Admitting defeat

Damn stupid virus.

So, last night, right, Sparrow and I had left it that I would go in for call this morning, insisting of course that I was fine, and then Cleo (who was on call last night) would assess me, and if she felt I lacked capacity to make the decision about taking call (sorry, shrink joke), she'd send me home and Sparrow would pinch hit, at least for the day shift. But, of course, I would be fine.

Ah, it was a good plan...

So I got all, like, I'm going to bed. I'm going to be well-rested and fine tomorrow. Ahh, bed. Except...once I laid down...I couldn't breathe. No, really. My nose was dripping, my sinuses were full of concrete, and every time I relaxed enough to get to sleep I'd shut my mouth and then start suffocating. Which was between the times I started choking and coughing as I kept drowning in my own secretions. Ugh, it was awful.

So I finally gave up around 12:30 and decided to do something about it. I put on some passable clothing, climbed into my car, and headed for the Walgreens.

::sigh:: I hadn't even made it past the hospital before I got pulled over.

Okay, fine, so my tags are expired. Because in Illinois, they send you a letter reminding you that your plates are about to expire. In North Carolina, they send you a letter reminding you that, hey darlin', your tags expired two months ago and you should really get that fixed.

How was I supposed to know?

Fortunately, Officer Friendly was "feelin' the holidays" and took pity on my snotty, pathetic, transplanted self. So I went to Walgreens, bought cough syrup, and Afrin, and nose strips, and saline spray. And wound up continuing to cough and drip and drown all night. Except I couldn't swallow, because my throat was so sore from the Afrin. And I was sweating and tossing and turning and, oh, yech, it was a terrible night.

This morning, when my alarm went off at 6:30, there was just no way I was going to be of use to anybody today. And, my temp was still 102. So Sparrow took the first half of my shift (did I mention she was a goddess?) and JD took the overnight (he is also fabulous, although - to his relief, I'm sure - not a goddess). Ohh, thank God.

Although...I can't even begin to tell you how guilty I feel. I know, I know, stupid, unwarranted (ahem, 102) - and not that I won't pay back the time - but there nonetheless.

So, Maggie and I sat around most of the day trying to nap (she was a lot more successful at that than I) and watching TV. The unfortunate part of that is, while Thursday and yesterday I had a lot of good stuff accumulated on the DVR...today, the TV was crappy.

Which did not stop me from watching it. Despite all the interspersed commercials about how part of a healthy lifestyle is limiting TV to two hours per day or less (ha!). And my increasing guilt about what a disaster the house is (because I haven't really moved in. For a whole bunch of ridiculous neurotic reasons and a couple of moderately reasonable ones - like I have too much stuff and a significant paucity of time). But I'm siiiiiiiiiiick....

I watched a documentary on the Jonestown tragedy (which was 30 years ago this week) on the History Channel. I watched a terrible Lifetime movie. I watched a couple of episodes of Scrubs, and M*A*S*H, and the Cosby Show. I forgot how much I used to want to be Claire Huxtable...

I watched a show on Freebirthing on Discovery Health that was...well, interesting. My cousin blogged about this (and the show I watched after it) earlier in the week, and I was intrigued. Hmm. As a former deliverer of babies, I cannot in any way condone what they're doing. Cannot condone no prenatal care (a drug store BP cuff and a fetoscope? Come on). Cannot condone knowing that you may have something wrong that could easily kill you and your baby in minutes and not getting it checked out. Cannot condone such over the top disregard of what we've learned over the past several thousand years.

There was this one woman I just wanted to slap (the one with the drugstore prenatal care and the possible low-lying placenta. Minutes). She was going on and on about how horrible her first birth was and, you know, if she'd only known how risky the interventions were that they were doing (minutes!! Bloody! Horrible! Traumatic! Well before your husband would even call EMS!). Please. Because a shoulder dystocia or a cord accident without the benefit of a trained attendant, yeah, that's not risky. She also ranted about how, at her first delivery, the doctors kept yelling at her that she wasn't pushing right. And she didn't know "what the big deal was, because, you know, it only took like ten minutes."

That's when I started yelling (well, rasping) at the TV.

Okay, now, I concede that I haven't delivered as many babies as she - oh, no, wait, I probably have a couple hundred on her. And I can tell you, when we start saying things like that in a situation like she described, it's because the baby's in trouble.

Which is the PERFECT indication to have a baby far away from any medical care. Idiot. Shouldn't be allowed to breed.

Ahem.

But on the other side of it...you know, I don't support unattended births. I don't even really support home births, because they scare me. I concede that women have been doing this for thousands of years. I absolutely concede that more births around the world occur outside of the Western medical setting than not. But I also would point out how many fewer moms and/or babies die in childbirth or have poor delivery outcomes in the Western world than in the third word or developing nations. But by the same token, I don't either entirely support the medical, institutionalized birth. I've said this before on here, that I dislike the assembly line, everyone gets an epidural at 4 cm, everyone delivers in lithotomy kind of birth, which we do because it makes us feel as practitioners like we're more in control of a chaotic process. But the truth is, I think it often leaves us less in control. I got in so much trouble for deviating from that standardized delivery, but I really felt like everyone was better for it, including me. As I told my patients time after time, my philosophy was this: look, it's your birth, your body, and your baby; I'm just here to keep everybody safe. So, within reason, we'll do this however you want it. Which involved any number of things, even in my short career - backrubs, perineal massage, mineral oil, olive oil, music, Wiccan sand circles, I delivered babies with their moms in pretty much any position they could come up with, and once or twice I was more or less on my back.

Interesting, isn't it, that as much as they complained about my "avoiding" the OR, the only time they commented on how I jumped in on the labor deck was to tell me I was somehow doing it wrong...

Anyhow. The bigger point is, I loved labor and delivery.

So there was this woman on the Freebirthing show who had this completely amazing delivery. It was a water birth (one thing I haven't done, partly because we didn't have the facilities, partly because it yicks me out), and wow, it was so peaceful. There was no screaming and raving and wailing. She just let things happen, accepted them as they came. She claimed it was more or less pain-free, which, I think that depends on your definition of "pain-free" (i.e., I've seen plenty of women control a reasonable level of labor pain with meditation and self-hypnosis). But it was just entrancing to watch. She was nearly silent through the whole thing. And her baby came out, sweet, beautiful, and didn't cry. I, of course, got worried, and apparently she did too, but the kid was breathing just fine. I guess he just didn't have a lot to say. She interpreted this as him being "relaxed", and I'm not sure I disagree with that. The whole thing was completely beautiful. The only thing I would've done differently (aside from being somewhere less than 500 feet from a functional OR) is that her husband didn't touch her the whole time, apparently to protect himself from some British law regarding unlicensed attendants at a birth. Which is sort of sad.

Still. Would it kill you to have a midwife on hand?

The other program I watched was on the "pregnant man." That was a lot more productive. I still don't consider him a pregnant man (uterus = not a pregnant man), but I really support what they did, and I can see his point. I had a lot more respect for them after I saw the program. They seemed like a sweet family. I really appreciated the wife's efforts to breastfeed. I did think it was sort of interesting how quickly they seemed to fall into traditional gender roles. They seem like they have been (the wife has two daughters from a previous marriage) and will be good parents (which is fortunate, because there's another one on the way), and really, can you ask for anything more than that? Everybody's family is different. Everybody's parents screw them up. And the show was an interesting and compassionate commentary on the issues that transgendered couples face. Plus, that kid's adorable. And, I do not envy any boy who comes sniffing around her in 15 years or so - she is so going to be daddy's little girl!

