moonlighting

Yesterday I got a somewhat disturbing e-mail from Dad. "Did you know that Brother-in-law broke his leg?" B-i-l is a stay-at-home dad to my one and only niece, and my sister works the insane hours of a resident physician, so Dad came down for a couple of days to rake the leaves and do some laundry and heavy lifting.

And here I am now, too, wanting to be useful. As it turns out, they gave him a leg brace instead of a full-leg cast, so B-i-l has some limited but useful mobility and I'm not technically "needed." But everyone is on their best behavior, which in this constellation means an awful lot, so things are going smoothly so far. Plus, my sister gets to play matchmaker and that always makes her a bit giddy.

But it's a different world out here. Sis and B-i-l are ensconced in the hospital universe, and it shapes and punctuates their lives. Anecdotes, hobbies, even those metaphors tossed casually into everyday conversation are all colored by patients and diseases and pathology and the occasional discovery of eccentric piercings in a routine physical.

Residents work insanely long hours - it's a cliche, but no less true for it. And my sister and her resident friend (the potential Romeo, as it were) talk about the new "privilege" they have as second-year residents: they are allowed to moonlight. Permitted to work even more than the slave-driving schedule would demand. At first, it seemed a bit crazy to me, the uninitiated.

But then they told me how much their skills are worth. And suddenly moonlighting seemed awfully practical.