So much better than cockroaches.

Rock Lobster

Today the stuff arrived from Chicago. I'm totally exhausted. The move that was supposed to be over around noon turned into a nine-hour chaotic affair. Stuff is missing. Stuff was busted. Not the least issue - they forgot to put the beds on the truck. But a lot of stuff made it just fine. My house is much more full of very nice things, not the least of which is a real bedroom set (well, most of it...one of the dressers was broken and then erroneously ended up in storage. But regardless, it's the first time I've had a dresser in, like, five years) and my great-grandmother's piano.

I also acquired one hell of a sunburn standing outside directing the movers. I'm a total lobster. It's really unfortunate...

Nonetheless. I'm so very grateful to all the people who helped pack, and especially to Robin and Claudia, Brett, Ali, and Jer, for being so un-fucking-believably awesome. Love you guys.

More tomorrow. Did I mention the exhaustion?

Monday, Monday

For a day of not doing much actual work, it was a surprisingly busy and exhausting day.

And I have to get up in 7 hours.

I had a really good time tonight, though. My aunt and uncle had me over for dessert because my cousin's in town. We had a lot of fun (and some WICKED good brownies. Don't tell Jenny Craig).

Dad back from Chicago tomorrow. Stuff coming Thursday.

I'm tired.

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.

Progress

What a nice Sunday.

Maggie went to coffee with me this morning, which, she had so much fun playing with the owners' kids (who are like 18 mos and maybe 4 and just the cutest things ever). Our other friend brought her dog as well, but she and Mags didn't seem to care much about each other.

I then spent a good portion of the rest of the day unpacking boxes from the kitchen. I'm not quite done yet, but I made a lot of progress. And the tiny little kitchen? Is rather cozy, it turns out. Plus, we have dishes again. Plates, bowls, glasses, the whole nine yards. And silverware! It's like I actually live here or something. Huh.

Had dinner with the folks, did some laundry, hung out with the dog. Sometimes it's nice to have a fairly boring day..

Told you I needed more weekend

So we had a lovely day on Consults - remarkably quiet for the first week of July (when all the newbies hit the floors in the rest of the hospital) and the first day following a three day weekend. But hey, we'll take it. I'm doing this Junior Attending thing right now, since we don't have any clear leadership on the team (the old primary attending went off to grad school; the new one doesn't start until Monday), which means the new third years are staffing with me and then I staff the consults with the actual attending du jour. It's kind of neat, actually. One of the residents who just graduated was in this role for us last month, and it was a huge help. But he also commented how useful it was for him, that it made you think about things differently to look at it as the attending and to talk through it with the junior resident. He wasn't wrong. This whole Junior Attending thing is now built into the Child Fellowship, too, and I think that's a good thing.

Also nice, the kids took the pager and threw me out around 3:30. I was stoked, because my house is still a big big pile of boxes. So I was all going to come home, unpack, make some progress....go me, right?

Yeah. I fell asleep.

Oops.

Bad moon waning

Looking back on my day...I may need to rethink my concept of "vacation day," but it was really productive.

I slept in until 7:30. Had a languorous time at coffee. Went back to the old place and cleared out that aforementioned closet. Went to hh gregg and got a new router, and - and! - my 30th birthday present. Yes, yes, I know I'm 31, almost 32, but when I turned 30 my parents had just bought their flat panel TV and wanted to buy me one, too. But, I was having a moment (I don't need that many TVs! TV must be rotting my brain!), and declined. I finally gave in, and found a cheap, off-brand, but nice one today (along with my router, which was on clearance. Woo-hoo!). I came home and hooked it up, and I'm in loooove.

Yeah, I've totally gotten over my hoity-toity moment of anti-TV-ness.

