tony’s blog

On his 69th birthday Tony sat in the Emergency Room of a local hospital for 5 hours with Matt, whose right knee got mysteriously infected. A sobering reminder of hospital life … fluorescent lights, yellow or grey walls, no windows, endless machines, busy people striding past ignoring the patients lying around like beached whales, overhead pages, inscrutable notices (“Raz”…”No unauthorized entry”), and that timeless 24/7 tired-and-dirty feeling you get in airports.

Eventually the ER physician and young acolyte arrive. By this time Matt’s knee has got visibly worse. The ERP is typical – shrewd, decisive, no bedside manner whatever – spends less than 2 minutes, looks at the knee, asks a question, walks out of the room muttering to the acolyte. They’re cross because Matt is HOURS behind with his dose of medication. Funny that – maybe it’s because we’ve been waiting here since 11am? But then Matt gets cutting-edge IV antibiotics for free, and they’re working, so we shouldn’t complain.

And half a dozen different people recognize Tony and shake his hand with a big smile, and chat about the good old days when they worked together. About 10 minutes afterwards, Tony can work out the names of some of them. But he instantly recalls their characters, and what they were like to work with! Surprising how little has changed in 4 years since he retired.

Joke from drunk ER patient: What’s red and tastes like blue paint?* Motto from family pet: when something hits you, if you can’t eat it or hump it, piss on it and walk away. Comment from Nadine (old friend whose trip to France was hugely complicated by her husband’s illness): “We have wonderful vacation photos, but they’re only visible if you can read Xrays and CAT scans”.

Tony’s all ready to bang off angry emails about the withdrawal of funding for his service oop noarth, when they suddenly announce he can do one more trip this Spring. So maybe hold that. It’s to Peawanuck (MFN, Ont) the farthest outpost of his empire, and necessitates a long day (leave house at 6am, arrive there 3pm, work until 10pm). But hey, enjoy – it may be the last! Internet says to expect day temp -15C, night -28C, and sure enough there’s squeaky snow and a howling gale, thank heavens for carpet jeans and workboots.

Chris’s splendid Cambridge friend ffooks (!) visits. He’s set up a business in Madagascar! Gives Tony a visiting-card with a map on it, increasing Tony’s education enormously. Turns out 3 of the elusive Four-Ms are in a straight line! (from L-R: Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, but not Morocco).

Victoria appears in the UoG musical, along with dozens of other half-naked students, all exuding energy, vitality, and enjoyment (and really singing quite well, wow). Our old church has yet ANOTHER conniption over the youth group … old ladies and youth don’t mix well, do they? (Harmony has old ladies of both sexes.)

The march towards gay pride continues. Schools will no longer tell parents when the children will have sex lessons (so you can’t keep your child out of the indoctrination sessions). A leading candidate for Mayor of Hamilton has just adopted a child with his gay partner. A friend Andrew goes to City Hall to get his marriage certificate for his coming wedding, and finds it’s headed “Applicant 1, Applicant 2″! So he scratches them out and puts “Bride”, “Groom” – and gets into a huge argument with the form-filling flunkey for 20 minutes, in front of his amazed fiancee! He basically said “Look, I’m not marrying my dog, I’m a Man marrying a Woman” – which is probably a hate crime. (He prevailed.)

A patient announced that his most enjoyable social outlet was ballroom dancing. Tony looked astonished, so he explained “Er – remember that I’m a nudist, see?”. Oh, yes. I do see.

Tony’s cartoon calendar continues to please: e.g. Carol to Pointy-Haired Boss at committee meeting: “I spent this entire week unscrewing the problems created by your ambiguous communications. Next week I hope to unscrew the problems created by your hiring of morons.” PHB: “Moving on, I’ve made some changes to the budget…” Carol: “There goes April.”

And Roz’s fridge cartoon shows a woman sitting in a prison cell, saying to her cell-mate “There I was, cooking up a storm, pie in the oven, flour everywhere, and he says ‘Who cares about pie-crust, anyhow?’ ….. Apparently I do. Very much.”

*red paint.