Fresh Blade

I’d love to tell you that I’m dreadfully cerebral, all pulsating brain and blistering intellect - you know, skilfully chopping bits out of people whilst humming Vivaldi and idly doing the Times crossword - but you wouldn’t buy it for a minute, would you? Thought not, especially seeing as wedding-induced brain rot has caused significant memory…what was I saying? Fortunately, though, I work with some wonderful gentlemen, who are much cleverer and more focused than your humble Blade, and one of them left his copy of the Times lying around. Please take a few moments to enjoy this article, which is thoroughly entertaining. I especially like numbers 6 & 8, although the sluglike connotations of number 9 might just be a wee fraction too close to the bone.

Let’s get one thing straight: I do not do Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings are for Other People: people who share their houses with short people; people who cut hair and don’t do Mondays instead; and Batman, who just does mornings, possibly because of some weird superhero genetic defect. Apart from the morning thing and a fixation with Brown Sauce, you’d never know he was a superhero. Neat, huh?

So why was I getting up at 7.40am on Saturday? Because my lovely, normal, no-fuss Mammy has turned into Mother Of the Bridezilla. Operation Meringue has been in the planning stages for several weeks, but Saturday was the first formal appointment to fit on frocks, and it was at 9.30am and 45 minutes away. MOBzilla was practically trailing the duvet off me with her teeth, to get out of the house and off to try on frocks.

And try I did. B. I. Z. A. R. R. E. Lean forward, shake your ladybumps around and put hands on your waist, then push ribs backwards and inwards. These are the instructions for getting into a frock. Honestly, man landed on the moon (if indeed he did) with less engineering than some of these dresses. Between bones and braces, frills and furbelows, it’s quite the experience. There are a few problems: (1) sleeves, or lack thereof. I’ve mentioned this and it hasn’t got any more interesting since then. (2) cleavage. It’s amazing what pops out of some of these dresses, and personally, I’m allergic to cleavage. I’d rather not, thanks. (3) big rustly skirts. I can trip on flat ground, in jeans and trainers. What’re the chances of not going arse over ear in twenty yards of taffeta, three petticoats and high heels? Slim to non existent, I think.

Anyway. There was a definite possibility but MOBzilla wants more. So two appointments have been booked for Saturday. No. 1 is in Astro City, at 9.30am. No. 2 is an hour away, at 1.30pm. Except the Mammy decided that no. 1 is no. good, and has booked an alternative no. 1, for 10.30, an hour from home and then wondered aloud if she could book a third appointment on the same day. No.

Add to this the catalogue of disasters which were told to me on Monday by some of the clinic nurses (that’s another story), and you’ll understand I was a teeny bit wound up. But a tiny little trip to Gotham has sorted me out. Sunshine, walk in the park, dinner. I am going to say something really rather cheesy, so please feel free to look away now…Batman, you’re lovely.

Operation Meringue over and out. Pip Pip!

Sometimes, I just hate my job. For example:

Tuesday: patient is on other surgeon’s list, but for my boss to operate upon. My boss denies all knowledge of patient, I have never heard of them, and the surgeon whose list they are on thinks that they belong to my boss. Our list finishes early and Head Nurse sends all theatre nurses to other places. Then my boss decides he does know about patient, so sends me to try to get list re-started. Phone anaesthetist as first priority, who makes a t*t out of me and says that it would help if I had come in the night before and sorted it out. I would have, had I known anything about them.

Today: We have two cases on a morning list. One is infected and so theatre must be scrubbed out after this case, but is the only one I can do without Boss. Boss late, so I don’t start the infected case, as he’d have to wait too long to do the other case. He arrives and bollocks me that I didn’t do said case, and tells me I should have more initiative. Choke back waves of self-loathing for general crapness, then later explain that I would have started, except that it would have delayed the start of the other case and he might not have got it done. He says this was right. Still feel slug-like. Go to clinic and do not understand what Other Boss is asking me, so appear rather stupid. Get home (after an hour in traffic) and remember did not see another random patient, so have to get back into car and return to work. Am stupid and sluglike.

Anyway. In other news, a band has been found and booked. I wish I were in a band: it pays much better than my sluglike existence. My cough was improving, until today, when I have either pulled a muscle or punctured a lung, as every cough sends a faint-inducing stabbing sensation through your own dear Blade. The patients were being sympathetic this afternoon, which is clearly a bad thing. And finally, it has been three weeks since I saw Batman, so I am off to Gotham on Saturday afternoon, following a session of frock-trying. I can’t wait.

