What a horrendous day yesterday. I was expecting to have a Georgia Senate Election party, and had far-fetched dreams of making peach cobbler for desert. The senate still flipped but then there was an attempted coup in Washington. Seriously, as attempted coup by a bunch of idiots who were taking selfies. They were domestic terrorists which shows the world how stupid terrorists are. I came home after a normal morning clinic and having tried to deliver good care and actually to attend to departmental needs and concerns, and I expected to have a “We Flipped the Senate” party with Peach Cobbler in honor of Georgia. Instead I fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon watching live-stream CNN, as the newscasters just sounded like my Facebook Feed friends. I wonder if I can become a CNN analyst?
This dish was real. Easy and fast, and nutritious.
January 5, 2021
by drplasticpicker
COVID-19 is surging in the great United States of America. Between seeing patients and talking on the phone with families and catching up with them, I realized the common thread to all of yesterday’s conservations is that we are all living in this grim historic moment of COVID-19 infections and deaths. In pediatrics, we expect to see the wave of MIS-C (Mulitsystem Inflammatory System in Children) soon that occurs in about 1 out of 6,000 pediatric COVID infections and earily presents like Kawasaki’s disease. Our other Assistant Boss whose name rhymes with bong sent out a reminder to update our order panels with the labs that we have to order. I will do it today after the Pediatric Infectious Disease lecture at 8am. I didn’t give away some of my evening after hour clinic shifts for the next two months, because I know I need to be in the trenches with everyone else. So I’ll have my order panel ready as well.
I had baked 4 potatoes and 2 sweet potatoes last night. The house was cold and Mr. Plastic Picker was bringing home some Rubios. We mostly try to cook at home but some days are harder than others, and when my tween daughter becomes irritated at me – I tend to give in and just order out. Over the holiday we only ordered out 3 times over two weeks. That is pretty good. Last night was one of those nights. Our kids are doing very well, and I’m inordinately proud of them. I do realize the irony of it all. I used to think I was pretty hot stuff when I was younger, Crimson University grad and all. Now in my mid 40s I was annoying my tween who is an ex-preemie, who literally was trying to read excerpts of her Ghandi book as I was watching a romance movie on Amazon Prime. Earlier in the evening she was annoyed at me because we went jogging together and I couldn’t keep up, and after about 12 minutes asked if I could walk and pick up trash and she could finish running (she runs cross country). And then the Girl Scout project that we’ve been organizing together, she spent a good amount of time organizing it for the troop and is going to present a beautiful program today. Whereas I just cut out some slides from my previous Climate Change and Clean Air talk to the UCSD PRIME HEq program, and recorded what I thought was a half-hearted talk on Pediatric Health and Clean Air.
I spent the last week decluttering the house. Well, not actually decluttering but rearranging and trying to find more space. It all started when my younger brother had a leather office chair almost new that he passed down to me, and a shoe rack. I showed the picture of the chair to the kids, and they both wanted the chair. So began, this round robin of shifting furniture and decluttering to find out where that chair fit into our lives.
The chair ended up in my room, because the back is a bit too extended for the kids’ comfort. For now with a large body pillow draped behind it, it’s the perfect ergonomic position for me. My chair ended up in my daughter’s room, as she had always liked my office chair. Then her chair ended up in the game room built-in office space, and that chair ended up back in our master bedroom where I was trying to create a reading nook/yoga space. Then I realized that the large fancy leather Costco Euro-Lounger in our bedroom reading area should go into the Game Room. The bunnies were permanently moved from the Game Room onto the adjacent balcony that has a weatherized hutch. They have a huge space out there, and I have no guilt about permanently moving the two thriving bunnies outside.
Congratulations to me!!! Almost 8,000 people know the name Dr. Plastic Picker and spent about 2 minutes on this blog scrolling through on average 5 blog post. Most of those were here looking for Star Trek Fan Fiction! LOL. The top outsider referrering webstie was retireby40, probably because his website is the only one I consistently read. It’s Joe, and I like Joe. I get some traffic from other FIRE blogs when I comment and read them. Again with this blog is quality over quantity, since we are non-monetized. The traffic is mostly from facebook which I honestly know are mostly my friends, families and patients.
To the financially confused or spiritually financially seeking internet. I really have no clue what people read on this blog. In general, there is a good amount of traffic. A lot of it seems to be directed to my Star Trek Fan Fiction post of Trip and T’Pol from the Star Trek Enterprise, and the other hot post is one I wrote about Living Will and Trusts.
As I have explained before, I trust very few people with my money. I trust myself. We have a family member as our accountant. We have a very good trust and estates attorney. Otherwise, I have been our household’s financial CFO since 2009. This coincided with both Mr. Plastic Picker and I having attending level jobs with attending level salaries. The combination of my taking over at CFO, and finally making MD attending incomes contributed to that year being the year we started growing our financial muscle. For us financial independence has never really been about retiring early, it has to do with intellectual and professional freedom.
Pretty upcycle project I came up with last night. Hoping the other Girl Scouts in our toop like it.
