Sunday, March 21, 2010

The police are breaking in to our cranky next door neighbor's house. Ah, the joys of the big city.
- Update One: They are now announcing to whomever is in the house that they are going to have to break the window to get in.
- Update Two: I think he's dead. The ambulance just showed up.
- Update Three: The words 'face down' were heard.
- Update Four: He's not dead.
- Update Five: The four police cars, fire truck and the ambulance (containing the cranky neighbor) have now left and all is quiet again.

To more mundane matters, my foot is getting much better. I no longer have to wander around wearing the franken-foot, and I can finally put away the collection of left-foot shoes I have spread around the house. One more doctor's appointment week after next then I think I'm done. Still not allowed to do any 'impact' things, but I've gone for a road ride and that felt good.

One thing this broken foot has proven to me; this is indeed a litigious society. When I was in the emergency ward being triaged they asked me my level of pain on a scale of 1 - 10 and I told them 'One'. As long as I was not standing on it, it was just a dull throb. When I saw the doctor in the Emergency he asked me again what my level of pain was, again I said 'One'.

When the nurse shows up to give me my marching orders he hands me a prescription for Percocet, which from what little I know, is a pretty heavy duty pain killer. I had to ask him how they managed to think I needed those after saying 'One' all the time and he said with a straight face "Pain is the number one cause of lawsuits.". Fair enough.

I just looked up Percocet online and read this: "Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert.". Anything that requires you to be awake and alert? That covers just about everything.

By the way, has anyone ever seen the 'face scale' of pain? How very bizarre, I'm sure it tests well, but who drew those? Wong, or Baker's children?

We had a little dose of Americana last night, and not the type you want to see. Kat and I stopped at the corner store to pick something up and as Kat was walking up to the door a fat kid jumped out of a minivan, finished stuffing something in to his mouth while running up to the door and screaming "Mom! Hurry up!" By the time the child turned around Kat was staring down at him with great distaste. It is probably not a good time for me to feel love for my wife as she is disdainfully staring at a child, but hey, sometimes you can't help the way you feel.

To top it off, Kat ended up in line behind the mother in the store. The two ladies working behind the counter were not white and according to Kat they really didn't look the same.

Clueless patron: "Are you two related?"
Employee One (sarcastically): "Yeah, we're sisters."
Employee Two (embarrassed): "We're from the same island, actually..."
Clueless: "Oh really? Like, what one? Samian? Samo-something?"
Employee One (still sarcastic) "Yeah, that's right. We're all related on the island."
Employee Two (too embarrassed to continue, serves Kat)
Clueless: "Oh wow, really?"
Kat: OH MY FUCKING GOD ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU CLUELESS DUMBASS!

No, not really. But that's what she wanted to say.

Kat is in the midst of her finals for this semester, stress levels have risen. I was helping her study by calling out pressure points like "Kidney 27!" and she had to point at it. I have no idea how she keeps all those points in her head, I'd be at an utter loss. She is getting interested in Acupuncture. I told her massage I will let her practise on me (I'm nice that way) but no way is she going to practice acupuncture on me. *shudder*

I'll leave you with this parking ability, I've heard rumours that this was possible, turns out it is. Then again, just because it is possible doesn't mean it's legal. I haven't checked. I was using my crutches to get around at the time so I had an excuse ready in case anybody asked me what I was doing. It was only for a short time, I was picking up a pizza. It also greatly amused the patrons of the pub across the street.

More random updates:
- the tree we planted in the front yard is sprouting leaves, yay!
- I took the crappy GPS back to REI (a year later) and they gave me a full refund on it! I love REI.