Yesterday evening we went to the Peds Department end-of-year party. Like most work-related parties, it was basically a clone of the party from the year before--same venue, same food, same people, even the weather was the same, and I got lost in exactly the same manner as last year trying to find the restaurant. (Because of the campus, it's complicated to navigate that particular part of Morningside Heights, so really I'm not as stupid as that makes me sound. And please ignore the fact that no one else got lost but me.)
So there was open bar (wow, free water!) and there were hors d'oeurves, there was dinner and there were speeches. Awards were handed out, and at the end of the night, there were "housestaff follies," which were basically skits put on by each resident class lampooning life at the hospital. This is the part where I really started to pity the spouses and significant others that were dragged along to this dinner, because given that the skits were just a mess of in-jokes and references, they had no idea what they hell we were all laughing about. In fact, many of the civilian spouses who came last year opted out this time around, because they just couldn't handle any more skits about the ABSOLUTE HILARITY of getting called by Larry from Pharmacy at 3am to get ID approval for vanc. Ah ha ha! Larry! From Pharmacy! We're cracking ourselves up here! Ah ha ha...what, why aren't you laughing?
I did (kindly, I thought) offer Joe the option of skipping the Peds end-of-year dinner, but he insisted on attending, probably in the spirit of spousal solidarity and obligation. Also probably because I promised that I'd attend this Ophthalmology "Resident Research Day" dinner with him next week, which is probably going to be even more esoteric and less amusing than our dinner. "I got called for a retinal detachment, but turns out with was a vitreous hemorrhage! Ah ha ha! Vitreous! Oh man, I'm funny. Pass the wine."
I partially expected this, but I actually got an end-of-year present from the Chiefs at the dinner. Usually the Chiefs give out presents to all the graduating third-year residents, but I guess they figured I was leaving too, so what the hell, throw something in the shopping cart for her too. My gift was a baby book (some kind of guide to the baby's first year with cartoons in it) and this ceramic smoking baby figurine. Wait, I have to show it to you:
The funniest part about this (aside from the fact that the baby is just sitting there with a cig in it's mouth) is the disclaimer printed on the box, which reads, "REAL babies should NEVER smoke." Aw, man. And here I was thinking that plugging a ciggy in his little yell-hole might be a nice way to shut the kid up for five minutes.
Currently reading: The New Yorker, because I needed something I could read on the subway that I could throw away after I was done, since no book was small enough to fit in my purse. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the whole issue before I got to the party, so instead I was just carrying the magazine around all night.
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