Rainy night

Mags and I are listening to one heck of a fall storm. I really do love a good thunderstorm. Maggie? Notsomuch.

Today was really long. I didn't sleep well (so what else is new?). My 7am therapy patient forgot we had a session. It was a long day on the unit. I had a migraine and a family meeting with lots of yelling.

But I also got to see the end of a Bones on TNT tonight that I'd apparently missed; where Zach tells Sweets that he didn't actually kill anyone. How did I miss that? That seems important...

My head still hurts.

"Fish like decorations."

From last night's Bones, which I watched this morning, and...I'm still not sure what I think of it. But that line made me cackle like a drunken chicken, which I think is the official signal that my brain has, indeed, turned to mush.

So, in lieu of (more) incoherent babbling, I give you pictures.

Maggie, trying to use her powers of mind control to get me to hand over my dinner.

And Little Maxine, who's with us tonight 'cuz Sparrow's on call again. Poor pensive pup misses her mama, I think...

Lovely Thursday

So I'm on call.

I know! It's been a while.

The thing about Thursday (or Wednesday) call is that I don't go to the coast if I'm on call (or post-call). Because apparently they can't risk me being stranded at the beach when I'm supposed to be here and being all call-like. So I basically have the day off until 4:30 (when call starts).

Now, I start night float next week (wherein I work from 9pm to 9am and don't have clinic), so I have this great idea yesterday that I'm going to stay up late and sleep in today and start reversing my sleep schedule so I'm actually awake to do things next week.

Except I fell dead asleep a bit after midnight and work up at 8:30.

Oh well.

I did some stuff at home, read some things, futzed around, watched some very old reruns of ER on TNT, and finally dragged myself out into the sunshine around noon or oneish. Because despite the torrential downpours of yesterday, it was a glorious, gorgeous late summer day today, that was way too nice to spend completely indoors. I went over to visit Little Maxine, who is having to stay home at her new home these days (Sparrow, who of course moved ever so far away, a whole two blocks or so, had been leaving her at the old place during the day until our old landlord and my new landlord actually closed on the sale of the property this week). She was very happy to see me. We had a good snuggle and she peed outside and soaked in a little sunshine and then I gave her a little treat.

I then ran off to the Borders, because I got my Borders Weekly this morning and discovered that Kathy Reichs has a new book out (Devil Bones). I read the first chapter online and a couple of reviews (apparently the ending is hard to swallow) and then I sighed and decided to face the inevitable - that I would buy the book, devour it like a hungry wolf with a t-bone, and then grumble about the formulaic plot (Temperance catches a case. Something edgy happens regarding the case. Temperance has a conflict in her personal life. Temperance gets "in too deep" regarding the edginess of the case. Someone may try to send her a message. Temperance does something stupid, almost gets her ass killed, and gets saved at the last moment by the man of the hour, whom she still doesn't end up with) but somehow still love it - and just suck it up while the inevitable was 40% off. Plus, this book seems to be set in North Carolina. That always makes me happy. I like when she writes NC. I also got Crazy Aunt Purl's book and this other one I'd heard about, On Chesil Beach, on the buy one/get one half off rack. So now I have something to read next week in case night float is slow going. It sounds like it's been sort of hit or miss lately.

Okay, and how concurrently psyched and bummed am I that the new season of Bones starts next week? With a two-hour season premier that I will have to go to work in the middle of. But, well, I guess that's what the DVR is for....

I also hit the Starbucks and then came home and was like, hmm, it smells like dog urine in here...

Maggie, apparently, has decided it's okay to go in the house.

I'm crushed. Not because cleaning up dog messes from hardwood floors is just so difficult (hardly), but because she was doing so well with the doggie door thing. Everything was dry (how did I not smell this yesterday?), so I suspect the thunderstorm was probably the inciting factor. Yesterday was also when I noticed that she started hiding in her crate every time home (you know all those dog experts that are like, oh, they don't remember that they've done anything wrong for more than, like, 45 seconds? Whatever). We'll see how she does tonight.

Me, too. I had big plans for things like grocery lists and editing dictations and trying to stay awake at least a few more hours. But I promise not to pee on the floor.

Angst Monday

I'm watching this week's Bones. I'm really sad that it's the season finale.

There's much other angst going on. But we'll discuss that some other time.


