Required Reading

Monday, August 29, 2011

Friday Night Sights.



Here are things I saw while walking to my car from the hospital on Friday evening:

  • A man with a backpack on doing "the running man" on the corner.
  • Two medical students sitting on a bench eating packed lunches at dinner time
  • A very young boy holding the door for a woman who appeared to be nearing her 80th year.
  • A colleague interpreting Spanish for a family that appeared to be lost
  • Them looking relieved that she really hablas-ed Espanol for real, not Spanglish or that quasi-Spanish where people talk louder and make weird hand gestures
  • A man smoking a cigarette while leaning his elbow on the "NON-SMOKING ZONE" sign.
  • Another man asking him if he "got another square?"
  • That smoking man handing him a cigarette and me learning what a "square" is.
  • Two teenagers arguing while walking down the street.
  • One of the teenagers holding (read:lugging) an infant carrier up the street. With a very young infant being carried in it.
  • The boy (who clearly didn't do the infant carrying in utero) also wasn't the one doing the infant carrying now either.
  • Him not noticing my hairy eyeball because he was too busy dropping F-bombs.
  • A woman sitting straddle-legged behind a man on the steps of our Glenn Medical Education Building. . . . lovingly placing cornrows in his hair like they were at home.
  • That hair-braiding woman asking me for "some money for food because we homeless" which let me know that, actually, they were at home.
  • Me looking at my tapping foot as she spoke and hoping that if I gave them money it would not be spent on the terrible habit controlling nearly half of my inpatients this week.
  • That hair-braiding woman shaking her head no when I told her my concern about giving money.
The Glenn Building at Grady

  • Three residents waving at me from across the street
  • One security officer teasing me about the fact that I often forget my badge
  • A senior faculty member passing me on the way to their ground level "senior faculty level" parking space
  • My iPhone with two text messages across the front: One from the fourth year medical student who had been on my team all month asking about "his patient." All the way from San Francisco where he was at the time.  Felt my heart swell at the reference of this person as "his patient" and the fact that from his vacation he was still concerned enough to reach out about him. 
  • Quickly punched a reply: "Your patient--just saw him and is recovering from his surgery well. Asked about you and would be happy to know you asked about him, too!"
  • The other text? One from the B.H.E. . .very simple and very Harry:  "Love you."
  • Before pulling out of the garage, tapped back our favorite reply:  "Me too."
Totally wanted to yell, "Do the running man! Do the running man!" 
(Click the image if you don't know what "the running man" is.)

***
Happy Monday.

5 comments:

  1. I'm so happy to be back home, reading your posts on a Monday morning. Happy week to you.

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  2. loving it- lol with mike on our little wicker love seat- the only furniture we have- missing you - and thanks for the chicken dance vid-clip!
    xo

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  3. My spirits lift every time I read your blog. You remind me to look for the good in life and people. Thanks :)

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  4. "that quasi-Spanish where people talk louder and make weird hand gestures" made me laugh.

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  5. I can't believe you didn't know what a "square" is. Then again, maybe I can believe it, cuz you can be such a "square" sometimes, LOL!!

    Love you Thitha!!

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"Tell me something good. . . tell me that you like it, yeah." ~ Chaka Khan