I unpacked a couple of boxes and rearranged the living room. I showered (I was stinky) and changed and then I took my mom to the oncologist, and he's pleased (me too). We picked up dinner and I hung out with them for a little while. And then my aunt and uncle came over to the new place and we got the washer/dryer hooked up, a bookcase moved, some pictures hung, and a couple of other things fixed. And then I started another load of laundry and moved the TV in my bedroom and then I FINALLY got the router working.

Whew.

I'm starting to feel like the bad juju of the old place is clearing. I've started reading books about feng shui (it ties in with my psychoanalytic bend towards energetics, as it turns out). I may yet be getting my groove back.

And it's about damn time.

All moved out

 Most of my stuff is finally in the new place (turns out I have to go back tomorrow to clear out a closet the movers missed).

Here's how it went:

That white thing behind all the boxes is the fridge. I had sweet tea in there for the guys. But, um, I couldn't exactly get to it....

Guess who should be in bed

Me. Yeah, you totally got that one, didn't you?

I have to be awake in like 7 hours. I have one day of weekend coverage left, and it's tomorrow morning (it's so weird that we're splitting the weekend...). Then I hoping to make it to coffee (if late), then I have Molly's baby shower. Then I have errands to run, and then - then! It's Porkfest 3. I'm excited, but need to not stay too late (read: this year, I have to be sober enough to drive home fairly early in the evening) because the movers will be at my old place by 9am on Sunday.

It's going to be a busy weekend.

I took today off. Got some stuff done (not enough, obviously) at the old place, and the new place. Had a nice relaxed time at coffee this morning. Spent too much money at Target. Tried (and failed) to take a nap. All in all, not a bad day.

Juju

My life is exceedingly strange.

I'm generally okay with that - it's never boring. But it does sort of beg a question or two.

Last night, Jen and Bill were kind enough to help me move my bed from the old apartment to the new one. The movers are coming in a week, but since I can't sleep in the old place without having some sort of allergic catastrophe, I really appreciate being able to stay in the new one without having to sleep on the floor (although, as I told my mother this morning, I almost think the little nest I've been sleeping on at their place is more comfortable than my bed...). So we get everything into the trailer, and are about ready to leave, and we're all sort of standing around the trailer when a woman I've never seen before comes out of my neighbor's doorway. She backs out, and is trying to shut the door when she falls back and bonks her head on the concrete. It was one of those moments where you see the inevitability of what's about to happen and are completely powerless to stem the flow of events. So, okay, down she goes, smacks her head, and starts SCREAMING, "I need 911! I need 911!!" I, of course, being as snark-tastic as I am, was like (in my head), relax, lady, you didn't hit your head that hard. But then she starts yelling, "my finger is off!!!"

Your...I...what?

She sits up, and is clasping her right hand in her left, and there's blood running down her hand because she's severed the tip of her finger. I ran in and got her some paper towels. She didn't want those. Bill sends me back in for a cold, wet rag, which I got, as well as a bag of ice and a couple of plastic bags (tip - never, ever put an amputated part in a bag of ice. Put it in a bag, insulate the bag with a towel or something, waterproof that - i.e., put that in a bag - and then put that whole mess in a bag of ice. Otherwise the digit in question will get frostbitten or macerated or something equally unacceptable). Jen called 911. Bill sat with her, held pressure, and tried to keep her calm. Jen and I had the enviable task, then, of looking for the finger amidst the bushes and pine straw mulch. We saw a piece of jagged glass on the ground, figured that was what had severed her finger, and so we looked and looked and searched and fussed in that general vicinity. No luck.

Finally, a little exasperated as to how the finger had come off anyway, I asked, "How in the world did you do that?" And it turns out she'd shut the door on her finger, which had sliced off the tip of it, down to the base of the nail.

First? Ouch. Second? I worked out the physics of that in my head. Severed while shutting the door. The tip of her finger wasn't in the bushes, it was in the house.

I looked at the door, and thought, aw, shit. My neighbor has these two horribly-behaved little dust mop dogs, who were at that very minute undoubtedly sitting on the other side of the doorway licking their little rat-dog chops.

