December 23, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I absolutely cannot believe it’s Wednesday again, and I cannot believe Christmas is in two days. I had chatted with an old high school friend a few days ago, gathering donations for Toys 4 Tots, and she mentioned that someone told her that “it’s okay to be off.” Dr. Plastic Picker completely agrees. It is absolutely okay to be OFF, and this Christmas everyone is a bit OFF. Case in point, the kids have no desire to decorate our thrice-handed down artificial tree with their hand-made school ornaments that I’ve always cherished. It’s one of those moments that I love and always post some pictures on Facebook. They were into making the Gingerbread House which looked like someone vomited on it, but not the tree. Tells you something about being a tween/teen, and the state of their dystopian minds. I tell you, their generation is different – very dystopian and I think very much due to the state of the planetary ecologic collapse.

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December 22, 2020

by drplasticpicker

This is Blue Fluffy Bird. He is made from an upcycled car-wash mop that was pretty clean I found on a litter picking walk, but then also cleaned again several times by me. I could have just kept the now cleaned car-hand mop in my car, but the fluffy blue bits were speaking to me. It was just too interesting to pass up. I initially made a shirt for my daughter’s old Diego toy. But then magically by wrapping the blue fluffy polyester oil-based material around a wine-cork, and then using the safety scissor covers as the beak, I had the head of a new species of bird. It’s a plastic bird. I won’t go into the rest of the plastic bits that make up the bird, because I detailed it already on Instagram. But this bird inspired a lot of amazement and wonder, but also intense disgust in some people. It’s amazing because I cleaned it all – I know this bird is cleaner than most toys out there. But it still inspired a lot of intense emotion.

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December 21, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Mr. Plastic Picker’s mother turned 80 this weekend and we had a small family party. Our small family party included buying a pumpkin pie from Sprouts (we had all been wanting to eat one for a while and there was very little plastic), singing Happy Birthday while our tween daughter played on the piano, and shooting the requisite pictures to send to family members. We then ended by eating said pumpkin pie before dinner which is pure luxuriousness. It was a standard 9 inch pumpkin pie so just enough for everyone in our 6 person family (excluding pets who can’t eat pie) to have one piece and an extra bite.

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December 20, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I was a bit despondent about the state of the COVID-19 vaccine roll out in our particular institution and in the country, probably felt like the trash art piece I made from bottle caps yesterday. Looking. Looking. Where is my vaccine? But then I read an article in the New York Times about how the wealthy countries including ours have ensured that rich countries will be vaccinated first and the poor will be last. It was all kind of depressing.

But if there is anything that Dr. Plastic Picker is good at, it’s compartmentalizing things. What happens in our institution will happen. We will get ours in due time, and both Mr. Plastic Picker and I don’t want to tempt fate. We actually would rather get the Moderna vaccine simply because it sounds better, Moderna sounds more modern. And regarding the inequity of poor versus rich countries and echoes of colonialism, wow – I can’t do anything about that right now.

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December 19, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Exercise is important. I haven’t blogged about exercise other than plogging much because I self-identified as a runnter for over 30 years in my life. Exercise like managing my finances has always been easy for me. I’ve trained for marathons, run more than my fair share of half-marathons – and my fastest mile time is not bad at 5 minutes 15 seconds (I think). My half marathon time was also very decent, but it’s not important anymore. I didn’t blog about exercise because I needed to learn more about the earth, mindfulness, stretching my body, centering mt body through yoga, slowing my mind enough to notice the birds (there is one perched on our hammock right now a Black Phoebe) and actually I really needed to figure out how to cook. Above was yesterday’s project which was a Vegan Omelette with Besan (chickpea flour) which was a success.

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December 18, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I wasn’t sure if I was going to log-in last night to the virtual reunion for our pediatric residency at Mans Greatest Hospital. I thought I needed to go for a run or pick up a bag of plastic pollution, but honestly the pull of seeing some old friends so easily without spewing carbon into the air was too tempting. So I logged in a few minutes late (not to seem too eager), and I was thrust back in time. Even without the glory of the marble facade of Mans Greatest Hospital, the tone of the meeting was the same as over a decade ago. A lot of older white men reliving their glory days and syncophantic individuals in their 50s nodding obsequiously. Politicing when so little is at stake. I sat and watched with a bemused Dr. Plastic Picker smile from Southern California as they huddled buried in snow. The older generation and the generation in their 50s all looked so cold in more ways than one. Messages of former remembered clinical glories peppered the chat box for all to see. Then finally, the breakout sessions which is the only reason I logged on.

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December 17, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I am a trash artist. I am a trash artivist. I just posted my items and almost opened an Etsy Shop LOL, but they wanted the last four digits of my social security number so I shut down Dr. Plastic Picker’s Toy Shop after 5 minutes. That was vaguely interesting! But Dr. Plastic Picker’s Toy Shop is actually open, and it’s open in my actual office. All items are FREE but only to invited guests into my office. When Etsy wanted the last 4 digits of my social security number and I know that Etsy shops are a bit of a scam, as the makers make very little, and Etsy makes a lot. I remember reading an article in the New York Times or CNN on some expose. I’m not surprised.

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December 17, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m never sure how the mornings are going to go. I was thinking when I woke up this morning, I may not write a blog because I felt overwhelmed last night. I had met with the amazing students at Sustainable Pharmacy Project at Virginia Communwealth University (I am the “spiritual volunary non-faculty advisor) and they are working on this supercool student initiated project on pharmaceutical waste. I really want to help them with this project that will help the earth, and also help our HMO get there as well. I had no idea that there were so many medications in the water supply. It makes a lot of sense to me to reduce overprescribing and ensuring safe disposal of medication waste. Then I have our two other premedical interns that were kind of floating out there. But I sent three emails to one, as we are going to organize a film screening of the movie “Gather” and that will be his project for now. And then I emailed our other intern who is more quiet, about setting up a time to catch up on the art’s exhibition.

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December 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

“I’m OK.” We use this reply so much. Your supervisor essentially called you out and reprimanded you unnecessarily and incorrectly (not my department) and you said, “I’m OKAY.” Your beloved aunt is now dying of pancreatic cancer, and you say “I’m OK.” Your family is in big financial doo doo partially due to personal decisions and mostly due to larger societal factors, and you reply “I’m OKAY.” It’s the first holiday season since someone died, and you are sleeping in a crappy call room eating crappy turkey from the cafeteria while COVID-19 is ravaging the ICU. How are you doing? “I’m OK.” But Dr. Plastic Picker now asks, are you really? Are you really OK?

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December 14, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It happened. I made my own tortillas yesterday and our tween daughter approved. That is saying a lot. It was made with partial whole what flour and olive oil, instead of butter or lard or the worse is all those hidden ingredients that actually come from palm oil and hurt the orangatangs. Some things I’ve made on this less-plastic life journey are not sustainable. I’ve decided today to forgo the apple cider vinegar. The beer vinegar is fine for me to make to clean with, but the third batch went moldy again. That is fine. I made one batch that worked, it just took too much time to monitor the vinegar. But the tortillas. The whole-wheat tortillas! This is definitely a keeper!

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