A waiting game

I am waiting in a large room at a medical complex in northern Nevada, waiting with the others here at 6 a.m., older women and a few men in blue jeans or poofy nylon pants. A toddler wearing pajamas with large orange slippers.

Tropical fish drift back and forth peacefully in a gigantic tank.

I wonder aloud how often the big tank needs to be cleaned. At home, I have 50 gallons of algae-infested water that’s home to an aging angel fish, a golden gourami and a large prehistoric-looking slime-sucking thing. Entropy happens.

My husband tells me about a friend who spends an hour a week cleaning his tank.

“My fish would be happy if I spent an hour a month cleaning their tank,” I say.

“An hour a month? For you, that’s ambitious,” he says.

He’s scheduled for surgery (bye, evil gall bladder) at 7:30 a.m. This adventure will include waiting in one surgical cattle stall with another dozen or so patients, joking with kind, competent nurses and worrying about a crying adolescent nearby—"I don’t like surgery! I don’t wanna!”

While we wait, I get a glimpse of health care’s scary future.

“Hi there, James,” a nurse greets a patient nearby. “Or do you prefer being called Jim?”

“I’m Brandon,” the man replies.

I am waiting for my daughter to audition for a spot in a youth orchestra. Other parents line the halls of Galena High. One music instructor recounts the story of a tax-phobic Assemblyman Don Gustavson, R-Sun Valley, who’s telling constituents to “send donations” to the government, since many are so dead-set on raising taxes. Guess we’ll be sending donations to

opposing candidates during the next election cycle.

A mom tells me her husband’s views on the school district’s devious plan. Apparently, he shares the idea that school administrators are using cuts to music and athletics to rouse parents into fighting for education funding. I’ve heard this line of reasoning a few times this week. (See RN&R, 15 Minutes on page 30.)

Could be we’re being played like violins by the Washoe County School District’s Board of Trustees, who just want to rip off taxpayers so they can flush more money down the textbook toilet.

The Nevada Assembly Ways and Means Committee on Monday approved an increase to the increase in state spending offered by Gov. Guinn. The committee gave a thumbs-up to $139 million more in spending than the governor’s proposed budget, which already contained an increase of millions, on top of covering a $700 million or so budget deficit.

The good old legislators will have to pick a tax package that’ll support this new spending. State governments must balance budgets. They cannot beg, borrow or print more money, as can the feds. No entropy allowed.

“As unpopular as voting yes on taxes might be, interviews with legislative leaders and lobbyists show that lawmakers will ‘bite the bullet,’ as they say, and do exactly that,” writes Ed Vogel at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. If you enjoy receiving government services, like schools and roads and cops and regulation of the health care industry and art events, this is good news.

Cynical me. I’d planned on being let down by our state’s elected officials. We’d already envisioned a possible RN&R cover for the 2003 legislative finale. Skid marks were to be featured prominently.

I am waiting to see what will happen in Carson City. Wondering, hoping.