Month: September 2018

Great Murdoch cartoon in the paper this morning. I remember trying to persuade my Mum to have a mammogram years ago. I’d just had one, and I told her it didn’t hurt at all. “Well, of course not” she sniffed “your boobs are tiny!” Ouch. Thanks Mum. This was before hate speech was illegal of course.

As an aside – poor Clare Curran. Hard to come back from having a stroke on live TV.

Wearing my green theatre hat today in honour of my friend and colleague NM who complimented me this morning on the flattering shade of green of my dress. This shade is quite different, of course, being rather lurid – but it’s the thought that counts. It’s funny, we dress to impress when we come to work – have to show our patients we are serious and important people who are worth every penny we charge them – but then we spend most of our day in navy pajamas.

Some days I catch an unexpected  glimpse of my reflection – in a window, for example – and recoil at my hideousness. Other times, I see myself and think “Hmmm – not too shabby “. I’m guessing that it’s actually psychologically impossible to be objective about your own appearance. The lucky thing is that as you get older, you just forget to care. I seem to remember the perpetual self consciousness – thinking about how you look, the dumb things you say, and worrying about how you appear to others – as being one of the more tiresome aspects of being a teenager. So painful, such a pointless waste of time and brainpower. Nowadays I tend to have the opposite problem – I get home at the end of the day to find I haven’t looked in the mirror once, and subsequently discover there’s a giant bogie hanging off the end of my nose; or spinach or other unidentified but colourful piece of food stuck in my teeth. I have other things to worry about these days; like, trying to pretend I know what I’m doing at work. On a good day, I’ll think this is imposter syndrome. On a bad day,  I know it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m just waiting to be found out.

Just finished reading “The House of Silk” by Anthony Horowitz. It’s a Sherlock Holmes novel that the Doyle family estate commissioned the author to write, and he’s done a very good job of it. Highly recommended. I managed to have figured  out about a third of what was going on by the time of the denouement, which is doing very well for me. I love detective fiction, but I never have any idea “whodunnit “. I’m just along for the ride, fall for all the red herrings, and end up suspecting every character in the book at least once. Now that I’m done, I have no excuse not to get started on my CICO course prereading, have to be ready before I face that damn sheep on Thursday.

Wut

My pick for the anonymous author of the Failing New York Times explosive op ed article the other day is Marlon Bundo. After all, Trump called Mike Pence weak for bringing his little bunny wabbit to Washington with him – and Marlon has already written a book about his time in the administration.

You heard it here first.

#lodestar

Trying an RTD left over from a party the girls threw a while ago. (Did we say no alcohol? I think we did…)

It’s disgusting – ugh. Not finishing that. In my day we didn’t have RTDs, except maybe Miami wine cooler, if that counts? It was much nicer, if my memory serves me correctly – which it probably doesn’t.

I’m enjoying writing this blog. It feels like I’m talking to myself most of the time. I do worry, though, that I may gradually start to drift over the line of what’s acceptable. Clearly, posting nude selfies would be way over the line, but somewhere between that and “I watch teen romcoms” is a boundary that I hope I would recognize – and if not, I’m hoping someone else would, and would let me know. I hope you are feeling up to the task. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a practicing certificate.

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately. I’ve watched two high school romances in the last week (well, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands), and in both of them the mothers die early on of some mysterious and lingering (although thankfully not disfiguring) illness. Am I hampering my daughters’ emotional development by staying healthy? Maybe being left behind for six weeks while I head off to France for the second half of my sabbatical will be an adequate substitute? (Lucky I don’t believe in foreshadowing, huh!)

ps. Just watched Netflix’s A Christmas Prince – same thing – mother offed before the movie even started. Spooky.

Well, our nanny and I have finally had ‘The Talk’ : “We think it might be time to start thinking about cutting down your hours”. N has been fabulous for our family, a real treasure. She’s like an idealized grandmother, far more useful than any of our actual parents were. Over the years she’s gradually morphed into more of a housekeeper, but she’s still been someone who’s always around for the girls to talk to.  Still, now that our youngest are about to go to university, it’s getting harder to justify a full time nanny – especially as she’s nearing eighty. Although, we do have three dogs – and they are quite high maintenance.