Prep

So tomorrow is surgery. My mom is a trooper. She's like, okay, bring it on.

We had a nice day today, the four of us. I took Maggie over this morning and she hung out with my mom while my dad and I went to coffee for Father's Day. We had a nice time at coffee. It was the usual Sunday morning crew and they did not disappoint. Plus there was a cheese danish and a tasty cup of coffee in it for him, not to mention a good time playing Matchbox cars with the owners' two year old son. I took him back home (with an oatmeal raisin cookie the size of a hubcap for my mother) and then hit the gym. My trainer and I had a good workout, which included a lot of time throwing things at him. I picked up lunch for my folks and myself, and we hung out a while. My mom and I cleaned out my car and made a trip to their garage.

I came back home and decided I would finally try and jump start the bike. Which...didn't go so well. At first I couldn't get the seat off (the battery's underneath the seat). So I called Jen, who was awesome and came over to help. While she was on her way I remembered the owner's manual sitting on my dresser, and discovered that getting the seat off a Harley is surprisingly uncomplicated. But it was good that Jen came anyway, because then I couldn't figure out how to get to the battery. The owner's manual was COMPLETELY USELESS for this. We futzed. We poked. I swore a lot. We couldn't make the picture match the scenario in front of us. At which point we invoked my Harley Roadside Assistance, which, it turns out, only tows the bike, no matter what's wrong with it. So we called the Harley dealership in Raleigh and the guy tried to talk us through taking the battery out. We tried and poked and shoved and prodded and I swore some more, but we couldn't get the damn thing out. Which is frustrating, because how am I supposed to get the thing out to charge it in the winter?! We finally gave up. I will probably throw in the towel and tow the bike to the dealership...next weekend. And while I'm there, I'll make them teach me how to take out the damn battery.

I went and got my nails done after Jen left and the guy commented on the grease under my nails. I just smiled and shrugged. I picked a nice shade of breast-cancer-awareness pink and pretty soon the grease was gone. I picked up dinner on the way back to my folks' and we had the best pizza for dinner that Durham has to offer (my folks finally got the sausage pizza they've been unable to find at the grocery store, and I got my very favorite: Chicago-style deep dish - it's not stuffed, but it's a reasonable approximation of Chicago pan pizza - with broccoli, green peppers, and feta cheese. Seriously, it's the best thing ever). My mom and dad added some Texas Toast they had in the freezer and we had a nice little meal. We watched some SVU and played with Maggie. We planned for the morning and Mags and I came on home.

It was a good Sunday.

Will keep y'all posted tomorrow.

Suprising...

Olga's been out of the hospital and settled in her new rental place for several weeks now. So today she texted and was like, "how about we take the cat off your hands?"

Reasonable, right? I mean, Gulan *is* her cat.

I had no idea I was going to be so upset when the cat left. It really made me sad.

But I packed up the cat's stuff to take her over to Olga's new place. Gulan knew something was up and hid in the corner of the living room behind the piano and didn't want to come out. I finally bribed her with treats, picked her up and put her in the car. She sat very quietly on the front seat and purred when I petted her at stoplights.

And she was happy to see Olga and her son again. You know, in that cat way. Then she hid in the closet.

I got to spend some quality time with Olga and her little boy and her mom and sister, though. That was a nice cap to a busy day of errands and fussing and running around.

I'm really going to miss that damn cat...

TGIF

Made it to Friday. Was supposed to be off today, but Mike got sick and I had to cover for him. So in I went. It didn't totally suck. And there was a really good lunch - tasty and also free, with good company. Can't beat that.

Mom's mastectomy is scheduled for 10:30 on Monday. We have to get her there at 8am. I'll post an update here and on FB afterwards.

I'm a little anxious. She's worried about the surgery, I'm worried about the recovery. Together we've got it covered, I guess.

Going to be a busy weekend getting everything wrapped up before Monday. Plus my cousin is in town this weekend, and I'm going to hang out with her and my aunt and uncle Saturday night. Definitely looking forward to that. And I'm taking my dad to coffee on Sunday for Fathers' Day. Will probably spend of Sunday with them. We'll see how things go...

Happy Wednesday

I took my computer to work today, and promptly left it in my car. So I'm blogging from my phone...it's not as easy as I'd hoped. Like, I couldn't upload a picture for Wordless Wednesday. So you get some verbiage instead.

Today was really long. And ended it with a session with my personal trainer. Not so conducive to my usual bedtime.

Maggie had a good day. She got to play with the little dog across the way at Shady Pines. She and Pepper had a great old time together while she and my dad were on a walk. Pepper's very cute.

Well, that's enough typing on my tiny keyboard. Maybe we'll do Wordless Thursday this week...


Blogged from my iPhone.

(Just kidding. I added that.)

Fair air

The AC is back on.

This morning it was 85 when I got up. Maggie was like a dishrag (until the leash came out) and poor Gulan was melted across the bathroom floor. All three of us are feeling much better, now, however.

One thing I do love about renting, though, is having a maintenance guy...

Hot in Durham

It's hot in my house.

84 degrees, to be precise. Our air conditioner must've gone out today.

Bleh. Hopefully they'll fix it tomorrow. I called and left a "we're so hot!" voicemail on the maintenance line.

Bleh.

In less "bleh" news, I had a great weekend. My uncle and my cousin came in for graduation. Graduation itself was a pretty fun thing. Long, but fun. One of these days I'll write an actual post about the graduation ceremony, but I'm hot and I want to go to bed.