I did get two very amusing quotes out of today's TV watching extravaganza, though. The first, from the stupid Lifetime movie:

"Your son is looking at porn on the internet!"

"That's nice, honey. G'night."

(which, incidentally, was the correct response, at least initially. You know, before he developed his big porn addiction and started lying and stealing and the whole world came catastrophically crashing down...in typical Lifetime fashion...)

And, care of Dr. Huxtable...

"Regional forecast...warm, and no babies."

If I was an OB, I'd so totally steal that (hmm...maybe I can still make it work...)

Okay, yeah, I'm done babbling...

Gratuitous Cuteness

So I've now spent a good deal of time arguing with Sparrow over whether or not she's going to take part of my call tomorrow. Because she's the only one available. And she was on call last night. Which...because I'm a stubborn masochist and Sparrow just rocks, I'm betting you can guess how this conversation has gone...

Me: I'm fine!

Sparrow: No, you're not!

Me: Of course I am.

Sparrow: You're being ridiculous.

Me: Probably.

Sparrow: Let me do it!

Me: No!

Sparrow: Yes!

Me: I'm fine!

(repeat)

She's awesome. She and Cleo spent a lot of time today trying to find someone to cover for me. In the end, I just don't think it's worth the drama (you know, I won't think it's worth the drama until I end up with pneumonia...). And I'm on with Dr. Itchy tomorrow, as my intern (it's a long story how he gave himself that pseudonym), who is also fabulous. I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure I'll be fine. And Maggie and Little Maxine will have a good time over at Sparrow's.

I actually have a lot-ish to say, including my worthless trip to the doctor today (Larry wasn't in the office, so I saw Kelly, another attending, who didn't remember me despite the fact that I worked with her for two months straight less than a year ago. She asked me, "do you work around sick people?" ::sigh::), but I really need to go to bed. So instead, I give you gratuitous adorable pictures of the pooches.

Little Maxine came in all muddy this morning, so I scooped her up in this big towel, and she was all like, "ahhhh...." So I had to take pictures. The ones of Maggie in her chair are apparently her attempt at claiming the Cutest Puppy Ever title.

("Hey, everybody!")







("Ha! Maggie's funny!")

This has been most of what I've seen of Mags over the past few days. She's been dutifully stationed at the foot of my bed.



So sweet.

Such good girls...

Ugh.

I'm sick. Also tired. Fortunately, I have two fantastic if fuzzy nurses to take care of me (Sparrow's on call, so Little Maxine's over).

It was sweet tonight...I couldn't get the dogs to stop licking me. Both were over-the-top cuddly. And I was like, okay, you two! But they kept being all persistent, and finally...it occurred to me that I was really hot.

Smokin', baby! Right?

No, really, my temp had gone up two degrees. To 104.

So I popped 800mg of motrin, sent my classmates an email looking for someone to cover my call on Saturday, and called all my patients to cancel tomorrow's appointments.

Everyone calmed down after that. In fact...we ordered Indian food for dinner. I was lying on my bed, Little Maxine snuggled up beside me, Maggie napping in her chair...and I heard this tapping sound. The delivery guy? I looked at the dogs...no. They were still sound asleep. Must've been something else. Until I heard it again a minute or so later. That was a definite knock. Still, the girls did nothing until I actually got up and started towards the door. Then suddenly they thought it was the invasion at Normandy. The driver was really amused, fortunately.

Goofy dogs. It's fortunate for them they're both adorable and sweet and cuddly.

I think I may have to get a tiny little nurses' hat for Little Maxine....

Well, I always wanted a pony...

I'm a little hoarse.

Between my office mates, my patients, and my ACT team - ALL of whom have been trying very hard to infect me with things - someone finally succeeded. Currently it's mostly in my chest, although...it's been sort of interesting, actually, to watch this develop over the course of the day. Usually I wake up with these things, and the only real warning I have is that I went to bed feeling "not quite right", or, on the best of occasions, I have a prodromal day or so of scratchy throat or mild stuffiness. But this has been coming on all day...when I left supervision this morning, I could still chalk my tight chest and scratchy throat up to the cold air. I was a little cough-ful in the LYS, but, well, the yarn fumes were soothing (oh...my...God, they have this cashmerino silk stuff...I wanted to knit myself a cocoon out of it....but that would be more money than I make in a month, I think. I settled for a little cuddle before I put it back on the shelf). I started coughing for real and producing mucous in earnest towards the end of lecture. And by the time I left my housestaff meeting, I was all scratchy and wheezy and febrile (but the chocolate cake was SO worth sitting through the meeting).

I stopped on the way home and bought Airborne and a thermometer. And am now going to take my dog and go curl up under the electric blanket. Maybe I'll wake up all fixed. It could happen!

I...um...oy.

My Facebook status reads, currently:

Kate is concomitantly over-caffeinated and deliriously tired.

I'm so bloody tired right now. And a little bedraggled. Last night was not awful, and Mike was on night float and took good care of me overnight (he didn't even make me see anybody after 1am. I wandered in to the workroom sometime around 3:30, and he was sitting at the computer, piles of paper surrounding him on the floor, each referencing a patient that somebody or another wanted to send us. I was like, "You need help?" He sort of looks around, looks back at me, and says, "Nope." Who am I to argue? I went back to bed. Well, I went back to my office. I dictated two clinic notes, checked my email, putzed and fussed, and then finally went to sleep around 5. I actually slept pretty darn well from 5-8, but from 1:30-3:30, I tossed and turned in this restless, shallow, inexplicably anxious sort of sleep, which I find is almost worse than just staying up.

There's cable in the intern lounge now. And a recliner. I should've just gone in there and dozed...

Sparrow's always reminding me that it's perfectly reasonable to be useless on your post-call day. Maybe if I would just quit fussing and lay in bed and watch House on these days, I wouldn't end up doing that on the weekends. But, nooo, I'm always trying to be "productive." Pah.

(Sparrow, by the way, so totally rocks. It was, to quote Peng, "ass-bitingly cold" this morning. So Sparrow calls me up and is like, I don't have to be at work until 10, and it's way too cold for you to walk, do you want me to give you a ride home? I almost cried. She also picked up dinner for us last night - which, apparently, Little Maxine got to come along for the trip, and thought the food was for her, and couldn't understand why Sparrow wouldn't let her eat it. Tyler - who met her downstairs - was very amused by Little Maxine. They - Maxine and Sparrow - also took good care of Ms. Mags overnight. Sparrow's so totally my hero today.)

I caught a little nap today. I tried to read. I saw my shrink and waxed philosophic about work for an hour. And I joined the gym. I liked the gym. They were very friendly. I have my complementary assessment and workout (read: sales pitch) with this large, bald, black wall of muscle named Joe on Friday night (I'm on call Saturday. Here's hoping I can still walk). There were old people working out (apparently they have three members over 90) and I got high-fived by the staff a lot. I also got a wicked (WICKED) deal because the manager was in a good mood and thought I was cute.

(One thing I've noticed about North Carolina, both today at the gym and in the context of various people I've met thusfar, is that personal trainers tend to be large black walls of muscle. Who tend to think ass-ful white girls are hot. A girl could get used to that.)

So I sign all the papers and pay - cash, since I don't want to be paying credit card interest on it and specifically took this out of my bonus money. But they had to ask the manager if they accepted cash for membership payments. I thought that was hysterical - and as she's handing me my change she says, "oh, by the way, about our cancellation policy..." And it took a good deal of restraint in my shriveled-up post-call brain to keep from laughing at her and saying, "I want to quit the gym!"

