And it's only Tuesday...

I'm...so....crabby.......

You know those days....

...when, no matter what you do, you feel like you absolutely, positively, totally, and completely CANNOT do anything right?

Yep. Been one of those.

Today...

...not so good.

I'm not really sure why, to be honest. It was just...difficult.

I think it's still part of my Crisis of Something. But wow am I in one of those awash in your emotions, stuck all up in your head, mulling over life kind of funks.

And I have a 7am patient tomorrow. So I'm going to bed on old lady time.

Continuing the profane streak of the past few days...

(....and then we're back to our baseline level of profanity, I promise...)

This is my sentiment for the day:

No, no, I don't have cancer (that I'm aware of). And I did not make this hat. But I'm rather thinking of making one for someone who does, except I really can't decide if she'd actually wear it...

The morning after

First of all, watch this (for some reason, I can't seem to embed it, so you'll have to settle for a link).

It's a parody. We sang that one year (in four-part harmony, of course) in Madrigals. It still cracks me up.

Today was a very delightful day of doing pretty much nothing. My mom made bread, I ate some of it. We had a crackling, lovely fire. I read some Hawaiian ghost stories in a book I bought while we were there in October, that I finally cracked at the airport. All three of us did some napping. I did leave the house, once, when my mom and I went to Starbucks for breakfast.

Yesterday was....I dunno. Not what I remember holidays being when I was a kid. Which isn't new, really. Things haven't really been "right," I guess, since my yiayia (grandmother) died, but that was almost 20 years ago, now. There was a lot of contention in the family after that, for a while. Then my grandfather died, then my aunt's mom, then her dad. Now it's just us, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and my aunt's sister, sitting around a table, making too much food for eight people and sniping at each other. It's a far cry from the jubilant, boisterous holidays of my kidhood, when D an I used to complain about sitting at the kiddie table, my grandmother made too much food for the 12 of us and whatever distantly-related (or not) koumbari happened to be joining us for the holiday, and we all clustered around the tables and argued loudly. Now it's like we're white people or something. But with more food.

My cousin brought his girlfriend to Thanksgiving. That was sort of monumental - none of the three of us cousins has ever brought anyone to a holiday dinner. Apparently she was lovely (I say "apparently" only because I was in NC). I was hoping she'd come for Christmas...I've suspected for a long while that they were involved but have never met her in person. Alas, though, she was off visiting her own family in a whole other state.

Lucky her.

I can't figure out why I'm so irked after this particular Christmas dinner. It's not like anything has really changed with our little family. My aunt makes me feel inadequate and worthless. My uncle doesn't say much. My one cousin is sullen, the other is beige and answers any direct questions in monosyllable responses. My aunt-in-law (my aunt's sister) is kind of funny but spends a lot of the time sniping with her sister. My mom gets anxious about the food. My dad tells stories. I? Wish I drank more.

So I don't know why it was so painful this time. Maybe I'm paying more attention to what I want it to be. Maybe I'm more sensitive to my own internal responses (damn my shrink and my progress in therapy)(no, not really). Maybe NC is really starting to feel more like home than home. Maybe I'm different with them than I am with other people.

I just wish I felt like my family liked me more (and by "family," here, I'm referring to my extended genetic family. My parents, and my non-genetic relations, seem to like me just fine. Weirdly). It's amazing to me how no matter how old I get, no matter what I manage to accomplish or that at which I manage to fail (because sometimes it seems like the accomplishments are more problematic), I never feel like I'm even close to good enough. And I can't ever seem to figure out what it is that would make me so.

I could keep whining, but I'm not sure it's useful to anyone outside my head.

It also finally caught up with me that I don't think I really have a whole lot planned for the week, unlike my typical whirlwind home visits. I think a lot of my non-core friends are out of town. So maybe I'll get to spend some actual quality time with some of the core group this time? That'd be cool.

Need a little Christmas...

I'm so ready for a vacation. In case you've missed that.

I'm a little bit packed.

I have way too much to do at work tomorrow.

My dog is snoring.

One of these things cracks me the hell up.

Oyyyy.....

So, four people, maybe 5, have now backed out of our beach trip this weekend, leaving us at potentially 12-13. Which means it's going to be somewhat more expensive, since, after all, we're paying for it ourselves this time. I have yet to determine how much more, though, because, of course, we still haven't picked a house.

I'm completely amazed at how many people involved have said something along the lines of, "you should just not even go." Seriously? First of all, it's like you people don't even know me. Finding solutions at the last minute is one of the things I do best. And beyond that, there's still 12 or 13 people going. Why shouldn't we still go and have fun? I'm just sayin'.

Scott's pissed. I? Am strangely less worried.

Wow, I wish that made sense...

It was really the icing on a very long, very stressful day. I can't even begin to tell you....

Migration...

So my day started nicely. I slept in, I was snuggled with my puppy, and then I noticed this little...thing on the dog. So I picked at it a little, and then its little feet started moving, and ew, ew, ew, it was a tick!

Dude, I'm a city girl. Born and bred. I don't know what the hell to do with a tick. This is why I put tick medicine on her, so I don't have to deal with this shit.

So I called the Banfield, and they told me to put a little alcohol on it and then pull it out with a tweezer. I ended up using a pliers (close enough - couldn't find the tweezers), and then looked at this thing...

