Thoughts from the first week of February

I worked on Tuesday night, so yesterday I was just pretty tired and headachey, but when David got home from school the weather was just so nice that we went for a walk and only wore sweatshirts, and I was in heaven. It has been weeks since we've really been able to go on a walk of decent length, and it reminded me that taking those walks every day is a huge part of the reason I love this city, and is when I am at my happiest. Exploring a city on foot with David is one of my most treasured activities, even when we are walking up streets we've been on dozens of times before. We talk, we plan, we catch new details of the landscape we'd not noticed before. More confirmation that I have to live in an environment that is warm enough for comfortable outdoor activities all year round.

I had a patient this week that, long story short, had an operation for a bowel obstruction. They pulled out all of his intestines and started looking for the obstruction (which ultimately wasn't there), but before they could put him back together his blood pressure dropped to zero. It them took them three days to stabilize him enough to put his intestines back inside of him, and another week before they could completely sew his belly back up. Can you imagine having your intestines spread out on the bed with you for three days? Some of this medical stuff is craaaazy. (He still has major health issues, but other than a nasty scar his intestines are all working the same as they did before.)

My birthday was fun, thanks to everyone for all the cards and emails. We'd been thinking of where to go for dinner, and suddenly I realized I just wanted fondue. So we did that. It is such a simple thing, yet was better than anything I'd have found in a restaurant. David made cupcakes just to be different, and they were, of course, good too. Almost anything edible is made better by being bite-sized.

We tried getting into watching "Dance Wars: Bruno VS Carrie Ann", but in the end it just was too...boring. I loved watching cruise ship performers when I was on a cruise ship, but on TV it just comes across as being silly. Plus, having never watched Dancing With The Stars, I could care less about Bruno or Carrie Ann and get majorly bored by their antics. Besides, the show has been on how many weeks now, and I still don't really understand how the show is going to end, and who it is that will get a recording contract, a person, a team? What if one team gets decimated in six weeks? I think the kids on Bruno's team are a tad better, but Bruno annoys the heck out of me, and it is unclear if I'd be voting for his team or for him. Anyway, I imagine this is one of the last-minute attempts at filling a slot the writers strike opened up, and it shows. Instead, we saw a commercial for some Randy Jackson dance team show on MTV which seems similar but much more interesting. Of course, Survivor starts tonight, so between that and Project Runway my TV viewing is doing just fine at the moment.

Radha, check out Blog Cabins, Fletch has a great post on some ideas for future seasons of Survivor. My favorite: no tribes, with everybody together competing individually the entire time.

I really need to post on politics, but I don't have the time right now. I'm very excited about Obama, but realize it could still go either way. Today at the grocery store we saw an older woman in a wheelchair, to which she had affixed a big sign that said "Mama for Obama". I wanted to hug her. lol

Romney, well, I should save the thought, because it is a more nuanced argument, but I was at the gym watching TV today when he "suspended" his campaign, whatever that means. I'll always think of him as the candidate that might have been. Had he run on his strengths, he might have had more appeal. Instead he decided to pander to the new base of the Republican party, the Christianists, and in doing so made a fool out himself over and over again. He has Rove and Bush to thank for that. But today when he said a vote for a Democrat is a "surrender to terror", he really pissed me off. If that kind of taunting fear garbage is the best he can do, then he hardly deserves to be president. I just read some excerpts from McCain's speech from today, and he makes a similar argument that he will be better at security, but does so in a way that isn't just insulting to people who might disagree with him. There are no absolutes in politics, and anytime a candidate says "Vote for me or die", well to me it only makes you look desperate, stupid, or perhaps just an incredibly sore loser. As lame as it is, I get pandering when you are trying to get votes, but why be so divisive if you are dropping out?

Also, we had some company the other day, but I will post on them as soon as I get the photos uploaded to the computer, because they have a super cute baby.