Providence

It is Sunday night, I am doing my usual stuff for Sunday evenings: checking voice mail, trying to find my brain for the week... And it is a dreary Sunday, especially because I am not going to work tomorrow. Instead, I am going to a funeral, for Hubby's maternal grandaunt. I don't know Yi-Pao well, since I am married into the family, and she and I probably exchanged at most, 1000 words in the past 10 years. However, she is always so sweet toward me, and she always tells me how cute my children are. It is sad, because I won't get to see her at family gatherings anymore, sad that all the grandparental figures are now passed for both Hubby and me. Just. Sad.

Meanwhile, my voice mail is full of people telling me since Friday 5 pm: "I am out of my sleep medicine," "I am out of my sedative." On one hand, I am thinking: "People! I don't work on weekends. I resigned from a job because I don't want to work weekends. You have your pill bottle, you COUNT the pills, when you get down to the last five, THAT is the time to call me." On the other hand, "What a bummer. I deliberately did not check my voice mail at all this weekend, because usually I am a sucker for messages and I will check and return them on Saturday evenings, but not this weekend. Because I am feeling blah." Oh well. And now, it is almost 9 pm, what is the point of calling pharmacies? They are closed anyway.

If you read this blog: Do me and your doctors a favor, if you take a medication daily, check it on Monday to see if you have a week's worth, if not, call her on Monday.

The point of this blog was about providence. I am not sure how my rant goes with it...

Providence. Last Thursday night, I was on facebook, while checking my voice mail. (It is true, I am surfing on the web while I retrieve messages...) And I saw that one of my classmates from med school was in SF! I hadn't seen him since graduation! We arranged to have dinner, for me to meet his lovely new wife, and for him to meet Aidan and Zoe. Hubby and I love Steve. Of all the believers we know, Steve really stands apart. In med school, while he carried his textbooks and notes, he also carried John Piper's book next to his Bible, and constantly talked about "enjoying God forever." Steve simply loves God, and cannot stop talking about God, in a good way, not the obnoxious, please-make-him-stop-Dear-Lord, kind of way. It gets better: Steve has a heart for ministry, and is gearing himself up to work as a missionary, and his wife is right there with him!

Steve is also hilariously funny. For instance, he completely forgot that he came to our wedding, despite walking all around San Francisco and saying earlier in the week, "I have been here before. But why did I come here?" Then he saw our wedding pictures, and instantly remembered my brother, also named Steve, and the jokes my bro cracked at my wedding. These two Steves: absolutely hilarious.

It is by God's providence that I went to med school, his special plan that I got to know Steve- Steve and his sidekick, Dan, were the ones who told me that I would survive the upper extremity anatomy oral quiz, while I held my cadaver's hand and wept. It is still his plan that we get to hear about His love for His people through the work Steve is doing.

God is good.

Yield

I have been on a baking binge recently, it started with an obsession about red velvet cupcakes, went onto fruit cobblers, and now, madeleines. Hmm. Yum.

My mother is not a baker, in fact, she despises recipes. "Just add something to it" is her motto. My childhood was full of very stiff 'pancakes', or pizzas with cabbage and pork stirfry on top of tomato sauce and cheese. A good and disciplined mother she has always been, a gourmet chef is not my mother. However, I have always found baking to be quite interesting. How does baking soda make things puff up? And what exactly is the difference between baking powder and baking soda? As a high schooler, I often made various goodies for the concession stands as a thespian, and man, those things must have been DISGUSTING. I have to confess, I did all kinds of no-nos, like I froze butter, and then melted it in the microwave and added that to the sugar as the starting point of making chocolate chip cookies...

These days, I try to follow my America's Test Kitchen recipes as if they are organic chemistry lab assignments: my calculation of the yield at the end better come out to 99%. My gear for this has also gotten much more precise: when the recipe says an 8 inch diameter cake pan, it really means an 8 inch diameter cake pan. I am also much more paranoid about over activating the gluten (the horror!) and over creaming the sugar and butter (gasp!)

