Happy Friday; GO, ZAGS!

Here we are at Friday again, and it's a ZAGS Game Day. 

Tonight they'll be playing another exhibition game at McCarthey Athletic Center, where they'll host Lewis and Clark State College.

And, this time the exhibition game will be televised.  YAY!

As is customary with exhibition games, the hosting team usually wins, but the contest also offers some early looks at team talent. 

And, the ZAGS are loaded with that, even more than last year.

Tonight's game will bring together the local family members today, plus Annie who flew in from Seattle last night. 

We'll celebrate birthdays, horse achievements and, of course, the ZAGS. 

We're all huge fans. 

So, it should be a fun evening catching up, eating and cheering on our team. 

~~~~

Yay, Marcia. You are definitely one of Sandpoint's many good souls. 

From Marcia Pilgeram, which she posted on Facebook yesterday:  

Go big or go home! Wanted to donate a turkey to the food bank. 

Found a 20# dandy! Might go back for more.

Please help others if you can, and donate to our food bank.

And, Jackpot! Many bake good items on sale at Super One til 8 pm.

Show some love to our friends at Bonner Community Food Bank.

BTW, this message is to Marcia. Bill talked with your daughter Ryanne while coming home from the airport with Annie last night. 

She'll be discussing her book about Dover called Pushed Out at a forestry-related conference in Moscow next spring. Bill's excited that she said yes. 

~~~~

Speaking of writing,  I want to introduce you to our friend Vince aka "Oskar Suf Suf."

Bill and I have gotten to know Vince and his wife Mary over our past three visits to Ireland. 

While in Kenmare in southwestern Ireland, we stay at the Rose Garden Bed and Breakfast, where Vince and Mary are the proprietors. 

Mary does the business stuff and serves the customers, while Vince, who's originally from Dublin where he once owned a restaurant, takes care of maintenance and serves as chef. 

On this visit, while talking to Vince and Mary, we learned that he had spent pretty much every day during Irish lockdowns writing under the pen name Oskar Suf Suf. 

Each time we stay at the Rose Garden or see Vince and Mary at PF McCarthy's fabulous restaurant in Kenmare, we remind them how neat it would be if they could come to Sandpoint sometime.  

Both enjoy the outdoors and kayaking, so we could take them on some adventures. 

In the meantime, Facebook will have to do in keeping up the friendship. And, twas on Facebook recently that I got a taste of Oskar's writing style.  

He's been posting daily installments of his experiences at Cork University Hospital where a few too many "roll-yer-own's," among other life-style choices  have driven him to needing some heart help.  

Well, Vince---oops, Oskar---has gotten much more than he bargained for in a hospital visit, and he has illustrated the experiences rather vividly. 

I asked him if I could post a couple of his installments, and he said it was okay, noting that readers need to know that he's cynical and opinionated. 

As a disclaimer, I must note that occasionally some "earthy" vernacular appears in his narratives.  So, if you're offended at such language, do not read. 

Otherwise, enjoy. Hopefully, you might even bust your gut a few times with glee. 

Read on, at your own risk, with Oskar, the Irishman, "telling it like it is."      

Mary and Vince run the Rose Garden Bed and Breakfast (pictured below) in Kenmare, Ireland.

Greetings and salutations from Cork University Hospital.

(This is a true story)

What a palaver!! Yes indeed, I, the invincible President of the Socialist Republic of Cappanacush am in hospital, at the mercy of the capitalist Republic of Ireland health system.

"How did this come about?" I hear you cry in despair.

Well, I'll tell you, if you want to know. Some would say bad living put me here. I would not concur. 

I would suggest good living put me here and now I have been diagnosed with a broken heart that needs fixing. 

Fun, joy, hard work, shenanigans, smoking, rambunctiousness, drinking, cream cakes, drugs, fine food, late nights, wine, etc, etc, put me here.

Day 1.

Firstly, I needed a PCR test, to be carried out at a disused military complex in Tralee. My good lady wife, General Secretary Mary "Dear" was to drive me and then onwards to Cork University Hospital.

The test itself was an interesting experience. We were met at the gate by a very tall soldier in combat fatigues (other than his Batman socks, which I assume were not standard military attire) and directed towards another, shorter, soldier. 

He in turn directed us through a large empty car park that had an assault course of traffic cones which we had to drive around until we ended up behind the aforementioned short soldier. 

Here we were stopped before being told to get in line with other cars that were queuing to drive into a large tent, manned by busy people in Hazmat suits.

Name, age, phone number were demanded and a packet of tissues, a couple of paper masks and a test tube containing an elongated cotton bud, all in a plastic bag, we're inserted behind the windscreen wiper. 

We were told to drive on through the tent and join the queue of cars waiting to enter another tent, also manned by busy people in Hazmat suits.

Name, age, phone number were yet again demanded (you know, just in case someone had snuck their car past the soldiers, traffic cones and barriers to jump the queue). 

Then, through the open window of our vehicle, I was instructed to open my mouth as wide as I could. The Hazmat person took the elongated cotton bud and banged it off my tonsils until I did an excellent impression of a cat puking it's guts up. 

Just when I thought the indignity could go no further, she removed the elongated cotton bud and shoved it up my nose until it was poking around somewhere behind my eyeball. (yes, the same elongated cotton bud, surely a health hazard in itself).

Slowly it was rotated, the Hazmat sadist counting down from 8. When the count eventually reached zero, she fixed me with a disturbingly demented glare and ( I kid you not) said, " I'm not going to stop until you cry."

 

I pulled my head away in shock and horror and was told that I would receive a text with the results the next day. I mean, who the hell recruits these people, Dr. Harold Shipman???

