Sleepy Sunday in a Small town

The purpose of this blog has been to journal a bit of our everyday life and share a piece with those who are not always close in proximity. This post reminds me that while it may just feel "everyday" or be any day in our life, it is not exactly an ordinary life. Who else decides to relocate for 6 weeks, when they have a house, kid, etc?

Sometimes I find myself asking the question "How did we get here?" not only in physical location, but to the point of handling new situations with a "can do" attitude. A roll with the punches mentality. Is it simply survival mode in this "do what it takes" life dictated by the residency program? But this isn't the first time. Remember when we got married and lived in two separate towns? Or had a baby, quit my job, and moved to a new state, all within 3 months time? I'm sensing a theme...anyway, on with the post.

Our family was reunited last weekend when Henry and I joined George in Richland Center, WI. George is doing his rural rotation in this small town (~5,000 people) an hour and a half west of Madison. The residency program provides a modestly furnished, two bedroom apartment in a house two blocks from the hospital and near the downtown area. So we spent the weekend becoming reacquainted with each other, and exploring our new surroundings. I feel slightly transient, sort of like camping out minus the RV or tent, but it's a good change of pace. For now.

This is what we found.

1. There are certainly more churches than "other" establishments within our immediate neighborhood. We were fortunate to take advantage of the Catholic church festival for lunch on Sunday. We attempted to attend mass, but due to the festival, the times listed outside the church were not correct. On this ONE Sunday of the year, the mass time is moved to accommodate the Church dinner. (side note: in the midwest "dinner" is the noon meal) We tried. Oh well,we did our part to support their cause. Dinner menu: half of a chicken (yes, the animal appeared to have been split in half and BBQ'd and served, baked potato, baked beans, homemade coleslaw, homemade dill pickles, and homegrown tomatoes. Last but not least, PIE!)
2. Sunday is still truly a day of rest in small town USA. We could only window shop around the town square because the stores were all closed. Aside from Walmart (don't even get me started on Walmart and the effect on small town economies) the streets were quiet, the parks were full, and life moved at a slower pace.
3. The country-side is gorgeous. I could drive and drive and look at old barns and cows and fields all day. South-central Wisconsin has a similar feel to the Iowa agricultural ambience, yet in the background is something quite unique. Hills! I'm not sure if they have a special name, because unlike gentle rolling hills (found in some parts of Iowa), these abruptly rise from the horizon as big rocky outcroppings that appear to be heavily wooded. They are a charming backdrop for someone whose eye is trained to envision flat farmland as beautiful. Apparently this is the section "the glaciers forgot" during the last ice age. In my opinion, we are in Richland Center for the perfect season. We are on the brink of fall color in the leaves, and apple orchard season is about to start.
4. The apartment provides only dial up internet service. On one hand, it's nice to be "unplugged" a little in our daily life. On the other, that is generally our support function for communication with others - email, online calendars, etc. with dodgy cell phone service, we feel slightly incomunicado. However, the apartment does have cable TV. This is the "replacement" technology for lacking internet service. Dangerous. Although we were very excited about watching a Red Sox / Yankees game on ESPN. The outcome wasn't in our favor, but it felt good to route for the "home team."
5. The opportunity for George to be THE doctor in town is invaluable. His schedule is something like this: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday see patients in clinic, or urgent care, or free clinic (these all seem to be different names for the same services, really). Wednesday overnight staff the ER (and the OR, and the Labor and Delivery room) as needed, with support from a few local physicians. The hospital has 23 beds, 4 for ICU (which is shared with the OR for post-op patients), and 2 rooms for L&D. Just to offer some perspective, when I worked as an MICU nurse, we had a 20 bed unit.

So far, Henry and I will be splitting our time between Richland Center and Madison. There are things to do here at the house (our grapes are ripening!) and prior commitments. Maybe after Labor Day, we'll be there for a longer duration. I foresee a lot of commuting, however. We'll return to our regularly scheduled program in October. Whatever that may be.

The day after

George and I had a wonderful, quick, get-away dinner out last night. We made a visit to the Harmony Bar at George's recommendation (having been there in September when he was here for a rotation) and another blog I read to get the scoop on local Madison restaurants. I'm now quite certain this is going to be a favorite spot for us. The tofu walnut burger is the best burger I've eaten in a long time. Vegetarians, take note. I think on the review in the blog I just linked, carnivores agree!

