Destruction of a tree

So I took down the Chridma tree today. Hubbie was sad, since he didn't get to participate. I was sad because I like having the tree up. I learned several things while dismantling the tree:

• there's always a missing ornament.
• no matter how well I think I'm wrapping the lights, I'll still have a mess to unwrap next year. And yeah, this year I thought I'd wrapped things pretty well.
• the tree is always lighter on the way out.
• the tree is always messier on the way out. How many needles does a noble fir have? Ask my floor.
• the water in the tree stand? Yeah, it's nasty. And smelly. Beware.

Next up is New Year's Eve. We're throwing a formal, black tie, sit down dinner. Unfortunately, a large portion of our friends haven't GROWN UP and learned how to be on time. So they get punished - no filet mignon for them! (If any of them are reading this, I'm serious. You late, you no get the meat.)

People are dumb

I worked a 12 hour shift yesterday. Here's a list of what constitutes a "pediatric emergency" on Christmas day:

• Fever - I had lots of these. Only about 1 in 5 of these children were actually sick.
• Constipation - Again, are people stupid?
• Congestion - Just blow the damn kid's nose.
• "My butt hurts" - This one eneded up being real, but only because the child developed intractable vomiting while waiting to see me. Her butt was fine.
• "Spider bite" - These are almost always real, since in H-town a 'spider bite' is actually an abscess. And I can fix those.
• Broken arm - I can't fix those myself, but I can give your kid the good drugs while the orthopod fixes it.

The first three made up the bulk of my patients, took up the bulk of my time and made me renew my confidence that most people are, truly, stupid.

Dailies

So I'm not doing so well on this daily posting bit, am I? I'm sure all the other daily bloggers are just as busy as I am, and they seem to do just fine. Dave, however, does have the unfair advantage of an iPhone; the handy device allows him to post from anywhere. Then again, he was a daily poster long before his beloved Apple gizmo was invented. So no excuses for me!

Today I finally finished by Chridma shopping. Chridma consists of all of the commercial and social aspects of Christmas without any of the Godly bits. Carols are fine... as long as they couldn't also pass as hymms. Decorations are fine... as long as the baby Jesus is no where to be found. Big lavish family meals are fine... as long as no one says grace. Gifts are freakin' great... as long as I don't have to 'give thanks to God' for my booty. I'll happily give thanks to the gift giver, instead. Usually in form of smooches, since the gift giver is almost always my hubbie.

He does such a good job with 'dem presents. I'm staring at a stack of them right now and I can't WAIT!

Sorry

So I missed yesterday. Shoot me. We had the annual office party yesterday, and fun was had by all. It was, however, a very strange party. I always see all of these people in scrubs or at least white coats. Party clothes made everyone almost unrecognizable. One of my buddies commented, "If I hadn't seen you, I would have thought I was at the wrong party."

Other strange things:

• The boss didn't show up - at all. What's up with that? The boss doesn't show up to the department party - that's weird.
• Child Life can boogy down. I mean, seriously, the girl has moves.
• Research assistants + orderlies = near sex on the dance floor... at an office party. Can we say, not good for the career?
• Drunk doctors are funny. 'Nuff said.
• Drunk nurses are even funnier. It's like a college frat party, only better, 'cause the floors aren't sticky.

EMSTAT

I don' t know how clear I've been in the past about where I work; I actually have two job sites. I work at the Big House and the Community Hospital. The Big House is a large tertiary care children's hospital while the Community Hospital is a tax payer funded county hospital. On days like today, where I worked yesterday at the Community Hospital and today at Big House, the differences seem pretty stark.

Yesterday - porn computer. Today - the system that helps us track patient location went down. Of course, our system outage coincided with a huge bed crunch and flood of new patients. It was like everyone wanted to get his kid checked out before Christmas, but didn't want to see the pediatrician during shopping hours. Very frustrating.

ComPuterMachine

I could have sworn that I'd blogged about this before, but I can't find the post. And I'm too lazy to keep on looking. So there's this computer at work - henceforth known as the porn computer - with no firewall protection. Which is good, 'cause the firewall protection at the community hospital is so strict as to be debilitating, but bad, because, well, no firewall = no protection. I always feel like I've having sex without a condom when I use that thing.

Recently, I've noticed the porn computer getting slower and buggier. So I stopped checking any accounts that need a password from that machine. But I didn't stop using it for patient data. Inconsistent much? I think so.

I feel pretty stupid, since I didn't catch my own inconsistency until tonight. Then I ask myself if I would be comfortable having my personal health information accessed from the porn computer. The answer is clearly no.

But there isn't much I can do about the porn computer. The hospital IT department has tried to replace it several times, but the doctors working the ER will literally sacrifice body and soul to keep the thing around. We all know that if it gets fixed, we won't have access to YouTube, NBC.com programming, the pediatric clinical adviser, or any of the other stuff we've come to rely on. So what to do?

I dunno, but I've decided I'm not using the thing at all. At least that way I'll be consistent.

Daily Posting

I've decided I'm an all or nothing kinda gal. Either I never post (as any reader will have experienced) or I post all of the time. (again... as any reader...)

So I'm going to attempt to post daily. What will I write? I have no clue. The slant of the blog may end up medical, it may end up personal, or it may be a recipe a day. I kinda hope it ends up being a-recipe-a-day blog - that would mean I'm cooking most days. Which would be good.

Or I could just talk about the TV series Heroes. DVR is a beautiful thing - we're
only just now catching up. Hiro rules, Peter rules, Adam... not so much. Screen Writers Guide strike must end so I can see how this tangle ends! So say we all.

St. Louis Food

Amazingly enough, I've been more impressed by St. Louis food than Houston food. And I think I know why. Houston doesn't have many one-off, unique and mid-priced restaurants. Sure, we have multiple cheap, ethnic joints. Sure, we have tons and TONS of mid-priced regional chains: Pappas, Landry's and Goode Company. But how many restaurants like Benjy's? Not that many, and really not that many inside the Loop.

In contrast, I went to three fantastic, mid-priced yet geographically close restaurants during my recent trip to the Gateway to the West. One, Remy's, has been around forever. Farotto's has the best pizza ever, and I've been going there since I was born. The quality has never wagered, and I swear half of the teenage population of Kirkwood has worked there. And then there was Acero. Acero is in a region that used to be known as "Maple-hood" instead of Maplewood. Acero serves the best risotto I've ever had outside of Italy. Acero served three people three courses including a NICE bottle of wine for about $100.

Oh yeah, I ate well in St. Louis.

If it weren't for Tapatia Taqueria, I'd be sad to be home.

Mother, mother...

can you hear me?

Yup, it's that time of year again - time for the annual trip up north to visit my bat shit crazy mother. This visit is going fairly well. What do I mean by well? Let me tell you!

• She hasn't interrupted my shower. Last year she barged in on my naked white ass to ask if she could use the computer. Why did she think she needed to ask? I might be using it, of course! She knows my mad telekinetic skills were surfing the web from the comfort of the shower stall. So nice of her to ask.
• No yelling!
• No discussion of her medication! She's on Forteo, which is used to treat osteoporosis. As you can see via the link, Forteo requires daily subcutaneous injection just like insulin. What you might not have noticed is that the stuff requires refridgeration between 36-46 degrees Fahrenheit... a fact my mother ruminates about ENDLESSLY. When she's traveling, all she can think about is the temperature of her med. Leaning Tower of Pisa? Who cares! The Forteo is 47 degrees! Disaster! If I thought I could get her off of this crap, I would do handsprings of joy.
• No discussion of 'the Market.' Mom seems to think that by closely watching the stock market and following its every twitch and twiggle, she'll miraculously make more money. Since we pay a financial management company obscene amounts of moolah to manage her moolah, her input is, shall we say, teenie-tiny. She can go on an on about how badly the economy is failing... even when the NYSE is having a good year. Thankfully, right now she's so depressed about the market she won't say anything at all. Hooray for recessions!
• We've only had the same conversation about five times now. Usually by this point in the trip, i'll be up to 20 or 30. So we're doing well.

I've sucessfully survived more than 24 hours. I've got about 36 more to go... wish me luck, peeps!

iTunes meme

Yes, yes, this is a tired meme. No, I don't care. Take that!

How many total songs?

3398 items, 9.4 days. I say 'items' because I have a lot of audiobooks, continuing-medical-education stuff and podcasts. I listen to all of this stuff and I rarely listen to music in the car anymore. Without the spoken word component, my iPod isn't worth mentioning.

Sort by song title - first and last...
a. Dodo - b. Lurker by Genesis and 500 by Lush.

Sort by time - shortest and longest...
(Four seconds of noise) by Hot Hot Heat (a song four seconds long - how appropriate!) and Trigger for Happiness by Machines of Loving Grace at 30min 12sec. Just FYI - the second shortest song on my list is thirty minutes and four seconds long. Apparently I attract long songs.

Sort by Album - first and last...
Abacab by Genesis and %$&@^ by KMFDM

Sort by Artist - first and last...
A-ha, then Young MC. Quality, people, quality.

