Destruction of a tree

So I took down the Chridma tree today. Hubbie was sad, since he didn't get to participate. I was sad because I like having the tree up. I learned several things while dismantling the tree:

• there's always a missing ornament.
• no matter how well I think I'm wrapping the lights, I'll still have a mess to unwrap next year. And yeah, this year I thought I'd wrapped things pretty well.
• the tree is always lighter on the way out.
• the tree is always messier on the way out. How many needles does a noble fir have? Ask my floor.
• the water in the tree stand? Yeah, it's nasty. And smelly. Beware.

Next up is New Year's Eve. We're throwing a formal, black tie, sit down dinner. Unfortunately, a large portion of our friends haven't GROWN UP and learned how to be on time. So they get punished - no filet mignon for them! (If any of them are reading this, I'm serious. You late, you no get the meat.)

People are dumb

I worked a 12 hour shift yesterday. Here's a list of what constitutes a "pediatric emergency" on Christmas day:

• Fever - I had lots of these. Only about 1 in 5 of these children were actually sick.
• Constipation - Again, are people stupid?
• Congestion - Just blow the damn kid's nose.
• "My butt hurts" - This one eneded up being real, but only because the child developed intractable vomiting while waiting to see me. Her butt was fine.
• "Spider bite" - These are almost always real, since in H-town a 'spider bite' is actually an abscess. And I can fix those.
• Broken arm - I can't fix those myself, but I can give your kid the good drugs while the orthopod fixes it.

The first three made up the bulk of my patients, took up the bulk of my time and made me renew my confidence that most people are, truly, stupid.

Dailies

So I'm not doing so well on this daily posting bit, am I? I'm sure all the other daily bloggers are just as busy as I am, and they seem to do just fine. Dave, however, does have the unfair advantage of an iPhone; the handy device allows him to post from anywhere. Then again, he was a daily poster long before his beloved Apple gizmo was invented. So no excuses for me!

Today I finally finished by Chridma shopping. Chridma consists of all of the commercial and social aspects of Christmas without any of the Godly bits. Carols are fine... as long as they couldn't also pass as hymms. Decorations are fine... as long as the baby Jesus is no where to be found. Big lavish family meals are fine... as long as no one says grace. Gifts are freakin' great... as long as I don't have to 'give thanks to God' for my booty. I'll happily give thanks to the gift giver, instead. Usually in form of smooches, since the gift giver is almost always my hubbie.

He does such a good job with 'dem presents. I'm staring at a stack of them right now and I can't WAIT!

Sorry

So I missed yesterday. Shoot me. We had the annual office party yesterday, and fun was had by all. It was, however, a very strange party. I always see all of these people in scrubs or at least white coats. Party clothes made everyone almost unrecognizable. One of my buddies commented, "If I hadn't seen you, I would have thought I was at the wrong party."

Other strange things:

• The boss didn't show up - at all. What's up with that? The boss doesn't show up to the department party - that's weird.
• Child Life can boogy down. I mean, seriously, the girl has moves.
• Research assistants + orderlies = near sex on the dance floor... at an office party. Can we say, not good for the career?
• Drunk doctors are funny. 'Nuff said.
• Drunk nurses are even funnier. It's like a college frat party, only better, 'cause the floors aren't sticky.

EMSTAT

I don' t know how clear I've been in the past about where I work; I actually have two job sites. I work at the Big House and the Community Hospital. The Big House is a large tertiary care children's hospital while the Community Hospital is a tax payer funded county hospital. On days like today, where I worked yesterday at the Community Hospital and today at Big House, the differences seem pretty stark.

Yesterday - porn computer. Today - the system that helps us track patient location went down. Of course, our system outage coincided with a huge bed crunch and flood of new patients. It was like everyone wanted to get his kid checked out before Christmas, but didn't want to see the pediatrician during shopping hours. Very frustrating.

ComPuterMachine

I could have sworn that I'd blogged about this before, but I can't find the post. And I'm too lazy to keep on looking. So there's this computer at work - henceforth known as the porn computer - with no firewall protection. Which is good, 'cause the firewall protection at the community hospital is so strict as to be debilitating, but bad, because, well, no firewall = no protection. I always feel like I've having sex without a condom when I use that thing.

