Seeing someone famous

We took my mother to the Eastern Market, which is a long-standing farmers market/craft fair/flea market in the neighborhood. The building that used to house it was seriously damaged by a fire the week before we moved here, pushing it all out into the streets on the weekends. I'm sure I've mentioned the superyum tomatoes we've been getting there. Anyway, they built a new temporary building across the street for all the vendors with meat and other perishables until the main building can be rebuilt, which had its grand opening this weekend. By sheer coincidence we wanted to take my mother. We not only got some crazy delicious heirloom tomatoes, some concord grapes, both a black and a white bell pepper (purple and pale yellow perhaps?), and some melt-in-your-mouth nectarines, but we also made our first political "celebrity" sighting in the form of the mayor of DC. He was there with a camera crew promoting the opening of the new building. David shook his hand, but I wasn't quick enough. He was young, and had a very friendly face.

It isn't quite the same thing as running into Alicia Silverstone in the grocery store, or Angelica Houston walking down your street, or even having Angelyne speed by in her pink car, all of which happened to us when we lived in LA. But then this is a different kind of town, isn't it?

Reason #398 I love my mom...

This weekend my mom was here. We had a nice dinner at Annie's in Dupont Circle, she took us to Costco for some food shopping, we went to the Iwo Jima Memorial, we made her cry showing her a photo montage I'd put together. We saw the movie "Stardust", which ties "Die Hard" as my favorite movie of the summer. Very inventive, clever, a great story with magic and plenty of laughs. Michelle Pfieffer must have had so much fun. And dang she is gorgeous.

But we also went to the "Bodies" exhibit, the one where they've dissected human bodies and filled it with some kind of plastic polymer so you can see all the muscles and arteries and organs and stuff. I believe there are some competing exhibits around the country, and this is probably the knock-off one, but it was still totally amazing. We had such a great time looking around. I even got to show off some medical knowledge when my mom started asking questions about anatomy and physiology stuff. But on the way out there was a sign that said something like "Ten body parts have names that are only three letters long, can you name them?" So we think and the conversation goes like this:

I say, "Eye."
Mom says, "Toe."
David says, "Arm."
I say, "Leg."
Mom says, "Lip."
David says, "Ear."

Pause.

Then my mom says, "Ass."

I have memories of my mom swearing about twice in my entire life, so needless to say I almost fell off the bench in laughter. Later, David came up with "Tit", but the little boy that he is, he couldn't bring himself to say the word in front of my mother so he spelled it out for us. I just don't think I could love my family any more than I do, they are all so darn adorable!!

Fun with digital cameras

Also, I mentioned this was my *little* brother, right?



He got me back later though.



I love my camera. ::grin::

Pops and Little Bro

My dad and my brother came out for the weekend. We drove down a few hours and spent a great afternoon with my aunt and uncle, who, as usual, cooked a killer meal that left me full for days. (We still have like half a pork loin in the fridge, the more we eat the more I think it is just getting bigger.)

We did a bunch our touristy stuff, including driving down to Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. I was expecting a boring house tour, which I got (best trivia, the Washingtons liked REALLY UGLY green paint just to show off that they were rich), but it was actually an estate and museum so we got to walk around acres of grounds and were treated to some amazing views of the Potomac. Along one trail were signs asking trivia questions. Here is David celebrating his correct answer.



And here is Gavin and I sad that we lost.



Also, Washington's dentures were not made of wood. They were made of animal teeth, mainly hippo. Seriously.

Reality catch up

I'm paying for my internet now, so it shouldn't go away again. Kind of annoying because it started working again, but I guess I can't rely on the kindness of neighborhood strangers forever.

Blogging is sort of one of those things that has to happen in real time though, it is hard to go back and revisit things. The finale of SYTYCD was pretty darn satisfying, but a week later I'm finding it hard to find any words. Obviously I am thrilled that Sabra won, I've been digging her for weeks now. Better yet, she won even though the choreographers gave her every disadvantage with totally crap choreography the final week.

