anutty1

Day four of smoke. Ugh. We're supposed to get storms this afternoon, which doesn't help the extra wheezing and cough right now, but might make things better in the evening. I'm debating taking a small suo if cough syrup beffore work so that I don't cough too hard in our patient's ears

Yesterday waa a day, I played the part of the other PAS III, so in the morning, I was in teams, answering every stupd question people threw at me. A lot of them were from the new girl sho seems to no underand Radiologic principles. But then I got "Which shunt study should I do!" And I looked att he order, and one said Eval VP Shunt patency." It's literally right on the order, at the topo! Then, not three minutes later "What kind of shunt study do I use? And I very quickly screen shotted the protocol and paste it in to chat. My patience knows some bounds apparently.

It was mostly quiet, wiht things I barely needed to look at the grid for, which is a good day, because the grid is hella outdated. I spent most of my time playing stupdi little games and surfing online.

The aftrnoon, I worked radsets ane watched the queue, along with actually doing some of my owb job and also watching the PET Queue. I kept it down under 3 people even as the docs were putting orders in fast and furious. The Bitch Fest meeting was super short, because our Dept head was in a mood. Not helped by one of the manager being a bit of a bitch to her. She vented to me, and I sepent the rest of the day trying to cheer her up with descriptions of how dumb Lizzy is.

I mean, I love her so, but she is not bright. But I was telling her of some of her foilables, and her fascination with my waddle--the loose skin on my forearm and best of all, the big swinging flap under my arm. She just fucking loves it. Yesterday she got so excited loving it that she gave mea lovebite on it. Fucking hell, that pinched. It wasn't hard, just in a sensitive area.

Other than that and 9pm zoomies, she's perfect. She's started attacking our feet in the bed,so sleep is not going to happen. Even after I ran her with the laser pointer, she still wants more, She's so sweet though, just a little rag doll of a cat. When you approach her, she flops on her side to demand pets. head, back and sides are good. Tummy may or may not be a trap, depending on how she's feeling. She got on my chest again. She never stays for more than 10 seconds, but hopefully as she ages out of her kitten ADHD, she'll do it more often.

Despite the shitty Air Quality Index, we went out to the newly opened Volcano Hot Pot.. It was busy when we arrived, which was not shocking as they opened yesterday in our area. Still, we only had about a 10 minute wait for a table and anoter 5-10 for a waitress. The waitress brough a tray of complimentary waygu beef for the grill, and it was lovely. They didn't have as many choices for hot pot. Just fatty beef, pork belly, chicken and lamb. Which was fine, because they had rice cakes, and gyoza for the hot pot. We had the KBBQ too, which was excellent. The portions were enormous, and their Bulgogi was one of the best things I've eaten, flavorful, tender, no need to dip the meat at all. We got two orders of htat. IT became an orgy of food. Galbi Ribs, garlick marinated beef strip, honey pork belly. All very tasty, and the service was suprisingly attentive. Things I did not avail myself of: The salad bar, except to grab a kimchi cucumber. I figurted it was a risk but since it was pickled, I gave it a shot. We'll see if anything happens from that. I was too full to check out the ddesserts and ice-cream. Also didn't try any of their teas. They had a cooler ith verying kinds of tea. I considered a peach, but then forgot as a hole at the sauce station opened up. All in all, very good outting. When we left the waiting area was bugfuck, so yay for a good grand opening!

Today is Marchen, which I still need to uplad a map for. Then, nothing all night. I might do some cooking re: dinner. We'll see. I really do want to use the steaks and teeny tiny lobster tails.

We'll see how the storm goes. I'm Yoda's safety momma during storms, so I may have to sit at my deskk to keep him happy. They're saying a high chance of severe, but they're not good at predicting actual storms in our area. A lot of them fizzle as they come over the Allegheny mountains.