::EDIT:: Wow. Didn't see that coming. Him? Really??

Wow.

And I think Hodgins knew when he traced the water. I think that's what the scene with the morphine button was really about, even though you were supposed to think otherwise.

I'm a little mad a Sweets for profiling the obvious one and missing the real killer.

Oh, and PS, I'm now officially in love with Booth.

I'm in Hell

And I so don't want to talk about it.

Meanwhile, I love Bones. I'm so glad it's back.

I wish I had more to say. I'm just...way too drained.

Stream of Consciousness

I'm so excited about new Bones. Even if tonight is actually old Bones that didn't get shown last year because of the Virginia Tech massacre.

It's David Boreanaz, you know. Same thing happened with Buffy and an episode that didn't get shown in order because it featured a school shooter and was scheduled for the week that Columbine happened.

Did you know Columbine is flower? I had no idea, until I read Brokeback Mountain, and Enis takes a swing at Jack and "laid the ministering angel out flat among the Columbine."

I'm so tired. And tomorrow is going to be a serious cluster. My crazy pregnant lady is being induced. I'm on call. I was at my cap this morning (9 patients), but then I discharged two patients and I think I've already re-capped. I'm never going to get my notes done in time. It's just going to be painful. At least there's intern lunch tomorrow. That's always a good time.

Serious as a gas attack

You know, I had this whole post written about today being the third anniversary of my escape from the Emerald Palace. But you know...I'm just not feeling it. I'm feeling the moving on.

I can't really tell you why, exactly, because honestly, there was actually quite a bit that was unpleasant about it, but...I had a really good day.

And. Bones is back.

I'm postcall and got home late and am completely exhausted and it's totally freezing in my house because it's 40 in North Carolina and all the windows in my house are open because it very recently was a lot more than 40 and I'm seriously just so tired and hungry and whatever, and still had to stay up and watch it.

And got great quotes like the title, and these:

Booth: What are we, brook trout?

Cam: The body was braised like osso buco.

Hodgins: I do bugs and slime, I don't do arithmetic.

Booth: Special Agent Seely Booth. Special.

Brennan: Oh, we're not blue fish.

Booth: That's very damn poetic of you.

Brennan: You want to come? To go bowling with us at the bowling rink?

Sweets: Me? I'm a dog person. I think that has meaning.

And my personal favorite -

Booth: I thought the whole point of therapy was to give us peace of mind, not to drive us crazy.

Ohh, how I've missed Booth and Brennan.

And now Maggie's barking in her sleep, which is the most adorable thing ever.

I'm just so glad to be living my life right now.

Snow and Ink

So I'm driving around doing errands this morning, and I hear this story on the radio. Apparently the chief surgery resident at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale just got fired because he took a picture of a patient's penis with his cellphone during a cholecystectomy and then showed it to his friends. Horrible, right?

I'm having a little bit of trouble feeling sorry for this guy.

Yes, that was really unprofessional behavior. Yes, that was a violation of his trust and the doctor-patient relationship. Yes, the surgeon really should've known better than to create evidence. And it was jocular and silly. But...the guy had "Hot Rod" tattooed on his penis.

Not for nothin', but...hmm. Did you not think that would attract some attention? I mean, I have an unusual tattoo, too (different from a ta-tutu), and I knew when I got it that people would comment. And mine's nothing like that. So, come on, bud. What that resident did was wrong, but, really, the way he's carrying on and being all outraged and horrified is a bit...dude, you let a total stranger with a needle tattoo the words Hot Rod on your penis. Not to mention that now everyone in the literate universe knows about your, um, little secret. I? When that doc had called me, would've been like, fine, sir, whatever, let's just never mention this again.

We're not even going to talk about the number of times I photographed women's genitalia during surgery when I was a GYN resident because they had some clinically interesting or relevant finding. A couple of those pictures even got published, I think, in a journal article, of one woman's vulvar cancer. Not the same thing, I know, but, I'm not sure we told very many of those people we'd taken pictures of their cooch. Our ability to take photographs during surgery is in the standard release form. Now, I concede that the "clinical utility" of these Mayo photographs is questionable, and I was either taking them with the hospital's digital camera or a laparoscope, not a cell phone...but anyway...

In other news, it's snowing in North Carolina.