I think it's Ichabod Tick.

Apparently I didn't get as close to the head as I thought...

Maggie was NOT pleased. And in fact wouldn't come back into the bedroom for the rest of the time I was home.

The handyman came as I was getting ready for work. I had one patient show up for clinic again today (hooray!), and then had a bunch of work to do this afternoon, which I decided I would do at Starbucks. So I came home to get my laptop, and found that the sink had migrated out to the front porch.

But, by the time I came home from class (last night of classes! I get my Tuesday nights back next week!), it had moved back into the bathroom...

Seriously. Are they kidding?? It's mounted to the wall with a friggin' piece of molding. That's hideous. What happened to the pedestal sink? What happened to the not putting the stupid sink back on the wall??

Uh, and I think there's something seriously missing, still....

I'm so not pleased. We're on day three, here.

Not to mention, he moved everything (for no apparent reason) and blocked off the door to the room with the dog door.

Oy.

Here's what Maggie thinks.

(You'll notice she got over her fear of the bedroom, though)

Oh, holy shit

So my dad calls. I'm in the middle of a dictation, because I'm in the middle of clinic, but I answer. He's fine (my dad had cataract surgery yesterday...didn't even get an eyepatch. Or a parrot. What's the fun in that?). So I hang up with them and notice I have two voicemails and four text messages. Weird, in the middle of the day and all...

So, apparently, Sparrow went over to my house this morning to retrieve Little Maxine, and not only was there no Little Maxine, there was no Maggie. Because Little Maxine had dug them out. Sparrow says the hole was pure Maxine (she used to break out this way routinely), and she seemed to make it wide enough that flexi-Maggie could make her way through there just fine.

Sparrow found Maxine underneath her car - you know, at her house, two blocks away - and Maggie in a yard near her house. They are both safe and cozy at Sparrow's.

Little conspiratory twerps.

I haven't managed to slow my pulse rate down yet.

Jesus, Mary, and Steve....in the immortal words of Charlie Brown...I can't stand it....

"Maybe God remembered how cute you were as a carrot."

A classic Olivia Benson line from this week's SVU (which I finally watched today after I got home from a ridiculously long flight on the tin can. At least it was a pretty day). Which...well....I liked it.

They really need a psychiatrist on the consulting team.

Now, maybe things are different in New York. But holy cow, Kathleen totally could've been committed in North Carolina. In fact, I think I've treated Kathleen a couple dozen times. And I can't believe Bernie only got sent to the hospital once. But on the whole, a well-ish done episode. Ellyn Bursten was good.

Hmm. I had more to say about this, but then I got distracted by the GIANT COCKROACH on my wall. Ew.

Ewewewewewewewewewewewewew.

I have to go call my landlord.

Atlas stomped her feet

I never took heavy words for granted
And I never took the undeserved advantage
No, I never took the easy way
So why don't you take it a little easy on me now?

- Dar Williams, The Easy Way

It's been a long damn week.

Next week isn't looking a whole lot shorter.

Okay, that's not fair. Because the main reasons last week sucked had very little to do with the fullness of my work schedule. But I've spent most of today alternating between worrying about how I'm way past broke (as in, my therapist and I are going to have a conversation Monday about how I may need to drop out of therapy because it's that or my rent, and believe me, this is not the time for me to leave therapy), trying to get the house ready for showing, getting completely overwhelmed and hiding in my bed, doing laundry, pretending to read, thinking about getting back on my bike, and trying not to kick things in sheer frustration.

It's days like this I really wish I drank more.

So my new landlord, who is of course my neighbor, who, if I haven't already said this on here, bought my old landlord's house along with the two rental cottages, kicked Sparrow out of hers, partitioned the land on which it sat onto his property, said he was going to tear it down to build a garage, decided not to tear it down and instead use it as his office (neither Sparrow nor I can figure out exactly what it is that he does, but he clearly makes a shitload of money doing it), and cannot figure out that my automatic bill payer sends him a check in the mail, that landlord, finally put my house and the main house up for sale. Which means my house, which is a DISASTER and looks like I just moved in, needs to be showable, and soon.

Now, it's crossed my mind, I'll admit, that I could leave the place a giant, box-filled mess covered in dog hair tumbleweeds in some passive-aggressive protest against the fact that this is not the arrangement I signed up for, that my rent is too high (I knew that moving in, but, it was worth it for the situation I was moving into), that my lease had better be protected when he sells it, or about thirty-seven other things I could come up with to be pissed about (he hasn't made he repairs on my property the old landlord promised; the dead thing under my house apparently didn't get removed by the handyman, it got dragged out in the middle of the night by something that I frankly don't want to cross paths with in the darkness; he keeps parking in my spaces; etc). But I will concede that I have a vested interest in helping him sell the place, because, frankly, I don't like him, and don't especially want him as my landlord. Plus, I kind of want my house to be finished and feel like I live here for reals.

But that's a really big undertaking, to be quite honest. That's why I've been hiding from it for so long.

You remember how I couldn't even get in to the office when I first moved in?

