April 2007 Archives

There is a surgical journal that passes by my desk from time to time, called Surgical Rounds. I browse through it when I get the chance, because I am curious that way. But now I don't feel so good. You see, there was an article in this month's issue that described trauma surgery for a (thankfully) rare injury that's called "penoscrotal degloving". You can Google that if you want, but you may be sorry afterward.

It seems a certain young farmer disabled a safety device on his farm machinery, tried to step over it, slipped, and was subsequently "degloved". I temporarily black out every time I go through that sequence. But it seems those safety devices can be pretty darned inconvenient. The boss and I were just discussing the vividly illustrated article and in between involuntary wincing, doubling over, and retching, we decided that laminating and gluing those photos to the safety device would substantially reduce the number of farmers who disable it. Farmers do not get paid enough. Fortunately the surgeons do, I guess.

Makes the windmill injury article seem tame by comparison.

I'm making an astronomy presentation to Harrison and Giselle's classes tomorrow afternoon (with slides & pictures!!), and then taking the kids outside to look at the crescent moon through the telescope. That's assuming telephone poles and mobile homes aren't tumbling and careening across the playground in this endless, heinous wind. I did this a couple years ago with Giselle's 2nd grade class, and it was a blast. But this year, the moon will be only 3 and a half days old. So it's pretty slender & tough to find in broad daylight.

So as a basic prep for finding it tomorrow, I went out today to practice spotting it at 2 and a half days old. I tried looking for it from the shadow of a tree in the parking lot, and I couldn't find it for squat. And you know why? Because I am self-conscious. (See dictionary entry. My photo will be next to it.) I couldn't concentrate on the search, because I was worrying what all the passersby were thinking about the freak staring at the sun with his hands stretched out and tears pouring out of his eyes. So I gave up because people just wouldn't stop meandering in and out of the building. It's always like that. It's like a stinking grocery store. Why can't everybody just sit down at their collective desks and answer their phones and send emails until 5pm like good corporate minions?

Whatever. It'll be easier to find tomorrow anyway.

I was sitting here scarfing up a cobb salad (minus the hard-boiled egg :P ), when I began to wonder... How juicy would my diet have to be before I could forego drinking liquids altogether, like a kangaroo rat, or Bufo Americanus? Would food items, on average, have to contain as much water as, say, an apple? Or an orange? Would mashed-potatoes with LOTS of brown gravy be sustainable? Probably not, due to the excessive salt content. I think that eating watermelon would be cheating, in case you were wondering.

I don't despise drinking. But I know I don't drink enough liquids. Although I read somewhere recently that the whole eight-glasses of water a day doesn't really have to equate to eight pure-water glasses. Some of that amount can come from other beverages, as well as water content in the foods you eat. Which is where my thought experiment is taking me, in the extreme sense--I say, as I quickly lick the dust off my eyeballs.

So yeah, I haven't had kidney stones. Yet.

I overheard a conversation between Giselle and Harrison yesterday that involved Harrison asking "...but what would you do if the Hulk was choking you?". Giselle's answer was a confident, "I'd kick him in the regions".

The "regions".

I hollered across the room and asked her, "Did you just say 'the regions'?"

And she put on a big smile, made this double clicking noise with her tongue and nodded 'yes'.

It did me proud that they've selected such a delightful euphemism for what could be put so much more gruffly.

We got back from a week-long trip to Oklahoma last week. We stayed at a place called the Flying W Guest Ranch. It beat the heck out of staying at a motel. March weather was a huge improvement over the usual summer weather we see.

I've got some pictures that I'll post here as soon as I crop & resize them.