(Which, if you missed the reference, is not actually the case. Rather, it reiterates that there is a Friends analogy for every situation in life. Exhibit A:

)

So then I went to Starbucks and pretended to read for a while, and then I went to class. My first class was good, as it always is, but the second...I'm discovering I don't especially enjoy it, although I find the material interesting. And tonight, right, we get to talking about attachment, and this concept, which I think is huge giganamous gargantuan - the infantile attachment bond determines what "safety" feels like for a given individual. So if you're a baby surrounded by chaos, or inconsistent reinforcement, or a detached and unresponsive parent, this becomes your view of "normal" and "safe."

It's a simple, very reasonable statement. But the implications of that are just HUUUUUUGE.

I've really been pondering that hard. What I found disheartening, though, is that my leader/teacher/whatever I'm supposed to call him eventually pointed out that this gets strongly internalized and likely doesn't change, you know, ever.

Which, well, made me want to curl up in a corner and rock a little. Because if that's true (which, it is, to a degree, I think, but that degree, and the factors that modulate it, are important), then what I do is futile. Which is daunting, particularly for someone who wants to work with people repeatedly traumatized at an early age.

Anyhow....I have to be slept and dressed and showered and in my supervisor's office in 10 hours to learn how to practice my futile craft better, so I guess I'd better get to bed....

Call

Dude. Is it bedtime yet? Oh, no, wait......

This little PIGgy

Tonight marks the beginning of the 2009 recruitment season. Tomorrow is our first set of interviews for next year's intern class, and so tonight is the traditional pre-interview gathering, affectionately known in our department as a PIG. It's pretty standard - the night before interviews at pretty much every program in every discipline, there's a meet-and-greet with the current residents at a local bar or restaurant, or when I was interviewing here, at one of the residents' houses. It's a nice, supposedly informal way to kind of get to know the people in the program, it gives you a feel for what people are like outside the hospital, and if you're particularly astute, it gives you a excellent way to gauge the dynamics of the people involved - are they snooty and distant? Generally relaxed and happy? Do they talk about work with each other or just when they're giving you their sales pitch (for those playing along at home, remember that we spend roughly twice as much of our awake time at work than not, so, if they're not talking about work at all, something's awry)? Are they snippy about it? Jovial? Excited? Dry? That can tell you an awful lot about peoples' attitudes toward their work and their patients. Do they generally avoid each other, or do they have inside jokes, ask about kids, family, hobbies? Do they volunteer positive information about each other ("Oh! Martha's really interested in community psychiatry, you should talk to her about our AHEC stuff," or, "Kate knit her own socks!" or, "Mike just ran a half marathon two weeks ago, you should talk to him about the running clubs around here")? Now, of course we're all on our best behavior, but, there's still a lot to be learned. And the residents - who often have a say in the rankings - can gather useful information as well. Generally, I like these things, and am hoping to go to as many of them (and the lunches during the interview day) as possible.

You'll notice, however, that tonight, this little piggy is blogging and making pizza.

Let me tell you how my day went...

I got a late start this morning. Way, way later than I wanted to. And I finally get out the door, and I get a table at the Starbucks, and read through some stuff....and then I get this text message from Sparrow:

"Dogs out."

I looked at that a moment...thought, huh? Is she just making a pop culture reference? Does she want to go take the pups somewhere? Is she...and then, it clicked.

Dog's out.

My dog.

Is out.

Shit!

I immediately started packing my stuff up and making a beeline for the door as I called her. Juan, our lawn guy/man Viernes had called her and said that Maggie had made a break for it. They were off to go corral her. I said something along the lines of "i'llberightthere!" Fortunately, Mags was standing right in front of the house (although Juan said she had started off towards Sparrow's house), and was easily redirected into my house, where the dog door was subsequently slammed shut. Sparrow called, and I stopped driving like a felon with a two-second headstart. By the time I got back home, Maggie was like, "Guess what happened! Guess what happened! Guess what...ohhhhhh, wait, I'm in trouble, aren't I? Ohhhhhhhhhh......"

It was cute. I hugged her. Sparrow'd already told her she was crazy.

Near as we can tell she did indeed go over the fence from on top of the air conditioner. Which is a dilemma I hopefully have solved, at least for the moment, as I took one of my old plastic shelving units and set the shelves upside down on top of the air conditioner. And there's a ladder in front of it. Maggie seems disappointed. For the record, I did NOT think she would go over that fence, certainly not more than once. It's a five foot drop, for Pete's sake! But then, Maggie is nothing if not spry and resilient...

I also discovered that there's been a large grey housecat living under my house. The entrance to which is right on the other side of the fence from the air conditioner (and which has again been sealed off). Dollars to donuts Maggie saw her and was all, "KITTY!!!" And, boop, over the fence she went.

(It was particularly amusing watching me try to explain this theory to Juan, I'm sure, given my pathetic command of Spanish and his limited English. It was a lot of me going, "Perro...con gatto..." and making leaping and scampering motions with my hands. The best part of that whole exchange, though, was when he picked up the recycle bin that's sitting next to the fence covering the hole that Maxine dug during their last jailbreak. He looked down and saw the hole, and all I said was, "Perrita Maxine." And he said "Ohhhhhhhh" in that knowing way, and laughed, and put it back down...)

::sigh::

So then I met up with Sparrow and Martha at this little deli in town, and we chatted and hung out and I had really good falafel. I then went to the Lowes Foods, where I suddenly discovered I was not feeling so well. Which perplexed me. Until two things happened: a, I finally got to the point where I felt so awful I was like, crap, I just need to go home, and 2, it finally occurred to me where we were in the month. So I attempted to finish shopping, checked out, and drove home, not yet realizing that I'd forgotten about half of what I'd gone for, including most of the components of tonight's dinner. Like, you know, cheese, and, say, pizza crust.

I curled up into a ball for a while, thinking some nasty things about Eve and bemoaning the five weeks I have left until Larry (my doc) puts in a shiny new progestin-eluting IUD and hopefully remedies a lot of this (have I mentioned that my insurance company is giving me a Mirena for Christmas? I'm so excited. Soexcited. In fact, never have I been so excited about a sharp poke in the cervix. I am hoping, however, this goes better than the last Mirena that Larry and I tried to put in together). But eventually I got up and realized that it was 4:30 and I'd forgotten about half the things on my list. And that this little piggy was going to have to go back to market.

So I got up. Went to Target. Went to Whole Foods. Came home, went to start dinner...and realized I still hadn't remembered to buy mozzarella cheese.

There was a long string of expletives, but fortunately the six cheese Italian blend I'd bought a month ago had a little mozzarella in it, so we converted from Greek pizza (because it turns out I didn't have any non-moldy feta, either) to fancy six cheese pizza (which I forgot to put seasonings on. I just remembered that. The leftovers have been in the fridge for over a half hour). I then started a load of laundry, and started doing the dishes. And promptly ended up looking at the clock, covered in dog hair and dishwater and swearing at anything in sight, and deciding that this? Was NOT the image I wanted to project to prospective interns.

I'm all for realism, and being up front, but, there is a limit to how much crazy I let people see. Even y'all.

I'm giving up and writing this whole weekend off. Tomorrow will be better. Even if I am on call twice this week. And then again next week.

Never mind. I'm going to go hide under my covers and snuggle with my jailbird dog...

Funky

I? Am in a funk.

Not sure why. Maybe it's the rainy greyness and the increasing obviousness that Fall done fell in NC. Maybe it's the general stress and annoyance that starts to hit all of us at work about this time of year (I find it gets worse until about February or March, then starts to pick up. Perfect overlap with recruiting season...). Maybe it's the amount of work I haven't managed to do.

