Slip of the Tongue

One thing that constantly catches my attention when we travel is the odd phrases that we hear come out of people's mouths, both where we are living as well as at work from my patients.  I thought I would pick a few of my favorites and try and break them down a little for fun.

Slip of the tongue - Everywhere - I can understand a Freudian slip (of which Cheers had the best example - when you mean to say one thing and end up saying a mother), or stuttering, or blurting, or even word vomit.  But a slip of the tongue?  Where did it go that you didn't expect it?  Was it icy in someone's mouth?  Did someone spill marbles in there? Is this like mixing french kissing with ass kissing?

Ho-down - Southern Illinois - Ok, there are a few of these phrases and words to describe going to an event; shindig, fete, hoopla, whatever.  But a ho down?  When I hear someone say that they are going to a ho down, I am stuck with competing images.  Either there is a hooker who just fell into a massive hole into the middle of the earth or well, the ho went down.  Either way, if you whip this comment out that you are going to a family reunion ho-down, which family member are you insinuating belongs in the donkey show?  (And please, don't tell me your mind didn't get to what I was thinking before I did.)

By the balls - Seattle - Now, this is a pretty common expression which sounds like it should have some meaning, as in "I have Bob by the balls, he'll do what I want now".  Yeah, sounds good, until you realize that if someone has a handful of your manly jewels and is putting pressure on them, your odds of doing or going anywhere are about none.  If someone is threatening me, I'm either going to take the pain to break out of the hold or I'm going to fall on the ground and whimper like a small child.  There really isn't any way that the phrase will get you what you want.  Having them by the short hairs really isn't much better either.

Bless her heart - Southern Illinois - This is one of those phrases that gets added to the most horrible things you can say as if it will magically make it better.  "That guy is a total jerkwad who deserved to have his face eaten off by small rodents in his sleep, bless his heart" or "That bitch slept with my boyfriend, I hope she gets the herp, bless her heart." Kind of ironic in that I have never heard someone say "he had a heart related problem, I hope it gets better, bless his heart".  They will bless the worst about humanity, but never if it has something specifically to do with the heart muscle itself.  People who use this phrase should probably catch immediate fire, have a plane land on their families, and grow intense facial hair from their eyelids.  Bless their heart.

Cold as a witches teat - Montana - At exactly which point in history or anything else did this one come into being?  Do witches have cold chests? Are they really, really cold? Did they used to think that anyone who had cold breasts and hard glass cutting nipples was automatically a witch?  They would probably think that Dolly Parton would be the super grand master of all witches if you caught her in a snow storm then.  But what I want to know is this - If witches teats are that cold, when can I get forced air circulating teat air.  I mean, I can find air conditioning, but i'm always too warm when Erica is too cold.  If I had a shirt made of witch teat I could stay cool all the time.  Witch teat bottled water, self cooling teat beer.  Lets face it, this could be the best thing since, well, ever.

For the love of Pete - Anyone with Scandinavian history - I think Pete must have been a stalker or maybe the best lover ever.  I mean, for both men and women to be going along and just drop this statement every once in a while, Pete must have been the best one ever.  "I can't find my car keys, for the love of Pete!" What exactly did you think that Pete's love did to the keys?  Did he put them in naughty places? Did he touch them inappropriately? Did  he love them so much he took them and put them in his home in his collection of stalkery goodness?  I mean, for the love of Pete, that's just gross...

Common Sense - Everywhere.  Ok, this one is simple.  I hear people say this all the time.  "You shouldn't drive on the wrong side of the road, that's just common sense." But lets think about this.  What is common sense? The things that everyone does and calls it normal? How about going online and listening to a song you don't own? Yeah, it's 'common sense' to know what your getting, still illegal.  It's 'common sense' that you are supposed to pay attention while driving, and yet, how many are changing CD's, adjusting their GPS, eating, on the phone.  We all know it's not good to date someone from work, that it's common sense, but 30% of the population still finds their spouses that way.  It's common sense to not abuse the people you love, but go look at the statistics on that one.  Don't follow common sense.  Try just doing the right thing... like not using any of the phrases listed above in your English.

Beached in the Homewood...

You may think, "OH! I love my spouse. As long as we are together, nothing else matters." You may even think, "TV? I don't need TV when I have the love of my life with me." While those are perfectly adorable sentiments, you would be wrong. Living for over a month in a hotel room with 15 channels (4 of which are ESPN) is not at all romantic or ideal. It's tragic.

Shortly after the New Year 2010, Dan and I found ourselves extended on a contract at the Cleveland Clinic. Until that time, we had lived for 3 months in a 6th floor loft downtown. However, upon extension, we were put up in a hotel room at the Homewood Suites in Beachwood, OH. Allow me to paint a picture for you...despite how painful this picture may be.

