Friday, February 24, 2006

Thought I'd share

I worked out this morning and my legs feel like jelly, my gluts are on fire and there are muscles in my chest and arms that I certainly didn't know I had creaking in protest. On the plus side, I feel healthier than I have in a long time and it's Friday.

I also wanted to capture a question posed to me yesterday by a wise colleague: "Doesn't it always seem like the person telling you to calm down is the one who's making you nuts in the first place?" Heck yes it does.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Quailtard

Well, Cheney finally apologized for shooting his friend in the face, so that presumably puts an end to this chapter of an otherwise stellar and glorious vice presidency. Anyone out there with wingless, legless animals in a pen and a liking for the arrangement of their own face, be wary if you hear that good ol' Dick will be in your area.

In news related to this story, thanks to the Daily Show, the word "quailtard" has been given an entry in Wikipedia. He said quailtard. Heh heh.

February has been chock full of holidays and birfdays. While I'm not a huge fan of all the commercial crap associated with Valentine's Day, I do enjoy a day that revolves around remembering those we love and appreciate. This year Bryan and I decided to exchange candy bars which is an affordable and delicious way to say "I love you." And President's Day weekend was amazingly relaxing and we got quite a kick out of exclaiming, "it's only Sunday, we still have another day off" and then figuring out what we would have been doing had we been at work on Monday. And the birfdays began with Bryan's cousin Erin's, followed up by my grandmother's, then Bryan's dad's and finally, Bryan's big 2-6. I tried to buy him an overcoat for his birthday but so far all he's gotten is a really, long uncomfortable coat that lost a button after 2 days, had a pocket tear after 5 days, and seems to be unreturnable because the salesman at Men's Warehouse doesn't understand that Bryan doesn't want this coat (even if the sleeves do fit, which is its one redeeming quality). We will attempt to give it back this weekend though replacing it with another coat that Bryan likes more, and that fits the monkey arms, has not proven to be an easy task. Friggin' 48 extra long - can't find that at Macy's.

This weekend ends the celebratingist month with the anniversary of our first date. In honor of this day, we will have the first meeting with the minister to talk about our ceremony, dumbly stare at the organist while she asks us which musical pieces we'd like played at said ceremony, and then round out the day with a half-hearted recreation of our first date. The first time, we had the option of drinking several beers and a bottle of wine and then getting on the T - this time we'll gaze longingly at other people enjoying several beers, have one glass of wine and the get in the car and haul our asses back to Framingham. It should be a great day.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Oh, keep 'em coming

Brilliant.

And ESPN has an article from its hunting section about the "shooting". The 78-year-old man who was shot in the face by the vice president has suffered a "mild" heart attack. Has John Kerry or Barack Obama called this man yet? Maybe right around the time he heard Intensive Care for another week he started seriously reconsidering who his "friends" are. I can't stop using mitten quotes when talking or writing about this story. So. Fun.

Don't Quail, Duck!

I'm loving all of the Cheney-bashing going on today. This guy is unbelievable. I won't overextend my assumptions too far, but I think that he wanted to brush the whole thing quietly under the rug and move on, and the media, so ready to jump on anything this administration does, is all over this. If you missed the Daily Show last night and you have a chance, watch the rebroadcast at 7PM tonight. Hilarious.

Happy V-day. I keep saying that this is a no-big-deal day, one of those holidays designed by Hallmark and Hersheys, but I guess that any day that makes people pause and appreciate those they love is a good thing. I also like wearing red.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Seriously?


This man "accidentally" shot another man while quail hunting. The story goes that Dick didn't see the other man who had gone to find a quail he had shot, so he let one rip hitting Harry Whittington (described as a millionaire attorney from Austin) in the face and chest. It was okay, because our vice president travels everywhere with a bevy of medical personnel and has a private ambulance on call (!), and Whittington is going to be all right. It was the first time the two men had been hunting together, brought there by a mutual friend. Now I am not normally a conspiracy theorist, but if I were a reporter, I would surely be checking into Whittington's background to see if he was "conveniently" shot in the face by the dirtiest Dick in America in the hope of getting him out of the way. Hmmm.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Breaka You Face

I now know that it is possible to break one's face thanks to my younger brother Joe. Last night I got a call from him around 10PM:
"Um, do you know where mom is?"
"Yes, gone for the night."
"Oh....I may need your help."
"Ok. You sound funny, everything all right?"
"Well, if you consider having your two front teeth dangling in your mouth all right..."

Fifteen minutes later I met him in the state's slowest ER and saw what can happen when one human mouth collides with a hard body part of another human. His teeth were still in his mouth, but they were pointed the wrong way, heading back toward the direction of his gullet.
"Dude, your teeth are pointing the wrong way." I'm very astute.
He had gone to play flag football and in the process of catching the ball, had caught a head or shoulder in the face.

The charge nurse visited to get his insurance card and asked, "Did you at least win?" To which he replied, all deadpan, "The game hadn't even friggin' sthtarted. Thith happened during warm-upsth." Ouch.

