This brew is not necessarily to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Although it is rather appropriate for the day. No, it's just a little help to make the previous night at work recede into a forgetful haze. Nothing new, just the same old comfortable bullshit: Broken/malfunctioning instruments; not getting the work done fast enough for the nurses/docs; what amounted to a no call-in/no show/no replacement (and NO communication from the powers that be that this person was not going to be in to grace us with her presence--we called her house, and all wondered if she was in a ditch somewhere). Since when does one get a bereavement day off for an UNCLE? Pretty reasonably sure this is not in the policy handbook. The translation became pretty clear--yet another extended weekend for the same special 'full'-timer.

But things aren't all bad. Nope! Yesterday we took what for me was the first real walk of the year. I mean the 4.5 mile walk down the dirt road bordering the subdivision and back. Tim has done a couple of those already by himself. Spring might actually be coming. The sun was out, the robins are back, the great blue herons are back, and we heard the first spring peepers in the ponds. And I must have done a good enough job of stretching beforehand, because I don't have even a hint of shinsplints like I usually do that first long walk of the spring. No flare-up of the plantar fasciitis, either. It's good to be pain free!

ETA: OK, it seems we do get a one day bereavement for an uncle, aunt, etc. Bargained for a couple years ago, and trickled down to us non-union people. News to most of us! Sometimes it's good to work in an area bristling with union muscle.

I also wrote another rant to our QA person, this time about the repeated and abysmal lack of communication regarding call-ins on the off shifts. I tied in references to circuses and clowns. If nothing else, she gets a lot of entertainment out of them.