This is the hotel room we found ourselves living in...I DID make it cozy...

I am by no means entitled or snotty when it comes to living conditions. Having myself been somewhat homeless for several months when I was 24, I'm pretty solid when it comes to adapting to my environment. However, truth be told, the Homewood Suites WERE NOT our idea of ideal. While I was able to make the room cozy, that's about where it ended. We did, indeed, have a kitchen. One that was broken. The cabinets would fall apart if you should try to open them. Maybe it's just me, but I like my cabinet doors to stay intact when using them. The one burner on the stove simply didn't work. The really thrilling part of it all was that ANYTHING we decided to cook would set off the fire alarms. This includes boiling water. The heater either did not work, or it worked too well...and we'd have to crack the window open in the middle of snowstorms. What I found interesting is that when we'd call maintenance, we'd get BLAMED for the issues or flat out told that they didn't exist and we were lying. 

Dan works 3 nights a week...and sleeps during the day. That's all well and good until you realize that the bed then needed sectioned off. He'd sleep on one side, and I'd lounge on the other watching the 15 channels this particular hotel boasted. Four of them were ESPN. If not for it being the Winter Olympics, we might have gone even crazier than we were. There was a chair with several stains and a few holes over in the corner, and the choice must be made to have either used the chair or to be able to open the closet. There was less than 2ft. on either side of the bed, so it really isn't as spacious as the photo may indicate.

Housekeeping was a non-option. No change of towels. No change of sheets. No vacuuming. We had to take out our own trash. Should we have wanted what I consider even a semblance of basic human cleanliness, I could have obtained it to the tune of $35 even for a towel or sheet change. So...Dan and I just cleaned ourselves. In terms of the bathroom, that too was a treat. The shower didn't SHOWER a bit. It sort of spurt and dribbled. To top it all off, the place was pretty dirty...and Dan and I both caught some itchy foot situation and let's face it...that is just gross. (I've NEVER so much as even had my feet smell...much less ITCH)

In the end, Dan and I found ourselves laying in bed, traces of shampoo in our hair, fire alarms going off, the heat going in and out, feet itchy, and watching Olympic Shuffleboard for a month. So, travel advice for you: Should you find yourself in Beachwood, OH, stay at the Homewood Suites. I assure you...you'll LOVE it. We did...

Code White

My first travel contract was in Waterloo, IA.  I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't mind it.  The only thing that went through my mind was that it was in tornado alley and I would occasionally go outside and watch the coming storms.  I used to love watching the thunderstorms roll in, see the sky turn dark and feel that crackle in the air; it was glorious.  In some ways, it's why I looked forward to going to southern Illinois.

While I was in Iowa, I would watch the weather channel fairly often.  Now, I'm not insane, so I can reasonably say that I took everything that was said with about 4 cups of salt, but if they had some storm warning up, I would at least go outside and verify it.  When I was at work, however, there were no windows, no way to look outside which sucked.  I would occasionally hear a thump from a close blast of thunder through the wall, but if you like thunderstorms, it's like a dry hump compared to an Asian brothel; yeah, it's nice, but it's not the same.

I was working in the sleep lab alone one night and I had gotten there early so that I could get everything set up in advance.  After about an hour, there was still no sign of any patients and I was like "kick ass!".  One of the steps that I had to do, though, was call downstairs and verify that there was no one down there waiting, give it another hour or so, call the patients, then go home.  So, I went into the control room and called down to registration to see if any or both of my patients had failed to show up.

"I can't send your patients up right now" was the response from the operator.  I was kind of shocked and responded with "do I need to come down and bring them up with a wheelchair or something?"  Now, this thought was kind of a sucky one.  I don't mind helping people with disabilities, but it does make the night longer.

"Oh, no.  They will be able to come up in a few minutes."

You could have heard my mental crickets chirping over the phone.

"You must not have heard.  There is a code white for the hospital, when it's over, they will be upstairs".

I told her okay and hung up.

WTF is a code white?  25 Dr's running through the hospital naked except for their lab coats? A terribly horrific flu like bug that spreads instantaneously?

I went and pulled open the lab policy and procedure book and looked up code white.  (side note, they never tell you what a code brown is.  You don't want to know).  Code White - tornado visible from hospital, do not under any circumstances go above the 1st floor.

I don't know what was worse.  Sitting in the sleep lab wanting to see the tornado that apparently was within visible range wishing I could see it, or knowing that I was sitting near the windows on the 4th floor that could soon suck me outside.  Instead, neither happened, but I still remember the day I completely and epically failed to either see a tornado or fly in one.

