eating humble pie

A few weeks ago Wally and I went out for dinner with friends. It was a fun evening and on the way home we stopped over at Mary's house to see her new deck and outdoor fireplace. It was a lovely evening and something we don't do very often.

As I was getting ready for bed, I started to wander around the house looking for my iphone. I use my iphone as my alarm clock and it is usually on my desk in the office, by the phone in the kitchen or in my purse...which is usually on the bench by the front door. (PS: I love my iphone and use it extensively.)

About the same time I realized that I could not find my phone, it became apparent that I could not find my purse! And that never happens in my world because I never "can't find" anything.

The internet meme that was circulating through pinterest and face book a few months back was invented because of mothers like me.

It's not really lost unless

your mother can't find it!

I AM THAT MOM. And this situation was quietly spinning out of my control. Not only could I not find my purse; I was going to have to confess that fact eventually. And this situation had "crisis potential" written all over it. 

After watching me wander around the house for about 40 minutes, Wally finally asked what I was looking for. "I think I left my purse in the ladies room at the restaurant." I sheepishly confessed. 

"Why don't you call Mary and ask if you left it at her house?" 

"Don't be silly, I'm sure it's at the restautrant," I said assertively. "And by now now someone has picked it up and they are out buying stereo equipment with my credit cards and hacking into my online banking because all my PINS are on my phone," I added with dismay.

So Wally suggested I call the restaurant and when that came up a dead end, he sat up with me to be supportive as I called to cancel credit cards and tried to "find my phone" (the iphone app I had installed but disabled...). Finally, we decided there was nothing more to be done and headed off to bed at about 2 am. 

I was so depressed. 

To make things worse, it was Friday night on a long weekend and so I really couldn't get my life back until Tuesday. That was a few days for me to stew and worry about my stuff being gone / stolen. And a few days for me to retrace every step I took up to the point in time when I realized I didn't know where my purse was.

And as I moped and moaned about the situation all weekend, Wally would suggest giving Mary a call, "just to make sure" she hadn't seen my purse. And every time he suggested it, I reminded him just how stupid it was for him to think that my purse might be at Mary's!! 

I'm sure you can see where this is going...

After cancelling all my credit cards and changing every password and all my PINs, I began to organize my Tuesday. Go to the bank to make sure my accounts were in order. Go to Holland's first thing and order a new driver's license. Go buy a new phone (at great personal expense, given where I was in my contract). etc. etc. It was downright depressing.

Monday afternoon, I was outside doing some yard work (trying not to worry about my purse and phone). I came around the front of the house just in time to see Mary's brother heading down my driveway. "Hey, howzitgoin'?" I called out. 


"Oh, hey there," he answered. "I just left your purse inside...We had so much company this weekend; I thought it belonged to one of my sisters but everyone went home this morning and the purse was still on the kitchen counter. Funny that it should belong to you and I even know where you live!! haha. Have a nice day!"

Of course, I was SHOCKED! How could my purse have been BEAMED over to my friend's house from the ladies room restaurant 40 km away?

I was too embarassed to even go in the house to see my purse! But I was also so relieved that I mustered up my courage and headed in after a few minutes of trying to compose myself. 

Wally already had the humble pie cut and ready to serve. And I've been eating it ever since.

Just yesterday, Diana was in the phone store activating her new phone when a middle aged MOM stumbled in. "I've lost my iphone," she wailed. "I don't know what to do."

"You should probably call your girlfriend and see if it's on her kitchen counter." Diana dead panned as she left the store.

I was Scooped!!

I was driving to Calgary on July 6 and I stopped in Claresholm to buy gas at the Shell station. That's a pretty normal thing for me to do. But as I was filling up my "patty-wagon", I was suddenly aware that things were not particularly "normal" this sunny Thursday morning...


The gal next to me filling up her VW Bug was having a hard time keeping her cowboy hat on and her short, flippy skirt kept blowing up her legs as she shifted from one booted foot to the other. It was hard to hold on to her skirt, hat and pump gas at the same time. It looked plain odd.


Then I heard a clickety clack behind me as another middle aged, mini-skirted, cowboy booted woman tripped her way into the building. 


Just as I was finished gawking at her progress across the pavement a truck load of young women in short shorts, tube tops and COWBOY BOOTS pulled up across from me and piled out of the cab laughing and whooping as they called "dibs" on the toilet.

