Reimagined coffee cup lid from Dr. Dear Friend. It’s a puppy!!! Presenting Mr. Little Blue Puppy from a Coffee Lid
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.
“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?
It’s the fundamental ingredients that make a difference! Olive oil instead of butter or lard or palm oil.
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!
Yesterday was a “food waste” dinner, and it was very delicious. Friday night our daughter had made her first Pad Thai, and it was heavy on the noodles. She added a fried egg which I’ve never added. In general, it was well appreciated by the entire family. She had reminded everyone to eat fruit.
Yesterday was Saturday I spent a good portion of the day doing a solo beach clean up and I found a plastic cow stuck in the hedges near our house. I just looked online and it cost exactly $34.99 at Target. Not one of my most expensive finds (I once found a pristine portable speaker that costs about $150), but definitely up there.
Plastic cow’s journey
I’m trying to remember what happened yestserday? I spent most of the morning trying to clean Plastic Cow. She required a lot of vinegar, magic eraser, 409 spray and boiling water to clean. But she looks really good now.
Plastic Cow with Poodle Mix.
I was teasing our puppy yesterday with the Plastic Cow, and last night I realized that I ought not have done that. That was not a kind thing to do. But as I was reminded someone I love very much to remember to be kind to me, I realized that I am usually kind but my gentle teasing of our puppy was not kind. Now I look back at this picture and it isn’t funny anymore. Now I will use the cow for my social media work to remind the world and my patients to eat less beef.
What else happened yesterday? I went through our finances and realized we had reached our goal of saving for both kids’ college accounts to fund college. We had started 15 years ago and always made it a priority to fund their 529. There are a lot of personal finance bloggers that have written about having their own children pay for college, or taking out loans. I do believe the children should have “skin in the game” but given that my parents paid for most of my college and my husband’s parents almost sold their house to pay for his education, it seems like a dual income physician couple household like us should provide for our children at least what our parents who were working class immigrants did. We won’t fund all of graduate school though, because I do want our children to appreciate their education. I have told them that whatever scholarships they earn, it will mean more money for graduate school later. For those that question whether it’s prudent to save for college, all I can say is that in review of our financial history – Mr. Plastic Picker and I am glad we did. This is advice more fore high earninig physician couples, but the tax benefits of a 529 plan is quite good. We fully funded our retirement and kept on investing, but we put at least $10,000 a year in each kids’ college sometimes the max of $14,000 after becoming attending physicians. I won’t disclose the total amounts, but lets just say if X was the principal we put in – over the last 10-12 years the earnings have been X so essentially doubled in value. It’s a great load off our mind knowing that no matter what happends to us, there is money set aside for college for them. Most of the tax benefits are more those in the upper income brackets because the earnings are not taxed. We are taxed at a high bracket (which let me tell you I have no guilt about because we pay a lot of taxes and more than Donald Trump ever has, that cheat).
The other thing that happened yesterday, is our tween daughter had a busy Girl Scout day as their troop had a letter writing campaign to try to cheer up senior citizens. She was working on her history day project and my job was to remind her every 2 hours to work on her history day project. I talked to my sister a little bit yesterday and caught up on her life, and what my niece and nephew have been up to. I watched Star Trek Discovery, and it was SOOOOOOO good. Phillipa Georgeiou is the Asian-American woman character that is strong and complex that we’ve all been waiting for! Our son was alternatively studying, playing video games, and virtual tutoring as part of his public service work. And Mr. Plastic Picker was working an extra shift from home. And we ended the night with watching a movie about Ghandi which is related to our daughter’s school project. It was very good.
And we also had roasted veggies. I’ve made roasted veggies plenty of times, but yesterday I was inspired by a real and Instagram friend who had suggested added apples. So I threw togehter all our left over veggies in particular 1.5 bell peppers, 1 parsnip (it’s our new “in” root vegetable), squash that was getting bad, mushy apple, and threw in a third of an onion and a red fancy pear. Instead of my usual salt, peper and olive oil – I used olive oil, salt, thyme and cinnamon. The cinnamon in combination with the parsnip and red pear with the usual veggies was sublime. It was really really really good. The smell of the cinnamon and the unexpected burst of sweetness of the roasted apples and pears was surpirsing. I had an avocado that was toward the end, and I kind of made up my own guacamole having watched our daughter do it so often. I used salt, my apple-cider vinegar, and Trader Joe’s everything bagel seasoning. We had store-bought hummus, and some crackers and cheese. Everyone was fed with food that was simple, plant based and lots of colors. So much fiber was consumed last night.
