(You're welcome.)
new pen reviews!
OK, fuck the boards, let's talk about something really important now. Let's talk about pens.
I placed an order for some new pens a few weeks ago (and then tweeted abundantly about it). And now I will talk about it some more, because that horse isn't quite dead yet. Anyway, these are special pens! SPECIAL JAPANESE PENS! From the island of Japan! Where all cute things originate!
Let us begin. First let me describe my pen needs. Like any medical person, I use my pen a lot. Now that I'm not a Peds resident anymore, I don't have quite the need that I once did to have intricate pages of checklists and patient flow charts, nor did I need a pen that would enable me to write a full set of metabolic lab results in the 0.5 inch margin alongside a patient's progress note, but hey, I still have pen needs. Mostly I write consult notes, keep anesthesia records, and sign my name one million times a day. I do like a good fine-tipped pen for the anesthesia records--I don't know if you've ever seen one, but for those of us who don't have computerized records (I did in my residency, but at my current hospital we still do hand charting) we do have to cram in quite a bit if information in a very small amount of space.
Other concerns: I wanted a pen that would make my writing look neat--I find that the wider the point, the more sloppy my writing tends to become. I wanted a pen with a good ink supply that didn't smear. And I wanted to find a pen in a color that other people didn't have. The reason for this is not just because I GOTTA BE ME! but because sometimes if I'm reading over an anesthesia consult note that someone else has written, I like to go through it and circle the important things so that they jump out at me, or add little clarifying notes of my own. When my pen is a slightly different color, I can see my own additions better, and it reminds me to do stuff (or not to do stuff, as the case may be).
So with this in mind, I got three types of pens. First was the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen with the 0.4 mm tip. The reason I got this pen, even though I've never seen it before or tried it in person, is that the pen enthusiasts of the world (and once you start to dig into this, you will find them all over the internet) swear that this is the world's greatest pen. I got a few in the blue-black color, because everyone else at work already has either a plain black or a plain blue pen, and if I got any of these other colors, people might start worrying that I was going to start signing my notes Mrs. Justin Beiber, MD. I don't think a pink pen flies in the hospital.
Up until now I've been a big fan of the Pilot Precise V5 RT, which is an excellent pen except that sometimes the ink is a little heavy so it can bleed and smear a little, and that occasionally after you drop it, it'll just be real scratchy and skippy for the rest of its natural life, even if it still does have a full ink barrel. So I knew I liked the feel of a needle tip pen. So tiny! So precise! And indeed, the Pilot Hi-Tec-C was all of these things.
Two issues I had with this pen. First of all was that, after using it for a full day at work, I began to realize why I had been using retractible pens all along. Because dealing with a pen cap is a pain in my ass. I know they have a retractible version of the Hi-Tec-C, but from all my research (and yes, there was research involved) it looks like the pen barrel was much thinner in the retractible version, thus making it hard to hold, and the ink supply was smaller. As it was, my other beef with the Hi-Tec-C is that it wasn't very comfortable to write with. I hold my pen weird (it's certainly not a ladylike grip, more of a ham-fisted grip that my dad was on my case endlessly about until he finally gave up) and if my pen barrels are too thin, I get hand cramps. Also the Hi-Tec-C did not have a padded grip, which I didn't like. It had these hard plastic ridges where you held the pen, which I guess is good for traction or whatever, but in terms of comfort, not my cup of tea. (I am also aware that they have the Hi-Tec-C with the rubber grip, but they only make those in black, blue and red.) I tried to put on my own rubber grip--you know, those ones that they sell at Staples for kids to put on their pencils--but then I ran into the problem of the damn pen cap again, in that it wouldn't fit on with the rubber grip in place. So the Pilot Hi-Tec-C is a good pen, lays down a great line, and the blue-black ink is a classy joint. However, maybe better for home than for work, unless you have a desk job and don't mind dealing with a pen cap from time to time.
Second pen was this: the Uni-ball Signo RT UM-138 Gel Pen with a 0.38 mm tip. I got this in blue-black and lavendar black.
Now I know that you're going to see that purple pen and say WHAT THE HELL, WHAT ABOUT ALL THAT STUFF THAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT MRS. JUSTIN BEIBER, YOU GOT A PURPLE PEN FOR WORK? Hold on there, pen friends. It's not purple. It's lavender-black. The difference, which, I hope to illustrate here:
So there. The purple is even less obvious if you don't have the actual purple pen barrel next to it--I think the external cue makes the ink look more purply than it really is. I actually polled about five nurses, showing them an anesthesia record and a few notes that I wrote without showing them the pen, asking them what color they thought the ink was. Every one of them said either "black" or "dark blue." So it really doesn't look that purple, and it really is a nice pen. Fine point, smooth writing, beautiful lush line, not blobby, not bleedy, and above all, retractible.
OK, fuck the boards, let's talk about something really important now. Let's talk about pens.
I placed an order for some new pens a few weeks ago (and then tweeted abundantly about it). And now I will talk about it some more, because that horse isn't quite dead yet. Anyway, these are special pens! SPECIAL JAPANESE PENS! From the island of Japan! Where all cute things originate!
Let us begin. First let me describe my pen needs. Like any medical person, I use my pen a lot. Now that I'm not a Peds resident anymore, I don't have quite the need that I once did to have intricate pages of checklists and patient flow charts, nor did I need a pen that would enable me to write a full set of metabolic lab results in the 0.5 inch margin alongside a patient's progress note, but hey, I still have pen needs. Mostly I write consult notes, keep anesthesia records, and sign my name one million times a day. I do like a good fine-tipped pen for the anesthesia records--I don't know if you've ever seen one, but for those of us who don't have computerized records (I did in my residency, but at my current hospital we still do hand charting) we do have to cram in quite a bit if information in a very small amount of space.
Other concerns: I wanted a pen that would make my writing look neat--I find that the wider the point, the more sloppy my writing tends to become. I wanted a pen with a good ink supply that didn't smear. And I wanted to find a pen in a color that other people didn't have. The reason for this is not just because I GOTTA BE ME! but because sometimes if I'm reading over an anesthesia consult note that someone else has written, I like to go through it and circle the important things so that they jump out at me, or add little clarifying notes of my own. When my pen is a slightly different color, I can see my own additions better, and it reminds me to do stuff (or not to do stuff, as the case may be).
So with this in mind, I got three types of pens. First was the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen with the 0.4 mm tip. The reason I got this pen, even though I've never seen it before or tried it in person, is that the pen enthusiasts of the world (and once you start to dig into this, you will find them all over the internet) swear that this is the world's greatest pen. I got a few in the blue-black color, because everyone else at work already has either a plain black or a plain blue pen, and if I got any of these other colors, people might start worrying that I was going to start signing my notes Mrs. Justin Beiber, MD. I don't think a pink pen flies in the hospital.
