Old and new

Ahhh. There is absolutely nothing to make you feel old like people who aren't.

And you'd think that 4 weeks on the Child and Adolescent service would've done this already, but no. Today, I'm at the grocery store, and all the checkout kids are talking about graduation and yearbooks and parking passes. Most of them were graduating seniors. And they're going on about graduation and the rules about how like, if you don't wear black socks, you won't get your diploma (I chuckled a little. They always threaten these things, they rarely follow through). And the girl ringing me up starts laughing about how there was a clause in the rules about no flip-flops or jellies. She's like, "I don't even know what the heck those are!" I started laughing really hard at that point. And I told her, those were popular when I was in, like, grade school, which was, like, before you were even born (enjoy that vernacular? Like, what-ever. As if! Pardon me while I regress a little bit). Jellies were the Crocs of my generation, sweetheart.

And then I walked out with my groceries, and I was thinking about it...I graduated high school 12 years ago. So...it really was before she was even born. Suddenly it wasn't quite as funny (so stop laughing, Barb! I am too old!).

(And speaking of being old, Happy Birthday to Ali, who was THIRTY yesterday, and to my fabulously adorable goddaughter, Alex, who hit the big oh-six today).

But then I spent a good deal of the ride home reminiscing about being in sixth grade, begging my parents to take me to Venture and buy me jellies and cassette tapes of New Kids on the Block, that I could play on my pink boom box.


I actually remember them being pretty comfortable. Apparently you can still buy a variation on them at Zappos.

So then I came home and fed Maggie her weekly cheeseburger and took an impromptu and somewhat unfortunate nap, and then, I went to orientation at New State Hospital (lovingly being referred to these days as Johnny Dix Hospital). Now, the local paper has had some sort of personal vendetta against the new hospital, and every other day they've had some new headline impugning JDH. They're allegedly moving the same weekend I am, right? And they've been going on and on about how the place isn't going to be ready, and everyone at Big Hospital now has this attitude about what a rocking disaster this is all going to be.

I feel so much better. The place is not, like, 40% unstaffed, as they've reported. The floor-to-ceiling glass that's so prominent in the archetectural design is, in fact, shatterproof. Mike and I tried very hard to find a way to hang ourselves from the bathroom fixtures and couldn't. It has about a hundred more beds than were previously billed. It definitely isn't finished, and it's going to need some serious troubleshooting, and they don't have room for the kids (although I'm SO glad the children are no longer being housed next to the forensics patients) and I still might not believe that they're going to open in two weeks, but I feel way better about the place. It's actually really nice. Clearly designed by people who know nothing about mental patients, but, you know.

The orientation was a little, um, curious. They fed us dinner, which in my case was a veggie wrap from Subway, which seemed to be a mayonnaise and lettuce wrap in a soggy tortilla. There was a very long Q&A, and then we all took a tour. There were five of us there from our program - me, June, Mike, Faye, and the youngest Dr. Ming. We all thought it was just us Baby Blues, but we get there, and there's like half the residents from that other program in town. Which is cool - we're going to be working together there after all, and they seem like fun people. JDH is totally going to run like State Hospital, because my favorite SH attending is now the clinical director or something. Which is great for us, and you know, frankly, not a bad system. Except, dude, there's going to be another doctor on call, maybe two. You either cover the house or admissions. There's all this fabulous technology all over the place. It's such an improvement over the scattered and overworked calls we take now, but I think it's going to be a big paradigm shift for the Big Blues. Not to worry, I think they'll like it, too.

What was especially cool was how I got to see my blog buddy Matthew - like, in person! And then, this very nice woman (hi, V!) comes up to me and says, "Okay, don't think I'm weird, but are you Kate?" I said, yep. And she says, "really, please don't think this is strange, but I've been reading your blog for a couple of months now and I love it! I get so excited when you have a new post!" I was so flattered. Especially because she turned out to be a very cool person. It was so exciting.

I felt just like the Yarn Harlot. If I'd had my sock with me (the same sock I've been working on since January, ahem), I would've taken a picture of her holding it.

What was less cool...although, mostly just odd...was when I left, there was this police roadblock, and they were stopping everyone. And I'm on the phone with Mike (who, along with all of my other program-mates, ditched me half way through the tour and left me all alone with no one to think my State Hospital jokes were funny, like when I asked if they were bringing the cockroaches over for the new Grill. It's funny if you've ever been to the Grill!), and I stop, and this cop says they're doing license checks. So I pull out my wallet, and discover that my license isn't there...it's, of course, at home in my backpack (I don't always take my whole wallet in to the hospital). So I said...it's at home. He says, where's home? I told him, he says, that's far away. I said, yup. He says, well...remember it next time.

I'm guessing I didn't fit the profile of who they were looking for.

All in all, an interesting night. And definitely time to go to bed...