May Memories, Part III

 Finally this May, we have been busy about town:

The third w.eekend of the month, I submitted some of my anatomical artworks for display at the Second Annual Humanism in Medicine Night, "Rock & Scroll." The music, spoken word, food, and community were all very good. Then I met up with a spirited group for dinner with the medical school commencement speaker

Another night I met a friend for Puerto Rican food and then went to the Glitterbox Theater's 40th Annual 10-Minute Playfest to watch a friend perform in a piece that involved racoons stacked in trench coats. I have a new medium-term goal to write up a sketch I've carrying in my head for a while and submit it.

The fourth weekend of May was a little wet, but Dear Husband let me drag him down to the Shore Thing, a seasonal floating lounge on the northern edge of the Allegheny River sponsored by River Life. We didn't go when it was new last year and alas, we needed lunch, but they're kitchen wasn't opening for another week. But hark! We ran into another organist-physician couple with whom DH has been promising for 5 years that we'd get together, so we decamped to dry land for the drippiest wrap I've ever eaten and a strawberry rhubarb cider that didn't live up to my expectations.

From View Pittsburgh: "New art installation in downtown Pittsburgh called “Ogua.” Ogua was inspired by legends first told by Pittsburgh's Indigenous peoples to frighten European settlers, and later adopted by immigrant laborers drawn to the valley's riverbanks in search of work. It’s made of heavy duty wool felt, by artist Isla Hansen, who was commissioned by Shiftworks Community + Public Arts in collaboration with Riverlife and the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh's Tough Art Program. Funding for the project was provided by Let's Play, PGH!, a program of Remake Learning." 

Finally, DH and I rendezvoused in Squirrel Hill on a Thursday night for teriyaki and ice cream before attending the screening of a documentary whose Pittsburgh publicity I had helped coordinate, The Chaplain & the Doctor. Created by Jessica Zitter, a Jewish ICU physician turned Palliative Care doc turned filmmaker, the film tells the story of her relationship with Chaplain Betty, an older African-American pastor. While trying to ignore the problems with the microphones, I moderated a discussion with them afterwards, in which Betty talked about  being a clinician of the soul who has to find a balance between humor and prayer, and Jessica asserted that medical schools need to admit a different kind of applicant if we want to preserve the humanistic side of medicine.

In case you haven't noticed, the single most common kind of selfie we take involves ice cream.

It's now the fifth weekend of the month, and DH and I are resting, baking, blogging, enjoying the beautiful weather, and looking forward to the picnic after church tomorrow.

Click here for Part I and Part II.

May Memories, Part II (my garden)

On the way back from Maryland, I stopped to pick up some native plant starts for my garden, as I was itching to pull out the dead stuff and plant some green and some color.

Walk around the yard with me:

The yard guys pruned the rose plants to create these dramatic, top-heavy sprays.

I went orange-and-white for the planters around the patio with prelude white begonias and aloha kona hot orange calibrachoa. 

This is a fairly inconspicuous spot along the fence, but it's right next to the swing, so I'm hoping to fill it up with purple and greens. This is a combination of plants from Chapon Nursery and Terry from Facebook Marketplace.

The midnight salvia I bought from Lowe's last year--and last year's groundhog chomped to the ground--came back! The roots were still good, and this year's groundhog is uninterested. The white euphorbia ("hip hop") is new for contrast.

I pulled almost everything out of this bed last year (and the rest this year) in order to plant it with a kind of lily at the back and purple-blue Mexican something-or-other in the middle that I'm hoping will be colorful later in the summer.

Not much grows in the shady corner under the tricolor beech tree, so I picked up a flat of "wizard mix" coleus. I had enough to plant there and under the ornamental pear tree (no marigolds this year). For the stretch on the side that had been utterly overgrown with grasses--I spent so much time digging them out that I can't believe I didn't think to leave down the cardboard and just put the new dirt, plants, and mulch over top--I put "mango tango" anise hyssop and what might be fern leaf yarrow (I can't find all the tags). Out front I went purple and white with begonias, morning glories, and something else. Of course, the healthiest plant in the pot is a wild lettuce, no doubt growing from a seed dropped by a bird!

While gardening I listened to Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale (slow start and a little formulaic but ultimately worth the read) and our local NPR radio station, 90.5 FM WESA. I donated my banged up Turquoise Torpedo to them and finally got the letter advising me they had received <$200 for it. 😅

Finally, in the fenced-in plot in the back, I've given up on having the time to grow berries or vegetables--I mean, the deer could easily jump the fence, so what's the point--so I'm slowly cultivating what I hope will become a pollinating garden with natives plants.

Click here for Part I and Part II.