Up until now I've been a big fan of the Pilot Precise V5 RT, which is an excellent pen except that sometimes the ink is a little heavy so it can bleed and smear a little, and that occasionally after you drop it, it'll just be real scratchy and skippy for the rest of its natural life, even if it still does have a full ink barrel. So I knew I liked the feel of a needle tip pen. So tiny! So precise! And indeed, the Pilot Hi-Tec-C was all of these things.
Two issues I had with this pen. First of all was that, after using it for a full day at work, I began to realize why I had been using retractible pens all along. Because dealing with a pen cap is a pain in my ass. I know they have a retractible version of the Hi-Tec-C, but from all my research (and yes, there was research involved) it looks like the pen barrel was much thinner in the retractible version, thus making it hard to hold, and the ink supply was smaller. As it was, my other beef with the Hi-Tec-C is that it wasn't very comfortable to write with. I hold my pen weird (it's certainly not a ladylike grip, more of a ham-fisted grip that my dad was on my case endlessly about until he finally gave up) and if my pen barrels are too thin, I get hand cramps. Also the Hi-Tec-C did not have a padded grip, which I didn't like. It had these hard plastic ridges where you held the pen, which I guess is good for traction or whatever, but in terms of comfort, not my cup of tea. (I am also aware that they have the Hi-Tec-C with the rubber grip, but they only make those in black, blue and red.) I tried to put on my own rubber grip--you know, those ones that they sell at Staples for kids to put on their pencils--but then I ran into the problem of the damn pen cap again, in that it wouldn't fit on with the rubber grip in place. So the Pilot Hi-Tec-C is a good pen, lays down a great line, and the blue-black ink is a classy joint. However, maybe better for home than for work, unless you have a desk job and don't mind dealing with a pen cap from time to time.
Second pen was this: the Uni-ball Signo RT UM-138 Gel Pen with a 0.38 mm tip. I got this in blue-black and lavendar black.
Now I know that you're going to see that purple pen and say WHAT THE HELL, WHAT ABOUT ALL THAT STUFF THAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT MRS. JUSTIN BEIBER, YOU GOT A PURPLE PEN FOR WORK? Hold on there, pen friends. It's not purple. It's lavender-black. The difference, which, I hope to illustrate here:
So there. The purple is even less obvious if you don't have the actual purple pen barrel next to it--I think the external cue makes the ink look more purply than it really is. I actually polled about five nurses, showing them an anesthesia record and a few notes that I wrote without showing them the pen, asking them what color they thought the ink was. Every one of them said either "black" or "dark blue." So it really doesn't look that purple, and it really is a nice pen. Fine point, smooth writing, beautiful lush line, not blobby, not bleedy, and above all, retractible.
Plus, it's not really that expensive, running you $1.50 per pen. I mean, yes, it's more expensive than a giant box of Bic ballpoints, but this is not your general distribution pen, this is your pen, the one you label with your name, the one you keep in your breast pocket and make sure no one steals. Both the blue-black and the lavender-black are fantastic colors, and after I let Joe try one, he insisted that I order him a box of his own, so see, just as much of a hit with the fellas as with the ladies.
(All photos and pens courtesy of Jet Pens, which is probably a really dangerous site if you have an Asian office supply fetish and have some time to waste.)
(All photos and pens courtesy of Jet Pens, which is probably a really dangerous site if you have an Asian office supply fetish and have some time to waste.)
a supposedly fun thing i'll (hopefully) never do again
You know I've taken five Board exams in my life now? Five! That's a lot of exams! There were the three "Steps" of the USMLE (the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam) in 2001, 2002 and 2004, my written Anesthesia boards last August, and now this one. This was my only oral board exam though, and the key difference between a written and an oral exam is the difference between feeling publicly stupid instead of privately stupid. On a written exam, you just guess at the answer, put a star next to it, and move on; whereas on a written exam, you have to say something out loud, even if it's not right, and then you have to just have to try and keep going on as the echos of your wrongness reverberate throughout the room until you are crushed in an avalanche of shame boulders. Or at least so it seems inside your head.
But anyway--the oral boards! End of the story: they went fine. Compared to some of the more brutal practice sessions I'd been through, it was pretty straightforward, though that isn't to say that there were a few things here or there that didn't quite jump from the fountain of universal knowledge to the tip of my tongue. But it went fine, I think, and at the very least, it's over. I get the results in about a month.
But on to the more important issues...this is what I wore:
Excuse the blurriness of the photo, as well as the fact that there is stuff all over the floor (including a lampshade) which makes us look like we live like meth addicts. To our credit, the lamp was Ikea (read: readily broken) and, having outlived its usefulness as a light source, Mack has been wearing the shade as a hat. Because he's a party animal in a Rodney Dangerfield movie. Oh, yes, the blurriness. When we moved into this house, one of the first things we did was try and clean all the mirrors, because it looked like they were super dusty. But what we found was that the dust and grime is not on the surface of the mirror, rather on the inside of the mirror, presumably where the reflective surface meets the glass backing. It's an old house, and they are old mirrors. So we've just gotten used to looking at ourselves through a glaze of mid-century dust motes. However, large-scale information is transmitted.
As several other people who have seen this dress in the flesh warned me, the V-neck was a little bit low, even for a flat-chested lady, but I wore a camisole underneath it, and also the green scarf you see. Ain't no one going to be looking at my funbags. As you can see, the dress ended up being a little long as expected, but nothing that needed to be altered. Also: the shoes I love, and they were from Target, their cuteness only enhanced by their cheapness. It was a little cold this morning, so I also put on a yellow cardigan, which also looked sprightly and preppy, but possibly made me stand out a bit, in that everyone else taking the exam that session (and I mean everyone--men and ladies) was wearing a full suit in either navy, black, or charcoal. Compared to them, I looked like the eccentric Psychology professor who swans in at the beginning of lecture in some Pucci caftan wearing those half-profile reading glasses made of blocky rainbow plastic. But I do hate wearing a suit.
Oh, I don't want to push this "I'm so wacky!" thing too far--because whatever, I'm so not wacky--but I didn't have a watch to wear to my exam (in the interest of keeping my hands and wrists as clean as possible at work, I stopped wearing a watch a few years ago, and though I use my cell phone as a clock I obviously couldn't bring that into the testing room) so I borrowed Cal's:
I am not going to tell you anything about the questions that they asked on the exam, of course, because that's illegal, but I can tell you about the exam process, because I think the mechanics are fairly widely known. The oral board exam administered by the American Board of Anesthesiology are conducted in a hotel, which they say is done to keep the costs down of renting a freestanding facility to administer an exam to 1300 applicants over the period of a week. The Spring 2010 session is being administered at the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, which I've never been in, but looks like a pretty nice hotel. It also looks like a pretty expensive hotel, which makes me doubly glad that I live in Atlanta already (there's no rule that you have to stay at the hotel that the test is at, but a lot of people from out of town don't want to have to rent a car and have to figure out how to get to the test site, especially if they're only flying in for 24 hours).
