X-ray Chapter 4, part 3

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In the ambulance, Frank waited. Today he was in the driver's seat, so Ian climbed in shotgun. "I guess I tech today?" he asked.

Frank's reply was to drop the ambulance into gear and drive them down the block for coffee. Clearly, today was going to be a repeat of yesterday, Ian thought, at least where Frank was concerned. For a while he turned his partner's peevishness over his head. Should he say something to Frank? Would that make it worse? Did it have to do with his previous partner, Richards? Andy seemed to think so. And Andy seemed to have a good head on the shoulders.

Deciding the Frank's bitterness had to do with Richards felt like an accomplishment, but brought him no closer to a solution as to what he should do to improve things. He went over everything again. This was easy to do because there was very little: he was new, Frank was bitter, Richards was retired.

Further thought along these lines proved equally useless, and after a while Ian found his thoughts drifting back to the woman with the green eyes. How he allowed himself to say that?

The beeping of the MDT, and the radio at his hip coming to life rescued him from further ruminations: difficulty breathing, no BLS available. Frank switched on the lights and siren, and Ian closed his window; the siren was deafening.

"You can take this?" Frank asked over the roar of the engine.

"Yeah, I can take it," Ian said. Of course I can take it. In his mind he reviewed his treatment algorithms and meds.

"Good," said Frank. "This is it," he added several minutes later as he brought the ambulance up to the curb.

Out of the sidewalk Ian pulled the quote from the ambulance. Frank started to walk off towards the building unencumbered, but Ian wasn't about to shoulder all the equipment alone. "Take this," he said as he handed Frank the monitor, "and this," as he handed him the O2 duffel. Ian grabbed the ALS bag in the stair chair and headed up the steps of the building's stoop.

A panel of door bells took a half of one of the walls of the 3' x 3' outer lobby, but few of them were marked, and none of the more than bore the apartment number of their patient. Now what? Perhaps the door was unlocked? No, it was not. He was figuring the PTT button of his radio when Frank caught up and pressed every doorbell on the panel. A sick buzz filled the lobby, Ian pushed the door open, and they were in.

Ian rang for the elevator, and the doors ground open, discourse in the smell of stale urine. "Don't touch the walls," Frank said as he stepped in.

"Look out for the condom, there."

"At least they're practicing safe sex."

The doors ground closed in Ian looked at his partner. Frank and delivered the line in his usual slightly annoyed, slightly bored voice, and his face betrayed no emotion. Had he been joking? Ian couldn't tell. The doors ground open again in the stepped out.

Down the hall, knock on the door, the door swung open. 90° heat enveloped them. A feeble cry issued forth, male or female, Ian couldn't tell: "don't let the cat out!" The medics stepped in and closed the door.

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The spider and the bee

Shadow is presently fiercely watching, and occasionally trying to pounce on a bee. The bee is outside, so she can't get it, of course, otherwise I'd intervene - Shadow doesn't need to be stung on the nose or mouth. But her harmless pounces have drawn my attention to the plight of this bee, which has caught one of its legs in a spiderweb.

The bee is desperate. It alternately tries to pull itself away by walking and by flying. Neither work. The spider, from its safe location on the far side of the web, watches patiently: the bee is to strong for the moment. Some minutes or hours of struggle will wear it down, and I expect that the spider will then move in to finish the bee off.

And I am faced with a decision. It would be very easy to open the window, cut the web, and release the bee. But our interference in matters like this is rarely beneficial, except in as much as we sympathize with the bee, and feel better once we set it free, as if we've done something to make the world a better, fairer place.

We haven't, of course. We free the bee, and the spider suffers. What is more, how is it that the bee should be valued over the spider? Or the spider over the bee? Gary Larson wrote on this subject in There's a Hair in my Dirt, the story of Harriet, who loved all creatures (all cute, furry ones, at least) and did all she could for them. In each case she freed the bee, and ultimately, she makes the world a worse place for it. There is a balance between bees and spiders.

So do I give in to the emotions and free the bee, or give in to my reasoning and leave it to its death? Either way, I'm not exactly happy.

Postscript: Turns out that the bee escaped on its own, so all this was for nothing.

A disaster plan should use simple language

A disaster plan should use simple language, so as to avoid misunderstandings. The people using the plan may not, for any of a variety of reasons (e.g. tiredness, being distracted by the disaster itself or its sequela (real or imagined), being of limited education in the field of disaster management (or generally), reading in poorly lit conditions) have the capacity to dissect intricate prose, navigate through layered parenthetical commentary (however relevant that commentary (or parts of it) may be), or understand recursive commentary. Sentences should be short. Vocabulary should be basic.

How long do you want this story to be, anyway?

"What a fellow you are, [Stephen]. Such a thing won't be invented for another hundred and fifty years. And if we did have it, it would make for a very short story."

"I suppose it would. No better than a novella."

"Not even that. A short story. And not a very good one, either."

A day off

Yesterday, I had a day off. Finally. No TPC work bar a phone call or two. I spent the day occasionally on the computer, but otherwise either asleep or playing with my cats.

Joy.

Beyond this place there be DRAGONS

Hooray for open code

I'm not sure how, but my Firefox profile corrupted. I created a new profile, but the generic bookmark toolbar of the new profile stubbornly refused to be overwritten by my imported older toolbar. The solution? Open the profile's bookmarks document in TextEdit, pull out the code that gave the generic toolbar precedence, and give that code to my toolbar.

Hooray for open code!