me: 'so, you probably want to stay away from white bread, because it can bring your sugar really high and then it comes crashing down.'
diabetic woman: 'it does?!? girl, hush!! oh. sorry. i mean, i didn't know that.'
(me, silently: what was your old pcp doing all these years?)
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
mothwatch 2009
we are in full blown moth elimination mode here. my closet, once overflowing with textiles, is a barren wasteland:
callie has taken the position of foreman on this job, and is overseeing the work while snuggling into my winter comforter:
i think she's judging me a little, don't you? i see it in her eyes.
well, there's been some good progress here today with the freezing, the ironing, the washing of washables, the mothballing, the packing in cedar. i think there have been some silver linings to the moth cloud.
1. i found a new laundry detergent. mrs meyer's clean day, lavender scent. so far it smells heavenly and has cleaned my clothes well. and i have done all of my laundry. all. i even washed out the hampers.
2. i'm weeding out the clothes i never wear. i always feel so guilty getting rid of them, but now i realize they were the problem. those sweaters just sitting back there, month after month, never being moved or shaken or worn? moth playground! not only can the clothes i don't wear be worn by others, but i won't be ruining my own favorite clothing by keeping them. win-win.
3. as i was getting ready to vacuum, i thought about how it smells like burning rubber sometimes when i vacuum and how that can't really be a good thing. so i found my vacuum manual and did such things as change the belt and clean out the hepa filters. that was probably about 18 months overdue.
4. i am organizing my downstairs storage, heretofore not well-utilized. i even assembled the garment rack i bought a few months ago.
so, you see? what's one old (actually, rather new) wool coat compared to all of this gain?
sigh. i liked the coat.
callie has taken the position of foreman on this job, and is overseeing the work while snuggling into my winter comforter:
i think she's judging me a little, don't you? i see it in her eyes.
well, there's been some good progress here today with the freezing, the ironing, the washing of washables, the mothballing, the packing in cedar. i think there have been some silver linings to the moth cloud.
1. i found a new laundry detergent. mrs meyer's clean day, lavender scent. so far it smells heavenly and has cleaned my clothes well. and i have done all of my laundry. all. i even washed out the hampers.
2. i'm weeding out the clothes i never wear. i always feel so guilty getting rid of them, but now i realize they were the problem. those sweaters just sitting back there, month after month, never being moved or shaken or worn? moth playground! not only can the clothes i don't wear be worn by others, but i won't be ruining my own favorite clothing by keeping them. win-win.
3. as i was getting ready to vacuum, i thought about how it smells like burning rubber sometimes when i vacuum and how that can't really be a good thing. so i found my vacuum manual and did such things as change the belt and clean out the hepa filters. that was probably about 18 months overdue.
4. i am organizing my downstairs storage, heretofore not well-utilized. i even assembled the garment rack i bought a few months ago.
so, you see? what's one old (actually, rather new) wool coat compared to all of this gain?
sigh. i liked the coat.
confession.
i have something we need to talk about.
i know, i haven't always lived an exemplary life. there have been indiscretions. i know, sometimes, in the stresses of life, i have let some things slide. still, i didn't think i deserved this. i wasn't prepared. it's hard to say.
i have moths.
moths!
now, i didn't think people GOT moths. i mean, i know there are these things called 'mothballs' and that my babci and dziadziu's 'shoe closet' sometimes smelled like them. sometimes, big moths would fly into our house in the summer and it was kind of gross. but never in my life have i heard of someone actually having a moth problem in their house. until now.
i have to admit, the signs were there last winter. i sent a few of my fave wool sweaters to the dry cleaners and they came home with giant holes in them. at first, i was furious with the dry cleaners, but then i pulled another sweater out of a pile and it had a similar hole. i had the thought that it might be a moth situation, but i had a lot going on, ok? things were kind of rough in my life last winter. so i honestly didn't think much about it. until the other day, when i pulled out a newish cashmere cardigan and found a teeny, but slightly too big to be chance, hole in the back of it. oh, and sure, maybe i had seen a little moth or two flitting around the apartment, but again, who cares?
well, today, i gave moths a little google. i saw the pictures of moth larvae! barf! surely nothing like that could go on in my house without notice. well i reached back into the depths of my closet and pulled out this old sweater my mom knitted me, and boom! it was in shreds. TELLTALE MOTH LARVAE. next, my lovely camel wool coat. PATCHES OF BALDNESS. i went down to the sweaters i had put in storage in rubbermaid. THERE WAS A CATERPILLAR IN MY CLOTHES. i immediately launched into my tried and true strategy for dealing with such situations: a finely balanced blend of panic and overreaction.
