The Week in Drag

[dragoned]

Thursday I was driving home and, topping a rise in the road, I found an oncoming semi in my lane passing a car. It was right next to the car so couldn't pull back into its own lane. I pulled over to the shoulder and slowed down in case anybody got crazy.
What I find most peculiar is that I've gotten so used to this sort of thing that my only reaction was to insult the guy as if he'd cut me off or failed to use his turn signal.


After getting to work on Friday I found out there had been a small fire in our OR earlier that morning -- during a surgery. The patient was sent to a larger hospital in Wichita and may or may not have suffered some burns from the fire. That bit has been reported on the news but was not part of the official story told to staff. The fire was put out with fire extinguishers and the OR is going to be back in operation on Monday.
By early afternoon rumors had already started ripping through town. Pretty much the story people are telling is that there was an explosion and the whole hospital had to be shut down. I've already had two of my siblings report that story back to me.


And now I begin my week of packing and preparing. Eeeee...

[lilbird]

Yikes! Drag, I am glad you are alert.

Ah rumors. Next you will hear it started when a smoking doctor dropped a cigarette during surgery... or the patient had a mild case of spontaneous combustion....

[Lioness]

Really? A patient spontaneously combusted?
Excuse me. I must go twitter this.

[Charmuse]

While the Dr was smoking a joint! OMG!

[samatwitch]

I just saw on Twitter that Drag's hospital caught on fire and several people had to be rescued from a doctor who was smoking while operating!! OMG!!

[dragoned]

My sister told me today that the people she works with said that the state shut the hospital down.


Anyway... Both Dad and sis today found out who the patient was that was in surgery -- a grandson of our neighbors. Dad was told by said neighbors that the fire was caused when a laser (aimed at a spot near the eye) seemingly ignited oxygen escaping from the patient's mask.

[dragoned]

Here I go, finally.

My Trip East

We'll start the day before I left. I woke up at 9 that morning to get ready for work. After work that evening I drove to my brother's and stopped for a bit before we got supper and headed up to my sister's to spend the night. Due to massive fog impeding our speed we didn't get to her house until about 1 in the morning. And then I had to start getting ready to leave about 3. I think, at most, I managed to get an hour and a half of sleep.
Then up, getting ready, driving, and off to wait at my gate for about an hour. I got checked in way faster than I'd expected. But we took off half an hour late due to wing de-icing. Which then left me 15 or 20 minutes to make it from Concourse A to Concourse C of the Detroit airport.

I finally made it to Connecticut at noon -- a little jittery, way over tired, nervous, and utterly happy when I finally saw that big red headed guy at the bottom of the escalators.
We gathered up my luggage and went back to his house. I met his mom and stepdad and put my things away. We spent the next several hours trying not to fall asleep and randomly leaving the house to run small errands. I frustrated ix because I didn't want to go to a movie and he was bored. But we made it through.

Sunday we all had a big breakfast before ix and I took off for the Poconos. We checked in to our cabin and went out to stock up on groceries for the week.
Our week in Pennsylvania was pretty uneventful, which is what we were looking for. Out for dinner, picking up groceries, checking out a local town, visiting a supposed casino that turned out to be a giant room full of slot machines. One night we went out to a somewhat overpriced steakhouse where I ordered some fried chicken. I wasn't sure what exactly came with the meal, but I was still somewhat surprised when the waiter wound up bringing out ix's steak and a messy bowl of soup that he placed in front of me. He asked if there was anything else he could get us and I hesitantly asked "The rest of my food?" And thus proceeded one of the strangest exchanges I have ever had with a waiter. He told me that that was my food so I told him it wasn't, I'd ordered fried chicken. "No, you ordered French onion soup and I thought that was strange that that was all you ordered so I asked if you wanted anything else but you said no." Seeing as I've never ordered French onion soup ever I was pretty sure I hadn't said it accidentally and wound up getting reassurance from ix that I had, in fact, said fried chicken. But the waiter kept insisting I'd ordered the soup, repeatedly showing us his order pad to point out that that's what he had written down.
I finally got my chicken dinner, but we also got charged for the soup (which I'm pretty sure wasn't even on the menu).
It finally occurred to me later that it had never even dawned on the waiter that I'd never uttered the words "French onion" in the first place. The entire time he thought I wanted the soup and the chicken. Other than that he was a pretty good guy.

Oh, and our bed at the cabin was made of the finest cloth covered hardwood. It was so stiff I woke up with joints that felt bruised.

But Pennsylvania was excellent. We had a wonderful time there by ourselves.

[lilbird]

Awww..........

I know waiting on the public is a thankless, frustrating job, but even if you did say French onion soup, which I'm sure you didn't, he should have apologized and brought you the chicken, not try argue the point.

[cabr1729]

It must've been that Kansas accent.

[Lioness]

At least they both start with Fr but still... Maybe he was new.

[dragoned]

So hopefully this weekend I'll find time to finish up this trip wrap up thing, but in the meantime...


A snippet about the munchkins from this morning:
The spent the night here and had brought their own pillows stuffed full with their bedtime regalia. The Boy just brought his blue bunny that he's had since he was a baby. I was worried for a while that he was going to let it fade from importance, but it seems to have made a resurgence lately.
Anyway... This morning, being the very responsible 7 year old boy that he is (it's freakish really), he announced that he was going to put his bunny back in his pillow. A few seconds later I look in his direction and see him up to his waist inside his pillowcase. "Oh," I say, "he's in his pillow too."
His sister, 5 year old Baby Girl, glances up from her coloring (which she did religiously the whole time she was here), sees her brother and, completely nonchalantly, glances back at me and says "Yeah, his rabbit does that all the time."

[cabr1729]

Don't let the rabbit eat him all up!

[lilbird]

hee hee...They are still adorable drag.... and you tell the tale well.

[Lioness]

I like stories about Baby Girl and the Boy! 5 & 7 already!

[samatwitch]

Love hearing stories about the munchkins, but I can't believe they're that old already either.

[dragoned]

As added incentive for any goner that may want to come to our wedding (whenever that winds up being) -- Wichita to be home to largest commercial IMAX theater in the world.
Which is most excellent because we don't even have an IMAX theater in Wichita currently.
Woohoo!

Oh, and it's supposed to be done by this Christmas.

[samatwitch]

That sounds good. Our stand-alone IMAX theatre here closed last year. I liked it - and got invited to free previews.

You are going to give us a lot of lead time when you finally pick a date, right??

[greeneyes]

oh fun.

[BigIrishHooligan]

Also, the food at the reception will be MIND BLOWING!

[lilbird]

We will need to hear the details about that too.