Earthquake!

This morning, we experienced our first earthquake (and by we, I mean our little family, not Seattle in general). It turned out to be just a very small 4.6 one and the epicenter was a bit north of here. I woke up with the bed shaking..just a little bit but enough to notice. I was half asleep, and I thought it was from Zac, that maybe he was kicking the bedpost while scratching or something. Then I went back to sleep and didn't even remember it. I read about the earthquake this morning on the Seattle Times news site, and thought wow we didn't feel it here.

Then Kelsey came home from school and asked if I felt the earthquake this morning. I said no, and she said it woke her up and her bed was shaking. Then I remembered that my bed was shaking too! So yes, I did feel the earthquake! No damage, no lasting effects, but definitely felt by at least me and Kelsey. Jason slept through it, and I haven't talked to Megan to see if she felt it or not.

So we've lived through our first earthquake. I hope it's the last :-)

Tales from the bus

I've been riding the bus a little more often recently because Jason has been working late. The bus home isn't too bad, it takes about 30 minutes, and since I get a bus pass from the hospital it is also free. When I take the bus, I really try to get the 73 instead of the 71. They're almost at the same stop except the 73 stops at the underground tunnel at 6:42 and the 71 stops at street level at 6:47. The 71 however makes a lot more stops on the way home and for some reason is usually filled withmuch louder and rowdier passengers.

I've been managing to skip out of work around 6:20 so that I can get to the tunnel in time to grab the 73. The bus stop is 2 blocks over and then 8 blocks down from the hospital. And I mean down. It is a fairly steep downhill grade on James St. and I wind up almost trotting the last couple of blocks because of it. On Wednesday though I didn't leave until amost 6:30 and I was pretty resigned to taking the 71 but somehow decided to run and try to get the 73 if I could. I ran almost the entire way to the tunnel, and ran down the 4 flights of stairs and got to the bus stop exactly as the same time as the bus. One more light on the way and I definitely would not have made it.

This was an interesting ride home because I learned of a new phenomenon taking place when the bus is crowded. And this one was very crowded for some reason tonight. Apparently it is now alright to enter a crowded bus and start bleating "Seat please, seat please" until somebody stands up and lets you sit down. I witnessed this with no less than 3 people in the space of 2 blocks. And it worked for each one of them, even more surprising. The first one I could understand, she was older and definitely in need of a seat since she could barely walk. The next guy was "special" if you catch my drift, so he got a seat. The third guy was maybe 50, but looked pretty spry and healthy to me, but he got a seat too, right next to me. Hey....my feet hurt and I just ran 8 blocks and I wasn't about to get up. I still don't think I would have been able to chase someone else away from their seat if I was the one that had to stand.

The "special" guy sat down across from me and immediately pulled two small green rubber balls from his pocket which he then proceeded to sniff repeatedly the entire way home. He would bring one of the balls up to his nose and just move it back and forth while he sniff, sniff, sniffed at it. Then he would switch hands and sniff at the other one for awhile. He was still sniffing when I got off the bus at my house.

Oh, and the other interesting thing which I don't remember happening before is that when the bus is that crowded, the driver just opens the back door as well as the front door, and if you use the back door, you don't have to pay. I wonder how many free rides the metro service is giving out each day because of that plan.

Clickety-Click

So it occurred to me today, well into January and the second quarter of my clinical rotation, that I think things have finally really clicked for me when scanning. These past couple of days I've been rocking the transducer and really starting to feel confident in what I'm doing. I will admit, sometimes during an OB exam, I still feel like I just "lucked into" a good shot of something, but more and more I'm really getting them on purpose. I did 7 sets of kidneys today, and I'll tell ya...by the last one, I was almost on autopilot with the images.

The most challenging to me are still the 1-2 year olds. They sure are squirmy, and I'm chasing them all over the exam table to get the shot I need. We bought a TV/DVD monitor for the young ones and sometimes Barney will get them to settle down but usually they're more interested in what I'm doing and they keep trying to grab the transducer from me. So I still have to work on that, and I still have to work on my trans-vaginal images, but I'm feeling pretty good about everything else. I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

Happy (5 days after) New Year!

Whoa...you'd think with all the free time we had over this Christmas/New Year holiday that I would have posted a lot more. I have been remiss. And by free time, belive me, I mean free time. First, since we did not go back East this year, we had an abundance of couch sitting opportunity which was only compounded by the snow that literally shut down our city. Oh, it snowed...and snowed...and then snowed some more. The likes of which natives say hasn't happened for decades. And Seattle being "green" and all, the mayor chose to plow only main roads with some kind of rubber scraper thing while putting down some sand, creating some hardpack icy nightmare. No nasty salt for us! And real plows hurt the road!

We did venture out for a lovely Christmas Eve dinner at Six Seven, which is downtown right on the water. It was nice, we all dressed up and pretended we were at the Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh. It didn't quite measure up, but it was nice to have a special dinner on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day was very quiet, and I don't think I actually even changed out of my pajamas all day. We got up and opened gifts while we drank mimosas, then we played some games, and then we had Christmas dinner early afternoon. We had invited Darci and Simon over for dinner but they, like most Seattleites, chose to stay indoors and off the roads until the white stuff was all gone.

Pajamas were the order of the day, as we may have bathed, but only to put on fresh PJs for the next few days. Saturday night Jason and I went out to the movies to see Gran Torino, then met up with Darci and Simon afterwards. We wound up at a country bar by Greenlake, then after that closed we tried to get some Dick's hamburgers but we didn't make it to the window in time, and they put the closed sign right in front of us when we got to the front of the line. Bummer. So we headed to the grocery store and loaded up on oven baked snacks and then back to the house where I can't quite remember what we did. Darci and Simon stayed overnight and the next morning we watched a lot of trash TV.

Monday was back to work for Jay and me. He only had to work Monday and Tuesday, but went in on Wednesday just to drive me (how sweet). New Year's Eve was incredibly quiet. Megan was out with friends, Kelsey went to the Space Needle for the fireworks, and we stayed home with the beagles. Of course, I fell asleep at about 8 and woke up at 11:15 in time for the celebration. Kelsey got home shortly afterwards with her friends. They decided they were bored downtown and came home to watch the fireworks on TV and drink sparkling apple cider. We had some champagne at midnight, gawked at what's become of Dick Clark and went to bed.

And so ended our Christmas in Seattle. The tree is down, everyone is back to work and back to school, it snowed again last night, and we're ready now for the summer. I hope you all had a fantastic holiday!