Tax tears and ambulances

I had to leave the hospital earlier today, and on the way out I saw a doctor walk behind a parked ambulance. But the ambulance wasn't parked--it was getting ready to back up, and backed right into him. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to fluster him and make him almost fall over.

I'm relieved he wasn't hurt, but I found it incredibly funny and laughed all the way to my appointment with the tax guy, who did his best to quell any laughter I had left in me.

Remember the Alamo

Way back last year, I gave a talk on sepsis to the local critical care nurse organization. It was on very short notice, and they rewarded me handsomely, with both a $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble and a $50 certificate to a pricey Italian restaurant in town. This was pretty cool.

But this is even more cool: they also want to pay my tuition to the national critical nurse conference in San Antonio this spring ($360)! I was going to go anyway, but this just makes it sweet! All this for an hour and a half of me talking. Boggles the mind.

I haven't been in San Antonio since I attended Air Force basic training 'lo these many years ago'. We were only allowed into town for one afternoon. The moment we hit SA, we headed for the first bar we could find and drank steadily until it was time to go back to base. I could see the Alamo from where I was sitting in the bar. It was smaller than I expected, and got smaller as the afternoon wore on.