Dilemma

Not sure if I should be disappointed, embarrassed or relieved.

Thanksgiving 2010

Mom flew up for Thanksgiving this year! We spent the morning at Katherine and Sheldon's watching the parade, came back to my apartment just in time to put the turkey in the oven and then went to see HARRY POTTER while it cooked, we came home afterwards and stuffed ourselves so full that there was no room left for pie... until breakfast the next morning ;)

L to R: Sheldon, Katherine, Adeel, Chris, Emily, Paige, Leslee

(a couple of my classmates joined us for the parade watching)

Bday!

This past Friday was my birthday and Sheldon took me to celebrate for the whole weekend!

First, we started out by getting all dressed up and eating out at Gilt at the New York Palace on Friday night. The waiter actually called us by name the whole night (Ms. Redfield vs ma'am is actually pretty cool), had 5 different kinds of amazing warm pre-dinner rolls, and a wine list with 3 WHOLE PAGES as the TABLE OF CONTENTS. It was longer than most books I've seen. The sommelier picked out something sweet, bubbly and fruity for me because my taste buds haven't grown past the average 5 year old, and it was awesome. Sheldon even liked it enough to have a glass (which left him pretty flush faced and adorable, but with an upset tummy :( , eh he tried). I had scallops and venison steak, Sheldon had mushrooms and duck. Both of us agreed it was one of the top 5 best meals we've ever had in our lives. For two people who really, REALLY enjoy food and live in NY and have made a habit of going to Michelin star restaurants for date night, that's saying something! They even had a legitimately impressive after-dinner tea menu (again, for two people who's other food vice is tea shops - that's saying something!). After a thoroughly enjoyable meal and a surprise birthday dessert dish (with Happy Birthday written in chocolate swirls along the outside of the plate ! ), we walked home in the unexpectedly balmy night. When we got back to our apartment, we got into comfy clothes and watched the first season of Sherlock Holmes ( from the PBS series - only 3 episodes, but 3 whole episodes of awesome!), then went to http://thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/ and did the cipher puzzles there before hopping into bed.

Then, on Saturday, we hopped a train to Tarrytown where Sheldon had reservations for us at the Castle On The Hudson , which is - you guessed it - a castle :) . We walked there from the train station, because it was a nice day and only a mile walk according to google maps. Did you ever notice how castles, being fortifications, are built on the highest ground? Suffice it to say, it was a mile straight up, thanks google maps... About 30 minutes and 2 gallons of sweat later, we checked into our swanky castle digs, then caught a cab into town where we had a lunch of tea, mini-sandwiches, and scones with creme fraiche at the Silver Tips Cafe. Then we wandered the town a bit during which time I discovered that nail salons outside of the city are much cheaper than nail salons in NYC. After a few hours of wandering and one french manicure later, we hopped a cab back to the hotel and proceeded to watch The Golden Compass, National Treasures Book Of Secrets, and The Bourne Ultimatum from the depths of our enormous, comfy bed. Then this morning (Sunday), we went outside to play chess at the Giant Chess Board, and to explore the castle. There had been a wedding there the night before and we thought their centerpieces were cute so we took some photos for wedding planning purposes too! After exploring the grounds we checked out and went back to town for round 2 of tea, scones, and sandwiches.

Now, a short train ride later, we're back in town. I think I'm going to have to up my game for Sheldon's bday next year...

Back-Up Profession

- photo credit to Chuck (he found this, it is not a photo of him!)

Chuckoween

Chuck and I headed to Boston this past weekend to celebrate his 26th birthday (October 28th), to see the BC Eagles take on the Clemson tigers and to celebrate Halloween at the Cantab Lounge. Chuckoween is an annual celebration that started in college so Chuck felt that it was only appropriate that it be resurrected this weekend with his old college roommates. We got in town Friday night and met up with Jason and Dani for some cocktails. Saturday morning we were up and tailgating and then had the good luck to see Boston College upset Clemson 16-10 in their best game of the season, you will also note that Chuck is looking very team spirited in the BC pants I got him for his birthday... After the game we played a few rounds of beruit (aka beer pong for everyone that did not go to BC) for old times sake and then disbanded so that everyone could get into their Halloween costumes. I went as a member of the Tea Party (very scary), Chuck and Jason were pirates and Dani was a gypsy/pirate wench. We danced the night away at the Cantab (which Katherine and mom will remember visiting) and then finished up the weekend visiting Chuck's sister Liz (who is a senior at Boston University) and driving back home. It was quite a weekend!

