25- Fed, fussy feline

This is a change from my normal FFS Friday content and is brought to you because I wanted to.

Also my husband suggested it. After suggesting the four horsemen of the apocalypse, War, Death, Famine, Pollution and Pestilence, all of which were well represented this past week in the past week, we had to stop talking because the cat was SCREAMING at me to get my attention. He laughed and said I needed to write about her.

This is a FFS Friday on the lighter side. I believe we all need something on the lighter side today in the midst of all the chaos.

You can’t tell me that cats do not have a rudimentary grasp of time.

Ask me how I know? Dot knows roughly when I am due back from work. Dot knows roughly when the spare human is due back from work and also when he goes to work.

Before the other cat died last summer, Dot would wake me to make sure the other cat got fed at 0800. Even if I had just gotten to bed at 0700. Dot is free fed, which means there is always dry cat food in her dish.

Conversations I have with my cat every day include.

Yes, you’ve been fed.

Yes, I will touch your food.

No, I will not top off your dish. You get food added at 0800 and 2000.

No, you cannot have your wet cat food. You don’t get that at 1000 and 1600, you know that.

Cats also have a grasp on simple mathematics.

Dot, despite not having any sweet receptors on her tongue, long ago developed a taste for mini marshmallows. She knows I keep a bag in my desk for her. She knows that she gets TWO at 2000. I fear for my safety if I only have 1 to give her. Not really, but she will plant herself in front of the monitor and STARE until I give her the second one. Even if that means I have to go downstairs to the kitchen and pull out another bag. And if we are ever out of them? She pouts.

Did you know that it is possible to be too touched out by a cat? Again, ask me how I know.

Dot has to be within arms reach of me at all times. We’ve compromised to where she will sleep in her window perch if I am reading on the couch. If I get up to come upstairs to the computer she follows me. If she wants my attention she yells at me. If I am on a zoom meeting she wants in. In fact, I warn people that they will see a white cat, her name is Dot and she has zero Zoom or Teams manners.

If I am called in she is waiting for me, her little head visible in the sidelight, when I pull in.

She absolutely HATES thunder and will hide under the bed. Fireworks are somehow okay though.

Her latest cute-ism is demanding to be lifted to the lip of the bath where one of her water cups is while I am brushing my teeth. You know, so she can keep an eye on me while I am brushing.

She has perfected sitting between me and the keyboard but I can still reach the keyboard and type.

She’s perfect the way she is.

This is a PSA that most of the US will be under a heat dome Saturday-Wednesday. Maybe put out some water for outside animals to drink. Maybe provide shelter/shade if you can.

It’s gonna be hot, damned hot.

Yes, that is an Airplane! reference.

Tuesday Top of Mind 11/19/24-time to raise a little hell

This was not what I was going to write about today. Which I understand is a theme I’ve got going on the last several weeks.

Oopsie.

I decided not to write about the original idea because I wanted something a little lighter. Well, a lot lighter. Also something that might make the reader laugh. Because I laughed so hard.

My phone and I have a love-hate relationship. Yes, it is a technological marvel and holds vast amount of data and lets us engage with the world that before 2007 and the widespread advent of the smartphone. Perhaps my very favorite thing that the phone can do is give me a read-out of who is calling.

I know I am amongst friends when I write that I don’t answer every phone call I receive. Because the spam filter we were promised is crap.

There is no comparison between the calls I doanswer, which are mostly friends and family or the hospital, and the calls that I don’t answer, which are scam alerts, or numbers I don’t know.

Because that is a fabulous thing that the phone can also do; identify known numbers.

I rationalize it by remarking to my phone nearly every time, well, they’ll leave a message or call back. But they don’t. Leave a message, that is. And if they call back at least twice, I am more liable to answer a repeat phone call.

But tonight, tonight I was driving to the hospital to run a call BootCamp with a new nurse when the phone rang.

It surprised me when I answered it. No name, just a phone number. Totally goes against everything I believe in. Wild hair made me do it?

I don’t say hello if it is someone I don’t know. I answer with “This is Kate.” No more, no less. I have read the news reports about what not to say and give up to people you don’t know on the phone. I avoid yes, I avoid hello, and I avoid apologizing.

When the caller stuttered, I said again, “This is Kate.” I am unsure if they were expecting someone to answer the phone or not.

It was a cold call from somewhere in TN. The caller launched into a spiel about an energy-saving program.

I assured them that I had no need for an energy-saving program.

They tried again, asking if our electrical bill was consistently over $100.

I assured them that it was not.

Silence on the other end.

And then a click.

That just tickled me and I laughed at the absurdity.

It was a definite dopamine hit.

I don’t know if readers are aware of the 2024 general election and the general malaise that has come over some of us.

It’s been a rough 10 days.

And if I can get a little joy out of confounding a scam caller, I will absolutely do it.

I kind of can’t wait for someone else to call tomorrow. Just to make them hang up on me.

This might be fun.

____________________________________________________________________

I wrote the bulk of this post last night and here is a little post-script.

It was fun. An AI called my phone looking for my husband.

Same set up-

this is Kate
their question
no
their second question
no
click

Post-it Sunday 1/14/24- Time outs are not a bad thing

The gown card reads “One act of charity by a despicable person is always held up to the light as an example of why they aren’t as bad as everyone says they are… Sure, Jan.”

You know what I am talking about in the political world.

And in the real world.

But it happens in the OR world as well.

Some doctors are just not nice people. They are demanding, and exacting, and not willing to look at issues from anyone’s perspective but their own. They are belittling and always see delays as a personal attack on them, on their time, on their golf schedule.

We have all had this surgeon, this person in our lives, this politician in our political life.

But to their chosen few, sometimes very few, they can do no wrong.

Oh, they threw suture scissors at you? Did the scissors hit you? If they didn’t, it’s okay then. They didn’t mean it.

Can you feel the eye roll from where you are?

The very fact that they thought the suture scissors throwing was an acceptable behavior is a problem. A big, write-them-up kind of problem, refer them to peer review kind of problem. NOT to be swept under the rug by management and their preferred team kind of problem. Not addressing bad behavior in the moment allows them to think they can continue it.

The fact that they are kind to the people in their room is not the flex you think it is. The team that they’ve chosen to be brought into the inner circle is definitely not the flex you think it is. Just because they are not mean to them does not give them the permission to be an ass to everyone else.

Sometimes they just need to pull up their grown-up panties and try to be such a pain in the OR’s behind.

Stop yelling, for Pete’s sake!

Yelling surgeons are kind of like yelling toddlers, it is okay to give them a chance to do better. Sometimes it is a choice- If you, Dr. X, can do this and not do that then I will see what I can do to put your next add-on into the schedule. Sometimes it is as as simple as “Dr. X, I see that you are upset. Can you not upset your patient, and your team and we will talk about the issue later.”

DO NOT give in to them. No matter how unreasonable their request is. This emboldens the bad behavior and sets you and the OR up for confrontations in the future.

Why, yes, dealing with surgeons is akin to dealing with toddlers sometimes.

Sometimes time outs are required.