29
June
2006
Timi’s sick with fever - the kindergarten’s token snotty brat passed a virus to her. I could strangle a certain mommy that brought said snotty brat with 39,0 into the community, saying that “nah, she’s not infectious” and leaving the germ spitter with eleven kids for eight hours. Way to go, Einstein.
I started running this week. The legs hurt like hell but tasting the endorphine rush that comes after the effort is well worth it.
Mia went on vacation for a month so I’m left with with both mine and her patients. I don’t complain though - lots of true psychotics and savage murderers are coming my way to be examined / profiled/ expertised and my inner forensic psychologist is somersaulting with joy. Since Monday I had started taking cases from Sancta Sanctorum, the closed part of the ward, where dracones sunt.
And there they were, all dying to meet me:
The “former emissary of Romania at the United Nations”, persecuted by the government because of what he knows, influencing his thoughts and poisoning him with active zinc (isn’t that the main ingredient in acne creams?) in the eye, which poisoning he only escaped by having a doc injecting a tumor in said eye. “The tumor protects me now”, whispered he;
A slim teenager who didn’t trust me one bit, because she couldn’t read my thoughts like she was able to do with everybody else;
A sad lady who felt at fault for everything and less worthy than a dust bunny (so said the voices, which knew what they were saying, for the voices must be obeyed). She had to be longly and painfully convinced to swallow her medication;
and a cleaning lady who didn’t want to let me in when I came there in the morning, because I wasn’t wearing a white uniform and I had pigtails. The look on her face when a nurse jumped her sorry ass for not believing me when I said who I was could easily be chosen as the flagship of Kodak moments.
Posted: Timi, hospital
27
June
2006
Remember when I made fun of Super Mario in this post? Boy, talk about a stupid decision.
See, today was a hot day. I fetched Timi from kindergarden, got home, had a shower and stayed half-nekkid, only in my shorts, figuring that if Robi has the right to run around dressed like that, then it’s my right too.
Robi came home, approved enthusiastically of my wardrobe decision and soon after, a knock was heard at the door. I rushed into the computer room and asked Robi to open, thinking it was the lady from the first floor with the milk. I waited until I heard the entrance door close and then emerged out of the room, right when a fat blonde plumber was passing before me on his way to our main bathroom. He didn’t even blink. I mechanically put my hands on my chest, turned around and slammed the door. Then three quarters of my blood went to my cheeks while the remaining quarter coloured the ears. I was in shock (wait, I still am).
So there. Dear Super Mario, I won’t make fun of you if you’ll search for sexy pics with pipes again, I promise. Just don’t send your minions to fix our pipes while my own sexy parts are on display, ever. Deal?
Posted: chestii
26
June
2006
Ask your average Romanian what’s the first chocolate brand name that comes to his mind and he’ll probably answer Milka. This swiss chocolate, advertised by purple (or lavender, if you insist) cows and talking 3d groundhogs can be found in most of the local supermarkets, positioned as a high end product.
They recently put two limited editions on the market, one of them with lime and green tea, the other with maracuja and hibiscus filling. Naturally, I had to try them. Off to the supermarkets we went for our weekend shopping, and in the second store there they were, purple and white and chocolatey all over. We bought one of each and brought them home, where they patiently waited in front of the monitor to be opened and consumed in the name of science.
Maracuja and hibiscus was the first to be taken out of its aluminium foil. The chocolate coat looks light brown, exactly what you’d expect from, you know, a *milk* chocolate. The inside is half white cream, half clear brownish jelly. The taste is complex, you switch between the milky choc taste, the light sourish-sweet of the jelly and the discrete, un peu bland sweetness of the cream. All in all, not a bad experience, but nothing extraordinary.
But then came the lime and green tea. Oh, it looked so innocent, disguised in a simple white chocolate with no visible filling, whispering sweetly “Don’t mind li’l old me, I’m just sitting here in this foil, I promise I won’t do a thing to you! Maybe try me a little, you’ll forget about it in no time!” Until you take a bite.
It’s good. Nah, not enough. Delicious. Still not enough. Food-orgasm inducing? Yeah, more like it. It’s sweet and limey and creamy and tantalisingly subtle-yet-also-strong tasting. It’s the equivalent of a Shakespeare sonet or a Renoir baigneuse in the chocolate world. You feel like starting a career in mud wrestling if the producers promise to substitute said mud with this celestial goodness. Dudes, it’s AWESOME.
Do I recommend them? Let’s see:
Maracuja & hibiscus - yeah, why not? This chocolate would probably be a good gift - it isn’t an everyday flavour, yet the taste is middle-of-the-road enough to avoid disliking.
