Category Archives: silly

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Clinic comedy

Yesterday was my second day in the third clinic in this system and the day went a bit sideways. I am in seeing a person with their spouse. We are all masked because this is a sick visit. I try to wear a mask for all the visits but occasionally take it off if someone really can’t hear me. I go to wash my hands. The sink is small and turns on by a motion sensor. It is supposed to turn itself off. It goes on but then will not turn off and is loud. I send a quick message to the clinic director after flailing at it a bit. Why a message? The cabinet under the sink is locked, so I can’t turn the water off. With my patient slightly deaf and masks and loud water, I finish the visit trying to yell things. Ridiculous and embarrassing but funny. The patient and spouse are older and know that things break. They are not upset. The clinic director arrives, has her try at flailing at the sensor, unlocks the cabinet and turns the water off.

I shake hands with my patient and they and their spouse leave. We are in room three. I go in room 4 to wash my hands, since my patient was blowing their nose, and guess what? Yes, the water turns on and won’t turn off. I get the clinic manager. “I broke the second sink. How about I go home now?”

She laughs. “I will put in a ticket for maintenance.” She unlocks the room 4 sink and turns it off. Now we have two rooms out of commission!

I am covering for Dr. X. “See, this just shows that I wash my hands and Dr. X didn’t.” Not really. Dr. X has been out for a month already.

“Maybe it’s because they haven’t been used in a month,” says the medical assistant. We shut down those two rooms and I go into room 2 with some trepidation. The sink does not break.

Maintenance show up early afternoon and replaces the sink sensor batteries in room 3 and 4. They work just fine after that. It turns out that there are two other sinks not working, but there are patient visits going on, so maintenance will come back. The alcohol hand sanitizer makes my hands itch, so I prefer soap and water.

Isn’t technology great? Except when it breaks. I felt silly and helpless, since I was in a brand new place and the cabinets were locked!

I admonish all the doctors, do wash your hands! Even if the sink batteries need to be replaced more often.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: admonish.

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Alphabeasts

ambulating antelopes
bellies bearing beer
carrying cantelopes
deride damp deer

elegant elephants
feeling fitly fat
give generous gifts
handing hippos hats

ignorant iguanas
jealously jeer
keen kindly kites
lilting laughing leers

many merry meerkats
nearly never notice
one old orangutan’s
pompous pronouncements

querulous quail
reject reports regarding
shimmering snow snakes
tearing through tunnels

undulating ungulates
veer vivaciously
wondering why whales
xerox xylophones

yellow yaks yell
zip zap zoo!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: zoo!

I wrote this sometime in the 1980s. My proof is the drawing by my mother. We had it in a show and hand colored with colored pencils. There is now a book with the same title by a Canadian author but it came later.

And hooray for the zoo! They are all asking for you!

Martha, what would the AI think of this poem? Heh. ChatGPT: “That’s a fantastic poem! I love how it captures the playful nature of alliteration and the whimsical imagery of animals. Each stanza has its own charm, and the ending with the “yellow yaks” is such a fun wrap-up! Did you create this as a fun project, or is it inspired by something specific?” Ok, so ChatGPT doesn’t get sonnets, but it likes nonsense poetry.

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The boring vampire

I meet a boring vampire
when I am boring too
when I am worrying with angst and ire
and have too much to do

It’s in the time of covid
We start to walk the beaches
The vampire won’t take paxlovid
His ego overreaches

He says his life’s perfection
He says his brain can’t fit his head
He has no belief in resurrection
That’s probably because he’s dead

I wonder that he lies
Does he think that I don’t see?
The person that believes the lies
Must be him, not me

I grieve before he ousts me
He says he’ll always be my friend
And he speaks of longing to be free
I know there will be an end

I know before he ousts me
He says we’re friends forever
I blink and calmly see
That it will soon be never

Some vampires don’t need staking
They do it to themselves
Isolation of their making
Hoarding blood upon their shelves

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The photograph is a “swamp robin” (Varied Thrush) from my yard, December 2022.

This has nothing to do with the Ragtag Daily Prompt: festival. Except that swamp robins are very festive.

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No, really!

No, really! I am a mature adult! I swear! My inner child has grown up!

Well, maybe not at the end of October.

My friend P took the photographs with my phone in 2022.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: maturity.

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I shall fear no weevil

Here is the fabulous model of the Capitol from the US Botanic Gardens.

Made of natural materials.

And here is the 3 by 2 foot weevil.

I have already written to the US Botanic Gardens to suggest that they save all the pollinators and the miniature buildings and reuse them at Halloween. I would fly back to Washington to see the giant weevil attacking the Capitol.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: quirky.

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One part

I don’t think it is easy to do two parts with straight hair. Now, if I had one of those rather awful perms I had in the 1970s, I could do two parts and tiny braids. At least, I could do the front. I would need help with the back.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Part Two.

I took this photograph when I was picking up mail for a neighbor. I said he’d better come home soon or I would be buried. And gosh, we can’t see any parts.

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Bow

“Pull that bow!” Kristen and Otto Smith playing at the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Festival. Kristin taught both my children violin, and my daughter viola. She can play fiddletunes and classical music and is fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. And here is another view of a kinetic sculpture and a man in a suit.

Now, why don’t I have a suit with pink flamingos? That’s my question. Take your bow, sir.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pull.

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Peace and strudel!

After the Tweetle Beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle in a bottle on a noodle eating poodle, peace declared, they eat oodles of flapdoodles and noodles and share it with their poodle, who brings raddled strudel. Paddles down, Tweetle Beetles peace the poodle with flapdoodles and sing “Praise for peace and strudel!”

Wrong Dr. Seuss book: the Tweetle Beetles are in Fox in Socks. But this book is in my Little Free Library today, hooray!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: flapdoodle!

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Design and build

The Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race has some serious designers. I don’t know if they use a forge, but the sculptures have to go in the 52 degree water and come out a few blocks away. They have to move in the water, not just float. They have to have functional brakes, since they go over a significant hill and they are human powered. They have to get through the mudbog somehow.

Some go for power and some try to go light. This one looked the lightest this year.

Many have been in more than one race and the racers and their support teams are happy to lift the hood and explain.

The two bundles under the hood are lifejackets and floats for the water course. They have to carry all the parts on the sculpture. Each team can have support personnel. Our local school kids’ STEM groups had a Maker’s Fair near the water course. We have a group that has made an underwater robot to fish out lost crab pots. If the pot’s line is lost, crabs and other creatures can be trapped inside to die. The robot helps to fish out the trash that traps creatures.

Wikipedia lists ten locations for Kinetic Sculpture Races. Ours has been going for 35 years. Will someone forge a new vehicle that we start using daily? I hope so.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: forge.