Month: January 2021

January 19, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I watched my KevinMD podcast at least 15 times, maybe more. Mr. Plastic Picker asked me if I was watching it AGAIN, and I got a bit irritated at him. The reason I was watching it multiple times because it was almost like my Plastic Picking Senior Thesis. My actual senior thesis in college likely only three people ever read. It was a year of futility because I picked a topic that would be doable within the year at Harvard, and not something I was passionate about. I was so focused on the mechanics of getting into medical school and not a passion. I need to remember this for my now 5 AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health interns. I need to find them work that they are PASSIONATE about. This is the only way to true growth and progress. I was not passionate about cleft palate and eugenics theory. I learned the mechanics of academic historical writing. I AM PASSIONATE about plastic picking and ocean beach cleaning, and physician wellness and management and environmentalism. I think this is demonstrated in the KevinMD Podcast interview. Plus, I kept on listening to the podcast because honestly I did not prepare for it. I thought I was very tangential as I was giving the interview. But the interview is actually the culmination of what picking up almost 400 bags of ocean plastic pollution and salvaging over 1500 items from the ocean/landfill and reploying it into the circulation of human consumption does to a person. This litter picking journey and ocean plastic pollution reduction journey for me has been about passion. I think that passion is evident in the podcast interview.

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January 18, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I think my work iPhone broke! Oddly I’m totally okay with that. I was carrying it downstairs this morning to start blogging at about 430am, and it was on top of two laptops. I was balancing the iPhone and two mouses as I walked carefully down the dark stairs. When I reached the kitchen safely, something plopped loudly on the ground. I was worried it was the mouse, but it was actually the work iPhone and it had fallen exactly horizontally planar onto the ground. No glass is broken. But it won’t turn on. I’m oddly OK with it. I have the day off anyway today. My work iPhone is the only way for me to check Instagram and udpate (or at least how I typically use my devices) or for people to text me. I’m sure it will start working when I replug it in, but I’m enjoying the work Iphone quiet right now.

My interview on KevinMD posted and I’m still in that cringy/shy stage after revealing myself and the blogstory. https://youtu.be/d4QVLqg7Okg or https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/01/how-ocean-plastic-picking-made-me-a-better-pediatrician-podcast.html I watched it several times, and am truly happy with it but can still be cringy. My friend Dr. McFrugal was right, Kevin Pho is a very kind and encouraging interviewer. In the end, my daughter and mom really liked the interview and that made me happy. I posted it on my personal facebook page and several groups I am part of. The entire point is to raise awareness about the plastic pollution crisis and environmentalism, so I need to share it. I questioned again why I am so open and why I began this blog journey, and my daughter reminded me that “Mommy, if this encourages one person to start picking up plastic – than it is worth it.” Tweens are so wise at times. And so it’s all worth it. The story is simple and straightforward and it’s mine. I should be proud to share it. I did look great on camera though! My mom liked my shirt. She doesn’t know that I bought it at Good Will. LOL.

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January 16, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I’ve had an intellectual breakthrough in the last few months. Litter-picking and Instagram and Envrionmental Activism has led me to think more about the world and myself. We are all inter-related. Being presented with departmental problems that are unsolvable and then health systems issues that are unsolvable within the framework given to us, made me realize that it’s the framework itself/ the system itself that has to be redesigned or reimagined.

I’ve found a lot of intellectual growth watching Chef Nephi from the Western Apache Nation, and his efforts to solve substance abuse through food. Food is in this case is actually medicine. The whole process of food, the restoration of the land that it grows on, the cultivation, the cooking, the community that eats it, the actual recipes and the stories that surround the food. Having come from a community and family whose food traditions have stayed intact for centuries, I know in my fish-sauce infused blood that I am intertwined with the fish that I crave and the water that produces the fish. This is why the destructions of rivers and wetlands and oceans panics me more. I am a person that has been bred near a delta, and raised on food that comes from the rivers and the ocean.

