Random Thoughts

I sit in my hot room, because the AC doesn't work and northeastern ohio has officially gotten HOT, eating brussel sprouts (not sure how they get such a bad rap, they taste very similar to cabbage, with a hint of bitterness) and reflecting on the blog post I would have written if I had done so right after coming home from work this afternoon.  Said post was going to be mostly a rant; extremely busy overnight shifts in the ICU tend to bring out the desire to rant, but after a nap, I can't remember what the rant was going to be about.  Probably for the best.

Now that I am a few weeks past my ER rotation, I feel free to express how much it sucked.  I always try to avoid admitting/confronting how much I don't like a rotation while I'm in the middle of it; in my head this helps it suck less.  Not sure if it really does or if I'm fooling myself; but I do the same thing with attendings I don't like, and I feel like that really does help.  If I can just avoid admitting how much I dislike their style of management, it's easier to put up with.  Probably a good think to remember as my 2nd year of residency comes to a close and I approach being a floor senior, which puts you in charge of interns and in the tenuous position of sort-off being in charge of medical decision making.

To get back to the point, the ER sucked.  Some of it was personality differences; ER people tend to be very abrasive and aggressive, which is not really my thing.  It was hard to get anything done, hard to think the ER way, especially when you don't really want to.  Or really don't want to.  I've spent two years learning to think like an internal medicine doctor, the last thing I need is to destroy all that hard work by starting to think like an ER doc.  I also didn't like the pace of the day, or the fact that the ER residents snapped up the good patients before I even knew they were there.  The only real upside was I did get to sew up a giant forehead/eyebrow laceration on a nice young pregnant girl who had been present when a bar fight broke out.  It turned out beautifully and I was very pleased with myself, though of course she'll still have a giant scar.

Dietarily, I'm continuing my experiment with eating lots of fruits and veggies, including continuing to juice.  I haven't given up meat, but I am making it a definitely sideline, making no effort to work it in, because I get enough with what works itself in unassisted.  I find that I'm doing a lot less snacking, taking in a lot less junk food with this way of eating.  On a side note, its nice to have an excuse to eat fruit all the time, instead of feeling like I can only have it once in a while, which is how I used to feel.

Last month I did go to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, and another nearby house of his, called Kentuck Nob.  They are in Pennsylvania and only about three hours away, and well worth the drive.  They were both very cool, and it would be worth it to go back to Fallingwater and do some of the more in-depth tours.

The terrace at Kentuck Nob.  Regrettably, many of these houses

don't allow photographs inside, probably to make you buy the book.  

The waterfall at Kentuck Nob.  

The stairway that reaches from the living room down to the creek at Fallingwater.  

Me, all excited to be there.  

 An atypical view of the cantilevered balconies.  

A typical view of the house, including iconic cantilevered balconies.  Like most 

FLW homes, pictures don't do it justice.  There is something about being there, in the house,

that really brings home what an amazing house it is.  

On a different note, I am growing tomatoes in my yard using a topsy-turvy grower; the plants were doing well initially, aside from some transplant shock, but they only lasted three days before the deer found them.  Tomatoes are like candy to deer, and there were repeat assaults as well, until I got some netting and surrounded the entire planter with it.  Now the tomatoes are recovering and will hopefully yield some fabulous, fresh, home-grown tomatoes.  I'm also growing strawberries in my house with a little pot with side pockets; so far I have harvested two strawberries, both very tasty, and there are more on the way.  Yay for strawberries!

Speaking of the yard, I am keeping my dramatic difference of opinion a secret from the landlord.  He *thinks* he knows all about landscaping, but what he did with the yard is very cliche, and the way he maintains it is the tortured, shaped and pruned to within an inch of its life style, which is very high-maintenance and very artificial appearing.  I prefer a naturalistic approach, where the plants fill in, show you if they're happy in a spot, and keep the weeds down by shading them out.  Oh well.  I'm not the one doing the maintenance, and its only my yard for another year.

:)