Top five played songs...
You Know My Name by Chris Cornell, Mad World by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules, Up to the Roof by the Blue Man Group, Calling You by Blue October, and All My Life by the Foo Fighters.

Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 10, Death: 9, Love: 130, You: 347, Home: 19, Boy: 57, Girl: 38.

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle...
Three Days by Jane's Addiction, Hail to the Bop by Meat Beat Manifesto, Jambi by Tool, Emeritus Sleepus by Green Day, Truth is Out of Style by MC 900 Foot Jesus.

The Community Hospital Strikes Again!

My shift started at midnight. As I'm walking toward the copy machine to photocopy some kid's insurance card (yes, I know, not my job, but hey, when you want something done...) I pass by traige and notice a pale, limp, bluish-grey infant breathing fast and grunting.

Oh ho, say I. What's this?

The lovely triage nurse replies that the patient had just checked in, but nothing else was known. We share a look. That look held all the knowledge and experience of all our previous shifts together. On a higher plane, we commune with the universe and come to a mutual, unspoken and instantaneous agreement.

Smoothly, we both move to the shock room. She sets up the pulse ox, I reach for oxygen. Our little baby is only getting 85% of the oxygen he needs. Orders are written. Without much ado, we get the IV. Wonderous. Fluids start, labs are sent. For once, everything flows like a river flows toward the ocean, smoothly and easily.

We decide to intubate. Medications appear, respiratory techs arrive. My resident easily slides the tube into the trachea. Glorious, glorious.

I have never had a code go so smoothly here at the Tub. I wonder how I'll be made to pay.

Productivity

Not gonna be an exciting blog post, but I just gotta scratch my own back. By the time I go to sleep, I will have:

• Created the menu for Thursday. (Sorry for not consulting you, hubbie! Love you!)
  
• Done most of my shopping for my Turkey Day Food Fest and Friday's Green Bean Extravaganza.
  
• Cleaned out my work e-mail account. I took that biatch down from 8 pages of largely unread email and spam to two pages of work-only, non-spam, fully-read content. Hah!
• Worked an 8 hour shift.
• Re-read at least some of the articles associated with my research project.
• Had dinner with friends.

Take that, procrastination. My therapist would be proud...

Best Roadtrip Bathroom Award

I hereby nominate Buc-ee's for the Best Roadtrip Bathroom ever. What makes this pot spot so great? Let me list the ways:

• The bathroom are so clean I'd eat off the floor for $5.
• Location doesn't matter - each Buc-ee's is just as nice as the last.
• Each stall has a toilet seat sanitizer dispenser screwed to the wall. Just a little of this gel based substance and some toilet paper, and your ass will never come in contact with nasty poo-based germs. Brilliant!
• I've never had to ask the lady in the next stall for more toilet paper. Buc-ee's either has really diligent staff or they've discovered the fountain of TP. I don't know which is true and I don't care.
• The automatic paper towel dispensers actually give a usable amount of toweling. No going back for a second piece - who woudda thought?

Even though I just said that consistency is one of the key's to Buc-ee's success, I do have a favorite location. #17 in Luling is awesome. Not only are the bathrooms huge, the rest of the store is a destination in itself. You can get beef jerky, made-as -you-wait deli sandwiches, Texas-style home decor, your usual junk food, basic car repair supplies, large charcoal grills, hunting blinds and deer corn. And no, I'm not kidding about the last three offerings. Anyone on IH-10 between Houston and San Antonio must stop here. It's seriously worth it.

Pseudoseizures

Now people, this diagnosis is a pain in the ass. Pseudoseizures are events that look like seizures to non-medicos. But, guess what, they aren't actually seizures. The kids fake it. They might night mean to fake it - they're acting out against intolerable stress - but basically they're hamming it up.

Not a popular diagnosis. Picture this converstation:

Me - The EEG was negative; no seizures were seen. Your child had three events during the EEG. Therefore, given the normal EEG, your child is having psuedoseizures.

Parent - Does that mean she's doing this herself?

Me - Yes. She isn't doing it deliberately, but the jerking movements she makes are essentially voluntary.

Parent - ^%$#&^%( *&(&^$^%$#^%%(*&^*&% $&%^$# %$#EWS FGBVFGVB OIU^T*&^%# @$#EWQ@RE#$^%

Yeah. It goes just about that well.

It just sucks. If someone has abnormal, seizure-like movements during the EEG, but still has a negative EEG... seizure disorder has been ruled out. Period. One cannot seize without abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Period.

And teenagers are bad at faking. For whatever reason, kids with pseudoseizures always sort of twiddle their fingers during the 'attacks'. Let me tell ya, people seizing DON'T waggle their fingers in the air. Nor can they walk. But really, it's the finger twitching that gets me. Where do they get this stuff?

BoSox Win the World Series!

Time: 2pm the day of game 4

Setting: Streets of Houston

Me: walking out wearing an old Red Sox t-shirt with "5 Garciaparra" on the back

Random guy: "Wow, that shirt is awfully popular right now." (Looking at the front of my BoSox shirt.)

Me: "Good thing I've had it since Nomar actually played with the Sox." (He left the Sox in 2004. I've probably had the shirt since about 2001.)

Guy: "Oh."

I hate stupid boys who assume females cannot be genuine sports fans. I hate Houstonians who think that the Red Sox Nation is made up of people who don't actually follow baseball. I hate anyone who thinks that I'm a freeloading fanboy type.

Go Sox.

Now for the off season - the Astros are going to suck, 'cause the management doesn't have its shit together. The Red Sox will probably be alright... provided they sign Lowell.

Enough of that, though. The Sox won the World Series, I got to see two (2!) games at Fenway this season, I saw Papelbon and Dice-K pitch, and we threw an awesome Halloween party last night. Life is good!

Okay, why I want Clubhouse Champagne Shower Coverage

Johnathan Papelbon did his nearly trademark celebration dance on the field at Fenway Park tonight. He eventually got one of the guys from the Dropkick Murphy's to join him.

How much did I want to see that? Uh... a LOT!

Stoopid TV. Stoopid living in Houston.

We WON, beotches!

First off, go BoSox. I missed the first three innings 'cause I was working at Ye Olde Community Hospital. Four vomickings, six snotty noses, one huge mass of armpit puss and one possible case of juvenile arthritis (the saddest and hardest of all the diagnosis listed by far) later, I was sitting in BW3's* watching my boys put together a lead.

After one super fast trip home, we finished watching the Boston Red Sox sail into the World Series. Such a good game. It was a vastly closer game than the score would suggest. At the end, the announcers served us the usual bullshit - blah blah blah, trophy presentation, blah, blah, blah, the ALCS MVP award. Even though Josh Beckett deserved the MVP, I think the award should have gone to The Rookies. All of 'em. Pedroia, Matsuzaka (okay, only a rookie to American baseball), Ellsbury, and even Buchholz (who hasn't played during the post-season as far as I can tell, but did pitch a no-hitter earlier this year) should have split it; they deserved the MVP. Without Pedroia and Ellsbury, we would have lost tonight's game. And without Matsuzaka and Buchholz, we wouldn't have gotten to the playoffs. But anyway, what I really wanted to see was the post-game player celebration as it happened. Crimmeny, we have 300+ stations, couldn't some alternate station skip the bullshit and let us watch the Clubhouse Champagne Shower?

No, apparently not.

But who cares? BoSox in the World Series! Whoo!

On another note, I told a lie in the last post. My husband did not score us a BMW wagon. He had the choice between the sedan with a sports package, which includes a stiffer suspension and better seats, or a wagon. He picked the package. I'm disappointed, but I have a sneaky suspicion that once I drive our car with the sports package I will change my mind. I don't really care, since the whole deal will only last a grand total of two years.

Later bitches. Go Sox!

* Buffalo Wild Wings used to be BW3's. I've never been able to get used to the new name. Sue me.

New Car

I've been a bad girl. No posts for weeks and weeks! Plenty to talk about now.

Hubbie and I went on the world's longest four day vacation evah. On Thursday, it felt like Wednesday had actually occurred a week ago. By the time Sunday came around, Wednesday felt like the previous summer. Seriously. The California wine country was astounding.

We traveled with my friend Steve, his sister and her friends. Everyone was younger than us - Steve's only one year younger than me, but you wouldn't know it by the way he acts. He's in, shall we say, a transitional period in his life. And that transition apparently requires a lot of lubrication with alcohol.

Steve's mental age is about 25, and everyone else was pretty much fresh out of college. Hubbie and I felt like the elder statesman and the matriarch of the trip. At one point, each of us ended up sitting at the head of the table staring across this great expanse of wood, lording our age and wisdom over everyone else. Or something like that. We did end up organizing more than 50% of the trip - but only because neither one of us has the patience to sit around and play the, "Oh, I dunno, whatever you want to do is fine..." game. We're too old for that shit.

We're also DINKs - double income no kids - so we bought a LOT of wine. Beautiful chardonnays, a merlot I actually liked and truckloads of pinot noirs. We bought more wine than I honestly know what to do with. I can't wait for the packages to arrive!