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January 15, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I am really happy this morning. I am really happy because I have always had so many kumquats in my life. Kumquats are a citrus and the kumquat tree is relatively easy to grow. It bears these small little fruits that you can eat the entire thing including peel. My mom has given me kumquats. Friends have given me kumquats. We have a kumquat tree and my mother-in-law always has them in a square plastic container of food from the garden that we need to eat. She puts it in the center of our large kitchen island to prompt the family cooks to use that ingredient. There are always kumquats.

But we should appreciate our kumquats because through the power of Ecosia, I now know that organic kumquats are $10 a pound. Isn’t that crazy? $10 a pound when I’ve neglected previously gifted kumquats. I know kumquat trees are relatively cheap as I see them at the local home improvement stores a lot yet the organic fruit is $10 a pound. We have two kumquat trees in our front yard. We also have a lemon and lime tree. We always have fresh lemon and lime, and now kumquats.

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January 14, 2021

by drplasticpicker

There is no way that granola is a health food. This is probably one of the great myths that has partially worsened our obesity epidemic. Growing up as an immigrant kid, I thought granola was healthy and it was American. Granola bars are ubiquitous especially with their plastic wrappings. I’m not saying that granola is not a perfectly fine food to eat, but it’s really a dessert. It should be used as a topping on oatmeal, or as a rare treat on top of something healthier.

I was inspired by my Instagram friend @lowwastejoy who was one of the first Instagram environmental friends I made years ago. We’ve never met, but there is a back and forth in the Instagram community that is real. Every time she posts something, I think it looks like a great idea. I think maybe because I know she is Asian as well, and maybe our thought processes through some kind of shared cultural experience and trying to be eco-minded is similar? I’m not sure what it is, but I often think her ideas are great. She posted last night home-made granola and I had been looking for a new granola recipe. One that I got from a friend was too burnt and I did not like the spices. It looked pretty on Instagram and we ate most of it, but it was for me a fail. I realized it was too burnt and @lowwastejoy had a recipe that seemed more gooey which is more to my liking.

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January 13, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I can’t even believe that I’m in the space to be able to know that Bobbie Flay’s pizza dough recipe is not the best. I can’t even believe that I am in the space that I considered buying more than bread flour versus 00 flour in order to make a better pizza dough. That we discussed with my daughter different rise times of pizza dough, and that as she explained to me as we debated a 1 hour rise time versus a 24 hour rise time. My tween explained to me “a longer rise time allows the ingredients to ferment and there are more complex flavors.” I felt privileged to be even begin to understand a little bit about what she was talking about. This journey has been about decreasing processed food, decreasing the plastic in our lives, decreasing the salt, and increasing the vegetables and saving the planet. Likely the other recipes use less yeast which is the most expensive ingredient, and made me consider another recipe. But I am all too pleased to have delved into the great pizza dough debate. For now and for this time in my life, I am done. This is my pizza dough recipe. Bobbie Flay – you are it!

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January 12, 2021

by drplasticpicker

It wasn’t enough to make an entire dish, but I grew it. I grew it all myself. The shallots were from the store but I saved the ends and just stuck them in some water. I chopped them up, and put the bulbs in my container garden. The radishes and beet greens I planted from seed in my container garden. I did it myself. I sold our Honda Odyssey Minivan https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-let-it-go-the-2006-honda-minivan/, turned our backyard concrete parking pad into a minicontainer garden. This took learning how to sell the Minivan myself and filling out the DMV paperwork. Then after selling the minivan, taking multiple trips with Mr. Plastic Picker to Home Depot to buy the containers and soil. I had to clean the entire area. I moved an old outside rug that had been upstairs on the roofdeck for over a year, and very dusty. I vaccumed the rug and carried the heavy thing downstairs myself. Then I moved the patio furniture around, and a chair over to my mini-container garden area. Suddenly a small wicker end table appeared, my mother-in-law brought it out from their stash. I bought seed packets of radishes and beet greens. I bought them because I want to start eating them more, and I read that they are almost impossible to mess up. And then I started gardening. It’s been a multi-month process. The parsley I tried got riddled with these unknown bugs and I have no idea what they are. But finally, yesterday – it was time to harvest.