You know I've taken five Board exams in my life now? Five! That's a lot of exams! There were the three "Steps" of the USMLE (the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam) in 2001, 2002 and 2004, my written Anesthesia boards last August, and now this one. This was my only oral board exam though, and the key difference between a written and an oral exam is the difference between feeling publicly stupid instead of privately stupid. On a written exam, you just guess at the answer, put a star next to it, and move on; whereas on a written exam, you have to say something out loud, even if it's not right, and then you have to just have to try and keep going on as the echos of your wrongness reverberate throughout the room until you are crushed in an avalanche of shame boulders. Or at least so it seems inside your head.
But anyway--the oral boards! End of the story: they went fine. Compared to some of the more brutal practice sessions I'd been through, it was pretty straightforward, though that isn't to say that there were a few things here or there that didn't quite jump from the fountain of universal knowledge to the tip of my tongue. But it went fine, I think, and at the very least, it's over. I get the results in about a month.
But on to the more important issues...this is what I wore:
Excuse the blurriness of the photo, as well as the fact that there is stuff all over the floor (including a lampshade) which makes us look like we live like meth addicts. To our credit, the lamp was Ikea (read: readily broken) and, having outlived its usefulness as a light source, Mack has been wearing the shade as a hat. Because he's a party animal in a Rodney Dangerfield movie. Oh, yes, the blurriness. When we moved into this house, one of the first things we did was try and clean all the mirrors, because it looked like they were super dusty. But what we found was that the dust and grime is not on the surface of the mirror, rather on the inside of the mirror, presumably where the reflective surface meets the glass backing. It's an old house, and they are old mirrors. So we've just gotten used to looking at ourselves through a glaze of mid-century dust motes. However, large-scale information is transmitted.
As several other people who have seen this dress in the flesh warned me, the V-neck was a little bit low, even for a flat-chested lady, but I wore a camisole underneath it, and also the green scarf you see. Ain't no one going to be looking at my funbags. As you can see, the dress ended up being a little long as expected, but nothing that needed to be altered. Also: the shoes I love, and they were from Target, their cuteness only enhanced by their cheapness. It was a little cold this morning, so I also put on a yellow cardigan, which also looked sprightly and preppy, but possibly made me stand out a bit, in that everyone else taking the exam that session (and I mean everyone--men and ladies) was wearing a full suit in either navy, black, or charcoal. Compared to them, I looked like the eccentric Psychology professor who swans in at the beginning of lecture in some Pucci caftan wearing those half-profile reading glasses made of blocky rainbow plastic. But I do hate wearing a suit.
Oh, I don't want to push this "I'm so wacky!" thing too far--because whatever, I'm so not wacky--but I didn't have a watch to wear to my exam (in the interest of keeping my hands and wrists as clean as possible at work, I stopped wearing a watch a few years ago, and though I use my cell phone as a clock I obviously couldn't bring that into the testing room) so I borrowed Cal's:
I am not going to tell you anything about the questions that they asked on the exam, of course, because that's illegal, but I can tell you about the exam process, because I think the mechanics are fairly widely known. The oral board exam administered by the American Board of Anesthesiology are conducted in a hotel, which they say is done to keep the costs down of renting a freestanding facility to administer an exam to 1300 applicants over the period of a week. The Spring 2010 session is being administered at the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, which I've never been in, but looks like a pretty nice hotel. It also looks like a pretty expensive hotel, which makes me doubly glad that I live in Atlanta already (there's no rule that you have to stay at the hotel that the test is at, but a lot of people from out of town don't want to have to rent a car and have to figure out how to get to the test site, especially if they're only flying in for 24 hours).
The day started with a brief registration and orientation session, where they checked our IDs and a very nice avuncular anesthesiologist from Durham, NC (no doubt he teaches at the Big University Hospital there that also starts with a D) told us what to expect. He also tried to calm us all down by being super-encouraging and telling us that we had all already passed the exam, because we had gotten this far and had the right stuff, baby! "This is a great day!" he told us. "You've already done the work! Have fun in there!" He was adorable, I loved him. (He also reminded us not to get mad if Bad Stuff happened to our patients despite our best efforts, because that was the point of the exam, to see how we deal with Bad Stuff. Also, THE PATIENTS AREN'T REAL.)
There are two exam "sessions," each lasting exactly 35 minutes and primarily made up of a large "stem question" (usually a patient presentation in the setting of an operative plan). The first session has a big stem with a fairly extensive patient history and preoperative workup--the main focus of this session is in intra- and postoperative management of the patient--and the second session has a shorter stem, with the questions focusing on pre- and intraoperative care. Also to round out each session is a handful of what they call "grab bag" questions, which is to say that they are shorter, freestanding questions that they can ask about, well, anything. You have time to look over each "stem" before you go into the room (there is a series of exam rooms down one whole hallway on several different floors of the hotel--just regular hotel rooms that I believe the board examiners are actually sleeping in after hours) and at the end of each session, someone knocks on the door with a wooden spoon, indicating that your time is up.
This was my favorite part, by the way, the knocking on the door with a wooden spoon. It's a cross between formalized and ridiculous, like something they would do in Skull and Bones. (The other reason it was my favorite part was because that meant the session was over.)
There were no big surprises on the exam. The examiners were poker-faced, as they were supposed to be, and sometimes they would try to push you or tangle you up, "Why not this?" "Someone suggests XYZ might be a better solution--what do you tell them?" But on the whole that was expected and it was fair and before I knew it, the second wooden spoon was rapping on my door and it was over.
So now what do I do? For as long as I remember, I've always had something hanging over my head--either the next set of revisions for my book, or some kind of exam that I had to study for. And now I don't have either of those things. I still will have to take Boards for the rest of my professional life, of course, but if I pass the orals, I don't think I'll have to recertify for something like ten years from now. Even I can't start studying for an exam that's ten years away. So now what do I do? Pick up bocce? Start watching more TV? The possibilities are endless.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's a celebratory hummus quartet with my name on it.
There are two exam "sessions," each lasting exactly 35 minutes and primarily made up of a large "stem question" (usually a patient presentation in the setting of an operative plan). The first session has a big stem with a fairly extensive patient history and preoperative workup--the main focus of this session is in intra- and postoperative management of the patient--and the second session has a shorter stem, with the questions focusing on pre- and intraoperative care. Also to round out each session is a handful of what they call "grab bag" questions, which is to say that they are shorter, freestanding questions that they can ask about, well, anything. You have time to look over each "stem" before you go into the room (there is a series of exam rooms down one whole hallway on several different floors of the hotel--just regular hotel rooms that I believe the board examiners are actually sleeping in after hours) and at the end of each session, someone knocks on the door with a wooden spoon, indicating that your time is up.
