29 May 2009

The Saga Continues

UPDATE: This was started on the 29th, but due to the unforeseen circumstances of the Internet going tits up island wide, I had no way to finish my little saga for the day. Now I'm back, so here goes!

Wicked bad case of insomnia (and no damn ATIVAN!!!) caused me to wake up at 0100 and I've been awake ever since. Mrs. Hardy was awake not long after I was and we gave up all hope of sleeping at 0430 and went to work out. It's now 0645, Mrs. H. is in the shower and I am blogging from our little private patio in the Caymans. Bummer of a life. So, to continue...
Since we are here for a conference, we actually attended yesterday....most of it anyway. We bailed about an hour before it was done, because one of the doctors is DEAD BORING, and we are in the CAYMANS!! We have things to do people! Besides, my direct supervisor said, and I quote, "Don't spend a lot of time at the conference." I think ignoring her advice is a blatant act of insubordination, really. After we snuck out, we decided we should go work out for awhile to ward off all the evil spirits of all the food we have consumed in a short amount of time. We decided to stop working out when I felt the start of an arrhythmic episode and Mrs. Hardy felt like she was going to pass out. Note to self, late afternoon activities more strenuous than raising your hand for the employees wandering around waiting to bring you stuff should be studiously avoided. We then went and spent some time on the glorious beach where I had a hard time convincing my travelling companion that it is much better to tan slowly than to fry yourself to the point of sun poisoning on the first day. This is experience talking here; it puts a real damper on the vacay when you are too dizzy to walk (and not in a good way) and your skin feels like you just emerged from the seventh ring of Hell. And how's that for a segue?

Meaning, we had to go to the town of Hell, even if our guide book said to avoid it at all costs. How could we avoid it? Unfortunately, I don't have "Highway to Hell" on my iPhone cuz that would have been AWESOME! Aside from the fact that there are no highways here, there are also no road signs and the maps are designed for people with clairvoyance. We wandered around, following the directions on the map ("it says follow Watercourse Road to Church Street" what it doesn't say is you have to turn left onto King Road, follow it for half a mile and THEN you can turn on church street), and finally arrived in HELL! Which was closed. How can Hell be closed? Especially for some of it's minions? Not to be dissuaded we did take some pictures. So here is the standard "Welcome to Hell" sign:

Which I think they felt guilty about, because on the otherside of the building was this:

Mrs. Hardy took a somewhat sedate picture at Hell:

While I felt the need to channel Ozzy or Dio or someone of that ilk:


Friday saw us skipping out of the conference after the morning break *cough cough* and heading over to the Turtle Farm. This was tons of fun, due mainly to our tour guide Benny who took quite a fancy to us and gave us the full tour instead of the turtle farm only tour that we paid for. I blame Mrs. Hardy's short shorts and the "twins" myself. But, hey, whatever works. He referred to us as "the famous nurses" and took a picture of us at the end. Mrs. Hardy was fearful that he was going to use it for stalking purposes, but I believe I allayed her fears on that point. We found out about the breeding program for the Greenback Turtle, learned how to tell a male from a female (males have long tails but they don't show up until they are six) and, special treat, we got to hold some turtles.

Mrs. H's turtle looks like he's found something extremely interesting on the ground, while mine just looks like he's doing the Wave.
This is now my favorite picture from the Caymans

'Sup?

28 May 2009

Greetings from The Caymans

So the adventure started inauspiciously enough. Packed and ready to go we piled into the Planet Killer and headed off to the airport. We scanned our passports, checked our bags and headed for TSA. Where we were informed that Mrs. Hardy's passport was invalid. WHAT?! The kind TSA agent stated, "I'm not kidding. This passport is invalid." Turns out Mrs. Hardy just forgot to sign it. Woot! Off we go to the gate. Where we find all the restaurants are closed and our flight has been delayed by an hour and 20 minutes. WHAT?! Yeah, I didn't check the flight time for the first time in my life and so we spent several looooooong hours in the SeaTac airport. I don't wait well. Mrs. Hardy is even worse. SeaTac airport doesn't have free WiFi. I don't know what that's about. The flight crew strongly encouraged everyone to rapidly take their seats and get settled so that those with connecting flights in Dallas (that would be us.) would be able to make them. Unfortunately, the OCD douchebag a few rows in front of us didn't get that memo, or he was deaf, or just deep in the throes of an OCD moment, because he got up and got into his bag in the overhead compartment OPPOSITE his seat no less than 4 times. The last time he got up I put my face into Mrs. Hardy's shoulder and viciously whispered 'motherfucker" over and over until he sat the hell back down. Our two hour layover in Dallas turned into a mad dash for the train and an interminable ride across from some little chick with iPod headphones and a rocker face doing the mambo in her seat which got us to the gate just in time to get on the jetway. Woot, woot!

