What's Next?

"I'm Here to Save Your Ass, Not Kiss It."

I was having such a bad day!

I was writing a final exam and..... well, that was all.  Just the exam.  Totally ruined my day.  There's a bit of a history with this particular exam.

My employer, in conspiring with a college, has decided to formalize my training and, by doing so, is forcing me to make a conscious effort to not stick a pen into my eye every day I wake up.

At some point, important people have agreed that a few nursing courses would be a good compliment to a paramedic's training.  Wrong!  Just wrong.  Wrong.  I work with nurses; trust me when I say that we do a totally different job.  I think they are great, all filled with empathy and compassion and stuff and, I'm glad they work with me so that they can keep me from saying stupid things like, "I'm sorry, did no one tell you that eating french fries three times a day would give you a big ole stinky heart attack?" or "No, I will not grab your smokes on the way out because I'm not going to help you to guarantee that I'm back here carrying your sorry ass up these stairs again." or "I'm interested to know what made you think that sticking a toothbrush up there would help with your constipation." or "Have you heard of Darwin?"

A good nurse partner, much like a parent, knows when I'm about to say something that could land me in a supervisor's office and uses diversion tactics to push my attention elsewhere.  "Look, an eagle."

So, the exam.  I've written this critical care nursing exam once before, without success.  My instructor decided to let me re-write it because, though I had the correct answer to most of the questions, I failed to answer them thoroughly.  Flashbacks to grade 12 math.

When it came time to re-write the exam, I crammed all the phraseology and ideals on family-based practice, oral hygiene a moral distress (what is that?)into my seizing brain only to discover that the college had sent the wrong exam to my proctor.

Flush!  That's the sound of my brain relieving itself.

A week later, I re-crammed for the third time, regurgitated eighteen pages worth of explanations and went back to work.  Now, I wait.

Dear Employer,

Please don't make me be a nurse.  There are people out there who have chosen to be nurses and, thank goodness, have everything that I lack to do the job well.  They are smart, even-tempered and non-judgemental.  I dabble in the smart-enough category but the others are lost on me.

Thanks,

Kim, paramedic.

I Neeeed This

This is the Microdrone....your eye in the Sky.

"Communicate.  Collaborate.  Control."

Everything I need.  Except for the Communicate and Collaborate part.  If someone out there could fund-raise or something for me, I would really appreciate it.

In Case You Are Wondering

Did you know that the average teenager has approximately twelve random thoughts per minute?

Listening to two of them having a conversation in the Jeep last night almost gave me a seizure.

Parallel Universes

I received a phone call from the service dude at the bike shop today.  My motorbike is in for its annual spa day.  He told me that he was working on my bike and he had found a problem with the "front crank system".

Shawn (aka Service Dude):  "The front crank system is shot and needs to be replaced."

Me:  "Can you explain that one to me a little more?"

Shaun:  "Well, the rider would have noticed it for sure.  It would have been rattling all over the place.  The bolt that secures the front wheel to the fork was really loose and the steel shaft almost destroyed the aluminium sheath that it sits in."

Me:  "Well, I'm the rider and I haven't noticed anything.  Is this something that should have been caught on a regular service inspection?"

Shawn:  "You are the rider?"

Me:  "Yes."  I get that a lot; big bike.

Shawn:  "You should have caught this on a regular pre-ride check.  You know, ABC's.... air pressure, brakes, chains and make sure everything's tight?"

Me:  "Yes, I do all that.  Didn't notice anything.  How much to replace it?"

Shawn:  "$79.95"

Me:  "Seriously?  No brainer.  Fix it."

Shawn:  "Really?  I've tightened it up and it will be fine until it loosens off again.  Then you'll have to replace it for sure."

Me:  "Well, we don't need shit loosening off when I'm going 100 km/hr down the highway now do we.  Hellooooo.... lawsuit"

Shawn:  "Haha... 100... that's funny.  Well, I'll switch this thing out and you can pick it up tomorrow."

Me:  "Thanks.  Did the new faring come in?"

Shawn:  "Faring?  There's nothing wrong with it."

Me:  "You didn't notice the huge crack?  Are you sure you have the right bike?  2001 Suzuki Bandit?"

Shawn:  "Hmmmm.  This is Shawn from Gerrick's Cycle.....  I'm working on a Norco Bigfoot Mountain Bike.... Sound familiar?"