Okay, in all honesty, I'm rather proud of what Maggie and I were able to undertake today (because she was an integral part, of course). I stacked the boxes of books along the wall where someday (when I can afford secondhand things again) the bookcases I need will go. And I finally got the desk where I want it (although I didn't know I wanted it there until I finally got it moved to where I didn't want it - although I thought I wanted it there when I started - and then went, oh, wait, what about over there...), and I got the TV set up (the cable box doesn't work, but, whatever, I'll call them). And I moved the sofa into the office. Which made it way more cramped in there. Waaaaaaay more cramped. But, oddly, I really like it. And there's still an aisle to the dog door.

Maggie was not quite as pleased with all of the fussing today, though.

She'll get over it. We already had a nice little snugglefest on the sofa, even though we both had to climb over the couch arm to get a seat. Whatever, it's cozy. Once the fussing is finished, and I get it decorated, it'll be a wonderful, comfortable room.

Which will undoubtedly be right before the moment my lease expires and/or Jud sells the house to someone who doesn't want a renter and I get kicked out.

::sigh::

The crazy thing is, though, I'm progressively more grateful for my life with each passing day. Yes, there are certainly many things that I wish were different. And, I'm making progress on a lot of those. And yes, I certainly have my moments of wanting to trade it all in for a rich, adoring husband and a tropical drink. But I can't imagine the horribleness of my life if I'd stayed on the track I was on four years ago. Or fourteen years ago, for that matter. I love my job. I need a break (I have two days of vacation coming up for my birthday. Okay, I probably need a longer break than that, but...), but I love my job. I have good friends. I have lots of people I consider family. I have a unique perspective on a lot of issues because of what I've experienced.

One of my patients gave me the best quote the other day, though, in that regard - he says to me, "just because I can explain it, doesn't mean I can handle it."

I like that. It's over my desk at work right now on a post-it note. Along with another patient quote: "Every day I spent in Hell, I chose to be there."

That one gives me a lot of perspective.

Nonetheless.

At least I have clean sheets. And a new comforter (clearance! Under $20! Flannel!), which I bought at Target this morning as part of the renovation effort. I know, I know, I'm broke, but dude, under $20. And as much as I love the one I currently am hiding under, I've had it since college, and it's been sewn back together way too many times at this point to be presentable. I also have to find a sheet to put over the armchair Maggie sleeps in (the one I want is in a bag somewhere around here). Because I'd really like this place to look appealing - for both me and any prospective buyers. I'd also like to look like a good, clean, responsible tenant, so they'll keep me and I won't have to friggin' move again.

Crap, I bet this means I have to start making my bed in the mornings...

Alright. Maggie and I are going to get some dinner. All the moving stuff and the fact that this place looks much like the day I moved in (not to mention the fact that I never really got to the grocery this week) has left me with a Bojangles craving. I'm sure Mags will be happy to help me with that....

Boom.

I fell down today. A lot. And gloriously.

On my way to work. In front of my neighbor's house. It was wet, there was something slick on the ground, next thing I know I'm sprawled out on the pavement bleeding.

I should've just turned around and gone back in my house, really. But no, I kept going.

Metaphoric, really.

I further damaged my iPod, which was of course already agonal. I scraped up my knee and my elbow. I threw my hip and my back and my shoulder out of whack. I'm a little worried that I may have cracked my fibula, but Ruthie and I are reasonably certain it's just a muscle bruise, and besides, that's not a weight-bearing bone, so what are you going to do about it anyway?

Apparently the treatment for my injured toe was to bang the rest of me up so badly I wouldn't notice anymore.

This is so totally not my week.

Just a dream and the wind to carry me

I've had this song stuck in my head all day.



Can't really complain, it's a nice little song. It's part of a mix I downloaded from iTunes based on that Yacht Rock series. Soothing. Smoooooth. And probably, of the several mixes I listened to very loudly today, one that my neighbors would find least objectionable.

I got a lot done today. Got up at a reasonable hour, went to Target and Whole Foods, came home and cleaned a crapton of stuff out of my fridge. Filled my whole garbage can (not just from the fridge). I vacuumed. I dyed my hair (thank God, finally! My roots were like a mile and a half long).

I had a good soundtrack for all of this. A nice mix of country, R&B, techno, gangsta rap...and, you know, loud, which is key.

I unplugged my iPod-blaring alarm clock (which, I never use it as an alarm, so, I'm not sure why I take up valuable bedside table space with it) and moved it to a more central location. Which, um, unfortunately turned out to be the bathroom...


I did a mountain (mountain) of dishes today. Again with the "finally."


Maggie and I thought about planting a flag on the top. Dish Mountain.

I then made a pie. Okay, not so much "made" as, removed from the wrapper and baked. It's from the Vermont Mystic Pie Company, which I bought yesterday when I was postcall and woozy and it somehow made me nostalgic (the box is a Stephen Huneck design, who is this local artist in Woodstock, VT, which is one of my favorite little towns). Mmmm, it smelled yummy. And in fact, it was yummy. But it also set off the smoke alarms.

Dude.

There are two smoke detectors in the hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen. Remember, my whole house is, like, 700 square feet. It's barely three strides to the kitchen. One of them, fortunately, is soft, but persistent. The other one is PIERCING and starts saying "Fire. Fire. Fire."

I did not know my smoke detector talked.

Maggie got worried. She was literally standing in the doorway, ready to bolt for her dog door, seemingly paralyzed by ambivalence about whether she should evacuate or not, for, like, two whole minutes.