My uncle left Saturday and was definitely not here long enough. It was really good to see him - it's been over a year. I think he was a little anxious about seeing my mom sick, but I think he was pleased with her progress and all and all it was a very positive visit. My cousin stuck around until today. We had a great Sunday - breakfast out, coffee with the Villagers (including Misty's new puppy, who is so cute it might overload your brain), a jaunt around Raleigh, a visit to the State Hospital campus, a trip to the Harley Davidson store, and a stroll around the State Farmer's Market. We hung out with my parents a bit, and then had dinner at a place I'd not tried before, but with which I was really pretty impressed. She came to coffee again this morning to meet the AM crew. It was great to see her. She's been such a huge support for me.

Today was super productive. I got a lot done at work, including 53 minutes of actual psychiatry. But I also replaced my ID badge, did all my little hospital educational crap, got my motorcycle parking pass, re-joined the APA (my membership lapsed), filled out two separate applications for moonlighting, ate a little lunch, did a little therapy....

Not bad for a Monday.

Here's hoping I don't melt before Tuesday....

What a great weekend.

Family in town. Graduation last night. Will write more about it soon, but right now just exhausted and happy.

Silly Summer Haircut

Boredom

Today was close to being the most boring day in recorded history.

I'm on Consults, now, right? Just for kids, but of course all of our child consults are filtered through Psychology first, which means we only consult on the kids who need meds (generally). It also means the service is very hit-or-miss.

Today was a miss.

I don't generally complain about not having a ton of work to do. But today started at 6:45am, when I saw my therapy patient. It was really early. I was really tired. There was caffeine, but not enough. So spending the next four hours sitting on my hands wasn't very appealing. I read about old patients and a potential patient. I caught up on some of my friends' blogs. I hacked my way on to Facebook (it's supposed to be blocked at the hospital).

Cleo got me to Starbucks to refuel for the afternoon, and that mocha was worth all the calorie shuffling I had to do to drink it. I had a reasonable clinic planned, but then my new patient cancelled, leaving me another two hours to read CNN and play Solitaire. And my 3pm was 30 minutes late. But at least I saw one patient today (well, two, with the therapy patient).

I still left at like 4:30. Which is awesome.

I think I have a little fourth-year-itis. Not that it means much, really. I'm ready to move on, but I'm moving on to another year of fellowship, so it's not a big transition. Still. It's time for a change....

Goodness

Faculty-hosted graduation party number 2 tonight (actually, this might be #3....).

It was another nice night of good company. 

I love my program.

Saturday night

Five random things on my mind tonight....

1. It's my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom.

2. About a month ago I backed into some guy's car, and we're trying to settle without involving my insurance. We've spent part of the evening negotiating by email. He got a little snarky. The whole thing is summed up nicely in this quote, courtesy of Claudia (who's also given me some good advice about this): "Good tactical  move not calling him an asshat."

3. Wow I'm tired. And I have to be at the gym at 8am to work out and meet my trainer.

4. Tomorrow's going to be another busy day. Graduation party number two, you know, before the actual graduation next week.

5. Today was also Chicken Day. One of the local volunteer fire departments, to which a couple of my friends belong, does this big fundraiser every year where they spend all night cooking barbecue chicken. It's really good. And they rig up a drivethru at the firehouse, which just cracks me up (and is very convenient).

Full circle

Tonight was the first in a series of graduation celebrations. Our chairman had all of us over for dinner, which was exactly how I started residency. It was a good time, full of stories, fond memories, and hearty laughs. I still really like my classmates, although there are personalities to which I gravitate more than others. The Pink Office was reunited. I got to see Sparrow for the first time in a while. And of course we had a lot more kids than the last time.

Funny how much things can change in the course of four short years.

And how many things haven't.

What a nice evening. 

Suspending reality

So I've taken to watching movies on Netflix during my workouts. 30 minutes at a time, on my tiny iPhone screen, on the treadmill. But you'd be surprised how big that screen seems when you get into the movie. Anyhow, I only had 20 minutes left of the movie Up, so I just finished watching it.

I'm going to need to watch it again, not broken into 30 minute chunks.

So far I'm going with, cute. I really liked Kevin, the bird, and Doug, the dog. Really liked the dog. Kinda makes me wish Maggie had one of those collars. She's so quiet. I'd love to know what goes on in that furry little head.

Might have to Redbox it and take it to my parents'.

Next up in my queue is Outsourced, or maybe Kickass. Prior to Up I watched Easy A, which is a modern-day, high school take on The Scarlet Letter and which I also highly recommend (I was laughing, in public, on the treadmill, at my tiny iPhone screen).

As beyond believable as I found Up, this still sometimes seems preferable to the real world, where today in clinic I saw a high school student who already had three kids.

Sometimes reality is just as beyond belief.

June

Okay. I'm back.

That was a somewhat unscheduled break, but clearly I needed one. I'm still not sure I have anything useful today, but I've been assured that's okay.

It's been sort of a stressful month over here. Not sure I can point to any one big thing in particular (except the working two weekends in a row), but there's been a lot of little stuff that keeps cropping up.

June, however, is going to be full of stressors. Graduation is next week, and I'm going to have family in town for that, and then my mom's mastectomy (finally) is on the 20th. Among other things.

So it's probably better if I get back into the blogging habit and resist my urge to hide in the shadows of my life as much as I can.

I'm also going to try not to be all Debbie Downer. We'll see how it goes....