Tuesday's Orts--Feb 8, 2011

Another edition of the orts that float around in my head all week and land on Tuesday:

• DD Erica in AZ has gotten a job!  Well, she will get it once she passes the background check.  She had to go to downtown Phoenix to the main bank headquarters be fingerprinted.  That building ended up being one block away from the ASU campus she will be attending in fall, so she was already familiar with the boulevard.  Definitely a bonus in a new city.
• Friday night Grant and I had a rare dinner out to our favorite local steakhouse, Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill.  There is nothing better than slow cooked tri-tip with tangy sweet BBQ sauce.  I had mine with fresh grilled corn on the cob and cole slaw--they make theirs with an oil-based dressing and whole peanuts.  YUM!  Then we topped that off with McConnell's ice cream.  I had pink peppermint.  Double YUM.  Don't worry, I didn't finish all my food, I took some home!
• At work, we have some difficult patients.  But some are just a joy and we look forward to their visits.  The difficult ones are extremely anxious and needy people.  This is a function of their chronic pain but it is hard to be sympathetic when they call 4-5 times a day for the same thing.  Many of them run out of medication early and have to be added in, usually the same few.  Last week we had a patient walk in at closing (we close at noon on Friday), say they needed to be seen, and when told it would be and hour and a half wait because there were three people ahead of them, two of which had already been added in, went outside to smoke.  Then 15 minutes later the receptionist got a voicemail message from the patient indicating they had left and would call next week for an appointment. This was after the receptionist had located and pulled the chart, added the patient to the schedule, printed paperwork, assembled the chart, advised the doctor and back office assistant that there would be an extra patient, and pulled lab work, all after closing time.  She was really mad at that patient and I couldn't blame her.
• On Superbowl Sunday my mom and I went to a quilt shop and then to The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks.  It was absolutely gorgeous here in So Calif and the mall was sparsely populated in the mid afternoon.  We had Anthropologie practically to ourselves!  I want about 50% of what they sell there, mostly the linens, dishes, and decor items.  Everything is so unique--but pricey!
• Traffic rant:  If someone was standing at the "YOU ARE HERE" map kiosk, would you walk up in front of them?  I had two different pairs of people do this to me, one of which was a father-daughter duo who then began to argue in another language over what restaurant to go to, still standing in front of me and pointing at the map.  The other was a pair of young ladies, who were also hungry.  By the way, that's the reason I was looking at the map too.
• Mom had been giving me the "yo tengo hambre" signals for awhile, and when we realized it was 2:45 PM, it was no wonder we were starving.  We walked for what seemed a half mile through the gorgeous outdoor shopping area and ate on an outdoor patio at The Lazy Dog Cafe, a new-to-us restaurant.  Very reasonable prices and plenty of food--we enjoyed every bite we ate.  Unfortunately, Mom discovered Monday that she left her cellphone there so she and my dad had to drive back up the hill to get it.  She has a very basic flip phone so it was obviously not enticing to anyone!
• Finally, I did hear from my Australian friend Sue.  She and her family and friends waited out Cyclone Yasi in a concrete apartment building in Port Douglas.  She wrote that all night she was texting her daughter in Darwin, who was in labor--a welcome distraction to the horrific sound of the winds, which were loud and scary.  She said their house and boat were fine, but there was a lot of damage to the rainforest from the cyclone.  Her daughter had a healthy second boy, her third child, and Sue was able to fly out from Cairns by Saturday.  Welcome, Max! 

I'm thinking that the above photo, my first view in 2009 of the coast on the way to Port from Cairns, no longer looks quite like this.  My thoughts are with all the people in all of Queensland who have lost homes, roofs, belongings, boats, loved ones, and their livelihoods from such horrific natural devastation as has happened these past couple of months.  And is still happening!  La Nina is wreaking much havoc.  Let's hope she goes away soon.