After waiting about 45 minutes, a "doctor" came to see Joe's newly aligned smile. He pushed a little, asked a question or two, then left. About 15 minutes later he showed up with another doctor who explained that the first guy had called him to consult. Now, maybe I watch too many hospital-themes television shows, but I think we had been sent an intern the first time and he needed to check with the real doctor, who simply agreed with the first guy that my brother's teeth were pointing the wrong way in his mouth. They're very astute, too. One medical profession wearing a lab coat asked the other medical professional if an X-ray was in order - they concurred and left the room to proclaim it to the land that an X-ray was in order. Another hour passed.

Finally, the X-ray was taken and it was deemed inconclusive. Joe might have a fracture, but they couldn't tell from the picture of his skull in front of them, so a new picture was ordered: a CAT Scan. About this time, the first "doctor" returned and asked my brother, "So, there's no pain, right?" To which I'm pretty sure he received two incredulous stares from both Joe and myself. When checking him in, the charge nurse had asked, "On a scale of 1-10, how much does it hurt?" "8 and 1/2," was the reply, from a guy who isn't exactly a novice in the cuts and bruises department, and now a medical professional stood before us, 2+ hours later asking if it hurt. Finding his voice, my brother said, "Yeah. It hurths. A lot." This brought a nurse scurrying into the room a mere fifteen minutes later with a percoset, a glass of water and a straw. Time check, 12:45AM.

At about 1:15, with my brother starting to doze thanks to the codeine-infused meds, I wandered out to the nurse's station to inquire about the estimated time until the Scan and to bully someone into speeding things up. The appallingly chipper nurse explained that "CT was on it's way from our Natick location" and that it should be here "sooner rather than later, hon." She followed this with, "But once it's here and they take him, it only takes 3 minutes for the scan and another 20 to read it," like this was a great turn of events. I countered with a very tough, "So, another hour?" and got "At least" as an answer. I returned to my tiny, glass-enclosed world and watched the tail end of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a show I didn't know existed with a host I couldn't place (until Joe said, remember the Drew Carey Show, and I was vaguely reminded of the actor who had played the obnoxious boss). Fortunately, this was on later than usual thanks to the Grammy Awards so I had something at which to mindlessly stare while I waited for the CT to "get here."

About 1:45, a different nurse appeared in the doorway, and pulling a Nurse Ratched, said in a loud, grating voice that CT would take him away now. Joe was in a sound-ish sleep and I had been sleepily watching ol' Craig Ferguson say goodnight and we both jumped; I again wondered at the qualifications of a hospital employee. While my bro's face was being scanned, they decided to move us to a different room, closer to the nurse's station. I was heartened that this room had a rocking chair, but a little disturbed by the Finding Nemo stickers watching me from all sides.

My brother returned and promptely fell asleep again. At this point I had foregone the tv, figuring that anything on at 2 o'clock in the morning was just going to be depressing. The "20 minutes to read the Scan" stretched into 40 minutes and 3AM was staring me in the face. Finally, the results were determined and it was revealed that my brother did, indeed, have a facial fracture. I couldn't help giggling a little and saying, "you broke your face!" The nurse told him that this was considered an open fracture and that he would have to take antibiotics for 10 days to ward off infection (which she cheerily informed him would be an infection of the bone and that would mean a minimum of 8 weeks in the hospital with an IV drip). Anyway, the cup and straw were back and he swallowed 3 and 1/2 tablets of tasty penicillin and we were finally free to go after promising to come right back if there was any "hurling or whurling." I thought of doing that on the spot, but figured that the fastest path to my bed was to just vomit in my mouth then wearily smile and repeat that he would be brought to an oral surgeon first thing in the "morning".

Today, Joe got some lovely new hardware in his mouth, hardware which is apparently holding in his front teeth very well and ensuring that his broken face will mend. Kind of puts a new spin on that old Italian saying.

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In un-family-in-pain-related news, why do we continue to let this President get away with deception and blatant mis-handling of facts? Dan Kennedy of the Media Nation blog has a link to the story of a Bush campaign aid who lied about his education. Will this administration EVER be called to task on all of its betrayals to the people of the US (never mind the rest of the world)?

Monday, February 06, 2006

Blogslump

So, I've been really lax in blogging mainly because I've been maintaining two other blogs for work (I'd link to them, but they're focused on K-12 education and grants, and as such are kind of boring). The other reason I haven't blogged is this general malaise I feel about blogging. I read other people's blogs and am entertained and enlightened and then when I open my new post window, the cursor just winks at me cruelly daring me to write something interesting. And, when the most interesting thing that you do is buy wedding invitation envelopes and hang some insulation, it's pretty tough to get excited about blogging.

I just sat through a 2 and a half hour staff meeting and must leave now to go to dance class, so I'm leaving you with the taste of an empty posting about not blogging - pretty inane, but that feels about right. If that's not enough, find some warm nacho cheese and eat that...mmmmmmm.