Today started out with good intentions. Yesterday was good. I had four therapy cases (I should top off in a couple of weeks at six on Fridays, when my CBT patient returns and after my DBT case starts next week. I also have a Tuesday morning therapy patient and one more who's gone off to Texas. I'm holding his spot, but I don't think he'll be coming back to therapy. I'm hoping, though, that I can leave his slot open until my college student is fixed - I think she's going to be brief - and then maybe finagle in a spot on Wednesdays and take in someone who will go to twice-weekly. Then I'll be at my quota for therapy patients. Actually, I'll be well over it - I'm supposed to have four hours a week of Adult, one of CBT, and one of DBT. I also have two adolescents at an hour a piece. They're optional as far as the requirements are concerned). My two kids went especially well...my one who was spiraling down seems to have reached a reasonable plateau, and the other one is just doing great work. I really like my kids. I went up to the unit yesterday and met my new DBT patient (although I'm still not totally sure what my role is in the whole DBT thing). And we had a really great consult/liaison conference, about ethical issues in sterilizing those deemed mentally incompetent, which is near and dear to my ex-OB/GYN heart.

We went out last night for Cleo's birthday (which is actually Monday). It was funny, how her work friends and non work friends all segregated out, but, we had a good time down at our end of the table. Ruthie and Peng and I carpooled. Ruthie drove. Peng and I feared for our lives. It was amusing.

Today...I got up, I went to Borders...I went with the intention of using this coupon I have, and getting two specific books. I found neither book and left the coupon in the car. But I still got some great finds, including a book on doing two socks at once with magic loop, what seems to be a useful DBT manual, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's new book, Free Range Knitter. I'd planned to go from there to Starbucks and work for about three or four hours, but I was feeling sort of grungy and like I needed a shower, so I came home. And showered. And then...was just sort of overtaken by inertia. I watched House and South Park and whatever else had started building up on the DVR this week, although I still haven't seen any of this week's episodes (except South Park), because I kept doing the, well, I'll just snuggle up here in my blankets for another twenty minutes, and then I'll pause this, and go do some reading...

It's not that I didn't try to overcome the inertia. I tried to convince Sparrow and Little Maxine to go to Starbucks with me and Mags, but Sparrow's fresh off night float and all sleepy. I tried to corral a group to go get Greek food tonight, but Ruthie's cranky, Mike was watching football, Matt had other plans, Tyler got sucked into something else, Peng went shopping for purple things...you get the idea. And then I got into this little thing with Faye, because she and some of the other gals had made plans tonight, and by the time she called I was cranky and a little dejected and didn't want to go. But I caved, because I was feeling all guilty, and knew I'd have a good time in spite of myself...and she just called and was like, oh, you know, our plans tonight actually sort of fell apart...which, well, I wish I could say I was upset about. I like that crew, and would've had fun, but damned if I don't want to just crawl back onto the couch and watch this week's SVU.

Meanwhile, have I mentioned that my house still looks like I just moved in? Or that I have like thirty million pages to read for Tuesday? Or that I still haven't figured out what to do about at least six different decisions I have to make?

Speaking of which... We got a little bonus at work. It's meager, less than half of what they got last year, but, it's money. Most of it is going towards the never-ending avalanche of bills, but I kind of want to take part of it and join the gym. They have a stellar deal for residents, I don't have workout space at the new apartment, I kind of would like to have access to classes and weight machines and a pool again, etc. But I think the only time I could make a feasible commitment to going would be at 5am. Which is okay - I did that for a time in medical school, and I think I can convince Ruthie to start going at the same time (although currently she says she'll go but she won't talk to me at the gym...something about not being social and trying to do actual work there...I tried to point out that this was the very point of having a gym buddy, but, well, we're still working on it). I'd have to be better about my sleep hygiene, but, I can suck it up and do that. Not sure I can feel good about forking over gym money when I couldn't afford to pay my shrink if she weren't giving me a reduced rate for a few months, but, the gym will cost less than two sessions of therapy at the real price. And it's an investment in my health, yada, yada. My doc will be happy. Plus, the membership deal comes with two sessions with one of their trainers, which, between them and my friend the Rehab doc, I could probably figure out the right things to do in terms of all the issues I've had recently with my back and ankles and whatnot (apparently I have very tight heel cords and possibly shin splints. Or so I'm told).

Okay. The other thing I think I'm going to do is start paying for parking. I don't want to, and I can't get into the deck until something opens up, which means I'll have to park in the lot that's almost as far away as my house, except it has a shuttle bus that runs from 5 am to 11:45 pm. Plus, part of my plan for moving here was that it would save me the expense of gas and parking and whatnot. Which, okay, the gas really won't be noticeable. And the parking is pre-tax income, which is sort of helpful. But the thing about it is, these days, especially with Daylight Savings Time ending, I never get out of work until it's well past dark out. And I have to walk home through some very poorly lit and wooded areas. And a couple of weeks ago, some woman got run over by a bus and died at the big intersection I have to cross, which, according to the local paper, she's like the third person to get killed by a bus around our area in like two years. I'm having a harder time with this decision, but ultimately, maybe it does make some sense to get parking, even if I still walk a couple of times a week. Ruthie and I calculated it out, that getting employee parking costs less per month than parking in the pay deck - which I'm not supposed to do anyway - twice a week. And if I start going to the gym in the mornings, I'm so not going to want to/have time to come home, park, and walk a mile to work. Plus, a full workout and walking two miles is probably pushing it physically right now, what with above recent back/ankle issues.

The thing I can't get around, though, is....can I really justify paying to park when I live within walking distance and paying to join a gym for the exercise I'm no longer getting because I'm not walking to work?

I know it's not that simple. And both things probably make good sense overall. But it feels stupid.

Then again, that could just be the funk talking...

I don't get it.

Two ads on Facebook tonight that make little to no sense to me....

This one just seems weird. Why would you pay for something like this?

This one reminds me of that old Dan Akroyd sketch on SNL...


Really? All the kids want one for Christmas this year? Really?

Wow.

Am I tired.

Here's the short version.

Mags went over the wall last night, but only made it as far as Sparrow's old house next door. I think she may very literally have hopped over the fence where it's shorter, by the air conditioner, and went over to look for Little Maxine (who's been staying overnight with us this week while Sparrow's on night float, but yesterday she stayed with Rene). But she came running right back as soon as I opened the front door to see why she hadn't come back in the dog door.

Crazy mutt. It's a good thing I dye my hair, or she'd be giving me grays.

Today I drove to the coast. Which...may actually have some benefits. Even if it is 300 miles roundtrip. I listened to the first part of the audiobook I downloaded last week, Barack Obama's Dreams of my Father, read by the author. Wow. I was really sad I'd only managed to burn an hour of it to CD before I left. He's only really discussed his life up to age 8 or 9 so far, but the living in the Spice Islands for a good part of his childhood already tops Gov. "I can see Russia from my house." And it's so far just a good story, with some interesting points. Looking forward to the rest of it.

I spent my day out with the Vocational Rehab counselor. We ran all over town and hunted down some people. We had a nice lunch at this Greek-ish place by the river. I gave one lady her Haldol shot. A good time was had by all.

Well, Sparrow just dropped off the little one, and it's been a long ass day. I think we're going to have some ice cream (well, that might just be me) and watch a little TV and fall asleep in the middle of the same episode of House I've been trying to watch for the past three nights...

Good news

Peng and Chef got engaged last night!!

He designed the ring. Isn't it gorgeous? I mean, we knew he had good taste, but, he outdid himself here. It's a family diamond, too, from what I understand.