Does it make sense to do all that though? With two little kids underfoot, I imagine my time can be better spent elsewhere, I can make a list, and you will get tired of reading that list. However, I find it so incredibly soothing to MAKE something, and within a measurable amount of time, voila, we can eat it. With these kids, I do something with them, and I have no idea what the yield will be, and absolutely no idea if I will be alive to see the yield at all!

Meanwhile, Hubby got me exactly what I wanted for Valentine's Day: two madeleine pans. Dude, these things are expensive. Does it make sense, aside from the time, to invest money in this? How many madeleins will I be making to just break even? With tax- which by the way, will be going up to 9.50% in my county by April- my two pans came out to about $34. You can buy 26 Donsuemor (the brand carried in most coffee shops) madeleines for $15. I suppose after 3 batches (each batch will make 24), I will start to reap the rewards. Or maybe I should go into the business of selling madeleines. Yes, mine are THAT good. (Although, I did forget to mix in the butter in my last batch, and man, it was just saw dust.)


Or maybe I should sell cupcakes. Most cupcake places sell one cupcake for $3.50. For a recipe of red velvet cupcakes, I can make 24 cupcakes. The cost of the materials probably come out to about $15, the most expensive items being the cream cheese and the red food coloring. (I need to find a place to buy red food coloring in bulk- any ideas?) It is just outrageous that my batch of red velvet cupcakes can be worth almost $90. I know, I know, those people have to pay rent, buy health insurance, save money for a rainy day, and all that, I understand why they have to charge what they have to charge, I just can't bring myself to do this regularly. And believe me, red velvet cupcakes need to be consumed regularly. (Besides, when I make it, I always make extra frosting, and then I save it for breakfast. The kids will eat strawberry cream cheese, "Do you want the special PINK cream cheese?" And I get the "boring, white cream cheese.") I realize that I have talked about my disdain for dairy products, but cream cheese frosting is really a confection, not a dairy product.

Actually, when I was a resident, I had made all the staff some cookies, and I was told that I should make gift baskets of baked goods for money. I should. Just as soon as I raise these kids, finish the career that I am in so much debt for, and I can go make some baked goods for money.

Distracted

Hubby had to photograph an event last night, and I thought I would give myself a night off and eat out- thus, getting the food on the table was easy last night! The kids and I went to Target to get various necessities, and as we unbuckled our seat belts in the parking lot, I thought I would save myself some words later and said, "Children. We. Are. Not. Buying. Toys. Today. Absolutely No. No. Discussion."

Of course, the first thing we saw when we walked in were their delightful collection of branded band aids. They were not toys, after all. Except in Zoe's mind, she uses them like toys. You win some, you lose some- at least they were on sale. I did put my foot down and said they could choose from the ones on sale, but not the full priced ones. We saved 46 cents.

Anyway, we met Hubby at BJ's afterwards, and we had a great meal. The kids really like the kiddie meals there- Aidan always gets the sliders, and Zoe always wants the very, very cheesy mac-n-cheese. (It is interesting, that Zoe loves dairy, and Aidan is much, much more like me that he pretty much shuns dairy. Even though I offered these disgusting tasting things to them all the same.) What we don't like about the place is how loud, noisy, and distracting it is. I can barely hear myself think in there! But I suppose one does not go to BJ's for thinking.

After Aidan devoured his food, he announced that he needed a second burger meal. We offered him to have dessert instead, Zoe wanted a kiddie sundae, and of course, Hubby wanted one. So we got three. Aidan ate his, Zoe was slowing working on hers, and somehow, either Aidan was so distracted by the Germany vs. Sweden Olympic hockey game on all those TVs, or he was distracted by how tasty the sundae was, he just started eating from Zoe's bowl! She, of course, freaked out, "MINE! MY BOWL!" Then he freaked out, "That's mine! It was right in front of me." Then he got sad when he realized he had finished his bowl, but thankfully, Hubby "was full" and no longer "wanted" his bowl of ice cream.

Hubby went off to his photo shoot, and I told these cute kids a tall tale about Strawberry Shortcake helping the Transformers fight off Decepticons. It was a good story.