I think it's sort of funny. In the few hours since I started this post we've actually had some accumulation. We're supposed to get more tomorrow. Maybe it will keep people home and make for an easier call night? A call girl can only hope.

And in still other news, Tiny Tyrant sent me some very cool sock yarn in a yarn swap. Which I promptly tied into a great big knot (with the help of my ball winder) that took me two episodes of Bones to untangle today.

It's very cool. I'll post more about it later now that it's in actual balls and I have a tiny bit of it knit up. Maybe I'll have some time to write tomorrow (keep your fingers crossed for me), but right now, I've got to get to bed....

"For someone who hates psychology, she sure has a lot of it."

It's one of my favorite quotes from the pilot episode of Bones, which is on tonight. And it's so true. I'd forgotten what a grumpy, cocky "cop" Booth was in the pilot. I'm glad he got over it. And I really like that Booth is all angsty, thoughtful, pining for a woman he can't have, again, except he has so much more depth in his thoughtful pining angst than Angel ever did. And Boreanaz is even cuter in the daylight.

Today was long again. Not quite as stressful, partly because I'd planned on going to SNB tonight at the local Borders, and the dog sitter came during the day. Needless to say, I didn't make it to knitting. I only left two patients of mine on our service, but, we're admitting tonight. I, truly, was done with my work at 2pm. But I left after 7. Because there was rounding and then this and then that and oyyy. And then one of my patients got sicker. So I stuck around for another hour fussing so Mike wouldn't have to. And I tied up his patient into a neat little package for discharge. It was a favor but you survive this life on favors-both the ones you get, and the ones you give. And no, I don't expect him to stay nearly this late when, starting next week, I'm the call girl du jour. Although....okay, maybe I will expect him to reciprocate on the post-call coffee I'm bringing him in the morning....

Because there is simply nothing better than a hot post-call beverage of choice from outside the hospital. It's that warm, little comforting cup of hope that the free world still exists somewhere outside the sterile and stagnant confines. Okay...there is one thing better...the post-call nap. Preferably a post-call nap with a warm dog or some other snuggly warm mammal.

I'm babbling again. I have a really sick patient I spent of a lot of today fussing over. I'm still really tired. Oy....I'm going to turn off House, which is now on because Bones got all solved and done with, and go to bed. But, after this:

"Treating illness is why we became doctors. Treating people is what makes most doctors miserable." It's a quite from tonight's House which more or less illustrates why I don't usually watch House. But....I will give him a tremendous amount of credit for this one:

"It's five o'clock. I'm going home."

Rainy Sunday

It's a rainy, rainy Sunday afternoon here in NC. Little Miss Delicate Puppy Dog is not pleased, neither by the giant puddle that is our back patio nor by the thunder that's rumbling around. I think maybe she's forgotten about her dislike for snow, though.

I'm feeling better. I'm not willing to go to "great" yet, still a little dizzy and nauseated but I'm significantly less achy and slept a little better last night. And my temp is down. I think the staying home yesterday was good for me (regardless of the fact that I would've been useless at the hospital). I even managed to go run some errands this morning. I was going to run to the Super Target, where, in theory, I could get everything I needed. But, of course, I totally forgot something that I didn't remember until after I'd left, which is my habit with Target. So I stopped at the Whole Foods to pick up milk. Which was better, anyway, because they always have local goods, and I'm always much happier to buy local. And while I was in the dairy section, I bought this:
Partly because I was running low on feta cheese (it's a staple around here). Partly because it cracked me up. Apparently this spelling is because the Greek government is cracking down on their proprietary right to call only cheese made in Greece "feta".

Pheta...

And as long as we're taking pictures of ridiculous things in my fridge, I also happen to think this is really funny. I have this package of polenta, right? And in the preparation instructions, is this:

Nine sixteenths? Really? They couldn't have just said half an inch?

Anyway. As I was saying.

Maggie and I spent pretty much the whole day hanging outdoing nothing yesterday (which, incidentally, is also my plan for this afternoon). Pretty much any time I got up, Mags stole my place on the couch.

We spent most of the time that we were awake watching movies on Lifetime. I got sucked in to the end of this really, really awful one called Criminal Intent. Wow, holy cow was it terrible. The acting was terrible. The plot was ludicrous. I'd watched about ten minutes of it and turned on something else, but then decided to turn it back on to catch the last fifteen minutes. Wow, it was so bad.