Bring the Assault Rifle...Leave the Pepsi...

Currently living in South Dakota, the inevitable question gets asked every 3rd day. "Have you been to Rushmore?!" It is always asked with a surprising amount of flair and excitement, and when I would answer, "No, we've not gone to Rushmore ever. We've driven PAST it a few times", we were met with a bevy of questions as to why we wouldn't go see this fantastic wonder of America. Le Sigh. So, Dan and I decided that in the interest of no longer needing to explain we felt no pull towards going to Rushmore we would stop off there on our way to vacation in Montana.

Here we are...we DID go!!!

                                                                

Driving up the winding road leading to this apparent wonder, we were met with billboard after billboard proclaiming the next brilliant tourist trap on the way. Finally we got to our intended destination and realized that you could not even VIEW Rushmore unless you paid $10 to park your car and enter "their way." So, we paid and parked. We had been given a flyer about Rushmore and the rules and regulations of the park. This is where it got intriguing. 

Among the list of things that were strictly banned from the monument are: Smoking, beverages of any sort, animals, and food. What WAS allowable, however, were firearms. This was very clearly stated and laid out for you in bold writing lest you forget to leave the soda in the car while grabbing the assault rifle from the back seat. The fact that we had received such a brochure at all was amusing to us. The fact that they ENFORCE this is even better. Oh...there was a LOAD of people bearing weaponry. Men with rifles slung over their shoulders, those who had chosen to strap a pistol in their waistbands, and I myself was even carrying my typical SWAT knife. However, the couple with their little dog carrying a Coke? NO! 2 armed security officers approached them and instructed them to return to the car and leave the contraband there. 

Now maybe it's just me (although I suspect not), but it strikes me as an odd set of rules to have instated. I am all for the right to bear arms. I just don't know why I can't do so while sipping on a refreshing beverage. Then again, maybe we as a country have not been informed of the terrible tragedies that can arise when one is allowed to run free with a bag of chips and some Pepsi. Who am I to judge?!

So we did, in fact, view Rushmore and take the obligatory photos. I, however, feel I missed a little bit of the experience. Should I return, I'll be sure to leave the cigarettes and bottled water at home...but make sure that M16 has ample ammo. 

Happy Easter!

One of those normal days in Cleveland, I did what I normally did which was wake up in the afternoon and stumble my way to the nearest form of caffeine.  Where we were staying in Cleveland, the fastest form of coffee was the Starbucks directly across the street.  It was one of those shops where it was in the lower level of an incredibly tall building, I want to say that it was about 50 stories or so.  I had been in Starbucks there more than a few times, but while I was standing there waiting for my quad shot IV drip to be made, I noticed that people kept coming in from the other side of the store.  Now, as I said, the coffee shop was in a huge building, so usually those are full of some corporation hell bent on living the corporate life style; cubicles, phone lines everywhere, customer service people - the normal hell.  I decided to wander towards the back and I didn't exactly see what I thought I'd see.  What I saw instead was what appeared, at first glance, to be a jungle. Now, I knew I didn't have my coffee in my system and before I could go explore, they called me over for my drink, but I saw someone else walk through the door and now I NEEDED to know what was going on in there.

What E and I saw every night looked like every other downtown.  Nothing fancy and in fact, quite a few times, we would grumble about how there wasn't anything truly interesting downtown to look at.

Example 1 - boring

Well, as I staggered back across the street to the apartment building, I had begun drinking my espresso and I was getting more intrigued by the moment.  I went upstairs and told E that she needed to get dressed because I needed to go check this out and 'No' wasn't the appropriate answer. We finished our coffee and made our way across the street, back into Starbucks, and I led her to the back and opened the door.  Inside, there were waterfalls, plants everywhere, fountains, small tables to lounge at... heaven in a concrete box.  It was amazing to find.  We decided that we would call it an Easter Egg building since you have no idea what is in the center.

Swearing up and down that this was the most unique building I had ever been in, we decided to start taking pictures.  This lasted about 10 minutes before a security guard came over and asked if we had permission from the building owner.  We told him honestly that we had no idea who to ask as we had never been in there before and the guard let us know the owner wasn't there.  We snapped off 2 more pictures and made a break for it.  What I thought was unique, however, turned out to be almost anything but.

Cleveland is full of Easter Egg buildings down town.  You look at the outside facade and all you see is windows and cement, but go into the main lobby and you think that you went into some twilight zone of goodness.  We would wander around and just pop into buildings to see what was on the inside of this one or that one.  Now, at this point, I could say that this is how a lot of people are - judge a book by it's cover and all that, but, I for one, am not a humanitarian by nature.  I am more likely to run someone over like a squirrel than sit there and wax philosophically about someone's spirit or soul or purity.  So if you read that into my statements, I hope you wander in front of me in traffic.  I was talking about a building.