(grooosssssssssss.)
the good news is, my closet is clean now. all that wrapping paper i was going to reuse? POTENTIAL MOTH FODDER. GONE. (sorry, trees). that old mattress cover? down the trash chute. those wool sweaters i was thinking about keeping? on the next boat to the goodwill. now, a multipronged approach:
1. i have a lot of silk dresses. you don't go to 4 weddings a year without accumulating some, you know? and sweet fancy moses, you want me to dry clean them all? heck no. they're in my freezer. yes, that's right, and i will have none of your ridicule.
2. i am washing everything in the house. everything. i'm sorry if anyone in this building wanted to use the washing machines this week, but they will have to wait.
3. chemoprophylaxis. there seem to be two schools of thought. first is to seal up your clothes with old fashioned mothballs. effective, but may also kill you, your pets, or your children if you get too close. second, cedar. i'm turning the downstairs storage into death-ball territory, while limiting callie's upstairs world to cedar.
game on, moths. you think you're up for this? talk to the fruit flies who tried to take on my kitchen this summer. oh, that's right, you can't! because there were no survivors.
i know, i haven't always lived an exemplary life. there have been indiscretions. i know, sometimes, in the stresses of life, i have let some things slide. still, i didn't think i deserved this. i wasn't prepared. it's hard to say.
i have moths.
moths!
now, i didn't think people GOT moths. i mean, i know there are these things called 'mothballs' and that my babci and dziadziu's 'shoe closet' sometimes smelled like them. sometimes, big moths would fly into our house in the summer and it was kind of gross. but never in my life have i heard of someone actually having a moth problem in their house. until now.
i have to admit, the signs were there last winter. i sent a few of my fave wool sweaters to the dry cleaners and they came home with giant holes in them. at first, i was furious with the dry cleaners, but then i pulled another sweater out of a pile and it had a similar hole. i had the thought that it might be a moth situation, but i had a lot going on, ok? things were kind of rough in my life last winter. so i honestly didn't think much about it. until the other day, when i pulled out a newish cashmere cardigan and found a teeny, but slightly too big to be chance, hole in the back of it. oh, and sure, maybe i had seen a little moth or two flitting around the apartment, but again, who cares?
well, today, i gave moths a little google. i saw the pictures of moth larvae! barf! surely nothing like that could go on in my house without notice. well i reached back into the depths of my closet and pulled out this old sweater my mom knitted me, and boom! it was in shreds. TELLTALE MOTH LARVAE. next, my lovely camel wool coat. PATCHES OF BALDNESS. i went down to the sweaters i had put in storage in rubbermaid. THERE WAS A CATERPILLAR IN MY CLOTHES. i immediately launched into my tried and true strategy for dealing with such situations: a finely balanced blend of panic and overreaction.
(grooosssssssssss.)the good news is, my closet is clean now. all that wrapping paper i was going to reuse? POTENTIAL MOTH FODDER. GONE. (sorry, trees). that old mattress cover? down the trash chute. those wool sweaters i was thinking about keeping? on the next boat to the goodwill. now, a multipronged approach:
1. i have a lot of silk dresses. you don't go to 4 weddings a year without accumulating some, you know? and sweet fancy moses, you want me to dry clean them all? heck no. they're in my freezer. yes, that's right, and i will have none of your ridicule.
2. i am washing everything in the house. everything. i'm sorry if anyone in this building wanted to use the washing machines this week, but they will have to wait.
3. chemoprophylaxis. there seem to be two schools of thought. first is to seal up your clothes with old fashioned mothballs. effective, but may also kill you, your pets, or your children if you get too close. second, cedar. i'm turning the downstairs storage into death-ball territory, while limiting callie's upstairs world to cedar.
game on, moths. you think you're up for this? talk to the fruit flies who tried to take on my kitchen this summer. oh, that's right, you can't! because there were no survivors.
Monday, September 14, 2009
va(stay)cation: day 3.