On a muggy Madison summer night we walked into the "neighborhood hang out." The bar area was full and the tables and chairs in the next room accommodated people of a variety of age groups - a table of Scrabble players, noted. Wait a minute, children? in a bar? Henry is about to be storming the public restaurant scene when we get a burger craving. The large, flat screen, high definition television came into view with a baseball game on and I squinted from across the room as I attempted to read the name on the uniform. Pedroia was up to bat. I paused before excitement set in. Could it be just a clip from a highlight reel? Nope. In disbelief I grinned from ear to ear. I couldn't believe it. The perfect date night. George and I caught a Red Sox game, ate great burgers, and I indulged in a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I'm still floating on cloud nine, despite the sad turn of events in the Red Sox game. (Just as we finished our meal the station was changed to a Brewers game, so we left thinking the Red Sox had a good chance of holding on to their 4-1 lead. The final score, however, was 6-7 Rays.)

Maybe I am ready to become a Brewers fan. It sounds like Nicholas might be on board, too, as his away message reads "glad I'm NOT watching the Sox over the 4th of July weekend." Seems like every year he has a little falling out with the team. They generally play well in the post season when that happens. Here's hoping.

Author's Note: a little creative writing exercise on the blog. just keeping it interesting. :)

Madison Mallards

No wonder the city's baseball team is the "Madison Mallards" - they're everywhere! Here is the couple that lives outside our door. The woman in the townhouse next to ours leaves water out, and probably some occasional food, as there are always birds, squirrels, and even a little chipmunk that frequent our doorstep. Its cool to see the wildlife here, but I never thought they'd be quite so close to our own humble abode. I'm hoping that ducks like to eat mosquitoes as there seems to be an abundance here.

A sigh of relief

Whew. It is such a wonderful feeling to put the baby to bed and have time for myself. George is running errands (car oil change and BLS certification) and I'm scratching the blog itch while watching the Red Sox play the Tigers on a lovely evening in Detroit. Couldn't ask for a better night!

I'll give a quick recap of the week and a half, and you can further appreciate my sigh of relief. George finished his rotations on April 25th and the next morning got up very early to get a good start on a road trip to Madison in search of housing. Though we want to buy a place in Madison, we decided that with Henry in the picture, long distance house hunting was going to be a little bit too much pressure. Good thing, too, because George's final rotation in April was Infectious Disease and was very time intensive - typically 12 hour days! Ironically, as the name suggests, it also meant colds and sickness for us. We were both very drained of energy with the nagging cough from post nasal drip and caring for Henry.

George was successful in his search, however, and managed to find a place that will suit our needs as we begin our life of residency in Wisconsin. It is a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom townhouse that is located between the hospital and clinic where he will be a resident. It also has a washer/dryer in unit (a bonus as we continue our cloth diapering plan) and is near the lakes, a park, and grocery shopping. In addition, they are allowing us to have a 7 month lease. So, the place is ours until the end of 2008, unless we use our landlord as a Realtor to find a house in the area, in which case they will let us out of our lease early with no penalties. If we don't use them, we'll still only have a short lease.

The weekend George was gone I got a taste for single parenting. Yuck. It was difficult to not have a break from Henry, and was worse because I wasn't feeling well. In addition, I felt pressure to pump breast milk in preparation for returning to work at the end of the week and wasn't having much luck. As soon as George returned, I had no trouble. It was a true testament to the connection between mind and body!

Another small stress was resolved when Henry finally passed his hearing screen (third time's a charm!). Although I knew he could hear, since he tracks my voice from across the room, as a parent I think there is always a tiny fear in the back of your mind that something might be wrong with your child. Either that, or I'm just a big worrywart. Probably the latter.

Sox keep rockin' Rocks

Well, it's 8:00 on Sunday morning. I watched the 3rd game of the World Series and just stayed up all night. Keep that in mind as you are reading this!

I'm a bit slap happy right now and find myself giggling for no particular reason. Now is a great time to blog! So, I slept a lot yesterday, catching up on a sleep deprived week, and then since I stayed up to watch an awesome game - I decided to stay up all night after that. I'm not sure when that actually sounded like a good idea, but right about now, a hot cup of coffee not only tastes good, it feels good. I have a bit of a "problem". Sometimes I do this, especially since Charlotte's working and not here to say "what in the world are you doing up at this hour???" Since I put this new hard drive in my old laptop, I've been playing around with the new Ubuntu OS and dual booting with Windows XP - I can only compare the Ubuntu to a good book that one can't put down. Very nerdy, yes, but there are worse things that I could be spending my time on!

