Because today's Monday...

and I have less than a week to make a birthday wish.

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Why not head over to head-nurse's blog for a helping of brain-slash-will-power? 

Friday, August 08, 2008 "Panic: Ur doin' it wrong."

I know this sounds impossible, but our hospital has been on Disaster OMGWTF Footing for the last month.

Yes, fiends and neighbors, the last month.

Disaster is usually reserved for, you know, actual disasters. Like plane crashes. And hurricanes. And, I dunno, maybe huge leaks of refrigerant, or bioactive compounds from some horrible lab somewhere that're turning everybody into bunny-hopping happy zombies with bad 80's hair.


Or the air conditioning going out. That's also a disaster. But anyway. We've been on Disaster Footing, with Code Whatevers that Signify An Internal Disaster, daily except for weekends.


Why, you ask? Because of a computer glitch.


Scheduling is all fucked up, is the short answer. Somebody somewhere has been transitioning to some wonderful computer system that's going to be all ice-cream bars and puppies in the long run, but in the short run...eesh. All the operating rooms are triple-booked, which must be fun. Can you imagine? Close your eyes....


THE SCENE: SUNNYDALE HOSPITAL
THE CHARACTERS: VARIOUS NURSES AND O.R. TECHS


Opening: MORNING in the OPERATING ROOM, wide-angle


TECH #1: What are you doing here? I'm supposed to be setting this room up for a left pharyngeal troponetic farumulunectomy!


TECH #2: Huh? I'm here to set it up for a transverse myelopical zummulation ablation!


TECH #3: Both you guys are high. I've got a complete radical sympathomimetic wangulation scheduled here for 0800.


NURSES: We don't CARE what you're here for! Just set up for SOMETHING!!


Meanwhile, in recovery, things are going badly as well. And on the acute care floors, we're having conversations with Manglement that defy belief:


MANGLER: You need to get six patients out, double up four, and send three to rehab. Who've you got that can move?


NURSE IN NOMINAL CHARGE: Uh...well, these two spines could go to rehab, and we could double up the cranis, but we have eight patients in isolation and another five that are total-care. Six is the most I can give you right now.


MANGLER: What about that one? (Stabs finger at bed-board) That one looks pretty good. Why can't you send *him* home?


NINC: Uh...'cause he had a kidney removed about two hours ago?


MANGLER: Tell him to MAN UP!!


So. It's been a fun month.

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Further incidents, happy accidents, and etc to be had via head-nurse.blogspot.com

famous last words

Come on, Tikki. You'll probably never see these people again.

One of Dee's Pies in the Skies

Spotted on google images, turns out this artist is also on etsy.com under "pencilshavings." Thought her work (i.e. woodpeckers) looked familiar.

Wasn't Half Bad (If I Do Say So Myself)

Me and the gf have a running joke about who's tanner/darker (whiter) since I can always count on her dreaming up another backyard project during her days off. Sadly, Yours Truly's Monday thru Friday routine consists of strolling a few blocks to the office and back. Any day now, we'll take that backpacking trip across...the Americas? Let's presume we have a few kinks to work out before hatching Ultimate Breakaway. In the meantime, I've offered to assist "with navigation and lifting of heavy camera equipment as long as we can bypass any packs of hungry coyotes.'

I finally conceded that 'I could be a wee bit lighter' while the two of us stood in the shower line at Kitsap park. What can I say, I'd just been promised Sunday brunch at the lunch counter. They forgot both eggs in Dee's breakfast burrito but I got a whole breakfast sweet to myself when the diner owner realized that we were out-of-towners. (GF said she was "fine" after I waved a half a scone at her on the ride home.)

strange, unexpected delights

www.leelanaunews.com

posted on October 14, 2007 at 1:06 am,

S-B icon heading to Columbus Zoo

Anna, the maternal primate who has "watched over" pedestrians in Suttons Bay for the past eight years, is moving south...Now, she’ll have a new home at the Columbus Zoo.



I've had quite the eventful month, due to a much needed and appreciated transfer at work, an upteenth change of living situation (affecting both roommate and neighborhood association), and; I've met someone.

Dee and I went to flamingo gaze at the local fair and it slipped my mind to ask her whether she liked the poison dart frogs, or otters, or chatty monkeys best. (Prime example: "Mama--possibly another office worker deciding to take a breather, and realizing the joys of bringing an easily amused date--look at the gorilla. He's dead.""No, honey, he's sleeping. Watch his belly [move up and down]. See, he's resting.")

Positively nauseating, eh?

Love me some straight dope

Dear Cecil:

I've always wondered where the wonderful American expression "Indian giver" originated.  Is an Indian giver one who: (1) as an Indian, gives you something and then takes it back, (2) gives things to Indians, or (3) gives away Indians?  Your insight is greatly appreciated.

--Michael W., Jacksonville, Florida

(September 16, 1988)

Dear Michael:
This whole thing is so ironic it's an instant cure for pernicious anemia.  "Indian" was once used by the white man as an all-purpose adjective signifying "bogus" or "false", owing to the supposedly low morals of the red man.  Thus you had "Indian summer," false summer late in the year; "Indian corn" and "Indian tea," cheap substitutes for products the original colonists had known back in England; and "Indian giver," someone who gives you something and then takes it back.

But of course Europeans were the real Indian givers, repeatedly promising the Indian reservations by treaty and then stealing them back once valuable farmland or minerals were found.  The term has thus inadvertently become an acid commentary on the character of its inventors.  I think it's poetic.


Dear Cecil:
You appear to be under the impression that Indian reservations were provided by the United States to Indians in treaties, and that the whites later "took back" the reservations. In fact, in the majority of cases, reservations are areas of the tribes' own homelands, usually very small by comparison to their original territory, which the Indians kept to themselves, while giving up the balance in the treaties. In legalese, the Indians "reserved to themselves" a portion of their lands, while granting the rest to the government.

While this distinction may seem like nitpicking, it is important, because most non-Indians perceive the special status of Indians tribes and their lands as gifts from the benevolent white father in Washington (at the resentful taxpayer's expense). In fact, neither their special status, which is sovereignty retained by the tribes, nor their reserved lands are gifts in any sense of the word.
--Anthony C., Mill Valley, California


Dear Anthony:
Point well taken. Thanks.



Dear Cecil:
I'm afraid you've goofed again. In a recent column you wrote, "The whole thing is so ironic it's an instant cure for pernicious anemia." I'm surprised you didn't know that pernicious anemia is caused by a deficiency in a protein called intrinsic factor which carries Vitamin B12 to the ileum, the last segment of the small intestine, where the complex binds to a receptor and is absorbed into the blood. No amount of iron would cure it but a good shot in the arm of B12 would do a lot of good. Would you please set the record straight?
--Larry G., junior, Northwestern University Medical School, Evanston, Illinois


Cecil replies:
Go away, kid, you bother me.

122
Emily Dickinson

A something in a summer’s Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer’s noon —
A depth — an Azure — a perfume —
Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see —

Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle — shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me —

The wizard fingers never rest —
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed —

Still rears the East her amber Flag —
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red —

So looking on — the night — the morn
Conclude the wonder gay —
And I meet, coming thro’ the dews
Another summer’s Day!