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...