This little PIGgy

Tonight marks the beginning of the 2009 recruitment season. Tomorrow is our first set of interviews for next year's intern class, and so tonight is the traditional pre-interview gathering, affectionately known in our department as a PIG. It's pretty standard - the night before interviews at pretty much every program in every discipline, there's a meet-and-greet with the current residents at a local bar or restaurant, or when I was interviewing here, at one of the residents' houses. It's a nice, supposedly informal way to kind of get to know the people in the program, it gives you a feel for what people are like outside the hospital, and if you're particularly astute, it gives you a excellent way to gauge the dynamics of the people involved - are they snooty and distant? Generally relaxed and happy? Do they talk about work with each other or just when they're giving you their sales pitch (for those playing along at home, remember that we spend roughly twice as much of our awake time at work than not, so, if they're not talking about work at all, something's awry)? Are they snippy about it? Jovial? Excited? Dry? That can tell you an awful lot about peoples' attitudes toward their work and their patients. Do they generally avoid each other, or do they have inside jokes, ask about kids, family, hobbies? Do they volunteer positive information about each other ("Oh! Martha's really interested in community psychiatry, you should talk to her about our AHEC stuff," or, "Kate knit her own socks!" or, "Mike just ran a half marathon two weeks ago, you should talk to him about the running clubs around here")? Now, of course we're all on our best behavior, but, there's still a lot to be learned. And the residents - who often have a say in the rankings - can gather useful information as well. Generally, I like these things, and am hoping to go to as many of them (and the lunches during the interview day) as possible.

You'll notice, however, that tonight, this little piggy is blogging and making pizza.

Let me tell you how my day went...

I got a late start this morning. Way, way later than I wanted to. And I finally get out the door, and I get a table at the Starbucks, and read through some stuff....and then I get this text message from Sparrow:

"Dogs out."

I looked at that a moment...thought, huh? Is she just making a pop culture reference? Does she want to go take the pups somewhere? Is she...and then, it clicked.

Dog's out.

My dog.

Is out.

Shit!

I immediately started packing my stuff up and making a beeline for the door as I called her. Juan, our lawn guy/man Viernes had called her and said that Maggie had made a break for it. They were off to go corral her. I said something along the lines of "i'llberightthere!" Fortunately, Mags was standing right in front of the house (although Juan said she had started off towards Sparrow's house), and was easily redirected into my house, where the dog door was subsequently slammed shut. Sparrow called, and I stopped driving like a felon with a two-second headstart. By the time I got back home, Maggie was like, "Guess what happened! Guess what happened! Guess what...ohhhhhh, wait, I'm in trouble, aren't I? Ohhhhhhhhhh......"

It was cute. I hugged her. Sparrow'd already told her she was crazy.

Near as we can tell she did indeed go over the fence from on top of the air conditioner. Which is a dilemma I hopefully have solved, at least for the moment, as I took one of my old plastic shelving units and set the shelves upside down on top of the air conditioner. And there's a ladder in front of it. Maggie seems disappointed. For the record, I did NOT think she would go over that fence, certainly not more than once. It's a five foot drop, for Pete's sake! But then, Maggie is nothing if not spry and resilient...

I also discovered that there's been a large grey housecat living under my house. The entrance to which is right on the other side of the fence from the air conditioner (and which has again been sealed off). Dollars to donuts Maggie saw her and was all, "KITTY!!!" And, boop, over the fence she went.

(It was particularly amusing watching me try to explain this theory to Juan, I'm sure, given my pathetic command of Spanish and his limited English. It was a lot of me going, "Perro...con gatto..." and making leaping and scampering motions with my hands. The best part of that whole exchange, though, was when he picked up the recycle bin that's sitting next to the fence covering the hole that Maxine dug during their last jailbreak. He looked down and saw the hole, and all I said was, "Perrita Maxine." And he said "Ohhhhhhhh" in that knowing way, and laughed, and put it back down...)

::sigh::

So then I met up with Sparrow and Martha at this little deli in town, and we chatted and hung out and I had really good falafel. I then went to the Lowes Foods, where I suddenly discovered I was not feeling so well. Which perplexed me. Until two things happened: a, I finally got to the point where I felt so awful I was like, crap, I just need to go home, and 2, it finally occurred to me where we were in the month. So I attempted to finish shopping, checked out, and drove home, not yet realizing that I'd forgotten about half of what I'd gone for, including most of the components of tonight's dinner. Like, you know, cheese, and, say, pizza crust.

I curled up into a ball for a while, thinking some nasty things about Eve and bemoaning the five weeks I have left until Larry (my doc) puts in a shiny new progestin-eluting IUD and hopefully remedies a lot of this (have I mentioned that my insurance company is giving me a Mirena for Christmas? I'm so excited. Soexcited. In fact, never have I been so excited about a sharp poke in the cervix. I am hoping, however, this goes better than the last Mirena that Larry and I tried to put in together). But eventually I got up and realized that it was 4:30 and I'd forgotten about half the things on my list. And that this little piggy was going to have to go back to market.

So I got up. Went to Target. Went to Whole Foods. Came home, went to start dinner...and realized I still hadn't remembered to buy mozzarella cheese.

There was a long string of expletives, but fortunately the six cheese Italian blend I'd bought a month ago had a little mozzarella in it, so we converted from Greek pizza (because it turns out I didn't have any non-moldy feta, either) to fancy six cheese pizza (which I forgot to put seasonings on. I just remembered that. The leftovers have been in the fridge for over a half hour). I then started a load of laundry, and started doing the dishes. And promptly ended up looking at the clock, covered in dog hair and dishwater and swearing at anything in sight, and deciding that this? Was NOT the image I wanted to project to prospective interns.

I'm all for realism, and being up front, but, there is a limit to how much crazy I let people see. Even y'all.

I'm giving up and writing this whole weekend off. Tomorrow will be better. Even if I am on call twice this week. And then again next week.

Never mind. I'm going to go hide under my covers and snuggle with my jailbird dog...