LOL!!!

I just had to call a patient's home number. Nothing's unusual about
that. I got their answering machine. That's also within the bounds of
"normal" (such as it is around here).

What's NOT usual was the language that the answering machine greeting
was in.

Canine.

The *entire* answering machine greeting consisted of the patient's dog
barking.

I called the number again, to make sure that I'd dialled correctly.
Same machine. Same dog barking.

I called the patient's work number. I hate to do that when I'm not
assured that I'll be contacting the patient directly... if I get a
receptionist, I'm limited in what I can say in order to protect the
patient's privacy, but some places won't transfer the call unless you
ID yourself and provide the reason for the call. I confirmed the date
and time of the patient's upcoming appointment, then asked, "Is that
your dog on your answering machine?"

Yes, it is. "Just checking. That's a cute idea!"

After I hung up, I burst out laughing. :o) Too funny!

Hmm. I wonder if I can get Captain and Stanley to purr a greeting for
OUR voice mail? ;o)

__________________________________
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Hey, all. I'm still breathing. Sorry for the lonnnng delay in
updating... this email I sent to Mark yesterday should give you an idea
of why. All identifying names have been removed to protect the insane.
Um, I mean the innocent. ;o)
----
Subj: AAAAAAAAAAAA!

What a day. An appt we were never asked to make never got made (what a
surprise) and somehow that's the other PSR's (Patient Services Rep's)
and my fault. Same dr had an illegible consult request that neither the
other PSR, our manager, one of our other doctors, nor I could read. So
we called the dr who wrote it and she got mad that we couldn't
understand it.

A patient came in and we had to request some blood test results from
[independent lab facility], who said they'd fax them to us.

Did they fax them to YOU? That's how they faxed them to US. We're still
waiting. Yet another dr is steamed over *that*. It's not our fault if
those doo-doo-heads haven't sent the doggone results yet.

Oh, and the freaking [pager company]'s system is taking many, many
minutes to send pages. Guess whose fault it is that the doctors didn't
receive their pages promptly? The other PSR's and mine. Even though
*WE* sent the pages right away, and it took eons to actually arrive and
activate the doctor's pager, we're at fault.

Good thing I've gone decaffeinated except for the first cup of coffee
in the AM. If I were caffeinated on top of all this stress, I'd be
going through the ceiling right now.

__________________________________
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OH. MY. GOSH. One of our doctors brought back candy from Turkey
yesterday. They're called "Turkish Delight" and they're like
cube-shaped, soft gumdrops covered in powdered sugar.

This particular box was "mixed" flavors. One flavor was orange (the
color and the fruit). A second one, which was yellow, might have been
date-flavored, judging from the pic on the box itself but I never got
around to eating one.

The other one was pink. I couldn't ID the flavor of it, but it was very
interesting. Then someone else ate one and made the connection: "Rose!"

Rose? Rose-flavored candy?

I looked at the box. Son of a gun, the pic on the box showed a dish of
rose petals...! Even though I've had rosewater in restaurants, and had
tea made with rose petals, it never crossed my mind that there'd be
CANDY out there made with it. And I really, REALLY like it.

I looked up "Turkish Delight" online. Sure enough, it's possible to
order it online, in various flavors. I found one box that appears to be
half lemon and half rose flavored candies. I think I'll be treating
myself one of these days. SOON. :o)

__________________________________
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The NHLis back! At long last!

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Hockey is baaaack! The Phantoms warm up before their preseason game. :o)

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Meet my new favorite toy, the LIVE WEBCAM at LänsiAuto Areena (yes, that's spelled right). That's the home of the Espoo Blues, where Neil Little is playing this season, and thanks to this webcam, I can actually see glimpses of home games. So far, the Blues are 3-0 during games when I've had the chance to take a peek at the action via the webcam. They lost their first home game via a shootout, but that was before I discovered the webcam.

My study of Finnish is coming along, though way more slowly than I'd like. Actually, what I'd *really* like is to be instantly fluent, and that's not realistic. But even so, it's turning out to be a LOT more time-consuming than I'd expected to have to look up nearly every freaking word in news articles, and that slows down comprehension. Using the textbook gives a more structured approach to learning the language, but since there are no hockey-related words in there, it's not helping me learn the vocabulary that I'm placing the highest priority on. It IS helping with the grammar and numbers, though -- both are hugely important, obviously. But the challenge in tracking down the vocabulary words I REALLY want is driving me crazy.

I found one huge time-saver this week, thanks to the Finland forum on hfboards.com (a hockey discussion site). They posted an online dictionary that I can use to copy and paste the words from online articles. Bingo -- instead of paging through a dictionary, I get an instant answer regarding what the word is, or what it most likely is (since dictionaries show root words, minus suffixes and prefixes). That's a huge help in maintaining my train of thought between the beginning and the end of a sentence. Now, reading the online articles goes more smoothly, though it's still slow and tedious compared to being able to just READ it.

He's gotten off to an OUTSTANDING start over there... his goals-against average is 1.27 (extremely low = very good) and his save percentage is 95.38 (extremely high = very good). He's played in all 7 games that the team has had so far. Other starting goaltenders on other teams have played a comparable amount of time, so his position close to the top of the goalie standings is well-earned. (The only guy ahead of Neil has played in only two games. That's not entirely comparable, IMO, to the stats of someone who's played more than three times as many minutes and earned similar stats.)

I've tried to send some game pics, taken by me via the webcam, to blogger via email, but I got error messages. I'll have to set up some other method of getting those game pics on here. I'll figure something out. :o)