I guess I should talk about the title of this post - New Car. We bought a new car! A Beamer! (See the DINK thing, above.) We had thought we'd be sensible with perhaps a new Volkswagon GTI. Sexy, fast and five doors - sounds pretty much perfect. Then the evil hand of advertising intervened. BMW has a lease deal on now advertising a 3 series for about $350 a month. Yes, there is fine print and no, no one really actually gets the car for $350 a month. But the idea of a BMW would just NOT go away.

And somehow, Hubbie negotiated a deal. We're getting a 328i wagon (!) with a stick (!) for about $60 more a month than the VW. Five doors! Wagon-y goodness! (I love me a good wagon. I like the large carrying capacity, fast wagons are cool since no one expects speed from a wagon and sticks in wagons are just sexy. Sorry, they just are.) We won't get the beast for six weeks... but I can wait!

Bioshock Empty Box

Just went to Circuit City to get my first ever Xbox 360 game. Our new console came this weekend, and we've been playing all of our regular Xbox games to death. But no actual Xbox 360 games.

In comes Bioshock. Widely touted, well reviewed, awesome demo. Couldn't wait. So off we went. I was so excited that I started unwrapping the game out in the car on the way home.

Glad I did.

There wasn't a disc in the box. Sealed package, security tape at the bottom fully intact, "Xbox certification" seal slightly ragged, but no game. Huh? U-turn and head back to the store.

Get this - every box of the game in the store (a grand total of three) was completely disc-free. We got our money back (thanks, Circuit City) but it still miffs me. Is someone down in Mexico (where the discs are pressed) taking some off the top? Is there someone along the supplier chain that's handy with adhesives stealing the discs and then repackaging them? Is Microsoft acting like evil record companies of old, and inflating its numbers? The latter seems unlikely, since the game is selling like hotcakes and geeks everywhere are screaming its praises. If this was a widespread problem, I would have gotten more than a solitary hit on my Google search. So I don't think that whoever is pulling this scheme is working a large operation. Something small scale - a couple of dudes somewhere.

To those dudes - you suck. I wasted part of my life driving in circles for no reward because of you. I hope that you're happy with yourself, assmunch.

What's for dinner?

Do you ever make yourself such a great dinner that you wish you took a picture of it?

I did!

The Menu:

Roasted Rack of Lamb with Tzatziki Sauce
Roasted Red Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus
Fig with Honey and Beecher's Flagship Handmade Cheese

The roasted rack of lamb was an adaptation of the recipe in the incredibly useful The Gourmet Cookbook edited by Ruth Reichl. I love this tome - more modern than the Joy of Cooking, but still very good about including adequate instruction with each recipe. The tzatziki recipe I stole completely shamelessly from Alton Brown. Goodness, do I love that man. So smart, so funny, so science-y. Together, the combo was luscious.

The roasted asparagus is the easiest thing in the world, and we've been doing it for so long I don't know where I got the recipe from, or even if it was me. For all I can remember, Chris found/stole/modified it. Basically, get some asparagus, wash them and cut off the tough bottom stems. Toss with Kosher (or sea) salt, fresh ground pepper and olive oil. Preheat the oven to 400F and cook for somewhere between 3-5 minutes per side.

The fig dish is also easy. Buy some good figs, wash them and then slice them into eighths. Crumble cheese on top, then drizzle with honey. Yum!

Notice the emphasis on roasting? That's to make the most of the hot oven. The flow of the cooking process went like this:

• Preheat oven to 400F
• Trim excess fat off of the rack of lamb, then divide into sections of three ribs each. (Note: lots of cookbooks recommend 4 ribs per person. That's too much. Three is plenty.) Rub lamb with salt, pepper and olive oil.
• Quarter small red potatoes, rub with salt, pepper and olive oil then place in 9x13 glass dish. Set aside.
• Preheat skillet to brown lamb. Heat the skillet (preferably cast iron) until hot but not smoking.
• Prepare asparagus as above. Place on cookie sheet.
• Sear each side of the lamb - about 3-4 minutes per side.
• Toss lamb (fat side up) into dish with potatoes, then insert meat thermometer. Toss whole dish into oven.
• Set meat thermometer to go off at 130F.
• Do nothing for about 20 minutes.
• When the lamb is done, check the potatoes. If they aren't done, take the lamb out to rest and return the potatoes to the oven. Meanwhile, the cookie sheet with the asparagus gets to join the roasting party.
• Roast the asparagus as above, while the meat rests at least 5 minutes. Slice figs, cheese and drizzle honey.
  
• Slice the roast into single rib slices, plate and serve!

Since pretty much everything goes in the oven, life is easy. While I was doing everything outlined above, the hubbie was making the tzatziki. Divide and conquer, baby! The key to the tzatziki is getting proper Greek yogurt. Then you don't have to do the

Place the yogurt in a tea towel, gather up the edges, suspend over a bowl, and drain for 2 hours in the refrigerator.

bit. Totally skippable.

Anyway, I'm back from the bad place of the last post, and I shouldn't have to go back for another 3 months or so. Thanks for the kind thoughts.

Help

It's worse.

I'm going nuts.

FUCK!

Good day, bad day

Today was somewhere in between. So today, since I'm not good enough to put together a funny paragraph, but I'm not bad enough to totally ignore the blog, I declare today a Bullet Post Day! Horray!

• Interns say stupid things. For example, today the surgery intern told the attending, "Oh, I missed that. I wasn't paying that much attention." For shame, doctor. For shame.
  
• There is a baseball player named "Nook." He plays for the Nationals.
  
• My cat likes to chew my hair clip. When I don't wear the thing, he'll leave the back of my head alone. Somehow, the addition of plastic to the back of my head makes it a prime target for chewing, leaning, rubbing and nudging. Yargh!
• The Astros sorta suck. Makes me very sad, but there it is. We'll go to a few more games, but our season is over. Next year, peeps, next year.

Okay, so there were only 4 bullets. Too few to be a good post, but not bad enough to erase. Eh - I guess that's just the day I've had...

Wild Pitch

Hah! It's always fun to watch an 'ace' implode.

As long as the pitcher in question is not the ace of YOUR team. For example, I'm thoroughly enjoying watching Fernando "K Rod" Rodriquez totally lose it. So far, he's allowed a run on a wild pitch (BoSox now two runs down), a double to David "Big Papi" Ortiz allowing 2 runs (game now tied) and a double to Manny Ramirez allowing one run (the go-ahead run! Yay!)

On the flip side, watching Brad Lidge progress from "Lights Out" Lidge to "Maybe It's a Bit Dim in Here" Lidge to "Who Left the Lights On?" Lidge was really painful. Luckily, Lidge seems to be recovering.

Hopefully, K Rod will continue to suck. Yup.

Silliness, Tron and Wargames

Did you know that some of the best movies are the ones about old technology? Well not really old - not 19th century old. Just older projections of where technology would go. For example, the all-seeing war simulator in Wargames (aka the WOPR, pronounced like the Burger King sandwich), the MCP in Tron or the super silent Caterpillar Drive in the Hunt for Red October. I mean, really, who moves a huge several ton vessel through the water with sound? Really!

(Brief aside, if a submarine could actually be propelled by sound I apologize. It does somehow seem to be the most immediately plausible of the above options...)

But people, watching Wargames is still huge fun. The learning computer - what could be more prescient? Not to mention the young Matthew Broderick. Drool... Tron? The sketches of the proposed cycles are engaging, and Jeff Bridges is The Man. Hunt for Red October has the super-yummy Sean Connery. Oh yeah, and Alec Baldwin before he got chunky. Yummy yummy to the tummy tummy!

Oh yeah, and did I mention Tron? The Bit! Yes yes yes yes yes... The Users are a myth, baby.

Sweep!

The Astros swept the Cubbies today. The best part of the whole game was the shit-eating grin on Roy Oswalt's face as he struck out Zambrano for the 3rd time. The dude doesn't show any emotion most of the time (except extreme intensity, of course) and he busted out with this grin that could not be stopped.

So cute.

Anyway, I've been neglecting the blog. Bad me. No excuses - I just let the thing slide. I've had plenty of ideas to write about, and maybe that was the problem. Too many ideas. Back in June I was gonna post pics of the baseball trip. Then in July I was gonna write about the beach house. Then later in July I was gonna write about my research, and then earlier this month I was gonna write about how crazy it is to look forward to visiting my in-laws but dread visiting my mother.

And so on.

It wasn't just my blog that I was ignoring, either. I wasn't reading other blogs. Not my invite-only blogs, not the lesser-known public blogs, and not the hugely popular famous blogosphere types.

You could say I dropped out. Now I've re-enrolled. I guess. Check back next week and see if I actually meant what I'm saying now... heh.

Retarded

In Houston, MRSA accounts for 60% of all the S. aureus in town. For those not in medicine:

1. MRSA = methicillin resistant Staphlococcus aureus = very bad bacteria that can kill you if not treated properly.
2. MRSA will not be killed by the old school antibiotics like Augmentin, Keflex, etc.
3. Good pediatricians should know the above information.

But hey, if you're not from around here, or didn't train around here, the MD might not know. Fair enough. However, ONLY A RETARD gets mad when I alert you, as the primary pedi, about the above facts.

