Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Looks like tonight has a theme: ambulances. Spent a few hours in the emergency room keeping my brother company (a cow orker had started driving him to a hospital from work, but when he got a lot worse they pulled over and got a cop to summon an ambulance, so even though my experience of that part of the evening didn't involve an ambulance, an ambulance was involved). Looks as though he managed an abdominal hernia plus a muscle strain -- they observed him for a while then discharged him with a prescription for painkillers, a note for work, some workers'-comp paperwork, and instructions to get a followup with his regular doc to find out whether non-emergency surgery is needed soonish. I drove him back to Bowie after calling Mom to tell her what was up.

Just now, I turned onto Lombard St. and was about to head for my usual parking space right in front of my door, when an ambulance zoomed up and stopped in the left travel lane a space further up, and a police car blocked access to "my" space. Looks like one of the people next door is having trouble -- as I pulled into a space across the street, another cop parked right in front of me with his blinkin' lights all a blinkin'. Gee, maybe my initial thought to detour over to the cheap gas station before coming home would've been a good idea after all. (But I'm tired.)

Spent most of the time with my brother talking about: how he hurt himself, the gig I had on Sunday, clock and watch escapements, designs for transmissions with continuously-variable gear ratios, the metric system, and flywheels and energy storage. I also spent a little time talking to a cute doctor about football (we both root for both the Ravens and the Redskins, wish Darrell Green could go out on a Really Up Season, and hope Ray Lewis is well enough to play soon). I talked to the other cute doctor too, but mostly just about my brother.

You know, it only just now occurred to me that the genders of the medical staff would've seemed like some sort of role reversal thing twenty years ago: both his doctors were women and his nurse was a man.