So there's all this blaring and beeping and the one detector is telling me (quite calmly) that there's a fire and then there's me, jumping up and down like one of my patients the big raving lunatic that I am and waving a cutting board frantically at the detectors and screaming "Nothing! Is! On! Fire! Stop it! Stop it! STOPIT!!"


I think she finally went outside in sheer embarrassment.

I gave up for a little while once I got the talkie under control and just let the other fucking thing beep. I wandered outside, I took some pictures of the cool pink flowers I found randomly growing in my yard today. Sparrow (who came over later to do laundry) said they're called Surprise Lilies.


I was, indeed, surprised.

Pretty, though, aren't they?

These are, by the way, the um, exaugural (I'm not sure that's a word...well, it is now) pictures of my trusty Fuji Finepix. Because I've been having a lot of issues with darkfield photography, the slow shutter, depth of field, etc, etc. So my parents bought me a kickass new camera for my birthday. I'm so excited!! It should be here in a few days, and I'll be sure to take lots of exciting high-ISO fancy-pants pictures when it does.

Probably mostly of Maggie.

In less good news, my grandfather went into hospice today. He was diagnosed last week, I think, with "bone cancer" (who knows what the hell that means. Nobody else in the family speaks medical, or wants to, so it gets frustrating for me when bad things happen. I'm thinking this is multiple myeloma). He'd been on dialysis, getting chemo and radiation, and for whatever reason today they decided to stop dialysis and go to comfort care. Which, may well be a fine idea, I'm not trying to malign it.

It's such a complicated situation, that side of the family...well, more on that some other time. Right now, I just need to go to bed and pout.

Grump, grump....

I'll tell you what I don't like. It's 2:30. I've been awake for forty-five minutes. I fell asleep around 11. My body's confused and thinks we're post-call and thus going to fall asleep again at 8pm. Wrong, body!! Get with the program!!

I've been cranky since about 7am, though. This may turn out to be a longer week than I was expecting....

And if the damn campus police don't stop friggin' ticketing me when I'm tired and cranky, there may well be a little scene at the Dept of Public Safety tomorrow morning...can I call you guys for bail money?

"Alright, and what else is new?"

I had a very long day at State Hospital. Although I was actually busy today, which was a nice change, although I concede a lot of it was busy work and fussing and logistical crap. Whatever. Hopefully tomorrow will be a reasonably early day, because Wednesday is my last full 30 hour call at SH. Possibly (I think it is) the last one ever in my life, actually. Hooray! I'm on call again on Sunday night, but that doesn't start until 8pm.

Anyway, I'm at the end of this long, long day and waaaay down at the other end of the hall (the women's unit is very loooooooong), one of Ruthie's patients is arguing with her. And she screams, "Fuck you!" and storms down the hallway to her room, loudly slamming the door behind her. I continue walking down the hall and grab Ruthie by the arm (she's one of my good friends and one of my cellmates office mates next year) and start harassing her about, dude, Ruthie, what kind of doctor are you, patients all slamming doors up in here? And she rolls her eyes and says, "Right. And I'm going to hell."

I said, "Haven't we already established this?" Ruthie and I have had multiple conversations about how, not only is she a heathen and a sinner, she has failed to accept Jesus Christ into her heart as her personal savior (as I think I've mentioned previously, Ruthie's Jewish).

She says, "Well that's what I told her! I said, 'alright, and what else is new'? Ugh!"

I assured her we'd have a good time.

Maybe she can be a third for Claudia and my standing Canasta game on Tuesdays in Hell. Or perhaps PenguinShrink and Chef will have us over, for pork, I assume, on a Friday during Lent. Peng has often commented on how they're already looking at a nice condo with a view of the River Styx.

Seriously, if we went to hell every time our patients told us we were going there, we'd already be in hell right now (or maybe that's the point of intern year. Nah, I think that's more like purgatory).

Oh, speaking of the afterlife, did everyone know that George Carlin died? I'm a little sad. And I wonder if Jesus will, in fact, serve him pork chops tonight.

Anyhow.

It was just a long damn day today. Mondays usually are, but today, man. My patients were extra cranky, two of the men got in a big, table flinging, chair throwing, drag-out of a fight up in the mall (we have this thing called the psychosocial rehab mall, which is just a wing where patients go to groups and classes and such. It isn't an actual like a shopping mall or anything. But it confuses a lot of new folks. The first time I heard this I was like, you're taking them where??). I stood there and looked puffed up and large and immobile. On the unit we call this "show of force." It's basically an intimidation tactic where we display our presence to the patient in hopes of getting them to back down and comply with what we want them to do, and usually involves several large black men and me standing there looking severe. Occasionally, it's just a numbers thing - i.e., we pack as many staff members as we can find into as large a posse as possible to overwhelm them with our sheer numbers. Most of the time it works, actually, and we avoid having to lay hands on the patients and physically restrain them or whatnot. But truth be told? If that guy had so much as blinked twice in my direction you would've been amazed at how fast my fat ass was across the room and diving behind the upended table for cover.

I had one patient who was trying to tell me that her mother had schizoaffective disorder, which is something we diagnose when someone has both schizophrenia and a mood (affective) disorder, like depression or bipolar. But she told me that her mother was schizodefective.

