October 2007

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Halloween Pics

October 31, 2007 in Family | No comments

pumpkinSm How about some belated Halloween pics? And why not pre-date them to Halloween? At left is the pumpkin I ended up carving. Took the photo in the dark with a candle in the pumpkin but couldn’t get the flash to not go off.

 

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The Wicked Witch of the West, Dr. Love (cardiothoracic surgeon) and the 21st Century Man arrive at the Pirate’s house for a pumpkin-carving party.

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The Dads supervise their goblins. For the only time that night, the Pirate stares intently at the World Series on the television.

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The older kids carve at the bar.

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The Halloween Tree? (With apologies to Ray Bradbury.)

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Dr. Love and Nurse Rachel at The Mask’s party. Where we watched the World Series while we Halloweened. Note my all too briefly sported World Series goatee.

Caregiver Rage

October 24, 2007 in CF/Transplant | No comments

Caregiver is a term of art in the sick business for the person who takes care of the ill person. Caregivers can include medical personnel. The phrase primary caregiver, another term of art, usually means the family member or personal friend the patient depends on most. My primary caregivers were always my parents, though my brother, sister, brother-in-law and nephew have given strong assists.

Primary caregivers are the unsung heroes of illness and often go unappreciated. Theirs is a frustrating role because the patient gets all the attention and all the support and the caregiver provides the support. But who supports the supporter?

Caregiving is a serious issue that I’ll address more in the future. For now, let me just say that being the caregiver is a tough and sometimes thankless job and it wouldn’t surprise me if primary caregivers sometimes felt the urge to beat their patients with a stick. Which is why I found this article tragicomical:

Woman charged with beating lung-transplant recipient

A Las Cruces woman was arrested Friday afternoon after beating her boyfriend – a double lung transplant recipient – with a broomstick. Joanne Bosse, 36, was arrested Friday afternoon and charged with one count of aggravated battery against a household member. According to Las Cruces Police detectives, Bosse got into an argument Friday morning with her 27-year-old boyfriend, and then started beating him on his back and neck with a metal broom handle. Detectives learned that Bosse’s boyfriend, who underwent a double lung transplant in July, was having trouble breathing, but Bosse refused to call an ambulance for him. Her boyfriend eventually left the residence on foot and called for help using his cell phone. Bosse was transported to the Dona Ana County Detention Center on a $10,000 bond.

Needless to say, I hope everyone’s okay and that they can work this out.

Shooter

October 18, 2007 in Silly Lists | 2 comments

I watched the flick Shooter last night, a thriller starring Mark Wahlberg. The first 2/3 of the movie was bad. The last third was even worse, just amazingly awful. Did they write the script for this movie before or after they started filming? What was Wahlberg thinking? Time does not permit me to list all the ridiculous aspects of this film but I thought I would list the top five:

[***spoilers, though there is not much here to spoil***]

1. Having the sidekick FBI agent smoke out the bad guy snipers by walking out in the open as a target. What a great plan! I would be a very reluctant sidekick in this situation. “Wait a second, so I walk out there and wait until they shoot me and THEN you shoot them? Could you maybe look through your binoculars and shoot them BEFORE they shoot me? What, you say I can wear a metal plate on my chest? You’re the retired expert Marine sniper and I’m just a green FBI agent, but don’t snipers aim at the head?” Fortunately, the bad guy sniper shoots at his chest, right where the plate is! Then our hero shoots the exposed sniper, plus a couple more he finds in his binocs.

2. Having the bad guys decide the best way to assassinate the Archbishop of Ethiopia is to wait until he’s standing on a podium with the President of the United States. I know what you’re thinking: the Archbishop of Ethiopia? Yep, and that didn’t make the top five.

3. Having the bad guys massacre a village of 400 Ethiopians to pave the way for an oil pipeline. Because you could never move the pipeline 200 feet to the left. Or right. There is hardly any open space in Ethiopia. It must go through this massive village! I know what you’re thinking: an oil pipeline in Ethiopia? Yep, and that didn’t make the top five either.

4. Having a U.S. Senator who has a private army. Okay, okay, that’s standard action movie ridiculousness. Let’s make #4 about the widow of our hero’s old sniper partner. He turns to her when he has nowhere else to go. There is this vast conspiracy to frame him for the attempted assassination of the President yet the conspirators fail to consider he might seek sanctuary with the widow of his only friend in the world (except for the mystery person who feeds his dog while he’s gone). The nation’s entire law enforcement apparatus is looking for him (and has a dossier about him that’s five feet thick) but nobody thinks to check her house. And neither does our hero ever consider the possibility the bad guys will find her — as they eventually do after he has moved on to begin his revenge tour. (They didn’t find her earlier, they explain, because she’d gone back to her maiden name. Seriously.)

5. The U.S. Park Service allowing the assassination scene to be filmed in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. On the bright side, the best part of the DVD is the Park Service featurette on Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. They say they hope this movie will inspire people to visit Philadelphia and Independence Hall. I might go. Forget the Declaration of Independence and all that stuff — I’ve always wanted to see the spot where, in an exceptionally bad movie, a rogue group of ex-soldiers working for an evil U.S. Senator assassinated the Archbishop of Ethiopia.