Crap.

Her mother says, let's look in the house. The bleeding woman on the ground is insistent that her finger isn't in the house. Don't go in the house! she says. I say, "Okay, well, can *I* go in the house?" But the dogs are going to get out! they say.

Lady, that's the least of your problems.

And of course, no one is considering that the neighbor routinely lets the dogs out, off leash, to poop all over the neighborhood and they always come back. Unless they come in my house, but that only happened a handful of times, I mean really.

Bill assured them that he and Jen have a dog who LOVES to get out and run around and terrorize the neighbors, that they can handle it. I, meanwhile, have headed into the house with the woman's mother. There is, of course, no finger in sight. Nor is there even a spattering of blood on the floor. Which, of course, you would expect if the finger was severed in the door.

I looked at the dogs. They...well, were just being dogs....

So then the paramedics show up. They go to bandage her finger, and the medic looks at me and says, "Ma'am? You might want to turn your head before I take this towel off."

I managed not to laugh at him.

So they get her all put together, send her to the ER in her own car, and the other paramedic and Jen and I are cleaning up, and the paramedic sighs and says, "Well, if you see a little dog running around with a finger in its mouth..."

Jen and I had already had the opportunity to look at each other and mutter under our breath, "Dog? Yeah, dog." So were both like, "well, yeah, they have two dogs, so..."

The poor paramedic looked at us and went, "Oh. Ohhhh...."

But, on the plus side, here are five things I learned from this adventure:

1. The bad mojo in the apartment that I've been feeling for the past year and am feeling even more acutely now is definitely not just mine. Which makes me feel better about leaving, that I'm not the source of the bad juju (and thus the wheel of fortune may be turning for me. Here's hoping).

2. My friends are awesome. (Okay, I knew this.)

3. My life is weird. (Yeah, I knew this, too.) As is Ms. Stumpy's, or at least it is now that she collided with my weird life and the Evil Apartment Building.

4. I consistently keep getting reminded that the universe is conspiring around us. Five minutes earlier, Jen, Bill, and I were all inside the house. Five minutes later we would've been gone. There were reasons we got there later than we wanted to. But we were definitely supposed to be there right then. Call it fate, karma, synchronicity, whatever you'd like, there are most certainly forces at work here greater than ourselves.

5. It turns out that when you freakishly slice off your finger in a door frame, there's no one better to have around than a doctor, a social worker, and a convicted felon.

Okay, so suddenly I suck at this.

Cable guy is coming tomorrow. Will have home internet again. And can get back into my blogging routine (I think the disruption of my previous routine has actually been the problem, moreso than the lack of access, because I have the Verizon wi-fi).

Moved my bed into the new apartment tonight. Mags and I will be sleeping here until the rest of the stuff comes on Friday. And, well, after that, too, but with stuff.

The new place is great. I'll try to post some pictures one of these days. But in the meantime? I'm going to bed.

Needs more weekend

Oh, I really, really do.

So I worked last weekend, right? Which makes this weekend even more important. Because I haven't had one in way too long. My big plan for the weekend, of course, was to clean out my apartment and start packing.

Yeah, that didn't exactly work.

I can't tolerate the apartment.

A, I'm just completely overwhelmed by the task. The place is a mess. There's stuff strewn everywhere from both the chaos of my life prior to going back to Chicago and the chaos that's been my life since. There's actually not that much to do, but, it's enough that in the stressed-out state that I currently am, it seems like an insurmountable task.

Which, frankly, is in part informed by B: the...something. Pollen? Dust? Dog hair? Cockroach nastiness? Probably a combination of everything.

I discovered yesterday, of course, I'm wretchedly allergic to the apartment.

I spent about four hours there yesterday, and left with a running nose, itching like a fiend, and was all red and blotchy. It was....not at all awesome.

I seriously don't know how I'm going to get this done...

No, really, I'm working.

Well, okay, I could be. Perhaps even should be.