Occasionally I've been able to feel the "kick" in the belly. I put it in quotes because it's still the slightest feeling to me - I don't get to feel my bladder kicked at the same time! I do look forward to when the kicks feel more like a kick to me. Sounds weird, but right now I can barely feel it. As I head to South Bend for the next week, I'll be anxious to see how she and baby are changing without seeing them every day. We got a co-sleeper and are really getting excited!

Charlotte and I had a very nice Friday evening dinner with Matt and Lisa. They're expecting also - Charlotte really seemed to enjoy the "hey you're pregnant too" kind of talk! Matt and I talked mostly about their new home (which is very lovely) and our respective professions (i.e. I'm still a student!). After lots of debate, we decided on Italian fare and enjoyed a delicious dinner. We passed on the dessert there, and headed back to their place for a home made French Silk Pie. Wa wa wee wa! Quite tasty. We headed back home after some nice conversation, and slept in quite late on Saturday. Charlotte worked, and I stayed up for no apparent reason.

So, I took a trip to go get bagels and coffee at Einstein down the street. Charlotte will be home soon, so it's bout time I wrap this up. I'm sure this post is a bit goofy, but at least I warned you...

World Series Games!

Here's a sight I thought I'd never see. George is enjoying Game 1 of the World Series under a blanket! If I didn't know better, I'd figure he was an impostor, or getting sick - both of which I hope are not the case. George is never cold, I'm usually the one who is curled up under a blanket while I watch TV.

We are in for our first frost of the season tonight. The change in the weather means that I've dressed the part, getting out my usual long sleeve shirts and fleeces, and wearing both simultaneously. Meanwhile, George is asking me if I'm cold (as he sits in his T-shirt and long pants). My response, "no." Upon returning from the kitchen, I find this...and the window closed. He cracks me up.

Another item of note is the Red Sox gear. As we were getting supper at Panera tonight we got a few looks and comments for support of the Red Sox since George was wearing his Boston hat. Good times.

He's a #1 fan!

Thoughts on Baseball

George and I have been watching the Red Sox vs. Indians ALCS series this week, hoping that the games would, at least, be interesting. Alas, it seems that the Red Sox have left behind their pitching, hitting, and even at times, fielding from the regular season. Any one of these things missing from a game can be cause for defeat, as they've repeatedly shown in the last 3 games.

However, this posting is not about the fact that the Red Sox are going to have to step it up if they are to remain in the post-season. This is about a few of the other interesting aspects of the game. Mainly sportsmanship.

First off, the "Manny Ramirez" pose. If I hit a game winning, walk off home run. I, too, might stand at the plate with my arms in the air, rejoicing in the fact that once the ball left the bat, I just knew it was going to travel far enough to advance my team further into the post season. That might be a time when the "Manny pose" would be acceptable. However, this has been happening every time he hits the ball, it seems. What happened to hustle and humility? I was taught that once you hit the ball, you hustle down the first base line so that you could get as far as you could in case there was a fielding mishap, and an extra base could be gained. Varitek runs his home run loop almost as if each were an inside the park home run. Now that's hustle.

Secondly, what's with throwing the ball back into the field when the opposite team hits one out? I don't like that. I think its poor form. This, of course, sparked some conversation between George and I as we watched our three lousy home run balls bounce back onto Jacob's field Tuesday night. (Not that back-to back-to back home runs aren't cool and recording-breaking and all that, but we were still down 4 runs).

I informed George that if I were even lucky enough to afford, and be granted, a seat at the stadium for a post season game, and a souvenir like that came in my direction you can bet I will be taking it home. No amount of jeering will pry that ball from my fingers and I won't be tossing it back onto the field of my own free will. That's a major league baseball we're talking about. Even if it was in a regular season game. And...just to push the issue, George pressed me far enough to state that even if it was off the bat of A-Rod, playing for the Yankees. (ouch) My thought, the pitcher touched it too...what if Curt Schilling threw him that ball?! I'm sticking to my guns on this one. It's America's favorite past time. If a "Tony the Tiger" baseball, free in our box of Frosted Flakes, can mean so much during childhood, just imagine what an official MLB baseball would mean...

Ok. The soapbox is available for someone else now.