Whew!

It's been a busy weekend.

Friday was Graduation. I, of course, was not graduating, but it was a really good time. There's a group of people in the program right now (whom I referred to several times as "the core group of smartasses") whom I just really like. Funny, smart, sassy, some are loud, some are more stealthy. And there are several of our faculty whom I just really enjoy both on and off the clock. I mean, on the whole, I work with really good people. But some of them are just particularly fun.

I was driving home Friday night and thinking, wow. I'm so grateful to be where I am. Several people in their graduation speeches referred to the department as "family," and, I agree. Things aren't perfect, and some days we like each other more than others, but when the chips are down, you know you can count on the people around you. I like that. It's a nice change. I was thinking how awesome it was that right now, things are hard because residency is hard work, not because the people who claim to have my back are busy sticking a knife in it.

Saturday was a lazy day, until Porkfest II (you'll remember last year's. The idea was, Mike made a few key dishes - including his phenomenal pulled pork. It's epic - and everybody brought something to share. But the caveat is, whatever you bring - salad, entree, side, dessert, whatever - has to have pork in it). Blogger, sadly, won't let me upload the pictures, so the full details will have to wait. But it was a good, good time. I got to meet May's girlfriend and June's boyfriend, both of whom I liked very much (I'm always impressed with people in residency who can meet and date people outside the hospital. And good people at that). A couple of Mike's local friends were there, as well as his roommate (whom I also like very much. He tolerates all of us remarkably well). We hung out and ate well and chatted and laughed and had a good time. Bernie's husband Scotty (who gets this pseudonym because he is - wait for it - Scottish) helped us out with our now-annual-tradition of prank-calling the crisis pager. Scotty told...uh...Scott (I didn't think this pseudonym thing through very well, but since Scott already had his...well, try to keep up), who happened to have the misfortune of being on call for Porkfest, that he was distraught over David Carradine's death ("Who's going to do all those Kung Fu movies now?!") and had been drinking for four days and now wanted to kill himself ("it should been meeeeeee in that closet!" he wailed). So Scott asks him who's with him. Scotty says, "my brother and my mum," and Scott asks to talk to his brother. So Scotty puts down the phone, talks to himself for a minute, and then picks it back up claiming to be his brother.

Scott may have gotten wise to us at this point, because he told Scotty, "I think your brother is suffering from multiple personality disorder. You sound an awful lot like your brother..."

But Scotty kept it up until we decided poor Scott'd had enough, and even at that Bernie and I practically needed to tackle him to get the phone back. I offered to bring Scott some food for being such a good sport. He was not especially amused by us, I think.

We, on the other hand, were totally amused by us. Oh, Lord, I almost wet myself...it was classic. Scotty did a helluva job, no joke.

We kicked around for a while after that. One of my favorite social workers showed up, which was a good time. I left around 1, and it was a good night.

Today, I got a lot done. I'd turned in around 3, and unfortunately woke up at 8:45. Bleh. So I stubbornly stayed in bed for another hour, and then got up, got dressed, and went to the State Farmer's Market, which is always a good time. I got a lot of fruit and absolutely no pork products (I'm a little porked out, frankly). I also bought a giant tomato plant, which I'm hoping to find a pot for (I think I may have officially killed the lemon tree I have that was older than me, although the other plant I thought was long since dead is showing some nice signs of life. And the other lemon tree has just exploded since we moved. I pruned everything today, so, we'll see). And then I went to the Fresh Market to get the rest of my groceries (still no pork). I did dishes, I did laundry, I washed fruit, I fussed. And then Sparrow called, and she and Maxine and Maggie and I checked out the dog park close to the hospital. We hung out there for a couple of hours, until all the involved parties were worn out. Maggie's been asleep ever since we got home. I've been finishing up the laundry and dishes and fussing and made dinner and she barely even lifted her head to pester me for my table scraps.

She's right. It's definitely time to go to bed.