spok-tacular!

its been a glorious couple months. 2 months of easy rotations with weekends off followed by a mini vacation.

my intern year is now officially over and i am considered a "senior resident". its sort of the same feeling i had at the transition between medical school and residency. yesterday i was a lowly intern. today i am a senior. i feel no different or smarter, yet the job changes.

great friends came to visit and we had fun. i didn't realize how much i missed john and eithne until i saw them. it was just like old times. we stayed up late, drank too much wine, hackeysacked a little. i hope we see them again relatively soon.

here they are at pike place mark.


we've definitely gotten rusty. but still- ski jumps, beaver shots, and leaping stags abounded.

we just got back from spokane. sean and i went there for the weekend and stayed at our friend's parents' house. it was my first time back in almost 2 years. we ate at my favorite restaurant, gordy's. it hasn't changed a bit. which is good and bad, i guess. spokane in general hasn't changed since we moved there 11 years ago.

we went riding a few times in the park where i learned. it was so refreshing to be in open space. i encountered less then 10 people over the course of 3 different bike rides. of course, my mountain bike skills continue to regress. i walked things i used to ride and continued to walk things i used to walk. i'm at a place now, though, where i really don't care. i'm not trying to impress anyone with my riding. i just want to have a good time. and i did!

spokane is always on the short list of places to live when sean and i grow up. after visiting, its higher on my list. we'll see.


mmm... butter.... (note my feeble attempts to utilize picassa's tools)



cool barn.

tomorrow i start back to work. i'm going to sequim, wa for 2 months. i have to go on a ferry AND drive on the world's longest floating bridge in a saltwater tidal basin all by myself to get there. i'm looking forward to it (except for the driving, ferry, and floating bridge), but i'll miss jub jub tremendously. i'll miss sean, too.

check out that tongue.



well, i'd better get packing. come see me on the beautiful olympic peninsula.

intubating ferrets and the trauma of trauma.

its been a challenging month for me. i spent 2 weeks on the trauma team at the largest center for many, many miles. lots of grossness and stress. these were people who were just living their lives until some very bad, bad thing brought them my way. their stories were varied, from mundane to unbelievably spectacular, from just plain stupid to tragic. i can see why people like trauma, but i know its not for me.

i then spent 2 weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. on the first day, i had to intubate ferrets in an attempt to get a feel for intubating a neonate. having now done both, i can say the ferrets are quite different.

i don't ever want to be on the receiving end of either service.

now life is calmer and i have a lovely outpatient month with most weekends off. i couldn't be happier. sean's dad is coming to visit soon. hopefully other friends are coming to visit as well. the weather is gorgeous.




here's jub jub, trying to help with taxes.



check this out- likely my biggest claim to fame.

Post Call

just woke up after my first call night on the family medicine service, a seemingly schizophrenic combination of obstetrics, pediatrics, and adult medicine. there's nothing like running from a delivery to admit a 90 year old with heart failure then running back to examine the new baby. oh, and then another delivery, another baby, followed by some pneumonia. although combining moms, babies, and adults is, like, the whole point of family medicine, it is very challenging to combine them seamlessly in real life. delivering babies has yet to be an even remotely unextrordinary experience.

it is so good, though, to be back on days. last weekend my sleep was so screwy that we got up at 3 am and went to the crazy local 24 hr breakfast joint, Beth's. there was the typical combination of drunk people singing Sweet Caroline at the top of their lungs (bop! bop! bahhhhh! good times never seemed so good!...), crazy people who were totally annoyed by the drunk people, and greasy, greasy food.


note the gentleman in the background. he was wearing a top hat, cummerbund, and pirate shirt.




sean, being a good sport about the whole thing.




then we went to watch the sunrise and i saw a sea otter!!!! so exciting! you see it, don't you?


here's jub jub ignoring ira.

Nights Suck.

i have a new found respect for my aunts and uncles back home who have spent their entire careers working midnights and swingshifts. i've been working 5:30 pm-7:30 AM for the past 2 weeks, and it is very disorienting. i haven't seen sean, or daylight, for that matter. i feel like i've been run over by a truck. my ongoing cold isn't helping. i have today off. i got to see sean last night, a belated valentine's day. we went to an early dinner and opened one of our fancier bottles of wine. he's gone now. skiing in canada with star. i'm jealous.

something that doesn't suck is truffle salt. i had this for the first time at the pike brewing company with radishes and butter. although my dinner mates (sean, his mom, and his grandmother) were less impressed, i found it to be a sublime combination. it is ridiculously expensive, but i did indulge in a jar from whole foods. the ingredients are salt, truffles, and 5% truffle flavor. i have no idea what 5% truffle flavor means, or how this percentage is determined. would 7% be too much? in any case, it is a tasty, tasty item.

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.