“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.
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.
One of my friends bought one. I thought about getting one. But do we really need one?
December 7, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Mr. Plastic Picker was sitting at the dinner table last night. He had worked another 12 hour overtime shift on the weekend. He was able to work from his home-office and the shift was not bad. I did not work other than catching up on a few messages and results. I’m really good about turning things off on the weekend now. Between Friday night at 530pm and Sunday at 4pm, really as an outpatient pediatrician I should not have to check my inbox. So I haven’t and it’s been fine. When I do check it, my brain is more efficient and I’m able to close charts and deal with clinical matters more efficiently. A good and focused brain is a really helpful thing. Plogging, eating a plant-rich diet mostly home-cooked, making trash art and sleeping better has really healed my brain. I was part of a UC Berkeley Premed Honor Society Career Panel yesterday, and I knew I was almost as smart as their undergraduates doing MCB (their acronym for Molecular and Cellular Biology). Super nice kids.
Bag #341 Total, Bag #20th for the month! The other is the recyclables.
December 6, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Thirty-three facebook engagements on the blogpost “I send my kids to private school.” https://drplasticpicker.com/i-send-my-kids-to-private-school-and-thats-ok-i-didnt-know-how-to-cook-and-they-got-organic-food/ OMG. Over 500 views on the blog itself. I try to write my truth and this blog helps me process things, but it’s a delicate balance. Mr. Plastic Picker loved the blog and if he approves I know that it’s appropriate. I do have to correct the mileage on his Prius which is only 100,000. Two-hundred-thousand-miles sounded more dramatic, but he corrected me in my error. But it’s good to have a more standard blogpost today. I try to share bits and pieces of our journey if I think it will help especially to younger MDs. In the end this blog is for the people in our lives and they are real making these decisions about public versus private, where to spend their money, and hopefully making some thoughtful decisions with the earth in mind.
Braided hair of the tween who goes to private school. She is a nice kid.
December 5, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Can I tell you a Dr. Plastic Picker secret? It’s not that our two children go to private school. Most of my patient families know that as I’m open about that when they ask me questions. I myself went to a stellar suburban public school, and had mixed feelings about sending them to private school. From my suburban public school I was probably better equipped then most of my prep school classmates at Crimson University. Dr. Plastic Picker’s secret is that I don’t really like many of the other parents who have also send their kids to our same private school. About a quarter I really like, but three-quarters I can’t stand. When I have to interact with those parents as a fellow parent, I sometimes question our choice. But it’s the price I pay to send my kids to private school. But now that I think about it, I’m sure every parent at any type of school probably feels the same way about our fellow parents. So maybe Dr. Plastic Picker’s secret isn’t much of a secret?