New Roasted veggies with some fruit dish. I think the pears and the cinnamon really made the dish!
And that is it. That was our day. We had little dramas that as a family we all go through, and we are better for it. I got up early this morning with renewed hope, and was planning on making tortillas but I think I made a kind of flat-bread instead. I used whole wheat flour and all purpose flour, olive oil and rosemary. Whatever I made, it’s home made and healtheir and I just had one – and it’s very good. I was going to show you a picture of my flat-bread/tortilla project, but that’s okay. It’s taking too long to upload. Let’s just say it’s not perfectly round. It’s a bit uneven. But I know that inside there is such healthy olive oil and some wheat flour with more fiber. And since it’s home-made – it’s better. I don’t expect my tortillas/flat bread to be perfect and I certainly don’t expect my family to be perfect. Forgiveness is so important. Gratitude is so important. And those lessons I’ve learned so very late in life, and much of these lessons through writing and thinking my own thoughts on the beach, has so fundamentally changed me that I am litterally a different personality of the Myers-Briggs personality test.
And that is it! That was what happened yesterday at our home on Saturday. Roasted veggies with some fruit and some new spices, made a whole new dish. I’m off just around the neighborhood to get a bag of plastic pollution.
The brute force cyber attacks from a French IP have stopped, for now. I’m being more careful with the security of this site, because this blog and my work is important. Greta Thunberg posted on her Instagram Account a picture in Berlin with the following hashtag illuminated with candles, #fightfor1point5 . That reminded me that ultimately that is the goal. We are fighting to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees. We certainly have hope with the Biden/Harris administration, but there is still much to be done. Cyber attacks from France. All Non-Vegetarian and Non-Vegan lunches yesterday from Panera at our clinic meeting (I need to talk to RN Plastic Picker). At least here were no plastic water bottles. Two steps forward and one step back.
Mr. Plastic Picker took our son to a long awaited specialty appointment for a minor private issue. I had made the diagnoses for my son already (I am a pediatrician) but he wanted to see the pediatric surgical specialist, who happens to be a boy I grew up with in the South Bay and know from high school days. Mr. Plastic Picker was effusive about said former boy I knew from high school now pediatric surgical subspecialist, and my son told me when I got home, “It was good to have a professional examine me.” This is all parts hilarious for various reasons, and especially that Mr. Plastic Picker was effusive in his praise for said specialist. I’ll keep the backstory to myself, but let’s just say its one of those innocent highschool moments and memories that I hope my children have as well. I hugged my very handsome Mr. Plastic Picker yesterday and I love the two men in my life dearly. I live in my own internal world at times and find humor in the running storylines that I see everywhere. My family knows that about me now.
So for now Dr. Plastic Picker has eluded further cyber attacks, and a high school friend was able to reassure my son about his good health because said high school friend is “a professional” unlike Dr. Plastic Picker, who is Assistant Boss of Pediatrics. But we will leave it at that. It felt very nice to have my teen son reassured. At the end of the visit with Mr. Plastic Picker and Pediatric Surgical Subspecialist, my teen son did say to them both because Pediatric Surgical Subspecialist asked my son what his favorite subject was. He said to those two upstanding men, “Oh Dad. I forgot to tell you I also got the English Pin last year.” Our son had been awarded several academic distinctions but his favorite subject is English like his father. And with that the two men in my life left that office, and I felt good knowing a kind boy I grew up with cared for my son. And that same boy has a beautiful wife and family that he is going home to as well.
I’m definitely going to the beach this morning to get a big bag of trash! Its 526am and it’s pitch dark outside, so I just have to wait until there is enough light.