Tomorrow, I'm meeting up with a former IKEA coworker, who is now Hopkins. I have a ton of Mounjaro left, and she uses it. I want the puke serum out of my house, so She gets 2 1/2 months worth of medicine. Enjoy! I can use my vegetable drawer again! We're meeting up for lunch at IKEA, just for the irony. Plus, they have good food. I'll have soem swedish meatballs, and then maybe take a quick trip through their food store. I could go for a bag of cocktail meatballs and IKEA definitely wins for meatballs hands down. I will need to get a crock pot for that, though. But that's not a big deal. I could definitely have that, and some Jelly and sweet chilli sauce together in time to have it for dinner sunday night.

Today also, I need to order and make dog food for the puppy. We've started feeding him half and half. HE gets the homemade food in the morning and Spot and Tango in the evening. It seems to be working. He's lost a little weight, and that way he gets the commercial food vitamins, in case I'm missing something in my mix.

Lizzy is just getting normal canned, albeit bougie food. She's on Tiki Cat, which is supposed to be good for them.She's happy and growing, so I figure it's working. She even gets bougie treats. We have an barely touched box of friskies, but the salmon and chicken treats take top billing right now.

Today, I shall answer phones and try to juggle the schedule if needed. And then game, and then videos. I think I've found our hotel for San Francisco, The Stanyan Park Hotel. It's directly across the road from Golden Gate Park, which is great, since one of the big things we wanted to see was the teahouse in the park. It's about a 7 minute walk, or there's a free tram. I'm leaning towards that. It's a bit of an uber to downtown from there, but I'm okay with that. Our other big stop is Muir Woods, but I'm doing a tour for that, since it's a ways outside of town. I think tea gardens are day one, Muir day do, and somewhere in there Chinatown for dim sum lunch, and the House of Prime rib. We're going to get in around 11am, so 12:30 by the time we get to the hotel. We'll probably be hungry. But I'm goig to do the Tea Garden first because that may take a couple of hours, and the days will be getting shorter.

And now, I must go get dressed and consider starting my day. Everyone have the very best Saturday.

It's 4:27am, and our AQI is already in the very unhealthy status. I've got a constant tickle in my throat, and I can smell the Canada Wildfire smoke indoors. I will take an inhaler and hope things settle down. I think today will be a very hazy day. Hopefully with judicious application of my inhaler, things will improve somewhat.

Tomorrow, we're supposed to have rain, to clear out some of the smoke. Of course, it comes with some potentially strong storms. I'd be excited anyway, but the dog hates storms so much that I'd feel bad about it. Hopefully, we get the rain and not the storms. That would be nice.

Yesterday was not a particularly busy day at work, but it seemed to last forever. Today I'm covering for a coworker, so I'm working til 5, but still going in at 8 (Yay Overtime!) I also work tomorrow, so even more overtime. I'll probably mostly be taking calls tomorrow, unless something is on fire, but we'll see. I appreciate that between this and next week's staff meeting, I should have about 5-6 hours of OT, and at $46/hr, it's a nice chunk of change, which is appreciated.

Work today shall include the Friday manager's bitch-a-thon, which is always a good time. I do enjoy hearing about all the latest gossip. Hopefully, being the weekend, we'll have a few more spots open up on Saturday and Sunday that I can get some patients from our overgrow STAT list in. I would appreciate that.

I'm probably also going to be working the PET scan queue, calling pts who have orders for their scan. Because 90% of PETs are for cancer, we're proactive about that particular queue. Mind you, we're at least 2-3 weeks out on appointments, so no one is getting in quickly, but I have a few patients on my list, so if we get cancellations, I will try to slot them in.

And my usual shit, trying to fill in Columbia's various cardiac schedules. I've got a STAT patient for a cardiac CTA, so I'm keeping a close eye on that schedule. As I am, after all, Queen of the Cardiacs.

Tonight, after work, we're going to go to a newly opened restaurant, Volcano Hot Pot. They just opened yesterday, so I'm excited to try them. I will bring my patience pants, as I know service will probably be slow, but it looks like a fun time. They have hot pot as well at KBBQ, which makes me exceedingly happy. I'm can fuck up both. And they have a grand opening discount of 20% off for July, which is even better.

Tomorrow, work, then Marchen. I need to pull a couple of maps for the things they want to do, but that's easy enough. Tomorrow shall be one fetch quest that is loosely tied into one player's backstory, and then a library episode, and whatever the other two get up to. (No clue, seriously. Whatever it is, we'll roll with it.)

