Body 04 Oct 2005 11:36 am

PT day; use a hanky, people of the world

PT was fun today. I had a chance to chat briefly with one of the other clients, a veterinarian who is on his way to Antarctica in a couple of days. His description of leopard seals: “Imagine a grizzly bear head on the end of a torpedo.” So of course I will be imagining bear-headed torpedoes all day. If I were a little kid, that’d be the coolest idea ever; even now, not bad.

According to Dan the PT, my progress is impressive in its speed and consistency. He complimented me on my “unusually analytical and objective approach”. That was nice.

On the bus home from PT I watched the bad habits of some of my fellow bus riders. Now I’d like to douse myself in bleach. One guy sneezed into his bare hand and immediately put it on a handrail. Another guy spent the bus ride alternating between rubbing his sniffly nose and gripping a handhold. Agh! Haven’t these people heard the pandemic flu predictions? Can’t they recognize that this is the time to learn to do a better job of keeping their germs to their own selves? Call me paranoid, but with my immune system as tweaky as it tends to be, I’ll be wearing gloves on the bus this fall and winter. Heck, I’d do it if only because of the ewww factor.

7 Responses to “PT day; use a hanky, people of the world”

  1. on 04 Oct 2005 at 11:56 am 1.mallard said …

    I don’t think it’s paranoid at all. The last couple of times I flew, I took a travel bottle of hand sanitizer and used it frequently. (And I didn’t get sick, which is sort of unheard of for me.)

    I like it that the UW Women’s Clinic has got masks for people who come in with coughs.

  2. on 04 Oct 2005 at 2:41 pm 2.naomi said …

    Yeeccch! There needs to be a public campaign to teach people to sneeze into their elbow.

  3. on 04 Oct 2005 at 3:53 pm 3.Cam Sculpin said …

    A couple of years ago I met Josh’s boss’s boss. He’s a nice guy, and usually a smart one. But he had just sneezed into his hand when he offered it to me to shake. Oh, great. What was I going to do? I turned pale and shook the man’s hand.

    Education. Yes.

  4. on 04 Oct 2005 at 6:13 pm 4.cissa said …

    What’s the vet doing in Antarctica? I ask only because I’m incredibly jealous…

  5. on 04 Oct 2005 at 6:44 pm 5.Cam Sculpin said …

    Penguin-wrasslin’, for one. He’s studied penguin chick health down there before. I wish I’d had a chance to find out more. Fun guy.

  6. on 05 Oct 2005 at 4:26 am 6.Rechercher said …

    A torpedo, huh? Well, maybe the baby one.

  7. on 05 Oct 2005 at 11:04 am 7.Cam Sculpin said …

    Awww. They’re so cute with those little smiles, right up until they lunge out of the sea and snatch researchers from their Zodiacs. And by “Zodiacs”, I mean “floating snack trays”.

    I looked through the fathoms of crystal water to the smooth rocks on the bottom. Suddenly an eight-foot leopard seal swiveled beneath the boat, surfaced to breathe, cut a fast turn, and began circling the Zodiac, around and around, underneath it and alongside. Each time it spun underwater, large blue air bubbles rose to the surface like jellyfish. Mouth open, baring its sharp yellow teeth, it lunged up through the water and bit a pontoon on the Zodiac. “Back away from the edge!” David Kaplan, our driver, said with contained urgency, and the twelve passengers leaned inward, away from the attacking seal, which could leap out of the water and seize an arm, pulling a person under. Circling, fast, handsome, wild, ferocious, it spun below again, dove, and leapt to the surface. It was attacking us as it would penguins on an ice floe. We who live at the top of our food chain rarely get the chance to feel like prey, to watch a predator maneuver around us with a deftness that’s instinctive, cunning, and persistent — and live to tell about it.

    – Diane Ackerman,”White Lanterns”

    Everybody was fine that day, but there has been at least one researcher killed by a leopard seal.

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