Wicked....

Good Meets Bad....

I've been listening to "Wicked" for the last few days. I'm on a "Wicked" kick. You see..."Wicked", for those of you who aren't familiar with Broadway, is a musical. It is also a book, or more precisely was a book and then they made a musical out of it. (Wicked-The book...) A very good thing indeed. I loved, LOVED, LOVED the book. It's the tale of Elphaba, aka, the Wicked Witch of the West. Who was, of course, melted by Dorothy Gale et al. in "The Wizard of Oz". "Wicked" tells Elphaba's story. How she grew up and why she became known as the WWotW. It was written by Gregory Maguire. Maguire has written several other wonderful retellings of classic stories."Wicked" is one of my favorite books of all time.

But "Wicked", the musical, is simply enchanting all by itself. To quote the official website (Wicked-The musical...) "Long before Dorothy dropped in, two other girls meet in the Land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two unlikely friends end up as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch makes for the most spellbinding new musical in years."

The cast recording I have features Kristin Chenowith as Glinda and Idina Menzel as Elphaba. These two ladies have stunning voices that I envy and enjoy. Just listen to the breathtaking "Defying Gravity" and you'll know why I could (and do) listen to this CD over and over.

Check out the site...and check out the CD. If you are a fan of theater, "The Wizard of Oz" or just a good fairy tale, this is one story you should not miss!!!!

12-Hour Tuesdays

Today was Tuesday. An 8-hour Tuesday. Quiet for the first time in a while. They'd kick me for saying that at work. You don't say the "Q"word at work. But now that I'm home it's fine. I work in a Psych unit. If it's a busy day, it just stays busy all day. But if it's mellow and all the patients are calm and all the charting's done and we don't have 5 admits and 3 discharges all at once, and someone says "It's a quiet day, isn't it?..." Then immediately the phone starts ringing and the manager has 6 things that must be done now and some previously placated patient gets upset by some insignificant thing that results in a "code green" and someone ends up in restraints. Usually (not always, but usually) 8-hour Tuesdays are decent. But every other week I work a 12-hour shift from 0700-1930 and those seem to be the days from hell. I can handle one admit at a time, even if they happen in quick succession, but I can't do three at once, plus a discharge and a patient in tears. I work with a great team of people and we work together well to try to take care of all the patients, but we have groups to run and charting and treatment plans and evals and then you throw in the unexpected outbursts from adolecsents and people in pain and phone calls from family members who mean well, but start telling you all about their problems instead of addressing the patient's needs and things can get a little ....crazy. Those are my 12-hour Tuesdays.