Recently, I've noticed the porn computer getting slower and buggier. So I stopped checking any accounts that need a password from that machine. But I didn't stop using it for patient data. Inconsistent much? I think so.

I feel pretty stupid, since I didn't catch my own inconsistency until tonight. Then I ask myself if I would be comfortable having my personal health information accessed from the porn computer. The answer is clearly no.

But there isn't much I can do about the porn computer. The hospital IT department has tried to replace it several times, but the doctors working the ER will literally sacrifice body and soul to keep the thing around. We all know that if it gets fixed, we won't have access to YouTube, NBC.com programming, the pediatric clinical adviser, or any of the other stuff we've come to rely on. So what to do?

I dunno, but I've decided I'm not using the thing at all. At least that way I'll be consistent.

Daily Posting

I've decided I'm an all or nothing kinda gal. Either I never post (as any reader will have experienced) or I post all of the time. (again... as any reader...)

So I'm going to attempt to post daily. What will I write? I have no clue. The slant of the blog may end up medical, it may end up personal, or it may be a recipe a day. I kinda hope it ends up being a-recipe-a-day blog - that would mean I'm cooking most days. Which would be good.

Or I could just talk about the TV series Heroes. DVR is a beautiful thing - we're
only just now catching up. Hiro rules, Peter rules, Adam... not so much. Screen Writers Guide strike must end so I can see how this tangle ends! So say we all.

St. Louis Food

Amazingly enough, I've been more impressed by St. Louis food than Houston food. And I think I know why. Houston doesn't have many one-off, unique and mid-priced restaurants. Sure, we have multiple cheap, ethnic joints. Sure, we have tons and TONS of mid-priced regional chains: Pappas, Landry's and Goode Company. But how many restaurants like Benjy's? Not that many, and really not that many inside the Loop.

In contrast, I went to three fantastic, mid-priced yet geographically close restaurants during my recent trip to the Gateway to the West. One, Remy's, has been around forever. Farotto's has the best pizza ever, and I've been going there since I was born. The quality has never wagered, and I swear half of the teenage population of Kirkwood has worked there. And then there was Acero. Acero is in a region that used to be known as "Maple-hood" instead of Maplewood. Acero serves the best risotto I've ever had outside of Italy. Acero served three people three courses including a NICE bottle of wine for about $100.

Oh yeah, I ate well in St. Louis.

If it weren't for Tapatia Taqueria, I'd be sad to be home.

Mother, mother...

can you hear me?

Yup, it's that time of year again - time for the annual trip up north to visit my bat shit crazy mother. This visit is going fairly well. What do I mean by well? Let me tell you!

• She hasn't interrupted my shower. Last year she barged in on my naked white ass to ask if she could use the computer. Why did she think she needed to ask? I might be using it, of course! She knows my mad telekinetic skills were surfing the web from the comfort of the shower stall. So nice of her to ask.
• No yelling!
• No discussion of her medication! She's on Forteo, which is used to treat osteoporosis. As you can see via the link, Forteo requires daily subcutaneous injection just like insulin. What you might not have noticed is that the stuff requires refridgeration between 36-46 degrees Fahrenheit... a fact my mother ruminates about ENDLESSLY. When she's traveling, all she can think about is the temperature of her med. Leaning Tower of Pisa? Who cares! The Forteo is 47 degrees! Disaster! If I thought I could get her off of this crap, I would do handsprings of joy.
• No discussion of 'the Market.' Mom seems to think that by closely watching the stock market and following its every twitch and twiggle, she'll miraculously make more money. Since we pay a financial management company obscene amounts of moolah to manage her moolah, her input is, shall we say, teenie-tiny. She can go on an on about how badly the economy is failing... even when the NYSE is having a good year. Thankfully, right now she's so depressed about the market she won't say anything at all. Hooray for recessions!
• We've only had the same conversation about five times now. Usually by this point in the trip, i'll be up to 20 or 30. So we're doing well.

I've sucessfully survived more than 24 hours. I've got about 36 more to go... wish me luck, peeps!