Anyways.  If you ever find yourself in Cleveland, go check it out.  It's highly entertaining to park your car, wander into a building and look for the fountain of youth.  Bring your camera, the security guards love chasing people, I swear.

Freaky Feet On The Freeway

I don't know about the rest of society, but I have this thought that speed limit signs on the side of the road are basically 'guidelines' for what the speed minimum should be. I mean, if the sign says 70, that's the governments way of saying "we're short on money, so we'll charge you a special tax if we catch you going faster". If I see someone doing the actual speed limit or under it, I think of them as someone to pity. They are the ones who think the drive is the adventure instead of the cool things you see when you get to your destination. I play a math game and always do about 10% faster than what the sign says. Yes, I drive too much when math games become normal.

Near Billings, MT, I was driving east on I-90 doing my customary 10+ over the speed limit when I see what looks like a caravan of stupid people driving well under the speed limit. They were going just slow enough that I thought there might be something interesting to look at - you know, roadkill hit so hard that it landed in a nearby tree, car fire with people running around on fire, you know, all the things that we say that are horrible but when we are driving, become the thing we look for to break up all the monotony. (Oh, sure, some of you are saying that you never would think that was something good to look at, but then tell me why NASCAR is the number 1 sport (its not a sport people) and its not because you wanted to see how well they can take a left turn, its for the horrible accidents.)

Anyway, These cars are doing half what I am so I get into the left hand lane and drop my speed back to something that would be considered 'reasonable' which means I was still going faster than them. I get up close and I don't see anything going wrong and just keep on driving, still looking for this horrible accident or whatever. As I continue not to see anything interesting, I decide I should just merge back into the right lane and punch it back up to normal cruising speed of mach 2. When I looked out the right window, I finally found out what people were going slow for.

This...

There is this monstrous ostrich running as fast as it's little freaky feet can carry it down the middle of the freeway staying perfectly in the right lane where I couldn't see it until I was passing it.

I'm no saint. Yes I have inhaled. Yes I drank the Kool-Aid, but that was a long time ago. This was not a hallucination, but I still had that total surreal feel as I look out the window and see this 6 foot tall bird hauling ass. Just after I passed it, it ducked behind my car, ran into the median and all I could think of is "wow, that's going to be an interesting story if someone hits it and has to call that one into the insurance".

For about the next 100 miles, I kept having the feeling it was going to happen again, but it didn't. I haven't seen it since. I think that's a good thing because I may need therapy if I look out the window and see Big Bird making good time on the freeway.

Unlocking Trust

When you go to the store, to restaurants, even to your own house...what is the first thing you typically do? If you are like me, you turn off your car, take your keys, lock the door, and carry on with your business. Even if you don't lock the door, I'm willing to bet you turn off your car. This is something I've simply never really given much thought to. It's simply what you do. I can't even really blame it on being cynical from having lived in New York City. No. It's simply what you do. Or so I thought.

Snow has come to South Dakota. It began with the brutally cold winds. Temperatures of 6 degrees. A freezing mist descending upon our fair town...causing traffic troubles and even walking issues. I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but freezing mist causes a thin layer of ice that one can not SEE, but trust me...it's there. I diverge. Then the snow came. It continues to fall. This morning, Dan and I decided to go out for coffee and then to a few stores for some things we needed, as well as a Christmas tree and decorations. So, as usual, we pulled into our parking spot...turned off the car...and got out and locked the doors. It was then we realized it. Yet another phenomenon of human behavior I was previously unaware of. EVERY CAR around us was running. The keys were in the ignitions. The cars were unlocked. The drivers were, presumably, shopping. Now I found this intriguing for even a TYPICAL car, but then we noticed the Miller Lite beer van. Running. Unlocked. Full of beer.

Maybe it's just ME, but in the middle of a town KNOWN for practically handing out alcohol and weaponry, an unlocked beer truck just seemed somewhat brazen. The minivan with the soccer mom wearing a track suit was running and unlocked. The Dodge Ram Diesel with custom pipes was unlocked and running as well. I could go on, but you see where I'm headed with this. It appears that the rational is that it's 4 degrees outside and snowing. Why NOT just keep your car warm...wipers on to keep the snow clear...perfectly ready and waiting for you after you've done your shopping?! I myself can think of more than a few reasons, and, no matter how much people seem to feel this is a viable option, the Dodge Charger is going to be turned off and locked.

I give props to those who have unlocked their trust issues...but at the end of the day (or shopping trip), I'd just as soon prefer my car to be there waiting for me. Cold---covered in snow---and all.