BLOGGING ON LOGGING

About 70% of my job is waiting. Waiting in the waiting room to go back to visit the doctor. Waiting in the back office to catch the doc between offices. Just the waiting for those two events comprises the bulk of my day. (The rest is made up of driving between offices. Only about 2% of my work day is actual conversation with the people I set out to talk to.) While waiting, you get to know the office walls pretty well (as I illustrated in my previous post regarding antiquated birth control).

Yesterday, I was waiting for a physician (and waiting and waiting—to the tune of 35 minutes, which you may snigger at, as it’s not uncommon as a patient to sit in the waiting room for 45 minutes and then in the patient room for another 30 before you get a 10 minute conversation with the doctor, but think of waiting for 35 minutes, standing, and in heels with a big heavy sample bag to deal with while you do you best to say out of the path of staff and patients), and while I waited, I moseyed to look at a framed sepia photograph that I’d noticed before but wasn’t brazen enough to wander over to look at. From a distance, the 2’ X 4’ photo is of a few tree trunks, but when you get closer, you see that it’s a logging photo with two tiny lumberjacks in the bottom of the picture, demonstrating just how large those redwoods are.


The caption at the bottom of the photo reads

LOGGING THE REDWOODS.
EXCELSIOR LUMBER CO.
EUREKA, CALIFORNIA.
1904.

I was in the office to snap a photo of the doctor for our newsletter, thus had my camera handy, and thought my mom and Janeen would appreciate a look at this picture for themselves after our lumberjack discussion last week.