TGIF

Oy, what a day.

It was a very long, very frustrating, but strangely, very good day over here. Kind of a weird combination.

And there were several notable events.

My four year old Jeep Liberty hit 100,000 miles just as I got to work this morning.


I had, I think, 118K on my last Jeep when I traded it. I'm hoping for a few more years out of this one. I finally pay it off in May. Go, Jeep, go!

Have I mentioned that my Jeep's name is Kate? I usually name my cars after the patron saint of the day that I buy them (which resulted in my Geo being named Phanourios, and the old Jeep being named Vasili. I don't actually remember the Aztek's given name...which didn't really matter, because we called it many other names...). My whole family does it that way. But I didn't name the Jeep. My best friend did, during its inaugural voyage to Red Robin. Because, well, there's a lot of Kates in my world besides me. She thought it was funny. I agreed. And so she's Kate.

Anyhow....

I met the new interns today!! We had lunch with them during their orientation at State Hospital. They had the same good ol' Southern food they had last year, which, wow, was so good. They looked like a great herd of deer in some very large headlights, much as I imagine we did last year around this time. And of course, we're still talking with immediacy about "when we move to the new state hospital", much like we did last year around this time. I'm sayin'...but regardless, they seem like a nice bunch.

I'd commented to Ruthie the other day, when we were looking over their face sheets, about how several of them seemed to be somewhat analogous to residents already in program. There was a girl much like Sparrow and a guy a lot like Fang, who were friends of theirs, respectively, from medical school. There's one guy who had a major in divinity and one of our almost-third years actually went to seminary for a while before choosing medicine. There's a girl who strongly resembles Benny in conduct, appearance, and background. Ruthie and I couldn't find ourselves, though.

Today, I met me.

She's only an analogue, of course, there are several notable differences. Like her husband and four year old child. Like the fact that she's older than I am and was a practicing specialist for a while. Like the fact that she's tiny and I'm rather the opposite of tiny. In fact, she's probably one of the latter ones on the list that I would've identified to be my analogue. But listening to her talk today? Oh, so totally. Last year, I was the one going on and on about what it was like to be on call and how you changed throughout the first year and trying to be helpful but worrying that I just sounded like a know-it-all. Trying to adapt my thinking from a very different specialty. Feeling really, really out of place with a bunch of recent med school grads. Being so anxious about that I was borderline manic.

I hope she has as good a year as I've had.

I also came to an appreciation of the NC Mental Health system today, after spending five hours on the phone trying to transfer my New York manic to a hospital (any hospital that seemed appropriate) in the empire state. Got rejected by every one of them that I called, except of course for the state hospital, who wouldn't answer their phones!! Not even the admissions office! Oy, what a pain in the ass. Although I did speak with some very nice people up north, who gave me a good briefing in the differences between our system and theirs. Still, frustrating. But the BEST part was that I got to talk to my very good friend Buie, who like never ever answers the phone when I call her (AHEM).

I was sitting there, right, thinking, what the hell do I do with this woman? We'd all kind of decided that she'd probably do better if we got her home. Her psychiatrist apparently doesn't work on Fridays. And I'm like, come on, Kate. You transfer people all the time. How do I make this happen? And it suddenly occurs to me, I know someone in the NY Mental Health system! I mean, someone who works there (I also know a couple of people who don't, but still qualify for the earlier statement). So I call Buie up at work, and she actually answers! And then I called her again, and she answered AGAIN! Wow, it was great to talk to her. And she had really helpful suggestions. Even if they didn't actually pan out. But, helpful nonetheless.

So then, I'm on my way out, and my patient who's been really psychotic stops me to chat. And we did just that - had a very nice chat. I mean, it was about sort of psychotic stuff, but, she was enthusiastic and buoyant and just very pleasant to talk to. It was nice.

And THEN I stopped at the State Farmers Market, which is right next door (literally) to State Hospital. I went in with my $20 in box money, and walked out with all of the following for $15:


I spent the last five on a fresh-squeezed lemonade (so good down here) and the ensuant tip for the lemonade squeezer.

I made a salad to go with my dinner of leftover garlic pasta:


Wow. There is nothing like a fresh-ripe tomato, straight off the vine and still warm and heavy from the summer heat. So good. For dessert I had fresh strawberries (bought at the Whole Foods earlier in the week) and those blueberries on poundcake (also from WF). Them's some good blueberries, right there. He told me they were picked this morning, which I'm not sure I believe, because there was a moldy one in the container, but wow, so tasty.

I then sat down for my daily blog perusal and just laughed my ass off at today's Daily Coyote picture:


which is of course plagiarized directly from Shreve's blog right exactly here, and is titled, aptly, "Why Ranchers Hate Coyotes."

This amused me primarily because Maggie also has a little sheep toy which I bought for her when she started working at the yarn shop with me, because, you know, wool. I never thought about it like that, though. She does love her sheeps (she has two - one is tiny and hot pink).


AND she used the dog door all by herself today, without prompting. Now, admittedly, it was thundering outside and she used it to come in, but, whatever. Progress is progress.