I think EMS is a lot like baseball. It can be fairly slow-paced (boring, if you prefer), but it has its moments of excitement. You have your days when you don't even remember the calls you did they were so routine. Like in baseball, you can stand around all game in the outfield waiting for them to hit you a ball, and maybe on a typical day, you get a couple easy flys you can catch, or maybe a couple singles come out your way that you retrieve, and return to the infield with a crisp throw. Every so often you get a chance to make a spectacular play, and even rarer, you get a chance to make a spectacular play with the game and the season on the line. Same with at the plate, you bat your average for the season, and every now and then you get a chance to win the game in the last of the ninth, but that chance is rare. It’s a long season, and, just like in EMS, the trick is to stay ready on every play, never knowing when you will be truly tested.
The above, translated, means, its been pretty slow and non-exiting lately at the ambulance ballpark. Some days it is more like a six year old girl’s softball game than the major leagues. (In girl’s youth softball everyone bats and there are a lot of walks). (Today I’ve transported three kids from a school bus accident who had no injuries, a two day old fall and I did a dialysis transfer). The highlight of my days has been finding good things to eat. While I love a Fenway Frank as well as the next guy, after awhile regular ballpark food can taste pretty bland. One good thing about the city I work in is the food is varied, multiethnic and generally awesome. Instead of writing about calls, I have been collecting notes on restaurants. I found an excellent plantain porridge at Mr. Snapper’s on Albany Avenue last week for $2.50, some great crispy roast duck from the A Dong Supermarket on Shield Street, and later had the best jerk pork I’ve had outside of Jamaica at the Jerk Pit Café out north on Main Street just past where Windsor Street hooks back up with Main. Today, I ate the Bem Brasil Buffett on South Whitney for lunch where you pay $4.99 a pound for food. I had chicken simmered with potatoes, short ribs, rice with vegetables, and a fried stuffed green pepper. It was great. As soon as I’d finished, I wanted to go back for me, but by then we had been moved to area 16. I’m hoping later to get posted to area 10 where on the way there I can get a pizza empanada at Aqui Me Quedo on Park Street.
Oh, yeah, and I’m listening to the Red Sox on the radio right now. Unfortunately, they are down 4-1 early in the game and unless they get their act together in the next couple games, they are in jeopardy of missing the playoffs.
Heroics may be needed.
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Postscript: The Sox lost the first game of their double-header 6-5. They rallied to win the nightcap 18-9, and they remain two games in the wildcard lead. I did another transfer, a crash with leg deformity, and a shooting to the arm. The MVA and the GSW were stable enough to get pain management (Fentanyl) from me. I didn’t get to Aqui Me Quedo, but did get a most excellent Jamaican chicken patty (chicken in a light pastry) for $1.80 at the Golden Crust Bakery at the corner of Woodland and Albany.