Hey buddy, if you wanna get sued (and/or kill the patient) 'cause you're too proud to listen to some FRIENDLY ADVICE that's not my problem. I'm still gonna admit your patient, treat with appropriate antibiotics and disregard anything stoopid coming out of your mouth. Don't yell at me. I'm just trying to help.

Yummy to my tummy

Recipe for tonight's meal:

Vinaigrette & Greens

- 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar
- 1/3 cup avocado oil
- generous tablespoon tarragon
- two generous tablespoons minced shallots
- one smallish tablespoon dijon mustard
- three large fistfuls of mache (a type of green)
- two large fistfuls of spring mix greens
- two generous tablespoons of minced chives
- one medium tomato, cut into chunks

Shrimp & its brine

- 3/4 lbs deveined, but not peeled, shrimp
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup kosher salt
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups ice

Crostini

- a dozen or so cripsy pita chips
- goat cheese

Make the vinaigrette by mixing the first five ingredients in an airtight container. Shake vigorously and set aside. Wash the shrimp, then place them in a plastic bag along with the sugar, salt, water and ice. Shake to mix, then set in fridge to brine for 20 minutes, shaking to remix about halfway through.

Meanwhile, wash, dry and mix the mache and the spring mix. Toss with the chives. Then spread the goat cheese on the pita chips. Spread the chips on a baking sheet, goat cheese side up.

Once the shrimp have brined for 15 minutes, preheat the broiler and broiler pan on high. When the shrimp have finished their brine, rinse and then thoroughly dry them with paper towels. Pull the broiler pan out and spread the shrimp over the pan. Return the pan to the broiler for 2 minutes. Flip the shrimp, then broil for another minute or minute and a half. Replace the shrimp with the pita chips. Watch carefully! After about 90 seconds, the goat cheese will have melted and the chips will be browned. Remove the pita chips from the oven and set aside.

Toss the salad with several tablespoons of the vinaigrette and the tomatoes. Separate into bowls. Peel the shrimp and arrange on top of the greens, then add the pita chips.

Enjoy!

Hold music

Note: this a post I started months ago. I was going through my posts creating labels, and decided to finish it.

There are few things worse in life than hold music. There are many varieties: easy listening, informative, piped-in radio music, classical. But do you know what's worse than hold music? No hold music at all. Then you have to keep checking the phone's display to make sure that they dumbshits on the other end haven't hung up on yo ass.

I'm a GENIUS!

Sometimes, work is just funny. Medicine takes a lot of training, but sometimes it's the simple stuff that patients really appreciate. Example:

Adolescent girl carried in by her parents after a fall. On exam, her right patella is waaaaaaaaaaaay out of place. If the proper place for a knee bone is earth, this sucker was having a picnic on Pluto. Luckily, reducing a dislocated patella is easy: put medial and upward pressure on the patella and then flex (bend) the knee. Pop! Right back to earth. So I reduced her dislocation, causing this child to scream, "Yeoow! (Pause) OH MY GOD, you're a GENIUS!" Needless to say, I was very gratified. Until the entire department started teasing me about my Einsteinian status. It doesn't help that I have a button on my badge that labels me "Jenius". Heh.

I love my job.

Two a day - kitchen style

I've come across a meme I can't resist. Without further ado - the kitchen meme!

In the kitchen with... doctawife

Variety is the spice of life.
In my cupboard, I have this many spices: Two drawers worth, plus the revolving spice rack on top, PLUS the four kinds of salt I have around: sea salt, kosher salt, regular table salt and pink salt I picked up in Napa Valley.
Rack or no rack? Both. We used to have two racks in the old apartment, but the new place is more of a drawer kinda joint, so we've retired them. Except for the revolving rack mentioned above.
Alphabetize? Um, no. The salt is kept next to the cooktop with the oils and tongs, the popular spices are in the top drawer, and the revolving rack holds some of the marginally useful stuff. Definitely no A-Z order.
Which spice do you use most often? Fleur de Sel. Or is that Sal? Anyway, it's fancy French sea salt. I love it.
Which recipe? Ooooh. I just made a fantastic dish inspired by the Indian subcontinent from one of the Food and Wine cookbooks. I love me the Food and Wine - so hard to go wrong.

It's like the pot calling the kettle black.
Coffee or tea? Coffee
Do you make coffee at home? Yes. We have at least five different ways to make coffee around here: French press, drip machine, Bodum weird vacuum kettle, espresso machine, ebrit, and probably something I can't remember.
If you make tea, loose or in bags? Loose. But usually only when we want something decaf.
How many kinds of tea do you have? 2 or 3, mostly herbal.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
I use my stovetop: I used to use my stovetop almost every day, but then I started working again. Since hubbie and I are both gaining weight, I (we) need to starting cooking for ourselves more. Even when using heavy cream, I think we do better calorie wise eating at home than when eating out. And I love my stovetop - five burners of joy...
I use my oven: Whenever I'm baking bread, a chicken or a pizza. Yummy stuff, but the darn thing definitely needs cleaning!

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Soy or cow? Organic Cow all the way! So yummy, and the expiration date is always light years farther away than the non organic stuff.
Skim or whole? 2%. I used to be a skim kinda gal, but I've come to love whole milk in my coffee. My compromise? 2%.
How many gallons a week? Less than a 1/2 gallon. Really, it's just around for coffee and the occasional sauce. No glasses of milk here... Well, unless peanut butter is involved. Then a glass of milk is a must.

Three items in my freezer (right now):

1. home made chicken stock
2. pasta
   
3. home made ground beef
   

Three things in my fridge (right now):

1. St. Arnold's root beer
   
2. St. Arnold's Lawnmower
3. Yummy leftovers from that Indian inspired dish I mentioned earlier.
   

Item I am most chagrined about: The lack of fresh produce. I want to cook more, damn it! But I can't if the fridge and pantry are bare. Grocery store, here I come!

Item I bet noone else has: A pressure cooker. And yes, I use that sucker all of the time. How do you think I got all that home made chicken stock when I work crazy doctor hours? I don't have time to wait around for stock to simmer! 30 minutes in a pressure cooker and I'm done, baby. One of the best inventions ever, I tell ya!

Prostitutes

Now, I've never understood why the world's oldest profession is illegal. If I give it up for free, no problem. But if a guy or gal charges for it? Horrifying! Is sex for money really that bad? If regulated, wouldn't the government make money hand over fist? Wouldn't both the johns and the whores enjoy a safer environment? It's just sex. Not coke or heroin or pedophilia - just sex between consenting adults with a pre-existing cash contract. Sounds kinda like a premarital agreement if ya ask me. A very short term marital agreement, but hey, some folks just aren't that into commitment....

And if prostitution was legal, my biggest pet peeve about my 'hood would go away: the transvestite hookers. Why would they go away? These 'gals' would have some regulated indoor space in which to work... NOT the street in front of my townhouse! I have slowly started to hate these 'ladies'. They bring thoroughly unsavory johns into my area, decrease my property value and worst of all make me feel unsafe. I just got off of a 6p - 2a shift after driving our third car to work. Why does the fact that I drove the 'third' car matter? 'Cause it is the car we park on the street.

Dumb move.

I had two 'lovely ladies' try to proposition me as I parked my car. I was just PARKING not angling for a blow job. (Or whatever the female equivalent would be.) But nooooo, the 'ladies' had to saunter over and make me wanna crawl outta my skin. Luckily (?) they both got picked up before I was ready to get out of the car.

Yeah, I felt real safe. Then again, I'm the dumbass who drove the car that needed to be parked on the street at 2am.

Note to self: next time drive the car that gets parked in the gated garage. Duh!

Baseball!

Provided that my brudder-in-law is home this weekend, hubbie and I will be seeing the Boston Red Sox at the Ballpark at Arlington. As a member of the Red Sox Nation, this is a huge deal. I've so missed my boyz! Manny, Ortiz, Wakefield, Varitek.. They all make my heart go pitter patter. The new guys, who are becoming my boyz as I watch more and more baseball on my nifty cable package, (more on that later) aren't shabby either. Even if one of them is named after a breakfast cereal.

It's gonna be a good year for baseball. Check this out:

• We've been to at least six, maybe more, Astros games so far this year. There have only been 23 home games. That's better than 1/4 of the games! If you knew how crazy my schedule was, you'd know how remarkable that is.
• We're doing an east coast baseball vacation! Baltimore Orioles x 2, New York Yankees x1 (It's just for the stadium, people! Calm down already...) and Boston Red Sox at Fenway x 1.
• We bought MLB Season ticket on cable, so we're watching insane amounts of 'ball on the boob tube. With this nifty package, we can watch every game being shown on a given night. (Unless the evil TV gods have decreed that There Shall be a Blackout. Stoopid MLB and TV execs. I hate them.) Every night at 6pm, when I'm home, I go trolling for Red Sox games. If the Sox aren't on, I'll wait a hour and then go looking for 'Stros games. If neither team is on, I go looking for CSI. (Mmmm... Grissom.) I mean, really, who wants to watch the Rockies when I could be looking at hot Las Vegas Action? Who?!?
  