I realize that the whole "this was my favorite routine" thing was rigged to highlight dances that they will be doing on the tour. But come on, some of them were TOTALLY boring. At least they did the Triplets of Belville one and the 80s office one and the Hummingbird. But what about the Pasha/Lacey one where she was a robot? Or just about any of the Lacey/Cameron ones that were all super sexy and fun? In any case, very glad there will be another season. Oh, I watched the finale with my brother (who also couldn't figure out why Danny reminds me of him, heh) and although he seemed to enjoy some of the dancing he was totally annoyed by Mary which I thought was funny. Oh, and oh yeah, loved the clogger and the weird robot guy. Dancing rocks. I think the robot guy was my brothers favorite part.

I'm totally behind on Pirate Master, at least two episodes if not three, so I need to catch up. Just wish I cared more.

More YouTube fun

Since I always seem to catch these things late, I won't bother posting the strange "Chocolate Rain" thing. (The Chad Vader parody is my favorite.) But this one is worth a head-scratching giggle.

The Case Of The Missing Internet Connection

Hey kids,

It has finally happened, and either I downloaded an update that somehow changed my intrinsic ability to steal internet from my neighbors, or else those aformentioned neighbors decided to cut me off. In any case (I'm pretty sure it is the former), I've been sans internet for five days now, which for a junkie like me has been a challenge. Anyhoo, I finally broke down and ordered my own, it could take up to a week but I'm hoping I'll be back sooner.

My dad and brother are here visiting, plus SYTYCD made me mad and happy, plus Pirate Master marches on, plus I took care of a patient that was throwing up for ten hours straight and was so adorable she was apologizing to ME. Better yet we are going to visit my aunt and uncle tomorrow and seeing them always means my belly leaves much happier than it has been for a long time.

Be back soon...

Gym talk

Best moment at the gym: you know how sometimes when you start to get tired you inadvertently let out these little moan/grunts that somehow help you finish your rep? Today while David was doing dips he was moaning/grunting, which was no big deal, until he started using consontants, and it came out "Boooooooouuuuuuuu".

"Did you just "boo" this exercize?" I asked.

Can I just say, it is REALLY hard to work out when you have the giggles. We never recovered.

So you think you can judge dance

We've come down to the final six, and I'm having all kinds of crazy mixed emotions. I still have a general confusion about whether I want to see pure skill or personality rewarded the most. But you know what? This week was the best they've had, and I thought all of the dances were amazing. If the second round wasn't quite as strong as the first, they still had enough crazy lifts and dives to keep my heart beating happy. So much of it really depends on the choreographer, and I was glad they seem to have been saving some of their best stuff for the end. Lacy and Pasha I thought were the best paired, and their first routine rocked out. They are both just awesome, way better than their lame solo dances ever indicate. Actually I think most of the solo dances suck. These kids are too young to be choreographers yet, they just run around, do some tricks if they've got 'em. How much better would it be if like Lacy came out and did that manequin thing. Character is always more interesting.

Miss Chevious will remember this, but years ago we took class with Tommy Walsh (who recently passed away way too young) who was one of the original cast members of "A Chorus Line", and got to do lots of his super fun Tony-award-winning choregraphy from "My One And Only". But for weeks he would line us up at the back of the room, put on this crazy music from the movie "Soapdish", and make us one at a time dance down the room in our own style. I would never say I was a great dancer, but especially at that time I was probably just reaching my prime as a dancer, and still I HATED that exercise. Most of us did. There were a few exceptional dancers in the class (Kristin Fox this means you!) who had a big enough dance vocabulary and self-awareness to be really cool. But for me the music was just goofy and silly and I never got over my self-conciousness about it. It was always the low point of class.

And that is how I feel about the solo dances. Danny and Neil alone have enough tricks to get through it without being totally boring. But even so it is just them running around, it isn't like I'm getting any insight or making any connection with them as dancers. I want to see them shine, not fade.