(in which i learn about hawk-watching.)
i was lounging around drinking my second cup of coffee today when i thought to myself, it's really beautiful outside. i should do something nice today. after all, the point of this week is not to sit on the couch, incessantly refreshing my email. a hike seemed to be just the right early-fall activity. heck, i'm making my own mountain day here. so up i went, to the top of wachusett mountain! it was a lovely climb, quite a bit more rocky than good old money brook, but good. the best part, however was at the top.
backtracking just a bit, i sometimes forget why i went into family medicine. when you get to the very bottom of it, it's because i think people are fantastic. no, not everyone. but in general, i love how weird and funny and fascinating people and their lives and passions are. it's the same thing that keeps me coming back to this american life week after week.
so. up at the top of the mountain were a whole lot of people with binoculars and telescopes. a motley crew, some with long hippie ponytails and canvas vests, others with denim shirt tucked neatly into denim pants and glistening white new balance sneakers. one sidled up next to me while i was eating my apple in the sun and politely answered my questions. it turns out they are from eastern mass hawk watch and they were there to count the hawks that are migrating south for the winter. heck, i didn't even know hawks migrated. but they do, all the way down to south america. apparently thousands of them pass by our very mountain. and these folks were up there counting them all! just like they do every year.
when you start asking people about their hobbies, well, i think for the most part they love it. and when some total hawk-novice like myself starts asking all sorts of probably foolish questions, all the better because they can demonstrate their superior hawk-knowledge. and you can tell that these people live and breathe hawks. by the end, the guy was forcing binoculars into my hands and sighting hawks in the telescope for me while he told me all about how the hawks ride something called "thermals" all the way past the equator and shouted intermittently across the lot, 'paul, occipiter tracking left!' 'paul, how many in that last kettle?' paul appears to be quite the ringleader.
all in all, it was a marginally disappointing day for hawks. only about two hundred today, and not that close to the mountain. ('some days they come so close we're arguing over whether the total's 475 or 477, but today's not going to be like that', hawk-watcher #2 told me with a touch of dismay.) however, it was a lovely day for climbing a mountain, eating a nice crunchy apple at the top and learning a little something new.
i was lounging around drinking my second cup of coffee today when i thought to myself, it's really beautiful outside. i should do something nice today. after all, the point of this week is not to sit on the couch, incessantly refreshing my email. a hike seemed to be just the right early-fall activity. heck, i'm making my own mountain day here. so up i went, to the top of wachusett mountain! it was a lovely climb, quite a bit more rocky than good old money brook, but good. the best part, however was at the top.
backtracking just a bit, i sometimes forget why i went into family medicine. when you get to the very bottom of it, it's because i think people are fantastic. no, not everyone. but in general, i love how weird and funny and fascinating people and their lives and passions are. it's the same thing that keeps me coming back to this american life week after week.
so. up at the top of the mountain were a whole lot of people with binoculars and telescopes. a motley crew, some with long hippie ponytails and canvas vests, others with denim shirt tucked neatly into denim pants and glistening white new balance sneakers. one sidled up next to me while i was eating my apple in the sun and politely answered my questions. it turns out they are from eastern mass hawk watch and they were there to count the hawks that are migrating south for the winter. heck, i didn't even know hawks migrated. but they do, all the way down to south america. apparently thousands of them pass by our very mountain. and these folks were up there counting them all! just like they do every year.
when you start asking people about their hobbies, well, i think for the most part they love it. and when some total hawk-novice like myself starts asking all sorts of probably foolish questions, all the better because they can demonstrate their superior hawk-knowledge. and you can tell that these people live and breathe hawks. by the end, the guy was forcing binoculars into my hands and sighting hawks in the telescope for me while he told me all about how the hawks ride something called "thermals" all the way past the equator and shouted intermittently across the lot, 'paul, occipiter tracking left!' 'paul, how many in that last kettle?' paul appears to be quite the ringleader.
all in all, it was a marginally disappointing day for hawks. only about two hundred today, and not that close to the mountain. ('some days they come so close we're arguing over whether the total's 475 or 477, but today's not going to be like that', hawk-watcher #2 told me with a touch of dismay.) however, it was a lovely day for climbing a mountain, eating a nice crunchy apple at the top and learning a little something new.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
vacation: day 1.
today is a lovely day for the first day of vacation. lovely because it's miserable and grey outside, making it the perfect day to stay in. currently, i have a pot of soup simmering in my new cuisinart pot (a lentil-vegetable experiment, we'll see how it turns out) and some sweet potatoes roasting in the oven for the gnocchi i plan to try, maybe tomorrow. i've had two cups of coffee and am making some tea, and the cat is cuddled up next to me.
bliss.
p.s. i thought the green background, while previously nice as a photo backdrop, was becoming a little tough on the eyes. i hope the navy is more soothing.
bliss.
p.s. i thought the green background, while previously nice as a photo backdrop, was becoming a little tough on the eyes. i hope the navy is more soothing.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
how i learned to love the bomb.