December 31, 2020
by drplasticpicker
It’s been a tough month. For the most part our family was able to find joy in being together and grateful to be in good health over the holidays. But the last few days with my arm sore from the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and being fatigued kind of wore me down more than I expected. But the bright side of things is that I’ve started picking up litter around the HMO parking lot, and there is so much litter that it’s very quick to fill a bag. It’s oddly satisfying as I don’t have to walk as far. This gives me more time at home to focus on other things. I’ve committed to picking up 20 bags a month, and this month I finished early and I’m really proud. I’m going to end the month totals today.
Drive Through Car-Wash. Drive Through COVID-19 vaccine? Why not???!!!
December 30, 2020
by drplasticpicker
I got my COVID-19 Moderna vaccine yesterday on the 30th of December in the year of our lord 2020. My mantra in life is to be honest and I was honestly happy and I posted on my facebook page just personal one about my happiness and the requisite picture. It was a happy day because the four people I had worried about the most got it in the first group about probably a week before the rest of the department.
It was interesting that some people said congratulations. I’m not sure what they meant but it was in a positive way. But why do we congratulate those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine in the first wave? Is it for some reason they are more deserving? Or did they do something special to get the vaccine first? Someone posted outside of our department that they are grateful to be one of the first 2 million to get the vaccine? I absolutely did nothing to deserve to get the vaccine yesterday. I texted and sent messages to advocate for four MDs and their corresponding nurses to get the vaccine in a timely manner as befitted their risky work situations. I made no mention of myself. I heard nothing from upper management after my messages as Assistant Boss on behalf of those four people, but I know that my messages were part of a cacophany of messages they were receiving. This drama is playing out all over the country. The roll out has been interesting, but really we are just part of a large system and all of us are trying to make sure we are recognized and acknowledged as part of the system. But the slow wheels of the big machine are moving and everyone will get vaccinated lickety-split.
I’m just living my life. Living my blog life. LOL. I’ve been up since about 5am and had my first cup of coffee already. I’m naturally an early riser. Yesterday when I left clinic, I was already decently caught up on my charts and patient results. I will of course log in again today and clean things up. But this morning, I went through my actual personal inbox and attended to much of life things. Finished more board questions, and still have 10 more to do but I have 2 more days. Did a question on HIV testing, and remembered when we all were worried about an HIV pandemic in the early 2000s and it ended up being a COVID-19 and a plastic pandemic instead that threatens our common annihilation. This makes sense why we weren’t taking as much environmental action, because we thought HIV was going to wipe out the population. Who knew it would be plastic instead?
Thought about the upcoming Girl Scout meetings that is an Environmental Journey, and sent emails already to some women professionals who will be on a career panel, and I have a meeting set up to talk to our student Co-Founder of San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air later today. After we finish doing this youth education module for my daughter’s actual Girl Scout Troop, I’ll reach out to our council and make SDPCA available to speak to other troops if they need a professional speaker. Youth education is very important.
I was riding a high after the San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air website went live. https://sdpediatriciansforcleanair.com/ But I know myself that everytime something really good happens and a goal has been accomplished, I have this transient unease that is the down after the high. I kind of was ready for it, and modulated it as my emotions were coming down yesterday. I was probably a bit irritable afterwards as my daughter and I spoke about the upcoming Girl Scout meetings. But after watching a few mindless innocent Amazon prime Christmas romance movies and sleeping last night, and then just having freedom to think and let my wind wander this morning – everything is better. Wow, the quiet does so much for one’s brain and spirit.
What Grew? What Didn’t? I thought it was a catchy title given the pretty picture. Girl Scout Troop. My own children. The children in our Children’s Art Council from the AAP. Our three premedical interns, Our one graduate student intern. Other MDs who are part of the two committees, AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health and San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air. Dr. Plastic Picker website. SDPCA’s new website. Succulents in my makeshift container garden doing great. The parsley that got bug ridden because I watered it at night. The composter that I’m still learning how to master. I think it’s working but sometimes a mushroom pops up in there, and I need to add more kitchen scraps. What Grew? What Didn’t? I think it’s all kind of growing. All the seeds and little movements toward a greener world. I’m not too worried. It seems to be all kind of growing and isn’t that what a healthy ecosystem is, growth and decay, trial and error. My environmentalism is not orderly but than again neither is nature.
Gorgeous view in La Jolla I never apprecaited before. We’ll go on another hike again today because I’m actually OFF this afternoon and I’m master of my own time when I’m OFF, as we all should be. Plus our kids are on vacation.
Someone I love very much after a socially distanced and masked walk as I walked mostly 12 feet behind. The older I get, the more I realize I am so much like him. I did some yoga last night trying to center myself.
This blog is a mishmosh of trash art, cooking, climate activism, self-reflection and personal finance blogging. It’s a jumbled mess because that is what my real life is, a jumbled beautiful mess or people, committees and tangential things I think about in the early mornings as I blog. I think mostly I come to the blog to clear my mind by putting my often jumbled thoughts into prose, and somehow it makes the world make more sense.
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