Anyway, I still think Sabra is my girl, but she has some very strong competition. I've had reservations about Neil and especially Lauren from the beginning, but both of them were great this week, especially Neil. Frankly for the first time I'm at a loss at who I want to go home. Well, Lauren. But I really don't know for the boys. Danny is so super talented, and Pasha is so super cute, and Neil is smack dab in between. I'd be happy to just have the show end the competition, stay with three couples and just let them all go at it every week. At this level, I could watch forever. This could be the Lawrence Welk Show of our generation. And instead of the boring solo dances, you could get like Melinda Doolittle and Chris Daughtry from Idol to come over and do musical numbers. That would be sweet.

Well it has been an interesting couple of days. My cutest patient had a seizure at 7pm Tuesday just as we were getting ready to give report which was kind of scary. Yesterday she had another. Then one of my other patients had some visitors and one of her visitors had a seizure. We took his blood pressure - 60/35 with a heart rate of 39 at one point. He drank some water and seemed to recover, and the ER came but he didn't want to go and we had to talk him into it. Never a dull moment it seems.

Also I got to watch a bronchoscopy and an endoscopy. Freaking awesome.

I had a patient ask me for my address and phone number. heh.

The more I learn the more I realize I don't know yet. I'm getting both more and less comfortable at the same time, it is really weird. But the amount I do know increases every day, so I know I'm on the right track.

I bought a new stethoscope. I thought I just sucked at auscultation, but it turns out the stethoscope I've been using for the past two years was JUST A PIECE OF CRAP! I'm now $180 poorer, but at least I can hear things. Plus it is red, always a bonus.

The best part though about working 12 hour shifts is that David feels bad for me so when I come home he has really good dinner waiting for me. The other night he made potato skins with all sorts of fillings. Last night he made home-made crab cakes. Don't you just hate me with jealousy?

Now I have five days off. We haven't planned anything beyond going to the gym in about another hour today. But I'm sure we will get up to some kind of trouble.

Saturday catch-up

So I've been on the floor for a week now, which minus classtime equals two 12-hour shifts and one 4 hour shift. Have I mentioned that my preceptor is smokin? Such a great finesse with the patients. So I'm doing my best to suck everything I can out of her brain. The best news is that most of my fear has gone away, I can tell they were serious when they said they will give me as much time as I need to get comfortable with stuff, they ain't just gonna throw me out there to fail. So I'm pretty darn excited about the whole affair. I wonder how long I'll be excited about going to work? Eventually it will become ordinary I guess, but for now I'm really enjoying it.

Otherwise I haven't been doing much. After a 12-hour shift, I get home about 8:30, eat dinner and go right to sleep. I'm gonna have to play around with that a bit, I hate eating a lot right before bed, but there just isn't time otherwise. I don't get very hungry at work, there is just too much going on, so I just snack throughout the day. I'll figure out a routine eventually I suppose. This morning we got up and I got trapped watching back to back episodes of "Extreme Makeover". I know, I know. I was just too lazy to do anything else.

As far as SYTYCD goes, I'm in a quandry now. I can't decide which is better, skill or personality. Lacy has been a big favorite of mine all along cause she is super sexy and fun. But her solo dance was, how do I put it, lame. I found myself wishing Shauna and, you know, that other girl that had a boring personality but crazy skills, were back. Then on the boy side you have Dominic, who has the best personality on the show, and then Neil and Danny who can do things that make me want to cry. Personality vs skill, I just can't decide what I want to see. Sabra has the best combo action going on, so I think I'm rooting for her. But then Danny comes out and does a gazillion pirrouettes and I don't know what to think anymore. Anyway, it will be interesting. I was intrigued that Pasha got more votes than Neil, personality over skill. So maybe the rest of America (or at least the ones that bother to vote anyhow) can't decide either. Also, you just KNOW that Nigel and Mary totally hate Adam Shenkman. heh

Haven't watched this weeks "Pirate Master" yet. Maybe tonight, we're meeting a friend from NYC for dinner.