More Tasty

one last fresh and tasty meal that the BHE made last week since we're on our healthy and delicious cooking kick. Bankok Drunken Noodles. amazing. fresh and bright and spicy- depending on how much thai chili sauce you use (he did that in place of the fresh red chilis). maybe a little time consuming, but definitely worth it. and it made enough for 4 meals!

What is The World Coming To?

well, my day was better than that of the medical staff at UCLA Medical Center where some poor schmuck was doing chest compressions thinking to himself "I CANNOT LET THE KING OF POP DIE ON MY WATCH! OH SWEET SHIT, PLEASE WAKE UP/REBOOT!"

i was observing today what a weird place the hospital is. here we are doing various serious things like taking out bowel and thyroid cancers and fixing old ladies' fractured hips (and to maybe a lesser degree- making breastsesses perky and full). but what were we all talking about? Jacko and John +4 and Kate +4.

does that make us jaded and sick? nah. it's just survival i guess.

you know what IS sick? denise richards as a nuclear physicist in "The World is Not Enough" playing on TV right now. say what?

I'm a Total Pansy/Turning Over a New (Basil) Leaf

so i didn't go to my reunion. i stayed home and hung out with my family watching our team win a baseball game instead. and i don't feel the least bit bad about it. i was hemming and hawing about whether i should bother driving the two hours to get there and then when we got on the road there was construction everywhere, so i just saw it as a sign and came back home. i also did not want to have to get dressed up and wear special underroos and nylons just to look slick in my pencil skirt. and i didn't want to have to make small talk with a bunch of people i barely knew then and certainly don't know now....like i said- total pansy. so i'll catch up w/ the few people i missed at a later date and will amuse myself with all the facebook pics that have been posted. it appears that everyone is as slim and pretty as they used to be, so that fact alone would have spoiled much of my evening's enjoyment. (evil).

and i'm taking control of my health. i decided this weekend that i am (oh geez) training for a half marathon in october. yikes. the BHE and i have also decded that we've been taking all kinds of shortcuts with our diet lately. not only are we not as balanced and low fat as we should be...but we're being poor vegetarians by eating tons of fake meat soy products (fake burgers, fake chicken, fake lunch meat, etc), eating out a lot, and making only super quick, simple meals. so now that our herbs in our herb garden are falling over they'e so huge- we're starting to cook healthy veggie food from scratch again. you should have seen the produce haul we got from the grocery store this weekend. like garden of eden.

Day #1 Vegetarian Stuffed Grape Leaves (Dolmades)- totally delicious. rather time consuming. 2 WW pts for 3 of them- recipe came from WW cook book. used lots of our fresh dill. hmmm....

Day #2 Bowtie pasta with Basil, Cilantro, Spinach, and Goat Cheese- mixed the basils i've been growing- fresh purple, spicy, and sweet basil, plus fresh cilantro (coriander). very tasty. made huge amount for lunches this week.

...and now i'm craving peanut butter ice cream. must fight impulse. eat an apricot. that'll be just as good...yea, that's it....

Hummus and Hematomas

well, the good thing this week is that i've eaten spicy hummus for my last 3 meals. i like that.

the bad thing this week has been everything else.

it's been crazy busy on the floor as usual. seeing about 18 fairly complicated patients daily including writing notes and orders, providing wound care and preparing them for discharge. often not eating lunch until i'm about to leave for the day. pulling my hair out and running around in circles.

and, in case i'm not nervous enough about messing someone up good....earlier this week i did a very minor procedure at bedside that shouldn't be at all a big ordeal, but somehow this one caused the patient much bleeding and agony. in retrospect, it was sort of a fluke and nothing i could have prevented. but that hasn't stopped me from feeling a lot of guilt and angst about it. sometimes things happen that are unfortunate but unpreventable. i know this, logically. but i took little comfort in this while watching the patient writhe over something my hands had done. ya know?

but that patient is coming through the ordeal relatively unscathed and my week is almost over. this weekend is my (gulp) 10 year high school reunion. i couldn't be more excited (terrified) to go and am really looking forward to catching up with all my old school chums (drinking too much and exposing myself to the captain of the football team). i'll keep you posted about how everything goes (are the mean girls chubby now? will anyone recognize me without my goth makeup and smirk? will there be any pig's blood? it's an open bar, right?).

cheers!

Well...

post bachelorette party. had a ball with all my girl cousins and the bride's friends. was a bit over served from our very own personal bartender from our fancy martini bar (ahem- we are VERY important)..but all in all, had a great time.

and almost fully recovered now and back to work and on the floor at work this week. running around like a headless chicken as usual. but surviving. taking care of a lot of really sick people...it's hard but not all miserable....it's also a good learning opportunity. yes. that is how i'll look at it.

and in those moments of stress i'm trying NOT to eat my weight in cookies since i'm going to my 10 yr high school reunion this weekend and trying to fit into wee little skirt. we'll see. might have to wear sweatpants/moo moo. i'll let you know.

Ay, Dios Mio

so, back in the day i used to waitress at a mexican restaurant where we threw a big 'ol bash for cinco de mayo every year. no one knew what it represented to actual mexican people, but let me tell you, it was, like, THE HOLIDAY for drunken white people making asses out of themselves over melted cheese. and we would show up before lunch and slave away all day, winding our way through crowds of drunken a-holes with trays of hot beans and weak drinks. we were even blessed with wedding party after wedding party pouring in post-reception (i'm not joking- in their gowns and tuxes and everything) demanding silly girly drinks that didn't involve tequila. and we'd stay until 2 in the morning and leave with a few hundred dollars of really hard earned money. it wasn't as much fun as it sounds.

this is why i finished college.

so now that i make a billion dollars a year as a hot shot PA, mostly my days are peaceful and zen-like. but today was madness!! i followed an orthopedic surgeon as he jumped between 2 rooms doing a total of something like 10 cases. and since every other PA in the department was scrubbed in equally crazy situations, i was also running to pre-op and up to the floor and every which way every spare moment i got trying to get all the other chores done that needed doing.

as i left the last case and stumbled toward my locker in a blur, i swear i smelled cilantro and heard someone scream for another cerveza.

ay dios mio.

So Far So Good: Surviving the Economic Slump

pretty much the longest day ever. this week has been busy, busy in the OR world. running from case to case, juggling rooms, fitting in emergencies. it's been nuts. which is good, mostly, as it was kinda quiet for a while and everyone was getting squirrelly, worrying about our jobs in this economy and all.

but, fortunately/depressingly, people still smoke and need wedges of their lungs removed to take out tumors. people still over eat and need the plaque scraped out of their vessels. people still do nothing wrong at all and require their gall bladders, appendixes, and thyroids excavated. shoot, some people still need bigger boobs and smaller noses, just cuz they do. so i guess we'll always have business. cheers!