Mumps!

In CPE meetings today, I was paged. At 8:45, my personal pager went off. Since my personal pager almost never goes off, this was at first very surprising. I didn't recognize the number, but assumed it was probably another chaplain, because who else would know of me, and know to page me? And if it was a floor trying to get me, hopefully they would know to not wait long, and page the main chaplain pager. Because the chaplains should know that I was in meetings, I assumed they would figure it out.

After the meeting, an hour later, I learned my assumptions were very wrong! Employee health was trying to get a hold of me. I recently went to them for my first MMR shot, because they had determined that I was lacking immunity to the diseases that covers. It takes two shots, so I am still not immune. And it turns out that one of the patients I visited a week ago turns out to have mumps! (One of the M's stands for Mumps) So, Employee Health was all up in a tizzy, because had I worn a mask going in there? I had, so all is quiet once again. But I was wondering there for a bit, if I had somehow managed to doom my life, the life of the child, and the entire well-fare of the hospital!

Nope, no over reactions here!

Office Space!

Third week of the new residency, and I made a discovery: I have an office! I found this out by accident. Sitting in one of the tiny shared offices, another resident said "I'm going to my office for a bit." I said, with my laptop perched on my lap, "You get your own office?!?" "Yes," she replied, "Don't you? I thought the resident before you had one. No wonder you've been in here..."

Next day: I had a key to my office, the office no on had told me about! I commented on it to the other resident downtown, and saw on his face that this was news. "I thought they said you had an office, too." "Well, I haven't heard about it yet." Today: He has an office! We're all so thrilled.

And the lingering question remains, if all the chaplains knew we had offices and where they were, why didn't anyone actually think to tell us about them?? Ah well, the tree outside my window doesn't care. So, I will leave it at that.

Road-less Travel

In CPE today, during our group time, there were various sharings of feeling lost in life right now from various people. While listening, my eyes wandered onto the bookshelf across the room, looking at titles (bookshelves are often distractions). And in that wandering, I saw again a book title "The Road Less Traveled." And my mind played with that, and turned it into "Roadless Travel." That thought seemed fairly pertinent to the discussion at hand...

Roadless Travel sounds to me like something that could be thrilling, or very disorienting. On the thrilling theme, it sounds like trailblazing! Setting forth into an area where no one has created a road before, or even a path. Exploring new territory: having new experiences, meeting new people, all kinds of exciting ways to grow and expand one's world view. A great, thrilling, adventure! Roadless Travel, here we come!

On the disorienting theme, it sounds like wandering in a wilderness. Stuck in a hostile environment, wondering if I will get out in time before I die, and no road or sign or path or smoke signals or anything at all to indicate a way out. Nothing at all. Desperate for a road, we travel aimlessly. Possibly we travel in circles, making a 1 year journey turn into a 40 year journey. Possibly we give up, and become one of the many skeletons dotting the landscape of "The Farside" cartoons.

Roadless Travel, please save me from it!

Self-selected Traffic Controllers

Kentucky seems to have quite a few traffic controllers. And they all cruise around in normal looking vehicles, making sure that none of us have fun on the interstate. I saw someone doing this behind me today as I was merging onto I-64. If it was done in front of me, I might have gone around him just to show that he was daft. Fortunately, I wasn't tempted. But I have in the past (note to self: continue work on anger issues). So this isn't the first time I've seen this, but it stuns me every time.

The scenario works like this: traffic is backing up, especially around merges (I could ramble long and hard on the average Kentucky driver's destructive approach to merging). Some of us think that stopping in the right lane just because someone thought they should merge NOW into completely blocked traffic, instead of rolling forward until there was an opening, is a bad idea. So when that person has their car half into the left lane, we go around them, and find the nice open gaps they created for us. And discover that in front of them, traffic is moving just fine thank-you-very-much.

To sum up: some cars merge immediately, some cars merge later. And therein lays the frustration for the Self-selected Traffic Controller (STC), for he/she (though really, probably a he) cannot stand that some people are "cheating" by no merging immediately, but instead have the audacity to use the other 1500 feet of lane and fine a merge point later on. So what does he do? The STC executes a partial merge, and straddles the lane line. This way he has "merged" obediently, but also prevents others from going around him. If someone should attempt to go around him by using the shoulder, perhaps because they thought he was just really slow to move over and didn't want to wait, the STC may decide to actually remain in the right lane. This however doesn't lose his merge position, because the people in the left lane behind him don't move forward since he has already proven that 1) he is merging 2) he's a dangerous idiot.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I will assume that STC's do this not only because they are idiots, or jerks, or... OK, benefit of the doubt: they do it because they think it will help traffic move faster. They believe that if we all merged right away and used only one lane (instead of two), it would be faster. Clearly they know little of volume flow, but I must grant that there are plenty of people who race up, then slam their brake, and back everything up on a merge (note previous comment on destructive merging habits). But what I've noticed is that STC's end up driving slower, because they have to dedicate so much attention to watching their review-mirror to make sure they can block the people trying to drive the speed-limit and not 20 miles under it. So instead of making things move faster, things move slower.

I love leaving STC's in my dust.

Poetry?

Synthetics carefully wrap my feet,
To protect them,
To help them,
To let me move with comfort and sureness.
I set forth, trusting my cozy shoes to keep my feet safe
As I pound the pavement in search of fitness.

Lungs are on fire.
Shins are screaming.
Muscles would be stiff if they could be.

Walking at last
The Synthetic is removed
And bare feet touch hard ground.

Unyielding concrete scratches,
Pebbles wound,
Stiff muscles make short steps.

The fire leaves my lungs.
My shins begin to prefer speech over screams.
My feet are unprotected, unsafe, shoe-less,
But happy.

Happy feet are bare.

Change is Coming!

The Bucket List

Today in CPE we watched and discussed the movie "The Bucket List." Pretty decent movie about facing death, and some of the hospital experience. In discussing it, our supervisor asked if we had a bucket list. I didn't really think I did, but realize there are some things I would like to do before I kick the bucket.

1) Visit six of the seven continents (the ones that are really populated) for at least a few days if not a total of a week or more. (So far: 3 out of 6)

2) Be in all 50 USA states, even if only driving through them though I would like to make a stop in each (Can't remember how many I've been in so far)

3) Do a multi-day hike to traverse a major park or trail (like the Sheltowee Trace trail)

4) Publish a book

5) The movie mentioned two questions that Ancient Egyptians believed they would be asked before entering heaven: Have you experienced joy in life? Has your life brought joy to others? I would certainly like to easily answer both of those in the affirmative before I die. Not just, did I experience a singular moment, or grant one moment of joy, but overall.

6) Drive a (race) car at ridiculous speeds (on a track).

So far that's what I've come up with.