A public service announcement

As much as I applaud her compliance with helmet laws, this is NOT proper riding gear.

That is all.

(Stolen from Fail Blog)

Happy Monday

I just think this is hilarious, it really wasn't a bad day. Busy, but productive. Can't ask for much more than that out of a Monday...

Gratuitous Thursday "I'm going to bed instead of blogging" Photo

(I promise to get better at this soon...)

First beachiness

Sheesh, that must've been a long nap...

Have I really not posted since Thursday? Holy cow. Sorry about that...

It's been quite a weekend. Had a nice dinner out with friends on Friday, which was the perfect end to a CRAZY day. My friend Mary brought her baby, who's like three months old, and he provided excellent "snorgles."

My dad's back home in Chicago this weekend, supervising the packing efforts on their house. Robin headed up and organized the troops, who were Claudia, Brett, Robin, Ali and Jer, my mom's boss and coworker, and a bunch of my crazy Greek aunties. I hear there were great piles of donated things, lots of good memories relived, and much serenading of the moving crew by my aunt Lynn. They got the whole place packed up! In the middle of this, I also got a package from my mom's work, where they took up a collection for my mom and helped defray the cost of the move. Amazing!!

My mom and I were of course still here in the North Cack. We had a good time this weekend. Yesterday my mom went to coffee with me, and out to lunch with some of my friends. She also spent all of yesterday afternoon and much of today at my house, which is no small achievement, given the number of stairs she had to climb to get into my place (I'm working on getting ramps this week). She helped me unpack and we got almost the whole first floor unpacked (which is helpful because there's a bunch of stuff coming to me from Chicago on Thursday). We had a lot of fun, actually. We also got a lot done.

It was a nice weekend. It was a busy weekend. It was a stressful weekend. It was a productive weekend. And it was capped off by this, which appeared outside Shady Pines as I was leaving today...

It doesn't show up well in this cell phone shot, but that's actually a very sharp double rainbow. It was a full, perfect arc.

I think it's going to be a good week.

Happy 4th and whatnot

Back from Rene's wedding at the Biltmore in Asheville.

The wedding itself was a-ma-zing.

 The Estate is phenomenal.

She looked incredible, the scenery was breathtaking...

A good time was had by all. In fact, um, a few had a little too good of a time. Which led to some significant badness after the wedding.

But, in the end, I think all will be well. And fortunately, I have an appointment with my shrink tomorrow...what a night.

It's not a tie, but...

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Thanks for teaching me things (like, say, how to make theples). Thanks for letting me drive you crazy. Thanks for good stories, good ideas, and good advice.

Thanks for being my dad, Dad. Love you.

I call him Vinnie

Solitude

Plus/minus

It's been a good weekend, in the balance. But there's been some darn annoying things as well.

I've been stood up no less than four times this weekend by four different friends. Two of my friends bailed, independently, for the movie last night (you know, after I'd bought the tickets, so like ten minutes prior to the start of the flick. Fortunately, the theater refunded me for the two unused tickets). Another friend was supposed to go with me to see tigers this am, another thing involving tickets, but I woke him up when I called to say I was ten minutes out, and he was...clearly not feeling so hot (ahem. I got in at 2, okay? I was moving. AND I had coffee waiting). So he bailed. I was a little annoyed when I hung up with him (not as much because of the ticket, not so much because of the last-minute-ness, but mostly because I had to drive 45 minutes out of my way to get him and didn't realize how far away CH is from Pittsboro, and I was already running a little late). I was pulling off the highway, so I gave his coffee to the guy panhandling at the exit. Who was very kind and grateful, and I think might have been a patient of mine at some point. So that made me feel better.

Today is the Chinese New Year, and it is, of course, the year of the tiger. In fact, it is also a metal year, the combination of which is associated with white tigers. And my friend happens to volunteer at the Carolina Tiger Rescue, where they just happen to have a white tiger. His name is Jellybean.

