Another Grueling Day At The Beach

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Mark is on his administrative/relief week, which basically means he's the first person on call if another emergency doctor gets sick and can't come to work. The Kiwis aren't big on "toughing it out" when you're sick, apparently, since his work e-mail inbox is littered with messages every day about various doctors calling out sick. If he hasn't been called in by 3pm, though, he's pretty much in the clear for that day and can feel free to open a bottle of wine with Sherry or crack open a Steinlager...lol. It seems Kiwis in general aren't big on work, period...for Pete's sake, the MALL closes at 6pm, and the downtown business district is a ghost-town by 5pm. The nearest 24-hr grocery store is in Auckland, about 2.5 hours away.

Since today is Wednesday, that means it was conference day for the med students and "house officers" (basically interns and junior residents), which means it's up to the consultants (attending physicians) to cover the ED, so Mark had to go in to help out for a half-shift. Nothing too exciting today. He enjoys his walks home to decompress, and it's only about 15 minutes through a quiet residential neighborhood.

Sherry and Ronan went to Tay Street Beach (another beach east of Mount Maunganui) today. They picked up a boogie board on the way "for Ronan" since he enjoyed "surfing" on Luke & Aidan's so much the other day. All the stores have since sold out of "kiddie" boards since it's late summer here, so they were left buying a $100 professional-quality board that's nearly as big as he is...lol.

Sherry swears sand is a superb sunscreen for Ronan, and his persistently Casper-white legs back up her theory

Sherry's beach bum cam view of Tay St Beach and Mount Maunganui

Ro showing off his new "surfboard"

While playing with Luke & Aidan upon returning home, Ro seemed to get in quite a bit of trouble, at least according to the other boys. Sherry and Mark were trying to eat dinner, and found themselves besieged by a constant barrage of tattling. "Ronan is climbing the avocado tree! Ronan is walking under the trampoline while Aidan is on it! Ronan is climbing up the slide! Ronan is climbing on top of the playhouse!" All things which were apparently against the house rules, so to speak. Later, as they were running inside after watching some road construction vehicles rumble past the motel, Ro stubbed his persistently damaged toe, and Aidan ran out to us screaming, "Ronan's toe is gushing blood!!!" Decidedly underwhelmed, knowing what to expect by this point, we merely indicated to Ro that he should walk back to our room via the outdoor route instead of tracking "the gushing blood" through their house. As we expected, it didn't even amount to a trickle, but we wish Teva made steel-toed sandals, as he seems to re-injure it every day, and will probably lose the nail at some point.

Ro's toes are taking a beating, but he refuses to wear shoes

We spent a quiet evening at home setting up our new cellphones and playing the video game system. Sherry, who claims she was video-game deprived as a kid, has developed a love-hate relationship with Tetris, and Ro has discovered an affinity for Contra. All together now...up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start!


For the uninitiated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code