Sunday, February 15, 2009

Same-old Same-old

I haven’t posted because, well, it’s pretty much the same-old-same-old.

We’ve been cycling, but Gary has been fighting the bubonic plague so he was sidelined today. Actually, he was pretty miserable last night, and as a precaution, I decided to go to the Pharmacy of Death ™ this morning to get a prescription for antibiotics filled (he’s had pneumonia enough times that we are able to diagnose this on our own; it wasn’t clear that he absolutely would need it, but I figured we’d be better to have it, just in case he really did go bubonic). Armed with the prescription from our family doctor, I timed it so I would get to the pharmacy right at 10am when they opened. I was there at 10:01. And the pharmacy was closed. Okay. It’s only 10:01. And I could hear voices (behind the closed counter; not the ones in my head that were telling me that only a crazy person would be at this pharmacy, expecting them to be open on time), so it was all cool. At 10:10, the pharmacy was still closed, and the store’s assistant manager came back and I could hear more voices (most of which were still not in my head). From what I could hear, there were only two employees there, and at least 2 other people had called in sick.

Nifty.

At 10:15, they finally opened the counters. The assistant manager took my prescription and told me that it would be “a while”.

A while. Yippee. Good thing I had brought my needlepoint with me.

Since I had some other prescriptions to pick up, I went to the pickup counter and the one poor harried guy finally got to me. And they only had 2 of the 4 prescriptions that I had expected to pick up (not counting the one I had just dropped off), but the poor guy didn’t have anyone to help him, so he didn’t have time to figure out why the other things weren’t ready. It wasn’t an emergency, so no biggie. But as I was waiting in line, I saw the z-pack (azythromycin) packages on the shelf – the prescription that I had just dropped off for Gary, and had been told would be a while. Since this is not the first time that he’s gotten this particular (nuclear-strength) antibiotic, I know that it is nothing that the pharmacist has to actually count out; they pick a package off the shelf, run it through the insurance and give it to you. But because they were so short staffed, this whole process was going to take a couple of hours – mostly because they had to bring in extra employees from Lake Havasu (50 miles away).

But as I was standing in line I was able to discern that the only other employee was an actual pharmacist. So after I got the couple of prescriptions they DID have for me, I went back to the drop-off counter, and the pharmacist came over. I explained to her that Gary was dying of the bubonic plague, and then I fibbed a bit (okay, I lied) and told her that I was a nurse, and knew that it was a really easy deal to do a z-pack. Much to my great surprise, the pharmacist just handed me the package, and told me that they’d “work it out later”.

Huh. Go figure. So I took the pack and ran like a thief. (I have no idea if/when they will ever figure it out, as the pharmacist made no notes whatsoever on the prescription. Not my problem.)

Luckily, it turned out that Gary didn’t need the prescription. But yet again, the Pharmacy of Death ™ did not fail to mystify.

Other than that, I’ve been out in the kayak a fair amount (again, with Gary being run-down/sick, he hasn’t had as much of a chance to get out), and Fiona is becoming a champion ball-chaser. The kids got their hair cuts, and look great (although TaiChi’s hair is a little short, and since the nights are cool, she’s been wearing her coat).

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By drliz

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By drliz

Other than that excitement, I’ve been needlepointing up a storm (pictures will follow as I make a bit more progress). Again, same-old-same-old here.

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