ER deli

I saw the Medical Director from one of the city's major trauma centers in my deli. Just the other week my ambulance unit worked with him covering an athletic event in the city. We had brought him an unstable patient with an altered mental status. The patient stabilized and the doc said he would get in touch with us to let us know the final diagnosis. But now, what was Doc doing in my deli?

I was just about to say "hi!" when shyness struck me. What if he has no idea who I am? Will he remember me? I may feel stupid having to explain to him who I am, he must see hundreds of EMTs every week. Also, I looked kind of unkempt wearing the t-shirt that I'd slept in last night, my old sneakers with holes in them (you can see the top of my big toes), and my shorts covered with cat hair, front and back. So I kept my head down, filled my cup with coffee and darted out of there.

This morning I was in the deli again, wearing the same sneakers, shorts, and the t-shirt that I'd slept in, when I heard someone shout out the name of the ambulance unit I belong to. I turned around. It was the doctor - he remembers me! And he knows which unit I'm with. "Heeey, how are you?" the doc said. "Good, good, and you?" I answered, and he said "Did you get any other good calls that evening?" And I said "Yeah, we got a nice cardiac call" and he said "Not from the event I hope?" and I said "No, no it was unrelated, so you're off the hook." And then we small talked about this and that and it turns out that he lives in the neighborhood too.

I totally feel important and cool, like I'm part of New York City's medical community at last. Just sharing a deli with this man gives me bonus points. Totally.

Rubbish

One recent morning I ran into the garbage police. It's true, there is such a thing. Or maybe they're called sanitation police, or something. Their uniform sort of looks like that of a traffic cop - the regular dark navy blue pants and a light blue shirt. I really didn't know these officers existed, but they do.

"You mixed recycling with regular garbage!!" the cop yelled to a man leaning on his elbows out the second floor window.
"What...??"
"You're mixing regular garbage with recycling, you can't do that, I have to give you a ticket for this!"

I kept on walking. They check our garbage??? We try to recycle, but when I feel lazy I just throw the cat food cans in the trash. So much pressure to recycle properly. What is happening to the city?

Third Game

Oh nooo, painful, painful!

The young Russian lads made the old Swedes look like clowns and Sweden is out of the tournament. The only fun thing about this game was that the commentator pronounced Zhirkov's (Russian player) name "Jerk off." I hope the Netherlands will kick out these young jerk offs in the quarter finals. I will be rooting for the Dutch as I put my Swedish jersey away. Until next time.

Second game

The neighbors upstairs saw me entering my apartment, again, and asked:

- "Heeey, how did Sweden do today??"
- "Lost... Spain scored a late winner..."
- "Oh nooo, we're rooting for Sweden... that's too bad..."
- "Yeah it's too bad, but at least it's not an embarrassing loss, I mean it's Spain..."

I now think of our neighbors as good, smart people. And whatever happens to Sweden on Wednesday against Russia (a draw or a win puts Sweden through), at least we nabbed 3rd place in the World Cup in 1994.

More towels

Sean came home, still wearing his gym clothes, and said something like:
"I just went to Equinox on a guest pass, that's a niiice gym, much nicer than ours. Here, check out their towels..." and he pulled out one of their towels from his bag. More gym towels!!

First game

Our upstairs neighbor poked his head out the door when he heard me in the hallway. He said:
- "Congratulations! Sweden won yesterday!"
- "Thank you," I said as if I had contributed to the win, "Greece pretty much sucks."
- "But they won the Euro last time around, didn't they? So isn't it good that Sweden beat them?"
- "Greece pretty much sucks," I said once again.

This guy is clearly clueless about football. OF COURSE Sweden must beat Greece. Greece is not a threat to the mighty Swedes. The neighbor retreated into his apartment.

Greece did win the Euro four years ago, that's true. But the odds of that were kind of the same as being struck by lightning. Or, like being crapped on by one bird twice in one day on separate occasions. Or, like catching the uptown train instead of the downtown train by mistake. Such things don't happen very often. And if they do, we still don't walk around and think that these things are normal, or good.

Euro 2008

Euro 2008 starts tomorrow and this is what I'll be wearing for the next couple of weeks (minus the cat). I might not wear the shorts if I'm out in public, but the jersey no doubt. I really should get the socks too. You know what, if I get the long yellow socks I will so wear the whole uniform.

Pirat peng!

I went through my passport to check a few travel dates and found a piece of Swedish candy (salt licorice) stuck between page four and five. I don't know how long the candy's been there. I pulled it off. Parts of page five came off in the process as well.

I had to eat this piece of candy, how could I not? It's so good. Doesn't matter that I had to munch on parts of page five as well. It was all worth it.

New towels

It's time for me to steal more fresh towels from the gym. Maybe I shouldn't call it stealing. Basically, I think I deserve to bring their towels home with me, I pay them something like $90 a month. I know I'm paying for my health, in a way, but I also want something more tangible for my money.