May Memories, Part I

I have taken so many more pictures than I have shared to Facebook over the last month, so I thought I would put some of them together here in a post written after eating a delicious spring-like lunch (salad and Triskets with brie; the secret is Green Goddess dressing). It feels so good to sit at the dining room table--while Dear Husband eats lunch and watches soccer in the next room--with my wet braid hanging between my shoulder braids, refreshed from a shower after three hours of trimming bushes and pulling weeds and raking up the long grass left by the mower, fueled only by NPR radio on my phone, since I skipped breakfast. That's okay: more room for a piece of the heaping strawberry pie DH baked this morning. It's my turn to have the kitchen for the afternoon: I will watch Persuasion on Netflix Legally Blonde on YouTube while I make banana bread with the over-ripe bunch I brought home from the office.

The first weekend I attended two films at the Jewish Film Festival on the Carnegie Mellon Campus. Validity is a Pittsburgh-produced film starring my colleague's sister as a scientist struggling with whether to use unethically sourced data about hypothermia collected on concentration camp prisoners. It's based on an actual person and controversy, and I don't know why the film's promotional material didn't name Robert Pozos's work at the University of Minnesota (perhaps he asked them not to?).

Meanwhile, Dear Husband was playing and conducting a choral service at church with the Schubert Mass in C (WordSung).

That afternoon I hung out at the main Carnegie Library before watching Disposable Humanity, a documentary about the Aktion T4, when healthcare providers helped the Nazi government sterilize and kill disabled Germans. Theirs are the only Holocaust victim names that by law have to be redacted, as if it is still so shameful to have been diagnosed with a disabling condition that it would be embarrassing for yourself or your family to have it known.

The second weekend I drove to National Harbor, MD, for the Society for General Internal Medicine conference. I didn't actually stay at the expensive hotel, having snagged a bedroom in an AirBnB across the street and through the fence. It was awkward if I had to run back in the middle of the day for some reason, but parking was free, and I could afford it without a roommate.

I attended a variety of panels--on reproductive health for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, treating osteoporosis, culturally competent nutrition, and fibromyalgia--and helped present a workshop on taking care of adults with Down Syndrome.

I brought a bunch of "I <3 medical history" ribbons to leave at check in and was gratified to find someone wearing one. (Even though you can't see either of ours in the picture!)

I had resolved not to play trivia again after winning two years in a row and then joined an unlikely table at the back of exhibitors from Team Health. Team Stealth ended up coming in 2nd place! 

After the conference I attended the wedding of my residency cohortmate. The next morning, I met a colleague for breakfast in Old Town Alexandria to discuss our respective books and then enjoy the art studios at The Torpedo Factory. After Mother's Day lunch with My Awesome Parents, it was an easy drive back to Pittsburgh listening to Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See. (It was okay.)

I'll leave you with a panoramic view of Pittsburgh from the back deck of one of the residents, who lives on the South Side and hosted journal club. There was a break in the rain just long enough for us to go out and marvel at the city spread out before us.

Click here for Part II.

Another One Ties the Knot

What a joy it was to celebrate a residency colleague's wedding at President Lincoln's Cottage! Built on a hill overlooking the Capitol in 1842 for a Washington DC banker, the federal government purchased the property in 1851 as a Soldiers Home, and other presidents have stayed there as well. The Lincolns used it as their summer home during his presidency, Lincoln developed the Emancipation Proclamation there, and he visited it the day before he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. It served as the Public Affairs Office for the Armed Forces Retirement in the 1990s, and there is a military cemetery across the street. After a big renovation that involved removing 20 coats of paint from the walls, down to beautiful hard word, it was opened to the public in 2008. Now part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, President Lincoln's Cottage bills itself as "the home for brave ideas."

The day was overcast and wet, but by the time the breeze had shaken the last of the raindrops from the trees, the clouds lightened and the sky turned blue in time for the brief ceremony, which was officiated by a veteran in residence on the grounds. Both the dog and the baby were well behaved. 

Instead was a beautiful vanilla cake with strawberries by Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe--and a really good chocolate cake with chocolate icing for the groom's niece whose birthday was yesterday from Wegman's, where the bride and groom ate sushi on their second date. However, some guests filled up at the cookie table, a Pittsburgh tradition in which friends and family bake cookies for guests to take home as their favor. When they finally came out of the oven, the pizzas from Timber Pizza were very popular.

I asked the groom's aunt to take a photo of me with the statue of Lincoln and his horse out front, in the food tent. Then we had a lovely conversation about physical therapy and Charlotte, NC. Inside the classical guitar player who had entertained us before the ceremony played, and in the gazebo on the side was a cover band. It was so pleasant just to sit and soak up the atmosphere, the music, the company. There's just one more of the four of us to get hitched...