Lime & green tea - of course. If you don’t have it in your country, search for it on eBay, Amazon, whatever, it’s worth the effort. Or, on a second thought, don’t buy it. This way there’ll be more for ME.
Posted: chestii
24
June
2006
Little sister is here this weekend so we took her out shopping. By the time we got home it started to rain heavily and we had to wait at the appartment for half an hour before returning her to my parents’ house. In that half an hour I managed to (pick one) :
a. Flip a basket full of shells and starfish I was showing to her, therefore filling my whole livingroom with dead sea animals’skeletons
b. Hit myself with the kitchen door in the hip for three times
c. Trip over a $^&%$ toy while exiting said kitchen
d. All of the above
Now why do I have the feeling that all of you will go straight for the D?
Posted: chestii
22
June
2006
Talking to an epileptic patient today, he being one meter from me:
“So what medicine do you have prescribed for your condition?”
“Epilepsy”
(smiling) “Sir, that’s the name of your illness .. I was asking for the medicine’s name”
“Yeah, epilepsy.”
“Listen, I’m fairly sure there’s no medicine named like that. May I see the pills’foil?”
He pulls out the foil.
“See? That’s not Epilepsy, it’s Finlepsin.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the whole time.”
To my defense, the two sound incredibly alike and the guy had false teeth . But still, I might have scored some idiot points in a certain patient’s mind. And in yours too now, gentle readers.
Posted: hospital
20
June
2006
Today our toilet (located conveniently in my cabinet) was out of order. The closest usable restroom was in the cabinet of a neurologist, nicknamed “the Locust” and renowned for her bad reaction at people, other than patients or superiors, entering her realm.
This wasn’t much of a problem until noon, when I really needed to go - ahem- check my makeup. But where? I couldn’t leave my cabinet for too long, since hordes of patients were on the hall waiting, so the loos situated further were out of the question. The only remaining were the Locust’s and our patients’ toilet. Which was out of the question because .. eww.
I went in front of the ambulatoriu and waited for a while, enjoying the warm day and looking as innocent and carefree as possible. And in less than five minutes, the Locust comes out too shouting to the maintenance guys to find her a plumber to fix her sink. They tell her where she can find him (she isn’t too loved by them either) and she goes on search for the guy. Immediately after her comes out her male nurse, who goes to his maintenance pals to smoke a cigarette. All’s clear, she has no patients left.
Figuring out this is a now-or-never type situation, I enter her cabinet (which is OPEN, people!) enter restroom and come out in less than a minute. I’m back to my cabinet before her nurse’s cigarette is half smoked.
Hello, my name is Andrea and I’m a pee terrorist.
Posted: hospital
20
June
2006
From Friday to Sunday yours truly’s human bits were temporarely replaced by a whining mass of virus-spewing jellyfish. On Sunday evening I was finally feeling better,despite the running nose and the occasional sneeze attack. Determined not to et this go to waste, I found a nice birthday cake recipe and hacked it beyond recognition. The result looked a lot nicer than my own birthday cake:
(if you’re interested in the recipe, containing cherries, puff pastry, chocolate, choux and apricot jam, drop me a comment - if there I get more than three, I’ll post it)
However, just when I was preparing the chocolate cream Timi switched the TV on one of the state channels, called TVR2. There were commercials and my kid being a sucker for advertising and TVShop channels, she left it there. When the ads were finished, on came something I definetely wasn’t expecting - an interview with the frontman of Apocalyptica.
Who are Apocalyptica, ye of the not-clicking kind ask? Oh, only four guys playing cellos . What’s the trick? Well, they aren’t exactly playing the music you’d expect from four academically-trained celloists. They started by doing Metallica covers then moved on to sing their own creations. Both me and the husband love them dearly. (yeah, yeah, we’re devout Christians and hard rock is supposedly the music of eeeeeeeeevil. Go eat my socks. Or Robi’s.)
Robi came to watch, and during the interview we noticed a poster behind Eicca, advertising the fact that they were in Bucharest on the 31st of May. And we had no idea, for there wasn’t much advertising of it on the Discovery Channel / Realitatea TV / Cartoon Network, which get the most airing time in our house. Miffedness was all over the couch.
But all was not lost, because after the interview was finished they broadcasted the Bucharestian concert. All of it. And we rocked.
The jaw-dropping part of the evening however, came from Timi. The daughter sang with the guys. Applauded after every song, sometimes even after a longer solo. She accompanied them on our guitar (no eardrums were popped during that part, although they were close). And I swear to you, my kid HEADBANGED. And she did it like a pro. And did I mention she brought her plush kitten to the TV screen to kiss them?
If I ever needed proof of the awesome power of the genes, I have it now. Timi, I’m so proud of you.
Posted: Timi
