Night out

I just happened to like what I saw in this scene.

On death

Yesterday as I was leaving work at 5PM, ready to start the Memorial Day weekend, and to finally get a few days off, I heard a code blue called to the ICU. Now that is an instant dilemma: do I just ignore someone else's emergency and hope I don't get paged back once I get home? Or do I go scope out the situation, to see if I can be of help (and avoid the call back)? I opted for the pre-emptive strike and headed to the unit. I was the 1st doctor on the scene and they were doing CPR on a post-surgical patient. Apparently a pretty big abdominal bleed. In these situations, I dont have much to offer other than direct the action, get the heart back to rhythm, and order some drugs. These types of things need an intervention to staunch the bleeding. I handed the patient off to the surgeon when he arrived, offered any other help, and headed home, assuming that the patient didn't survive. It looked pretty dire. I was amazed to hear this morning the patient was still alive (in a cardiac sort of way). He won't make it however. It did make me pause to consider all the modes of death. It's not like they show in the movies. On a future post I'll explore some of my thoughts.

Females & slips

I don't even know if women wear slips anymore. What with see-able thong undies, or no undies at all, (but still see-able), I think that slips have probably gone the way of a good shoe shine. In fact, I think slips are quite sexy, another layer of clothes to delay the inevitable show to come. But, disrobing is not what this post is about. Nor is it about underwear. Let me explain.
I've been trying for 6 months to rent a boat slip at our local marina. My goal is to have a small boat available for me to jump on right after work. Since home is just around the corner from the lake, I see it as a no-brainer. I've never really had a jones to own a boat, but the stars have aligned just right for this to make sense to me. Leave work at 5PM, be on the boat by 530 with drink in hand and a book to read, home by 7. It's perfect.
Now enter the women part of this story. Her name is Meri. She's getting divorced. ( I wondered if she wears a slip, or thongs, but I digress). She owns/runs the marina. It's for sale for $1.4 mil. I presume that going thru a divorce keeps her from answering her voicemail messages for the past 6 months about slip rentals (the boat type, not the lingerie). But, this weekend I found her at the restaurant. I told her how I'd been trying to contact her. She told me that I was indeed on a waiting list (thanks Tera), but it would probably be a year. We discussed the sale of the marina, and I acted half-interested, and walked out to the dock to look around. Inexplicably she tracked me down about 15 minutes later and told me that slip 42A was available (for some reason bra size comes to mind here). I checked it out, and here it is in the picture. Another person was there, overheard the conversation, and said they wanted it too!
Enter female #2. The alpha-female. Who hasn't worn a slip in 20 years, and doesn't own a thong pantie as far as I know. She says that it's either b-school, or a boat. Make a choice. More about b-school in another post.
I have some work to do sway #2 that a slip can be a good thing.

Yosemite was good preparation

Last summer I backpacked Yosemite with a guided group. Weak I know, but it had a purpose. I've been wanting to go out on my own, and I did it last nite, on a very simple level. Four minutes from my home is a very beautiful state park, with a nice primitive campground. I foresook a phatty work party to test out my meager survival skills. Planning took 2 weeks, and I had it just about nailed. Menu prep is very important, and my hamburger/potato goulash hit the spot, as did the morning pancakes (from a bottle). I fretted over how to make coffee, but settled on Folgers coffee bags, and that was perfect. Armed with a new tent, new air mattress, a 2-burner stove, 2 bottles of wine (only one was needed), "men's" reading material, and not nearly enough dry clothes I persevered. The rain came in a deluge, again & again. But I was high & dry in the tent. The things I learned on my REI trip to Yosemite served me well, and I now feel that I can take on just about any mid-level trip. In fact, I recently talked with Cameron about climbing Mt Whitney, and told him of a guided-trip that was available to us in the summer. He said "dad, SEALS don't use guides". Point taken. He & I can do that trip. I'll even fix pancakes. Enjoy the pictures, limited as they may be because of the torrents.

26 Things....Obtuse

We've had 7 straight days of rain. Today (Saturday) more landscaping. Debbie brought this from Louisville. It fits in a funky sort of way. As before, I take pictures to try to learn something new. This picture had no inherent educational purpose before I took it, but I learned a lesson after the fact. I learned that a flash is hard to hide.
To update, other letters used so far: A,B,E,F,H,K,L,Q,S