nothin much

puppy love


Been kinda busy but I really have nothing cool/fun to report. With the doc out of town things are pretty laid back around here. Friday I went to my favorite Indian restaurant to get lunch to go and was told by Mamta (waitress/manager) I could only have a to go box if I promised to come back this weekend to eat there. So here is my lunch - preview just for Jin who does not have an Indian restaurant nearby. All these dishes are strictly vegetarian. I love the peas and cheese in the milder curry sauce (right) and the veggies with potatoes in spicy curry. Yuummmm!!!! Friday night was uneventfull, we were not to busy but all my tables were nice. We had a rehearsal dinner out on the patio and they had orders Sangria. Since there was lots of it left we sat around and had a few glasses. I think I got home around midnight. Saturday I had to do a repeat family interview. The family picked that day so I would have to take the au pair with me to the meeting. They picked 11:30am as the time which would have been fine since the meeting was not until 1pm. So I am driving up the road near their house when my cell rang. The Host mom is like "where are you?" (it's 11:20am) I said right down the street from you. And she is like oh boy I forgot J. had his camp today we will be about 10 min late. I am thinking great now lets hope that is true. So there happens to be a Target right there and yours truly decides to go and get a magazine or something. Well to get to the magazines I had to walk past the shelves with the purses and since my b-day is almost here I decided to get myself a little present. Isn't it cute? It looks more adult like than my other one and I can still fit my book in it which is very important.

Anyhow I pulled up in front of the house and they came about 11:45am. Of course the kid is hungry and this and that so it is 12:30pm when I finally try to get out. Since the meeting was a good 30miles away I called ahead letting them know we'd be late. I flew down the interstate (thankfully no cops in sight) with 80 - 90 mph and got there only 5 min late. Most of the girls where there. The police officer told the girls about do's and don'ts and then went to let them pose in his car. I am pretty sure he had more fun in this than the girls. One of the host moms was there and she noticed several squad cars circling the area. She was sure that the dispatch alerted all the units to the presence of the au pairs. Most of the girls want to do the ride along where you accompany a officer for their shift. I have a feeling there will be no shortage of volunteers.
After the meeting I had just enough time to fix a quick lunch before heading to the restaurant. It was quiet and we finished early so we ended up once again on the patio trying to finish the Sangria. I am glad we don't have it all the time or I would be in serious trouble. Sunday morning was a bit more relaxed. I slept in (Grumpy had to be at work at 6am) watched my soaps, did some home work. When Grumpy called saying he was off it was noon and I asked if he wanted to do Nawab for lunch. It took us a good 2 h to get ready but off we went. It was sooo yummy.

Here is my lunch, vegetable Pakora - I call them crispies. Some cabbage dish with peas and curry and then mixed veggies with potatoes and cheese. I can actually make a meal out of the crispies. I miss the spinach I hope all that gets sorted out soon.

After lunch it was off home for some exercise :) (got to work of those crispies) and then Busch Gardens called. There I was bored out of my mind for 6hours.

Monday started on a sad note. One of my former patients died Sunday. So my first call of the day was to his partner to tell him how sorry I was for his loss. They both where quiet the pair with his partner being what you can only describe as a character. I told him I'd stop by the celebration of life on Wednesday. He was telling me that his partner inadvertently ended up catering his own funeral. They had a AIDS benefit a few days ago that he had made the spaghetti sauce for and there where left overs which will now be served at the celebration. His partner thought at least that way he knew it was prepared right.

Busy?!