This was my favorite part, by the way, the knocking on the door with a wooden spoon. It's a cross between formalized and ridiculous, like something they would do in Skull and Bones. (The other reason it was my favorite part was because that meant the session was over.)
There were no big surprises on the exam. The examiners were poker-faced, as they were supposed to be, and sometimes they would try to push you or tangle you up, "Why not this?" "Someone suggests XYZ might be a better solution--what do you tell them?" But on the whole that was expected and it was fair and before I knew it, the second wooden spoon was rapping on my door and it was over.
So now what do I do? For as long as I remember, I've always had something hanging over my head--either the next set of revisions for my book, or some kind of exam that I had to study for. And now I don't have either of those things. I still will have to take Boards for the rest of my professional life, of course, but if I pass the orals, I don't think I'll have to recertify for something like ten years from now. Even I can't start studying for an exam that's ten years away. So now what do I do? Pick up bocce? Start watching more TV? The possibilities are endless.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's a celebratory hummus quartet with my name on it.
this is what is known as a multi-pronged approach to preparation
One other consistent piece of advice that I received about taking my oral boards (yes, I'm talking about the fucking boards again, but just bear with me, they're on Wednesday, and then hopefully never again) is that I should be sure to take some beta blockers before showing up. This under no less authority than my partner at work, the oral boards examiner himself. As he explained it (and not like I don't know this to be true, but he's actually seen it happen year after year) is that when you show up to take the boards, you are very NERVOUS and you get a HUGE CATECHOLAMINE SURGE and meanwhile you're WAITING AND WAITING for your exam to begin and your SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM is all revving OUT OF CONTROL, so by the time you actually get into your first test room you're all WRUNG OUT and EXHAUSTED and SHAKING, which just makes you feel like hell before they even ask you your first question. Also: flop sweat. So, I agreed that if he thought it was best, then beta blockade I would.
(Now before the non-medicals accuse me of taking the PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS, let me assure you that this is not the same as blood doping or taking, I don't know, Ritalin or whatever. Beta blockers are a non-narcotic medication usually prescribed for hypertension and/or ischemic heart disease that work on bringing down your blood pressure and heart rate, thereby reducing the stress on your heart. They have no psychotropic effects, and lots of people--actors and public speakers in particular--will take them for stage fright and whatnot to block the physical effects of anxiety. So don't worry, I'm not juicing like Drago in "Rocky IV.")
Anyway, beta blockade seemed like a good enough idea, and conveniently enough, I actually have some metoprolol at home, which Joe has been taking for a few months after his run-in with myocarditis. (He mainly takes his to suppress ectopy--that is to say, he gets palpitations and the metoprolol smooths them out.) However, given that I don't usually take any medications to reduce my blood pressure, and it's not like my baseline blood pressure is super high to begin with, I wanted to do a trial run with the metoprolol. You know, so I wouldn't take it for the first time and keel over in front of my first two examiners in some ungainly display of orthostatic hypotension. You know, like a demo.
After taking half a tab of metoprolol this weekend (which had basically zero effect) I took a full tab today. And I felt...the same. I thought my heart rate was maybe a little bit slower, (it was maybe high 70s when I took the med, and when I checked it again it was low 70s) but how could I say for sure, I was sitting down, I'd had something to drink, I was chilling out in a Starbucks for chrissake--not exactly the greatest stress test in the world. Of course, you could argue that the fact that my heart rate was not higher after drinking coffee was diagnostic, but I had a chai, so who knows how much caffeine is in that? Anyway, I had dodged the worst case scenario (read: I WAS NOT DEAD) but as for the intended effect of the beta blocker, I still wasn't sure.
The one other thing that I wanted to do today was take a test drive to the hotel where the exam is being held. The oral exams are being administered there all week, and candidates are told a specific day and time to show up so that they're sort of staggered throughout the day, Monday through Friday. I know where the hotel is (thank you, Google Maps) and I know that it's only 9 minutes from my house, but given that it's a busy part of town during a busy time of day, and given that I am the novice driver you all know me to be, I thought it best to practice the drive.
Well, I drove to the hotel. But see, where this hotel is located is right next to the on ramp for the highway, and though I could see where the hotel was--if I stopped my car and got out, I could have actually walked right up to in in about 30 seconds--it was one of those things where I couldn't see any way to turn into the driveway, and once I passed the hotel it was all MUST TURN THIS WAY and LOOP BACK THAT WAY and DO NOT ENTER and THIS WAY TO THE INTERSTATE. I had been warned about this last week, but seriously, that area is a major clusterfuck. And so I was slingshotted in the traffic like a helpless projectile, trying to figure out how not to end up on the interstate and how to loop back to the main street, all while trying to avoid all these Atlanta drivers who were all honking and merging with their penis-substitute convertible sports cars and all giving each other the finger (honestly, I grew up in New York City, and I've never seen as many drivers give each other the finger as I have in my two years here). It was terrifying. But even though in my mind I thought, "This is terrifying," my body did not feel terrified. My body felt calm. In fact, when I finally got out of that traffic vortex and stopped at an intersection, I checked my pulse. Still in the 70s. So I guess beta blockade works.
I had to loop back around to the hotel a total of four times before I finally found the entrance driveway, by the way. And then I saw all these people walking around with suits and notecards looking like they were going to puke. So that made me nervous again. But only in my mind, not my body. My body was sipping boiling water and spitting out icicles. Yay for beta blockers!
Medicolegal addendum: Please know of course that beta blockers are not for everyone and that there are certain conditions that should preclude you from taking them, consult your primary care doctor before starting any prescription medications, etc. etc. ad infinitum
One other consistent piece of advice that I received about taking my oral boards (yes, I'm talking about the fucking boards again, but just bear with me, they're on Wednesday, and then hopefully never again) is that I should be sure to take some beta blockers before showing up. This under no less authority than my partner at work, the oral boards examiner himself. As he explained it (and not like I don't know this to be true, but he's actually seen it happen year after year) is that when you show up to take the boards, you are very NERVOUS and you get a HUGE CATECHOLAMINE SURGE and meanwhile you're WAITING AND WAITING for your exam to begin and your SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM is all revving OUT OF CONTROL, so by the time you actually get into your first test room you're all WRUNG OUT and EXHAUSTED and SHAKING, which just makes you feel like hell before they even ask you your first question. Also: flop sweat. So, I agreed that if he thought it was best, then beta blockade I would.