Um...I know she may have seemed that way to you, but...

But, when I came home, I had gas! And in a good way, not because we went for Indian food yesterday. It actually smells a little more strongly that I'd like by the fireplace, which is a gas log and has a pilot light, so I'm trying to air the place out a little and keep telling myself it's just because the gas hasn't been on in so long. We'll see. I'm going to go see my shrink in a few minutes. so we'll close up and see how bad the smell is when I get back.

Oh, and Maxine came over when I got home, because Sparrow's flown off to the mountains. She and Maggie are still being all jealous and competitive. But they occasionally unite forces to protect the house from errant squirrels or falling leaves and cars and such.


Aww.

PS, I'm back now, and it smells less like gas in here. I guess we'll see what it's like in the morning. Oh, and my shrink made what had to be one of the shrinky comments of all time. We were talking about how I get in my own way - everyone does. It's therapy, resistance is expected - and I was saying that part of the reason I think this is true for me is because of my intellect, and thus my ability to intellectualize the crap out of anything and everything. I framed this as, "On occasion I'm just too smart for my own well-being." And what I assume (hope) she was trying to say was, your intelligence is just fine the way it is.

What she said was, "Kate, you're not too smart."

I laughed really, really hard. Fortunately, so did she.

Ow.

Last time I saw my God daughter (she's six), she told me this exact story:

"This summer we went to Mexico and we flew in a big plane and we sat in the back and I sat near the window and I kept asking my mommy, 'Are we in Mexico yet? Are we in Mexico yet? Are we in Mexico yet?' And then my mommy got a headache."

My aunt and uncle came over today. And then I got a headache.

I don't think the two are more than coincidentally related, though, frankly.


(It's a random cartoon I found on the internet while doing an image search for "headache". It really amused me. The only credit I could find was that it was filed under "Ben is a dork." I don't know what that means. God, I love the internet.)

You know those days where you wake up and think, okay. I have a plan today. I'm going to do this and this and this, and it's going to be fabulous. And then the dog vomits on your bed and the light fixture explodes and you end up washing ranch dressing off the ranch dressing. You know those days? Today was one of those days.

Oh, it seemed like such a nice day when I woke up at 6:30. Which is a ridiculous hour to be up on a weekend day, but, whatever. Mags and I lounged in bed and watched an early morning prelude to the SVU Marathon on USA today (God, I love USA, aka the all-Law-And-Order network). And I thought, okay, up, shower, go to Starbucks to work, come back, unpack a little, have lunch with the fam, come back, make some espresso, unpack again, go to the new intern thing, come back again, go to bed. What a lovely day, right?

Ha.

I went into the bathroom, and the light made this weird hissing sound. And I thought, oh, the bulb's about to burn out, whatever. And then all of a sudden, the leftmost socket (the only one with a functional bulb in it) EXPLODES in a loud, popping, shower of sparks. I ducked. And then I made sure nothing was on fire (note to self: She who lives in an old house made entirely of wood should really buy a damn fire extinguisher! Anyhow...). And then I put new bulbs in it and flipped the switch. That socket's blown, but the other two still work. When I go back to Lowes to replace the blinds I bought that are an inch too short, I'll get a new fixture. Because if I wait for the handyman to fix it, it'll never get done. ::sigh::

And then I went to Starbucks, and managed to finish all the outstanding Child discharge summaries I had (I still have a couple from the adolescents, but I'm less worried about those because I really want my attending from Child to like me. Not that I don't want the other one to, but I really liked her, and so I want her to think I'm like the best resident ever, right, so she'll take me under her wing and turn me into a really good C&A psychiatrist and vote for me for a fellowship at Baby Blue. Okay, no, that's all secondary. I thought she was cool and so I want her to think I'm cool, too. It's so...well....adolescent....). And dropped my tea. But I only spilled a little. So then I went to Target and bought a $14 rice cooker (because my $40 one always burned the rice) and some groceries. And spent a lot of time standing in the aisles going, now...what the hell was it that I wanted here? And, um...where was I going again?

It was the first of many times I would ask myself today, what the hell is wrong with me??

I came home. I swore a lot and tried to find a place for the groceries (have we talked about my lack of cabinet/counter space?). I unpacked more of the kitchen. I had to stop several times and go into the other room before I started crying about not knowing where the hell to put the glass bowls or not being able to remember the word for "toaster oven" or being a big spaz and dropping things. So I went into my room and the dog hops on the bed and is all smooches and snuggles and rub my belly until, without warning, she yaks all over the blanket.

Oy.

Fortunately, I was able to locate the OxyClean with minimal swearing and fuss. And I rinsed the blanket out in the bathtub because my uncle hadn't actually come over to hook up the washer/dryer yet. Frack.

So they showed up, with tools and a milk pitcher and air filters for the furnace (because my aunt says to me yesterday, "Have you checked the air filter? If you tell me what size it is, we can pick one up for you on our way" And then I sent her a long email saying EW EW EW EW THAT'S THE GROSSEST THING IN EXISTENCE, EW! No WONDER the place still smelled like cats!). We changed the gross filter of disgustingness and went to lunch at an Indian place in Durham. And then we came back, and my uncle and I spent WAY too much time trying to figure out my new espresso machine.

