Stealing again

Stealing a MEME from Karla who stole it too. Aww yeah!

A - Accent: I've actually somewhat of a vocal chameleon; at its roots my accent is midwestern, but there are liberal doses of Boston (Baw-ston) and Houston thrown in. With a little bit of lowland Scots.
B - Breakfast: Not so much. A latte, at most.
C - Chore you hate: Mopping. When employed as a camp counselor, I used to do Whippets to get over the pain of mopping. When I worked at a coffee shop, I would offer to clean the fridge (which was truly truly nasty - ask anyone who've every worked food service, they'll tell you!) to get out of mopping. Now I have a machine that mops. Mildly better.
D - Dad's name: B. Clare. Don't ask me what the B. stands for.
E - Essential everyday item: Coffee. Or maybe toilet paper.
F - Flavor ice cream: Ben & Jerry's cookie dough - yum.
G - Gold or silver? White gold, platinum or silver.
H - Hometown: St. Louis, MO
I - Insomnia: Not often. With my schedule, I pretty much sleep whenever my head hits the pillow.
J - Job title: Pedatric Resident.
K - Kids: Not yet - check back later.
L - Living arrangements: Townhome in one of the funky areas of Houston with my man (yes, I'll go girlfriend!), two cats and 20+ fish. And no, they don't eat each other. Well, the fish eat other fish, but the cats generally leave anything outside of the Felis silvestris catus alone. Unless, of course, they find a cockroach or a lizard. Them's good eats, damn it!
M - Mom's birthplace: Georgia or Michigan - honestly I'm not sure!
N - Number of significant others: I've loved three men - one with unrequited long distance passion, one with late teenage puppy love and one I'm still married to.
O - Overnight hospital stays: None yet. Reference K for future plans.
P - Phobia: Heights. I'm really trying to get over this one, but so far no go. George Bush.
Q - Queer?: No, but it would have been nice in college.
R - Religious affiliation: Atheist. I didn't go running back to 'God' when my dad died, so I figure that the athesim is going to stick.
S - Siblings: None by blood. I've known my best for 'round about 20 years, so we count each other as sisters.
T - Time you wake up: Next month 6am. Argh. But still civilized. Anything before 5:30am isn't civilized.
U - Unnatural haircolors you've worn: Blue, purple, red (think fire-engine), pink, yellow, blue.
V - Vegetable you refuse to eat: Beets. I don't care if they are a natural source of sugar - they're nasty.
W - Worst habit: Forgetting to pay bills. Bad bad doctawife. Bad doctawife.
X - X-rays you've had: Dental (4 views), chest (2 views - showed viral process vs. RADE), right foot (three views with an obvious 5th metatarsal fracture ~ 4cm in length)
Y - Yummy: Coffee, risotto, my bread, beef, martinis, Wendy's crack nuggets, sushi, La Strada
Z - zodiac sign: Sagitarius, or Fire Dragon by the Chinese system. If I had been born in China, they would have left me out to die. Females aren't supposed to have that particular sign - makes 'em too aggressive.

Go figure.

20$ Chucks!

And I don't mean chux, the lovely blue disposable towel of medical fame. I do mean Chucks, as in sneaker goodness. And for once, I really do love eBay.

Now, the coolio pink and black two tone Chucks may look very similar to the ones I have. But lo, beware young Jedi, for they are not. The tounge - it will be pink! And anyway, my current set of Chucks are downright sorry. The rubber piping is peeling from the side and the whoel dang pair is just dirty. DIRTY I tell you!

Now, I could have just bought it now for $23, but I stuck my neck out and put in a bid. I ended up winning the auction for $10 + $10 shipping - viola! $20 Chucks. Magic, I tell ya, magic!

Meat, Martinis and Career Changes

Last Saturday we threw the party I've been talking about for the last several posts.

There was meat. There were martinis. Many, many martinis. I learned many things at the meat and martini party:

- vodka is always more popular than gin
- one juicer just isn't enough
- folks just don't quite know the definition of meat

Per Wikipedia - Meat is animal tissue (mainly muscle) used as food.

I haven't figured out why defining meat was so hard. In our invite, we used the phrase, "red meat and dry martinis". Extrapolating from the phrase, I hoped people would assume that 1) cow based meat would be fine 2) anything else red and meaty would work. For example - venison, duck, horse, etc. Pig, of course, would be acceptable. After all, it is the magical animal of legend!

But damn, hubby and I got loads and loads of questions regarding the nature of meat. Did salami count as meat? How about roast beef? How about pork loin? Would meatballs be acceptable?

I mean please people - YES!

