POINK is not what you want to hear when....

...you sit down at work and suddenly go blind in the right eye.

WTF!?  Crap, lost the lens out of right side of my glasses. 

Help! 

A cry for help summoned a co-worker and between the two of us, we managed to pry the computer and desk away from where it was wedged precariously against the shelves near the window in medical records. 

I could see a gleam down in the dark and dust bunnies.  The lens was retrieved and it fit inside the wire frame and I used  clear tape to hold it in place for the rest of the day.  Examined glasses, screw came loose.  It's only 7:30. 

Husband picked me up after work and we drove to the Vision center in town and they very kindly put a slightly longer screw in the frames. 

Oh! It's been exactly one year since your last visit...so I'll be going back in a couple of weeks to get checked and to complain about my increasingly greasy left eye ball (floaters).  sigh....

And now for a little before and after

Taken a few days ago, from the back door, that area way down by the wetlands/creek.

Same spot, they are building that area up in layers, they put in a row of upright cement retaining wall type of things, thrown down some more gravel, tamp it tight, every third layer or so roll out some type of membrane, repeat until level with stairs poured by clinic.

One of our doctors went on a little walking tour this past Saturday and walked the edge of the wall down there and kicked at it to make sure it wouldn't collapse.  Uh huh.

UNDT NOW VE DRILL

This bad boy is drilling very large post holes.

The slender pole next to the drill filled with dirt is the tamper.
The medium sized skip loader partially hidden behind the drill is
poised to scurry in, dump some rock and the tamping thingie  will vigorously pound the rock into the very large post hole.  Then they will move on to the next series of three holes, once these are filled with rock, and cement and re bar they will hold a combined weight of 750,000 lbs each.  I could feel the pounding clear into medical records. 

...AND NOW LETS PUT SOME DIRT BACK...

That is bed rock, er dirt rock with bed rock being put on top of it.  The uppy downy bits are being stabilized with concrete and re bar and stuff.  As you can see more dirt got nibbled off enough to see most of the clinic roof. 

Now onto something slightly different yet hospital related.

We had a guest doctor, an internist from Romania came for medical staff.  Very nice gentleman. Looking to finish up medical school in less than a year, loves the area, his wife is also in the medical field and would provide valuable health care.

So, sure enough during medical staff as the meeting was opened up to general questions, I blurted out the two words of Romanian that I know, "Buna seara!"  (good evening).  He looked startled and replied back to me.  Meeting was very congenial once they started swapping fishing stories.

And now a small aside to explain how I learned my two words of Romanian.  During the mid 70's, I was living in Idaho working waiting to go to school at BSU.  I and sister, Ellion, both worked at a fruit packing shed on an apple farm.  She stamped boxes and I sorted apples.  One day, Mr. Dewey brought around two gentleman and told us that they were participating in a work exchange program and were from Romania.  He introduced them as "Our friends from behind the Iron Curtain".  Really.  At any rate we sort of got acquainted with various forms of chit chat,
"How do you say good evening?"
"Buna seara" 
"Hey that sounds like Italian!" 
"Yes, Italians influenced language, from time of Imperial Romans".  Uh huh.  Then other bits of chit chat.  It was near Christmas and they would be returning home soon. 
 "Have you purchased Christmas gifts for your family?" 
"Yes, ool."
Ool.  ???
"Bah bah" 
"Oh wool!"

They were fun to get acquainted with and were hard working. 

Some other time I will speak of the Japanese crew that came to work for Mr. Dewey.

Mo diggin' and flattenin'

We can see a lot more of the clinic's roof now, yesterday some guys were climbing all over it, looking for a leak.

It is flat over there?  It's flat over here.  It is flat down there? It looks flat from up here.

I got up a little early this morning, last night had dusted off my night stand and some how bumped the time up two HOURS.  So my alarm went off this morning, I wandered into the bathroom, performed my routine morning ablutions, dressed, went downstairs to make breakfast.  I looked at the clock and it said 4:30AM.  I checked some other clocks and decided against trudging back upstairs for a two hour snooze, ate a very leisurely breakfast, read a book, left early and got to work a bit after 6 am.  At least I had my choice of parking, it is MRI van day and things get a little more crowded than usual. 

Saturday

Nice day, a little over cast, no hail, no thunder...ah Spring.

We drove to Coos Bay (gas is $3.85 here) and shopped at Freddy's, I picked up Tangled and Tron Legacy.  I giggle a lot during Tangled and if I were a little girl I would be growing my blond hair out to 75 feet.  The music was wonderfully operatic/showbiz.  I predict Tangled will open on Broadway sometime soon.  Haven't watched Tron yet.

We ate lunch at Rodeo Steak House.  The waitress handed us a bowl of peanuts in the shell.  While I perused the menu, husband went,

"Psst, look!" 

Oh peanut shells all over the floor.

"Do you think that just happened?". 

"Um, no customers are supposed to throw the shells on the floor."  "GASP!!!!!". 

"really".

I took pictures of the food but I thought one of the signs was very cute  NEVER MISS A CHANCE TO SHUT UP.  Husband loved his well done steak and I enjoyed mine medium.  Goody left overs!!

ADDENDUM:  I am completely hooked on the 99 cent Scrabble game I down loaded on my Kindle.  I must say though that I think AI cheats.  AI has used a few words that are definitely NOT in the Oxford English Dictionary.  Hmph. 

A LITTLE BIT OF THIS...A LITTLE BIT OF THAT

Digging has gone deep enough for them to drive the driller into the hole and make some holes below the level of the old hospital in order to put in retaining wall re-bar and concrete.   Enough of the parking lot has been dump trucked so that we can now see a bit of the clinic roof just down hill from us.

 A friend of the family gave us a whole wheat sour dough starter.  The recipe is for loaves of bread but I wanted to mess with things and make sour dough pancakes...and I did.

This is a VERY substantial pancake that should be served with fresh berries and whipped butter etc.   You won't walk away hungry, because you will have fallen into immediate post prandial torpor.  Husband liked the whole wheat flavor, I will stick with the original recipe for pancakes thanks.  It was a good experiment, however. 

The Big Dig

This morning the Orange Hitachi's and dump trucks started just outside Vicki's window,  they started the dig for the new hospital.
The plan is 14 feet out and 14 feet down.  That is a lot of dirt. 
I asked Vickie if she ducked every time the bucket swung around at eye level...just about, yep.  Because they were working so close to the edge, there is a moderate pucker factor especially when the one Hitachi was working down hill-ish trying to pry a tree stump out of the hillside and the back end of the tracks was rearing up off the freaking ground.  I had to go type something LOUD for a little bit.  Sheesh.

By this afternoon a great deal of dirt had been removed, the guys working the Hitachi's (two of them were digging away) had dumped a great many loads into the dump trucks.  I think they filled up the soccer field, there MUST be some low lying ground somewhere that needs some dirt.

Here be parking!  Finished, occupied, employees park in yellow striped zones, patients park in white etc.  It sure looks nice and parks even better.  I will drive and park tomorrow,  there is not room to double park so first come, first serve!  Just don't leave for lunch or you will wind up parking on the street.  Because the front parking lot was partially blocked and open for the dump trucks to enter and exit, a few patients tried to park in the front, but they had to give that up when it became apparent that they could not get into the front door as usual, it was blocked off too.  Mr. Z's PA and the director of marketing donned safety vests and helmets and flagged traffic for a little bit to get people used to parking IN BACK where there are DOORS....eventually, just keep walking folks, follow the signs.  Wheelchairs are available.