August

A distant promise
of eventual autumn.
August withering.



Only two sunflowers broken off, but I understand why. Try to pick one by hand, and they fight back. Gotta respect such a sunny, cheerful badass flower. A lesson there.

One of our attending anesthesiologists who floats through occasionally, lost his shit at my circulating nurse as I was scrubbed in. He'd been a constipated asshole all day, which is to say, crappy and slow. Painful slow for a six case hand day, so many turnovers. Even our lovely calm hand surgeon* lost her patience with him.

He eventually caught a whiff of our collective frustration at him, didn't like feeling guilty, so he attacked the one person who couldn't fight back. And the patient was still awake, although fairly sedated. Because it was all our fault, and we obviously wanted him to give poor care† to his patients! Reminds me of an insane general surgeon who, when frustrated with anything he could blame on anyone else would shout "YOU'RE KILLING MY PATIENT!"

I kept setting up, but felt like I'd been punched in the stomach, my head tight and sore. When I got home, hours later, D met me at the car and hugged me. Not knowing the situation, only that I'd had a long day, he knew I needed a big hug.

Friday ran much better, and D had chili going. Amazing Chili®. Not as hot as some, but a gorgeous dark red colour and intense flavor to match. With our own-grown tomatoes. I felt my energy flowing back, tackling several neglected chores. Like tying up the plastic under bumper with velcro, watering the lettuce seeds, clearing out the old leftovers in the fridge.

"Leftovers make you feel good twice. First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: 'I'm saving food!' Then a month later when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: 'I'm saving my life!'"

- George Carlin

This morning, climbed up to scrape the lower front porch facing, D close by. Goggles, gloves, very careful not to stretch far. Going much faster than I feared. Should be painted before first snow. I did say Amazing Chili®.



*The one I send D to see, as he has hand issues stemming from the elbow shatter years ago.

†We don't even take very sick patients at our day surgery. They get sent up to the main hospital that has ICUs and cardiac teams and such. We can keep people a few nights, mostly after total joints or if they have sleep apnea, for pain control. None of the patients this day had health issues at all.