Toil and Trouble...

Sheldon somehow talked me into waking up at o'dark hundred on a SATURDAY to do volunteer work all day at an elementary school in Brooklyn through a program called New York Cares . We were put on mural duty - this is now the wall of the play ground at PS 199 (aka Shakespeare Elementary on Shakespeare Ave.)

We were in charge of Macbeth.

Of course, we were very serious about it the whole time...

Go Lions!

Columbia had their homecoming football game this weekend. Apparently we are hurting for fans, because the school puts on a free tailgate for anyone with a ticket or student ID (before all home games, not just the homecoming game) where they serve complimentary beer, burgers, hotdogs and pizza! Who can resist free beer? Not us!

some fellow SRNAs: Geoff, Paige, Kim, Emily

Don't Give

Our local NPR station, WNYC, is having its pledge drive this week and it sucks just as much as pledge drives suck in other towns so I was groggily tuning out their requests for pledges when my bedside radio went off this morning and then I heard this:

This one is pretty good too:

Chuck's New Apartment

Chuck came into the city last week and we went to see Fela (a play) which was my awesome birthday present from him. Then we drove back to CT and I spent the remainder of the week up there studying. I did take a quick break however to make a little video of Chuck's new apartment, I know I haven't even gotten around to posting a video of my apartment yet but it will happen eventually!

No Autographs Please

Back when I was getting ready to apply to anesthesia programs I worked as a research assistant for the head CRNA at UCLA's Department of Anesthesiology. He knew I was applying to school and knew that I was looking to beef up my resume (I had, after all, sought him out for that exact purpose) so he encouraged me to write an article that incorporated some aspect of my specialty but that could also be published in the California Association of Nurse Anesthetists journal. I had a hard time believing that this would ever come to fruition but, not wanting to disappoint my new mentor, I agreed and put together an article on "The Importance of Effective Analgesia in the Post-Operative Cardiac Surgery Patient". It is every bit as dry as the title makes it sound (remember: I wasn't expecting this to get past his inbox) but I am going to make you read it (scan it) anyway because it actually got published! Dr. Griffis (the guy I did the research for) emailed this evening to get permission to use the article for an educational website he is constructing (he is one of the CRNA instructors at USC). Now I need to figure out how to reference the dang thing on my resume.

Canoeing As A Contact Sport

Cristina, Susan, Elizabeth, Leslee, Janna, Dada, Marilyn

One of the advantages of having your children go off and figure out how to be grown ups is the opportunity for us grown ups to occasionally go off and remember how to be children. Florida temperatures have finally stopped rivaling the surface of the sun and the open road was calling SO off we went to Mount Dora – a funky little town about 2 hours northeast of Tampa. We landed at The Historic Lakeside Inn, (established in 1883 and it is entirely possible neither the carpet or plumbing has been updated since) on Friday night, enjoyed poolside cocktails and hors dourves (thank you Marilyn!) and arrived at Juniper Springs late Saturday morning to embark on a healthy 7-mile river run. Inga, park ranger/canoe gatekeeper/sister of Eva Braun, tried her best to discourage the group….
“Ladies, you are aware that this is a very difficult run, yes?”
We laugh at difficult.
“You know there are two places where you must portage your canoe, yes?”
We show her our Body Pump biceps.
“You are aware there is a $5,000 fine if you are discovered with alcohol or disposables allowed on the river, yes?”
OK, now we might be a teensy discouraged but decide wine decants into nicely into water bottles (which Inga sells for $1) and make a note that next time we bring sangria… er... “fruit punch”.
Turns out Inga wasn’t lying.
The current was fast, the run pretty tortuous and it seems Janna and I have an uncanny ability to find EVERY LAST obstacle in the river. It was embarrassing, really… but the real “special” moment came when we actually managed to flip the freaking canoe. Yep… that was mighty special all right. Almost as special as the world class bruises we both earned.
Somewhere, I know Inga is laughing.