Professional Ramblings

Work is going fine, I think. I finally have my board certification and diploma up on the wall. My patients are very impressed- it has only taken about 10 months to do this.

Meanwhile, remember how I wrote a while ago about wanting to be a match maker for two of my patients? Well, I still would like to. If only I could do this ethically, somehow. Is this even unethical? I mean, if I lived in a small town, I could, potentially, take care of my hairdresser and my butcher. And you know, I could run into one socially, and well, somehow, be a matchmaker all at the same time?

Which reminds me, I pretty much run into a patient every time I leave my house. Going to Safeway on Superbowl Sunday? Saw a patient drive away from the parking lot. Shopping at the mall with Hubby on date night? Saw a patient gobbling down some chocolate. Going to Aidan's school function? Saw two patients there. Perhaps, I do live in a small town.

What is more awkward than running into a patient? Running into a patient while yelling at my kids. (Which is why I don't yell in public, I hiss at my kids.)

What is more awkward than running into a patient while yelling at my kids? Run into a patient who just stood me up and never came back. Who knows why, but I would like to think that this person just wasn't ready for treatment.

Maybe, being a psychiatrist and a matchmaker are just two sides of the same coin. I mean, I know these people, not just what they do and what they like, but what motivates them, where their securities/insecurities lie. I know what they want, and well, I really do think these two particular folks would be very complimentary. Besides, if they then need couples work, they already have a therapist that they work with! HA!

Then I wonder, what kind of unconscious process is going on here? What kind of projection/projective identification is happening that I want to fix things for them?

For the Medical Board of California: Do not worry, I am NOT going to act on these impulses. I will be responsible by remembering: First, do no harm.

Meanwhile, I had a patient ask me, point blank: Do you go home and make dinner for your family? Is that hard?

While I did try to talk about the process of this with her, "Does it matter what I say? It is clearly hard for you. Would my difficulty or ease make it any less or more real?" I thought about how dinner got on the table last night... and it wasn't pretty...

Q&A with Aidan

A Q&A session with Mr. Aidan

What are three words that describe you?
Aidan Daniel Our-Last-Name.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A saber tooth tiger.

If you had to be stuck on an island with only one person forever, who would you pick and why?
Vincent, because he is my favorite person. (He hasn't seen this 'favorite person in about six months.)

What grown-up to you admire most? Why?
Nobody.

What's the latest you've ever stayed up?
10. (NOT true.)

What's your favorite breakfast food?
Pancakes.

What kind of car do you want to drive someday?
Volvo.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would that be?
Disneyland.

What's the most important quality in a friend?
I don't know.

What do you do when you get mad?
Be quiet. (Also, NOT true.)

What are you most afraid of?
Nothing. (Pretty much true.)

What's the biggest mistake you've ever made so far?
I don't know.

What's the craziest thing you've ever done?
Take all my toys out and not clean them up.

What is the nicest thing that happened to you today?
I helped Daddy make a fort.

What is your latest achievement?
I am not sure.

Do you get stressed out? Why?
No.

How do you handle stress?
Just don't cry.

Do you believe in love at first sight?
I don't know.

Who do you want to marry?
I don't know.

How many kids do you want to have?
Two, something like that.

Perhaps interviewing him while he is working on Lego wasn't the best time...

Party On

I think there are too many parties for kids these days. Seriously, too much partying, this mother is worn out!

A sample:

Thursday: Aidan and Zoe both have exchanges for Valentines' Day- the valentines are already prepared! And I will go to Aidan's kindergarten V Day party in the morning. Aidan has a special performance for his Chinese School at 6:30 pm, and a little party following. I am pretty excited to see/hear him speak Chinese. He still does not do this at home, according to his teachers though, he is doing great!

Friday: Zoe has a party in her class at 4:30. I will be telling a tall tale about Chinese New Year's. At 6, we have dinner plans with family.

Saturday: Date night for Hubby and me!

Monday: Aidan has a birthday party to attend while I work. Nice.

Tuesday: Aidan has a Chinese New Year's party in his kindergarten classroom. I need to remember to bring mandarin oranges...

Just thinking about all this is tiring...