Hubbie and I just figured out TONIGHT that we could actually make the Red Sox game in Dallas. We're so excited. I really hope his brother is gonna be home. If not, I might just have to pony up the money for a hotel room Saturday night before the game...

Local food

I've been tagged by Karla over in Norway. This is a good thing, since I've been neglecting this blog o' mine. Bad doctawife, bad! (Side note: I found out last night that when hubbie refers to me at work, he almost alway says Dr. Wife. Not my name, or my other name (yeah, yeah I have to different given names, and only one of them is on my birth certificate, what's it to ya?) or even doctawife, but Dr. Wife. How weird/cool is that?)

So I'm supposed to list everyone whose done the meme, and then tag five people. Here's the problem, folks - I don't know five other bloggers. At least not five other bloggers who read my site. I think I top out at three. And two of those three have already done the meme. So I guess I'll just consider myself a dead end and hope the Gods of the Intarweb don't get me. But here are the previous posters:

• Velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
• LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
• Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
• Olivia (London, England)
• ML (Utah, USA)
• J (California, USA)
• CuriosityKiller (Hong Kong, SAR)
• Shelli (Minnesota, USA)
• Bluepaintred (Saskatchewan, Canada)
• Avitable (Florida, USA)
• Diana (Singapore, Singapore)
• Karla the Texpatriate(Oslo, Norway)

With no further ado - My Favorite Five Local Eats!

1) The Roving Mexican. These noble souls are men and women who walk, bike and drive around to various Houston bars and sell drunk idiots like me tamales. For six US dollars, I can buy one dozen delicious, hot, fragrant meat tamales. That's enough to feed the table! And, usually, the Roving Mexican also throws in a little tub of spicy green sauce. Good eats, people, even when you're the designated driver and are therefore sober. (My apologies to any tamale people who aren't Mexican but are instead Guatemalan or Nicaraguan or Houstonian. The Roving Person-of-Hispanic-Descent-or-Just-Someone-Who-Makes-Really-Good-Tamales just doesn't sound as good.)

2) Benjy's. Good chi-chi nouvelle cuisine. Unfortunately, I haven't been there in many moons. I talked to someone who ate there last week and she said that the service wasn't very good and the food has slipped. I REALLY hope that's not the case, 'cause Benjy's has been my only source of reliable fancy goodness. There are other fancy restaurants in town, but they either cost a LOT more or the food isn't good enough to justify the price. (Which, by the way, is something I hate. If I'm paying $20 a plate, I want the food to be better than what I can make at home. This is a constantly moving target, since my cooking continues to improve, but we always knew I was a demanding bitch.)

3) Dolce Vita. The best damn pizza in Texas. Yeah, it's fancy-pants pizza, but it is darn good. The wine list doesn't suck either - a nice spread of prices and everything on the list is solid. Sure, the $30 bottle won't necessarily knock you speechless, but you won't feel gypped either. (Man, 'gypped' sure is a racial slur, ain't it? I hadn't really put that together until I just spelled it out. I guess that's the last time you'll see me type that word...)

4) Any Vietnamese restaurant near Milam between Francis and McGowen. Can we say pho? I sure can. This entry actually accounts for three restaurants. One is great at beef pho with egg noddles, one is great for bo luc lac (garlic beef sauted in butter - LOTS of butter) and one has awesome seafood egg noodle pho. Ya can't go wrong in this area... as long as it's Asian food yer wantin'. What can I tell ya - even the signs are in Vietnamese!

5) London Sizzler. This is NOT the place to go for great service or fast eats. The kitchen is sssllloooooowwwwww. Think slug. Or better yet, think glacial. Hubbie and I have joked that we wish we could call ahead with our order. That way our food might be ready twenty minutes after we arrived. But for good Indian food, the place can't be beat. The biryani is awesome, so is the butter chicken and the paneer. Hot yummy naan. Drool. But trust me folks, get an appetizer. Otherwise you'll go a little crazy while waiting. Trust me, it's happened. And it wasn't pretty.

WRROooooooowwww

Houston Grand Prix 2007. The American Le Mans series. Cool, actually innovative cars going ripshit fast for two hours and forty five minutes. The race was preceded by hours and hours of ancillary activities - celebrity go kart racing (predictably enough, a Shuttle pilot won), driver signings (I got my hat signed by all four Audi drivers) and more junior racing series races. Hubbie and I went for all three days and got pit passes for the Champ car race today.

Now, let me tell you what my problem with Champ car races - one company makes
all of the engines. Likewise, one company makes all of the chassis. Where's the innovation? No incentive exists to push technology further in races like these. Bah, humbug.

Give me the ALMS! Each team has a different ride using different technology. And the technology makes a huge difference. Audi runs a twelve cylinder diesel. (Diesel! In a race car! How cool!) Mazda has run a rotary Wankel engine in the past. Acura (Honda) just entered the series this year - and unfortunately they beat the Audi team. My boys - Dindo Capello & Allan McNish - came in third. The second Audi team came in something like fifth.

Anyway, I loved the races. Fun fun fun! Some pictures below:


The Audi drivers. From back to front - Allan McNish, Dindo Capello, Emanuele Pirro & Macro Werner.
The diesel Audi (aka the TDI) and the Acura. The Acura eventually won. Bastards. The TDI is eerily quiet - like a whisper compared to everything else out there. It reminded me of a ghost... gliding by on a whispery cloud of air. So cool.


The Corvettes were the meanest sounding machines. Meaner than the Panoz, who took the cake last year. Last year's Panoz still sounded cooler than the 'Vette - deeper, angier, more thuddy.

Pit lane as set up for the Le Mans series. See, the gas caps were on the wrong side of the car for the Houston race. They're on the correct side of the car for 24 hours of Le Mans... just not Houston. (Houston's place on the racing pecking order is fairly clear - WAY below the 24 hour races.) So the teams have these long arms to refuel the cars. Pretty cool, huh? And a nifty picture.

6p - 2a

I've worked a new shift today - the 6pm to 2am shift, aka the 'swing' shift. I think I have mixed feelings about this new entity in my life.

Pros:

• Night nurses
• Night charge nurses (Nell don't take no shit, baby!)
• I'm the 'help' so I'm never alone, i.e. there is no part of the shift when there isn't at least one other doctor with me.
• It's a really fast shift, mostly 'cause of bullet #3.
• The shift runs during prime time - lots of actual pathology seems to show up in the evening. That's always fun. ;)
  

Cons:

• Night nurses - those ladies don't do anything they don't want to. If they disagree with me? Guess what, my orders won't be carried out for hours...
• 6p - 2a pretty much means I don't get to see the husband all day. A HUGE bummer.
• Getting home at 2a as a non-driver in Houston. Cabs are slow, and the shitty drivers work the graveyard shift. My cabbie tonight? Clueless. And he didn't have change. Sheesh.
• Feeling like you're abandoning the overnight doc. 'Cause, guess what, you are. When the swing shift doc leaves, the overnight doc is all alone for the next 6 hours. And they are a painful six hours. Tonight I ended up staying a little late to prevent unloading a procedure onto the overnight guy. Granted, it was a minor procedure, but still... Overnights suck, and I don't wanna make his worse.

Mostly, I think con #2 is the most disturbing. I like my husband and I like seeing him. This shift doesn't allow that. So I guess the cons will win and I'll sigh every time I see an evening swing shift on the schedule... but at least the silver lining is decent.

Baseball's back any my boy is hitting!

Hey now, hey now, my baseball's back!

Yeah, ya know I got the feeling!
Yeah, ya know my boys are stealing!

Hey now, hey now, my 'Stros are back!

I've mentioned before that I like baseball... just a few times in the past. (Really, I'm not repetitive or anything.) But it's true! This year's Astros will, yet again, keep us on our toes all season, I'm thinking. Yeah, our first couple of games (uh, make that series) sucked. We were swept in our season opener and didn't do much better in the next set against the Cards.

But then we went to Phillie, and hope dawned anew. Carlos Lee, the dude we spent WAY too much money on, slammed out three homers in one game. One of those homers was a grand slam. (Side note, I don't care who ya are, grand slams are cool. And they must suck so much for the pitcher 'cause they are so rare, but so damn devastating when they happen...) And my boy Morgan (MoMo! MoMoMoMoMoMoMoMoMo! I so have an old married lady crush on that man.) finally started hitting 'round about then.

After that, hubbie and I went to see our boys for their first home game since the sad sack season opening badness. We won. Not only did we win, our offense actually showed up. Lance still isn't hitting, but that'll just take time. The opposing team - the Marlins, if you must know - were still scared enough of Mr. Berkman to intentionally walk him. Take that!

Keeping the goodness coming, my very under-appreciated and very much loved Astros shortstop, Adam Everett, is getting some good press. ESPN's Crasnick recently wrote this article praising our resident defensive genius.

I think my 'Stros are going to keep repeating the pattern of the first two weeks of the year. One or two really bad series, then brilliance, the a return to suckitude. But I think the brilliance may just outweigh the suck enough to keep us into contention well into September.