or 'steamed tilapia appetizer in a delicate broth.'
those of you who know me might know that for some time, fancy feast has been a bit of a joke. i do not feed my cat fancy feast, as it is something that other cats - cats that i have loved less, dare i say, not loved at all - have eaten. my beloved callie has refined and specific tastes. she really loves, for example, her iams dry. she, as a rule, will not touch the pureed type of wet food. she also does not particularly like the "chunks in gravy" variety. she does not even like leftover fish that i bring to her from fancy-pants restaurants like the sole. she does like stonyfield farms vanilla yogurt, balsamic vinegar, and soy milk.
also, there's something satisfying about bringing home a 10 pound bag of iams and scooping some into your cat's dish every day. it's like feeding your children cheerios rather than some crazy dried-milk-already-added cereal bar. like buying them a nice l.l. bean backpack rather than some plastic barbie number. sensible. nutritious. wholesome.
as a third point, i would mention that my family likes to eat. we get together and we eat a lot. there is constant worry that people are not eating enough. 'have you lost weight?' my mother would ask with a critical tone every time i came home from college (i had not). in med school, checks started to appear in my mailbox. 'buy groceries!' read the accompanying cards. my father has a tendency to hover at the end of a meal, serving spoon in hand: 'do you want the last scoop of pasta? it's not enough to save, but we don't want to waste it! just a bite. there!'
now, back to my original point. about 3 weeks ago, my cat had some unfortunate tooth extractions. particularly unfortunate for me, since i had to pay for this. as a result, she was ordered to have no dried food for 7 days. i tried all sorts of tricks with iams canned food, adding water to her dried, no luck. she was practically on hunger strike. my previously overweight cat was melting away in front of my eyes! desperate, i stumbled across a little something called fancy feast appetizers and bought an assortment: the steamed tilapia, the wild alaskan salmon, the flaked skipjack tuna. she ate them! they saved my cat from the brink of starvation (also known as 'achieving a normal weight')! this stuff basically looks like something you or i might mix a little dressing in with and smear onto a pita. so that was fine for a week, and then i thought we'd just go back to our normal diet. but now she's not eating enough! i can't tell if her teeth hurt or if she's just spoiled. so i crumbled in the grocery store and bought more steamed tilapia, the shrimp and seabass blend, tongol tuna and flaked chicken. to further compound the craziness, the whole time i'm thinking of the card i got from the environmental defense fund detailing the impact of each individual fish choice.
in short, i am now someone who buys fancy feast.
tell me. am i crazy? am i resigning myself to a life of half-empty cat food cans lining the fridge? should i stand my ground or am i slowly killing the cat? if she's otherwise bopping around the apartment like normal can i assume she isn't in starvation city?
finally, what the heck is skipjack tuna, and is it really so different from tongol?
those of you who know me might know that for some time, fancy feast has been a bit of a joke. i do not feed my cat fancy feast, as it is something that other cats - cats that i have loved less, dare i say, not loved at all - have eaten. my beloved callie has refined and specific tastes. she really loves, for example, her iams dry. she, as a rule, will not touch the pureed type of wet food. she also does not particularly like the "chunks in gravy" variety. she does not even like leftover fish that i bring to her from fancy-pants restaurants like the sole. she does like stonyfield farms vanilla yogurt, balsamic vinegar, and soy milk.
also, there's something satisfying about bringing home a 10 pound bag of iams and scooping some into your cat's dish every day. it's like feeding your children cheerios rather than some crazy dried-milk-already-added cereal bar. like buying them a nice l.l. bean backpack rather than some plastic barbie number. sensible. nutritious. wholesome.
as a third point, i would mention that my family likes to eat. we get together and we eat a lot. there is constant worry that people are not eating enough. 'have you lost weight?' my mother would ask with a critical tone every time i came home from college (i had not). in med school, checks started to appear in my mailbox. 'buy groceries!' read the accompanying cards. my father has a tendency to hover at the end of a meal, serving spoon in hand: 'do you want the last scoop of pasta? it's not enough to save, but we don't want to waste it! just a bite. there!'