(Now before the non-medicals accuse me of taking the PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS, let me assure you that this is not the same as blood doping or taking, I don't know, Ritalin or whatever. Beta blockers are a non-narcotic medication usually prescribed for hypertension and/or ischemic heart disease that work on bringing down your blood pressure and heart rate, thereby reducing the stress on your heart. They have no psychotropic effects, and lots of people--actors and public speakers in particular--will take them for stage fright and whatnot to block the physical effects of anxiety. So don't worry, I'm not juicing like Drago in "Rocky IV.")
Anyway, beta blockade seemed like a good enough idea, and conveniently enough, I actually have some metoprolol at home, which Joe has been taking for a few months after his run-in with myocarditis. (He mainly takes his to suppress ectopy--that is to say, he gets palpitations and the metoprolol smooths them out.) However, given that I don't usually take any medications to reduce my blood pressure, and it's not like my baseline blood pressure is super high to begin with, I wanted to do a trial run with the metoprolol. You know, so I wouldn't take it for the first time and keel over in front of my first two examiners in some ungainly display of orthostatic hypotension. You know, like a demo.
After taking half a tab of metoprolol this weekend (which had basically zero effect) I took a full tab today. And I felt...the same. I thought my heart rate was maybe a little bit slower, (it was maybe high 70s when I took the med, and when I checked it again it was low 70s) but how could I say for sure, I was sitting down, I'd had something to drink, I was chilling out in a Starbucks for chrissake--not exactly the greatest stress test in the world. Of course, you could argue that the fact that my heart rate was not higher after drinking coffee was diagnostic, but I had a chai, so who knows how much caffeine is in that? Anyway, I had dodged the worst case scenario (read: I WAS NOT DEAD) but as for the intended effect of the beta blocker, I still wasn't sure.
The one other thing that I wanted to do today was take a test drive to the hotel where the exam is being held. The oral exams are being administered there all week, and candidates are told a specific day and time to show up so that they're sort of staggered throughout the day, Monday through Friday. I know where the hotel is (thank you, Google Maps) and I know that it's only 9 minutes from my house, but given that it's a busy part of town during a busy time of day, and given that I am the novice driver you all know me to be, I thought it best to practice the drive.
Well, I drove to the hotel. But see, where this hotel is located is right next to the on ramp for the highway, and though I could see where the hotel was--if I stopped my car and got out, I could have actually walked right up to in in about 30 seconds--it was one of those things where I couldn't see any way to turn into the driveway, and once I passed the hotel it was all MUST TURN THIS WAY and LOOP BACK THAT WAY and DO NOT ENTER and THIS WAY TO THE INTERSTATE. I had been warned about this last week, but seriously, that area is a major clusterfuck. And so I was slingshotted in the traffic like a helpless projectile, trying to figure out how not to end up on the interstate and how to loop back to the main street, all while trying to avoid all these Atlanta drivers who were all honking and merging with their penis-substitute convertible sports cars and all giving each other the finger (honestly, I grew up in New York City, and I've never seen as many drivers give each other the finger as I have in my two years here). It was terrifying. But even though in my mind I thought, "This is terrifying," my body did not feel terrified. My body felt calm. In fact, when I finally got out of that traffic vortex and stopped at an intersection, I checked my pulse. Still in the 70s. So I guess beta blockade works.
I had to loop back around to the hotel a total of four times before I finally found the entrance driveway, by the way. And then I saw all these people walking around with suits and notecards looking like they were going to puke. So that made me nervous again. But only in my mind, not my body. My body was sipping boiling water and spitting out icicles. Yay for beta blockers!
Medicolegal addendum: Please know of course that beta blockers are not for everyone and that there are certain conditions that should preclude you from taking them, consult your primary care doctor before starting any prescription medications, etc. etc. ad infinitum
IgE-mediated playtime
And now, for your viewing pleasure, Mack vs. The Ball Pit:
This marks the first time that I had to bring the kids to an indoor play place not because of inclement weather (actually mid 70's and sunny today), but because of allergies. People, the pollen count here is murder. Anyone who is the least bit susceptible to seasonal allergies and is flying into town in the next week for their anesthesia oral boards, make sure you pack some antihistamines. Either that, or count on never leaving the filtered-air comfort of your hotel room. I'M WARNING YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.
(Above: Child in the viral conjunctivitis fomite vat. Trading one evil for another, I suppose.)
And now, for your viewing pleasure, Mack vs. The Ball Pit:
This marks the first time that I had to bring the kids to an indoor play place not because of inclement weather (actually mid 70's and sunny today), but because of allergies. People, the pollen count here is murder. Anyone who is the least bit susceptible to seasonal allergies and is flying into town in the next week for their anesthesia oral boards, make sure you pack some antihistamines. Either that, or count on never leaving the filtered-air comfort of your hotel room. I'M WARNING YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.
(Above: Child in the viral conjunctivitis fomite vat. Trading one evil for another, I suppose.)
both a reassurance and a curse
When I went to take my written test for my learner's permit (probably a little less than a year ago), I saw this middle-aged guy at a computer testing station about two seats away from me with a book in his lap. Upon closer inspection, this book was a Myanmar to English/English to Myanmar dictionary. This poor guy was slogging through this test, word by word, flipping frantically through his dictionary trying to figure out what "merge" and "signal" meant in Myanmar before answering.
My first thought? Wow, that's rough. But if this Burmese guy who doesn't even speak English can pass his written driving test, surely I can too.
My second though? Wow, if this Burmese guy who doesn't even speak English passes the test and I don't, I am going to be extremely embarrassed.
As it was, I was probably just one question away from failing that written driving test. (Though to be fair, almost all the questions that I got wrong were related to various speed limits in various zones--couldn't I just look at the speed limit signs in real life?) But I passed. And I think about that Burmese guy sometimes still. I hope he passed too.
Anyway, the point of me writing this is because, well, obviously I'm taking the oral boards in a few days. And I'm not overly stressed about it, I think it will be fine, though of course occasionally, I will think, OMG OMG THE ORAL BOARDS OMG and I'll get a little anxious that I'll get nailed with the crazy obscure stem question about the quadriplegic achondroplastic dwarf newborn with mucopolysaccharidosis, and that my examiners will be a tag team known as "Bad Cop" and "Worse Cop." But several people have tried to calm me (and they said that this was the most comforting piece of reassurance, or at least perspective, that they themselves received before their oral boards) is that a good number of my co-test-takers are foreign nationals and actually don't speak English very well, so I, aside from being reasonably well-trained, at least have a huge advantage in the fact that I, you know, grew up speaking the language in which the exam is administered.
