Mrs. Balabusta

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Those leftover pieces....

This really happened, although thankfully not to me.

Every year a neighboring town has an Fly-In. The name of the town is Oshkosh and it is host to a convention of avionic enthusiasts. There is in fact a museum to aviation history and 2 hangers of aircraft that you can visit for a nominal admission charge (they have a family price too!)

One thing aviation enthusiasts like to do, apparently, is build their own airplanes. Myself I would not sit on a chair my husband built himself, not that the situation is likely to arise anyway, without checking into my life insurance, health insurance, and writing a will. But there are people out there who think it would be cool to fly a plane you built yourself. Then of course, the next thing is to fly it to Oshkosh.

This brings many feelings to me, and I am not sure why. One thing that intrigues me is what these people, who fly here around the globe, finally build the plane, test it, and then fly it to Oshkosh - what do they think when they finally get there - I mean after Holy Cow We Didn't Die. Is it more like "So this is Oshkosh" or "I thought it would be bigger?" I just wonder.

Then I must say there are stories every year about the ones that don't make it. They sometimes crash near where they started from, this year it was in France or Holland. Sometimes they almost make it and then, well, you know. There was a story in the news this morning about a boy and his father who built their own plane and were flying to Oshkosh when the propeller fell off the plane. The father was able to glide onto a rural road and land without incident. No one is saying for sure, but I wonder what happened when the two of them got out and saw the front with the propeller gone. It could have been something like this....
  • Mom is so going to kill you....
  • Did you see where it landed...
  • Maybe we should have used those two extra screws after all.

Anyway, at last report they were going to put the propeller back on and fly on to Oshkosh. As soon as they find it.

So I just thought you should know... And that's why I like bowling.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Miss me?

Well the last five months have been quite eventful. I really didn't know what I was getting into - but I am enjoying it.

In case I was vague before, Mrs. Balabusta, having entirely too much time on her hands, changed from Cushy College Health job to Hospital Based Ambulatory Nursing job right around the beginning of this year. To make things more interesting, this is a "float" or as we like to call it "CRU" (clinical resource unit), position, so I can be on several different units in the course of a week, nay a month.

This has been quite demanding on my teeny moth-eaten brain. I have a spiral bound index card thing that I keep in my left skirt pocket right next to my stash of stickers. One card for each unit, these cards have the essentials of each location such as: location; cost center, ext. #, fax #, pager #, voice mail #, clinic manager, door codes, flags and usage, doctors, nurses, clinic assts, etc, etc. I don't get very far without my cards.

I try to park in the same row every day to cut down on time I spend looking for my car. Doesn't always happen though.

I have many funny stories about being the only orthodox nurse in the entire hospital - mostly people just call me "the one in the skirt", but what else is new really?

I enjoy the people I work with, and mostly I enjoy the patients, although there have been a few winners. The doctors though take the cake (You All Know Who You Are): In fact, just for fun, lets see if you can name the specialty I am going to give you a head start and list the clinics I have been in:

  • Allergy/Asthma
  • Pulmonary
  • Renal
  • Dialysis
  • Orthopedics
  • Endocrine
  • Neonatal
  • Dermatology

And now match the following terms to the above specialties:

  • Babysitters
  • Rock stars
  • Cover People
  • the Specialists' Specialist
  • Re-Decorators
  • Meet and sleep
  • Pre-Transplant People
  • Report Card docs

The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Mrs Balabusta is back!