26

I officially turned 26 on Sunday (yea!) but I had to spend the day studying (boo!) since I had gone to Boston with Chuck earlier in the weekend. We had a review session after class on Monday and when I arrived everyone sang Happy Birthday and we had ice cream cake!

Emily (one of my classmates), The BDay Girl

Boston Weekend

Chuck and I drove to Boston this weekend to see Boston College take on Virginia Tech! Chuck went to BC and has been itching to get back for a game now that he is back on the east coast. We stayed with Jason and Dani (some of Chuck's college friends) in their cool new apartment and we tailgated with some of Chuck's old roommates!

Chuck, Paige, Jason, Dani

Nuck, Tom, Chuck

life.is.good.

Beautiful weather, perfect water, grouper sammie, a plate of onion rings as big as my head and a cold Corona (or two...) at the Rod and Reel.
It just doesn't get much better.

Here are the fruits of all of Paige's hard labor 6 months ago in the new vegetable garden. Thanks Paige, we couldn't have done this without your help. And when I say "we", I really mean Jeff because he worked on his 38 new jars of sauce for about 10 hours yesterday. As you can imagine, he, the dogs and even the cats all had a little bit of red on them when I got home from work.

Love Julie

"Roughing" It

This weekend Sheldon and I decided to go hiking and camping in Harriman State Park, which is conveniently accessible via public transit. We were only going to be out for 1 night... Sheldon and I each had 20 + lb bags of equipment, water, food and "emergency supplies" - note the intense knife in Exhibit A.

When we arrived at the train station before our hike, we began our "roughing" it experience by perusing the local farmers market and getting some delicious pizza, fresh homemade foccacia, and potentially the best cannoli I have ever had (Paige - this might be the Veniero's of Veniero's...). The trail we picked was recommended by the Boy Scouts of America for "young troops", so we figured it wouldn't be too challenging.

This was before I nearly stepped on the biggest snake I'd ever seen, that just so happened to warn me from stepping on it by SHAKING ITS RATTLE - AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. From then on we let Sheldon lead.

That was a little bit terrifying, but after my heart stopped beating a mile a minute it was back to enjoying the wilderness. Until we realized we had taken a wrong turn on our easy boy scout trail while being distracted by said rattler. We ended up hiking a harder, longer trail, but it ended up putting us on top of a mountain with a great view.

After heading back to our trail (thanks to Sheldon's map and compass, part of the ever present extra equipment) we made it to our campsite with plenty of time to spare. We proceeded with our roughing it by blowing up our air mattress pads and putting up our comfy tent. Then we rehydrated some curry from one of those overpriced but really easy to make tinfoil packets.

All said and told, our couch is much more comfy to rough it on. Plus, there's a much smaller chance accidentally climbing a mountain in between. However, I'd feel a lot more guilty going to sleep at 6p on our couch.

The Ultrasounds

This flyer just got emailed out to all Columbia University Medical Center students and I think the name is genius.

Eureka it works!

So I was checking my email after work today and John (the dad of our first Saltus student) had sent me this email:

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Katherine, Connor got a 100 on his first math speed test in school!

best ,John

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YAY!

Labor Day 2010

This was my last free weekend before school starts back up for the fall semester so Katherine, Sheldon, Chuck and I headed up to get spoiled by Dad and Julie and we had a pretty raucous fire on the deck last night that included about 4 bottles of wine, a late night trip out to the lake to look at stars and marshmallow-less smores:

Aunt Christine in NYC

We discovered that Aunt Christine was in town (watching the US Open) and demanded that she come meet us for a drink!