Anyway, on a totally different tangent, I've come to realize that my original career path was total shyte. This is good, 'cause I won't waste three years of my life on training I won't need. This is bad, 'cause I had my little epiphany about nine months too late. So now I have to find something to do for the next year of my life while I apply to the right fellowship program.

Argh.

Holy crap, the house almost feels like its ours!

So we're throwing a party. A really big party.

And I've been working on the house nonstop for what feels like forever, but has actually only been about three weeks.

See, when we closed on the place a year ago, we got going. We busted our ass. The place had no light fixtures, no gas, no electricity, a crappy white tile island in the kitchen and was NEON YELLOW throughout. It was like walking into a dark, ugly jaundice ward. By the time we moved into the place, we had power, gas, a new stove (the old one stank of gas - very bad news), a steel kitchen prep table to replace the island and a coat of paint over about 70% of the walls.

The problem is, we completely stopped working on the place once the furnature was in place. Nothing happened. No painting. No unpacking.

I've lived 12 months without seeing my favorite paperbacks. Now that's lazy.

Oddly enough, the first bought of frantic productivity lasted about three weeks. Interesting...

But now that we're having a party, we've actually gotten a bunch of stuff done. I know I was skeptical earlier... We've exceeded my expectations. I've unpacked my paperbacks. The CD racks are on the wall. 90% painted. All lights above the kitchen working.

Holy shit, I might just faint... but at least now I'll have a nice sissel rug to fall on.

Ingenuity

The US Army - as a unified group - might not be the sharpest tool in the shed.

But the individual soldiers, now they are something else. Check out this article and see what I mean.

I especially like the last paragraph, which I'll just copy below. The Capt. is talking about Iraqi insurgents...

Commanders say insurgents are adept at hiding their work and improving their bombs. And they are quick to learn.

"All the stupid ones are dead," said Capt. Jamey Turner of Baton Rouge, La., a brigade commander in Beiji.

House

So I love this show. House just rocks. Now, there are some things that are really really wrong with the show.

But it does some things just so freaking right.

The things that the show does right include - well - the fact that it will actually consider the process of decision making. Most shows just let the viewer leap to the
correct diagnosis along with the TV doctor. In real life, doctors make a list like anyone else. Then we check our list twice. And try to figure out what fits and what doesn't. Even better, through the course of the show, the patient - and his or her symptoms - evolve. In medicine, there's an idea called 'watchful waiting'. Basically, we shove the patient in the hospital and wait for him to 'declare himself'. That means we wait for the disease to make itself known; we wait for the patient to evolve. This is a good thing 'cause we don't treat the wrong disease, and the patient is in a safe place, a place where the docs can act in an instant - and fix the actual problem.

(By the way, patients hate watchful waiting. They haven't read all of the warning labels on the meds.)

There are bad things about the show. No 'juniors' sit around in a glass office, no simple differentials (the fancy name for those lists) and no narcotic addicted geniouses rule. And for Pete's sake, the differentials don't take as freaking long to develop as the show represents.

So watch House, and think about lists. But not about time.

I am the Mistress of IKEA

So we're having a party. Hopefully, a really big party with lots of red meat and dry martinis.

But there's a catch - we moved into the new place in March 2005. Why is this a problem? Weeeell, we never really finished moving into the new joint.

Oops.

So now that we're throwin' a really large shindig, we gotta get our asses in gear. Hubby has made a Microsoft Project Gantt chart outlining what we hafta do in order to create a actual 'put together' home before the par-tay. Get this - 6.5 hours per person per weekend day + 3 hours per person per weekday.

Hah!

I'm skeptical. Then again, we really want to throw an excellent Meat and Martini party. And today, we did make our goals.

We woke up early, went to the awesome Ace Mart Restaurant Supply Company and IKEA then assembled not one, but two pieces of IKEA furniture. Meanwhile, hubby slapped a second coat of paint on the bedroom doors and started on the other random doors on the first floor.

Now, the division of labor was natural. I rule at IKEA assembly. I've put together so many damn IKEA items it's not even funny. Seriously - our place is 80+% IKEA. And the stuff that isn't IKEA, well, about half of that we wish we hadn't bought. The rest is from Ace Mart.

I never said we were normal, just that I am the MISTRESS OF IKEA!

I'm baaaack!

And I've already been working. Vacation was great, so of course I had to segue from that to the ER. Aww yeah.

But good came of it. I haven't been enjoying work much these last couple of weeks, but suddenly during my ER shift I realized that I was really having fun.

I was moving and grooving and treating and streeting and man I felt pretty satisfied with my life. So, life plans change. Next year I'll be applynig for a pediatric ER fellowship. So I have to figure out what to do next year.

But it'll all be good. I feel much better about the life plan now - it just feels much more right.