Apparently he cooked her a lovely and lavish three-course meal (which is not an uncommon occurrence in their house), and presented the ring on a plate, as dessert. He then got down on one knee and asked her if he could cook for her for the rest of his life.

(Obviously, she said yes. Because she's a smart monkey.)

That's a good line. It even made the quote board in our office.

Congratulations!! Yay!!!!

I hope you kept the reciept...

I had a really long, really obnoxious day. Now, the long part is (partly) my fault - I'm the one that decided it was okay to do these 15-hour+ Tuesdays (although, usually, I at least like to have time to get dinner before class....notsomuch today). The obnoxious, well....

Fortunately, I had the two cutest dogs in existence waiting for me at home.



I watch the two of them, and I've come to decide that Mags and Max tend to act somewhat less like competing pack members and more like young siblings. Partly because pack members don't tend to get jealous and pouty when the pack leader shows attention to other members of the pack. Not favoritism, mind you. There's some significant sibling rivalry going on, here.

I think Maggie is ready to take her little sister back to the store.

Ah, wait, let me show you the time lapse on this one....here's Maggie, who FINALLY calmed down about twenty minutes after I walked in the door (literally. I get out of my car, and I hear rustling leaves, which tends to indicate she's gone dashing into the house to meet me. I walk in...and...no dog. So I say, tentatively, "Maggie?" at about the same time that she comes bursting through the dog door, all like,
"KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!"
I felt loved).

Here's what happened when Maggie got up to get a drink of water...

They're such characters. I think I mentioned that Maggie got to go over to election night at Sparrow's.

Mags and Maxine both tried to score food off of everyone (there are two extreme cute pictures I can't show you, one of Chef lying on the floor with two dogs all like, "HI!! You're Chef! You smell yummy! You're on the floor! And you smell like bacon! We like you!", and one Maggie with her head resting on Matt's knee while he taunts her with a cupcake). Here, Mike battles the tandem "But... I'm so cute... and so hungry" stares.

And of course, Sparrow got new couches which are supposed to be a dog-free zone (okay, really, a dog-hair-free zone). So Little Maxine got a little new bed. Which Maggie then tried to take over.

Love the "Is this okay? Are you paying attention? Am I going to get in trouble?" look on her face...

::sigh:: It's time for bed, y'all....

Why do we pay these transcriptionists?

So I spent a little time today editing my dictations for the last month or so. ::sigh:: Here's a direct quote from one of them:

"He has had multiple spontaneous pneumothoraces at about age 21, which required multiple tattoos and eventual surgery. "

What I dictated was, "which required multiple chest tubes."

Different.

Multiple tattoos? Really? Did that make any sense??

God as a psychotherapist

It's been a lovely day.

I slept in a bit this morning, but eventually, I dragged my ass out of the house because the colors were just past their peak and the light was...well, decent. But it was an absolutely beautiful day out. Sunny, in the high fifties/low sixties, a light breeze, just gorgeous. So I wandered over to the county...um...left of us (I still don't have my north and south figured out around here), and shot for a half hour or so.



There's this little community out there called Fearington Village, which is just an adorable, faux-bucolic, peaceful little place. They pride themselves on these white-belted cows, which is somehow their signature.

Oddly enough, they're called "Belties."


Apparently they come in a goat, too.

(I still can't look at a goat without thinking, "cashmere." And then, goat cheese. I still cling to this fantasy of living semi-rurally someday, of maybe having a small coop of chickens and possibly a sheep or an alpaca. This fantasy suddenly has been amended to include a goat. Named Cashmere.)

So then I went to the grocery and came home and chatted with my folks and then went to Starbucks and finally went in to work, where Cleo and Matt and Sparrow and I spent a good deal of time fussing around the new work space/rec room ("relaxation area") for the interns (the administration stole the intern office for clinic space, and we got all cranky and demanded that they give the interns a place to be. And, to their credit, they did. So now we're going about making it all nice and homey. Because, after all, one tends to live at the hospital intern year...).

I stayed because I had work to do, which I got done, but not before I spent an hour in Matt's office talking music and theology. Which is always interesting to me; I always enjoy talking philosophy with thoughtful people.

Matt also invited me to come check out the church he attends, which is a little start-up under the ministry of a friend of his from his seminary days. And he directed me to their website, where you can listen to podcasts of the sermons each week. Which I did, after I got home.

It's interesting.

Religion has always been a difficult thing for me. My faith, however, is not. Which makes the two even harder to reconcile.

I identify myself as an Orthodox Christian, which is in many ways more a cultural issue than anything else. The Greek culture and the Greek Orthodox church are impossible to tease apart. I have some issues with the Church, as I've mentioned before. Mostly, I think, because I've always found a lot of judgment and hypocrisy there. The congregation I grew up in was headed up by one of the most wonderful and pious men I think I'll ever meet, and yet the much of the parish was very see-and-be-seen, judgmental, elitist...hypocritical. The one thing that always constantly amazed me was how people who claimed to be following the Church rule of "You are entering the house of God. Please dress appropriately" (the most relevant piece of this is, women can't wear pants) but would show up on Sunday morning looking like cheap (or not-so-cheap) whores. Who showed up to find a husband or wife, and then, once they'd found one, would show up to show off their undisciplined and poorly behaved children. I love the Liturgy. I love the sounds and smells and splendor of the Liturgy, I love the rich tradition, I love the feeling of being nearer to God. But I can't take the people. I feel like a religion should be about community, inclusion, acceptance.

But then, I think my God is a lot more accepting than some people's.

I think organized religion, by its very nature, encourages exclusion. But I see God as this...very tolerant parent. One who understand our strengths and shortcomings and knows that to learn to walk, we're going to have to fall down a lot. And who just keeps picking us back up, no matter how many times that is. I see God as having created everything in the universe, which to my mind means that nothing can be without merit. I think "sin" is a human interpretation of something of which we can't yet comprehend, because we see things in black and white and a limited palate thereof - God? Sees infinite shades of grey. I think that there is nothing my child could do such that I would stop loving them. How can I expect less of God than I expect of myself? And therefor, I can envision no reason that God would deny us and cast any of us out of heaven. Jews, Pagans, Protestants...Hitler and Hussein and the child molesters of the world...I think we all go on to the same afterlife.

Maybe I'm wrong. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Anyhow, so Matt's pastor was talking about anxiety last week. Which, apparently, is a sign of non-belief. I'm not so sure I can get behind that idea. Because I think conflict is the very point of our existence. But nonetheless, he was talking about Matthew 6, which I dug up and read, and it struck me that Jesus had some useful ideas on the issue. He brought up the parables of serving two masters (and why that doesn't work), about how God provides for all living things, and how it's useless to worry about distractors.

In Matthew 6:27, he says (this is obviously the NRSV translation), "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not." He ends Matthew 6 with verse 34: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Jesus, it seems, was a mentalist.

I like those two passages. They're practical, pragmatic, and wise, without being berating, disparaging, or demoralizing. Much as I conceptualize Jesus.

Matt's pastor did make an interesting point, though - he said, "Our anxiety exposes that which we treasure...Worry exposes our focus." That, for some reason, I find especially salient. Because I do think that sometimes we get so wrapped up in our anxiety that we sometimes forget the significance of what we're even anxious about. What does it mean? What does it indicate? Is it really deflected from some other conflict? Last week in my PECC class we talked about Kernberg's idea that in the borderline personality construct, the affect that arises when conflict occurs is almost always not the real affect - it's the dyad, or relationship, that's employed to defend against the one that's really being threatened. How often do we get swept away worrying about something and don't ever stop to think about why we're worrying about it?