But by then I was sucked into the Lifetime vortex, and I ended up watching this movie about some Mormon woman in one of those extremist polygamist sects that escaped with her kids. It was formulaic, but entertaining. And then there was this movie called "Girl, posi+ive" with Kelly from 90210 (why can't I think of her name? Oh, Jennie Garth) about a girl that got HIV in high school. That one was actually fairly creative. And then I watched "The Waitress" on On Demand. I'd kind of wanted to see it back when it was in the little art film theaters, but never got around to it, and then yesterday they were advertising it and I discovered that it had Nathan Fillion in it, and well, I was sold (I adore him, even if he does have that weird hypertelorism thing going on). It was decent. Not as good as I was expecting after all the hype, and I didn't really like the relationship between Fillion's character and Keri Russell's (I think it's because I'm a doctor. There was a whole, medical ethics, makes-me-feel-kind-of-icky-inside thing to it that I probably wouldn't have responded to if I was, say, an accountant). But on the whole, worth the cheap rental.

So this afternoon I'm planning to do some knitting (I'm thisclose to having my sock finished. You know, the one I started in June) and nap through a marathon of Law and Order: SVU, which is one of my new favorite shows. Not because of the show itself all that much. I mean, it's well acted in general. The plotlines are usually fairly well written (although I occasionally find myself rolling my eyes when they blow right past the obvious solution and thinking, don't you people ever watch CSI??). And who doesn't love the irony of "Body Count" Ice-T as a cop? But really, what I love most is their liberal use of forensic psychiatrists, particularly the later episodes with B.D. Wong. That? Is the job I want. Right there. Profiling. Consulting to law enforcement. Doing actual criminology and forensics work, not prison psychiatry. Except maybe for the FBI. Really, I want to be Gordon Gordon.

Shut up, Katie, I do not watch too much TV.....

The THING

Maggie has a thing on her foot.

The groomer noticed it this weekend. I'd noticed she'd been licking her feet an awful lot. I looked at it, I was like, huh, that looks like a wart. The groomer said, I think that's a wart (what she actually said was, "my boyfriend has a wart like that on his foot. It gets all spongy when it gets wet, too, just like hers does." Umm...).

But then I slowly turned from overeducated pack leader into a pet parent.

What if it's something terrible?

What if the dog's foot falls off?

What if Maggie has toe cancer? (Now, that one's actually justifiable, because Kedzie, my old roommate's dog, had toe cancer. And they cut off his toe! And he missed it, I think, poor old fellow. And he's also, like, six hundred years older than Maggie. And cancer of the toe is sort of a fluke thing. But still!)

So I kept fussing at her and looking at her foot. And fretting. And worrying. I think this is what Maggie thought of my whole "toe cancer" idea.

I knew she was right.

But I took her to the vet anyway. Who said, "well, what that looks like is a papilloma."

And I thought, oh, God! A papilloma??!! Like, papillary toe cancer? A papilloma! Oh, God! Not a papilloma! Oh, my poor baby, not a pap-

And then I stopped. And I looked at the vet. And I said, "So....she's got a wart?"

Maggie has a wart. On her foot. A foot wart, if you will.

So glad I took her to the vet all freaked out about a wart. So is she. Because she ended up getting four shots while we were there. And has to go back for her lyme, giardia, and bordatella boosters in three weeks. Plus, now she has to get her teeth cleaned one of these days. But on the plus side, she did get a new toy.

And she now has vet insurance. Which I've been meaning to get for three years, but, seriously, the only thing my dog has ever had wrong with her are some seasonal allergies (Maggie having a sneezing fit is about the funniest thing you've ever seen in your whole life), and apparently a case of plantar warts that she probably picked up at that filthy horrible boarding facility. Which she really loves, and will probably be going back to stay at next weekend when I'm on call. However, not having vet insurance totally bit me in the ass with my last dog. Poor Wolfie was a sick little puppy (he was, like, eight), and his final three days in the doggie ICU alone almost cost me $2K. This cheap little Banfield-only plan is definitely a better idea.

What I think is especially funny, though, is that her health insurance costs more than mine. Now, admittedly, mine is subsidized. But I don't know why Blue Cross/Blue Shield won't let me claim her as a dependant. I mean really.

