And....we're baaack!

i just finished the most magical of all the magical vacations. it was awesome. i had a whole week, so i put to use the front end of it sleeping and catching up w/ stuff around the house, and then the latter part in chicago partying with friends from all over the country. this group of friends is 3 other couples we met when all living in the same town years ago. we have all since scattered like roaches across the country...but we get together once a year. and this was our weekend. they are such good people and we all mesh well. we laughed and drank, mostly. also saw museums and aquariums and zany performance art....but mostly laughed and drank. it was so great to see everyone and to experience the pleasures of the city. we ate SUCH good food (fancy food at a place called "spring." very pricey, but delicious options. i had a smoked shrimp and hearts of palm salad to start and then an unagi eel with avocado reduction and kimchi noodle dish and a scallops and potato with white truffle oil ravioli dish. insanely good. i also recommend a place called earwax for lunch, the artists' cafe for breakfast, and puck's, the cafeteria at the contemporary art museum for the world's best cupcake- oh, and a pretty intellectual museum experience, too...you don't have to tell them you're there for the cupcakes). food is very important to me. is that apparent?

i love visiting the city, but i think i've gotten too old to live in one and enjoy it. you can't drive anywhere unmolested by millions of other vehicles and you have to be stylish and trendy and full of money or it doesn't seem as fun. and God save you if you need an ambulance- with traffic the way it is, you'll sooner have superman at your window than the EMS driver at your front door. (bah humbug).

and speaking of getting old and curmudgeon-y (i just tried to spell that "kermugin." for real. i'm practically a doctor, practically).....every single person i know is either talking about having a baby, actively trying to have a baby, having just had a baby, or impatiently waiting for a baby to show up. among the couples this weekend- especially the halves of the couples with uteri- there was MUCH talk of babies. i tried to warn 'em. i told them that from what i saw behind my mask when helping with deliveries, it's a pretty painful and slimy process. but i don't think they listened. i think everyone else on the planet has a ticking biological clock but me. sigh. i'd better just start knitting or something so i can really play the part. sigh again.

oh! no, never mind. woe is not me. wikipedia just told me that people who are abstaining from having kids are calling themselves childfree instead of childless so as not to sound as pitiful. i can dig that.

anyway.....so now i'm back to the grind. but it's a new grind. again. i started psych this week at a VA hospital. i think i'm going to like it. i see patients both in and out patient, doing assessments and follow up visits. this is through the VA system, which means we see a lot of post traumatic stress disorder and a large number of veterans dealing with homelessness, substance abuse, etc along with the standard mental illnesses. but since the VA is run by los federales, it comes as no surprise that my first day was all red tape, paperwork, run from one office to another, take a number, sign this form and go give it to this person, but stand on one foot while you do it while saying the pledge in alphabetical order and then start the whole thing over since we lost all your paperwork already anyway. (it's kind of a CF, if you know what i mean- nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

it's really interesting trying to diagnose mental illness, as there's such a specific and wide spectrum of illnesses. and like one of the docs says, there's no MRI to diagnose a psych illness. you can't run a blood test and say- "ah hah! you're having a depressive episode with melancholy features!" it all comes from talking with the patient. so interviews take forever, but are pretty interesting so far.

i'll keep you posted. remind me to tell you about the PANIC BUTTON under the tables in every patient room in case you as a student/staff are in danger from a patient and need some help. evidently they work about 60% of the time. so that's good.