Sunday, I meet up with a friend who's on Mounjaro, so I can offload my leftover supplies. I want the puke serum out of my house. It sucked and I hated it, and I don't need to look at it and remember how sick it made me. Because that was like a month and some change of hell. The friend takes it with minor problems, so it's all hers.

I need to make an appointment with my doctor, so I can get a bump up of the Trulicity dose. It's not causing any side effects, but it isn't doing a ton for my sugar, either, so it's time to go up a little.

And of course, the whole time, I shall do research. I figured out the PTO with our two cruises, and we should make it with about 40 hours to spare, so that's good. That covers me for any incidental days off that I need.

I'm taking 6 hours off for Weird Al and Danny, but I think that's the only ones that I need to do that for. I need to get Yoda to the vet, because it's time for his shots, so I should call Hillendale to set up an appt, and Northwind to get his records transferred. He'll be due for all his shots, which will suck, but we'll deal. They were so nice with Lizzy that I really want to move him over there. He will definitely need to have it for some of our trips. I think for Weird Al and Danny and AEW, he's fine. We'll be leaving later and will be home before he needs his morning walk, but he'll definitely need it before the Animate!Philadelphia convention in October, and the Undertale Symphony in November. And for the Much Ado About nothing play in December, and the cruise in January.

I actually sat down and looked at both of our booked cruises for fall of next year. I had thought that the 7 day California Coast was less expensive, but then realized that I already paid $2000 on it. The California Coast with Holland America is about $100 less than the Hawaii cruise, which is 15 days. That boggles my mind. I put a deposit down on the Hawaii sailing, so it's held until we know whether Carnival suits us after our cruise in January to the Bahamas. If that goes well, then I'll cancel the California coast and we'll be Hawaii bound.

We've started doing Hawaii research, figuring what we want to see on each Island. So far, it's the Kualoa Ranch where the filmed Jurassic Park and Hawaii 50 and a myriad of other movies, and maybe an early luau. We're on Oahu from 8am-9pm, so we should be able to pack in a few things. Maui, there's an aquarium that we're looking at. They have an excursion that goes there, plus a trip at a local market. I need to look and see what day we're in Oahu, becuase they also have night markets that I'd love to see as well as swap meets that are good for cheap souvenirs. Sadly, it looks like we're in Oahu on Friday, so neither of them will be possible, but there are Friday fireworks that we might get to see.

The other port days are a bit shorter, so we won't get to see as much in Kona, Hilo or Kahuli, about 8-9 hours each. Ensenada is even shorter, at 5 hours, but it's just a stop to fulfill the cruise rules about visiting a minimum of two countries on every cruise.

We've been watching videos on the ship that we'd be going on, and it seems...polarizing. Some people love the fuck out of it, some. hate it with a passion. Thing is, a lot of the stuff that people complain about seem like petty little things. Like the artwork having a lot of naked people, including an enormous sculpture of a fat lady laying on her stomach. The ship started out with Carnival's Italian branch and was brought into the main fleet a few years ago. It doesn't have a water park or water slides, and there's only two pools. (Gasp and horror). Well, I like naked women, and if I swim, it'll probably be either really early or late, so it shouldn't be as crowded. We've got a primo cabin that will probably allow us to play D&D at least once, probably a couple of times, though the second time may be super early in the morning due to Hawaiian time zones, but I'm game.

I don't know if we'll still be playing Marchen at that point, or if poisontaster will have taken over GM duties, but either way, it'll be so much fun. This is because we switched to the Ocean Suite, which has a little alcove that should let us have separate areas to play.

But first, the cruise to the Bahamas. Not quite as exciting as Hawaii, but it'll give me a good idea of what Carnival is like. I know it's supposed to be the "fun ships" and more of a party boat, but it also seems like staff is less obsequious, which I'd like. The aggressive hospitality on Holland Americ is a little excessive. I mean, I loved the staff, but they were very intense. They wanted to help push in your chair, and place your napkin on your lap, and stop you in the hallway to see how your cruise was going. Part of that was that we were Pinnacle Suite, I'm sure, but it was everywhere. I'm not that social of a person and that required being "on" a lot more than I like.