Oh man where to start. The weekend was pretty crazy. Friday night my friend Danielle came but the Restaurant and after eating we headed out to Phillys. Well its actually called the Sandbar now (stupid name since there is no Sand anywhere!). Grumpy used to work there and that's how we met, Danielle and I would go there almost every night. I like it, its one of those hole in the wall places where locals hang vs the meat markets. Here I can go in my work cloths and don't need to get all dressed up and no one hits on me which is something I can not stand. Flirt with me fine but get your damn hands off me. Anyhow that's why I like Phillys. We played a little bit of pool and then just hung out. As we are getting older we need more sleep so we left a little after midnight to go on home. I stayed up a bit longer reading my latest Sookie Stackhouse book (thanks Phos I needed another series!!!!!) and then hopped in the sack. Sleeping in wasn't an option as I had to do an orientation with a new au pair arrival at 10am. After that it was of the office so I could try to get squared away for Monday. After making lunch at home I finished my book and got ready for work. I worked 4 shifts last night and made less money than the week before it was soooooo slow. I didn't have any really nice or really strange people to serve and the only drama Saturday night came from the waitstaff. We have this new girl that is making her self a lot of enemies with her gossiping and lies. She even lies about her lies!!!! She walked up to B. and tells her they need to work out their problems?!!??!? B. is Scottish and has a temper but is nice. She wont tolerate lies though and this waitress has told quit a few involving B. SO I decided I better get out of dodge since that wasn't gonna be pretty. See B. is the type of person that laughs with you if you call her a Bitch to her face but if you do it behind her back your dead meat. That is one of the reasons we are best friends we both do not like bullshit. Anyhow I left to go to get my next book just to find out that the latest one is not out in paperback yet. The hardcover is to hard to move around with so I shopped around for another and found "Every which way but dead" by Kim Harrison. Its funny with weres, pixies, witches and of course vampires. Oh I just wanted to point out I read the Sookie books (all except the last one) within 2 weeks that's how good they are. I am not sure where with 4 jobs and school I found the time but I did read all 5 of them!!!!!
Sunday was pretty low key. Cleaned a bit, watched the soap I tape, did homework and I had to work at Busch at night where I was bored out of my mind. Called security twice, once for a lot valet someone gave me and then for a 12 yr old boy that lost his friends. We couldn't reach his friends so called his dad. After seeing how the parents were with him I can see why he'd wanted to get lost. Some people should not have kids!!!! The night eventually ended and I fell into bed knowing I wanted to get to work early.
Monday sucked. I wasn't out of the bathroom yet when my cell started to ring. It was one of the au pairs and I called her on the way to the office to tell her to email me since I didn't have time to be on the phone all morning. When I got in 1 of my patient was already waiting. I needed some more results but couldn't get through to the lab, the 2 more show up to be seen by me. I am already spinning my wheels.


This is the office parking lot at about 8:45am on Monday. One of the patients tripped outside and most likely broke his leg - the one we were treating for infection - trying to prevent it from being amputated.



Of course all that puts us behind on the schedule. I also had a monitor from one of the Pharmaceutical Company here not being able to do much she needed as I get two more patients and then my doc calls me in a room to screen a patient for my naive study. That was about 1pm and I had not had breakfast or even a cup of water. So I take the patient back, who just found out that he is HIV+ so he is understandably upset. I do my "the world is not over speech" try to calm him to the point where he can read and understand the consent form. Get him signed up to get his blood drawn. After I give him his return appointment I go see what I can do for the monitor. She was nice enough to get me a bagel with egg salad which I devour while doing the corrections she needs. By now it is after 3pm and I need to process the labs from the 5 people I saw which came for 5 different studies which translates into 4 different labs that I am going to have to send the blood to after I process it. I didn't finish the processing part until after 4pm (which is my normal time to leave even thou that rarely happens). I still had not sat down to catch my breath and still calls kept coming. The jail needed some stuff on one of my patients because they were getting audited and needed paperwork showing he was on the study when he went in and had to stay on it because he needed the meds which were not commercially available. I clocked out at 5:20pm with a migraine in process. I got home hoping for a nap and got comfy on grumpys lap. As you can see Cleo demanded attention from a tired me. Misty came by later but Grumpy was cooking dinner so he couldn't take pictures of her laying on my legs trying to make me feel better. and then that damn cell phone rang again. Grumpy got up to make dinner while I took a cat nap. I tried to do the case study but just gave up at midnight and went to bed. I am hoping to get out of the restaurant Early tonight so I can finish it then. Well today has been really low key with the doc out of town and me just catching up on stuff.

Mad house

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Originally uploaded by dino0477.

