Random thoughts

When you spend a lot of time writing, as you do on an inpatient medicine service, especially one which has not transitioned to computerized charting, you start to care more about pens. I myself am partial to fine point pens, and I recently purchased a two pack of pens at walgreens, of a brand that I had good results with before, but ran into the same problem with both of them; they don't write well, sometimes don't write at all, if I'm writing fast. Which is a bit of a problem if you're actually trying to get stuff done, like writing admission orders, or progress notes, or... Yeah, so, I found it necessary to try a different brand, which, on preliminary inspection seems like it will be much better. Hopefully. Next month I will be on surgery, where pens don't matter very much at all.

I was recently told by a friend of mine who is an english teacher that double spacing after a period is appropriate for typewritten documents but that single spacing is now considered standard for computerized documents. Who knew? I don't think I'll be switching. I figure that in a computerized world you get points if you use actual words that don't involve numbers thrown in.

I went to a concert with some friends the other night, for cheap, at a little place downtown called Shank Hall, named after a mythical location of the same name in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, which I have not seen but is supposedly the great rock mockumentary of the 80's. Anyway, the bands playing were Carbon Leaf and Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers (which is abbreviated SK6ers, which is why I wrote it out) anyway, it was a great show, lots of good energy, especially since it was a small venue, and I have been listening to their music, especially Carbon Leaf, ever since. If anyone is interested, my favorite songs are Lake of Silver Bells, and The Boxer, though really both of their CD's that I got, Nothing Rhymes With Woman, and Echo Echo are pretty all around fabulous. Genre-wise they are sort of along the lines of Guster, sort of similar to Coldplay, but without that annoying thing that Coldplay has going on.


I visited the new Pick N Save near my house to scope it out, as it is now the closest location (Pick N Save is trying to saturate the market, much the way Walgreen's has (Walgreens started in Chicago, so...)) Anyway, as the new closest location I figured I should know what I can buy at it, though I didn't have much hope that it would have as good a gluten-free section as my regular location which is located across the street from the health food store and is trying to compete, but I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did it have all the stuff I've found at my regular location but also it had the gluten free betty crocker mixes which are fabulous just by their very existence, and are also nice because they are cheaper than many of the pre-existing specialty mixes. I hear that they taste good too, but right now I'm just reveling in having them on my shelf. Also, in the freezer section, next to the GF frozen waffles were frozen pancakes! I haven't eaten a pancake in who knows when, so I was fairly excited about this. I even bought syrup, which was on sale (yay!!). This morning, being mostly out of waffles, I busted out the pancakes; they cook fine in the toaster, but there was a little unexpected problem. The syrup didn't stay nicely in place the way is does with waffles, so I can eat it in the car on the way to the hospital, no, it ran off the edges, making a big mess on the counter and necessitating scarfing the pancakes, instead of enjoying them on the way to (unpaid) work. Bummer. I'm not sure what the solution is going to be on that one; I could put them on a plate, but I don't like bringing dishes in my car. Obviously something to think about.


I went to the zoo recently and noticed that all cats seem to feel the same about some things. Being a kitty is hard work, and to do it properly, you need to sleep at least 22 hours a day.






And if you're not sleeping, then you're probably sitting around looking inscrutable...






fun times :)