It seems like Carnival staff is friendly, but not quite as over the top. Also, less of a country club feeling. I like that it's more normal people. There were a few normal people on the Alaska cruise, but the majority were older white people, and it felt very exclusive and far more classy than I am. It was lovely, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but I'm ready to try something less bougie.

The Hawaii cruise leaves from San Francisco, so I'm looking forward to that. That was probably the city I was most looking forward to seeing, so I'm glad we're still able to do it. I really wanted to see Muir Woods and the Japanese Tea Gardens, so we'd be able to do that. We'd lose out on San Diego and Disneyland, but I'm okay with that, because Hawaii.

Sorry, as these trips were all booked in the last 10 days, I will probably be babbling about them a bit.

And now I shall find some maps, and get myself together for work. Everyone have a most excellent Friday!

And some how, Monday is here again. The alarm came way too early despite the fact that I went to bed at a reasonable time.

Sunday was a good quiet day. I relaxed in the morning, and had the bagels my sister ordered, and then I went and played D&D.

D&D was a lot of fun. We fought giant frogs, and it was a blast. At the end, I got to break up with my girlfriend, who turned into a real witch as I walked away, yelling that she would ruin me, I would never be this popular ever again (It's set in magical college.) It was super fun, and I'm going to be curious what the next session brings as far as complications. poisontaster did an excellent job.

After that, we sat and watched videos about our January vacation. I watched videos about the ship, and about the ports. The ship is based off tbe Italian Renaissance, and is tacky as hell. I love it. It's just so overdone. The main atrium is huge and goes up all ten floors of the ship. We're on the 8th floor, right off it, so we'll be able to walk out our door and see what's going on downstairs. Despite being their parent company, their app is not nearly as good as Holland's, so I think I'm going to be floundering finding my way around the ship at first.

It's a 7 day sailing from Baltimore to the Bahamas. We stop one day in Nassau, then another at their private island, Relaxaway at Half Moon Cay, and then another day at their private beach on the main island of the Bahamas, Celebration Key.

I always say that I'm not a hug beach person, but looking at these places, I think I'm going to try to be for a couple of days. They look very pretty and the water looks clear and nice.

I guess in deference to the fact that it's going to be Jan-Feb, the port days are not that long, most lasting til 4pm-5pm after an arrival of 8am-9am. I'm okay with that. I dearly loved all or our excursions in Alaska--they were fun and I wouldn't trade one of them, but the ship was the part that was my absolute favorite part. I loved that I could just go and get food, and the activiites, and the hospitality. It won't be quite as extreme on this ship, since we're just a standard cabin, but I'm sure it'll be fun.

And more, I seem to be turning into Jack Sparrow, muttering "now bring met that horizon." I want to go places and do things. We have our two cruises next year, and then who knows? Maybe a 2 week Hawaii cruise? It'd be tough to get the PTO together for it, but maybe if we aimed for 2029, I could do it. There's a great one out of San Diego that hits a few of the Polynesian Islands. Or maybe we'll love the Bahamas and decide to take a full cruise into the Caribbean. I'd love to find one that does an overnight in San Juan. I really would love to see Puerto Rico.

There are so many choices of where to go. We could even do a Transatlantic cruise and see a bit of Europe. I could conceivably work on one of those if I wanted. There's a great 30 day cruise that goes to Australia and back that I would love. I will think on that.

Last night, Jess laid down, and Lizzy jumped on their chest! It was only for a few seconds, but it's a start towards cuddling.

She continues to be the sweetest thing. I took a picture yesterday and noticed that she looks a touch chonky. She's not, but it made me happy.



She has finally put some of the weight from the kittens back on.

Today, I shall work and then throw in a turkey breast and some stuffing. I may even make gravy, though we'll see about that. Turkey is always one of my favorite meats, so I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully, it won't be too dry. Eh, I suppose that's why I'm making gravy for it.

Okay, time for me to hop off and do some more research! Everyone have the very best Monday that you can muster!