Nefarious called me outside earlier today to show me that our neighbours had gotten a new toy and were washing it in the laneway. It’s dark out so the picture doesn’t really show how terrifying this hang glider is… I would be so scared to fly it. The only person I know that hang glides is Blair (as in the scarification artist) but I don’t think he’s done it for a decade…
I mentioned in the previous entry that when I was at the hospital last I was disturbed that the hyfrecator tool was covered in blood. The doctor blamed this on the residents who do a poor job (it’s not the first time I’ve seen stray blood at this particular hospital), but I wanted to mention that it bothered me that their clean tools are kept in a bin that pretty much overlaps with their overflowing container of dirty tools. It’s my feeling that the two — contaminated tools and clean/sterile tools — need to be kept completely separate and everything possible should be done to minimize the risk of cross contamination…
Is this going to cause a problem? Probably not, but it easily could, and really, it just reeks of low standards and a sloppy thought process. It bothers me to no end that tattoo studios and to a lesser extent estheticians’ studios are beaten to death with high standards in these areas, but that hospitals, doctors, and dentists — who should know better by virtue of their educations — don’t seem to give a damn.
The paranoid or conspiracy minded would suggest that the sicker the public gets, the more money doctors get. The realists would say that a critical mass of medical staff are lazy, ignorant, and have low standards about how they do their jobs…
I had a consultation today for a surgery that’s happening in mid-August, adding another nice hefty scar to my legs. I’m happy that they’ve got me in so quickly, and it shouldn’t be a big deal and I won’t be out of commission long. I said to the doctor, “just don’t do use that hyfrecator over there, because it seems to be covered in blood.” Here’s a picture. Oops.
I’ve done my share of so-called dangerous things on the road… I’ve driven my Porsche at well over 250kph on the highway, I’ve driven my dubiously street legal offroad trucks daily, driven kit cars that are not much more than racing go karts, and so on. But when I posted about the crazy old lady that almost ran me over, a bunch of people commented about people driving while texting on their phones. It’s nuts, isn’t it? It really blows me away that people think it’s OK to do something like that… and I see it every single time I go out. I mean, it’s basically “normal”. Like I said, I’ve done plenty of things that aren’t considered acceptable on the road, but I’ve always been an alert driver that pays attention to the road and vehicles and people around me. It’s shocking that drivers don’t realize the extent to which they endanger both themselves and others by reading and typing while driving. I don’t get it at all.
(Snapped this photo on the way home)
There’s nothing that makes one prouder or brings one more joy as a parent than new skills. I’ve slacked a bit on getting Nefarious skilled on her bike, but today I made sure to throw it in the back of the truck for when we went to the park. In the past I’d had her biking on her own, without training wheels, but today she figured out how to get herself started all by herself, with no push or start-up balancing or anything else by me. It was such a pleasure to watch her biking down the path without me, and restarting on her own after she stopped.
There are always weirdos at the park, but today there was a guy communing with the trees. He went from tree to tree, and at each one he’d “strike a pose”, usually with his hands pressed up against the trunk, but sometimes he’d hold them in the air, like a mime pressing against an invisible box, or rest them parallel to the ground, as if he was pressing down a force-field that was floating just above the surface. He’d do this for about two minutes, and then move on to the next tree… Very odd.
We went to the mall after the park, to replace the bike bell that had broken. When we were walking in, we had to walk across a crosswalk in the parking lot. There a hundred-or-so year old lady in a minivan came screaming through the parking lot at full road speed, and didn’t stop or even slow down at the crosswalk, missing Nefarious and I by about a foot. I hate bad drivers in general, but this psychopath-by-incompetence old fool is going to kill someone — illustrated by the fact that when she tore past us I punched in the side of her vehicle, loudly denting the side of her van (and skinning my knuckle). Hearing this noise, which easily could have been her hitting someone, she didn’t even slow down and kept on driving at full speed as if she neither noticed nor cared.
Anyway, we’ll be back to the park later because the band next door is playing tonight… they got a new bass player so there will be lots of noise this summer. However, now that they’re letting me know in advance it’s not too big a deal because we just go out those nights.
I went flying in an R22 today with a friend that was thinking about getting his license. I think in the end it was decided that it was too expensive to consider, so he’s going to come with me one day down to the airport and see if he might be better off getting his much less expensive and time-consuming fixed wing private pilot’s license.
Nefarious caught a toad and brought it home with the intent of it being her pet. However, when we looked up what they ate and realized that they are carnivores, we decided that we wouldn’t be able to keep the little guy happily fed, and he was released back into the wild. Probably much better for him.
Other than that, more of the same… sand castle building, sand castle smashing, getting caught in the rain on each of our forays to the park, and making angry faces for the amusement of the camera. I have a bunch of doctors appointments this week. Nothing exciting. My heart rate has been getting slower and slower, and with it hovering in the forties most of the time, I think it’s time to make some changes.