• I have a turrble cough, as my much-missed Mad Supervisor used to say. (In other news, I get to see him at the forthcoming conference, and we have started to trade e-mail insults in preparation. Expect updates, he’s been in brilliant form. Example: “So you are going to live in Astro City and Batman is staying in Gotham after you get married? How is he going to get you pregnant? AI? I used to be the AI man when I was at university, you know.”) Anyway, back to my turrble cough. I coughed until I barfed today. Twice. Guh-ross.
• I am getting married. Did I mention that? Did I tell you when? 31st December. Dammit, now I think I might be excited. It’s really happening. I’m busting to send invitations, reading:

High Noon, New Year’s Eve. Be there or be square.

• I am on call tonight.
• My printer has shuffled off this mortal daisy wheel. Well, it’s printing (kind of), but not sucking in the paper, so is really only coating its innards in sticky ink. I was telling Mammy that I was trying to fix it, and she said, “Never mind, dear, maybe Batman will fix it for you.” !!!
• Right, I need some ice cream.

On Thursday evening, I got a little tickly cough. Since then, I have been mostly confined to bed, with disturbingly high temperatures, sore everywhere (including my gums, go figure) and painful cough. I have also perspired my entire body weight into several pairs of pyjamas. Today, I have produced hitherto unimaginable quantities of snot, and coughed until I gagged (on numerous occasions). I have phoned in sick again for tomorrow. This is unusual. The Mammy has some thoughts on it:

I think you have this a lot. You must be run down.

Do you think? It’s been a while.

Yes, you’ve had this before; you had to take time off. I think you need a tonic.

Mum, do you remember when I had it before? It was eleven years ago, because I was in the middle of exams at university. It’s hardly a regular thing.

Well, I still think you need a tonic.

I’m going back to bed. Bleurgh.

It costs an awful lot to be alive, doesn’t it? In the last twelve hours, I have spent:

£583.38 for flights to conference in BackArseOfAnywhere, Illinois (with 31 hours to paint DC scarlet! Yay!)

£506.50 for flights to conference in Elsewhere.

£70 on a compulsory pre-marriage course. Apparently it’s crap, and covers such gems as: how to open a bank account, how to arrange who makes dinner, and how to discuss your problems in a mutually-nurturing style. We have a combined age of 70, have been shouting abuse at each other for thirteen years, and aren’t even going to be living together after we get married. Sounds ideal, no? Yes, for Batman’s staying in Gotham for at least another year and I’m welded to the ground in Astro City.

Anyway. He’s off for two weeks’ holiday, so we got some dirt-cheap flights and went to Barcelona at the end of last week. After deciding not to speak of the W word, we had a lovely holiday. Batshit-crazy architecture, narrow streets to putter in, pleasant weather, tremendously good Roman ruins (no, not fat Italian Mamas) and a great deal of eating. Tapas, now, there’s another post. I’m not wildly fond of fish, and (surprise! For a Mediterranean city!) they are everywhere. I had some deliciously vinegary small things, that might have been anchovies, but might not, and rather a lot of squid. Otherwise, I ate a vast number of ham and cheese sandwiches, known locally as Bikinis, presumably because that’s the closest you’ll get to a little swimsuit if you scoff as many of them as I did. Top spot for a little hol.

Right, I really must go to work. Sneaky mornings off are gr8. 

Or: Blade and Bert: separated at birth?
I’m sorry, have I been a bit cross lately?

Well…

I think I might have been.

Erm…

Have I been awful? No, I haven’t been too bad.

Um…

No, I haven’t been too bad. No.

Compared to whom? Beelzebub?

Firstly, I’ve spent the last wee while trying to figure how I can get from Astro City to BackArseOfAnywhere, Illinois (for a conference), via OneOfMyFavouritePlacesEver (yes, Devin, that means your hood!) and then back to Astro City, all in a week, and for less than the price of a kidney. Hmm. Easy it ain’t. Price I can do, but I’ll have to miss the last day of the conference. Would that be so terrible, I hear you cry? Not really. Life is requiring quite a lot of organisation at present.