Processing Chickens

One thing Dad and Julie have been doing this past year is raising meat chickens. The way this works is that you order little baby chicks and they arrive, in the mail, when they are one or two days old: 10 weeks later they are full grown and ready for "processing":I have been present for the arrival of the last three batches of chicks, but I have yet to partake in the chicken processing part so when Dad invited me up last week I couldn't resist. You start by putting the chickens into killing cones (you can see these behind me in the first picture), this calms them down (allegedly) and leaves their head sticking out so you have easy access to their necks. Now the reason I wanted to do this is because I feel like I don't deserve to eat the chickens unless I could kill one. (Chuck pointed out that I was either going to come back from this trip with a new appreciation for chickens, or as a vegetarian) The next step was the hardest - the goal is to make a quick cut that severs the chicken's neck artery and they will hopefully bleed out before they really know anything is wrong: I could only bring myself to do this for about four birds and then I had to trade out with Rob (Dad's friend). Next the (now deceased) chickens go into a pot of REALLY hot water, which loosens their feathers. After the hot water they get put into a plucker for about 30 seconds. The plucker basically looks like a dryer but it has all of these little rubber "fingers" sticking out of its walls that help to knock the feathers off. Here is a picture of the chickens coming out of the plucker featherless (you can see the bucket of feathers on the right). Now that the feathers are off they get cleaned, this involved taking off their heads and feet and then cleaning out their body cavity. Last but not least we put them in plastic bags and weighed them so that they could be marked with the date processed and weight, the final step is dunking the bags in hot water which makes the plastic shrink down around the birds so that they look like what you see at the grocery store! It was an interesting experience, not my favorite but also not bad enough to make me a vegetarian :)

August So Far

I'm alive! I have not forgotten about the blog! Wow. School is time consuming. I officially finished my first semester, (one down and six to go) at the beginning of August and I have been out and about ever since. My classmates and I celebrated our success with a night on the town that at some point included a limo ride. The details surrounding the evening are somewhat hazy (note that I have my backpack at the bar because I went there directly after my last final) but I did manage to get that picture. I recovered from the revelry in time to fly out to California for one last night out in Manhattan Beach. I landed in LA on a Friday night, made my rounds and said some final goodbyes and then by 8 am Saturday, Chuck and I were on the road. We spent a week driving from Manhattan Beach to New York/New Jersey/Connecticut and I was so burned out from school that I was happy to sit in the car and just lounge for a couple days. The trip included a stop at the Grand Canyon, a Phish concert in Illinois, a wedding (of one of Chuck's family friends) in Virginia and a weekend in DC. I think Chuck's favorite part of the trip was discovering a previously unrecognized talent for negotiating hotel room prices (using Priceline Negotiator), his crowining glory: a 4 star hotel in downtown St. Louis for $50. In this picture he is demonstrating his prowess for both negotiating and Big Buck Hunting (which we played for an hour while the air conditioning in the car got fixed). Two days after I got back to the city mom arrived for her inaugural visit! She stayed with Elaine and me (we have a bit more space than Katie and Sheldon) and we kept her very busy. We met the Chans for lunch (Sheldon's parents), we saw Jersey Boys, we cooked, we saw museums, we went to a concert in Riverside Park, we toured Columbia - we basically didn't stop for 4 days! Thanks for making the trip mom!

Redfield Harvest takes shape!

Our Raw Organic Honey from our own Redfield Bees!

Come visit us at: http://www.redfieldharvest.com/

Nice Leotard

I have a pretty awesome Advanced Physiology teacher (and I am clearly not the only one who thinks so, as evidenced by her facebook fan club). She is really good at explaining her material and she is also very good about incorporating technology into her lesson plans to keep us all engaged. She was the one who posted the Mouse Party link for us before the first test and then, before the last test (which included the respiratory system), she sent us this talk by David Blane discussing how he trained to hold his breath for 17 minutes (VERY cool if you have 20 minutes to kill). She even goes so far as to record her lectures and then post them on iTunes for us to download and re-watch in case we miss something during lecture. So clearly this lady is on top of things in the IT department which is why it was hilarious when this slide popped up during her lecture last week:Before she put it up she explained that she can't bring herself to update it because it is just so ridiculous. For the record, the lady in the diagram does not need to be lying down to get the point of this slide across, there is also no reason for her to be in workout gear - especially not zebra print workout gear. But I can see how this one would be hard to part with.

