The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 04: Come On In

[NotWise]

I'm stuffed full of hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad, and apricot sorbet. The noisemaker fireworks are going off an hour and a half before dark, and I want to nap.

 

[TxRad]

What am I doing up at this time of the morning?

Eating the last chunk of the homemade brownies and sipping on a DDP. For the uninformed. A DDP is a Diet Dr Pepper.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Friday Morning snoring fest. Fresh coffee will be available when you wake up.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

[Handley_Page]

What am I doing up at this time of the morning?

Eating the last chunk of the homemade brownies and sipping on a DDP. For the uninformed. A DDP is a Diet Dr Pepper.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Friday Morning snoring fest. Fresh coffee will be available when you wake up.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Thinks: Must try to leave Tx alone and not wake him.
Try to get a coffee to drink outside.
Ah - the sun is out !

 

[TxRad]

Thinks: Must try to leave Tx alone and not wake him.
Try to get a coffee to drink outside.
Ah - the sun is out !

Morning HP. The sun is barely up here and I'm still awake.

Fresh coffee to go with the hour.

HM & HG are home and they got up about three or so. We've done a lot of talking.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Sorry to hear of her loss, Tex.

 

[TxRad]

Sorry to hear of her loss, Tex.

Thank you.

She's had almost a year to come to terms so to speak and she has had HG to help her along the way. She was a mess right after it happened but she's slowly coming back to her normal self. We're helping where and as we can. Time heals all things.

Her mother wanted to be cremated and that process takes a week or ten days. We'll have a small ceremony when we get the ashes back.

 

[NotWise]

She's had almost a year to come to terms so to speak and she has had HG to help her along the way. She was a mess right after it happened but she's slowly coming back to her normal self. We're helping where and as we can. Time heals all things.

Sometimes, that year of coming to terms doesn't help as much as you hope. We had at least a year to anticipate my mother-in-law's passing, but it was still an emotional shock when it happened.

 

[Handley_Page]

Sympathy, Tx.

Any Tea left please?

 

[srosa]

Sadly, that’s sometimes my problem, too. An author I respect writes something in a genre that simply has no appeal... now what? Yes, I know, just wait for the next one, but I still feel conflicted.

I'm glad I'm not alone!

Apologies, who are HM and HG?

 

[NotWise]

Apologies, who are HM and HG?

HM and HG are House Mate and House Guest. I'll leave it to Tx to explain the rest.

 

[colddiesel]

HM and HG are House Mate and House Guest. I'll leave it to Tx to explain the rest.

You're kidding. They're Texan royalty, Her Majesty and Her Grace - I thought everyone knew that.

 

[TxRad]

Morning all, fresh coffee because I need some and the rest of you are lucky.

CD, you don't know how close to the truth you are.

I have no real reason to be up this early but here I is.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I have no real reason to be up this early but here I is.

And our day is brightened thereby. I'd love a cup, please.

 

[TxRad]

And our day is brightened thereby. I'd love a cup, please.

Thank you, think you, very much. Let me take a minute to freshen the coffee.

 

[NotWise]

Some unusual phenomenon is obscuring our normally beautiful blue sky. Wait! I've seen this before. It's cloudy!

 

[beachbum1958]

.....

 

[TxRad]

.....

Well, BB is alive but either he has little to say or Lori has him gagged.

Fresh coffee for the afternoon crew.

 

[NotWise]

Well, BB is alive but either he has little to say or Lori has him gagged.

Sometimes you don't have long to read BB's posts--of Lori's, for that matter. They're like the message at the beginning of "Mission Impossible." They self-destruct in five seconds.

 

[TxRad]

Sometimes you don't have long to read BB's posts--of Lori's, for that matter. They're like the message at the beginning of "Mission Impossible." They self-destruct in five seconds.

I assumed as much but...

Yesterday, I thought it was Saturday, all day. Today, I thought it was Sinday until a short time ago. I'm not sure what that means but I'm glad there is no international date line involved again.

 

[Voboy]

I assumed as much but...

Yesterday, I thought it was Saturday, all day. Today, I thought it was Sinday until a short time ago. I'm not sure what that means but I'm glad there is no international date line involved again.

Well.

Clearly, you're not caffeinated enough. Have a cup.