So I wonder why I get so anxious about religion?

They call her out by her name

(Here's the reference, if you missed it. Love that song.)

So it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm just getting home from a lovely night out. Tyler texted us last night, and so Sparrow and I took their two extra tickets for the Black Crowes show in Raleigh tonight. It was us, Tyler, Mike, and two of their friends.

Wow, it was a great show. They had this group open for them, the Buffalo Killers (or, as I kept referring to them all night, the Buffalo Soldiers, the Buffalo Wings, the Buffalo Chickens...), who was decent enough. But man, the Crowes rocked it out, baby! I was sort of like, eh, okay, whatever when Tyler invited us, but wow. Chris Robinson does this silly little dance that's just way funnier in person. And they just jammed it the hell up, with these awesome guitar riffs and all this sort of call-and-answer guitar work, and dude, the drummer did this like, ten minute solo that just flat-out rocked (the rest of the band's all standin' around, drinking water, handed off their guitars to the roadies, the keyboard guy lit a cigarette and put his feet up...). There was one song that just seemed like it was NEVER GOING TO END, but it eventually evolved from this flowing freestyle guitar work into a different song (like, twenty minutes later. No exaggeration). They played like a two hour set with one encore. It was a "street show" at the Lincoln, so it was an outside stage. We stood around for five and a half hours (my feet are killing me) and drank overpriced beer and got a little clambaked from the incense (or maybe it was from the pot they were burning the incense to cover up). A good time was had by all.

I then got to drive Tyler's friend's big-ass Expedition home (ohh, it was sweet, that thing's a freakin' bus) because I was the sober one. And then we hit a bar downtown CH, and went to this fabulous burger place, and by then, all of us oldsters were ready to pack it in. It was a heck of a fun night, though. And Maggie gave me a good nasal frisking when I walked back in the door (I mean. really. I smelled like pot, Little Maxine, and hamburgers. She must think I had the most interesting night, ever).

And with that, y'all...it is way past my bedtime...

The woman's a lunatic...

...and that's why I love her.

So I'm having this day, right? I'm tired and cranky and still not feeling super, and I have a full schedule except for that chunk in the middle where I have to leave the hospital and run down the street to my friend Larry's clinic, because he's going to be my new primary care doc. Which of course takes us a LOT longer than the 20 minute time slot that's allotted, and so I'm late for my 3:30, which turns out to be complicated (the actual appointment, not the lateness of me), and then there's my 4:30, and I'm all kerfluffled and then I get back to my office and I have this text message from Ruthie, who of course has been on night float all week and is a little delirious. So I call her, and she says, "Where are you?" And I say, well, I'm still at work, just finished my last therapy session, blah, blah, blah, where are you? And she says...

"Oh. I'm in your driveway."

....?

She continues.

"Yeah, you weren't here. So I cruised down by Larry's office" (which, incidentally, is like a half mile or so from the hospital and thus a mile and a half from my house. So, not far) "but I couldn't find your car anywhere. So now I'm in your driveway again and your dog is barking at me. Do you want to get dinner?"

Of course I did.

"If you want a friend in Washington...

...get a dog." - Harry S. Truman

Okay, I promise, this is the last of the election-related commentary, because I know I'm driving my conservative mother crazy (hi, Mom!). But I read this on CNN.com today, and, well, I couldn't resist...it was an article about presidential pets:

"Thomas Jefferson kept two grizzly bears in a cage on the White House lawn, while John Quincy Adams is said to have let his alligator use a bathtub inside. Calvin Coolidge walked his raccoons on a leash. Theodore Roosevelt's sons escorted their pet pony onto the White House elevator to cheer up a sick sibling. And perhaps the strangest of all: Martin Van Buren briefly owned two tiger cubs, a gift from the Sultan of Oman."

Okay, first of all, how are tiger cubs stranger than raccoons on a leash? Or grizzly bears? Lots of people have exotic cats (okay, maybe not lots), but, leash-trained raccoons?

It also makes me wonder a little bit about the levels of things in the White House water...

Get a Britta, Barack.

Now, as I've mentioned, Maggie is excited about the incoming First Beagle. She's followed the Bush administration pets for several years now, and I have this suspicion that while I'm at work she reads Barney Bush's website for all the puppy political news. Maggie may be a Democrat, but she can remain fair and non-partisan on the important issues. She, of course, is too young to remember Buddy Clinton, or for that matter, my favorite Bush, Millie (Barbara Senior's dog during the first administration). Barney holds his own, though, and even has his own appearance schedule and Q&A column. Plus, you know, he's quite the dignified old boy.

Maggie says, why not a First Coyote?

(Speaking of which, make sure you all get over to The Daily Coyote and check out Chloe the Hound's appearance in the photos. She and Charlie are a sweet pair. This one is my very favorite picture of them, ever.)

Anyway.

So I stayed home sick today. I don't know if I'm finally catching whatever my office mates had, or if it was something I ate yesterday (I started feeling crappy about an hour or so after lunch). I went and got my fasting labs drawn this morning (I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to see if I can figure out why my joints hurt and I'm disproportionally tired, and I haven't been to the doctor in...um...three years now? So we're checking all the routine things as well. You'll all be happy to know my LDL is 85 and my HDL is 49. Can't ask for much more than that) and then Mags and I had a full day of napping, snoozing, and watching House and Bones on the DVR. I keep feeling like I should've done something more productive with my "day off" (like, reading), but I do feel considerably better than I did at 6:30 this morning when I called the ACTT office and said, "Hey. It's Kate. I think I'm coming down with the plague."

Maggie's finally over being worn out from the party Tuesday night. Did I mention that Maggie got to go over and watch the returns with us? Little Maxine was way stressed out Tuesday night; Mags was just giddy. People! Food! People with food! Blankets to lie on! Me! Sparrow! Peng! Chef, who smelled like bacon! Matt, who rubbed her tummy and taunted her with cupcakes! Rene, who's really tall! Wow!! It was an exciting night for my little girl. Little Maxine, however, got so anxious over all of our babbling and bantering and yelling at the TV and banging on the floor that she had to go outside and throw up. Maggie was nonplussed by all of us...at one point she decided it was bedtime so she wandered off and hopped up on Sparrow's bed. We still wore her out, though.

Maybe we just wore me out, too. We're not as young as we used to be, me and Mags...

I feel icky

Oh, so icky. I feel icky, and yicky, and blegh...

Which is unfortunate, because I'm still wandering around a little in the post-election afterglow. And I'd really like to enjoy it, rather than trying to convince myself I'm not getting sick. It was great today, talking to people...I stopped at the Bojangles for a kiddie-pool sized iced tea on my way from supervision to the hospital (I was up until 2 last night waiting for them to call NC. Which, incidentally, they still haven't done. I needed caffeine) and the woman two cars in front of me pulled up to the window and said, "Obama won!!" It was cute. My supervisor looked like crap this morning; she worked the polls all day and then was up later than I was, which I don't think is her norm (she's in her late 50s, I think, maybe early 60s, and doesn't seem like the out-all-night type), but she clearly thought it was so worth it. I saw my neighbor this morning - the one who knocked on my door a few weeks ago wearing a "White Haired Old Ladies for Obama" button - and she waved frantically and gave me a big thumbs-up.