While waiting in the Miami airport (are you aware that they have like 1 bathroom in the whole airport and it's not clearly marked? Is it a CIA project or something) we discovered that I had lost my Ativan. True. I lost it. In an airplane. Really. I know I'm a TFM patient and that when most of that patient base "loses" a medication it is usually on eBay, the park across the street or down their significant others' gullet, but I really lost it. It fell out of my purse. Really. My doctor is never going to believe me. And the "free" WiFi advertised in the Miami airport is a big fat LIE. Bastards! Which is why this is all delayed blogging. We landed on the Grand Cayman and were hit with a wall of heat/humidity that put Mrs. Hardy into near orgasmic throes of ecstasy and reminded me of why I got the hell out of North Carolina. After going through customs (where Mrs. Hardy informs me that she couldn't understand a word they were saying so she just nodded. Please bail us out of jail when the time comes.)we slogged our way to the Thrifty car rental place. By this time there was some wet denim chafing going on. We picked up our car

It's a freakin' gocart! No matter, it's a nice change of pace from the planet killer. The Caymans are a British Overseas Colony so left side driving is observed here. To remind myself not to kill us both I spend a lot of time saying/yelling "Left side, left side." Or the more succicint: "LEFT!" So far not even a close call. Go me. We have a gorgeous ocean view room and spent our first hours with our toes in the sand

Around dinnertime I convinced Mrs. Hardy to walk to the Lone Star Bar and Grill, "It's just a little bit down the road here." More like 2-3 miles. In the dark. It gets freakin dark, freakin' fast around here. She was whimpering about being dragged off into the bushes and "what the hell is that noise." and I kept saying, "We're fine, those are cicadas, just keep walking." My philosophy is often keep moving and nothing can catch up to you. The alarm will go off very early tomorrow, this is a working vacation after all, and so I'll have to bid adieu for now

23 May 2009

That's Some Advertising




Reminds me of one of the roller derby queens in town. Her nom de guerre is "MILF and Cookies." Ha!

22 May 2009

Single Ladies with a Stiffy

On of our anesthesiologists had Beyonce on the brain the other day and told me about this.




Yes, it does appear that he has seen Beyonce's video a few times. Not to mention he appears to be sporting a stiffy, but perhaps it's just some extraneous padding. Excuse me while I go bleach my brain.

21 May 2009

Fun fact from my iPhone 3000 Amazing Facts App

1/3 of Taiwanese funeral processions include a stripper.

Huh. Why, now?