But no, I'm blogging.

My silence of the last two days has been about stress and pinkeye and working the weekend, but mostly it's been about poor internet access. My little netbook, which goes back and forth to work and home, has been living at work. Today the big one gave up running our EMR software, so the little one is now hooked in to the mouse, the real keyboard, the big monitor, etc. It's all Frankenputered up and looks a little like it's on life support...but I'm taking the big one back to my folks, so, maybe there's hope. Although it's the one that has to have the power cable jury rigged juuuuust right, so who knows.

It was kind of a rough weekend. I worked. I ran some errands. I drank some coffee. I napped in spite of coffee. Oh! And I found a new apartment. Close to Shady Pines, bigger than my current one, for not much more moolah. It seems like a nice roachless townhome in a fairly quiet neighborhood. Or at least, that's what I'm hoping.

I started on the consult team today, which is a lot of apprehensive waiting. And I think we just handed off the pager. So I'm going to stop being apprehensive and go home.....

Updated

So, to answer the "FAQ" (Hi, Carol), my dad is still in the hospital in Chicago. Mom and I are here in NC. We're hoping he can join us in the next few days. He's feeling pretty good, or at least that's what he tells me. We're not entirely sure why he hasn't gotten out yet, actually...

My mom and I went to dinner in the dining room tonight. It reminded me a lot of a college dining room, except with wait staff and table linens. It amused me, but I remembered what good times those were.

My mom isn't so thrilled with the idea of eating in a dining room. I'm hoping once they start meeting people, she'll enjoy it more. My stint at dorm life was brief but...


I kinda miss it, actually.

SSDD

Today was frequently sucky.

My mom is fine. My dad is okay. There are other forces in my life acting up.

I choose to think that this is the test before something wonderful. Especially if I make it so.

Mom's doing great, actually. I'm almost afraid to jinx it. PT's hard on her, but she's making huge progress.

But the day ended well - I had coffee and a very restorative dinner with my cousin, and then a trip to Michael's where I bought cheap gigantic knitting needles for the gift basket I'm constructing for the staff (good for OT use) and a plastic canvas needlepoint for my mom. Then I came home and had a mug of hot cocoa and a chat with my dad, which was nice.

Three more days until we point the wagons East. Crazy.

Newness.

I have a new camera.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine out in California over some pictures he took at some other friends' party. They were awesome, and I was really impressed with the quality. I asked what he was shooting with, and he had just gotten a Canon Rebel (higher end than I could afford), but it turns out they make a relatively inexpensive one (for a dSLR camera), and I've been price-watching for a while. Someone finally offered up a deal I still can't quite afford, but I'm considering it a combined "hooray for getting into fellowship" and "way to survive another year" gift for myself.

The battery finally charged up, and I shot some pictures with it, just around my living room.

Oh. I LOVE it.

It's upgradeable and gorgeous and there are other lens kits and I totally love the picture quality. The color balance is SO much better than my old one (I was constantly having to fix the colors on the Kodak). It's got that rapid-action shooting feature I like so much. You can shoot really nice point-and-shoot stuff on it, or manipulate it like a traditional reflex-lens camera.

Wowie. Wowie, wowie, wowie, am I excited. Because you know how much I fancy myself an amateur photographer. This makes me giddy with the idea of going out shooting tomorrow (we'll see if I have time).

I also joined a new gym today, because I went to the Peak (the chain where I've been going since December, where Gomer lived until yesterday, which is closing all its Triangle locations) near where I live now, and it has already closed. But there was a notice on the door stating that Lifestyle Family Fitness was absorbing our contracts, and they just happen to be next door to my apartment. So, I said, fine. I stormed over there and said, okay, what can you do for me?

As it turns out, not much.

Well, that's not true. There's not much they can do about my current membership, which was prepaid for two years. Two years. It seemed like SUCH a good deal at the time. It worked out to being, like, $12 a month...except...oops.

They really screwed me on this.