Pause, silence, my eyes gazed up and to the right.  I slowly lowered my hand that I had firmly placed on my hip (me being all self-righteous on the phone).  I felt a little dizzy as the blood rushed from my brain to my cheeks (wasn't being well utilized in the brain section anyway).

Shawn was talking about my son's mountain bike that I had also dropped off for a pre-season work up.

The salt in the wound?  Taryn-the-seventeen-year-old-girl was sitting across the table, witness to the entire conversation including my moment of realization, and the pathetic me as I stammered through the various excuses including English as a second language, growing up with fetal alcohol syndrome, my shoes were too tight that day, the usual.

That's right, meet the Sheepish me.

Creativity.... Own It

To all my crafty, artsy friends out there:

Look, I can do it, too.

I know, this isn't me but, I was there and helping.  So, now I am qualified to give this tutorial on How to Silk Screen a T-Shirt.

1. After someone else (Taryn, for example) has made a funky design and made it into a thing in a wooden frame to push paint through (probably called a silk screen, not sure) and has mixed the paint that she brought home from school and has washed and dried the t-shirts and has laid them out and has put paint on the screen and has the squeegee in position....  pull the squeegee to the other side of the box.
2. Yay, Me!

This is what I made.

Alfred Hitchcock? Is that you?

"The Birds are back."

"Pardon."  I said to the strange, dog-walking lady.

She pointed ominously up into the skeletal trees and said simply, "Look."

With a sense of dread and foreboding, I slowly turned and looked in the direction she was pointing.

In the City of Vancouver, there is a cluster of eight trees or so that serve as a seasonal home to hundreds of Great Blue Herons.

Spring in Canada

Charles Dickens said it best:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,...it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness...."

This time of year truly epitomizes the complexities that Mother Nature can throw at us.  I insured and rode my motorbike yesterday yet got caught between avalanches in the ambulance on my way to an adjacent town to pick up a baby.

Some pick-up trucks have dirt bikes in the back; some have snowmobiles.

The roads are filling up with cyclists wearing shorts and the local ski hill is still open.

Baseball is overlapping with hockey.

I drove by a house that had a lady working in her flowerbed not ten feet from where the snowblower was parked in the driveway.

Enigmatic.

Safety First

Thank goodness they have their safety goggles on!  When Liam falls from his precarious stoop after burning himself on the light bulb, or pounding the crowbar into the electrical wire, or inhaling the asbestos; his eyes will be fine.  Yes, he is wearing ski goggles.  We do live in the mountains, you know.

Back to the Reno

Once upon a time, I decided that there was something I disliked about the bathroom.  And, there was this leak.  And, I had this great wrecking bar from Lee Valley.  If you can't guess the rest, here's a refresher.  It took me a while to find this link since it happened almost a year ago.  I have to admit that I'm a little embarrassed right now.  It seems that I have been living with this half morphed bathroom a little longer than the month or so that I believed it to be.

Well, moving on.

I proceeded to take the one full bathroom in our house from really unattractive to completely unusable in five painful steps.

1. Finished pulling off the ceiling tiles and the strapping that it was attached to.  Results:  minor abrasions, exposed asbestos and arsenic-ridden insulation and not-so-timely information from my Dad telling me that the strapping was, indeed, still required.
2. Removed the oversized vanity and sink.  Results:  huge bruise on my left elbow that sent me running to the freezer, toothbrushes moved to the kitchen, discovered the true colour of the vinyl flooring.
3. Extricated the above noted insulation from the ceiling.  Results:  discovered that I look totally hot in a respirator, baseball cap and goggles, the bathroom is 10 degrees colder without insulation, confirmed that there are no bats, raccoons or Manticores living in the attic.  That's one more irrational fear that I can put to rest.
4. Emptied and removed the toilet.  I'm so glad that I was able to do that at least once in my life.  Results:  the best pre-vomit face ever on the Girl's face when she realized that she had been condemned to using the Boy's toilet.  That's it, I really don't need any more than that.
5. De-commissioned the electrical in the bathroom (yes, should have done that first).  Result:  no one died, one blood blister, baths by candlelight.

Stay tuned to find out the price of Lipton's Tea back in the day when the original home owners used the boxes to insulate the second floor.

Embarrassing

In case anyone is wondering what absolutely no pride looks like, wonder no more.