Here is Misty watching me check my messages. All four of them are mad that I pay more attention to the computer than to them. It was a mad house all week but especially today. I just got home and checked my emails since 4pm (when I left my office) I had gotten 79!!! emails. As you can tell by the picture I am sitting on the couch with my laptop on my lap (thats where it is supposed to be right - lap top!?!??)

Anyhow I haven't had any time to blog at work, since one of my patients died. That is always so much paperwork and hassle, getting the medical records filling out the serious adverse event paperwork and reassuring the pharma concern that it was not their drug causing it. If you think that sounds mean - I lost my compassion for this particular patient after he kept refusing to stay clean and took rehab as a paid vacation. And surprise, surprise his drug test (which is done routinely when patients are in a coma) was positive for coke. He woke up just to have 2 cardiac arrests and then died. So no time to do extra curricular actvities at work.

The 79 emails are from my other job (the au pair job) hell is breaking loose as the state department changed rules in regards to the educational component for the girls. So lots of back and forth in our little LCC grapevine. Of course the law of three kicked in and I got a call from one of my girls. She is not getting along with her host parents and I am sure I will have to go and talk to everyone this weekend but I have a feeling I will have to find her a new family and them a new au pair - personality conflicts are hard to get over. And sure enough number 3 hit tonight. I had a message from one of my former families (they moved to DC and have a new LCC). They have problems with their au pairs and asked if I knew of someone that could replace her. Talk about timing the above meantioned girl would fit great (from what I can tell). Thats kind of nice for me to know as I can tell the au pair not to worry as I will be able to find her a new family.

The restaurant was pretty slow today nothing much to report from there. Didn't make much money but had pretty much pleasant tables and got a nice dinner myself (Penne with a Marsalla wine sauce - yummy)

For those of you not following the world cup GERMANY won today!!!!!!!

Well let me go and do some homework so I can go and play with my babies before they get too mad at me and the computer.

Puppy photos

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THIS POST IS EDITED/UPLOADED USING MY CELL SO EXCUSE THE SPELLING/GRAMMAR Originally uploaded by dino0477.

So after a annoying and stress full day at the office - which started with finding out one of my reseach subjects is in ICU on a vent, and came up positive for Coke (idiot!!!!) and ended with me having to give myself an injection as part of training for a device (I HATE NEEDLES AND ANY TYPE OF INJECTION DEVICE) I decided the day was to nice to be inside and do homework. SO I took my book and moved onto my patio where I was trying to read. I am saying trying because the puppies kept trying to convince me to play with them and I gave in a few times. So here are some pics of the "babies" (BTW Mac is a head taller than me standing up - I am 5'7)

You are kidding right?!?!?!?

So having 4 jobs has its advantages, for one I meet tons of nutty people that I can write on here about.


So I was at my day job (I work for a doctor doing clinical research) today when our receptionist called overhead saying she has a letter for me. This is not unusually as I get a lot of stuff all day long so I just ignored her and went on with what I was doing.
Not to much later she came to my desk with the letter. I did not recognize where it was from but the last name was the same as that of one of my former study patients. It was addressed to me but my first and last name was hopelessly misspelled. So I open it up and find a Money order made out to me (misspelled of course) / clinical research and a note to please use it towards any outstanding bills for the above mentioned patient.
Now I am totally confused. I never deal with money, one perks of being on a study is your treatment is free. So I hand it to our receptionist and tell her just to give it to the office manager as she handles the billing.

A little later I call the patient in question and tell him about the letter. He goes like "Oh yeah I meant to talk to you about that." I remind him that I do not handle money. He says "no its not for that. I owe money on a credit card bill and my parents would not give me the money so I had them made it out to you. I need you to cash it and keep whatever and give the rest to me." I was like WHAT????? Then the phone was cut off.

I am like WTF. I go and tell the office manager and she says to check with the Doc. He says lets just send the letter back to the guys parents in PA. Which I did with a nice note stating there where no outstanding bill that the money could be used for.

I still can't get over the fact this guy wanted me to help him to commit fraud!!!!! Dude next time make sure the person is willing to help you and spell the name right, I mean I could not have cashed the thing had I wanted too with the way it was misspelled.


So my question to you is what would you have done?