99 bottles of wine on the wall...

sean rarely follows my carefully laid out christmas lists to acquire my gifts. this year was no exception. I asked for the Food and Wine 2008 Guide To Wine. instead i got this:





which is awesome. the exterior is made of eco-friendly, beautiful bamboo and the inside is made of delicious, anti-oxidant containing grapes. he chose a range of reds- zins (my new faves, thanks to tim and lucy), merlots, cabs, varietals, etc... he also provided a range of "quality". charles shaw is well represented, along with a few bottles i will reserve for special occasions (a rombauer zin and a l'ecole 41 table wine). all and all a very sweet and thoughtful gift. however, if you find me brown-bagging it underneath a bridge sometime in the future, you might think back to this day.

i got him a video game. and some underwear.

we were in a similar predicament as thanksgiving- i worked late and sean apparently was banking on grocery stores being open all night. of course they weren't, and we have no food at home. we ended up at a chinese buffet- quite surreal. it was very busy with all sorts of people. the food was as i remember chinese buffets to be- greasy and salty. sean did well for himself, eating a large portion of a roast beast on display.

i'm in the intensive care unit right now. our patients are, as the name implies, critically ill. it was so sad watching families visit their loved ones yesterday. being there makes me so thankful for my good health and that of my family.


jub jub says happy holidays to you all!

by request

should jub jub have a brother?








i'm just not sure. she seems so happy with this big house to herself, but she gets SO excited when ira comes to the window...

thanksgiving

thanksgiving started early for me- in the cafeteria of the children's hospital for a traditional dinner at 1 AM. i was on call and up all night, so i slept most of the day away once i got home. i felt bad for keeping sean from celebrating, but when i finally got up, he was sleeping on the couch. it was surprising how little was open, so thai food it was. i keep thinking back to 1 year ago- making thanksgiving dinner for eithne, john, a brand-new atticus, and their family. i miss my people!

we went riding today in anacortes, north of whidbey island. it started out well enough- pleasant drive, beautiful weather, lovely lake- but, as usual, the trail got the best of me. as it turns out, i totally suck at mountain biking. this particular trail just had too many obstacles** for me. regardless, it was fabulous to be outside on a gorgeous day whether riding or hiking with a totally awkward and not helpful walking stick (i.e. bike).

here i am, apparently about to fall.



here's my person. he took this photo of himself, apparently. probably killing time waiting for me to catch up.



i do want to get better, as i have such a great time when i know the trail. someday...

**obstacles for me include the following, in no particular order: climbs, downhills, turns, rocks, gravel, roots, leaves, wetness of any sort, other people on the trail, sean, mud, sand, heights, my gears, being overly hot, and being overly cold.

time flies

i've spent the last month in clinic and lecture with few weekend or evening obligations. these are the final couple days before the reality of internship returns. i'm somewhat torn. i'm definitely weary of sitting in a classroom feeling like a student again, but i'm not so psyched about returning to the world of q 4 call and medical decision making. in any case, my ambivalence is irrelevant, as time marches on.

it has been fun getting to know my 7 fellow interns. we have vastly different experiences and interests, no big surprise. i wouldn't say we're best friends, but we're certainly congenial enough.

i invited the whole clan over last night, only a few came. i made some food, had plenty of wine available. i felt quite vulnerable opening my house and cooking for new people, something that had previously been very calming and fun for me. making friends is hard! sean was a champ, chatting people up, showing folks how to play the wii. we played a game that tests intelligence, and i scored only slightly better than a ten year old. that was post wine, mind you, but still... sean, of course, beat all of the doctors in the room by a significant margin.

sounds like sean and i are headed to vashon island for some biking tomorrow if it doesn't rain too much...

salmon in seattle

we went to see salmon spawning in piper's creek at carkeek park today. what a strange thing to observe. the natives probably don't find it unusual, but i sure did. rarely do urban folks get to witness wildlife in their natural environment on such a large scale.

the salmon are just starting to spawn at this particular site, and already there were several carcasses in various states of decay. i can't imagine what its gonna look like (and smell like) there in a month or so. we saw a couple who were really active and pushing upstream. i kept asking sean questions about the whole thing, but he didn't really seem to know. i guess all of his childhood field trips to the hatcheries didn't really leave an imprint.

it was interesting and quite sad to watch all of these animals at the end of their lives. sean took A LOT of pictures, but this is by far the coolest...

my man

that's him, alright.


today is sean's birthday. he's 31 years old now. we started dating when he was 20 (!), not even old enough to imbibe. i remember his 21st birthday well, watching sean order his first legal drink. he didn't even get carded, probably because of his grizzly adams-esque beard.

in any case, today's the day, and i wanted him to have a good time. last year's birthdays weren't so great. little cat died right before sean's birthday, and sprout died right after mine. jub jub has agreed to remain well for at least the next week.

it started out well for him because he sold his commuter bike on craigslist. now he gets to experience the romanticized affair that is getting yet another new bike. i've watched him do this a few times now. its cute until it becomes totally annoying.