::sigh::

Oh, and you remember how like a year ago the groomer back in Illinois looked at Maggie was like, "Wow, she looks like she's got some coyote in her." And I thought, huh, she kind of does. Well, if I'd had any doubts, they were squelched by the photos of Charlie, a coyote who's been domesticated by a lady out in Wyoming after he was orphaned as a tiny little pup. Check out the pictures, he's way cute. And could well be Maggie's littermate, if she wasn't like four years older than him.

In other news...I did finish my Bones Hat the other day. I even wore it to work yesterday and got compliments on it. Now, you'll remember that this is Take Two of the Tapestry hat. I'd made one to go with the set that I'm making, and it was really boring, and I was busy coveting the hat that Emily Deschanel had been wearing on a recent episode of Bones. So this was my template And this is what I ended up with.

Not bad. The cables are a little different, and the brim isn't designed to be flipped up like that, but all in all, I'm quite pleased with it. And it's far more interesting than the original. It's made out of Tapestry and Cascade Superwash.

Oh, and the other thing I found...

I almost forgot in my exhausted delirium yesterday...remember how I was looking at knitting books? I didn't actually buy any (although I did pick up the Holiday Gifts edition of Interweave Knits), but I spotted this:

Leave it to Debbie Stoller to create a book that's fun and interesting and a little off center and still fill it with knitting patterns for men that men might actually wear and/or knit. Without being a book full of stupid things like beer cozies and "utility cloths" and really, really gay-man sweaters (i.e., Knitting With Balls). My very favorite pattern is the Naughty/Nice Scarf, which just looks like a shitload of colorwork but oh, how funny. Here's a picture of that (stolen from someone else's blog):

I know exactly the man I would've made it for, too, had he not turned out to be a dumbass (don't they all?). And then I would've borrowed it, and it would've come contingent with a break-up clause (as in, if we break up, custody of the scarf reverts back to me) because after all, I'd slogged through all that colorwork and charts and swearing (you know there'd be a lot of swearing). I'm trying to decide if I could get away with making it for myself, because, I just think that's hilarious. But probably not nearly as funny to the general public on a woman. Particularly one who is clearly not a stripper.

And, dude, that's a lot of colorwork.

But there are a lot of other good patterns in it, too. I've vowed not to buy it until I have a man in my clutches, er, in my life worth knitting for, but I'm probably going to cave in and buy it long before that happens. Because the, uh, knitting prospects these days are sparse.

I have too many things on the needles as it is.

In other news, I have the weekend off. Oh, how I've missed the weekends off! It's the best part of working at State Hospital. I actually cleaned today. I mean, the place is still far from presentable (there are still boxes in the front room and whatnot. And it still looks way too cluttered, but that's partially because the first floor of my apartment isn't laid out very well), but, hey, I get points for something.

I also started knitting a very simple felted bag out of some of the yarn I got at Peggy's. It's turning out well. And I finished the hat out of my hat/scarf/fingerless gloves set, and started on the fingerless gloves. I haven't gotten very far on those. And I still can't figure out what to do with the scarf. And I'm not super pleased with the hat. I'm thinking I should've done cables. Actually, I'm thinking now that I should've made this hat:

Only in brown, with variegated trim. Emily Deschanel was wearing it on Bones this week. It was one of those "you know you're a knitter when..." moments, when I paused it just to get a good look at her hat and then mentally started working up the pattern...

Oh, and happy December. I officially made it through NaBloPoMo with 30 posts in the month of November. Which, okay, that and $5 will get you a latte. But I'll try not to regress to my prior sporadic posting habits.

Oh, it's so naptime...

Yesterday's post? Was supposed to automatically post at 8:30am. It just showed up now. What the heck? Clearly, Blogger and I need to have a talk about being responsible...or maybe I just need to learn how to use the dumb thing...anyhow.

So, who watched Bones on Tuesday night? There was this great moment, where she's interrogating this Jeffersonian Institute professor guy who's all smug and better than everyone, whom they suspect of murdering his mistress. It goes like this:

Aldrich: Dr. Brennan, surely I merit someone higher up the food chain than an FBI consultant.
Brennan: Kyle. I know you get everything you want by flaunting your superior intellect. But that won't work with me.
Aldrich: Why is that?
Brennan: Because I'm smarter than you are.