"What the heck?" and then it dawned on me...Calgary Stampede. These women had to be heading to the stampede. There was no other reason for grown women to be out in public dressed like this...unless they were headed to a hooker convention.


I immediately began to formulate my next blog post...my head was filled with ideas mostly centered around the theme of "how and when did stampede morph into "dress like a hooker week"? I was so inspired, I actually sent a text message to both Sara and Ben about my observations.


And then I got busy and the blog was put on the back burner and I got totally and completely scooped by my 20 something daughter who is even sassier than me.
check out:  http://girluntitled-pomo.blogspot.ca/.

She totally scammed my idea and posted some fantastic photos of "trampeding" which I completely endorse. 



So another strampede has come and gone and I seriously wonder if the cowboys from 100 years ago would even be able to recognize the rodeo if they dropped in on this modern outdoor spectacle. 

Thankfully, my family didn't get the memo about baring it all in the name of all that is cowboy so I have some g-rated photos to include.

Happy Birthday Calgary Stampede! ...and many more (?!?)

I've been busy...

I got home from visiting Little Logan and his parents just in time to get ready for the implementation phase of the new Electronic Medical Record ( the "EMR") at our office.

This EMR was something we'd been investigating and working on since last fall. And we (the good doctor and I) were excited to get it installed and "Go Live." Go Live is tech talk for get the computers up and runing and see how amazing and fun our work suddenly becomes.   We had a pretty good attitude about the whole process. And the representatives from WOLF assured the doctor and I that we were going to LOVE the new system. 

 Things went surprisingly well the very first day. The guys arrived on time and hooked things up. The new computers and all the new printers and scanners and fax machine were beautiful and I could hardly wait to get to work on all the shiny new equipment. It was a great day at the office! And then I remembered, we had no patients scheduled so we could get used to the new electronics. Of course, the day would go smoothly if there were no actual patients to deal with!! Silly me.

The next day (May 29, 2012) was a Tuesday and the doctor started to see patients. I was back to answering phones, booking appointments, and managing the families that the doctor takes care of. And that's when the wheels fell off the wagon!

Needless to say, NOTHING WORKED and I spent more time on the help line than I did on the front lines and by the end of that week, I was ready to pack it in. 

We'd actually been sent a used scanner/copier full of phone numbers and addresses from some oil company in Calgary. Definitely not in line with our extensive PIA....

Our data transfer from our old system to WOLF was painfully incomplete. WOLF would not recognize any rural municipalities in Alberta so my patients from Coalhurst, Milk River, Diamond City, Fort Macleod, Pincher Creek etc. etc. etc. simply did not exist. Who knew that the only viable places to live in western Canada were Vancouver and Hanna?!? 

The people setting up our system entered the wrong billing codes for psychiatry into the system so everything I submitted for billing had the potential of being rejected. And that didn't even really matter because they flat out forgot to connect our billing system to Alberta Health Care!!!  

I could go on but it's not worth the painful memories. The long and the short of it is that WOLF failed spectacularly and FIVE WEEKS LATER when we still hadn't been paid and the tech guys were not even close to getting to the bottom of the whole mess, I had a real life epiphany!

The point of this post is to illustrate just how similar highly specialized surgeons and computer tech geeks can be in real life applications.

If you recall, my experience with the "team" of pediatric surgeons at Legacy Emmanuel Children's Hospital was so frustratingly comical I was forced to post the foolishness. Well folks, here we go again....

When a third party observer finally discovered what the problem was with our brand spanking new, top of the line EMR, and alerted the talking heads at WOLF head quarters, the tech guy on the other end of the phone had the audacity to say to me:

 "Now aren't you glad I discovered this problem early enough 

in the process to clear it right up and get you on your way?" 

Sorry Dude - six weeks with no pay checks is not EARLY and don't you dare try to tell me YOU figured this out! 

That's what I thought. 

Thankfully, I was speaking with him on the phone so he couldn't see me roll my eyes and tear at my hair as I tried to keep my head from exploding!

What I said was, "thanks for the help..."

Things are going a little smoother at the office. The new EMR is becoming a little more user friendly as I teach it what it needs to know. 

 Now I only have to worry about the AHC computers that crashed last week as a result of the "SHAW incident." But that's another story...and tomorrow is Monday and I'm looking forward to a better week.