I might be able to get out of my training contract, because Gomer no longer works for them. Which is great for him - as I told him earlier, I had no doubt he'd land on his feet. And I have an intake appointment next Saturday with a trainer at the new place. She's very nice, but I can already tell, she's no Gomer. Among other things, she's nowhere near as scenic. And I like to think Gomer and I have gotten to be friends by this point, despite the fact that I hated him when we started.

It's a big change.

But the new gym said, well, come in and work out. And it was really nice. Click on the link up there, and then membership, and take the virtual tour. My club really does look like that. All the machines work. There's TONS of 'em. And they're the Life Fitness ellipticals that I like (we have two at the gym in CH, and a bunch of these black ones that I'm too short for). There's separate areas for the free motion machines, the Hammer Strength machines (which have the big weight plates), and the Life Fitness machines (which have weight stacks). And there's a whole separate personal training area (they say it's "private", but, it's kind of in the middle of everything). They have two classrooms, one for high intensity cardio, and one for yoga and pilates. The locker rooms are clean, and very nice, although they still don't have towels for the showers (I was spoiled by the fitness center in medical school. That one had shampoo and soap in the wall, real towels, and a hair dryer bar). And all the cardio machines have those little TVs on them, with limited cable, which was awesome (I watched a whole episode of Royal Pains while I worked out. It was cute). Plus, there's tanning, and childcare, if you're into those sorts of things.

All in all, it was a pretty cool facility.

And the crowd there today was definitely more fit, "pretty" people than my old gym (which was mostly over 60, although those old people could kick my ass), but nobody acted like I didn't belong there. And when I said, I might need a new trainer, they were like, "Of course. Come over here, we'll set you up." I really appreciated that. The staff was very friendly, and the people seemed nice enough. Plus, they gave me a decent rate, with no admin fees (because I was coming from Peak), and they're part of IHSRA, which means I can work out at member clubs all over the country (i.e., Chicago) as part of my membership here.

We'll see how it goes, I guess.

I'm still not sure what I think about breaking up with my trainer. And leaving him for a woman.

There's a lot of changes going on around here...

The new neighbors

Monday.

So I'm at work.

After weeks and weeks and weeks of filled-to-the-rafters clinic days, I'm finally having a light day at work. I saw two patients this morning, the other two cancelled. I wrote some overdue clinic notes, and did all my little "learning modules" for next year that were due like two weeks ago. I read CNN.com. I walked to the cafeteria with Sparrow. I've been harassing Tyler over text message. I talked to my folks, who are on the road in West Virginia, currently. I've been emailing with Peng (who's at her AHEC), and just text-paged Ruthie to let her know that Dr. Jabba (who is one of my favorite attendings and mentors and who is currently on-service on the Crisis unit, where Ruthie is doing coverage this week) dropped by our office looking for her, and referred to her as "his minion." This made me giggle.

Currently my 1:00 patient, whom I talked to last week and assured me he was coming, is a half hour late (I just checked my voicemail. He cancelled like an hour ago. Just glad he didn't kill himself. That's a weird occupational hazard, to think like that...). I don't expect my 2:00 to come, my 3:00 cancelled, and my 4:00 is new to me, but was apparently fired by her old provider for missing appointments. So here's hoping. I mean, um, so we'll see if she comes. I still have a big bunch of paperwork to do, but I decided to take a break and play on the internet.

I've been trying to catch up on some of my blog reading, about which I've been very bad lately. I cracked up at Barb's post about Alternate Rating Systems. And I've been reading up on Megan's blog, on which I was really far behind. She's stuck in the hospital after a cornual ectopic pregnancy on Clomid. Which sucks.

She also, though, has been doing this x365 thing, which I find very, very cool. And as I said in her comments, if it wasn't hard enough for me to come up with one blog post a day as it is, I'd probably co-opt it myself. But I clicked on the link to the friend she referenced, and then tried to click on the "x365.org" link, and I got the big "BLOCKED SITE" error with this message:

Please discuss any blocked sites in the Global category with your Vice President or Department Chair.