It’s so important to plant things. I need to set a good example. I was standing at the local taco shop across from our clinic, and Dr. Dear Friend and Dr. MM and I were buying lunch. Then Jupiter Ascending was playing on the screen. That movie is a closet vampire movie about this god-awful sci-fi fantasy about people harvesting souls. It’s horrible and now a cult classic. I want to be a creator of life and I don’t want to live forever young. I am happy being middle-aged and wise (but with lucious hair from my new HiBar shampoo bar!). So I am trying to plant a garden myself for my children and myself, and to set a good example for my patients and the world. I honestly didn’t know if I could do it. Succulents that people have gifted to me in the past have died in my office.

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January 11, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I’m definitely more in tune with my feelings and my body. Last night I did 12 minutes of yoga before going to bed, and I was stretching my arms and reaching for the sky – I could hear cracking of joints and popping. I’m sure I’ve been moving my arms and body for over 40 years, but I never heard the sounds of my body movement. I guess I had never been quiet enough to really listen.

Despite being more in tune with my body, nature, the world and shifting my personality type (I kid you not) – I still have similar thought processess. I find many people annoying but without the blaming anymore. And I know there are many false gods and false people out there. Yes, they are still out there. Actually becoming Dr. Plastic Picker has helped me see some of those false gods more clearly especially false finance gods.

It’s no use pointing them out. In generaly it doesn’t do well to be unkind. We need so much kindness these days.

I cleaned up 4 bags of plastic pollution near Hornblend and Mission Blvd. I had seen the VANS store signage in the background of the news coverage of the riots. When I saw the VANS store sign in the background I was upset because that is where I sometimes walk in our neighborhood and my sister is named VAN and she used to buy VANS shoes a lot. I know it sounds silly, but seeing riot police in front of the VANS store triggered something. So I went yesterday and picked up four bags of trash there. I won’t post the picture again because I already put it on Dr Plastic Picker’s instagram page.

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January 10, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I love anyone who feeds me. I think this is true for everyone. Especially if you feed me home-made fancy waffles with Belgian sugar pearls (which I had never heard of before). The expresso had no sugar and no cream and it didn’t need it, because it had this lovely waffle to go with it.

I’m sitting at my kitchen table a bit later in the morning than usual. 7am. I have to drink my coffee first. I’m finally using the Starbucks Hiroshima Mug Nurse Lan gifted me years ago. I don’t know why, but I had saved it in it’s new packaging for several years. I’m not sure if I didn’t think I deserved to drink out of such a nice mug or that I wanted to use up the old ones. But at some point it seemed ridiculous especially since the house is so decluttered from our almost 2 year long minimalism streak, to not use something that was lovingly gifted to me. Also I have a Instagram friend FamilyThemes who always profiles their mugs, and it seemed to me we should enjoy not only the coffee that comes in the mug and the mug itself – which I think is her entire point.

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January 8, 2021

by drplasticpicker

Sending appropriate work emails is really exhausting. When you send an official work email that is some part of an official correction of workflow for the department, it has to be worded well. It has to have appropriate workflow departmental content. It has to be sent and endorsed by the right people. It needs to be written in a way that most should want to read. And then one has to forsee the nit-pickers and what they might say or reply, and try to avoid certain booby traps that the departmental nit-pickers or debbie downers will deploy. I had Dr. Dear Friend proofread my email yesterday and had read it to two different people before I sent it. It was better for the combined input. There is email silence since sending that work departmental official email, which is a good thing. Just one humorous reply of someone who likes to make me laugh.

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