The Starbucks here had a tent sale last weekend, to clear out their old model coffee makers and make room for the new ones. My $50 Target espresso maker didn't survive the move, so I thought, you know what? This is going to be my congrats-on-surviving-intern-year-AGAIN present to myself. So I bought the Sirena, which was originally $600, marked down to $199, and then got the 20% tent sale discount PLUS the manager's additional 10% employee discount (because he knows me. Because I went to that Starbucks every single morning that I lived down the street). Wow, what a deal! And it's so nifty! And it's made by BMW! WOW! I have the BMW of espresso machines, cool!

Leave it to BMW to turn espresso into a ridiculously complicated process.

Now, part of it was, again, I kept dropping things, and I was just generally like, "what?", and my aunt kept coming in and saying "Where do you want this? Where do you want this? Where do you want this?" and I kept getting all overwhelmed and confused trying to make espresso AND arrange the kitchen. And after we finally figured it out and made some damn good espresso (what do you know? The $600 machine really DOES make a better cup of coffee than the $50 one!), then we hung pictures and moved the TV (because the one in my bedroom chose today to die, ps. Not that I didn't buy it, oh, my first year of medical school, and not like I didn't buy it off the clearance rack, but, nevertheless...) and then my neighbor came over to complain that my empty water bottles outside waiting to be picked up were over the property line (no, really! Way to meet the new neighbor, huh? She didn't even bring cookies!). And then my aunt and uncle left and Maxine came over and she and Maggie sniped at each other a lot (jealous, jealous puppies over here). And I tried to do the dishes and make a salad for tomorrow and discovered one of the neat little single-serving cups of ranch dressing I'd bought this morning had mysteriously exploded all over the refrigerator and the other little cups of ranch dressing (which then became part of the dishwashing extravaganza) and nearly wound up in tears again and for the five hundred eighty fourth time thought, Jesus, Mary, and Steve, what the hell is WRONG WITH ME?!

And then I went...

Wait....what's today's date?

Oh.

Nevermind.

And somewhere in that mess of dropping things and verging on tears and stuff exploding, my catamenial migraine hit. That's what all the clumsiness was about (I have no idea why things kept exploding).

You know, most days out of the month I really like being a woman. And most of the time I don't even mind the monthly ritual of sloughing and end up humming Ani DiFranco's well-stated and empowering Blood in the Boardroom, with it's lines like "I bleed to renew life every time it's cut down" and "Men have all the money, they have the implements of death, but I can make life you know. I can make breath". But every now and then I revert back to the real meaning of what I'm commonly heard to say, "I think God took all the souls that couldn't handle being women and made them men."

Which really means, sometimes? Being a woman totally sucks. Bleh.

Timing is everything

Maybe Karma isn't as mad at me as I thought (or, maybe my Karma is finally catching up with me?). So I'm sitting here in the Starbucks in the town where I now live (yay!) and it occurs to me how well the timing of the things around this move have been pretty fortuitous, on the whole. Like, Maggie breaks her foot two days before we move to a house with no stairs. Starbucks introduces free wireless internet as a perk of registering your Starbucks card three days before the big long break in my internet access.

The move went...well, in the end, I'm in my new place, and I love it. Well, I think I do. Because I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere under all the boxes.

Things started out...inauspiciously. I was the second move of the day, which the guy who did the estimate assured me meant that they six man crew and large truck would show up between 12 and 1. Which was veryimportant, because I was supposed to present the Distinguished Teacher Award from the PGY-1 Class (or something like that) at Graduation last night, which started at 7. I told him I had to be there by 6. He said it might be a close shave for 6, but, it'd be fine.

They came at 5.

But, after a semi-frantic phone call and an afternoon of "Shit, they're still not here!" text messages, Mike (who's so my hero right now) stepped up and fixed it (he either took my place or found another intern to do it). Which is really lucky, because the movers didn't leave the new place until after 9.

But they were a good bunch of guys and man, they were hard workers. And because they came so late, they actually brought a crew of nine people, and three more came to the old place and picked up the three things that went to storage. The were a little disorganized...i.e., I KNOW I have way too much stuff for my new place, but, um, here's what the doorway to the office (which is actually the larger bedroom) looked like when they left:

Yeah, not getting in there. The whole front room was also a wall of boxes. With one little gimpy puppy trapped on the couch. Can you find her?


Here's a close up.


Don't worry, that big stain is from the water glass she knocked over.

But on the whole, I'd definitely recommend them, although I'd suggest being the first move of the day if you can. But they were very nice, very good, quite professional (also rather fun guys)and generally good to work with. Oh, not to mention cheap. So if you live in the Triangle, TROSA's the way to go. I would definitely use them again, except, I'M NEVER, EVER MOVING AGAIN. They also do lawn care, contracting, framing, eBay sales, have a furniture thrift shop, and sell Christmas trees seasonally. If I find the front room before December, we'll have a TROSA Christmas tree this year.

Unfortunately, after they left we had sort of a rough time. I couldn't find my bedsheets. Or my pillows. Or my sanity Maggie's food dishes. Or a bath towel with which to take a shower. Plus, there were no screens in my bedroom, the landlord didn't actually manage to get the place cleaned before we moved in, the washer/dryer hookup is wrong, Kyle (the old tenant) took all the light bulbs when he left (such a prick) and I couldn't find more than two bulbs of my own, the shower drain was full of hair, etc, etc, etc.