And that is a little reassuring, I suppose. But my second thought? Wow, if this Burmese guy who doesn't even speak English passes the oral boards and I don't, I'm going to be extremely embarrassed.
(Of course this is in no way to discredit those colleagues among us--my parents included, each Board Certified in their respective fields--who have tackled the extremely unruly language of English and managed to get through all the hurdles just as us native speakers have. I couldn't do what you have done. Bravo.)
When I went to take my written test for my learner's permit (probably a little less than a year ago), I saw this middle-aged guy at a computer testing station about two seats away from me with a book in his lap. Upon closer inspection, this book was a Myanmar to English/English to Myanmar dictionary. This poor guy was slogging through this test, word by word, flipping frantically through his dictionary trying to figure out what "merge" and "signal" meant in Myanmar before answering.
My first thought? Wow, that's rough. But if this Burmese guy who doesn't even speak English can pass his written driving test, surely I can too.
My second though? Wow, if this Burmese guy who doesn't even speak English passes the test and I don't, I am going to be extremely embarrassed.
As it was, I was probably just one question away from failing that written driving test. (Though to be fair, almost all the questions that I got wrong were related to various speed limits in various zones--couldn't I just look at the speed limit signs in real life?) But I passed. And I think about that Burmese guy sometimes still. I hope he passed too.
Anyway, the point of me writing this is because, well, obviously I'm taking the oral boards in a few days. And I'm not overly stressed about it, I think it will be fine, though of course occasionally, I will think, OMG OMG THE ORAL BOARDS OMG and I'll get a little anxious that I'll get nailed with the crazy obscure stem question about the quadriplegic achondroplastic dwarf newborn with mucopolysaccharidosis, and that my examiners will be a tag team known as "Bad Cop" and "Worse Cop." But several people have tried to calm me (and they said that this was the most comforting piece of reassurance, or at least perspective, that they themselves received before their oral boards) is that a good number of my co-test-takers are foreign nationals and actually don't speak English very well, so I, aside from being reasonably well-trained, at least have a huge advantage in the fact that I, you know, grew up speaking the language in which the exam is administered.
And that is a little reassuring, I suppose. But my second thought? Wow, if this Burmese guy who doesn't even speak English passes the oral boards and I don't, I'm going to be extremely embarrassed.
(Of course this is in no way to discredit those colleagues among us--my parents included, each Board Certified in their respective fields--who have tackled the extremely unruly language of English and managed to get through all the hurdles just as us native speakers have. I couldn't do what you have done. Bravo.)
grab bag questions
From the margins of my "Bored Stiff" book. Don't make fun of my scribbles, I'm just talking things out in my head.
From the margins of my "Bored Stiff" book. Don't make fun of my scribbles, I'm just talking things out in my head.
the ballad of the unsung hero
Many people probably saw this already, it was printed in The New York Times on April 9th, but just in case you missed it, I thought I should give it a little bump:
Doctors Remove Ammunition From Soldier’s Head
The reason I'm posting this is not because it's one of those "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" medical stories (even though it is), but it's because if anything redeems the much maligned field of anesthesiology from the jaws of modern day television, in which we are all portrayed as lazy, unfeeling, drunken, drug-diverting billionaires who don't give a shit about our patients and leave whenever the going gets rough, it should be a story like this.
An excerpt for those who don't want to click:
Nice work, Dr. Rengel, we're all proud of you.
Many people probably saw this already, it was printed in The New York Times on April 9th, but just in case you missed it, I thought I should give it a little bump:
Doctors Remove Ammunition From Soldier’s Head
The reason I'm posting this is not because it's one of those "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" medical stories (even though it is), but it's because if anything redeems the much maligned field of anesthesiology from the jaws of modern day television, in which we are all portrayed as lazy, unfeeling, drunken, drug-diverting billionaires who don't give a shit about our patients and leave whenever the going gets rough, it should be a story like this.
An excerpt for those who don't want to click:
...[A]s the patient, an Afghan soldier in his 20s, was prepared for surgery, the chief radiologist, Lt. Col. Anthony Terreri, took a closer look at the CAT scan. Stunned, he realized the object was an explosive round, primed to go off.
“It looks like we have a problem here,” he announced.
To say the least.
Maj. John Bini, a trauma surgeon and a veteran of homemade-bomb injuries from two previous deployments in Iraq, immediately evacuated the operating room. Only the anesthesiologist, Maj. Jeffrey Rengel, who put on body armor, was left to watch the patient.
The surrounding hallways were secured, and a bomb disposal team was urgently summoned. All electrical monitoring devices in the operating room were turned off for fear of detonating the round. To keep track of the patient’s vital signs, doctors turned to manual blood pressure cuffs and a battery-operated heart monitor, and they began counting drips per minute to estimate the amount of the intravenous anesthesia they were giving the patient. “It was taking anesthesia back about 30 years,” Dr. Rengel said.
Within a half-hour, the bomb disposal team arrived and confirmed, based on the CAT scan, that the patient indeed had unexploded ordnance in his head.
“They said, the way these things are set up, this type of round has an impact detonator on the front of the charge,” Dr. Bini said. “They just said, ‘Don’t drop it.’ ”
With that for reassurance Dr. Bini put on body armor as well, and he began the process of surgically removing the round from the patient’s head, joined in the operating room only by Dr. Rengel and a member of the bomb team...
...Dr. Bini said he was unaware an unexploded bomb embedded in a patient’s chest had been the plot of a TV show — a two-part episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2006... “None of that stuff you see on TV approximates reality,” Dr. Bini said.
Nice work, Dr. Rengel, we're all proud of you.
And also, you must shit ice cubes.
ok fine
So I ordered this dress from J. Crew to wear to the Boards:
It seemed like the chances that I would wear it again were slightly higher if I got a dress rather than a suit, and anyway, it's a pretty cute dress and it was listed in the "work" section, so fine, YOU WIN, AMERICAN COMMERCE. It may need to be altered (there was no petite sizing on this particular dress and I'm only 5'2") but even if it's a little long, whatever, at least it won't be slutty. I have black heels and I have a cardigan, so I'm set--add a yellow beanie and a pot of tea and it'll look straight out of Wellesley in the 1960's.
(I know, I know, there's a V-neck, but don't worry, I have no boobs and therefore no cleavage, the effect would be the same whether the V-neck was in the front or the back.)
So I ordered this dress from J. Crew to wear to the Boards:
It seemed like the chances that I would wear it again were slightly higher if I got a dress rather than a suit, and anyway, it's a pretty cute dress and it was listed in the "work" section, so fine, YOU WIN, AMERICAN COMMERCE. It may need to be altered (there was no petite sizing on this particular dress and I'm only 5'2") but even if it's a little long, whatever, at least it won't be slutty. I have black heels and I have a cardigan, so I'm set--add a yellow beanie and a pot of tea and it'll look straight out of Wellesley in the 1960's.