Sparrow came over to my office when I got in this morning (her office is next to mine - I guess we just can't not be neighbors), still sort of giddy. We talked, again, about what an amazing thing this is for our country, what it means, what it communicates to the global community, about how everyone we've met today has this soft, calm air about them of relief and hope. She says to me, "I had no idea I was so mad at the government for the last eight years!" I laughed, but I had to agree. It had become such a din of mistrust and anxiety and feeling unsafe that I'd sort of let it fade into the background noise. Funny, because we're a couple of very outspoken, liberal, anti-Bush administration, anti-stupid economic policy, anti-embarrassing foreign policy, pro-civil rights peaceniks. Not to mention intelligent, psychologically minded, generally aware of our issues kind of women. We talked again about Obama's speech last night - oh, which, incidentally, in my 1am delirium I didn't realize that the CNN clip I posted was only two minutes long. Here's the whole thing, courtesy of YouTube (it's broken into smaller clips):

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

One thing that was really striking was the way he approached the American people with a collaborative, collegial approach. They were talking on CNN this morning about how most presidents, in these acceptance speeches, come on with "I'm going to do this during my presidency" and "my administration is going to accomplish that." Obama, instead, said, I need your help, America. He appealed to us to work together to repair the damage, advocated accountability and union and wholeness.

I...just...yes. Yes, we can.

Now, I recognize that I am often an idealist. I believe that people, at their cores, at their essence, are all worthwhile and ultimately the good outweighs the rest. I just find it easier to make more sense of life if I see it that way, inasmuch as any sense can be made. But gosh, this just gives me so much hope.

My friend's husband, this morning, posted a sarcastic comment elsewhere about how all of us liberals were going to have "buyer's remorse" over this election. Which then led to him making this comment:

"...several nations with horrid human rights, environmental, and economic records are chomping at the bit to become the next world superpower. It is immoral that our nation is so willing to hand this high ground over to such despots. In those countries they are teaching their children winning and excellence; in America, we're more worried about teaching fairness than greatness and this continues to hollow out our nation over time. I feel to my very core that leaders such as Mr. Obama will allow our nation to continue down this path to our undoing."

That pissed a bunch of people off. It just made me sad.

While I respect his view, and his right to have it (that's one of the things that makes America so great to me, that we can have open, free disagreements about the government without fear of "disappearing" one night), it just sort of makes me shake my head. What higher ground are we handing over? It seems to me that for the past eight years, we've been losing ground, compromising our morals, and have become far too concerned with power. Consequently, the things that America stands for, the things that define this country, have lost their significance, become pale; the bonds they form have weakened, and our country has become frustrated and apathetic. We've already come undone, and are vulnerable for our posturing and our tenuous facade.

I've been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about my children, should I have any, and what sort of story I want to be able to tell them about my life, what sort of legacy I want to create for them on a personal, local, national, and global level. I don't want my children to be hollow and vapid. I don't want them to be taught about "winning" and grow up in a culture that values using people as a means to an end, and at that, and end you deem worthy, that suits your needs and to hell with the people you damage along the way. Yes, that is what these countries may be teaching, but that hollow egocentrism and disregard for others can only end like Narcissus at the reflecting pool. That is not a society that contributes, that holds meaning. Prosperity is fragile, and short lived. A social order based on jockeying for position and power without thought to collective ideologies, perpetuation, and infrastructure will collapse on itself, and hard. Justice, equality, authenticity, acceptance? These are enduring. These are the values I want my children to embody. These are truly American ideals.

I kept thinking, today, of this song, by my all-time favorite band, Moxy Fruvous, penned during the first Gulf War and one that's always held a lot of power and meaning for me. In the chorus, there's a line -

What makes a person so poisonous righteous that they'd think less of anyone who just disagreed?

I've always found that poignant, if only in its perspicuity. Not to mention that it took a bunch of Canadians to point this out.

And so, I think it's utterly amazing that America could take this big step forward, vote to embrace hope, change, and unity, and yet Californians could still manage to pass (or, almost pass, since apparently they aren't ready to call it) something so bigoted and divisive as Proposition Eight.

Small steps, I keep telling myself. One moment at a time, one piece at a time, one issue at a time. And even if we continue our two steps forward-one step back dance of ambivalence - which we always will, because, we're human - we still keep moving forward.

This is our moment.

(Read the transcript here.)

We all sat huddled around the TV at Sparrow's, watching this great orator, chills down our spines, history unfurling before us (yeah, I cried). We drank and toasted and hugged and talked about how we were going to tell our grandchildren about this night. We texted and talked to people around the country, and around the world. We yelled back at the screen, "Yes, we can!!"

Amazing.

Never, this early in my life, did I think I would see a black president.

This is historic beyond measure, my friends.

I firmly believe that this will be the man who leads us to better times. I believe that this will be the man who restores America as a respectable country and a solid world power. I believe this is the man who will bring us together as a nation.

Maggie believes this man will be true to his promise and bring us the First Beagle.

Don't disappoint, Mr. President.

So anxious...

(The above picture, incidentally, was stolen from the Miami Herald website back when Katrina was perplexing the poor NOAA folks. But I think it has the right look about it for today, and it was awfully nice of the meteorologists back then to wear red and blue ties to make it even more fitting...)

I admit it, I'm worried.

Not necessarily because I think there's anything to worry about, but, I'm just anxious about what fate tonight is going to bring us. Everyone else around here is much more confident that Obama will emerge victorious ("Landslide," John says to me this morning. "Landslide."), but I dunno. Maybe it's because I come from the land of "Vote early, vote often." Maybe it's because the last two presidential elections I've voted in came down to "pregnant chads" and vote manipulation. Maybe it's because I now live in a "battleground" state. Maybe it's because I'm worried about rioting if Obama loses, and am a little concerned for my own physical safety in that instance (I'm not at all concerned about the Republicans rioting if McCain loses. They'll just stay at home and grumble). Or, maybe I'm a little worried for the state of the nation if McPain and Caribou Barbie gain power.

Maybe it's all of those things. Maybe I'm just neurotic.

It's historic! It's important! How could you NOT be anxious??

It's so exciting! History is going to be made tonight!!!

Either way...we're all gathering at Sparrow's tonight for pizza and alcohol and to watch the election returns. Yes, fine, we're dorks. But it promises to be a good time...especially if Obama, Hagan, and Purdue all take their respective tickets.

Have you voted yet??

It's a little like Christmas Eve...

First of all, how sad is it that Obama's grandmother died this morning?

My fellow 'mericans (as our current embarrassment of a Commander in Chief would say). Tomorrow is, I think, and I've said it before, probably the most historic presidential election since George Washington. When the dust settles, we're either going to have a black president, or a female vice-president, either of which sets a remarkable new precedent.

So, get out there and vote. Be part of it. Tell your kids about it, your grandkids, some random kids on the street.

Plus, if you don't exercise your right to vote, you lose any right to complain about the government for the next four years.

So, if you haven't voted already,

VOTE, ALREADY!!!

Kate Standard Time

...is still a bit off. Much like the rest of me.

Last time I was on night float, it took me a week to recover my usual sleep schedule and not feel like I was barely getting through the day alive. I'm hoping this time will be easier, because on the whole, this time was easier. I fairly steadily slept from noonish to eightish. I actually ate meals this time, or at least I was better at it, rather than during my week in September when I never ate. I managed to get darkening curtains hung in my bedroom (albeit poorly, and with little spring-loaded rods, despite actually having the hardware and the real cafe rods), which I think helped a lot with the sleep. And the patient load wasn't overwhelming, which might be a function of volume, practice, exhaustion, or any combination of the above.

So, the week in recap...

The party last Saturday was awesome. Eva, Matt, and I were a marvelous model of the psyche - Matt pulled off the Clark Kent-esque inception of the Superego quite nicely. As I mentioned, Peng provided his cape:

Snazzy, huh? We also have great pictures of him in the muscle shirt I made.