So she invited some of us to come take her tour this am and ring in the Year of the Tiger with...well...actual tigers. It was awesome. They have a bunch of different predatory cats in their sanctuary, most of whom have remarkable stories (i.e., the two that were found wandering down the street in a town in MO. Or the one chained to a lamp post. Or the one who turned up on the CTR doorstep one morning in a crate with a note, like an abandoned baby. Or the two that lived in a junkyard, and one of them is blind, which the owner didn't know. How does one miss something like? Anyhow...). Jenny's been a tour guide there for a number of years now, and the cats love her. It was a great tour; very informative, and a lot of fun. Not to mention, of course I took WAY too many pictures.

I was supposed to have lunch plans today as well, but, once again, got stood up. The friend I was supposed to have lunch with never called and didn't return my text, so, I decided to wander my way home and stopped to take some more pictures of the Haw River. Which was fortunate that I didn't just turn around and grumble my way home, because shortly after I stopped Jenny texted me and asked if I wanted to join them for lunch. Which I did, and had a wonderful time with her, her boyfriend, and a coupled set of their friends. It was also a really good time. Plus, it got me over by the Target, where I needed to go anyhow...

When I consider the things I got ditched for this weekend - the movie, the tigers, lunch - I really can only come to one conclusion, though: Wow. Four of my friends did a really good job of missing out on some seriously awesome stuff.

I have to wonder....

...think this'd work?

Holy cow, it's 2010.

So, it's a whole new year.

I had a wonderful time last night. Hung out with the old crew (it was, after all No Pants New Year, season 8), stayed up until 5am, laughed, talked, remembered why I adore these people so much.

I thought a lot yesterday about the changing year. It's sort of arbitrary, like a birthday - nothing is really different about the day to day, but in a way, that's also not true. Because for whatever reasons, we associate these things culturally with new beginnings, taking stock, and moving forward.

2009? Wasn't all bad. It wasn't generally all that good, mind you. The last few weeks in particular were amazingly stressful. But some very wonderful things happened in 2009. Life keeps going; it's blissful, horrible, awesome and terrifying all at the same time. You can resist the flow if you like, but in the end you have no real choice but to keep moving with it.

I frequently can't believe I'm a third year resident. Partly in the sense of, whoa, where the hell did the last two and a half years go? But also, you'll remember that my entire first year I couldn't convince myself that they weren't going to turn around one day and fire me. I couldn't conceive of the possibility of being promoted to second year. And yet, time goes forward. I'm still employed. I'm halfway through my tenure at Baby Blue, exactly, and somehow two and a half years seems both like a heartbeat and an eternity. I love my job. I know psychiatry. I know what psychiatrists *do*. Three years ago, I couldn't have said any of these things.

And I'm continually amazed at the caliber of the people around me. I'm perpetually marveling at all the good people in my life, frankly, local or otherwise. I have wonderful people close to me - the family I've created in my life and the family created for me. I have amazing friends, colleagues, and people that touch my life everyday. I also have somehow acquired better skills for dealing with the toxic people or interactions that sometimes lurk in my life like depth charges (although, let's be honest, I still have a good deal of skill to obtain in that arena).

We were waxing nostalgic last night on how it's been a decade since the Y2K scare. None of us could believe it'd been 10 years. I was thinking, later, as I lay on my friends' couch in the dark, about what a decade it's been. Thinking about where we all were ten years ago, how much has changed in these years that have just flown the hell by...it makes me think I can't even imagine what we'll be talking about on the eve of 2020.

I've been thinking this week how my life at times feels almost unrecognizable from what it was 10, 15 years ago. One of my relatives posted an old picture of me on Facebook a while back; one of my friends came into my office the next day and was like, wow, I almost didn't recognize you. And I said, yeah, well, those were different times. He asked if I had the same personality then that I have now, and I honestly wasn't sure of the answer. Similarly, I had coffee this week with a very dear friend whom I haven't seen since we graduated from medical school, and she commented that I seemed very different from then. I asked her to elaborate, and she said she noticed how "anxious and tired" I seemed.