Beautiful image only my daughter could have taken.
December 11, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Yesterday was kind of a mediocre day (or so I thought). I had done a lot of work in the morning when I was up at 430am, sending emails and sorting out the premed interns and their work. But no special baking projects in the morning. I went to work and tried to see patients, and spent time with them in a fundamentally real way and tackling issues about food and diabetes and true wellness. Trying to practice the way I think I ought to practice, and not what the modern heatlhcare infrastructure tells me how I should practice. I was also trying to dodge COVID-19 and was upset for one moment when Nurse L wasn’t wearing an N-95 for a patient that had a parent that was positive at home. It was a scary moment for me, as I really do care about him. He was masked and had a face-shield on, and it was for a very brief moment. I had made sure he was not in the room with high risk patients longer than necessary.
Mr. Plastic Picker thinks she looks like Rosie from the Jetsons!
December 10, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Dr. Plastic Picker is under attack! Yes my blogsite is under attack by a random brute force attack outside of the US (actually it looks like France). I was very upset about this, but I did more research and talked to my brother (also voluntary web consultant). I learned that this is just a random brute force attack. The danger is that getting into our site they could infect others. But Dr. Plastic Picker when I am attacked, I WAKE UP!!! I started researching online about how to parry this attack and made some simple changes. I’ve made some changes to increase the integrity of this site. And in the end, what are you attackers from France going to gain? This site is about picking up trash and I don’t store any data. But I do have my beloved blogs I’ve written, so I’ll work in the next few weeks to back everything up. This attack made me so mad, but I guess it was meant to be because I WOKE UP EARLY TO PROTECT MY SITE and I also did more environmental work because of it.
This blog has always been about helping us live a more sustainable life. I had a particularly creative day yesterday making four mini-figurines partially from gathered ocean plastic waste. I had made them during one of our middle management meetings, along with a tofu container turned soap dish, an iPhone cradle (actually two), and a robot with a plastic brain. I was really pleased with myself and sent pictures of my mini-figurines to everyone and posted in everywhere on Facebook. I got some reactions from folks, and hopefully raised some awareness about plastic waste. I was creative at breakfast and sauteed some bell peppers and placed it in a warmed pita bread with a bit of real mozarella cheese for our teen son. I used to give him so many Eggos, and it is satisfying to give him something wholesome, vegetable-filled and non-processed after all these years.
Lots of thoughts this morning. Figured out why I’ve had some long-standing thought patterns about working-mothers versus stay-at-home mothers, and it has nothing to do with my fellow mothers. Like most working mothers, I’ve had some resentment of stay-at-home mothers who is actuality don’t really exist. There are very few fully stay-at-home mothers. It has to do with a little bit of resentment I had when I was eight-years-old. I started working at my father’s accounting office at 8 years of age, helping in the family tax business. We all worked and helped from 8-14 years of age, and also at my uncle’s All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet (eventhough we weren’t Chinese). Soon after that I began doing a lot of extracurriculars in high school and worked in research labs afterschool. The entire time one of my male cousin was living a more idyllic life and had piano lessons, surfing, and never really worked. I had really wanted to be on the soccer team, but who was going to drive me to soccer? But now I realize I am who I am because of those early experiences. Indeed I think my college or medical school essay was exactly on that topic of hard work. My cousin is now a cosmetic dental surgeon and has a younger former beauty-pagent wife with three kids who all sing. He is an upstanding citizen and who am I to judge his life? I am a pediatrician and Assistant Boss and married the college sweetheart who probably could have been in a beauty pagent if there had been one for men back then, and I am an environmental advocate who picks up litter. I have two kids, and that they are alive and healthy – as a pediatrician I know that is the greatest gift of all. But I resented him when I was eight years of age, and some of it was probably because he was a boy and in our culture boys got everything. Eventhough I was top of my highschool class, by mere virtue that he was a boy everything he did was oooh and aaahed about more. I’ve since set aside that resentment, as I realize it was a byproduct of a useless patriarchal cultural system that I no longer adhere to. Now I know why I didn’t marry someone of my own actual national identity. Wow.
