Saturday

I haven't done a lot today.   Yesterday, Friday, I was at the hospital and went round both floors.  I told you I don't go in the rooms with precaution notices outside, and the hospital management have now decided that we must understand the nasty bugs lurking inside, so have produced this little guide for us.

MRSA and C-DIFF are two infections which are very, very difficult to treat.

I also spent quite a bit of time hanging out in the office with Chaplain Bill.  He seems interested in my English perspective on the American scene, and I appreciate that I get a more balanced viewpoint of America than I do from Fr Clark, who believes all Republicans are "greedy capitalists" and the Religious Right are very wrong.   Bless him.

Thursday morning our Kiwanis speaker was the Director of the Emergency Management Team, giving us timely advice - as the tornado season is upon us - of the preparations we need to make.  I think I have got them all nailed down.  

One thing though, I did some time ago buy a weather radio which gives us all the information we need on an approaching emergency, and it also sends out a very high pitched signal to wake us up if we should have a tornado, or other emergency, at 2 in the morning.   However I haven't been able to programme it, so he gave me his card and said he will come out and do it for me.   I'll give him a ring next week, and I'll show him my 'safe room' in the middle bathroom.  He actually thinks that safe rooms - in the middle of the house, with no outside walls - are quite good, and said they have often been standing when all the rest of the house has been demolished.   And I'll put myself on the register of 'safe rooms' so that the emergency services will check I am alright if my neighbourhood has been hit.

My neighbour goes off to a public shelter when the sirens go off, but he said that is too late, because then there are hundreds trying to get in, and there isn't much room, they're very crowded.  I knew there was some reason I stay at home - the thought of being in a tight, confined space with my neighbours, no thank you.  I prefer my bathroom with my toys, and my weather radio.

His advice in an earthquake is to go underneath a table or something, and hold tight.  Or get in bed and pull the covers over.   I was actually in bed last time we had an earthquake bad enough for the pictures to fall off the walls, and the bed was shaking so much that Bubbles - who was standing on it - was swaying backwards and forwards.  I was so fascinated, and riveted, watching her swaying I didn't think to get under the covers.

 

 

 





You know, kids in this country take their lives in their hands trying to get an education, I am not surprised that a significant number of parents, certainly many more than us, are home schooling them.

And if you are lucky enough not to be stabbed in school, you might still be shot by a trigger happy motorist driving by.