Doctored

Kaylee's "Spend $1,000,000 dollars" project needed a little tweaking, so she decided to drop the airline and fly the C-340 all the way to Russia.  I said "Honey, the 340 won't make it to Russia".  She said "YOU know that, and *I* guessed that, but c'mon, mom, nobody at school will know the difference."  So I looked up how many gallons of gas it would take for her to get from her home in New Jersey to Moscow, Russia, and she plugged that into her formula and flew herself to Russia and back.

All right, I'm done with the medical profession for awhile.  I'm official and legal and have my shiny new Second Class Medical in hand for the next year.  I've had my eyes checked three times in one week, among other things, so I guess I've made up a little for some lost time.  Now, if nobody minds, I plan on staying out of doctor's offices for some time to come.  Maybe not 12 years this time, but awhile.

I know I've said this before, but Dr. B is a sweetheart.  I don't say that about many people, especially adult men, but if the shoe fits...  He's just a very gentle, kind elderly man.  He's also a throwback to the good old days.  The FAA has forced him to do the online medical stuff now, and to get there he types faa.gov into his search bar because he doesn't know how to go up a little and type faa.gov into the actual URL/website line.  It's cute.  He left me alone in the room with the eye exam chart, which gave me too much time to learn the bottom line forward and backwards.  He was looking through my form and said "Your eyes are good" and I said "Not really that good" and he looked at me and frowned and said "Why do you have glasses on your shirt?  Just for reading, right?  For reading only?  Right?"  (Say all that in a heavy German accent.)  Maaaaaybe.  The near vision, he handed me the card and told me to read the bottom line and I couldn't even tell there were individual letters down there.  I laughed and said "I can't see that."  So he had me start at the top and move my way down, and as long as I squinted just right and used both eyes even when I was supposed to use just one, I got down to better than where I needed to be for 2nd Class.  So I passed the eye exam with flying colors, 20/25 both near and far on both eyes, much to his relief.  Afterwards, sitting at the computer, he had me look over his shoulder at the screen to make sure the information he had typed in there was correct--and I couldn't see it, but I didn't dare put on my glasses to look.  ;)

When he did the weigh-in, he clucked and said "You have lost weight since last year.  You see this?  You have lost (this many) pounds since last year.  You are doing great!"  He takes my blood pressure and says "Your pulse rate is very low, and your blood pressure too.  You must exercise a lot."  Yep.  We'll go with that!  Actually, both were a little higher than normal for me today.  I can slow down my pulse rate and a little bit my blood pressure if I can concentrate for a minute ahead of time, but his secretary was on the phone very upset at a phone company, for the whole hour I was there, in a very loud and upset voice, and it broke my concentration.  Oh well, I'll do better than 64 and 105/61 next time.  ;)  But if you want to feel good about yourself, just go to sweet Dr. B.  He will take the time to talk to you in a way that you can tell he actually wants to know the answers.  It's not mindless "I have to do this as part of my job" chit chat like I was talking about the doctor doing yesterday--he actually cares, and you can tell the difference.  I can't imagine him doing this for many more years-he is very old.  But I will be sad when he's done.  I can go to the examiner in town, who is a friend, but...with Dr. B when I forget that my medical is expiring until I need to get it done NOW, he can fit me in the next day.  Dr. W is a very busy man whose medicals go out months in advance, unless you call him directly and pull strings, which I don't think is a very nice thing to do if you don't have to, and lack of organization on my part shouldn't have to suddenly be a problem on his part.  Besides, I don't like friends checking my pee-in-a-cup or other such things.  It makes me feel weird.  ;)

I got back from my medical appointment in Indy in time to run home to do a couple quick things and then head right back out to Glenndale for a flight in the Champ.  It really was a pretty afternoon for it, and the first time I'd flown out of Glenndale or in the Champ for a couple of months.  The ground was a world of various shades of brown.  It didn't look like a grass strip, it looked like a dirt strip.  But the sun was bright, the sky was a pretty blue, and while the winds were a crosswind, they were light enough to not matter.  In other words, it was a lovely taildragger day.  After the takeoffs smoothed out, I found myself smiling each time the wheels left the ground, with the shadow of the airplane off to my right getting smaller as we climbed out.

The airplane is covered in dirt and mud--before we took off, I cleaned off the windshield because it was so splattered that you'd have had to look through all the dirt clods to see anything.  If Spring actually gets here, we'll get some water out there and clean it off.  But Spring is on a definite strike for now. Sunday we're supposed to get (depending on who you look at) between 6-12" of snow.  Yay.  :eyeroll:  But for this afternoon, this was nice.