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June 24, 2005
Midnight, and not at the oasis
After 45 delightful minutes on the phone with a patient man in India, I am posting from a hotel in Seekonk, MA. From the sounds of it, legless nocturnal monsters are dragging themselves up and down the hall in front of my door. The overall situation is very "mockumentary of a small-town serial killer", where the hapless female traveler checks in solo to a seedy roadside place and never shows up for the free continental breakfast, if you know what I'm saying.
Tomorrow I am looking at houses with a loud woman named Louise. The jury is out whether Louise and I are going to hit it off, but what we are going to is spend some intense time together traipsing through strangers' homes and deciding if they are worthy of me uprooting our entire lives for.
On the plane ride here, I had the pleasure of sitting next to the National Handwashing Expert. At first, I was skeptical of such a claim but it turns out she has degrees in microbiology, cognitive behavioral studies, and food safety. Guess what, people? You aren't washing your hands enough, and the bird flu is going to kill us all because of it! Thanks a lot! She said research shows that almost 50% of all deaths in hospitals were preventable, caused by viruses and bacteria introduced AFTER the person had checked in for something else like rat bites, and that over 60% of hospital staff don't wash their hands often or well enough.
You can read all about her very cool project, Germ City, that educates people about this stuff here.
If you learn nothing else from this blog, please remember this: wash your cantaloupe. E.coli thrives in their textured skins, which rest on the dirty, dirty ground, and then you cut them with knives and it gets on the flesh of the fruit and then you eat it and die.
More tomorrow, with pictures of houses posted by very clean hands.
Posted by Max at June 24, 2005 05:26 AM
Comments
I thought I sensed a distrubance in the Force! Welcome to the East coast! Good luck with the hunt!
Posted by: Robbie at June 24, 2005 03:39 PM