Vrooooom!

Oh, my little car, plodding along through these nasty winters...

On Sunday, little Fekete started being very, very loud. Kind of like it did, oh, about 2.7 years ago right before I drove it out to Ohio. Much like then, the exhaust system seemed to be upset with me. And by "upset," I mean "rusted out." So as to not poison myself with CO, I took it into my mechanic (The Lusty Wrench - best name ever!) today. I got the call of potential doom today after lunch:

SAM: Blahblahblah...so it will be around $580 if we're fixing.

ME: If we're fixing? You sound like it might be time to say good bye.

See, you need to understand that I drive a 1992 Honda Civic. That makes it 16 years old, with about 165,000 miles. But I don't exactly have cash flow and the ability to find a new[er] used car until residency, which is 1.5 years away. At this point in the conversation I was starting to be a little tachycardic.

SAM: What? No! I mean, if you want to sell at this point, great! I'll buy it from you. Your car is in amazing condition...I mean, apart from some surface scratches this is the best looking car its age I've seen in a long time.

He echoed that sentiment again when I picked it up this evening. And then, the assistant mechanic told me that he was shocked and amazed at how good my car looked "underneath." They promised me that it would last 1.5 years.

Which was almost worth $580.

Something about mature coping mechanisms

It is possible that my high point of today came when I got to say, "Your mother," to a psychiatry attending.

It was in response to a question ("What did we think caused psychiatric disease in the time of DSM-II?"), and it was the right answer (you know, Freud and whatnot), but it was still kind of pleasing, in an immature giggling sort of way.

Also, my main psych attending pegged the other student on my team as a surgeon pretty quickly. Today I asked him if he knew what I was going into. OB was his second guess. His first choice was Pediatrics. I told him that was nice of him.

(For those of you who don't know, pediatricians are known for being very nice. OB/GYNs...not so much.)

Before I go to the locked psych ward...

Here's a little note about the knitting I've been doing. Because I have been knitting, I just haven't been documenting it very well.

I finished Dad's scarf, but that darn navy blue just refused to photograph with this Cleveland winter light. Sorry. Imagine a cabled scarf, and that's pretty much the idea. The yarn is Aussi Wool, navy blue.

But look, Fetching! I modified this pattern to make it fit Brandon. Basically, I just increased the number of stitches cast-on, did an extra repeat on the cuff, and knit a little longer for the hand. I'm modeling them here because up until two days ago he was on surgery and never home. (Whooo! Surgery is over!) The yarn is also Aussi Wool, because apparently that's all I knit anymore. The man at the cute yarn shop near me sells it, and I like it. So there. Brandon likes his mitts, especially since it is very cold in Cleveland and we are cheap when it comes to heating the house.

And, lastly for now, a little baby sweater. It's the One-Piece Baby Kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting. The neighbor upstairs had a baby, and I figured I had yarn laying around that could easily become a sweater. It's CotLin, so it will wash and wear well. The neighbors aren't people I'd normally knit for, but I had leftover yarn that I wasn't really going to use for anything else, and baby knits go satisfyingly quickly. And none of my peers are having babies any time soon, so there ya go.

The shawl for Marie's wedding has one and a half pinwheels left to go (then blocking and sewing and whatnot). I've got two and a half weeks, so I think I'll make it. Speaking of Marie's wedding, wow is it coming up soon. I finally got my act in gear and bought shoes (silver! cute!) and reserved a hotel room near Dupont Circle for the night before festivities. I've started drafting a little speech in my head. Marie is making a hair appointment for me, so I don't have to worry about that. Now I just have to plan how I'm going to entertain and honor Marie in the 20 or so hours I have with her before the wedding. At least I'm starting psychiatry on Monday, which is supposed to have cush hours, even if it does freak me out.

Long time gone

I'm still here.

OB/GYN sort of surrounded me in business. And then we started scheduling 4th year (which kind of starts in March - so soon!), and I started freaking out about that. There's been some knitting (Dad's scarf, Brandon's fingerless mitts, work on a shawl to wear to Marie's wedding, an almost done easy baby sweater for the baby upstairs...), but I'm at a coffee shop without my camera, so there will be no pictures for now.

I do kind of have the start of a schedule for the first chunk of 4th year. In March, I'll be doing radiology at the bigshot hospital here. This is in preparation for the acting internship in OB/GYN I'll be doing at the same hospital in either April or June. I figured I should get oriented to the place before I'm really performing. Also in either April or June, I'm hoping to do a Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility (REI) elective at the academic center right by our medical school. Because, frankly, if I decided I wanted to do REI, everyone would be a lot happier (big $$, cushy lifestyle). In May, I do Geriatrics at the community hospital I've been working at recently. It'll be easy, but the real reason I'm doing it is because I'm missing the first few days of that block for a conference in New Orleans. The conference is the clinical meeting for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Networknetworknetwork. So, yeah, geriatrics. I'm not about to miss days of something that actually matters to me.

By the way, whoo New Orleans! I realize that in May Cleveland will actually be thinking about getting warm, but New Orleans will be way ahead on that front. Also, I'm traveling with two women I really like and respect. And we're all foodies, so we're going to hit up a John Besh restaurant. Because, really, how could you go to New Orleans and not?

But the real reason I wanted to write is because we're two days out from Super Tuesday (also Fat Tuesday, incidentally...SuperFat Tuesday?). I've tried to convince myself that I'll be pleased enough if Obama wins.

But.

It's not true. I know that policy wise, I'd be happy with him. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with him. But there is something inside me that wants to know that a woman like Hillary can win it all. I want the woman who works hard and is stubborn and is far smarter than most of the men around her and gets in trouble for sticking her neck out and understands how to work the system to make it. Because if she can't, I can't help but take it personally. A lot of things that people don't like about her are things that people don't like about me. And a lot of her strengths are my strengths. And guess what? I know that she's politically manipulative. Do you really think that she'd be where she is if she weren't? I'd rather have someone who works the system and then uses it to good than someone who naively tried to get by on her charisma and plucky spirit. And do you think that she's alone in her campaign strategies and manipulations? Or could the public react differently to her political scheming because she's a woman, and women are notorious for being tricky, manipulative, seductive, calculating...the list goes on.

Is she perfect? No.

But neither am I.

So, on February 5th, I want to see her rise up. And if she doesn't, I'm gonna hurt. And that's just how it is, right or wrong.