Now sit back, relax, make some popcorn and watch me eat my words.

Hopefully we run away with the division... but we all know that's not what I mean.

PS - Dave of blogography.com actually reads my blog! How cool is that?

Work is... uh, work

So that's why I haven't posted.

But in other news, I've had the most wicked case of gastro (i.e. stomach flu) recently.

So that's the other reason I haven't posted. 'Cause I like my MacBook Pro and dropping it in the toilet prolly wouldn't be good for it. Nope.

And in other news, I actually went out and saw some of the in-laws the other day.

That's not a reason I haven't posted, but it is news. Work with me, people!

Bullet blast!

I'm shamelessly stealing this idea from Dave over at blogography.com. Bullets bullet points everywhere and all of them for YOU!

• Bond. I love the latest 007. Dark, brooding, more than a little bleak, desperately holding out hope for a happy James until almost the very end... so luscious. And then there's Daniel Craig, eye-candy extraordinaire. I was good - really, I was! I didn't pre-order the DVD as I desperately wanted to do at $18 from DeepDiscountDVD. I waited. This was the correct move - after the release the price dipped down to $13. Now, of course, it's back up to over $18. So see? I was good.
• Haircut heaven will happen today. I haven't had a 'spa' haircut in many, many moons. Today is the day. I'm seeing some chick at The Upper Hand who is apparently an expert in wavy hair. Have a mentioned the wave in my hair? The older I get, the more curl-like objects appear in my coiffure. What's up with that?
• Work - I'm doing a lot of it. Somehow, some weeks I work incessantly, and some weeks I'm relatively idle. Last week? Idle. But not, since I was cleaning the abode for our annual blow-out party. This week? The first, of I hope many, weeks somewhere in the middle. Next week? Incessant work. The number of shifts this week and next week are the same, but next week I work way more night shifts do much more flopping from days to nights. I've decided that for the next batch of schedule requests (which won't happen until June!) I'll ask to bunch all of my night shifts. That way I'll only have to flop once.
• The party. We did a theme party... and it actually worked. Probably because this was the third annual edition of the party and the second edition in our current homestead. I think people actually "got it" this year. Which was great. We have 50+ guests, tons of booze and more food than I had space to accommodate.
• My husband's cat. He recently started be intermittently stinky. I mean really stinky. The Oh-My-God what the f#ck is that kind of stinky. He's more than ten years old, and he's never done this before. Hubby is just giving him baths, but I'm worried that something else is going on. Why the sudden change? He's always been a bit of a dirty/greasy cat... but never really a stinky one. I'm worried.
• Out of towners. We're drowning in them this week. Our good friend flew in from Virginia for the party, tomorrow I'll see our friends living in Washington State, and this weekend my hubby's best friend is driving in from Austin. Why can't all of this bounty be spread over time? Argh.

Okay, that's the end of the bullet points. Hope you found that as entertaining as I did!

Tile Saw

When tiling a bathroom with porcelain tile, for the love of Jeebus, don't try to cut the stuff with a classic score and snap rig. It won't go well.

How do I know this? 'Cause I've tried. When creating perfectly halved tiles, the scoring method works okay. If okay actually means poorly. The score and snap rig is about as dependable as a 1981 Chevette's build quality. Which is to say nearly non-existent. When trying to create narrow cuts? It's as good as Britney's ability to keep her legs together.

Yeah, not so much.

The solution? A tile saw. Now, even here, you have to be careful. Why? The cheap tile saws are only rated for ceramic tiles. Try them on porcelain tiles and I'm not sure what would happen. Grievous bodily harm would likely be involved. But fear not, young grasshopper! I have found the answer. And lo, here it is:


The QEP 60088. The cheapest thing we could find rated for porcelain. For once, cheap does not equal flimsy. This little baby has been cutting through the 1/4 inch think hard ass tile (approx 8 Mohs!) like buttah.

Buttah!

Don't be fooled by the similar appearing 60087, seen here:

60087 = grievous bodily harm.

Grievous bodily harm = bad.

Now, back to the land of home improvement... body intact.

Damn it!

So I'd written up a clever, funny new post.

And then blogger.com ate it.

Stoopid blogger.

The problem is - I'm not feeling funny anymore. How can I be funny when the funny is gone? Should I make fun of my patients? ("docta, my child has right breast swelling... yes, docta, she's 11 years old... yes docta, she's had a recent growth spurt... yes docta, I remember how my breasts developed back in the day, and I remember my breasts (or soon to be breasts) were tender... but no docta, there's no way my child could have a similar experience... she's not old enough! Yes docta, I was the same age when it happened to me... ") Should I make fun of my husband? Eh no. Bad for marriage, bad for me. Make fun of friends? 'Cause I'm working so much (yay!), I haven't seen enough of them to make fun.

Well, I guess I'll just settle with being not funny. Lord knows, life is funny enough.

Hopefully I'll be able to pull some of that into my blog soon.

Extra Peace and chicken grease,
doctawife

The ceiling cat is watching...

Go here. Trust me. Especially you, Clee.

Randomness

So a friend took a poll, and I decided I needed to be a lemming and took the poll too. But hey, at least my song is cooler than hers...

Your Theme Song is Beautiful Day by U2

"Sky falls, you feel like It's a beautiful day Don't let it get away" You see the beauty in life, especially in ordinary everyday moments. And if you're feeling down, even that seems a little beautiful too.

What's Your Theme Song?

Meetings

I never thought that I would be a fan of meetings. But there is one meeting I rather like - as a matter of fact, I HATE missing this meeting.

And I'll be missing it tomorrow.

The Section meeting is where rumors get started and eliminated. Policy is discussed and clarified. Nursing issues put to rest. The horse's mouth speaks. Life is much easier when I've been to the week's Section meeting.

But I miss it tomorrow. So I'll be a whole week saying, "Well, last week, nursing was supposed to do BLAH, but I missed the meeting so I don't know what the policy is..." And I hate that. If I'm told "We can't do that because it's policy" then I want to know if the nurse is blowing smoke out of his or her ass.

On another note, I love Battlestar Galactica. I've gotten through to season three. The two hour season opener is nummy. I highly recommend.

Aww yeah

Something odd happened today. Something that hasn't happened for a damn long time. I looked at somethin' on a website that I've seen a million times before - somethin' that, until now, had been sad and lonely. Before today, what I'd been looking at had been small, like an unsatisfying New Cuisine meal. Ya know - a leaf of baby spinach, a sliver of Ahi tuna, a drop of wasabi.

But today, oh Glory, my leaf turned into a salad, the sliver into a steak and the drop into a chunk.

By Goodness, that somethin' was my (MY - not my husband's) bank account. I have MONEY. For the first time in a long ass time, I actually have some cha-cha-cha-change. Okay, it's not Jay-Z pimp money. But it's a damn sight better than the big fat zero I had before today.

'bout damn time. Thank the fates.

The Meme

Yes, yes, yes... memes are evil, easy ways to fill up blog space. But I like them anyway.

So in that spirit - Six weird things about the doctawife!

1) Almost all of my favorite movies are based on comic books or heavily influenced by them. Examples: Sin City, Batman Begins, Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2, X-Men 2, The Shawsank Redemption, Resident Evil #1 (well, actually the commentary track, but that counts, damn it!) The exceptions: Children of Men.

2) Chipotle restaurant tried to kill me. For real. Dead. I'm not kidding.

3) I wear rude t-shirts underneath my scrubs when I work. Why? It makes me laugh. And yes, I work in a pediatric hospital.

4) I don't like chocolate, and by and large, I don't like sweets. I know this makes me a freak of nature, especially for a female, but there ya go. Give me a nice savory mushroom tart and I'll be much happier than if you gave me a gallon of fine chocolate mousse. Deal.

5) My cat is like an encopretic 5 year old. Look up encopresis to understand just how weird that is.

6) I have read 5+ books per week since I was 12. Unfortunately, the books have always been of the trashy romance or flimsy sci-fi/fantasy kind.

Now I'm supposed to tag 6 other bloggers. I'm not going to, mostly because I'm not sure that six people read this blog, and because of my six favorite blogs, at least two have already done this meme.

So I'm off tomorrow - the first day after three straight shifts. Which is great. I'm gonna sleeeeeeeeeep and then figure out something else to do, hopefully something with the husband. If any of my readers are bored tomorrow, try the Six Weird Things meme.

I miss baseball!

One of my favorite things that I ever wrote was my "Rules of Baseball Viewing." I reference those rules nearly every day - well mostly I reference rule #1. Rule #1 was "Sit the fuck down."

Rule #1 was created after a rather unique Fenway baseball experience. Sometime early in the 2003 season, Hubbie and I sprung for some wicked awesome seats at Fenway. (The section just behind home plate, but not where the really really rich people sit - just barely behind that.) We got there early, and a huge number of Fenway Faithful were seated around and behind us. No one really in front of us - those were the rich people seats.

The game started, and we were happy. We were at Fenway, the BoSox looked good, it was too early in the season for any of the players to be really hurt, Legal Seafood was selling chowda, and we had beer. Yay for us.

