Heading this morning to the land of Laverne DiFazio and Shirley Feeney, to speak at the Wisconsin EMS Conference.

While I'm there, I'll be enjoying good food and beer, and trying to understand people with funny accents.

Y'all watch the place, keep the toilet lid up in case the dog gets thirsty, and make yourselves at home. There's Shiner Bock in the fridge, and plenty of Ho Ho's, potted meat and pickled quail eggs in the pantry.

I'll turn on the free ice cream machine again when I get back.

… on the death of my twin sister, I thank you.

Kim was a missionary in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, living and working at an orphanage and school there. Her friends told us that she had been swimming in the ocean near her home, and got caught by currents and drowned. Paramedics on scene were unable to resuscitate her.

I've been estranged from my family for a very long time, and Kim and I hadn't been close since we were children. But in recent years, I'd started to reconnect in some small way with my siblings, and through our older sister I learned that Kim had turned her life around, and devoted her life to God and improving the lives of countless children in South Africa. She was poor, she was uninsured, and she lived in virtual poverty, but she was happy.

And it looks like, in the last few years, she had found a way to make a difference. For that, I am thankful.

After we have time to get Kim's ashes shipped home and I have time to process all this, I'll write a post about my sister. We fought like demons and were bitter enemies for years, but there were good times, too.

I'd like to share some of them with you, to honor my sister.

Until then, thanks for your prayers and good wishes. They were very welcome.

I'm still in first place ( I think) in the 5.11 Tactical Adventure Blog contest, but there's nothing like piling on a few points to cement a victory.

Either go to the link Winter Wings on my blog, and Tweet it, or Facebook Like or Share it, or go here to 5.11's Facebook page and like the post yourself. Mine's the first comment in the queue.

Thanks!

I remember the person you were, and for that reason, we were not close. No two twins were ever less alike, or fought more.

But I will always regret never knowing the person you became. You overcame your demons and helped many others overcome their own, and I'm sure there are many children in South Africa who were richer for having known you.

Rest now, sister. You've earned it.

Regular readers of my blog and book know that my nose has been on strike ever since the Great Chicken Gut Call of 1994.

For weeks or months at a time, I have no sense of smell. My sinuses can be perfectly clear, I’ll feel perfectly fine, but if you blindfolded me and held a rancid skunk directly under my nose, the most I’d be able to manage is a vague, acrid hint of… something.

Not enough to identify as an odor, at any rate.

Invariably, my sense of smell abandons me when it might be useful, like when I’m trying to detect the odor of ketones on a diabetic’s breath, or the odor of alcohol metabolites that might tell me if my combative patient from the car accident might be drunk, or suffering from a head injury, or simply an asshole.

During such times, I have to rely on my partner’s sense of smell to detect those subtle clues.

Since it has been largely gone for almost seventeen years, I don’t much miss it any more. Not being able to smell is simply part of the landscape.

But every now and then, my schnozz decides to start working again, just to remind me of all the stuff I no longer notice.

Like necrotic decubitus ulcers.

Or body odor.

Or Toxic Sock Syndrome.

Or crack cocaine.

Or weed.

Or cigarettes.

Or urine and feces.

All of which I have smelled in various combinations in the past 48 hours, as my rebellious nose punishes me for one little insult seventeen years ago, but being hyper acute to all the stuff I don’t want to smell.

If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Olfactory Center, you can go dormant again any time now.

Overheard in a phone conversation with Matt G.

Matt G.: “… so the chick doesn’t act drunk, and I couldn’t detect any alcohol metabolytes on her breath, but she looks like she could be a medalist in the Illicit Pharmaceutical Olympics, and she’s doing the twitchy meth dance…”

Ambulance Driver: “Well, you know ingestion is sort of passé as a means of alcohol intoxication among the kids these days…”

Matt: “Oh?

AD: “Sure. There’s nebulized vodka, vodka-soaked tampons, red wine enemas…”

Matt: “I wonder what red goes best in an enema? A hearty Cabernet Sauvignon, perhaps a port?”

AD: “The sommelier offers you a packet of KY and opens the clamp on the hose for you…”

Matt: “I’d imagine the whole cork-sniffing ritual would have to be altered a bit, too.”

AD: “Should the wine breathe for a few minutes before you stick the nozzle in your ass?”

Matt:“I wonder how one goes about tasting the vintage and signaling approval to the sommelier?”

AD: “I don’t know, but that’s about as far as I’m willing to take this mental exercise.”

Okay folks, you did your part to make Winter Wings one of the finalists in the 5.11 Tactical Outdoor Adventure Contest.

Now I need you to put me over the top to win the whole thing. Daddy needs a new pair of 5.11 tactical trainers!

Just click on the link to the post, and hit the Facebook SHARE button at the top of the post, or the TWEET THIS button at the bottom of the post.

Or hey, both would be nice too. If you have Google +, pimp it there, too.

You get me a few hundred Facebook shares in the next couple of days, and I'll have some more tasty, tasy free ice cream soon.

I promise!