Email. Ugh.

I like email, sort of like I like getting real mail from the rusty box across the street in the driving rain.

Too much crap. And some irrational fear that by throwing it away, It will somehow become important and unrecoverable.

Gmail makes that nice by letting me never throw anything away... which doesn't help a lick.

The other thing that's become a problem is all the newsletters and such that I signed up for, of my own volition...don't read them, think I aught to, so they sit there and pile up. 236 unread Medscape newsletters at last count today.

Trashed em. Hope none of my patients die from my ignorance of those very important breaking news flashes now scattered throughout the interwebs.

At least I feel better.

Just a bunch of lights

There's something a bit depressing for me about Christmas lights after Christmas. It's over. The anticipation and the magic has been released into the ether.

Sooner or later, people will turn them off and take them down. Or leave them up until they become a joke in their own right.

If they're on tomorrow, am I overdoing it? If they're taken down, am I turning the page too soon? How many rainforest square inches do I denude to power another night's twinkle lights? How many square inches of landfill do I occupy with old energy-hog lights? How many people's nights are brightened well into January if I choose to spread the glow of netlights on bushes? How many paychecks are padded by my ER trip after tripping off the roof?

Such a weighty decision.

Clang!

A day or so ago, I was perfoming an IUD insertion. Had to do a pap first. Nervous patient, nervous PA. I just don't do many.

I did the pap first, finished, and told her I was stepping away to change to sterile gloves. I turned. A loud metallic noise ensued. I turned back. She had managed to expel the speculum noisily onto the floor.

A meek "Sorry!"

A confident, "No worries! We'll just get another."

Think of a duck with an open beak. How the hell did that thing come out?

Refreshing

Oftentimes, conferences and seminars are most good for the opportunity to catch up with old friends. I truly regret having chosen to sit through several sessions of conventions rather than sitting with some buds, at a bar, shooting the breeze.

Last week, I was at a conference and didn't regret staying in my seat. Only one hour was dull as a butter knife, and only one other hour had me nodding off, and that was due to the lunch-induced afternoon drowsiness.

This one was good because it produced at least three separate instances where a person, a truly brilliant person who was obviously much more intelligent and well-versed than myself (and I encounter these people more frequently now that I don't think that I am the smartest person in the world), was able to speak in an eloquent and engaging fashion about something about which he or she were an eminent expert...and make it so interesting to me. I'm talking engaging like maybe only a handful of teachers have been in my past experience.

That's rare. And like a glass of cold lemonade.

Why I rarely open email from my Dad

maybe it's because the most interesting subject line is usually something like this:

Fwd: Fw: Unstoppable Virus


While it could be a wonderful treatise on hanta virus, it could also be some computer virus that he picked up on all of his tea party emails. Why should I chance it?

Just a little different

I've become very comfortable with Panezanellie's Breadstick Shoppe in my time here is Sublimity. It's the type of place you want to go to, and the type of place that wants you to come back. Good people and good food, and well, good feelings while you're there.

The owner is a really nice man who had a restaurant up the canyon years ago and was very successful. He sold it and sold his recipes (with a 15 year non-compete), and went to work as a carpenter for something new to do. Fifteen years later, he decided to get back into it, and I'm glad he did.

Now he's got some form of cancer. It may be throat, it may be esophagus, it may be thyroid. I don't know. Because I didn't ask him, he didn't tell me, and I'm not his doctor. but we all know he's sick and being treated, which sucks twice.

He was in the shop today, working away, smiling, and looking really good. I told him so, and offered support to him as we exchanged pleasantries. My fingers are certainly crossed.

The gruff old men sitting around drinking coffee noticed too:

"Is John in today?"
"Yeah, he looks good."
"I thought so. The rolls taste a little different today."


Yes they do. A little better today.

Pediatrics is great fun

There's a clinic in Salem from which I needed to request records today. It's called

Children's
Health
Associates
Of
Salem

I love people with a sense of humor.