(no subject)

[layla]

I saw the season's first butterfly today. Actually two of them, a pair of viceroys (a monarch butterfly mimic -- we don't have monarchs here).

Looking back in time, I checked last year's late-April LJ entries to see if it's just my imagination that the snow is melting slower this year, and, well ... see for yourself.

Last year on April 30, this is what the yard (and environs) looked like:





And this year, the same general areas look like:





Sigh ...

I spent all day Saturday in a certification course for CPR, first aid and AED (defibrillators). As well as, obviously, being potentially useful, it was quite interesting and I now have all manner of source material for horrible things to do to my hapless characters.

Comments

[divalea.livejournal.com]

Man, you guys live...in Alaska. It's so far out of my experience!

Good for you for getting the cert! As you might expect, you never know when you'll get to spring into action. I saved my daughter's life (when she was about 20 months old) because I knew what to do when she choked, when everyone else was turning white and pointing.

Do they teach now to Heimlich someone who's been drowning, before blowing air into them, to clear water from their lungs?

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

GREAT for you on saving your daughter!

They didn't teach us to do that (the Heimlich on drowning victims). Doesn't mean I might not try it, if I was ever in that situation, because I'd generally thought you were supposed to, but they didn't teach it. Actually quite a lot of things have changed since I learned the basics in high school, such as when and how often to do chest thrusts vs breaths. And I wished they'd had more hands-on and less videos -- we did spend some time down on the floor practicing, but also a lot of time watching videos. The really interesting parts were where the second paramedic would come in and start talking to the one who was teaching the class, and we'd get all kinds of interesting information that wasn't in the official Red Cross training materials.

[jammielynn.livejournal.com]

what did youdo the class for? i used to be a flight attendant, and i loved doing that course every year. our instructors were way fun when we did the AED part... because so many people don't know what it's like to REALLY use one.. so many other factors come in to play. Hopefully you never really need to use one. it's way scary.
anyhow... good day!

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

It was for work. It wasn't required, but they like to have at least one person in every department who's CPR certified, and ours didn't have one (at least nobody with a recent certification). And it turned out to be quite interesting! I hope I never have to use anything I learned, but it's always best to know, and it answered a lot of questions I'd wondered about but never knew the answers to.

[allanharvey.livejournal.com]

Presumably first aid is just that little bit easier in Alaska though. I mean, if someone's having a heart attack and there's no qualified personnel or technical kit around, you just stick 'em outside and they'll be perfectly preserved until help arrives...