So Mags and I got in the car, went for a drive, purchased some bottled water from McDonald's (I drank 2 liters of water in about 30 minutes. I did a lot of sweating yesterday, y'all), and called my parents and had a little meltdown.

My poor mother. I hung up on her. I was hysterical and sobbing and tired and she kept saying exactly the wrong thing because there was no right thing to say, which I finally told her, I just needed to have my little temper tantrum and then I'd be fine.

Which I was. It was okay. I came home. I found some sheets, if not the ones I was looking for. I found a pillow, if not the ones I was looking for. I threw it at my dog, who was lying on the bed looking forlorn. Here's what she did with it:

She's so cute.

And ultimately I cleared a path into the office, and found soap and a towel to take the best shower of my whole life, and put a light bulb up in the kitchen, and finally went to bed. And then I decided (since I'd turned the air on, because I have no screens in the bedroom) that I wanted my comforter, which I knew was in the cedar chest. And I had trouble opening it...couldn't figure out why, until I finally got the latch to pop, and poof! There were my pillows, crammed in on top and smelling sweetly of cedar.

Things definitely looked better in the light of day. So I cleared a spot big enough in the front room for Maggie's crate,

(Such a good girl, my girl.)

and headed off here. And now I'm going to the Home Depot and Whole Foods and Target. And my aunt's coming back over and we're going to try to make a dent before I take my pork-themed desserts over to Mike's for his Porkfest blowout tonight (Kate - sure you can't make it??). And I have a little time to work tomorrow before I'm on call tomorrow night. So we'll see how it goes. But regardless, we're home!

A Wednesday of randomness

First and foremost, Happy First Birthday to my niece, Annalise.


I love that picture. He.

Mags and I are all worn out today. She? Had a busy two days at daycare. Came home soaking wet again, but she keeps licking her paw and I think maybe her paw pad is burned a little. It has been awfully hot around here. I? Had a long call. It wasn't super breakneck busy, so I had too much time between patients to just stay in admissions, but busy enough that I didn't have enough time between admissions or floor calls or whatever to actually fall asleep. So I spent a lot of time lying in that awful State Hospital bed (which I think may have bedbugs, because I get bit by something every. single. time. I'm on call there. But it's uncomfortable and the stuffing's literally coming out the side and the sheets don't fit. They're the same beds the patients have. I'm hoping that's not the case at New State Hospital because those are more or less molded into the floor) staring at the darkness and waiting for the pager to go off.

Call had some interesting moments. I admitted a really scary guy from County Crisis and Assessment, the kind of patient we euphemistically refer to as "well known to our service", after the police found him ranting about various psychotic things, and then searched his scary psycho guy van and found a dagger, two machetes, rope, a video camera, and...of all things...a beanbag chair. We had a brisk interview, to say the least.

I also had a very amusing encounter with one of my former Big Hospital patients. He's a very sick gentleman with some weird and rare neurodegenerative thing, whom we very affectionately refer to as "Lips" because, during a prior admission to Big Hospital, when he was very psychotic, he...warning, this is gross....bit off his own lips. So, needless to say, Lips is a messy eater. I went up to the men's long term unit last night to see a different patient in seclusion, when suddenly there was this big crash in the nurses' station. We all went running, of course, and there, sitting in the middle of the floor, is Lips, covered in pureed food off his dinner tray (which had been taken into the nurses' station when the others were served, because he usually eats elsewhere) from head to toe, shoveling food into his mouth with both hands (half of which, of course, was dribbling out down his shirt), and looking just as giddy as a pig in shit. I couldn't do anything but laugh and help him up off the floor. There was baby food everywhere - all over him, all over the floor, and as I would unfortunately not discover until this morning, all over me. It was one of the cutest things I've seen in a long time.

PenguinShrink and I were talking this weekend...when I went to pick up the boxes from our clinic manager, she says to me, "I really don't know how you guys do what you do." The other day, I said to her, you know, honestly? Some days I don't know either. We get so desensitized, we normalize things that are so far beyond the rest of the world's reality.

We had this grand rounds speaker a couple of weeks ago, who heads up the Trauma program at a prominent psychiatric hospital up north. He's the Trauma guy, really. And our chairman asks him, can you tell us the kind of things your patients are dealing with? And he starts spilling the highlights of these absolutely horrifying stories. And I keep thinking, right, yeah, this friend of mine had a childhood event much like that. My other friend had a similar occurrence. My patient told me something very much like that. Oh, I've been through that. Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Fortunately, I think the majority of my cohorts were more appropriately appauled.

There's a fine line between being desensitized and being numb. Numb is...well, not the goal. Unfortunately, removed (okay, dissociated) is something I do well.

Then again, I've for a very long time said that the key to being a good psychiatrist is having a good psychiatrist....

A dangerous post...

Wow, I'm bored. It's not even 11am, I've been out of work to do for about an hour, and most of what I spent the 9:00 hour doing was busywork. I've been trying to call charities that will come pick up my crap, because it turns out the one that told me they'd have no problem squeezing me in this week can't come until the 26th. She says, are you sure you don't want to get put on the waiting list for that day? I said, um, no, I'll be long gone by then. Thanks, though. Meanwhile, no one else will answer.