For sean's big day, i bought him a wii. it is so ridiculous. he'd much rather have a PS3, but i just can't bring myself to do it. plus, at least with the wii, we'll burn some calories while we waste our lives away. he's "bowling" as i blog.

we went to a lovely little downtown restaurant for dinner. he wanted well-prepared seafood, so i did some research and found a place that i'd hoped would fit the bill. he said it was good. i tried to make him a cheesecake, but it totally failed. turns out our oven is a good 100 degrees hotter than the dial reads. sean apparently knew this, but forgot to mention it until the burnt cheesecake made itself known to the world.

4 months in seattle

sean and i have lived in seattle now for 4 months. i've just completed my 4th month of residency. after 4 months of working pretty hard, i now have a month of mostly clinic and lectures with no call and no weekends. it is a great feeling to have 2 days off in a row!

residents, myself included, spend a lot of time bitching about how much we work. the reality, of course, is that we signed up for this, and are actually paid pretty well. i try to be mindful of what life was like before the 80 hour work week, because it seems so hard to manage now!

i'm feeling thoughtful about living in this new city. seattle is somewhat familiar to me from our multiple visits while living in spokane. i didn't know it well- just enough to navigate myself to rachel's house in capitol hill, and of course, to ikea. four months living here, and i still haven't really figured out my surroundings. we've found a handful of decent restaurants, gone to several parks, explored a little bit by bike. i've found the local food rainbow (much closer than in phoenix, thank god...). i've yet to find a middle eastern restaurant or a good breakfast joint. i haven't been to the art museum.

most significantly, we haven't really made any friends! sean has some folks from work we've hung out with a couple of times, but that's it. i haven't made friends with my co-residents yet. i'm hoping this will evolve over this month as we're essentially seeing each other for the first time, really, since orientation.

i really miss my medical school friends, and keeping in touch has been hard. everyone has busy schedules, and we are all over the country. i was the member of a very tight-knit group of people. we saw each other for literally hours everyday. we got on each other's nerves frequently, but also laughed and cried and had great conversations and generally challenged one another. it was great. a circumstance not likely to happen again.

missing them has made the transition to a new place more difficult. i am so thankful that sean is happy and successful. we are in a beautiful, green, lush, progressive place that i should embrace. and i will, dammit. i just need to find some good felafel first...

Ahh, Pediatrics...

So i am 4 days from the end of my 1st month of peds, and all had been going well, illness wise, that is. I was nervous because my two previous months of peds, during my 3rd and 4th years of medical school, led to week long illnesses, the flu my first year, and a wicked sinus infection my 2nd. However, the more time that passed, the more confident i was feeling about making it through. i mean, i only had 4 days to go! i got a little nervous when my co-intern came down with something last week, but i made it several days past the onset of her illness without feeling a thing. i thought i was golden.

then i had my last call night, this past thursday. at around 10 pm i started feeling not so good, belly-wise. then, catastophically, during the interview of a family with a sick toddler, i had to make a quick exit. it was a bit of a blur, but i somehow made it in time to the nearest rest room, and proceeded to puke my guts out. it didn't get any better from there. poor sean picked me up from work and had to pull over twice on my behalf. of course, both times, he pulled over on very busy streets, lined with bars and hipsters. so, fellow seattle residents, if you happened to witness someone barfing out of a honda element, sorry. pride takes a backseat to puke, as it turns out.

i'm feeling slightly better now, but worried about my 2nd month of peds, which is coming right up...

a blogger is born

so i've contemplated blogging for some time, but have been held back by my general slothfulness, as well as the nagging notion that blogging is inherently selfish- why would people want to read about me or my thoughts of the day? but i've enjoyed reading sean's blog (at least the posts that aren't soley devoted to bike masturbation) and have decided to give it a go. i can't guarantee regularity, continuity, originality or creativity. i can, however, guarantee frequent pictures of jub jub, my kitty. and posts by sean, who is quite anxious to get this thing cooking.

cast of characters:

me- family medicine intern in seattle. a fish out of water currently.

sean- the person with whom i've joined forces, and generally the light of my life (when not waxing poetical about bike parts).




jub jub- aformentioned cat, the lone survivor of a mysterious liver ailment that killed her 2 peers, now living large with huge windows and flirtatious neighbor cats.



a multitude of others- you'll have to stay tuned...

Vacation

Michele's Vacation started yesterday and now she's got a full week of nothing to look forward to. I scheduled Monday and Tuesday off so that we could at least get away a little bit. Right now we're staying in Forrest Grove, OR with my parents and later today we'll all head down to the beach to visit my grandfather.

Stay tuned because Michele's bound to get something up here sometime.

Why?

Michele's been flirting with the blog idea for a while so I figured I'd give her a little nudge. If it doesn't work out than so be it but at least we can try. I pulled the name out of my ass and my lady may change it but it seems fitting to me the way our trips always seem to fall flat all the time.

Enjoy!(hopefully)