now, back to my original point. about 3 weeks ago, my cat had some unfortunate tooth extractions. particularly unfortunate for me, since i had to pay for this. as a result, she was ordered to have no dried food for 7 days. i tried all sorts of tricks with iams canned food, adding water to her dried, no luck. she was practically on hunger strike. my previously overweight cat was melting away in front of my eyes! desperate, i stumbled across a little something called fancy feast appetizers and bought an assortment: the steamed tilapia, the wild alaskan salmon, the flaked skipjack tuna. she ate them! they saved my cat from the brink of starvation (also known as 'achieving a normal weight')! this stuff basically looks like something you or i might mix a little dressing in with and smear onto a pita. so that was fine for a week, and then i thought we'd just go back to our normal diet. but now she's not eating enough! i can't tell if her teeth hurt or if she's just spoiled. so i crumbled in the grocery store and bought more steamed tilapia, the shrimp and seabass blend, tongol tuna and flaked chicken. to further compound the craziness, the whole time i'm thinking of the card i got from the environmental defense fund detailing the impact of each individual fish choice.
in short, i am now someone who buys fancy feast.
tell me. am i crazy? am i resigning myself to a life of half-empty cat food cans lining the fridge? should i stand my ground or am i slowly killing the cat? if she's otherwise bopping around the apartment like normal can i assume she isn't in starvation city?
finally, what the heck is skipjack tuna, and is it really so different from tongol?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
reentry phase.
oh, hi, here i am! it's been a long month, as evidenced by the results of my duty-hours logging:
yes, that's right. i worked an average of 10.64 hours per day this month. not per work day. per day.
eesh. this is how you wake up one day (say today) and look at your checking account and realize that you have SIX DOLLARS (and sixty-two cents) in it. and then you realize that you didn't lose the bills you thought you lost, you actually mailed them in some post-call stupor. and that when you then decided to pay other bills with that same money, and mail the other bills when you found them, well, actually, you've doubly used your money and are very near to overdrawing your bank account. and have about $194 dollars less in it than you thought you did (for example). i was scraping coins from under my couch cushions in a panic when i remembered the atm card attached to my savings account and made a transfer, narrowly averting a crisis. phew. do other people live like this?
this month i am doing surgery, which is comparatively a vacation. if your idea of a vacation involves debriding enormous, gaping, necrosing wounds. hah! oh, medicine, with your neverending laughs!
on a much less revolting note, i went to the farmer's market at school and bought some lovely fresh basil! i just wanted to stick my nose into the giant cart of it. mmmm. gosh i love basil! then, i decided to take a chance and i threw together some pesto. fulfilling life-long dreams here, people.
ok, not the best picture ever. i took it with my phone. but trust me, it smells like heaven! i even went old school on it, since i don't have a food processor, and made it by just cutting all the ingredients together over and over with a pair of knives. so easy! basil, garlic, olive oil, parm, and some almonds (since i didn't have walnuts). i'm torn about what to do with it, but i'm envisioning a nice summer lasagna tomorrow. maybe some yellow squash and tomatoes? what i'm not torn about is wanting to buy heaps and heaps more at the farmer's market next week. i bet this will freeze well.
anyway, it's good to be back.
| Duty Hours Statistics Between 08/01/2009 12:00 AM - 09/01/2009 12:00 AM | |||||||||||
|
yes, that's right. i worked an average of 10.64 hours per day this month. not per work day. per day.
eesh. this is how you wake up one day (say today) and look at your checking account and realize that you have SIX DOLLARS (and sixty-two cents) in it. and then you realize that you didn't lose the bills you thought you lost, you actually mailed them in some post-call stupor. and that when you then decided to pay other bills with that same money, and mail the other bills when you found them, well, actually, you've doubly used your money and are very near to overdrawing your bank account. and have about $194 dollars less in it than you thought you did (for example). i was scraping coins from under my couch cushions in a panic when i remembered the atm card attached to my savings account and made a transfer, narrowly averting a crisis. phew. do other people live like this?
this month i am doing surgery, which is comparatively a vacation. if your idea of a vacation involves debriding enormous, gaping, necrosing wounds. hah! oh, medicine, with your neverending laughs!
on a much less revolting note, i went to the farmer's market at school and bought some lovely fresh basil! i just wanted to stick my nose into the giant cart of it. mmmm. gosh i love basil! then, i decided to take a chance and i threw together some pesto. fulfilling life-long dreams here, people.
ok, not the best picture ever. i took it with my phone. but trust me, it smells like heaven! i even went old school on it, since i don't have a food processor, and made it by just cutting all the ingredients together over and over with a pair of knives. so easy! basil, garlic, olive oil, parm, and some almonds (since i didn't have walnuts). i'm torn about what to do with it, but i'm envisioning a nice summer lasagna tomorrow. maybe some yellow squash and tomatoes? what i'm not torn about is wanting to buy heaps and heaps more at the farmer's market next week. i bet this will freeze well.
anyway, it's good to be back.
