chicago '08

we walked downtown last night. at the center is a huge green space with ancient trees and churches. as we cut through the grass, we found an outdoor screening of 'singing in the rain'. many families were watching, and a girl in her early teens danced along as Donald O'Conner sang 'make 'em laugh'. from the green, we walked in a direction I had never been and stumbled upon an entire street of mansions owned by yale. they were beautiful and quite creepy.

we went to an awesome indian restaurant last night. in a review I read, the owner was revealed to run the entire operation alone. you order from him, he runs in the back and cooks, and he brings food to the table. he must be doing well for himself because there was an actual waiter there last night. the owner came out to talk to us when we finished eating. Hugsband asked about his favorite dish, butter chicken, which was not on the menu. the owner said that if we come in and he's not busy he will try to make it. the dishes we had were awesome, among the best indian we've had anywhere.

I spent the day with 130 kids with sickle cell anemia at the hole in the wall gang camp. they were awesome, and Paul Newman is my new hero. the camp is amazing, better than anything I imagined. however, the psychologists who brought us could not grasp the fact that I did not go away to camp as a kid. (somehow a week in a dorm at band camp doesn't seem to count.) the staff tend to see medical issues as the only barrier to camp attendance. someone asked me, "what did you do all summer then?" and I thought he expected me to describe summers sailing in the Carribean or another acceptable alternative. um… I went with my mom to clean people’s houses, I played by the railroad tracks at the trailer park, I went camping in a tent with my dad, I read books. camp was awesome, though, and I am glad these kids had the opportunity.

I spent the day with the blue team at arts & crafts, where a Bob Ross-meets-Truman Capote type lead a painting session. he was some kind of genius; I left with a vivid desert-scape and a new appreciation for the color pink. every child produced a gorgeous picture.

I had to attend 3 parties this week. all were work-affiliated, which means they're more business than pleasure. the first was at a beautiful old home in a lovely section of new haven. the limes, served sliced alongside the drinks, were from the owner's lime tree at her place in puerto rico. I lasted about 45 minutes. the other 2 parties were in less spectacular locations, but they were reasonably painless. I stayed about 2 hours at each, which is quite good for me. The next scheduled event, and the most intimidating, is a "sherry hour" thrown by the director of the clinic. I really hope a sherry alternative is on hand.

I can handle the work, but the social obligations may do me in. I feel a little like the spuds mackenzie-modeled slurm worm on futurama who was forced to party against his will.

1. I scratched him when my foot rubbed against him on the bed. he said, "keep your feeternails to yourself," then tried to play it off as an intentional play on words.

2. he gets REALLY mad when he's taking a nap and I sing in his ear "that makes you larger than life," even if I use an inside voice. "BABY, sersiously, can you go in the other room and let me take a nap?" no.

3. he cried 4 times during the penguin movie and was impressed by his own self-control. he also barely giggled at the babies' antics. (that penguin movie was really good.)

Hugsband's grandma and 2 aunts are in town. we took them to the audubon center this morning because his grandma loves birds and not because I have a restricted range of interests. Hugsband's grandma is my hero. though she's in her mid-80's, she is very active and interested in the world. she knows about recent films and books, and she's very ladylike and tidy. his aunts are great too!

we saw many snowy and great egrets. Grandma D. sometimes mistook them for swans.

this guy was incredibly nice and let Hugsband use his scope.

delicious lunch from pepe's pizza established in 1925.

yale's reference library, which is like a beautiful old church for books.

anyone missing a skate shoe sized 11.5?

this is the view from the bedroom window, as I previously mentioned. when we got home from running some errands yesterday, there was a stray cat in the back of the yard. I ran towards it yelling, "HEY!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? GET OUT OF HERE!" then it dawned on me that it was shabbat and services were going on in the synagogue and all of the windows were open. today there are pictures of me with a swastika drawn on my forhead and the warning "beware of this anti-semite" posted all over the neighborhood.

Abe and Hugsband, standing near the compost pile, discussed the finer points of releasing squirrels in the rich people's neighborhood.

I went to OCD clinic yesterday. it will be one of a number of specialty clinics where I will see clients. I am supposed to call them patients, I think. the cases sound very interesting in a Howard Hughes kind of way. (many involve bodily functions.) I will have clients in the assessment clinic, outpatient therapy clinic, OCD clinic, newborn follow-up clinic, the inpatient ward, and the autism clinic. of course, each place has different paperwork and a different way of doing things.

on thursday, we toured the newborn intensive care unit at the hospital. just before I left for work, I retrieved a message that our very good friends had a healthy baby on Wednesday. what a relief to know that before I saw babies who could fit in the palm of my hand. some of these infants were only carried 23 weeks before birth. there were more than 50 tiny babies in that clinic. I put one in a teacup, took a picture, and sent it to Ann Geddes. my job will be to test these kids when they're 18-24 months old. a lot of them end up with cerebral palsy.

needless to say, I was exhausted when I got home from work on Friday. I slept for 10 hours last night. I like it though. I like the other interns and most of the faculty seem friendly and helpful. next week starts the autism training, and I will be on cloud 9 all week. relatively speaking.

one of the hospitals with which I am now kind of affiliated uses this picture to adorn the calendar page of its website. I am considering ditching the psychology thing and devoting all of my energy to rescuing sick kids from evil bunny clowns.

when Hugsband and I went out to a fancy lunch for our anniversary, the dining room was on the second floor of the building. out on the street, a clown on very high stilts paced back and forth. I could only see his hat and hair from our place in the dining room. it drifted in front of the building for the entire hour and a half we were there.

speaking of sick kids and not of creepy clowns, I will never interact with medically involved kids on a regular basis in my new position, but I am required to go to Paul Newman's hole-in-the-wall camp in a couple of weeks. all of the campers have cancer. ugh. I hope at least some of them have autism too.

I really am kidding.

I started my new job today, and it was very overwhelming. very exciting too.

here's the analogy I gave Hugsband: imagine that you really want to make horror movies. when you showed up for work, they told you that Dario Argento will be there next week to teach you how to make horror movies. dude, that's like my life. if you aren't Hugsband, insert the word "blockbuster" for "horror" and the name "Spielberg" for "Dario Argento".

also, Hugsband has a job at what is widely considered to be the best school in new haven. Abe, who knew I started work today, came by and talked to Hugsband on 4 separate occasions. I think he was worried that Hugsband would be lonely without me. in fact, he was productive. the screening room is nearly painted.