Dude, someone's taking all that crap. I don't want to throw it out.

The reason it's very dangerous right now to be talking about all of this is that I'm on call tonight. And by verbalizing my boredom, particularly in such a public forum, I'm quite certain the Fates are now laughing at me. I will not sleep at all tonight for the stream of very psychotic patients flowing through our doors, even if we suddenly went on bypass for the whole hospital. Mark my words. I know this is a very un-PC, anti-"The Secret" way of thinking, and some might say I'm fostering bad karma by verbalizing and inviting it in. Call me superstitious, but I think my fate is sealed.

It's possible I could be wrong.

::EDIT::

Ah, but, I'm not....

I did find someone to take all my crap, though, at least.

Ever'ting's gonna be alright, now...

(Love me some Bob Marley. There's a story about why I love Bob Marley, and this pothead boy that I adored in med school - yes, he's a doctor, now, too. He was a wicked smart pothead boy - but I'll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that we had this plan about running away to a Caribbean island and setting up a little free clinic and never having to wear shoes.)

Hmm. It's been an interesting morning. Haven't really gotten much done (well, that's just not true...I haven't gotten any more packing done), but I came home and I sat down, and I decided to do a little blog reading to quiet my latest swell of ohmigodohmigodihmigod that was inspired by what I just left (get there in a minute). And I read Barb's post about her charmed life and I thought, you know...maybe I'll take a moment more, here.

There was this patient we had on the adolescent unit when I was there, we'll call her Autumn. She wasn't my patient, and when you got right down to the nitty gritty, she was there for some pretty unfortunate reasons and some unsettling behaviors. She, too, was a pretty big pothead, about to turn 18, really was sort of doing the best she could with one heck of a messed-up life. But I'll be damned if, while on our unit, she wasn't the most positive force to be reckoned with. She was roommates with one of my patients, a girl who, when I met her, I'll admit it, I was like, oh, God, kid, suck it up and quit being a baby. I got over it, but Autumn, right away, she was all over this kid, calmed her down, comforted her, and made posters for my patient's side of the room saying "It's going to be okay."

This, it turned out, was such an Autumn catch phrase. She wrote it on the windows (they're allowed to do that, there), she frequently referenced it at morning meeting (usually in the form of, "See? I told you it was going to be okay"), I think it was something of a mantra for her.

It's a good mantra. I should really co-opt that.

So this morning, I got up, and went to the hospital to pick up the boxes that everyone's been stashing in the intern office for me. PenguinShrink, who was coming off call, the poor thing, was very sweet and helped me carry them all out. We ran into the clinic manager, who's going to call me later this afternoon so that she can unload her large pile of empty boxes on me (yay!). And then I did some dumpster diving on the way out and found some more - a skill I perfected at the yarn shop, back in the day. Back when the little hand dyed yarn company was just a teetering startup, we'd dumpster dive for shipping boxes two or three times a week. Occasionally one of us would toss little Veronica into the dumpster outside the Sears, and she'd pick out the really good ones. The service guys thought we were crazy, and the Man in Brown was always amused at us shipping boxes and boxes of yarn outwardly disguised as vacuum cleaners and motor parts.

Anyhow.

I then went over to pick up the keys to the new place. Originally, remember, I was renting the house that Sparrow is currently living in, and she was moving in to part of the landlord's house, but then the plan changed and now I'm moving in to the identical cottage next door.

Except, whoa, not so identical.

The kid that lives there, let's call him Kyle (because of the Jew 'Fro. Ever see the South Park eps where Kyle has to take off his hat?), has not taken nearly as good care of the place as Sparrow has of hers. It's a dump, currently. And I have absolutely no doubts that by Friday, when I'm slated to move in there, it will be spic and span and repainted and the refrigerator will be replaced and all the cabinets will have their faces on again and it will be clean and not disgusting and all the crap that he has in there despite the fact that he was supposed to be out two days ago and has been off work for the past three weeks and oh my holy frakkin' wow is that place still full of crap (breathe, breathe) will be gone and it will be lovely. Totally, wonderfully lovely, because my landlord will accept nothing less. Both my current landlord, or the neighbor who bought her place and is about to become my landlord. Won't stand for it being anything short of lovely and wonderful and every bit the seaside-cottage-evoking bliss retreat that I was assuming I would get when I moved into Sparrow's place.

But right now? Oh, holy shit.

I also keep forgetting how very small the place really is. Extremely rough estimate? Maybe 700 square feet. My current place? 1300. My old house in NH? 2000.

You see why this is squeaking me out a little.

But I'm trying (trying) to get rid of as much crap as I can. I mean, I'm putting the buffet in storage and the guest bed, and donating most of the bookcases and my dressers and the coffee table and possibly the couch (I know, Mom and Dad, I know!). I'm donating a lot of general stuff. But still. There's just so much stuff. I have no doubt I can live in such a small space, but, I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with all the crap that I kind of actually have a use for. Like my sewing stuff. And all the damn yarn.

I mean, I do have an attic, and also, I discovered today, a nice shed. But still. The whole thing is sort of overwhelming....

But it's going to be okay.

And I should just go get going....