Up on time again after a good night's sleep. Work. A rough day, I was in the room today, and it was pretty brutal after about 10:00... but there were a coupla amusing things that happened. They both involved jewelry. Expensive, beautiful jewelry. We're talking maybe $20K here.... I had just finished doing an elderly male patient, and I handed him over to his "care giver", a lady of about 60 who was dressed to the nines, and I directed her the exits and then I went into the bathroom. I noticed two rings on the sink, and I picked them up. They were beautiful, one of them had about fifteen 1/2 karat diamonds with a single 1 karat in the center, the other was a sunburst of 1/2 karats, probably ten, set with rubies and emeralds and a 2 karat in the center. Looking at them, I was awestricken. Beautiful, beautiful things, they were. So I put them in my pocket and rode away into the sunset.... Naw, I took them out (yeah, I really did put them in my pocket!) and showed them to my co-workers. One of them got on the phone to the retirement home, but while she was talking, the lady, who was panic-stricken, knocked on the door, wanting to know.... I showed her the rings, and she was quite happy. Her demeanor told me that no, these were not cubic zirconiums.... The next patient that I had was a very nervous lady, she kept twisting her rings on her fingers... when I went out to get her, she dropped her wedding band, a gold band with several small diamonds. It rolled towards me, and, with a rare demonstration of grace and coordination, I snatched it off of the floor and put it back on her finger with one easy movement. Well, she wanted to go to the bathroom before we got started, so I showed her the bathroom and told her to come on out. About two minutes later I heard, "Sir? Sir?" and I went to see what was the matter. Well, she had lost her wedding ring again. And she couldn't find it in this little 6X8 foot bathroom. And damn, I couldn't find it either. Until I looked into the toilet. It was laying on top of a very soiled matt of toilet paper. The lady picked it up, washed her hands and put the ring, along with three others, into her handbag. Nothing else interesting happened today, really... but we had some patients who are going to be getting some very bad news. This is one of the things that I hate about this job... knowing that people have terminal conditions before they know it. Of course, we are far from the days when doctors would withhold such information... at least, I *hope* that we are... but we withhold that information all of the time, because we're not qualified to give it out. Normally, when I'm in the room with the patients, I avoid even lookng at the images... what I don't know I can't feel bad about, heh? But sometimes, it's impossible to not know. And hard, damned hard, to not let on. 'Cause you want to hug these people, say something, make them feel better... but if you do that, they'll know. And if you do nothing, and say nothing, they'll know. DamnDamnDamn. Anyway, a little later, Karen called... tomorrow is her mother's birthday, and Debbie had told Betty that she would take her out for her birthday, and Karen wanted to go down. So she will most likely be back tomorrow, but I'm not really counting on it... she hasn't yet really realized her freedom, but she can stay down there for So, I'm home alone tonight. Done watched a movie (see review below) and I'm ready to hit the sack, I am. And I think that I will. This has gotta be one of the best examples of sci-fi dumbed down for the masses that I have ever seen. An all-star cast does their best, but utterly fail to bring any taste of realism to this movie. The special effects were so poor that I had to check the date on the label... 1979. That kinda explains most of it, the special effects anyway, but any aspect of scientific accuracy was thrown out the door at the onset. I'm trusting that everyone else has seen this film, so I won't spoil it for anyone... The basic premise is OK... a comet disturbs the orbit of an asteroid. An asteroid, I might add, that resides in the asteroid belt. Which is on the outside of Mars, for those who keep track of such things. And this disturbance is caused by a collision of the asteroid by the comet, which incidentally demolishes an American spaceship that was sent there to observe this comet. Why? Damfino. And the comet had already circled the sun, so it was on its way out when it hit. Going *OUT* away from the sun. And, for some reason or another, the point was made that this comet had never before been observed. Why? Again, damfino. Some way or another, all of that velocity was transferred *IN* towards the sun! And what was left of the asteroid was a five-mile long rock. And it was due to hit the earth in... um... eight days. Which puts its velocity at, like, three-fourths of the speed of light, y'know? And the sound effects! Unfortunately, there is no medium to transmit sound in space, a fact that someone neglected to tell the director. Or he figgered that the American public was too dumb to know this, most likely. Now, if one could manage to not nitpick the film away, there was a story, a romance, or rather *two* romances. One involving Sean Connery, and the other involving a young coupla scientists. Neither romance was developed any, and the one not involving Connery was terminated by the death of the female part, and Connery's romance was with the Russian interpretor, so she left. So, all in all, no romance at all, either. I don't know if this was considered a blockbuster when it was put out, or if it got any awards, but it was a pretty big waste of time. O'wait, that's OK, I was amused for a coupla hours by it, and I won't forget it. But I did mail it off again, I won't make Karen watch it! In the Mail: On the shelf:
as long as she wants, as long as her sister and mother need her.