(I know, I know, there's a V-neck, but don't worry, I have no boobs and therefore no cleavage, the effect would be the same whether the V-neck was in the front or the back.)
this almost makes up for the fact that nothing here stays open past 10:00pm
So maybe everything is covered with gigantic blobs of neon yellow pollen, and maybe some people's southern accents are so thick as to be inscrutable, and maybe it's hard to find good a good sushi restaurant and even if there was, it wouldn't matter, because you'd probably have to get in your car and drive for half an hour to get there. But one unequivocal thing I have to say about Atlanta is this: in the Spring, the weather here is amazing.
(O snail, climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly!)
So maybe everything is covered with gigantic blobs of neon yellow pollen, and maybe some people's southern accents are so thick as to be inscrutable, and maybe it's hard to find good a good sushi restaurant and even if there was, it wouldn't matter, because you'd probably have to get in your car and drive for half an hour to get there. But one unequivocal thing I have to say about Atlanta is this: in the Spring, the weather here is amazing.
(O snail, climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly!)
i'm not sure what the point of this entry was, except to remind you that we were almost on a reality show once
So one of my partners at work is one of the examiners for the ABA Oral Board exam, and for many years now, he has been giving mock orals to the younger doctors in the practice as preparation for the real thing. This year I'm taking the exam, so he's been very nicely availing me of his time so I can splutter through my various stem questions and clinical scenarios, and revealing to him all sorts of embarrassing deficiencies in my clinical knowledge base, like the fact that I can't remember Thing One about neurosurgical anesthesia, and that I get the effects of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and anticholinergics all jumbled up every single time.
(Please note, it's mainly the words that get me confused. If I think of the actual drugs and classify them as "green sticker medicine" or "red stripey sticker medicine" I am fine.)
(Apologies to all, the above was some fairly esoteric anesthesia quote-unquote humor. As you were.)
Today I went over to his house after work for another mock oral boards session, and if there's one thing I learned from this--aside from the fact that when it comes to the Boards, pregnancy is a FATAL DISEASE--it's that grown-up people live in nice houses. Man, compared to his house, our house (granted, a rental, so we haven't made much of an effort to decorate) looks like two med school dorms collided with a secondhand toy store. I know we're young and we have little kids and we're going to be moving at some point in the near future anyway and blah blah blah, pick your excuse. But at some point, I feel like we're going to have to start living like grown-ups. When that point will be, I'm not sure. We had our chance when we were being considered for "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," but I don't even think that show exists anymore, so I guess we're just doomed.
So! The Orals Boards. A week and a half from now. It will be good to have them behind me. Passing them would be nice too, because, you know, board certification and whatnot. Which reminds me--oh shit, I have nothing to wear to this exam. Everyone says "business attire" but seriously, everything even vaguely appropriate is at least seven (optimistic fudging of numbers) to twelve (I interviewed for med school in 1998 and have not bought a suit since) years out of date and also somewhere irretrievable, probably stuffed in a box labeled MISC TOILETRIES. I guess I could get some new clothes, but I am loathe to spend the money, especially considering that I may well never wear a suit again. What do I look like, Hillary Clinton?
So one of my partners at work is one of the examiners for the ABA Oral Board exam, and for many years now, he has been giving mock orals to the younger doctors in the practice as preparation for the real thing. This year I'm taking the exam, so he's been very nicely availing me of his time so I can splutter through my various stem questions and clinical scenarios, and revealing to him all sorts of embarrassing deficiencies in my clinical knowledge base, like the fact that I can't remember Thing One about neurosurgical anesthesia, and that I get the effects of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and anticholinergics all jumbled up every single time.
(Please note, it's mainly the words that get me confused. If I think of the actual drugs and classify them as "green sticker medicine" or "red stripey sticker medicine" I am fine.)
(Apologies to all, the above was some fairly esoteric anesthesia quote-unquote humor. As you were.)
Today I went over to his house after work for another mock oral boards session, and if there's one thing I learned from this--aside from the fact that when it comes to the Boards, pregnancy is a FATAL DISEASE--it's that grown-up people live in nice houses. Man, compared to his house, our house (granted, a rental, so we haven't made much of an effort to decorate) looks like two med school dorms collided with a secondhand toy store. I know we're young and we have little kids and we're going to be moving at some point in the near future anyway and blah blah blah, pick your excuse. But at some point, I feel like we're going to have to start living like grown-ups. When that point will be, I'm not sure. We had our chance when we were being considered for "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," but I don't even think that show exists anymore, so I guess we're just doomed.
So! The Orals Boards. A week and a half from now. It will be good to have them behind me. Passing them would be nice too, because, you know, board certification and whatnot. Which reminds me--oh shit, I have nothing to wear to this exam. Everyone says "business attire" but seriously, everything even vaguely appropriate is at least seven (optimistic fudging of numbers) to twelve (I interviewed for med school in 1998 and have not bought a suit since) years out of date and also somewhere irretrievable, probably stuffed in a box labeled MISC TOILETRIES. I guess I could get some new clothes, but I am loathe to spend the money, especially considering that I may well never wear a suit again. What do I look like, Hillary Clinton?
one of these things is not like the other
I was driving the other day when I got stopped behind this car, which was, in the fashion of the times, bedecked with many an opinionated bumper sticker.
Now, this is not a knock on the politics expressed via bumper sticker. People certainly have the right to express themselves via rear window decal, just so long as it isn't with a "Calvin peeing" logo. However, it occurred to me that one of these bumper stickers was not quite in line with the others. See if you can spot it.
(Note also, that the hood of my car was covered in a fine dusting of yellow pollen. Welcome to springtime in Atlanta. I can't tell if everything is yellow because it is coated in pollen, or if it is actually my eyeballs themselves that are coated.)
I was driving the other day when I got stopped behind this car, which was, in the fashion of the times, bedecked with many an opinionated bumper sticker.
Now, this is not a knock on the politics expressed via bumper sticker. People certainly have the right to express themselves via rear window decal, just so long as it isn't with a "Calvin peeing" logo. However, it occurred to me that one of these bumper stickers was not quite in line with the others. See if you can spot it.
(Note also, that the hood of my car was covered in a fine dusting of yellow pollen. Welcome to springtime in Atlanta. I can't tell if everything is yellow because it is coated in pollen, or if it is actually my eyeballs themselves that are coated.)
now where's the part where the clucking bunny poops cadbury creme eggs?
So Cal had a good time with the Easter egg hunt, so much so that he asked if I would re-hide the eggs so that he could find them again. I figured, what the hell. (We ended up doing it three time.)