 

[NotWise]

We're having a cookout tonight for the birthday of one of my daughters. We're rolling the dice because the Weather Service gives us a 30% chance of heavy rain. It's not actually her birthday, which is next week. She'll be in Budapest on her actual birthday, so the family celebration is now.

 

[beachbum1958]

Sometimes you don't have long to read BB's posts--of Lori's, for that matter. They're like the message at the beginning of "Mission Impossible." They self-destruct in five seconds.

Hey NW, Will here, back in Cannes and and freshly rubbed down with a copy of The Sporting Life and ready to re-enter the fray. Posted earlier but then reasoned I was probably over-sharing so backed away. Anyway, Her Royal Holy Godship and I are finally back home and ready to start work again after 3 months Leave Of Absence, which means I can finally finish the story series I put aside 6 months ago to deal with the health scare and subsequent hiatus

 

[srosa]

We're having a cookout tonight for the birthday of one of my daughters. We're rolling the dice because the Weather Service gives us a 30% chance of heavy rain. It's not actually her birthday, which is next week. She'll be in Budapest on her actual birthday, so the family celebration is now.

Happy birthday to her! Hope it hasn't rained.

 

[NotWise]

Hey NW, Will here, back in Cannes and and freshly rubbed down with a copy of The Sporting Life and ready to re-enter the fray. Posted earlier but then reasoned I was probably over-sharing so backed away. Anyway, Her Royal Holy Godship and I are finally back home and ready to start work again after 3 months Leave Of Absence, which means I can finally finish the story series I put aside 6 months ago to deal with the health scare and subsequent hiatus

Welcome back! I'm sure you're ready to roll into work and vanquish all the evils of the riviera.

I actually saw the earlier post before you deleted it. It didn't seem to me like too much, but that's up to you.

 

[beachbum1958]

Welcome back! I'm sure you're ready to roll into work and vanquish all the evils of the riviera.

I actually saw the earlier post before you deleted it. It didn't seem to me like too much, but that's up to you.

I do get a little paranoid (?) about sharing, the insecurity-worm gnaws at me sometimes and says 'no-one cares about your life, go tell some jokes for cryin' out loud', so I do...

TBH, I'm trembling in my boots in anticipation of the shitstorm we're about to walk into come Monday morning; last time Lori and I were out for a significant time (5 weeks due to a dispute over pay and conditions) we came back to a complete shambles, no surgical stock on-order, a severe shortage of pins, clips, sutures, sharps of all descriptions, drugs, dressings, catheters, medi-gasses, basics like laundered linens, cleaning and sterilisation supplies, everything a First-Response surgical unit needs to keep operating, and blank faces and 'not my job to order and do metrics' from every single idiot who worked there. To just put the tin lid on the day, they'd filed no surgical reports, one of their most critical tasks and our only real legal protection, or any shortages/daily use reports for operational stock the entire 5 weeks, and a sink-or-swim quality audit was due two days after we came back on board.

We only passed the audit because I cajoled, persuaded, threatened, and blackmailed everyone higher up the food chain I knew to get us resupplied to get us through the audit, and right after we scraped through by the skin of our teeth, Lori convened a series of disciplinary hearings and sacked pretty much every complacent, self-satisfied idiot who worked for her.

One of the problems with French male surgeons is that they can't take orders from a female; Lori's a hard-assed, ball-busting bitch when her orders are flouted or her deputies are disrespected, and her 2IC is a really nice young lady, a phenomenally talented surgeon, and a fine administrator, but all the men who worked for her while we were away, and who she technically outranked, all had that patronising, 'don't worry your pretty little head, poppet, the men are in charge now' attitude, and it came into force as soon as Lori walked out the door. Lori is a 'don't fuck with me' American woman, a Southerner, and a damned fine surgeon; behaviour like that puts blood in her eyes, and she reacts accordingly.

My reaction is a little more visceral; I tend to drag them into the parking lot, shake them gently by the throat, and remind them I know what they're doing with that blonde nurse in the paediatric wing, it would be a real shame if his wife found out, because under swingeing French divorce laws, he'd be spending the rest of his life eating fried spaghetti while his wife and kids spent his money in Tahiti, so shut his trap, behave his bloody self, and keep his head down and out of Lori's gunsights.