Until, midway through the inning, two women wandered in front of us. Since we were in the middle of the section, this was a feat. I mean, who goes to the center of a section and THEN decides to stop? Oh yeah... these two ladies! And not only did they wander in front of us and stop, they stopped to have a little conference - right there, blocking the view of home plate.

Needless to say, Hubbie and I were annoyed. 30 seconds passed. We hollered a relatively polite "down in front!" Not too loud, just enough to startle someone into action. It didn't work. Next came a more strident cry from the two of us. After all, they were blocking home plate. We couldn't see the pitches! And we'd paid $45 per seat, damn it! But alas, no response.

And then, the crowd behind us clearly gave up on the idea that these two women would buy a clue at Kmart. From behind us (with my own enthusiastic contribution) came a resounding, deafening, "DOWN IN FRONT!"

Next was the amazing part. The women turned around, seemed totally bewildered, and said, "But we're the cousins of the first baseman!" The instant thought of EVERYONE else in the crowd was, "If your cousin is the first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, you all should freaking know better than block the view from the good seats behind home plate, biznatches!"

And in the next instant, we all yelled, in unison, "DOWN IN FRONT!"

But at least for that season, we all loved Kevin Millar anyway. Despite his 'cousins.'

Two hours

Well, last night was my first overnight shift since resuming work.

Whoo. Dude, I'm tired.

But as usual, it is taking me about two hours to wind down. The two hour wind down used to kind of piss me off - 'cause damn I'd be tired and WHY COULDN'T I SLEEP and why was my mind still running at 8 million RPM and oh geeze was that last kid going to do okay... But recently I started talking to the other ER docs - both those that specialized in pedi EM (aka the 'sub-boards'- remember the term kids 'cause I ain't gonna bother explaining that for much longer!) and other generalists, like me - and most of them need two hours after a shift to cool off. I figure if docs who've working in the ER for 20+ years still need wind down time, I should just get used to my own need to sit and process for a while.

I liked the shift, until 2am rolled around and I lost the company of other attendings. Yeah, yeah, yeah I got help in 'moving the meat' in the form of a fellow (who ruled!) and then a resident, but especially with the resident, it just wasn't the same. I lost that sense of, well, fellowship present between equals slogging through the trenches of the late night ER. The resident just wanted the shift to be over and the nurses all wanted something from me. When there are other attendings there, we throw around ideas and treatment options and personality management strategies and joke... but with nurses, I'm one of 'them' and therefore am not included in the banter. With the residents, well, they pretty much have to do what I tell them to do, which seriously cuts down on the room for small talk. So I kinda got lonely from 2am to 8am.

And six hours is a long time to slog along on my own. Unfortunately, I have a LOT of overnights next month. Then again, I can't much complain because for Pete's sake, at least I'm working! So maybe I'll be able to make the night nurses my buds, and life will get better.

Yup, that's the plan, Stan!

Funny, the things ya remember

I remember there was a blog... and sometimes it was funny. But sometimes it gave too much away.

And now it's gone.

So please excuse the broken link. I'm waiting on the why and the wherefore... and the where if.

If the 'where if' ends up someplace public, I'll fix the link. If not - well, ya'll will never know that it was there. MUAWHAHAHAHA!

First solo shift

Well, this morning I had my first solo shift. Let me explain - a solo shift is some fraction of an eight hour period in the ER without another doc to help out. Today I had four hours, half of my shift, flying solo. Luckily for me, I had an awesome family practice (aka FP) resident helping me out. Now the educated among you might ask, "Doctawife - you said you were solo. But you had a resident helping - that's another doc!" Well, residents only sorta count. They can see patients, so I can see another patient or write in the chart or call a specialist or whatever... but in the end, I'm ultimately responsible for the patient the resident sees. The buck stops with me, and sometimes, it's a pretty sick buck. And residents are not just in the ER to 'move the meat.' They are there to learn. Which means I have to take the time to teach. And that doesn't help move the meat. That actually slows the meat down.

Now mind, only other well trained pediatricians will understand how remarkable the sentence about "awesome family practice resident" is. Pediatricians generally don't like FPs. Why? As a group, pediatricians think that FPs don't get enough training in pediatrics. Which means they make mistakes. Most of them aren't bad, and don't hurt kiddos. But sometimes, oh sometimes, the mistakes are bad. And for whatever reason, many of the FPs that come through the ER are really terrible. In terms of pediatric knowledge, they're worse than med students, even.

Not this one. She rocked. I taught her about basic pedi stuff, and when the kiddo with the kidney stones came in, she reminded me about those. ('Cause usually 11 year olds don't get kidney stones. I hadn't seen one since med school. The FP resident had seen one the month before in adult-land. It ruled.) And even with the basic pedi stuff, I was more reminding her of common pitfalls than teaching her new material.

Oh, and I told her of common FP mistakes, and why I would beat her with a stick if she ever did any of them. Why the beating? 'Cause she's smart and has no business making any of them.

But yeah, solo was challenging. At one point I was taking care of ten patients. That's a lot.

It felt good.

Work! WORK. WORK work WORK workie WORK!

So yeah, I'm excited about being back at work.

I know, I know, too many exclamation points in one post, but I don't care.

I've worked two 8pm - 12 am shifts and I loved them both. Each shift inspired a different kind of love. The first one (Monday) was slower and a little more laid back. My coworker was the dude (and he is a dude - he's six years older than I am and he still wears his ultra preppy coral necklace) who had clearly established himself as one of my bosses earlier this month; but he was so laid back that, DUDE, what was I worried about? Like, that patient, he could TOTALLY be admitted to the hospital and that would be, like, fine. And I COMPLETELY didn't need to worry about relearning the administrative stuff because I TOTALLY knew who to ask... the nurses, right? 'Cause they TOTALLY have time to educate me... But a medically sketchy idea never made it any further than a TOTALLY casual conversation, 'cause he would just drop the LEARNIN' on me and the patient just got better. Word. Everything flowed, but everything was good for the PEEPS. Pretty dope, huh?

Except when it's totally crazy and the whole ER is on divert and I'm transferring my sickest patient and my other sick patient needs tons of attention from both me and my nurse and holy sh*t the current average wait is six hours and we have 140 patients in the ER and it was only designed for 80 and my senior doc is losing it but it isn't without cause because WHY THE F*CK don't we have suture trays and LP kits on hand and isn't that patient trying just a little too hard to die and WHY did she let her daughter have daily fevers to 104 Fahrenheit for two weeks and why is she AMAZED that her kid is super sick when I'm startled that the kiddo isn't SICKER than she is...

Last night was paragraph number one and tonight was paragraph number two. Day #1 was all about learning and day #2 was all about doing. Both days were fun. I had sicker patients day #2, but that was okay. I'd had some help the day before, so I knew what to do. I'm glad my first day wasn't the day the ER exploded and went on divert. But I'm glad that when things went nuts, I had an awesome, experienced staffer with me to help out.

But it was kinda crazy. And that's why is 3am and I'm not in bed yet. I'm still winding down, and I don't have to work tomorrow. Tonight (this morning? My body really isn't sure.) I'll go to bed and sleep like a baby. It will just take me some time to get to bed.

And then I'll be fine. 'Cause I love my job.

Theft is good

This act of thievery is being perpetrated against the Ween. Enjoy.

Me:

Not me:Me:
Not me:

Me:Not me:

Me:Not me:

Me:
Not me:

Down with the negative!

The license... IT IS HERE! Here in my sweaty little hands, quivering with its own suppressed fury, beautiful in its supreme unimpressiveness lies the panacea to all my ills. Or at least that's the theory.

So, starting today, I get to throw myself back in the mix. I spent most of today filling out so many forms that I swear I thought my eyes were going to bleed. Frankly, dear reader, I didn't give a flying pootenany. I was at work! And by and large, people were happy to see me.

Meanwhile, the Texas State Medical Board has been attracting negative attention from the press and the healthcare bigwigs about the delays in licensure. Go journalism! Go activitism! Go greedy capitalism! 'Cause really, that's why people are getting so pissed off. The docs can't get paid 'cause they can't practice, the hospitals and clinics are losing money because the docs aren't seeing patients but can't hire someone else because the doc either has 1) a binding contract with the employer or 2) a specific skill set not already available. Texas has one of the lowest per capita densities of doctors, yet we have this HUGE backlog of docs waiting to work in Texas.

Does this make sense?

Oh yeah, this is Texas. I forgot.

There is no point

Every time I try to get my life fixed, someone gets in the way. At least I'm not alone - go here to find out part of why I'm so screwed.

Another part of why I'm so screwed is my case manager, who seems to be not so good at her job. Given what the article says, that may not be her fault, but at this point I'm not sure I care.

I just saw something horrible.