16 May 2009

Bad Karma Friday

Most of the time, my life goes swimmingly. Lately, I seem to be suffering from a tsunami of bad juju, but the fates seem to have deemed it prudent to space my mishaps over weeks and months. Until this Friday. And, really, now that I think of it, the ball started rolling on Thursday. I had been suckered...erm...asked during an extremely weak moment, to teach at the skills lab. I was to teach the Neopuff resuscitator which no one had seen hide nor hair of for about a year. Wednesday afternoon I was retrained on the Neopuff and Thursday morning I was ateachin' it! That's the medical motto in action: "See one, do one, teach one." Let me just say I would rather work 8 hours with no chance to drink, pee, or sit down and have four deliveries in that time than teach the same damn thing over and over for the eight hours that I did. It would have been infinitely less tiring! (The answer to your question, one more time, is because that is the way it is designed!!! No, you just can't use the ambu-bag. Because they said so, that's why!) My point here, with all this whining, is that I was wasted before Friday ever started, so when that alarm went off at 0400, I considered suicide as a reasonable alternative to getting out of bed. But, out I got. Did my freaking HOUR of Plyometrics (damn you Tony Horton you freak of nature!), got kids ready for school, animals fed, watered and kicked outside as needed, and entered into what can only be called my own personal form of hell. We had people coming in by 2s and 3s; inductions that were called in before the shit hit the fan, arriving with no beds available for them; scheduled C-sections; three preterm transport calls in 5 minutes; crazy people, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! I had a 34 week induction for PIH and a postdates induction. Both primips. Both on pitocin. In between running around, being second pair of hands at deliveries, triaging phone calls, and running back to the OR for instruments, I was trying to manage these two. The docs decided to put a Cook Balloon in the 34 weeker. And yes it is as comfortable as it looks. Then they decided that she needed her labs redrawn. Unfortunately, she didn't have a vein to be found (believe me, I tried) so I had to shut down her IV for 10 minutes, draw a discard, draw some blood, fill my tubes and send them off. 20 minutes later, the lab calls and says that I didn't fill one of the tubes all the way up. Now, having had this particular problem before, I had looked extremely carefully to make sure that I had it filled to the magical line. And I had. So I know those bastards dropped it. But since I can't prove it , time for a redraw. I was venting about just knowing that they had dropped my tube when the executive secretary, who, she informed us, was looking for a fight (debate team in high school and college) called the lab and asked them point blank if they had dropped it. Obviously, not something they were wont to admit. "It was barely short." Yeah, once the blood was all over the floor it was short! Back to the room I go, where this little missy is not pleased with me anyway because I was party to the whole cervical ripening balloon extravaganza and here I was to siphon more blood out of her. Once again, IV off for 10 minutes, attach syringe, find out blood doesn't want to come out, take about 10 minutes to get 5 mls of blood, fill tube up to very top, restart IV, take to desk and have 3 nurses and 2 secretaries verify there is enough freakin' blood and send it off.

My other chickie was on her second day of induction. Please keep this in mind. She had had cytotec and a Cook Balloon and was now 4 cm. So she was on pitocin. She stated that she felt her contractions in her back. Okay, so, she's OP, not unusual. I looked at her tummy and thought, that's a big kid. We pressed on with the pitocin until I got to 14 milliunits and she was sleeping through these contractions. Hmm. I informed the doc of this little scenario and she said, "Well, let's go fix that." The doc goes to break her water, mentions the kid is high, breaks her bag and we see thick mec. Crap. Then the doc says, "Uhh, this feels kind of squishy." Double crap. We bring in an ultrasound and confirm....breech. Motherfucker! Do you think we could have figured this out before her second day of induction? My brain refused to see that tummy as breech because, "hey, we're inducing her for the second day" and I had never checked her because she wasn't uncomfortable. That is the last damn time I trust the residents on any thing! I work adjacent to retards! After the c-section (Still no eating and have only peed once; go kidney stones!) I find out that I had forgotten to hook the pitocin back to the port I had drawn the blood from on my other patient and I had been pitting the floor. Go me. I hadn't charted a thing since 0700 on either patient, so I had to stay after school, as it were, and get things done while popping mini candy bars into my mouth as the only form of sustenance I had had during the shift. Tony Horton can kiss my ass.

On the way home I stopped by the AT&T store so I could trade in my POS Crackberry with the malfunctioning click wheel for a handy-dandy, too cool for words iPhone. Never make a major purchase when you are so tired you don't know your own name. "Would you like this expensive and not really needed accessory?" "Sure, whatever will make you shut up and let me get out of here."

