The Perfect Day

Everyone has a different idea of the perfect day. I've had many different types of perfect days myself. For instance, the time I was driving north on 395 with a cowboy boot-shaped pinata riding shotgun in my car (in preparation for a cinco de mayo party to take place that evening) and a really great song came on the radio. That was a perfect moment. Anyway, I digress. Today was one of those days.

I spent the day with my former roommate Jillian. There are many reasons why Jillian is a great person to spend time with. For one thing, she is very chill. Also, she likes to sew, and so do I. Thus began The Perfect Day with a leisurely trip to G street fabrics, and lunch at Chipotle (obvious part of perfect day, and I don't think I need to explain).

Then, we decided to drive to Manassas so she could buy a dresser she found on craigslist. Why not take a leisurely roadtrip to Manassas during rush hour? Since we can both enjoy some ghetto rap music on the ride, it was all the more pleasant. As we ventured further south we found the forgotten gems of the suburbs, like vacation bible camp and long john silver's. When we actually got to Manassas, we discovered this woman running a shabby-chic furniture restoration out of her house (which was just packed full of crap). Her son, who looked about as old as her and had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, was kind enough to load up our shabby-chic purchase into the back of my car. It was very strange indeed, but quite comical because we were there to witness it together. I find this to be a common theme amongst my perfect days; that somehow a series of random events align in some kind of weird and wonderful splendor. You just can't plan for it.

Jillian let me know that tomorrow is dress-like-a-cow-for-a-free-sandwich day at Chic-fil-A. Perhaps I'll get lucky and have two perfect days in a row...

A Tribute to Scrappy Doo

Our team at work changes every year as residents rotate through. We usually become very fond of our residents, and are sad to see them go. After a glorious year, we recently said goodbye to our chief, Scrappy Doo (pseudonym used to protect the innocent).

Scrappy Doo is one of the hardest working, smartest, most dedicated residents we've had, and I'm confident he'll be a fabulous grown-up brain surgeon when he's through. To boot, he's just a great human being. He put up with a lot of teammate sass over the course of the year with good humor, and dished it back, too. He endured the ghetto-antics of The Hostile Center with composure. He's a lover and a fighter. Thanks, Scrappy Doo! You're the best!

Haiku for the day's work

Curmudgeonly tech
Won't let me externalize
Shunt without "time out"

Banes of My Existence

Since I am working 65+ hours this week, and got saddled with the pager when my coworker didn't show up for work today, and my pager-tude is in full force, I'd like to share a list of people and things (by no means comprehensive, mind you) which annoy me. In no particular order:

The Pager
Getting saddled with The Pager when my coworker doesn't show up
The ER
The Blood Bank
MRI Technicians
Heat/Humidity
Bad Grammar
Air Travel
Codman shunt programmers
Therapeutic Anticoagulation
Bad Table Manners
Bad Analogies

Thanks for humoring me, devoted readers. Perhaps I'll share a list of people and things that I love next week.

overheard in the operating room

1. "Have you ever kissed a man with dentures?"


2. "It's good to be helpful, but not too helpful."


3. "I thought about becoming Mormon once, but I couldn't do it. No alcohol!"


4. "The enemy of "good" is "better"."


5. "That was a blow for freedom!"


6. "God gave you two hands and you can use them both at the same time."


7. "So you are my surgical opponent today."


8. "I thought about becoming Mormon once, but I couldn't do it. No Viagra!"


9. "Irritation, please."


10. "I enjoy cases like this. Then again, I also enjoy severe gas pains."


11. "The enemy of "good" is "orthopedics"."


12. "Stand by."


13. "Stand down."


14. "Anesthesia are the ones who kill the patients, not us."


15. "This is my favorite part of the case, because you are leaving."

Darwin Awards

The hospital I work at is a lot like a jungle, and I'm not actually referring to the occasional large cockroach that roams the hallway at night, nor the animal burrow we use for a call room. I'm talking about the hospital paging system.

The hospital paging system functions as a sort of natural selection. It is the most basic and fundamental means of communication in the hospital. As such, one must master it in order to survive. Here's how it works.

1. Dial the pager number of the person you want to talk to.
2. Wait for a beep.
3. Dial your call-back number.
4. The person calls you back.

Voila! This sounds straightforward, and it is, usually. However, some people just can't figure it out and thus they can never get anything accomplished and are eventually devoured by carnivores. These blunders fall into a few categories.

1. The person doesn't enter an actual phone number after the beep, but rather one or two digits at most. How can I call you back at the number 4? That's not a phone number. This may cause me to blurt loudly, "Stop the presses! The number 4 is having an emergency!" This response may sound rude (and confirm suspicions about my level of sanity to bystanders), but we don't call it pager-tude for nothing! Often times the offender realizes the error and re-pages. There is some hope for intelligent communication in such circumstances.

2. The person pages me and immediately forgets why. Now I realize that we are all busy, but the fact that I am extremely neurotic and beholden to my pager (a.k.a. noise-maker a.k.a. pain-box) means that I return all my pages within 3 bijilliseconds. How can you have already forgotten why you paged me? Confidence NOT inspired...

3. The entire concept/practice of paging entirely evades the individual. It goes something like this:

"I have been trying to page neurosurgery for days, and no one has called me back!"
That is strange indeed, considering our pager number has been the same for 10 years. May I suggest you stop "trying" to page us and follow the simple steps 1-4 listed above and actually page us. Or perhaps don't bother. Your choice. Either way, I'm sure you'll be devoured by carnivores shortly...

Now, it is important to note that the surgeons I work with do not use the hospital paging system. This is not because they can't, but rather they no longer need to. They are so high up on the food chain that they have underlings like me to do the dirty work, and would never consider stooping to such levels. In fact, I carry a portable phone (a.k.a. noise-maker a.k.a. bat-phone) at all times that only they know the super-secret number to, so I can always be reached to do their bidding.

I've got swagger

Yesterday at the gym I fell over. Not in the sense, I tripped on something, or wasn't paying attention and ran into someone. My legs actually just gave out and I landed on my (fortunately ample) hindside.

This all stemmed from a recent decision to hit the gym and "get sexy" in time for summer. My trainer, Rodney, made me do a ridiculous number of squats, lunges, squalunges (not an actual exercise) etc., and my legs finally just gave up. Wo-man down!

Rodney: "Don't worry Laura, it happens to everyone". Sure Rodney, your quads the size of redwood trunks probably give out all the time. I see that. Nonetheless, I got up and continued the torture. I was sure of my greater purpose: hotness and lots of men/dates/suitors. Surely success would be mine.

Today was Sunday and the perfect opportunity to exhibit my hotness and find said men/dates/suitors at church. Time to look good! Enter really high heels. It was a risk to be sure, considering my inability to stay upright just yesterday. But I am known to "live on the edge" from time to time. Fortunately, there were no mishaps. Take that, Rodney! Take that, Redwoods! However, I soon realized that I was so stiff from "pumping iron" that I wasn't so much strutting as stiffly and ackwardly swinging each leg forward from the hip without bending at the knee with each step. This in attempt to avoid grimacing from the severe bodily pain which had set it. It's cool, nothing to see here, people.

AB: "What's wrong with you? Why are you are walking like a cowboy?" That's 'cause Mama's got swagger, AB. Swagger like a cowboy who's been way-to-long in the saddle. Which may work for Clint Eastwood, or even Matt Damon, but was decidedly not working for me while I attempted to "work it" with the dudes. Hey, at least I was tall.