desire to strive for intelligence and to make something out of your life. We want to be successful, and even if we're not there yet, we don't give up.

My dad's rules for us after we reached a certain maturity were, 1. Always use your best judgement and 2. There are no other rules. Well, most of us know what L's best judgement is, and if she's so convinced that the world is better off without her, she's probably right and she should use more successful methods. (Did that cross the line? I SO don't care. In fact, I think most people would agree with me. If you don't, you don't know enough about her.)

I don't agree with everything my dad does. There are a lot of views that we don't share. But I love him and am so proud of him, and it's disgraceful to him AND to me to have someone like that trying to claim him. She has a hell of a long way to go before she can call him Dad and have it be anything more to him than a flat-out insult.

Halloween

It's a month late, but worth it!

The New Laptop

Yes, believe your eyes, this is a new post. My last laptop died, unwilling to let me post or upload pictures or check my E-mail. A HUGE thank you to Allison and Steve for getting new laptops and giving me their old one, which will be a grand improvement and will help me get back into the blogging world. And thank you also to Jay, for knowing the difference between different cords and for being able to go out and, on the first try, buy the cord we needed to get us up and going again. It would have taken me a lot more than one try, so thank you for saving us time, money and also from me getting so frustrated I pick up and threw our new laptop.

So, my biggest news is that I'm nearing the end of the X-ray class that I have been taking. It's been a LOT harder than I expected, and I'm really nervous about the last two tests, the first of which will be on Dec. 13. However, the X-ray tech I used to work with is no longer at my office, so I have been positioning the patients and having the doctor press the button on the last few X-rays we did. My first X-ray didn't go so well. It was a hand X-ray, which is simple, except that I didn't give the machine enough juice so it was way too light. And I cut part of her thumb off in one view. AND that when I positioned her for the third and final view, I positioned her OVER a lead guard so it didn't appear at all. Opps. And yeah, when the doctor asked me to re-do it to darken it up, I turned the machine down instead of up, so the second X-rays were even lighter than the first ones. Opps. Needless to say, I wasn't too surprised when the hand X-ray we had he next day was sent to the hospital to get X-rays.

I had accepted that the doctor wanted to wait for me to finish my class to do anymore X-rays, when today he called me down to do a forearm. Needless to say, it still makes me nervous and is hard because he's in the room watching me fumble through, but I pulled off a decent X-ray that didn't need to be re-done. Then he had me do a finger. Success. And then another hand. SUCCESS. And then an ankle. That one came out FAR too light, and I was sweating when he asked me to go back in and do it again because my first repeat X-ray hadn't gone so well. But I came back out with X-rays that were as dark as he likes them!!! Instead of lighter than the first ones!!! It's a huge rush when I put up an X-ray that he can use. And all of this experience, though nerve-racking, is going to help me remember so much more on the test than just reading alone can. So we'll see what else he throws at me. So far I'm 3 for 2.

Other than that I'm going to take a couple days to catch this baby up. I know I missed a monthly newsletter for Kami, and we have another month in just a couple days. I may also tell the story of two girls I work with getting let go and making me the head MA. But I'll wait on that one. Don't want to get dooced.