Eva augmented the t-shirt I made her with spiky blue hair, really fabulous lace tights, stiletto heels, and...a big blue tutu. No, none of us are sure what, exactly, that has to do with the Ego, but, hey, she looked good. Her husband came wearing one of her slips, with pictures of Freud safety-pinned to it. He was, of course, a Freudian slip.

My costume consisted more or less of this:

I know, I know. Matt wasn't even out of his car yet (we got there at the same time) and he was like, "Wow. Wow. I'm not sure I've ever seen that much cleavage, ever. If you added up the sum total of all the boobs I've seen in my lifetime..." And then he kept trying to do things like set his beer bottle down in my cleavage all night. Eva was somewhat more direct...she just kept coming up and poking them.

We were a good team.

Other than that, though, and some overdone makeup (which wasn't actually all that garish, looking at the pictures) and purple glitter in my hair that ended up being more subtle than I thought it would be, I ended up not looking that much different from how I do at work. I wore jeans, because I couldn't find the skirt I wanted, I had my standard black sweater on, because it was cold that night...apparently I don't tramp up as well as I thought I was going to. Shucks.

There were a lot of other good costumes, too. There were three Sarah Palins, including Ed's wife, Georgia (Ed came as Todd Palin, so, she gets extra points for accessorizing), and Sparrow, who was such a dead-on Palin that I came close to breaking my no pictures of people on the blog rule, because, holy freakin' wow. I will break said rule, though, and show you Tyler's costume:

Yeah, low risk rule-breaking on that one, I know. It was a darn good time, though.

What else...the "disciplinary action" for invading my own privacy turned out to be a verbal warning. The very rude woman who emailed me initially and thought my "altering my record" by making sure my meds were up to date was such a heinous misuse of my access had cc'd her boss on the email. Who was much more reasonable. He and I had a nice sidebar in which he assured me that the actions I'd taken to give myself permission to view my own record were sufficient. Although I wonder if she heard about that, because in the email that followed all of this she ended it with this line: "Please do not contact me or Mr. Boss about this again."

Okay, so my initial reply to all this "disciplinary action" nonsense was rather scathing. In that incensed, over-intellectualized, sesquipedalian manner that I have (don't bother looking it up. It's a big word that describes the habit of using big words). Dude, whatever. It was MY chart.

The dimwit who cut herself on Wednesday actually did need a psych consult, by the way. It turned out to be a heck of a slash job. I had a similar "oh, I CANNOT believe they're calling us about this one!" consult on Thursday night ("This girl overdosed three days ago, although she's denying suicidality now, can you come see her?") which had a similar feel to it - I figured I'd give her the crisis service card and be done with it; instead, I talked to her for an hour and a half. I had the time, so...

Thursday night actually turned out to be the roughest, which may in part have been because I spent a reasonable portion of the evening wrangling a sick Ruthie ("Go to bed!" "No, I have to see this patient!" "No you don't, that's what the night float person is for, go to bed!" "Noooo!"). We did, however, get possibly the dumbest consult I've gotten, from the ortho service, on a guy who happened to be a State Hospital patient. Who, incidentally, was doing really, really well - a little demented, but, who isn't at his age? - until he fell and broke his hip while playing basketball. They called us, and were like, "Can you take him on your service?" Ruthie actually laughed at him. She was like, sure, if you want us to screw up all that work you did in the OR. We, uh, don't exactly take care of a lot of post-op hips on the psych wards. Not to mention, he was doing really, really well from a psych perspective. But, you know, by his very nature as a psych patient - scary.

::sigh::

Friday itself was an amusing day. I hung around at work until, like, noonish. I chatted with Karla, she and I talked politics with Matt and Kevin (both of whom are close to being "right-wing nutjobs," as Matt describes it). But they're both really intelligent guys and I like to talk politics with intelligent people who can stay rational and explain their differing points of view. Kevin, to my woe, actually voted for McCain. Because, you know, Obama isn't really "qualified" enough (He's over 35. He's an American citizen. That's all the "qualification" you need in this country. As for whether or not he'll be an effective leader - that's an innate quality. I suspect that his intelligence and practicality and perspective, not to mention that he will likely do a fine job filling his cabinet with good people, will serve him just fine. Indeed, the fact that he's not as steeped in Washington politics may well be an advantage. But I digress). Matt, on the other hand, made solid choices most of the way around, but did let me down just a little by voting for Liddy Dole. Who, you know, I used to support, back when she was head of the Red Cross and early in her stint as NC senator. But, wow, has she been a disappointment, particularly lately (If you haven't read about the ridiculous and libelous mudslinging she's been doing against opponent Kay Hagan, click here. It's completely disgusting).

I then wandered back towards my office to get my day planner, and got assaulted in the hallway with a needle by my friend John. Okay, fine, so it was a flu shot. No, literally, he was wandering the halls of our department giving people flu shots. And a darn fine job he did of it, too. I almost always insist on getting mine in my hip, since the OB nurses in med school taught me that hurts a lot less, but in the middle of the hallway? Not so much. But it was pretty painless. What can I say? The man's good with an IM.

I managed to stay up until almost 9pm Friday, which has also helped with the schedule reversal. My weekend's been pretty lazy, which has been rather nice, frankly, because I'm still really tired. But I haven't been totally useless. I made it to the Whole Foods yesterday. Jonagold apples - my very favorite up north - are in season, although down here they aren't quite the same. But that didn't stop me from buying a whole bag of them.

Wonder why they're chilling out in my laundry basket? Here's my sink, at the time:

Yeah. It looks better now, but I've since found at least another sinkful of dishes I missed. It was a long and delirious week.

Today I went out and shot ninety-some-odd environmentals at State Hospital. I'll put some of those up soon, but they need to be tweaked a little. The sun was a little too strong, so the lighting is off, and the fall colors weren't as good as I was hoping. I might wander down the road to Chatham county this week, see what I can find. I stopped at Target on the way home, because they had some really good deals in their ad this week. Including - finally - I got a new iPod. Now, it's not yet a real replacement for the one that's dying, it's just a little iPod shuffle. But it was, like, $40, they finally had it in pink, and look how cute and tiny it is!!

It holds like 200 songs and will be more than enough for my "commute" to work. I also got a new flash drive to replace the one Little Maxine used as a chew toy the last time she was over. It was $12 and holds two gigabytes. Remember when having a 1G hard drive was HUGE? Huge!!! Now, you can get twice that for the price of lunch and it's smaller than my pinkie.

So, that's the story, folks. Oh, and I still haven't picked out my next knitting project. Suggestions from the peanut gallery?

Crap, how did that happen?

So I've been composing this big, long, rambling post in my head all day - in between a very busy day of grocery shopping mishaps and scaling Dish Mountain (for the first time in, like, two weeks - ew) and watching House on the DVR and burying my nose in this book, which one of my adolescents showed up with last week - but suddenly it's 7pm and Ruthie is picking me up in like a minute so we can go eat dinner and then pick Peng up at the airport (coming in from Chicago, where she's been all week at a conference, lucky bitch. Not that I'm jealous or homesick or anything), and I'm still getting myself all switched around again and I'm going to need to go to bed when I get home and now all I have in me, apparently, is a big, long, rambling sentence. With excessive use of italics.

A useful post tomorrow, I promise. With pictures! Of what, yet, I don't know, but, pictures.

Oh, hey, and happy November. As you can tell from the sparkly new badge, it's National Blog Posting Month again (NaBloPoMo, as it were). Join me, fellow bloggers!! It's only 30 days! It's not even one of those long months!