I can't argue with that.

She reminded me that the girl she knew in medical school was confident, put together, always on top of things. What she didn't know about that was two things: A, it was a ruse. I'm still the woman who keeps her shit together in a crisis, still the one who puts out fires, still the girl who gets it done. Those things are true about me, and they're part of who I am. But I've been able to get much more in touch, for better or worse, with the side of me that is, frankly, a mess. Who isn't so good at being a grown-up some days. Who drops the ball occasionally, can't find the floor of her closet, and has learned how to live with (shudder) a low census of roaches in her apartment. Who sometimes is too passive, who often gets her feelings hurt, who internalizes everything that goes on around her. Who's funny and neurotic and is sometimes a spaz. Who is uncoordinated and imperfect. Who tries not to throw stones in her glass houses and who sometimes finds the storms of her own emotions to be completely overwhelming. Who attaches fiercely and faithfully to people, even though she thinks she rarely lets them see that. Who finally believes that happiness is an attainable reality.

The other thing my friend doesn't know about this, this has been a very significant source of angst for the past year or so, feeling like I don't maintain that facade of Ms. "Everything's under control, here." I feel like it makes me seem weak. In truth, I feel like it makes me weak. But the reality of it is, it's only because I've started allowing that shell to weaken that I've started to understand the many layers of who I am. And, that those components of myself are from where I draw my strength.

And so, we move on into 2010. A new year, a new chapter, and (arguably) a new decade. I have great things in mind for it.

2009, précis

Ho ho ho

I'm in Chicago!!

Left my house at 4-freakin-am, with the anticipation that I'd have to sit in the terminal and wait a bunch of hours, but as it turns out my 6am flight left right on time. And despite losing my favorite necklace somewhere in the transition (I'm crushed. Seriously. I was wearing it precisely so I *wouldn't* lose it), the trip was largely uneventful.

Except....well, for this:

I was sitting behind them on the plane, too. They were very nice people, as one might imagine. And they pleasantly tolerated all the comments about, "Hey, is the sleigh in the shop?" I asked if there was an outbreak of Reindeer Flu.

But the best response to this, by far, was this, which my friend penned on my FB page:

Twas the night before Christmas and in RDU,
St. Nick waited patiently to check luggage through.
The desk agent saw him and shouted with glee
"I trust that you're Santa but I still need ID"
"And just in case the sign wasn't clear,
Your pets must be crated unless they're service reindeer"
The TSA agent took one look at his sack,
And said "sorry you'll have to leave some stuff back"
"The cookies are fine, but the milk's got to go,
You have way more than three ounces you know"
"We will happily let through Dasher and Dancer,
But this one's red nose has set off our sensors!"
Santa said "Rudolph's fine, see he's on my nice list!
I always background check for terrorists!"
So with out any milk and a reindeer detained,
Santa begrudgingly boarded the plane.
And he exclaimed as the Boeing took off and was gone,
"Next year I'm staying home and using Amazon!"

Merry Christmas, y'all. May it be a blessed and magical one.

This kid is my new hero

(From Pundit Kitchen.)

Wow, did this week kick my ass.

Loculated

It's my knee. Well, a small cross-section of the gigantic cyst in my knee (it continues for a lot of cuts; this is sort of the middle). Which apparently isn't the problem; apparently the pain is coming from the patella being out of place. But, this probably isn't helping.

Also? It's a pretty good metaphor for how my life is going right now....

Perspective

(Pretend it's Wednesday...)

Sometimes, it helps to remember....

Today, on the whole, was not a bad day. First day on the consult service. It was decent, if anxious. Gonna be an anxious week, I think.

But I slept so poorly last night. Not super sure why. Which is why I'm going to be a little early tonight...

Good advice.

Be nice to those around you.



Because one day, you might not be the big dog anymore, you might just be the old dog.

Bonus picture Friday

(Because I'm freakin' exhausted...and SO ready for a weekend....)