Some NYC Volley

L to R: Andy, Alvin, Paige, Mike

I overheard one of the guys in my anesthesia program (Alvin) talking about a beach volleyball league that he plays in on Wednesday nights (the conversation went something along the lines of "I have a game tonight but I don't think I can go because I have to study" booooo. this is the story of my life right now) and I told him that I had played in California and to keep me in mind if his team ever needed a sub. Well we have a lull in tests this week before finals (a calm before the storm, if you will) and the two girls that play on his team are out of town so he asked if I wanted to play and I jumped at the chance! Who knew I would ever have the opportunity to play beach volleyball again?! Now I can't wait to teach them how to play Ace...

So Many Greens

Dad and Julie were in town last weekend and they brought me this goodie basket:Note that it is literally a basket. After taking a look at the pic, I realized that I took it of the back but I was a bit overwhelmed by the cornucopia, especially the mystery veggie on top that is roughly the same diameter and length as my calf (right down to the cankels). I have been diligently eating my way through it this week, slow and steady wins the race (thats what I keep telling myself anyway).

Meet the Chans

Dad and Julie drove down this morning for brunch with Sheldon's parents - we ate dim sum for 2+ hours and I am worried that I may explode.

Bryant Park Movie

Katherine and Sheldon pulled off our best hang-out/date night with me as the third wheel so far tonight with a movie on the lawn in Bryant Park! We watched The French Connection and picnicked (thanks for making such good food guys!) complete with scotch-o-roos... Mom, eat your heart out:

4th of July at Put

I escaped from school to spend the holiday weekend up with Dad and Julie. I can't believe it has only been a month since I was last there because the plants in the garden have exploded with growth since then - I especially enjoyed all the raspberries we picked, ate and made into sherbet! I took the train up on Friday morning and Friday afternoon we went to a local rodeo, Saturday we went to a flea market where we got a mermaid statue for the swimming hole and a swinging chair/table contraption for out at the lake and then on Sunday we had a picnic on the deck with Rob and his brother and brother's wife. Rob's brother's wife, Angel, made homemade bread, butter and cheese - I ate so much of this that I almost had to neglect the chicken (which was one of the meat birds Dad and Julie raised last year), the raspberry sherbet and the blueberry and fig pie Rob made... it was a feast!

Ruby C. Williams

Last Sunday I went to the funeral of the mom of a dear friend of mine waaaaay out in Mulberry, Florida which for a South Tampa girl (yes, that's "South Tampa" - Capital "S". Capital "T") is akin to driving to... say... Georgia for the afternoon. Way outside my comfort zone.. As I said, this is a dear, dear friend. On the drive back we happened upon Ruby C. Williams' farm stand. Now Miss Ruby is well know around these parts and within the art world as a particularly gifted primitive folk artist - she has actually been included in a folk art show at the Smithsonian which ya know, if that isn't a stamp of approval I don't know what is.... Anyways, Miss Ruby is OLD. Like old-as-dirt old... Biographies state she was "born in the 1920s" kind of old. As a consequence of her age, Ruby doesn't man the Produce and Art Gallery much any more, what with painting and preaching, but Lord Have Mercy - there she was! At the stand! Out in the middle of nowhere on Route 60, just outside of Mulberry! Well, we HAD to stop... even if it meant being a tee tiny bit late dashing back to the house to help set up of the after funeral luncheon... We had a delightful, if brief visit with the estimable Ms. Ruby and I had the good fortune to purchase one of her works that afternoon. See what happens when you leave town for the afternoon? Big Girl Art. (By the way, I did NOT wear flip flops to the funeral. The heels are in the car. promise.)

A Proclamation

Can't you just see the little men in tights blowing their trumpets to get everyone's attention so that this could be read?