Month: August 2020

August 17, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I was talking to Mr. Plastic Picker last night and we both marvelled that it has been almost six months of quarantine. That is indeed remarkable. For Mr. Plastic Picker and I, we have had to go to work most days, shop for food and continue with life. But the two grandparents and our two tween/teen children have been at home mostly. We went to Michael’s once to buy supplies with my daughter. I walked to Sprouts with my son on Saturday to buy pasta sauce. We have taken the odd drive here and there to try to find a bit of green space to sit, or walk along the coast, or play basketball at a tucked away park where there has been some emptiness. The trips have been infrequent. We are always masked and mostly triple the social distance requirements. We still go on our exercise walks and runs, but we are lucky in that our neighborhood has spacious streets. We are able to avoid most people by playing a kind of pedestrian pac-mac. We did go to the dentist to get the kids teeth cleaned. I had never been so grateful that there were no cavities.

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August 16, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m rereading “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck. I loved Steinbeck when I was a teen. I think I read his complete works. But at fourteen I was reading mostly for plot lines. I was and am generally a fast reader. I read every word, but Mr. Plastic Picker was always amazed how fast I read. He hardly believed that I read as much as a did, being a college student of English literature himself. Other than the number of children I have, I tend to be a prolific person. I take joy in the actual number of our networth, the number of posts I have written (273), and the number of bags of trash I have picked up (260). I also now have salvaged 940 items. I don’t mind being my chronologic age because it’s the number of years I’ve lived. My maternal grandfather died at 107.

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August 18, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s Saturday morning and it’s just starting to get light. I worked a full Friday clinic and it was busy. Twenty-six families, twenty-six developing story-lines. Supposedly the appointments are segmented into 15 minute blocks, but life does not work like that. Anyone who has ever been to the MD office knows that the entire process takes much longer from preconception to the actual visit. I know the time with me is the end of a long process for the family. So I try to take my time and sit, listen and do something that progresses my little and big patients onto better physical, mental and moral health. One can’t rush life nor rush the practice of medicine. The actual schedule I am presented each mornings is only a suggestion of how the day will go. In the end, when they come in I see them. We get something done.

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August 14, 2020

by drplastpicker

I’m tickled pink (or yellow LOL ) this morning to be profiled on a fellow pediatrician’s blog DOCMOMINSPIRED. Her mission statement is to inspire the community around her. She writes on her blog “Every day, people are making the conscious choice to do more and be better for their communities and our environment . . . Doc Mom Inspired wants to recognize thoughtful, inspiring people. Hopefully, their words and actions will inspire you to move forward in your own creative way.” And with that, this creative pediatrician reached out to little old me to be interviewed.

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August 13, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I skipped yesterday’s Hopeful Wednesday post. I hope that as part of our blog readership that you don’t mind. I think we were all feeling hopeful and didn’t need my Hopeful Wednesday post. Senator Kamala Harris was selected as the Vice Presidential Nominee for the Democratic Party. There was finally a sense of lightness yesterday. I had the day “off.” Of course I still did virtual middle management work, but I watched her acceptance speech yesterday. I cried. It was a historic moment for Black Americans, Asian Americans and for me most importantly women. It’s a historic moment for climate activists. Senator Kamala Harris supports the Green New Deal. There is still a climate crisis but yesterday I felt a bit lighter cleaning at the beach.

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August 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I have a downtown condo. It’s super nice. It’s a 2 bedroom 2 bath single floor condo, that overlooks the trolley line in East Village. The street it overlooks is lined with mature trees with broad leaves that filter the afternoon sun. When you stand on the balcony of this condo, you can easily imagine yourself in Paris or some European city. It’s near a major ballpark (Mr. Plastic Picker is a huge baseball fan), and comes with 2-underground garage parking spaces. Most condos in the area now only have 1-parking spot. When I bought this condo, I knew that parking in downtown was becoming a premium.

From this condo you can walk to the Central Library, major ballpark, Convention Center, the East Village campus of UCSD, where you can pick up a shuttle that runs to the main La Jolla campus. The two bedrooms are well proportioned and the two baths are very nice size. The kitchen is tucked in the corner, but open to the living area and nicely designed. Did I tell you I love this condo?

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August 10, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Happy Monday everyone! It has been six months since our last MD Interview on this blog. Our last interview was Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-naomi-lawrence-reid-eco-conscious-pediatrician6/ who is still out there living an environmentally oriented life and being all sorts of fabulousness. I think she was recently on NPR? If you know me in real life, you know how hard it is to top Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid in my subjective ranking of people I adore. So it’s taken me six months to get enough enthusiasm to profile another MD. I think you will see the six months wait was worth it!

With this blog, I go with the flow of nature and life. I allow circumstances to tell me what and who to blog about. Life brought me back to one of our good friends, Luis Castellanos. Dr. Luis Castellanos, Mr. Plastic Picker and I went to medical school together. We are friends with his family (including gorgeous wife and three rambunctious sons) in real life. Dr. Dear Friend is their pediatrician. And my sister is good friends with their family as well, as she worked as a Law School Advisor with his wife. So our lives are intertwined in real authenic ways.

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August 9, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m trying to do what I can for AB345. It was rejected at the last committee hearing. The lobbying efforts including a statement from us as pediatricians from the South Bay of San Diego https://drplasticpicker.com/yes-on-ab345-press-conference-today/. I had blogged about my disappointment and the things I learned in what I thought was a light-hearted post https://drplasticpicker.com/ab-345-did-not-fail-politicians-failed-but-pediatricians-are-quick-learners-and-we-rise-up/. I actually sent a link to the post to the young policy analyst who I got to meet and a friendly neighborly note. “

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1. An Anatomy Partner Lost: What Would Chris Have Thought About COVID-19? https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/04/an-anatomy-lab-partner-lost-what-would-chris-have-thought-about-covid-19.html
2. How Ocean Plastic Picking Made Me A Better Pediatrician https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/12/how-ocean-plastic-picking-made-me-a-better-pediatrician.html
3. Fossil Fuel Setbacks Rejected by California Senate Committee https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/aug/05/fossil-fuel-setbacks-rejected-california-senate-co/
4. Meet Dr. Plastic Picker: Pediatrician’s Eco-Plan Begins in PB https://www.pbmonthly.net/profiles/people/story/2019-12-04/dr-plastic-picker

August 8, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I had a fun experience speaking on a virtual panel, as part of the HMO Family Practice Residency Didactics regarding Financial Planning. The residents had very basic questions about financial planning. I may or may not blog about it later. I thought I offered a helpful perspective being a woman and one in administration and leadership. The residency is predominantly female. My advice was very different than the men. It’s funny how writing organizes your thoughts, as I found myself parroting sentences from my various blog posts. They are my blogposts and my words, but it was interesting that I know I had written them first before I spoke them.

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