hiking – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Tag: hiking

Coastal Sunflower, part of the native coastal sage shrub flora.

March 19, 2021

by drplasticpicker

Our family is on a short few days get-away in Dana Point. This is just over the border of San Diego County and Orange County. We picked our vacation destination because Mr. Plastic Picker and I are very by-the-book. The County of Public Health website said within 200 miles of your home for travel during COVID-19 pandemic this week, and this was the furthest we could go. We were thinking of going to Palm Springs or Santa Barbara, and I know that likely that would be safe. But we wanted to set a good example and we are rule-oriented but desperate to get a away. Mr. Plastic Picker found the hotel-room which was more than I ever imagine spending $350 a night for a two-bedroom suite at the Residence Inn Marriot. But are kids are very large now, and we wanted a separate bedroom. Given COVID-19, we also wanted a fully equipped kitchen so we could cook and avoid exposures yet still be on vacation. That essentially was our only cost, two nights at the hotel. We can afford it, and it doesn’t hurt anyone and does help the local economy. So Mr. Plastic Picker booked the hotel and we drove up not having any plan as to what we were going to do other than to spend time together. We left the crazy poodle mix at home with the grandparents, and our organic garden and composter. Grandparents although vaccinated are being super-safe still and stayed home to putter around the house that we are still paying the mortgage on.

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View I will remember from our hike yesterday.

March 17, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I love to live for the early mornings. It’s 6am and I have my cup of coffee in my Unicef mug that my co-troop leader of Girl Scouts gave me years ago. It’s an image of kids holding hands of multi-ethnic dress encircling the mug. It’s been 1.5 years of being Dr. Plastic Picker, and I asked Mr. Plastic Picker last night how old my eco-avatar was and he said definitely at least two. I looked back at my blog post and indeed this blog is only 1.5 years. This is evidence that this journey has slowed down time. It seems like I’ve been this identity for two years, but it has only been 1.5 years. Is it possible? It seems I have been Dr. Plastic Picker for glorious decades.

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First Christmas Hike.

December 26, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s not too late to create your traditions. The holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) were always a painful time of year for Mr. Plastic Picker and myself. It may have been for you as well. When we lived in Boston and had our son, we were still immersed in the university life and still trainee physicians. We had the MDs but not the salary nor the marketable skills, nor the scheduling freedom. Little did we know that scheduling freedom is really a mythical unicorn and does not exist. But every holiday the grandparents would disappear from Boston to New York City, as Mr. Plastic Picker’s sisters were in New York with their chaotic lives and the chaotic cousins.

On the holidays if one of us was actually off, someone would stay home with our then one child. If either was working, we sent our son with his grandparents to be with the chaotic cousins. I remember distinctly this one Thanksgiving when he must have been about two, when we both had Thanksgiving off and the grandparents were gone. We lived in a very small apartment and of course we didn’t know how to cook yet. Free Thanksgiving Dinner was provided by Crimson University at a select number of dining halls and we went to Adams House. This was Mr. Plastic Picker’s old undergraduate House at Crimson University. Honestly the dinner , although well made and delicious, was always kind of sad. Crimson University for all it’s glory was still a faceless institution, and we sat there eating with our toddler son as graduate advisors with a roomful of other sentient beings living their lives and really wishing to be with others that were not us.

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