Needless to say, the whole procedure made my eyes water like the fountain in Galway's Eyre Square, and my nose suddenly gushed copious volumes of viscous snot. 

I was supposed to be able to drive like this. The tissues provided were not really up to the job and I suspect an entire king-sized bedsheet would not have sufficed either.

Keen to escape this torture camp, I floored the accelerator and shot out of the tent, slamming on the brakes when I unexpectedly made out the vague outline of the short soldier just in front of me. 

We waited for him to direct us towards the tall soldier with the Batman socks. He in turn directed us straight towards the gate and the incoming traffic. 

Chaos ensued as nobody could move anywhere. Traffic outside the gate was halted. Traffic inside the gate was halted. Tralee came to a standstill. 

Finally, with much waving of arms, aggressive military (and other) gestures, in a very high-pitched and agitated voice, Batman restored order to the snarl up.

Finally we got on the main road and headed straight for Cork.

Tomorrow, if you like, I shall regale you with more tales of indignity, probing and very bland food.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

 Greetings and salutations from Cork University Hospital.

Day 1, part 2

As we pulled off the motorway towards CUH, my phone rang. General Secretary Mary "Dear" answered it for me. It was the hospital wondering where I was.

"Yes, this is his wife, we're just pulling up now. Turn right, third floor? Yes, yes, ok, yes, ok, yes, yes, yes, ok, bye bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye."

"Why did you tell them we were here already?" I asked, somewhat annoyed that she didn't know the drill." Now I barely have time for two smokes before I go in."

Her eyes rolled in frustration, so I knew it was time to drop it.

We parked up and I whipped out my tobacco and rolled a couple of cigarettes, swiftly lighting one as I stepped out into the drizzle. 

Inhaling deeply I realised that I could well be very dizzy from the nicotine hit by the time I checked in. Sure, how bad, wasn't I at the hospital if anything went wrong?

A calm, authoritative recorded voice repeatedly announced over an outdoor speaker system that CUH is a non-smoking campus and that nobody should smoke anywhere near the place. 

Obviously all the people standing outside in the damp conditions, dressed in slippers and pyjamas couldn't care less what the robot said because they were all chugging away on smokes.

Suitably numbed by nicotine, we entered the building and took the lift to the third floor. There we were met by a chirpy middle aged nurse called Eileen. Among other things she explained that there could not be any visitors during my stay unless something went wrong.

" So you don't really want to be a visitor, do you now?" she said knowingly.

General Secretary Mary "Dear" and myself hugged and said our goodbyes and I was quickly ushered away by the efficient Eileen ( the first day at school is always the hardest).

I was brought into a room full of empty beds (newspaper headlines declaring "Hospitals Overwhelmed" are a slight exaggeration) and was told to sit on one while she explained what was going to happen. 

Now, having never in my life been a hospital in-patient, and experiencing a nicotine high after speed inhaling two hand rolled cigarettes, I wasn't paying much attention to what she was prattling on about due to sensory overload. 

Before I knew what was happening she was brandishing one of those elongated cotton buds which, as had occurred a few hours previously, she rattled around the back of my throat and then up through my nostril to the back of my eye. 

I really wish that they would stop doing that. 

In fairness, Eileen probably had warned me that she would do this as I wasn't really listening but I can assure you, I was not prepared for her next trick.

"Just one more test," she said with a glint in her eye. "Turn around."

Next thing I know my trousers are down and one of those elongated cotton buds is exploring my ass, a place I have up to this point only ever utilised to expel matter, not inserting foreign objects. Most uncomfortable.

"Thanks", she said.

"Bloody hell Eileen!!! Was it good for you???!!" was the thought whizzing through my head. I mean, first we were told Covid spread by touch (wash your hands), then it was airborne (wear a mask), now what? 

You can spread it by farting? Truly, we live in dangerous times.

After filling out some forms and taking a reading of my blood pressure (which I would imagine was quite high due to recent events), all the while chatting to me as if our most intimate of moments had never happened, she asked me if I wanted to have a bit of supper.

I agreed and soon afterwards she returned with something contained within a large pink rubberised ( oh behave!) cloche. 

I slowly raised the lid to reveal the hidden treasure.

Ah For Fuck's Sake!!! After what she put me through?

Even a dodgy priest would have treated me better.

On a plate, surrounded by pools of condensation, sat a brown lump, topped off with what looked like seagull guano consisting of a pallid yellowy white dry crusty layer. 

Throughout the brown coagulation were interspersed orange and green bits and the whole structure seemed rock solid. 

Classic hospital Shepherds Pie. 

Looking at the cutlery, I doubted that they were the right tools for the job, a heavy duty Kango hammer springing to mind as a viable alternative.

Now, I do understand that hospital food is supposed to be healthy, lacking in seasoning, especially salt, for those of us in the cardiac unit, but nobody deemed it necessary for the chef to take an advanced course in producing indestructible building material that has the aroma, texture and taste of vegan arse-biscuits.

I mean, come on, where's your professional pride and self respect you overpaid, HSE employed slurry pusher???

Nurse Eileen smiled benignly at me, "They have a bed ready for you in the Cardiac Unit as soon as you're finished your meal," her hands clasped together proudly.

"I'm finished, thanks," I replied, bits of dry vegan masonry sputtering from my mouth.

I was led into a ward where my bed was ready. For the next while I had various doctors and nurses of various nationalities stick needles into my arms, draining me of blood, pulling down my eyelids, looking at my ankles, each wanting to know my age, name, phone number etc.

Tired and traumatised, I fell asleep.

Tomorrow, if you like, I'll tell you about the crazy shouting man down the hall, and how the system is all about the carrot and the stick.

Thank you for your time and understanding.