You'll poke your eye out

So tomorrow morning, I climb onto the big avion and...oh, no, wait.

Tomorrow I start my AHEC, which is short for Area Health Education Centers, which seems to have nothing at all to do with what I'm actually going to be doing (health education? What?). Basically, it's my community psychiatry rotation. As I think I mentioned, every Thursday this year, I'm going to be one of the psychiatrists on an Assertive Community Treatment Team in a coastal town. Which is something over two hours away, by car. Which means that every Thursday, rain or shine (!), the hospital is going to stick me in a tin can flying clown car small private plane and putt-putt-putt me out to the coast.

You know that Indigo Girls song, Airplane?

Up on the airplane nearer my god to thee
I start making a deal inspired by gravity
If I did wrong I won't do it again
I can be sweet and good and nice
And if I had enemies they're friends
I hold onto my life with the grip of a vice

Up on the airplane nearer my god to thee
I start making a deal inspired by gravity
That little spot on the ground is my hometown
I like to call it my home and it's sweet
I'd rather take a seat down there than a throne up here
Up above 30,000 feet
And I'm up on the airplane

I never should've read my horoscope
Or the fortune on the bubble gum strip
Saying what you think won't happen will
Great thing to read before a trip on an airplane

Pilot says the big blue sky's like a swimming pool
Big fluffy clouds like a feather bed
But I'd rather have a real pillow underneath my head
Lying in my bed
Which is in my hometown
Which is on the ground
Far from an airplane far from an airplane

I have a feeling that's going to be going through my head on a regular basis...

I called Monday to confirm my reservation for this Thursday, and talked to a very nice woman. She told me to come up to the airport (the tiny, municipal airport) around 7:15. There's a gate, she says, and you have to punch a code to get in. And then she just keeps talking. So I was like, wait, what's the code? She says, "oh, I don't know, it's like, 1-1-1-1 or something." I joked about the tight security, and she said, "Well, the code's printed on a sign on the gate."

Uh-huh.

The gate, really, is more to keep the critters out at night, she explained. So we talked a little longer, and I said, "You know, I understand that this isn't a commercial flight, but, are there things that I can or can't bring?" She says, "Well, bring gum. And the plane isn't air conditioned, but once you're in the air, the pilot can open the vents. And if you bring a beverage, we'd prefer it was water, or well, things that won't be sticky if they spill. Basically, anything with a lid."

I'm guessing there won't be beverage service...

So then I asked about my knitting needles. Were those okay to bring? She says, "just don't poke your eye out."

I assured her I had been knitting for many years now with absolutely no knitting-related eye injuries.

I'm not super fond of flying as it is. And, she asked me, had I ever flown on a little crop duster like this? I said, hmm, maybe when I was, like, seven. She says, "ohhh. Well, I'll let the pilot know this is your first time on a little plane."

Gulp.

It should be interesting.

Meanwhile, today was really productive. I got my application done for the Psychoanalytic Institute of the Carolinas, which was, of course, due today (I dropped the application off at 7pm). I got all my paperwork together for the AHEC site. I got all my stuff coordinated and filled out and filed from clinic yesterday. And I went to Walgreens. Where I found the coolest thing this side of Jumbones, if you ask Maggie.

These are three of her very favorite toys.




Pheasant is a longtime buddy who we bought when we moved in with my folks off Pheasant Lake. The tiny pink sheep, which was her previous veryfavoritetoy (which she routinely protects from Maxine, not that Maxine is all that interested), fits in the palm of my hand, and she loves to toss it wildly about. The one in the middle is a four foot long Loofah Dog. For $10. I tried, I did, but I could not resist. Maggie loves Loofah Dogs. As hard as I tried to talk myself out of it, I had to get it. And I'm so glad I did, because she looooooooooooooved it. She dragged it all over the house and even tried to take it outside with her (it got stuck in the doggie door. I laughed so hard I almost fell over. Again).

Here's a handy size-gauging device:

Too funny.