It has been a busy summer with the “teachers from Singapore” and the “niece-the-librarian” having come and gone.

This morning I discussed with Spook, briefly, the possibility that she might like to get a nail trim at the Vet’s today and her response was to bite me. Perhaps it was the fact that I interrupted her nap on her favorite chair – which just happens to be MY chair, perhaps it was the subject matter. In any case, one cat is asleep in the computer room with me (the one that needs shots, too), the other sleeping elsewhere.

We continue to be very busy at work and on Thursday we learned that there will be an “audit” performed in October. Audits are extremely anxiety provoking as people are paid to find errors, I mean seriously that’s what the exercise is about. If errors are not found than clearly the audit or auditors have failed to perform.

“The Boss of bosses” – sounds like “the Mob” doesn’t it? Anyway, the “Chief Cook and Bottle Washer” and I were having a philosophical discussion one day about where “Parts” fit into the grand scheme of things. He compared “Parts” to that of being a Goalie for a Hockey team. Really, really important but not like the guys that get to skate up and down …. not really “part” of the team but part of the team. This description is truly appropriate in terms of the Audit. The other guys will probably fair quite well and it will be the Goalie that gets everyone into trouble with ultimately, a failed defense.

Onto my “niece-the-librarian” … she manage to fracture her ankle badly while vacationing with us. A nasty break referred to as a “Bimalleolar Fracture”, meaning both sides of the ankle are involved. The pissoff part of all this for me is the fact that the US health care system, HMO/PPO etc reared its ugly head in her mind at least, prevent effective and prompt care for the fracture. In fact, we sent her home on the plane with an ankle on a slab with fracture blisters. The story is thus … when the ankle was fractured a trip to the hospital ensued. For the purveyor of said fracture it was abundantly unclear whether or not the health provided would “provide” or go to great lengths to avoid providing. Having just watched “Sicko” by Michael Moore there was probably more trepidation than usual. Surgery was recommended but not carried out – who knows whether that would have prevented the blisters which surely complicate care once developed. Anywhoo, the point I am trying to make in my round about way is that a Canadian, from ANY Province, would have been assured health care once having arrived at hospital. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is sometimes difficult to get into specialists but I’ve noticed of late that there has been a reasonable response to health crises for both me and some friends and acquaintances. This is not to say there has been no wait, in fact, I need a tad of oral surgery and the Dentist was talking October with regard to an appointment with the specialist … turns out it will be late September.

Well such is life and I’m sure the outcome will be satisfactory – at least we were sending her back to a large city with excellent facilities and presumably THAT will make her HMO happy.

What it will look like “fixed”


For other cool pictures….