Uh, yeah. I'll get right on that (although, now that I'm vice president of the Housestaff Council, I'm wondering if I can start a campaign to unblock Facebook at work). But I wondered - why the vice president, not the president?

And furthermore, apparently it blocks x365.org and Facebook, but not things like PostSecret or Dickipedia (which, is a website referencing people who are jerks, not actual penises. But it sounds a little like a porn site, doesn't it?). Because that makes sense.

Alright. More note writing. Because it's going to be a long-ass day, even if I am doing nothing, currently (left home at 7. Work. Gym. Store. Shrink at 7:15. Drive back home. Shower. Bed. Repeat). Although my commute this morning? From 25 miles away? Took me less time than my drive to Starbucks and then to work program I'd been on when I lived a mile from the hospital. I love it).

Official

So, my mom and I went back to the cottage today and got all the rest of the stuff that was there. It's clean, the fridge is cleaned out, the trash is at the curb, and the keys are locked in the designated key-leaving location. I'm still paying the utilities for tomorrow, but beyond that, I'm officially out of the little house.

I was looking around today realizing, it really is pretty tiny.

And there was enough dog hair on the floors to make a whole new dog.

I think it was a good place to be, for the year. Mags of course LOVED the dog door (I never did find her Kong. I assume it's buried in the back yard somewhere. Along with at least one bag of walnuts and a Parmesan cheese container, which I found in the dog run today). I liked the freedom of the dog door. And I liked living where I was, for the year. I really especially liked it when Sparrow was right next door.

But, I had to leave, and, I like this, too. It's nice to be back, and it's doubly nice to have just moved somewhere but still know where everything is...

The dog walker came by yesterday evening. Boy, was Maggie excited to see him! He's going to be taking her out on the weekdays in the early afternoon. Because I may have most of my weekends next year, but I suspect my days are going to be looooong. He was pretty excited, too. He really likes Maggie...I mean, who wouldn't, but, really.

Will put some pictures up soon of the new place, messy and full of boxes though it may be. Don't worry, Carol!

But, for the meantime...I think there's a bed in my future...

We know. We're lame.

But it's been a long, tired day here. But, my aunt came over today and helped my folks unpack the kitchen, and it looks great. The house is more or less livable at this point. The 'rents are going to go back to the cottage tomorrow and clean out what they can in the morning, I'm going to stop by on my way home from work and get the rest of it. Which will easily make for about a 12 hour day for me, what with the commuting and the fact that Fridays are typically long for me anyways.

But there's a weekend a-comin'. And bringing with it, naps.

Have I mentioned, though, lately (it is Thursday and all)? I love my family. My parents have been such a huge help with this move. I think they packed up like 70% of the cottage, and it's just been nice having them here. And my aunt and uncle (whom, I think I've mentioned before, are not actually related to them at all, but my parents met my aunt in a tour group in Hawaii some 32 years ago or better, when she was like 19 and they were, well, not. And, here we are...) also have pitched in a bunch. And they brought us homemade dinner last night, and she brought cupcakes (AWESOME cupcakes) today. An army travels on its stomach, you know? This move has totally been fueled by my mom's and my aunt's baked goods.

My folks are staying through Monday morning, which will be nice, to have them here all weekend. I have a friend's going away party on Saturday night, which will be nice, and I'm sure they'll enjoy the quiet without me here. And Sunday night we're going out with my aunt and uncle to the restaurant where Chef chefs, to celebrate birthdays and fellowship and life in general. Good company, plus - Gruyere mac and lemon tart, here I come.

But, for now? Going to bed.

Enjoy a gratuitous picture of my sleepy dog.

(Also? Love my dog. She had a long day yesterday protecting us from the movers - whom she loved - and the cable guy - whom she adored - and whatnot...I think she slept most of today away...)