I got home and, since November finally ended, fired up the lawnmower. I had been able to mow the front yard last week during the 17 rain-free seconds we had, but the backyard hadn't been touched in two weeks. Two weeks of nearly uninterrupted rain. Amazon rain forest type rain. The grass was up to my shins. We nearly had to send out a search party for the dog. Now, my lawnmower is 10 years old and has some issues. A wonky back wheel. The cotter pins on both sides of the handle fell out. I had used zip ties to hold it together, but since those kept breaking, I bought some new bolts and nuts and fixed it. My point is, ugly it may be, but it gets the job done. However, when you are looking at a job that should require a machete...I had to walk slower than the sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknown to keep the mower from binding up and choking off. I went through two tanks of gas in the backyard alone. The engine was smoking like a 3 pack a day chain smoker and I had to shut it off for awhile because I thought it was going to catch fire. It took me an hour and a half to do the backyard when it usually takes 45 minutes for both front and back. At one point I noticed that the handle was getting lower and lower. I examined said handle and noticed that the metal was starting to crack at near the wheel. I began to pray mightily! I did not have the wherewithal to not beat this thing with a baseball bat if the mower busted before I finished the everlovin' yard. When I had a 5x5 foot section left, the inevitable happened. The sucker snapped like Joe Theisman's femur. Dammit! Not to be deterred, I am tenacious when I need to be, I propped the broken end on it's former joint to keep me semi straight and narrow and muscled this now nearly useless POS through the rest of the yard. I wonder if Home Depot sells lawn mower handles? I really don't want to buy a new lawnmower.

The parasites are growing out of their clothes daily, so we went on a spending spree today, then picked up Mrs. Hardy and walked around the new fountain parks in Navy City. Very nice. Built by the guy who did the fountain at the Bellagio in Lost Wages. Mrs Hardy was shocked when I told her what a hole that place used to be.


One last note: I was downloading the "Zombieville" app onto the handy-dandy iPhone when FB climbed into my bed after brushing his teeth. He sat beside me and pulled a device of a *ahem* personal nature out from under him and asked "What's this?" I just took it away and threw it in the drawer. I'd wondered where that was...luckily it isn't one of the "anatomically correct" kinds. Cuz, then I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have asked what it was, but I would have been paying for therapy for YEARS!! (Personal aside....yes, I know you warned me, you were right, don't be smug!)

13 May 2009

uh...no. Not that desperate

Even I, who worship dutifully at the alter of Pepsi, would have to give this one a miss.


Taking Chance

I just spent 45 of the last 78 minutes sobbing nearly uncontrollably. I look like the end of a bad night, but it was worth it.



Amazon.com people. Buy it. Watch it. Feel the honor.

08 May 2009

07 May 2009

Norwegian Beach Boys



Much better than "Kokomo" and slightly less ghey.

06 May 2009

Driving down the road yesterday we saw that a Stater had pulled someone over and I said, sotto voce "Oops! He's in handcuffs." My children have superhero hearing and this comment prompted SoS to wonder how one got put into handcuffs. (Research? I don't know) So FB sought to enlighten his brother with these words: "Oh, speeding. Or robbing a store. Or robbing a bank. Or sabotage." What? Well, yes I guess, but what the stink brought that on?

Tonight I walked by the refrigerator and noted a pool of water on the floor. Damn kids, they refuse to let the valve up on the Brita tank BEFORE they take their cups away. Then I opened the freezer (it's actually on the bottom), and a 2 gallon Hefty bag full of soapy water and Hot Wheels fell out onto the floor. I picked the bag up in disbelief and noted a fairly large hole in one corner. Noted it because of the amount of water pouring onto my floor. Case of the mysterious water puddle solved. Any guesses as to whose bright idea THAT was? First two don't count. I didn't even have to ask, if that gives you a hint!

01 May 2009

I broke my retainer off one side of my lower jaw after eating an M&M. Mrs. Hardy contends it is a karmic smackdown for daring to ingest the demon sugar. I am leaning more toward stress failure of the 25 year old cement that has bonded the retainer to my teeth, lo these many years. I then had to manipulate this sharp wire back and forth until the other side gave way, so as to not injure myself in a bizarre salad accident. Do you have any idea how strange it is to feel the back of your teeth for the first time since you were 17? Not to mention the globs of sharp, jaggedly broken cement on the aforementioned teeth. My bedroom TV is also crapping out on me and my wallet is on the verge of giving up the ghost. Not to mention, the dog spewed about 9 pounds of semi digested food on the Berber carpet. Perhaps it's time I sacrifice a goat or something. I mean, what is the deal?!? On a good note, I have not an inkling of swine flu although I tempted fate by wearing my pig socks to work today.