I? Love that.

I think I had more to say, but I'm also really, really tired. I had an interesting, but exhausting call. And I have to be at the hospital really freaking early again tomorrow. So, maybe I'll just go to bed...

Ugh.

So I'm sitting here procrastinating because I really just want to go to bed and what I actually have to do is get all my shit together and pack because I'm on call again tomorrow night.

Also, I made garlic spaghetti for dinner (ahh, the life of the single girl) and Maggie has been licking the bowl for ten minutes now. She literally is lying on the floor with one paw cradling the bowl and one paw on the rim. Guess she likes it. I thought it needed more garlic. Either way, I think we're both going to have stinky breath tonight. Not that anyone minds, really.

So I'm stalling and she's "cleaning" and of course there's CSI on in the background. Mi vida loca, people.

My last call, on Monday, was completely wretched. I got thirty minutes of sleep. Here's a brief overview. I get this call to go to the adolescent building, right? "Doctor, come quick, this girl we just admitted today is having a seizure!!" And so I page my moonlighter and leave word for her to come meet me, jump in my car, race over to the adolescent building, go flying up the stairs, and...am met by one of my favorite nurses, we'll call her Miss Luci, who starts shaking her head at me. So, apparently, this girl throws herself of the floor and starts flailing about, and it looks pretty real until Miss Luci goes over and touches her arm. And, miracle of miracle, the "seizure" stops. So Miss Luci looks at this girl, pointedly, and says, "Are you finished?" And the patient stops, looks up at her, and says, "....yeah.....I'm sorry....."

Have I mentioned my so very not wanting to do adolescent psychiatry?

So, fine. I write a note, and then I get paged down the street to the long-term adolescent building, for a sprained ankle. Okay. Then one of the forensics patients faints, a couple of other things happen, and I get to bed around 1:30. At two (so, not asleep yet), my pager goes off, and it's Miss Luci. Who says, "well, now we have a kid having an actual seizure."

So the short version of that is, I try to admit him to medical, the nurses have a fit (one of the nurses on the med unit tells the nurse from Adolescent, "She's just fussing." Um, hello? Does anyone realize how I have absolutely no power around here and really can only do what the attending tells me to do?), and the Adol nurses convince me that he'll be fine with them (and probably get more supervision) until morning - you know, when the regular practitioner gets there - and I shuffle off to bed, where I toss and turn and fret and worry because maybe I should have admitted him (I think he was actually better off where he was) and because the on-call attending wouldn't let me give him any Valium (it's a great acute anti-seizure drug, it's not just for calming down suburban housewives), and finally, finally start to drift fitfully off to sleep when the pager goes off again, and Miss Luci tells me, "He's seizing again."

Shit.

So I race over, again, and Miss Luci and two of the techs and I bring him back to Medical, and I load him with IV stuff per the attending, and, and, and, and then finally, right around 6, my head hits the pillow again. And I think, okay. I usually get up at 7 and round when I'm on call, but, I can delay that and sleep all the way until morning report at 8, right?

Sure.

Because at 6:30, the pager goes off again. And once again, it's Miss Luci. She slipped and fell and screwed up her knee. And since Medical On-Call covers employee health after hours....

Yeah....

I really like Miss Luci. But if I ever see that much of her again in one night, there'd better be margaritas involved, and we'd better be far, far away from State Hospital.

This rotation continues to drive me crazy, and I still have another month of it. Like, I almost stroked out this morning watching my attending trying to do an I&D (incision and drainage of a pus-filled infected thing), and I swear, his surgical technique could've been worse pretty much only if he'd dropped the forceps on the ground and stepped on them before using them. And then, there's things like...this morning, my attending called one of the moonlighters a "prostate." I swear to God, this is the story I got from the nurse, with the attending sitting next to her. Now, I know he's foreign, and I'm quite certain he must have meant "prostitute" (because said moonlighter often buys food for the people he's on with. Um, no honey, that's not prostitution, that's how you get people in hospitals to like you. Well, that, and not being a condescending jackass to them), but...dude....and then he couldn't quite grasp why I couldn't stop laughing at him...

In totally unrelated, and much better, news, both Bones and CSI premier this week! And then? The week after that? South Park is back! Squee! I'm going to fall in love with my DVR all over again....