Pontificum Scriblerus

I started taking pictures of food earlier this year, and my husband took the cue, somehow, and got me this awesome camera for the holidays this year. I've already taken some advantage, taking pretty, albeit totally random, experimental photos. Hot and sour soup. New dark chocolate Ferrero Roches. Horse carriage outside Central Park. My friend's kid's toy frog. The ceiling at the Park Plaza's tea room. The street that is the root of all our problems. My dining room chair in the morning. Me. Hubby took this one. Never had one lesson! Oh, and Obama was inaugurated today. A change of regime, so to say. In case someone has managed to somehow miss every single media outlet today, I. People are just so excited about Bush leaving office!! "And STAY out!" No pressure, Barack. You're not set up for failure at all. Good luck. Poor Ted Kennedy had another seizure too. Everyone wants him to get better, but his GBM is unfortunately, one of the 3 diagnoses I fear most. T...

We have a transplant candidate meeting every Friday morning, where we discuss people on the list, and people who want to get on the list. People waiting for a liver are in a curious predicament, as are their doctors: only the really sick ones get a liver, b/c it's a rare organ around these parts (there are 4 transplant centers!), so you kind of want your patients to be a little bit sick, but you also want them to be better so they're not too sick to handle a major surgery... Transplant medicine itself is kind of a curious predicament. For one sick person to live, a healthy person has to die. I try to think of it like, oh, people die anyway, and this way, they can leave a legacy behind. But the fact is someone has to die for someone else to live. Today, we were talking about one person who is in the hospital this week, who's teetering on the point of just sick enough and too sick for surgery. We were expressing worry that we may have missed the window. The head surgeon said...

One plus one equals two. But, apparently, 2 minus 1 equals supernova. My husband and I often have tiffs about the fact that he seems to think I'm useless on my own, and I usually beg to differ. Ok, perhaps, I exaggerate. Phrased differently, I excite paternal neurons, and induce protective proteins, and end up thoroughly coddled. So, this year, as most years, he goes away for the holidays, and here is where the fun begins. First, there is a snow storm, and a scary message pops up on my dash: REFILL WASHER FLUID! scary, because I don't know what washer fluid IS. Then, I'm forced to dig out my car four times, all by my lonesome. Then, I get pulled over for speeding, for the first time in what, fifteen years?! (By the way, I totally pulled the doctor card: "I'm a doctor and I'm going to work, here is my ID." It worked too. Got a written warning and got to keep my clean slate.) Finally, as the straw that definitively destroyed the camel's back, my pee turn...

Check this out: http://www.buzzfeed.com/yacomink/sewage-finds-home-v/ Can't think of what to write, so , here, have a laugh. Mianus and Athole. ppfffftbuahahaha.

Mysterious cerebral wiring responsible for so much ... Like how 25 years after the fact, when I smell the combination of bad coffee and warm milk, it makes me think of walking into kindergarden (they were always brewing something for breakfast in the cafeteria). Or for how the other day, I was driving home, and automatically got off on the exit where I used to live, not where I live now, and before realizing where I was basically drove right to my old house, using the same left steering wheel sweep on that almost U turn left turn, . Or for how certain songs cause an instant spring of tears sometimes... Or the sound of the On Hold music at my hospital makes me viscerally sick because it reminds me of being on hold in the middle of the night. It is so weird. Stupid limbic system. Alters my mood and is completely not subject to my control.

When we first moved in to this apartment (a suburban apartment, all the disadvantages and none of the advantages), the building was a brand new construction and more than half empty. We barely saw any neighbors, and the ones we did see were just as expected, young childless couples, or professionals as roommates, or single young men. Now, suddenly, the place is teeming with inhabitants, and they are sometimes just completely incongruous with the setting. When I run into them, I always think, who are they visiting? For example, there is a pair of siblings of high school age who ride up to the 5th floor in the elevator. I can't imagine a family with two kids of high school age living in the suburbs in an apartment building like ours. If they live in an apartment, it's in the city; if they live in the suburbs, it's in a house! This is America! I immediately made up a story: they're here to visit a divorced dad who shares custody. Or, their family lost their home to ...

This year, and this was totally classic, I dressed up in all black, and a hot hot Russian lady-style shearling, got all perfumed, and got in the car with 3 of my equally handsomely attired closest friends, and we raced up the freeway to a town far far away to the north, to a soiree our other friend was having. It was close. Real close. 11:45, we were antsy, speeding through silent streets, yelling at the GPS. 11:55, we called our friend to make sure we had a place to park. 11:57 she called us to tell us that the door was open and we should come right up and join the fun. 11:59:27 we were all running up the icy driveway to the sound of Chariots of Fire in the background..... . . . . ....only to slam our noses into a LOCKED DOOR!!! ... and to hear the rest of the people upstairs yell "Happy New Year!" Then I had to make out with my bff bc husband was too far behind. At least it's a story I'll tell my grandkids. I hope this doesn't indicate the vein in which this yea...