(guest post)

oh hey. you there? mmmmm. hi? it's callie.
mary thinks i've been sitting on her lap just watching the cursor move the whole time, but really i've been studying these "words" and this "typing". now it's my turn... to tell you about how terrible the day was! really, you may want to send help.

i thought we were having a nice, relaxing day. mary has a little something called "vacation", which mostly means she sits on the couch in her pajamas and i help. i jumped right into bed for a good long snuggle in the sun at around 8. purr. my fatal mistake was that on wednesday, i slipped and let her catch me scratching my ear. dagnabbit! she stared at me for a while, but nothing happened so i thought i was in the clear. nope. today she scooped me up mid-snuggle and stuffed me into my carrier. i tried to argue my case ("no, really, my ear wasn't bothering me! foot spasm! learning a new dance!") but it was too late and i don't think she understands me anyway. just kept saying i was a "good girl". whatever.

so the long and short of it? ear drops for 3 more weeks! but, my friends, that is not the worst. well, ok, there are two bad things.

bad thing #1: i have chin acne. god, how embarassing. now that handsome tom across the way will never ask me out. but, worse yet, they shaved. my. chin. i mean, honestly. a lady cat can only suffer so many indignities.

ok, and bad thing #2: i might be getting all these ear infections because of allergies. food allergies. which means no more iams, and certainly no more fancy feast. let's hope that's not the case. although i did hear them talking about duck as an option, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad...

i tried to reason with mary on the way home, but she was mumbling something about "a hundred dollars" and having to board me at the vet while she goes on vacation. i don't know what these "dollars" are, but she sure does grumble about them every time we see dr. o'hagan. and i wonder what boarding is? i hope it's like string.

oops, mary's coming at me with acne medicine and ear drops. must go. nighty night.

oh my god i love autumn.

now that i'm on my community medicine block, with FULL WEEKENDS OFF*, i decided to take advantage of my new bon appetit subscription and start cooking again. what with the crisp leaves and the cool air, i embarked on a dinner in celebration of my favorite season. if i do say so myself, it was a resounding success. the key elements:

number one: pumpkin soup.
i went ahead and added some diced onions at the beginning and a little extra sugar at the end. also, i couldn't stomach the idea of dumping in so much half and half, so i went with whole milk, but i thought it was just as creamy as it needed to be. i was doubtful as i was spooning in the curry powder because it ended up to be my whole jar of curry powder! that's a lot of curry powder! however, it was also a lot of soup. (friend's comment: "oh my god. we made a lot of soup.") a lot of delicious soup that i will reheat and savor! i ask you, is there anything more quintessentially autumn than pumpkin soup? i think not. and yes, i do feel like a cheater for using canned pumpkin, but sometimes roasting a whole pumpkin just isn't in the cards.




number two: these little turnovers.
now let me tell you, these are like autumn in new england rolled into a puff pastry. and while they seemed a little intimidating at first, they were actually a snap to make and so exceedingly delicious. i may have to refine my turnover-filling skills, since i only ended up using about half the filling and they were not quite as stuffed as they might have been, but there were no complaints (comment: "you should open a bakery."). i ended up using gala apples, which i think worked just fine. oh, and about the cheese...

... while i was shopping for the ingredients, i discovered a little something called raw milk cheddar at trader joe's. normally, i poo -poo raw milk as something for the hippies, especially since the one time i saw a kid who nearly had to go to the OR after complications from raw-milk-related food poisoning. but then i remembered that time i went to kripalu and joined a drum circle, and i realized it was really a pot-criticizing-kettle situation to pretend i'm not a hippie at heart. long story short i bought the cheese and HOLY SMOKES. it was soft, almost a mozzarella consistency, such that you could roll it almost into little sweet balls, but with a delicious mild cheddar flavor. if campylobacter is the price i have to pay for eating this cheese, well, sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.



so, happy autumn everyone (even if it's autumn in your heart and summer outside)!



*so long as my pager is strapped to me at all times and i'm never more than two hours from the hospital, just in case someone gets sick and i have to cover for them on a moment's notice. i hate being an intern. also, please excuse the stock photos, i was negligent on the photo front.

holding hands.

as you may know, i have a cat. she is the loveliest little cat in the world, i think. it breaks my heart to think that when i first got her, she was so scared of everything that the noise of me taking a shower would send her scurrying under my bed for hours. now, however, we are great friends and she has captured the heart of her "grandparents" such that when i say i'm coming home for thanksgiving, they ask "would your little friend like to come, too?" and i have to explain that she's not really a weekend traveler.

anyway, the dearest thing she does is this: while not generally not interested in sitting on my lap for long periods of time, she does like to be constantly touching me. so while i sit here, typing, she rests her little tail on my wrist and twitches it ever so gently. like so:


it's so sweet that it almost makes me forget that i came home from a long day of work yesterday to find kitty puke waiting for me on the carpet.