Small item numero 2: I thought the wedding was organised, but there may be a small problem of a religious nature. Mine clergyman is busy. However, one of my oldest friends, who happens to be in the religious trade himself, may perform the business - if he stops being mean to me about my choice of date. I am getting quite tired of hearing 47 different opinions about everything. None of these opinions are from my family or my BatChap, but Batman has put his foot down and said: We Are Not Changing The Date Again.

Thought the Third: why are there no wedding dresses with sleeves? Among the wobbly bits of myself that I hate, the old bingo wings are well up my list of things wot should remain hidden. Also, I am getting hitched over the Christmas holidays (I think!), and it’ll likely be freezing. And raining. And dark. And probably all of the above. Therefore, I do not want to wear something which will reveal my thermal vest to the world. In addition, all wedding dresses appear to be made for an anorexic crutch. There is nothing like being harnessed, ribs cracking like tinder, asphyxiating, into a far-too-small dress in a size that should fit to make one feel like a Big Fat Heifer. I am seriously considering having a few ribs removed. It’s the only way. When Shop Ladies are red-faced and gasping with the effort of putting their foot in your back in order to do up the buttons, you know it’s time for Drastic Action.

Or I might just wear jeans.

I’m not the squeamish sort, as you might imagine, and I consider bowel movements, unfortunate accidents and internal workings to be suitable topics for dinner-table conversation. However, I’m not much good with the following:

1. Feet. Geh-rrrrrroooosss

2. Teeth. Bleurgh.

3. Vomit; especially the noises which accompany it.

Can you imagine my delight, then, on Saturday, when I went to assist a coughing patient, and he vomited? And it ran off his lap and dripped onto my feet? Can you?

Additionally, can you imagine my delight when I was working on a narsty case, in el cheapo “fluid resistant” surgical gown, and removed it at the end of the op, to find that blood had soaked through gown, scrubs and Büstenhalter to mine skin?  Can you?

Also, can you imagine my delight at getting a sneaky afternoon off today, on account of there being a short theatre list as the boss is on holidays? Can you? (For my delight was considerable.)

Other blethers: I am considering a series of posts entitled: “The Reluctant Bride.” Before I get a flurry of emails saying, “What’s wrong? Are you all right? Don’t you love him any more?” may I hasten to add that Batman is still my favourite superhero ever, and I’m still completely thrilled to be marrying him. However, it turns out that organising a wedding is most definitely not my thing.  Nonetheless, I wouldn’t like to inflict my form of Bridezilla on you without asking. So if you’d like to hear about hotel management people who phone and say, “I am phoning you reference our conversation last week reference your wedding…” or about the need to wear proper undergarments and clean socks at all times, in case you accidentally end up trying on wedding dresses…then please say so in the comments. If not, then also please say. Otherwise you only have yourselves to blame…the past may be a different country, if they do things differently there, but there are times that I think I’ve slipped into some parallel dimension, full of strange Bridemaniac women. Trouble is that they’re all making sense to each other, it’s me who doesn’t speak the language.

* I was originally going to call this post: Feeling like a right bloody t*t, but thought perhaps it was a tadge too crude for the J. Lewis-shopping readership.

…on solo travel:

I was over visiting Batman at the weekend, in view of the facts that (a) it’s his birthday today (Happy Birthday to the oldest man I’ve ever gone out with! *grin*) and (b) I like him. The week of the engagement was a whirl of peoples and doings, and we seemed to have almost no time to speak. Therefore, we had a quiet, relaxing time and did nothing much at all, apart from a joint birthday party for Batman and two of his friends on Saturday night, and a bit of puttering around. Despite this, I fell heavily asleep on the flight home, and woke, honking loudly, in the middle of a bit of particularly lusty snoring. Suddenly, all those seated around me found something very important to be getting on with. How drrreadfully embarrassing.

…on tardy patients:

I have three patients to consent for theatre tomorrow, and went earlier in the afternoon to do that very thing. After seeing the first one, I discovered that neither of the others had a bed, and were consequently still at home, but would be in later. I’ve just had a phone call - at 7.45 pm - to say they’ve both arrived. Now I’ve got to get back into suit and heels, and schlepp down the road to tell them what might go wrong.

…on visitors:

…for I have just had some, in mid-post and it’s now 8.50pm. Really must go back to work. Blast and botheration.