Good thing we're not playing that "Easter Bunny" ruse, or else Cal may have been tipped off by the fact that said bunny apparently does all his basket shopping at Target and somehow forgot to remove the price tag. That's because he wants you to know how much he spent, Cal! The Easter Bunny loves you $1.99 worth of love units.
Also, if you thought that it was bad enough that our Christmas tree is up, check this out...
Think of it this way: six months early for next Halloween.
So Cal had a good time with the Easter egg hunt, so much so that he asked if I would re-hide the eggs so that he could find them again. I figured, what the hell. (We ended up doing it three time.)
Good thing we're not playing that "Easter Bunny" ruse, or else Cal may have been tipped off by the fact that said bunny apparently does all his basket shopping at Target and somehow forgot to remove the price tag. That's because he wants you to know how much he spent, Cal! The Easter Bunny loves you $1.99 worth of love units.
Also, if you thought that it was bad enough that our Christmas tree is up, check this out...
Think of it this way: six months early for next Halloween.
because i feel the need to incorporate more candy into my childrens' lives
So I was most of the way through writing another entry, which was about how I went to Cal's class play post-call (the theme of the play was water conservation, and my favorite moment was towards the end, when they turned out the lights and all the kids sang "Purple Rain" while waving violet glow sticks--no, I'm not kidding). In particular, I was discussing how I looked and felt like a college kid after pulling an all-nighter--bed head, yoga pants, difficulty focusing on conversation--and how amongst all the real grown-ups in the audience, I felt like some kind of grown-up impersonator. But then I re-read the entry and decided against posting it, mostly because it sounded kind of pathetic. Hide your shame!
So instead I'm going to talk about Easter. Seasonal!
I didn't grow up celebrating Easter. I have no problem with Easter, it seems nice enough, but unlike Christmas, there just didn't seem to be as much of a societal push for the secular aspects of the celebration, so my experience with the holiday is purely limited to craft: cold, vinegar-y eggs tinted vague shades of pastel, wads of plastic grass glued to posterboard, and whatever else my elementary school art teacher insisted on. I had never been on an egg hunt, never received and Easter basket, and really had only the vaguest notion of what all else the trappings of the holiday entailed. Ham, right? People bake a ham? Oh, and also wear big hats with flowers on them. Wait, am I confusing "Easter" with the Ascot Opening Day number in "My Fair Lady?" Probably.
Anyway, Easter. Seems fun enough, but growing up as a Chinese kid in Manhattan, I never partook. However, now we live in Georgia, and Easter is a much bigger deal. I'm not saying people are ramming it down our throats or anything, like, CELEBRATE EASTER SAYETH THE LORD, but there's definitely a lot more, "What are you doing for Easter?" and "Are the kids looking forward to Easter?" than I had been accustomed to. And after a certain point, I started to feel like I was damn near depriving my kids because I hadn't made any elaborate plans to let them run around the yard looking for candy encased in plastic eggs. I was the enemy of fun!
So, this year: eggs and candy.
It was all kind of a last minute decision--the kids and I just dropped by Target this morning to pick up some of the more classic accoutrement (basket, eggs, "fun sized" Kit Kats), and we still have to figure out what exactly we're going to do with it all, but dammit, we're doing this thing. The only thing is, I'm not quite sure that Cal's going to buy the whole "Easter Bunny" bit (he believes in Santa Claus, but that's because we've always talked about Santa Claus instead of trying to inject him into the narrative midway through his childhood--also, Santa Claus is a human, with opposable thumbs, which makes the act of stealthily dropping off gifts and such more plausible) but Joe and I will just hide the eggs and Cal will find them. And, probably like Halloween, he will probably be initially really excited that there's candy inside, but then soon forget all about the candy and we will have yet another bag of slowly dessicating chocolate bars sitting high up on a shelf somewhere until someone mercifully decides to throw them away.
(Also, blah blah blah Rites of Spring Joyful Childhood Wonder etcetera.)
Easter!
So I was most of the way through writing another entry, which was about how I went to Cal's class play post-call (the theme of the play was water conservation, and my favorite moment was towards the end, when they turned out the lights and all the kids sang "Purple Rain" while waving violet glow sticks--no, I'm not kidding). In particular, I was discussing how I looked and felt like a college kid after pulling an all-nighter--bed head, yoga pants, difficulty focusing on conversation--and how amongst all the real grown-ups in the audience, I felt like some kind of grown-up impersonator. But then I re-read the entry and decided against posting it, mostly because it sounded kind of pathetic. Hide your shame!
So instead I'm going to talk about Easter. Seasonal!
I didn't grow up celebrating Easter. I have no problem with Easter, it seems nice enough, but unlike Christmas, there just didn't seem to be as much of a societal push for the secular aspects of the celebration, so my experience with the holiday is purely limited to craft: cold, vinegar-y eggs tinted vague shades of pastel, wads of plastic grass glued to posterboard, and whatever else my elementary school art teacher insisted on. I had never been on an egg hunt, never received and Easter basket, and really had only the vaguest notion of what all else the trappings of the holiday entailed. Ham, right? People bake a ham? Oh, and also wear big hats with flowers on them. Wait, am I confusing "Easter" with the Ascot Opening Day number in "My Fair Lady?" Probably.
Anyway, Easter. Seems fun enough, but growing up as a Chinese kid in Manhattan, I never partook. However, now we live in Georgia, and Easter is a much bigger deal. I'm not saying people are ramming it down our throats or anything, like, CELEBRATE EASTER SAYETH THE LORD, but there's definitely a lot more, "What are you doing for Easter?" and "Are the kids looking forward to Easter?" than I had been accustomed to. And after a certain point, I started to feel like I was damn near depriving my kids because I hadn't made any elaborate plans to let them run around the yard looking for candy encased in plastic eggs. I was the enemy of fun!
So, this year: eggs and candy.
It was all kind of a last minute decision--the kids and I just dropped by Target this morning to pick up some of the more classic accoutrement (basket, eggs, "fun sized" Kit Kats), and we still have to figure out what exactly we're going to do with it all, but dammit, we're doing this thing. The only thing is, I'm not quite sure that Cal's going to buy the whole "Easter Bunny" bit (he believes in Santa Claus, but that's because we've always talked about Santa Claus instead of trying to inject him into the narrative midway through his childhood--also, Santa Claus is a human, with opposable thumbs, which makes the act of stealthily dropping off gifts and such more plausible) but Joe and I will just hide the eggs and Cal will find them. And, probably like Halloween, he will probably be initially really excited that there's candy inside, but then soon forget all about the candy and we will have yet another bag of slowly dessicating chocolate bars sitting high up on a shelf somewhere until someone mercifully decides to throw them away.
(Also, blah blah blah Rites of Spring Joyful Childhood Wonder etcetera.)
Easter!
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