No, Mom, I didn't forget.

I promised Mom I'd post the gazpacho recipe I've hoarded for years, then promptly forgot to do so. Here, then, with no further ado:

Extremely Lazy Gazpacho

Peel four vine-ripened tomatoes. Toss them into a blender.

Blend until relatively smooth.

Chop up one or two peeled and seeded cucumbers (depending on size), a red bell pepper, and a clove of garlic. Add some red onion if you'd like.

Salt and pepper the vegetables well. Pour the tomato puree over them.

(I'm assuming that you'll put them in a bowl, not just dump liquid tomatoes all over the counter.)

Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime juice, and dried thyme or fresh basil to taste.

This will keep for three days, no more, in a Tupper in the fridge.

Further Catch-Up

I've discovered what's wrong with the healthcare industry, at least in part. We have two prn (as-needed) nurses working for us right now. Both have regular jobs as long-term travelling nurses. They both get paid about twenty-three bucks an hour to work with us--that's our going rate.

James makes $45 an hour as a traveller, plus he gets a $1400 monthly housing allowance, tax-free. His company matches his retirement contribution up to ten percent of his paycheck.

Cathy makes $55 an hour, no housing allowance, as a traveller. Her insurance is completely paid for and covers both her and her husband. Her prescription benefit is ten bucks for generics, fifteen for brand-name drugs.

Both of them have worked at the *same hospitals* for the last eighteen months as travel nurses. In other words, the hospitals have been paying God-Only-Knows how much to the agencies that employ James and Cathy to have them work there, rather than expending the time and energy necessary to find their own, permanent, slightly cheaper nurses.

If it didn't mean working for a hospital that had its head up its ass, I'd be a traveller in a second. Well, that and strike-breaking. I don't like the idea of scabbing.

Girly Product Reviews

Been a while since I've done this, and I have four new things that will never leave my medicine cabinet.

Giovanni Cosmetics Wham Jam in Mint. Also sold under the name Whammo! Mint:

It comes in a six-ounce jar, has the consistency of Dippity-Do, and smells of mint. Strongly. You can use it as a shampoo and soap, to shave with, as a foot soak, whatever you'd normally use soap or shampoo for. It's wonderful stuff.

Unlike most multi-purpose soaps, it doesn't leave weird sticky goo all over your hair or body. It's not drying, and it's not as intense as undiluted Dr. Bronner's.

Neutrogena Instant Nail Enhancer

Eeeh. Whatever. It's nice, I guess, for when you're not working, as it tends to fade away after three or four handwashings. The pros are these: it really does dry instantly, it's not nail polish but it leaves your nails looking buffed and pretty, and it doesn't require chemicals to remove.

Just don't put it on too thick or you'll end up with weird booger-like things where it wears off.

ProLinc Cuticle Away Cuticle Remover

This is the strontium-90 of cuticle removers. If you have nasty cuticles from overexposure to chlorhexidine scrubs, this is the stuff for you. One caveat: follow the instructions to the letter, or it'll eat your nails right off. But you do, if you follow the instructions, end up with nicely manicured hands. It even makes Chef Boy's hands look good after a week of cooking and working on his car.

Neutrogena Deep Clean Face Cloths

Supposedly you can control the amount of exfoliation you get with these suckers, but I've not discovered how, yet.

The little washcloths come in a plastic box, thirty to a box, which seems to me to be an excessive amount of packaging. You could, however, use the box later to make a mini-first-aid kit or to carry a salad to work.

One side of the cloth is excellent for removing major facial landscape markers like your nose or lips. The other doesn't do much. They're impregnated with Deep Clean, a salicylic-acid cleanser that foams when you wet the cloth.

I'm using them to scrub my hands and feet and finding them fine for the purpose. I probably couldn't use them daily on my face without ending up like the Terrible Trivium from The Phantom Tollbooth: no face at all.

Mrs. Malaprop In The HOUSE!!

Three things from yesterday:

A nurse who wrote report on one of my patients jotted down that the patient had a "double loomin" subclavian line.

Another nurse, giving me verbal report on a patient, mentioned that the patient was in for an "exasperation" of multiple sclerosis.

A third nurse showed the deepest recesses of her psyche by saying that a MUGA scan was meant to show the "ejaculation fraction" of the heart.

Of course, I was the one who walked into a patient's room with a syringe of morphine in hand and cheerfully announced, "Here's your marijuana!"