I'm watching a show about the 9/11 ground zero clean up. And they just showed a pathology slide of a man who died after participating in the original clean up. It was a high resolution microscopic slide of a lung section. (Why do I call it a lung section? Well, when someone dies in a weird/suspicious way, pathology experts take every organ and make small slices from each of them. Those small slices are called sections.) The slides showed a lung section with almost no air/aveolar interaction, a huge proliferation of mesothelial cells, and pretty much nowhere for gas exchange to occur (yeah, I know, the sentace was redundant... but hey, sometimes redundancy helps get the point across.) To anyone who listened during his or hers pathology lectures, the slides shown are horrifying. How can anyone breathe without the natural mesothelial/endothelial interchange? Yeah, that was my answer too. So the slide clearly showed that something impacted lung structure and physiology in a hugely negative way. Which basically meant that the poor guy couldn't breathe. At all. And the problem was caused by a chemical or particle foreign body.

Reportedly this poor man never smoked. Reportedly he never inspected a building that contained high levels of asbestos. So the absence of normal lung structure is logically explained by... yeah, that's right, Ground Zero.

Why did this man die without any help for his family? That's shameful. These men were heroes. I hope we can somehow elect more responsible people who will spend taxpayer money to help these people. I know for certain that I'd pay that extra tax.

Wouldn't you?

Waah!

Our spiffy new plasma TV arrived today - CRACKED! The driver had just left the complex when we unboxed the big beautiful BROKEN beasty.

We're both ready to cry. Hopefully the return process won't be too painful. Although how you return something that weighs ~80 lbs. I don't know.

Waah!

Go Pats!

Oh my goodness, I never thought that game would end. My Boys played so sloppy that for a while there I was thinking, "Damn, we don't deserve to win!" Luckily, the team started to look like themselves in the fourth quarter and pulled through to save the day.

At the two minute warning, I asked Hubbie if he wanted a third beer for the end of the game... His answer was so emphatic that I was startled for a second. Then again, I was so nervous that the fabric underneath my butt was actually wet from sweat.

Eww. Yeah, I know, I'm a loser.

I'll admit that the Chargers looked pretty darn good. Even tho I'm a die-hard Pats fan, I thought we were screwed. I'm kinda sad for them, honestly. Especially Tomlinson. He looked upset when he walked off the field. Yikes. If the Chargers could have continued to play through the fourth quarter like they did during the previous three... Well, this post would be very different.

Begone, ye Evil Spirits

So I didn't have a great year in 2006. So I thought, in the name of making the new year start off to a good start, I thought I would list things that I really like. Here goes:

1) Netflix. This wonderful service allows me to watch the first season of MacGyver without annoying my husband or actually buying the discs. Which is just cool. I mean, I love my husband, therefore I won't force him to sit through the first season of MacGyver. What could be more loving that that?

2) My pressure cooker. It's a Fagor, which is one step down from the best brand. Kuhn-Rikon is the best, but hey, have you seen the price tags on these things? Good God! But 15 psi of pressure goes make a lot of difference in cook time for things like stock, bolognese sauce and soups. In the last twenty-four hours, I have made pasta sauce and two batches of chicken stock. Yay me! But more importantly, yay my pressure cooker.

3) Lego Star Wars II. So fun, so simple, so good.

Well, I guess it can't be that simple, since I haven't won it yet. Yargh.

4) My friend Mehul. He's gonna hook us up with a sweet amplifier for a discount. Hubbie figures that with an awesome TV, we should have an awesome amp. We don't have an awesome amp... hence, Mehul!

5) My hubbie. Aww.

Well, enough for now. I've got a birthday party to attend!

Back from STL

So I'm back in Houston... and as I was flying into town, I realized that I don't much like Houston.

Oops.

But I'm stuck here for a while yet, so I just have to suck it up.

On the plus side, Chris is going to buy a HDMI card to make our new fancy TV even MORE better. Or maybe an amp... we haven't decided.

Then again, there's this Denon receiver that's just the coolest thing. So I think we're going to get the HDMI card and save up for the receiver. Have I mentioned that I'm excited about this TV? Plasma! HDTV! Flat! Huge!

So awesome.

(But I'd still rather have my Mommy. I miss my Mommy.)

The good and the bad

The good - Mom bought us a new 50" plasma TV, which rocks.

The bad - she walked in on my shower today.

I think I'd rather have a sane mother that didn't walk in on me than a TV.

But I'm enough of a money whore that I'll take what I can get. Ya know...

Change is good

Welcome to the New Year. To celebrate the fact that I'm still alive and still posting, I decided to change up the blog a little bit.

Well, actually, Karla had the idea first. So yet again, I thieve. (Kinda like I pinch, but not as funny.)

So that's it, folks. Talk to ya later!

Another two-a-day

Well, hubbie said the last post was good. But for some reason, I feel the need to post again. Why? 'Cause I came across a good meme. So I have to do it, 'cause otherwise the time will have passed. Which would be a shame.

1.What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?

Went to Sonoma Valley with my husband and mother. One day on the trip we got a driver/guide, which was a very good day. We got to tour some very small, obscure wineries... that had some very excellent wine. Yummy yummy.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

This one is easy - I don't make resolutions. I occasionally set goals, but even those usually refer to the next several months instead of the next year. This year, my goal is to go to the gym three or four times a week consistently for the next month. Hopefully, at the end of the month, I'll be able to set the goal of gym attedence at five times a week for at least a month.

Hubbie and I would like to be skinny again, so gym attendence is necessary. But resolutions are too much pressure. So we'll leave it at goals.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My favorite kiddos were born more than a year ago, but I really like Brenda and Kevin's baby. Alyssa does this thing with her hands that is just the cutest. I can't describe the motion in words, you'll just have to ask for a demonstration whenever you see me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully no. I've had enough of that.

5. What countries did you visit?

The most notable was Guatemala. I'd never been someplace that poor before. I'd been to Hong Kong previously, but most of those folks could read. Not so much in Guatemala. And the folks in Hong Kong had seen different looking people before - different skin color, different language, that kind of thing. The folks in Zacapa would pay to see a doctor (not an insignificant fee, although really cheap by our standards) just to come oogle my red hair. Slightly creepy, but it made me feel bad. Come to think of it, I should've given those kids their money back. I just didn't think of it at the time. Darn.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?

My job.

7. What date(s) from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

December 12th and 20th 2006. Both days of really bad news. January 21, 2006 - the first Hosuton Meat and Martini party. Red meat and dry martinis. Aww yeah...

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Graduating from residency.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Yikes. Not getting my license. Changing the subject...

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No. Fairly suprising, but not. How nice!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Zoloft. As my friend Tommy would say, "The big Z keeps me sane." I couldn't do without it, and I don't want to do without it. Yay for health insurance!

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

My hubbie. He's the greatest. I don't know why he sticks around, but I'm really grateful that he does.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

The Chimp in Chief. He's so dumb that I can't even find words. Every time he comes on TV I have to turn away because listening to him talk makes my skin crawl. Yuck yuck yuck.

14. Where did most of your money go?

To my debt. Like it always does.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The Astros. I really thought they would pull out a late season miracle. They didn't, but it was a good ride.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?

Blue October, Hate Me

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
happier or sadder?

Sadder

thinner or fatter?

Thinner. Thanks to the gym. Yay Fit!

richer or poorer?

Poorer. See the bit about licensing.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Working.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Drinking.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

We spent Christmas with my Aunt. It was cool - I got boots and formal wear and books. How cool is that?

21. Who deleted question 21?

Jesus?

22. Did you fall in love in 2006?

No. I was already in love. But that love continued, which was awesome.

23. How many one-night stands?

Zero.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?

Dirty Jobs. I love Mike Rowe. I don't know why, I just do.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

The TSMBE.

26. What was the best book you read?

Seeing as I read five books a week, this is a hard question. Sorry folks, no answer is forthcoming.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

The Spankers. They're very silly, and very funny. And they have banjo and clarinet. How can I not like them?

28. What did you want and get?

I got a Mario Batali pot. It's awesome, it's orange and it's mine. I'm rockin' on with my bad self.

29. What did you want and not get?

My license.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Casino Royale. Lordly, I love Bond. Yummy yummy yummy.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Folks threw a regress-to-childhood party celebrating my big 3-0. I had a sippy cup. I drank wine from my sippy cup... and discovered sippy cups are great alcohol pacers, since they don't let you drink fast. So that was good. Frustrating, but good.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Yet again, a job.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?

Bohemian. I decided to be funky, and I was. Yipee!

34. What kept you sane?

My husband. He's too cool for school.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Daniel Craig. Bond is so good. I drool just thinking about 007.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Iraq. We were dumb to invade, but dumber to stay. What the hell are we doing, anyway? And the possibility of a draft? Are you fucking kidding me? The Selective Service testing their methods? At least the country isn't going to blame the soldiers this time - we've finally learned that the gubment is at fault, not the poor sods who just wanted to go to college or get out of the hood.

37. Who did you miss?

My dad. Still.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Mike. 'Cause at least for the moment, he makes the Ween happy.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

The egg comes before the chicken. Don't pay for the chicken when you don't have the egg.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

From Unwritten Law, Save Me

And I'm sick of my sickness

Don't touch me, you'll get this.

I'm useless, lazy, perverted,

And you hate me.



You can't save me,

You can't change me,

Well I'm waiting for my wake-up call,

And everything, everything's my fault.