Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Not Yet

Well Maya is still residing at the hospital. We had been hoping to bring her home yesterday, but our little girl doesn't seem to want to behave for a 24 hour period. Yes she had "dipped" again the night before. Only very slightly, she didn't turn colour and it was self corrected, all good signs, but the docs decided they wanted to watch her for at least one more day. That's both the good and bad thing of her being monitered 24/7. If she was at home we likely wouldn't have noticed this latest dip. Normally it isn't something you'd be worried about. Maya was probably stretching or farting or pooping at the time, but with her past history... well it seems safer to keep an eye on her for an extra day or so.

Mike and I have decided that we aren't telling people when we think she might come home. We're also thinking of getting shirts made that just say "still at the hospital" just to save us hours and hours of conversation. We'll just let everybody know she's actually here. We aren't even going to tell people that we're going to pick her up because we've been almost out the door with her before and then ended up not going anywhere. So as soon as we have photographic proof that she is physically in our home, well we'll let you know. Believe me we cannot wait for that day.

Since Mike and I have been making multiple trips to the hospital on a daily basis we've seen a lot of strange things. Since it's a university as well as a hospital there are students all over the place. Mike and I have noticed that crosswalks, stop lights and traffic don't matter to these people at all. Apparently if you're a student you can just step off the sidewalk at your leisure and stroll across the street with little regard for the traffic that's racing towards you. At no time should you think that those pesky walk/don't walk signs have anything to do with you. This only applies to the very busy Main Street that runs right in front of the hospital. If we're talking about the less busy secondary streets, on those feel free to saunter as if you have all the time in the world right down the middle of the street for as long as you'd like. Really, we'll wait while you make up your mind if you actually want to cross the street or not.

To be honest, it's not all horrible. We have seen some amazing things as well. One afternoon on our way home we happened across George Lucas. Mike and I both noticed him at the same time. This guy looked so much like Lucas it wasn't even funny. Have you ever seen George Lucas before? He has a pretty distinctive look. This guy had the look mastered, right down to the beard. It was a little freaky. Mike was tempted to roll the window down and tell him how much he enjoyed Star Wars. The next day while entering the hospital parking garage we had one of these traffic ignoring students step out in front of us. Since this *guy* was wearing purple scrubs and eating a cone of cotton candy Mike and I were laughing too hard to be annoyed that he was crossing against the light and keeping us trapped in the intersection. I think it was the day after that a kid scooted across the road on his skateboard, hopped the median and flew out into traffic on the other side. Lucky for him Grandma in the mini van managed to brake and avoid. That could have been messy, but they were only a 100 yards or so from emergency so he would of had that going for him.

Mike and I drive through some of the quiet neighbourhoods surrounding the hospital on our trips down there. One night Mike wondered if the houses we passed were all inhabited by students. Mel and I came up with a quick reference guide to tell if a place is student housing or not.

If the windows have no curtains or curtains made of sheets.
If there's Christmas lights used as lighting in any of the rooms. This is easy to tell if there's no curtains on the windows.
If you can see beer posters, neon signs or hot girl posters decorating living room walls.
There's a bbq outside the front door.
The front yard has a rather untidy look. For example maybe there's a bike stuck in the bushes. The grass alternates from bald patches to over grown weeds.
There's in excess of 12 people grouped on the front lawn. The later in the evening it gets the more likely you are to see this.

If you notice a house that falls into two or more of these categories then it's likely to be the home of university students.

No comments: