The online journal of an Anesthesiology resident in New York City trying to get used to the idea of calling herself "Doctor" without using those finger air quotes.
Some new developments that I can't (quite) talk about yet--you understand how these kinds of things work--but I will just say that it has to do with the events of last week, the future, the practice of anesthesia, and Bacon, comma, The Bringing Home Of. More on this soon, to be certain. Very exciting!
I know these have not been very good updates these past few days, but when all you want to talk about is the one thing you cannot talk about, well, suddenly, there's very little to write about.
and then the devil and i made s'mores in the microwave and braided each other's hair
So, my call last night. What to say about my call? The call, it, how do you say, sucked. Just totally sucked. Between arrests and emergencies, and tending to my rock garden of a PACU (patients that weren't moving anywhere, since there were no beds in the hospital), it was like a sleepover party in hell. With Lucifer and me up all night playing Truth or Dare! Ah! Ah ha ha ha! Yes, delightful. Moving on now.
(Sorry, I'm a little bit sleep deprived. Just ignore me.)
(You: "Done.")
Cal went to his little pre-school prep playgroup (or whatever you want to call it--just pick the least inflammatory label and go with it), and while I thought it might be an easier transition for him back into his routine if I didn't drop him off (I foresaw some tenacious neck-clinging), I did pick him up at the end of class. The door to the classroom was glass, but the teachers stuck up some kind of frosted contact paper up beyond child eye-level, so that they would not be distracted by the sight of the legion of parents outside, all jostling each other for a spot to see whether or not their kid was surviving in that cutthroat classroom environment. There was a clear space above the frosting, however, and at the end of class, I managed to peek in to see Cal in the storytime corner with all the other kids, singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while accompanied by the appropriate pantomime. And then I DIED FROM THE CUTENESS.
If you've been on vacation the week before, it's almost certain that you will be on call the Monday you return to work. So I'm on call tonight is what I'm trying to tell you. Therefore, in lieu of writing anything substantial, you can look at a few of the pictures from our trip to Atlanta that I managed to get up on Flickr. Most of the pictures are from the first two days of our visit, since the rest of the week after that was pretty much packed with school visits and job interviews, and I wouldn't want them to think I was weird, taking pictures then. (Correction: more weird.)
We got back home around 1:30pm today, after a necessarily arduous check-in processes and steeplechase to the boarding gate; Atlanta has a mighty big airport. Our flight was on time, even landed ahead of schedule (unprecedented for LaGuardia), and as we descended, cruising over the low-slung bungalows in outer Queens and Long Island, we flew into view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, skyscrapers, steel and glass seeming to stretch for miles. And I thought what I think every single time we fly back into New York, with the sheer majesty and scale that never seem to disappoint: now THAT'S a city.
Photo credit: "New York, New York--Sky Over Manhattan" by Henri Silberman
I keep thinking of that line from "Manhattan", where Woody Allen talks about how he romanticizes the city beyond all reason. And that's fine. It's good to be romantic about some things.
if you thought the comments section was hopping before, wait until you read this one
After leaving the school grounds today, for our sixth and last school visit in less than a week, I looked at Joe and said, "Well, I don't think we'll be going there."
Our visit was marred from the start, showing up after some extensive planning and conferring with the admissions office to be told that no, they did not in fact give school tours that day, and then promptly shuttled into a "parent interview" during which we were actually asked whether or not Cal would mind sitting alone in the admissions office waiting room for half an hour while Joe and I were questioned. After pointing out that Cal was, uh, TWO YEARS OLD, and probably wasn't in, shall we say, the sit-quietly-with-his-hands-folded-alone-in-a-waiting-room phase of his life yet, they conceded to interview Joe and me separately, so that one of us could stay with Cal. If the fact that a preschool admissions officer would not understand the inherent flaw in even presuming that we would leave our toddler alone in a wood-paneled office to amuse himself with old volumes of the school's yearbook doesn't count as starting off on the wrong foot, well, I guess I must need more feet, because I was not in a hopeful mood after that.
The parent interview was exactly what one would expect from an interview screening parents for a preschool spot. (This is the only school that actually interviewed us as parents, by the way. Luckily, I was already in interview mode, though my usual spiel about familiarity with ultrasound guided peripheral nerve blockade didn't quite come in handy.) I almost wished I had read more of the school's glossy brochure before showing up (I actually didn't even know there was an interview component to the day--and I was really unprepared for the talent and swimsuit competition), so I was floundering around a bit when I was asked why it was that we decided to apply to this school in the first place. (Real answer: we looked at where [Big Academic Hospital] was on the map, took out a compass, drew a 3 mile radius circle around it, and applied to every school inside the circle. But that doesn't sound really good to say in an interview, so I babble nonsensically for some time about progressive education models and their facilities. Which I'm not even sure is true on either count, because you know, there are NO TOURS ON SATURDAYS.) There were many questions, some pointed, and at one juncture, I joked to the interviewer that I felt like I was interviewing for med school. She smiled faintly. After limping out of the room, Joe and I exchanged glances, and both just sort of raised our eyebrows. What was that about?
The knock-out blow came with the "child-evaluation" portion of the program, though. This was held in the nursery school classroom, where all the kids being evaluated for the day were shepherded, accompanied by ONE PARENT (the were fairly inflexible about this--Joe ended up having to wait in the car for an hour), and observed while playing with trains and building with blocks and eating their own boogers. VERY RIGOROUS. Cal loved the toys in the classroom, of course, particularly the wooden train set and these magnetic tile thingies that even I had a hard time not playing with. He was definitely younger than most of the kids in his class (I am presuming, with Cal's July birthday--I didn't ask or anything, but the kids acted a bit older, and though he is very big for his age, these other kids were all larger than him) and he was just very intent on his playing. He barely talked to me when he was playing, and he definitely didn't talk to any of the teachers or the other kids. At certain points, the teachers approached him, tried to get him to have a conversation or tell a story or hold forth on Proust or whatnot, but he just wasn't having it. He would take a toy if offered, but really, he just wanted to push his train through the tunnel, you know? STOP INTERRUPTING ME, MEDDLING ADULT, I AM BUILDING. If he was doing this at home, I'd be like, score, and take the rare moment of free time to do such luxurious alone-time things as go to the bathroom or check my e-mail, but since we were in this evaluation session, I kind of felt obligated to draw him out. Though I have to admit, I didn't try very hard. I was just kind of over the whole thing.
At the 45 minute mark, the teacher flipped the light on and off (as they do) and gave us notice that it was time to clean up, and that's when the shit really hit the fan. Because while Cal doesn't mind cleaning up in general, he was not ready to stop playing at that moment. At all. AT ALL. So while all the other little children were cleaning up and putting away the boxes of dress-up clothes and whatnot, no doubt skipping their way happily holding their parent's hand, Cal was standing in the corner, screaming as loud as I've ever heard him scream, clinging to the train set for dear life. Honestly, I just felt bad for him. He's been away from home for a week, living in a hotel room, and he just wanted to play with the trains. I almost wished I hadn't brought him in the first place, except that he did have a fun hour and a half in the playroom, and for half an hour on the school playground beforehand. So I just sat him on my lap, talked some comforting mommy mumbo-jumbo to him, while all the other kids sat in a circle and sang songs and generally acted compliant.
And then it was over. Cal didn't want to leave, wasn't ready to say goodbye to all the blocks and books and fun stuff, so after some cajoling and some pointed throat-clearing from the teachers, we had to drag him out of the schoolroom screaming, I want to stay! I want to stay here! "Well, at least he enjoyed himself!" I joked to one of the teachers, holding on to my kicking, screaming two-year old and making a quick getaway to the car. Ah, the clean exit. So slick.
Though this was the most intense of all our school visits (unnecessarily so, some would argue--me for one) at least it was the last one. I'm sure it's a nice school and all, and I hope this doesn't come across as sour grapes, but we didn't really get a great vibe from our few hours there, and we don't really feel strongly about having Cal attend. Anyway, I'm sure this is just an example of how things work out for the best, because there's probably a snowball's chance in hell from the school's end that Cal will be landing one of those spots.
Tomorrow--back to New York! Ah, New York, the land where Houston is pronounced "HOUSE-tun," and where Dekalb is pronounced as it is spelled, de-KALB, instead of the way it is pronounced here, as though it does not contain the letter L: de-KAB. I'm sure this will be the surefire way that people will be able to identify me as an outsider. Well, that, and the fact that I will apparently be the only person in the city actually taking the MARTA.
madman moe's pressure cooker I am feeling some pressure over here.
No pressure because of the comments on the last entry, by the way. Those are all fine and good, it's only right for people to have different opinions, and I certainly welcome the different points of view so long as they aren't mailed to me in cut-and-pasted letters cut out from magazines. I am feeling pressure because I feel like I have to deliver two very different things for my family, and it's not necessarily going to be possible to do both.
To recap, Joe is starting a fellowship this July. He will be the only fellow for this particular department, and as such, he will be on call for the practice 24/7 for two years straight. That is to say, from July 1st 2008 through July 1st 2010, he will be holding the pager EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is home call, where he responds to calls after hours and triages whether he has to go into the hospital to do surgery or not, but as with all things where you are carrying a pager that can never be turned off, his schedule may be unpredicatable at best.
As the spouse outside of training, I feel that I should be the one with the more flexible schedule to compensate. This may not have necessarily been the issue if we didn't have a young child, but we do and it is. Certainly people have strong feelings about this, ranging from feeling that one parent should stay home full-time, to those who feel that career is just as important, but like (probably) the majority of working mothers, my feelings are mixed. Certainly, I have worked hard for this, and I have been training in medicine a long, long time. I am not going to stop being a doctor. Not going to happen. And yet, I love my son, and I know that spending significant quality time with his parents is important for him. This is why we bend over backwards, switch our schedules around, turn ourselves upside down and inside out so that one of us can be home to feed him dinner, give him his bath, and put him to bed at night. So, there's that.
On the other side, also as the spouse outside of training, I have a lot of pressure on me to deliver financially. Joe as a fellow will be making less money than I made as an intern five years ago. True, money goes farther here, but a little bit of money goes a little bit farther. Math, people, math. We are moving to a new city, paying rent, paying for nursery school, paying for childcare, paying for all those things that people need to pay for in a three-person non-photosynthesizing household where both parents work. In other words, I need a damn job, and I need to make some damn money. The burden is on me for the next two years to support our family financially.
So to summarize, I need a job that pays money and that allows me to work without requiring my son to be raised by wolves. And I hope I don't need to tell you that even after all my years of postgraduate training at a great hospital, this is not so easy. Sit a group of woman physicians with children all down in a room together, and inevitably, the discussion will turn to our kids, our work, and childcare.
In the end, it's somewhat out of my hands. I had another interview today at [Community Hospital], with another group I would absolutely love to work with. (And I'm not saying that just because they said they were going to Google me. Though, if you are from that group, and you did Google me...hi! I had fun! Give me a job!) I have done my part here in Atlanta, applied around, seeded the garden. But in the end, I need a job to support my family. The schedule may not be perfect for us, we may have to rely on emergency childcare more than we would like to, but as with anything that we've done for the last two and a half years, it's a balancing act. We can't know what the best thing is, or what the perfect situation would be, but we take what we're dealt and do the best that we can.
Though being a working parent in some ways is difficult, in other ways, it simplifies things to the point of mindlessness. Whereas before I had Cal, I might stress about a lot of different things, now the things I have to concern myself with are clear. I need to take good care of my family, and I need to take good care of my patients. Everything else can wait. While the problem is that occasionally these two needs are diametrically opposed--usually the issue being that work cuts into my family time--it at least simplifies things that this tug-of-war is minimized to only two vectors.
Anyway, aside from the novel potential of actually earning some money for my work, this kind of stress is nothing new. Overall, this trip to Atlanta has been good. I am done with my interviews for now, and we have just one more school interview for Cal tomorrow morning. And then we can enjoy that long, lazy stretch of Georgia afternoon before we have to hop back on a plane Sunday morning, return to New York, and do it all again.
Today was a big day--two interviews for Cal, one interview for me, at [Big Academic Hospital]. I think on all counts, things went well. In particular, the first school we visited with Cal today was--am I going to stir things up by saying this? I'm sure I will, because people always get crazy about this, because we're applying for a nursery school spot, and some people think that's nuts, but--it was amazing. That's all there is to say about this school. It was absolutely amazing. The facilities, the teachers, the kids, across the board, it was all beyond out expectations. In addition, of all the schools we applied to, it is the closest to where we will be living. I mean, even if this school was across town, I think we would seriously think about busing Cal to go there. The fact that the school will be a ten minute walk from our front door, even on three year-old legs--well, it's the best of both worlds. So anyway, we did what we needed to do, Cal went through his obligatory "screening" and didn't do anything antisocial, so all there is to do now is wait. We have our toes crossed. Acceptance letters for that school go out the first week of April. So here's hoping for a thick envelope.
I am done explaining or apologizing for this, by the way. I am not trying to teach my kid calculus or memorize the Encyclopedia Brittanica, I just want my kid to be happy and to be in a good environment where he will learn and grow in a supportive environment. The fact that there is an application process for these schools is outside of my control, but whether it requires applications or interviews or me eating 52 hot dogs in 12 minutes, we will jump through what hoops we need to to give us as many options as possible.
On my end, my interview this afternoon at [Big Academic Hospital] went, I think, pretty well. As with everyone I have met in Atlanta so far, all the faculty members I met were extremely warm and friendly, and the environment was very familiar to that of [University Hospital], which made me feel instantly comfortable. I could see myself there. It sounds bizarre to say that I am applying for a faculty position, just like it once felt bizarre to call myself "Dr. Au," but honestly--I could see myself joining the faculty there. I hope they feel the same about me, of course. So, one more interview down, one to go. We'll see. I seem to have run out of digits to cross, so you'll have to do that one for me.
The first two school visits went all right. It took a little time for Cal to get warmed up at the first one--and by "warmed up," I mean it took him a while to stop crying "NO!" and running for the door. Luckily, he did calm down eventually, aided no doubt by the fact that the classroom had a THOMAS TRAIN SET. Actually, I didn't see any actual Thomas, nor any of the other primary characters--possibly they have been "borrowed" over the years and are sitting in some kid's closet somewhere. It was mainly these weird tertiary characters, like Neville and Skarloey and whatnot. Who the hell is Skarloey? I think I missed that one where Thomas and Percy mocked his paint job and pushed him into the bog, or something equally antisocial.
The schools we applied to are all pretty different, and we have to feel them out after all is said and done and figure out what would be best for Cal and for us. The setups range from half-day preschools to full days in a more daycare-type environment at some of the hospital-affiliated centers. On one hand, I like the diverse group of kids at the hospital-affiliated place (since many of the parents are rotating through [Big Academic Hospital] and the CDC, there are kids from all over the world) but I think that it's overall a little less structured, and that the 8 to 10 hour day would be a little long for Cal. On the other hand, some of the other schools we applied to are a little far away from where we will be living, and I don't necessarily want Cal to be commuting for half an hour each way to preschool either, especially if it's not Joe or me driving him. So anyway, we still have four schools left to see, hopefully there will be a happy medium and a spot for the boy by the end of the summer.
In other news--the paperwork for the townhouse we are renting is done. Joe is going to drop off our deposit with the realtor on Friday, for a lease to start in mid-April. Though we won't be physically moving in until July, we wanted to compromise on the start date of the lease since we won't have a chance to do any house-hunting in person after this week, and don't want to create a situation where we're living out of a hotel for weeks while we're looking for somewhere more permanent to live. Anyway, it's a really nice place, a great in-between between living an apartment and the shirt-rending TERROR of living in a free-standing home (in my opinion), and in an urban enough neighborhood that we will be able to walk to the supermarket, shops, restaurants, and Piedmont Park, which is like the Central Park of Atlanta. Anyway, it's cool. We're really excited.
time warp! (Meant to post this yesterday, when it was written, but we had a long day and it kind of slipped through the cracks. So read this and pretend that it is yesterday.)
Rule one of life: if something is important to you, have a backup plan.
Unlike New York, Atlanta is not a place where you can just walk out of a building and hail a cab. Well, sometimes you can't do that in New York either (anytime it's raining, for instance, or 1am on New Year's Day), but overall, there is a difference between a taxi and a car service in that you usually don't need to call ahead to a dispatcher for a cab to come retrieve you. In Atlanta, not so much. So anyway, I called a cab company last evening to arrange my transportation to my interview this morning. Being extremely neurotic as I am, I allotted about an hour to make a twenty minute commute, but given the uncertainties (timeliness of cab arriving, traffic conditions, the possibility of getting lost once arriving at the hospital), I wanted to leave room for at least two errors in planning to prevent myself from being late.
Well, to make a long story short (and believe me, there are ways to make this story very, very long), my taxi never showed up this morning, and denied ever having a record of my call 12 hours prior. I had a backup cab company in the wings, however, and managed to get to my interview half an hour early nonetheless. As my fill-in cab driver remarked upon picking me up and hearing my tale of vitriol and woe, "Gosh, even if that was the case, that they lost the record of your call, why would they tell you that? They should have made up a better story. You know, like the cab exploded or something." Imagine that being said with a southern accent for the full effect.
Anyway, it was my first job interview anywhere, ever, so who am I to say, but I think things went OK. Everyone seemed really nice, and like they got along and enjoyed their jobs, so those are the main important things. I have to admit that seeing the kind of work that they did--big cases, sick patients--scared me a little, though mostly in a good, thrilling way. It's one thing to be a resident, hankering for the big, challenging cases, it's another thing to realize that in a few months, you will be the attending ultimately responsible for these patients. But you know, I think that all next steps should be a little scary. Otherwise, how would you know you were moving forward? In medicine, as in many things, I think it could be easy to find yourself in a nice comfortable little rut and stay there just nearly forever, but that's not really what I want for myself right now. Like with most big changes in life, you probably need to be pushed out of the nest a little bit in order to prove to yourself that you're able to fly. And I think I'm ready to be pushed.
Anyway, fingers crossed on that one.
I did promise myself that I would take the MARTA back from my interview, and you know what, that is one smooth ride. It was off-peak hours and the trains definitely don't run as often as the subway in New York, but still, I only had to wait, what, ten minutes? Plus, the trains are clean, the views are nice, and I got from point A to point B in less than 20 minutes. It's unfortunate the subway system isn't actually more extensive, because I'm sold on this thing.
Anyway, tomorrow brings us to the first two of Cal's six-school visit marathon. I know that these school interviews are probably no more than simple screenings to make sure that Cal is reasonably sociable and able to hold his own in a classroom, but still, I'm hoping that his good humor and charm holds out such that we actually have a choice of schools rather than being backed into a corner. Stand and deliver, boy, stand and deliver.
Since we had such good luck with our housing search on Day 1, we decided to blow off the homes that we were set to see on Day 2 and instead spend the day entertaining Cal, who has understandably been thrown off by the last 48 hours. I think overall he has been enjoying himself, but he is not above crying and insisting that he "wants to go home" during the more trying moments of the day. I haven't had the heart to break it to him that in a couple of months, this will be home. So anyway, this morning, we hit up a playground in Decatur (real pictures on my big camera, but I didn't pack my SD card reader, so on my camera they will stay for now), and later in the morning, we visited the Fernbank Museum, which is like a much, much smaller version of the Natural History Museum in New York. Should I stop comparing things to New York? I know I should, but I just can't help it.
The museum was this beautiful, airy building winding around a circular atrium not unlike the Guggenheim (oh look, I did it again), with a bunch of new exhibits clearly designed for younger children. We had a great time, though for Cal, clearly the best parts of the visit were the trips up and down the stairs. Clearly, what could be more fascinating and educational than going up and down the stairs? Forget the dinosaur bones, I'M DESCENDING HERE.
This afternoon, on the business end of things, we met up with our realtor again, at which point we signed our end of the rental contract for a townhouse in Midtown Atlanta. The renters (you know, the people who actually own the place) still have to sign their end, after which point we will have to write the check for the deposit, first and last month's rent, etcetera, but aside from that, I think (jinx and whammy aside) that it's a hair breadth away from a pretty done deal. Joe and I are very, very happy about this. More details when we get the contract back and the bottom line is settled (possibly by tomorrow, certainly by the end of the week), but with respect to our housing situation, it's as close to satisfying almost all of our important criteria as we could reasonably expect. We are excited. Beers were consumed with dinner. As for Cal, he has no sense of what's going on either way (I fear his little head may explode when he realizes he may actually be living in a home WITH A STAIRCASE) though he did enjoy the bowl of post-dated Valentine's candy at the realtor's office, so really, everyone wins.
Tomorrow morning, I'm waking up early to attend the first of three job interviews at which I will attempt to secure a job in order to pay the aforementioned rent, secure Cal's school tuition, and buy food and clothing for my family. But, you know, no pressure there. However, despite my love for mass transit, I decided that my first time negotiating MARTA should probably not be on my way to a time-sensitive appointment, so I actually called a cab service to take me there in the morning, and will try to take MARTA (the train, with subsequent transfer to a bus) on my way back to the hotel. Wish me luck on both counts.
Finally, a chance to update. Apparently, the promise of wireless internet in our first hotel room was more of a suggestion that we bring our laptops and attempt to steal wireless access from our neighbors' networks down the street. However, after some agitating, and switching room to one closer to the hotel's server (which apparently sends out a very weak signal issuing from the lobby), we are now in business.
Our first full day in Atlanta was not without its stressors, foremost of which is the fact that two year-olds apparently really dislike being taken out of their routine, but at the end of the day, I think we're in a good place. I shant jinx things overly by saying too much (doctors overall seem rather invested in the concept of the jinx--all it takes is one resident innocently noting what a quiet night we've been having to signal the start of the call night going to hell in a handbasket), but if things go well, I think that we may (hopefully) be signing a rental contract by tomorrow afternoon. Which, you know, would be one less thing to worry about. About which more later.
It's been interesting seeing Atlanta so far. It's really, really different from New York, obviously, though I keep referring back to New York in trying to put into context what I'm seeing here. For example, in driving through one neighborhood, I mentioned to Joe how much it looked like Queens. And every time I try to think of how far one mile is, I just try to imagine how long it would take to walk twenty city blocks. It's different is all, really no good basis for comparison. But still nice, in a spread out, sprawling kind of way.
The people here are really different too, mostly in the fact that they are just so friendly. Now, really, I never thought of New Yorkers as being particularly unfriendly. I just think that most of us are, you know, purpose-driven. And in a big rush. Anyway, today at the supermarket, Cal was having something of a moment (there may have been screaming and sitting on the floor, refusing everything), and four separate people rushed up to see if they could cheer him up. FOUR PEOPLE. And wouldn't you know, one of them was actually successful, offering him a red balloon decorated with the "Publix" logo. I'm not saying that people in New York would step over a screaming child during their commute while barking orders into a cellphone or anything, but I daresay we would not have had so many people volunteering to jump to his rescue. So yes, very friendly people, these Atlantans.
Of course, there was that lady at the Atlanta airport who kept taking pictures of Cal with her cell phone camera, and another lady who kept stroking his hair while murmuring "I LOVE HIS HAIR," which really had me questioning where the line was between friendliness and inappropriate. I didn't say anything, figuring this was the famed Southern Hospitality at its most child-loving, but on the other hand, my internal monologue was insisting THERE IS TO BE NO PHOTOGRAPHY OR HEAD FONDLING BY STRANGERS. Also, SHOVE OVER, I'M IN A RUSH. Some habits are going to die hard. Good thing we'll be here for two years, to give us a fighting chance to acclimate.
Name That O.R. Equipment Part 2 answer: Yes, they were head holders for neurosurgery. Congratulations, you clever, clever people!
In about half an hour, we're leaving for the airport. We're spending the next week in Atlanta, doing those things we need to get done before we make our big move in July. I am bringing my laptop with me and we have wireless internet at the hotel, so I should still be able to update daily, because I know that reading about house hunting and job interviews is REALLY REALLY INTERESTING. Or the opposite of that. But anyway, we're skipping town, and trying to prove that yes, you can travel with a toddler for a week with only carry-on luggage. See you down there.
Or, barring the ability to name each piece of equipment on the rack (because I'm pretty sure that I can't), name what kind of surgery I was doing anesthesia for today. No cash prize I'm afraid, though you will be rewarded with the thrill of knowing that you were pimped and able to successfully supply the correct answer (which, as some of us may know, is a thrillingly uncommon occurrence).
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone, if you're into celebrating that sort of thing. However, I must point out that holidays endorsing candy consumption are almost always a good thing. Flag Day and Labor Day need to get on board.
We are flying down to Atlanta on Saturday evening for our whirlwind weeklong marathon of house-hunting, job-interviewing, and school-investigating. True to form, Joe and I have constructed an elaborate spreadsheet of all our potential housing options, with separate columns for location, house attributes, and pros and cons mostly related to proximity to local parks, hospitals, and public transportation. Even though Atlanta's subway system (actually, not quite sure that it's a "sub" way, probably it's mostly above ground) is really pretty limited, and appears to only run in two ordinal directions at perpendicular orientations and therefore leaving giant swaths of the city completely unserviced, I still have this small hope that I will both live and work on the subway line and therefore not have to endure the grueling car commute of which so many Atlantans are fond of pointing out is among the worst in the country. It's so bad and mentioned so often it's almost like this perverse point of pride, kind of like New Yorkers bragging about living in a 400 square-foot flophouse with six roommates.
It won't be a relaxing week by any means, and we're programmed up the gills for all our waking hours, but overall, I'm pretty excited to see what Atlanta has to offer. Especially on a day like today, where I walked home through slushy intersections with gusts of some despicable stinging snow-ice hybrid blowing directly into my face, and thought that any place that hit a high temperature of 69 degrees today can't be all bad.
The first part of my book advance arrived today. It was just a normal check, not a big cardboard one like in the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, but exciting nonetheless. This probably shows what a dilettante I am, but hell, I'll just tell you--after hearing about the book deal last fall, there was a period of relative silence because the holidays where coming up, and there was a lot of contract-negotiating stuff going on that I wasn't really all that involved in. Actually getting the signed copy of my contract back in the mail last Friday and getting the first part of the advance today is a bit of a relief. It's just a little solid proof that I didn't just dream this whole thing.
I also don't mind telling you (and perhaps some of you will scoff at this, because we clearly live in a big apartment, but let's just say that the size of our current living accommodations has very little to do with our actual financial situation) that after almost five years of residency, I could frankly use the money. I mean, let's be frank, there will be no Scrooge McDuckery with this book advance (swimming in dubloons, etcetera), but with a big move coming up and a couple of weeks off between jobs and a private school tuition to start paying, it really, really helps.
After the mail came and we duly inspected the advance check before putting it away, Joe said, "Well, I guess it's true."
"You guess what's true?"
"You really did get a book deal."
So I guess I'm not the only one that didn't quite believe it up until now.
Call me a killjoy, as I'm sure some will, but I have a hard time figuring out how the illustrations in this book, published in 1938, seen here at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble, could not be construed as racist.
Now, given that the book is only rendered in two colors of ink, those two colors being yellow and black, perhaps I will choose to overlook the choice of coloring in the skin tone. And given the fact that the brothers are identical and therefore interchangable is a pretty salient point of the story, I will choose to overlook the obvious "all Asians look alike" joke too. However, as my friendly neighborhood Barnes and Noble associate informed me afterwards that I was "not allowed to take pictures in the store" (real rule, or just a petty execution of token authority? Who can say? But I was cowed nonetheless) I'm not able to show you the page where the local magistrate, enraged by the cleverness of the five brothers, is depicted in squinty-eyed and buck-toothed rage, thick glasses balanced on his puffed chipmunk cheeks.
I mean, the story is interesting and all, attempted beheadings aside, but does no one find it odd that this book has not gone the way of Chinese Cherry and those Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts, and at least been re-released with updated illustrations? I mean, maybe it's just me, but somehow I don't think so.
Playing hide and seek with Cal last night. Of note, Cooper's eyes are glowing red in the video probably from reflecting the red light of the camera, though demonic possession cannot be excluded.
I canceled my driving lesson for tomorrow. I know that I need to learn how to drive, but I was on call last night, and I'm on call on Sunday, and then again on Tuesday. I have not gone to bed without setting my alarm for the past month. I just want to sleep in tomorrow. Sleep in and eat breakfast while seated and then spend the morning with my family.
So I canceled my driving lesson. I can resume learning the intricacies of the three point turn and the parallel park next weekend, but tomorrow, I am sleeping late. Or as late as Cal will let me, which will likely be until about 8:30am, at which point he will no doubt start peering into my face and exhorting me to play trains. But anyway, no alarm, no schedule, SLEEPING LATE.
I think you can always tell which nights I'm on call, because a.) my daily post goes up very late, close to midnight, and b.) it does not make much sense. Like today, I will post these pictures of electrical thingies (technical speak) on the sides of buildings on the medical campus that look like other things.
Googly eyes. And below:
Robot faces. The one eye lit up, especially, looks like the Borg. Yes, I referenced THE BORG, what of it? I am a nerd! Why are they so advanced and yet fly around space in a cube, one of the least aerodynamic shapes possible? These are the unanswered questions.
OK, gotta go to sleep. I was only (ha, "only") short call today, which means that I don't get post-call day off, which means that even though I left work very, very late, I still have to go in and work again ALL DAY TOMORROW. Such is life.
MICHELLE That's kind of a PR issue. Who wants to say that they're born in the year of the rat?
SURGERY RESIDENT Well, rats are supposed to have good qualities too. Like...they're sneaky.
MICHELLE That's a good quality?
SURGERY RESIDENT If sneakiness is called for.
MICHELLE What year were you born in?
SURGERY RESIDENT Me? Year of the tiger.
MICHELLE Oh yeah? Like my mom.
SURGERY RESIDENT How about you?
MICHELLE Year of the horse.
SURGERY RESIDENT Ah, 1978.
MICHELLE You really know your Chinese zodiac, dude.
SCRUB TECH Year of the horse?
MICHELLE I'd rather be a horse than a rat, man. (Looking at the patient) Do you know what year you were born in? Which Chinese zodiac animal you are, I mean?
PATIENT (Casually) Oh, I was born in the year of the rat.
MICHELLE (Backtracking) Oh, I...um...that's a good...
This entry is more for my own self-interest than anything else, but--can anyone suggest a good hand cream? Like a really good, industrial strength hand cream. But light! Non-greasy. Preferably smelling good or at least odorless. I am aware that there is probably no lotion that fulfills all my criteria, which can be summed up thusly: I want a lotion that posseses none of the characteristics of lotion. Perhaps something gaseous?
Between the dry winter air and the fact that I wash my hands so many times a day, the skin on my hands has taken on a chalky, arid consistency reminiscent of those cracked mud flats that you see on the National Geographic channel. I was my hands for sanitary reasons, not craziness reasons (though I guess you could point out that a crazy person would also argue that sanitary reasons dictate 500 hand washes a day) but the effect is the same. My skin is damn near peeling off.
The hospital provides these little hotel-sized body lotions for patients that's actually reasonable (not too stinky, reasonably quick-drying once rubbed in), but I guess one of the real problems is that I wear gloves quite often too, and I can't stand the sensation of having lotion on under gloves. It's just slimy and gross and makes me think of all the little bacterial colonies that are breeding in there. And then I just have to take off my gloves and wipe my fingers down with alcohol wipes.
Maybe I should rethink this "not crazy" assertion.
When the OR schedule for today was released last Friday afternoon, I checked what cases was doing, and noted that my day was going to range from the banal to the sublime. I had two cases in my room, the first a toe amputation ("toe amp," the banal) and the second, an open repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm ("open triple A," the sublime), the latter of which is a large major vascular case which I have never actually done before. I've done a good number of endovascular triple A repairs, which seems to be more in vogue these days, but an open triple A would be a much more involved case. I would get to put in a thoracic epidural. There would be a central line, drips. There would be displacement of the mesentary, clamping of the aorta. It would be THE BIG TIME.
I was thinking about this open triple A all day yesterday. I did my reading. I ran through the plan in my head. I plotted in my head what equipment I would need, what special meds I would need to set up, what drips I wanted to have hanging. I woke up extra early this morning to give myself extra time to get ready.
So of course the case was cancelled.
Well, the amputated toe looked pretty gangrenous, if that makes up for anything.
guess how many slices of pizza this kid ate for dinner?
(Four.)
I tried to stop him, telling him that he would get a stomachache, but Cal insisted that he "wants a stomachache," and they were small slices anyway, so I let him. Joe, by the way, insists that this predilection for prodigious pizza consumption is more convincing than any serum-based paternity test he could take.
On an impulse during a trip to Rite Aid last weekend, we bought this DVD for Cal, which was featured in the "Everything Must Go" rack next to the cash register. Well, I guess you could call this move either a resounding success or a miserable failure of our parenting skills (I lean towards the "success" end of the spectrum--we've never been of the NO VIDEOS school of parenting, and anyway, damn, how am I ever supposed to get any work done around here?) but for the past week, Cal has been demanding this DVD after bathtime and only this DVD. Even his old favorites, "The Wiggles" (to recap for the childless among us: four color-coded Aussies who sing humiliating and yet somehow endearing songs) have been left in the dust in favor of this video, which features Blue and Periwinkle (a cat, you know) attending a classroom and participating in activities exactly like the ones Cal now partakes in twice a week. He loves it, cannot get enough.
I have not yet had a chance to take Cal to "school". Well, that is not entirely true, but I will get to that part. As I noted before, the separation component for Cal was hard initially. He has been attending various classes for about a year and a half now, but this playgroup is the first time he's been taken to a class and left in the care of other adults aside from me, Joe or his nanny. The first week, Joe and our nanny stayed with him, just to get him used to the classroom. The second week, our nanny left after ten minutes, and Cal cried for about twenty minutes. The third week, he cried for five minutes. Now, I'm told, he strolls into the classroom like he owns the place, hugs the teacher, and doesn't bat an eye when our nanny tells him that she'll be back at the end of the class. This is called "adjusting." It's a little hard for me to hear about this and not think about him packing up for college and LEAVING US FOREVER, but when I return to the land of the sane, I have to say that I'm quite happy about his new independence. This class was a good move. He was ready for this step.
However, as many mothers will probably profess (or perhaps overexplain, wild-eyed, as other people look on with a mixture of pity and disdain), Cal is different with me than he is with other people. For instance, he is comfortable with the idea of being dropped off in his class by his nanny or Joe, but I get the feeling (probably by the fact that he clings to my neck the second I step in the door after work, and if I permitted it, he would sleep on my face all night, like a cat) that if I took him to school, it would be a different story. He would almost certainly revert to the crying. There would be a scene. And frankly, I'm too weak. I would probably cry too. And I would go back into the classroom because he would be screaming for me, and we would be taking a gigantic step backwards. Like I said, I'M WEAK. I know this.
I was on call on Monday, which means that I was post-call on Tuesday morning. If I really hustled home, I could have made it home in time to take Cal to "school." And part of me wanted to. I wanted to see this classroom that I've been hearing all about, meet the teachers, see the toys and the books and make sure that the other kids weren't hooligans. But I also knew that Cal had just that last week gotten adjusted, and I knew that the timing wasn't right to knock him out of his routine. I know that sounds neurotic and like I'm overthinking things entirely, but just last week, one of the other moms brought their kid to class, and the novelty of this separation (I guess usually the nanny brings the kid) set off some chain reaction of hysterics that decimated the comportment of half the students in the class. So I hung out at the hospital for a while. I went to the supermarket to kill another half hour. I huddled and I waited.
And after Cal and his nanny left for the class, I snuck home and waited for him to come home and tell me all about it.
