No idea I'd been away so long

Seems like about two weeks, but I just noticed it's been four. Well, you can count on me to say nothing when there's nothing to say, as I said once before.

Or maybe you can't. Random thoughts about my most recent week or so:

1. Today Merlin and I went to see, in one sitting, all the Oscar-nominated short animated films. (Being the first-degree relatives of an animator, we go to collections of short animated films when they pop up within a 60-mile radius.) That means this will be the first year in my admittedly so-so memory that there will be a category in the Oscars in which I have seen every bloomin' film.

2. Some movies are better when you see them completely alone in a theater. Especially those you have heard are bad but you really want to see them. I did this with "Leap Year" two weeks back. A sappy chick flick in which Amy Adams goes to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend (whom NOBODY will want her to marry) and has to hire a cranky, hunky, down-on-his-luck, hunky (I know) Irish innkeeper to get her from Dingle to Dublin. Lame zaniness ensues. Dumb, but I loved looking at Ireland and singing along with the soundtrack and lurching along toward the inevitable s/happy ending, not wondering if anyone I was with was enjoying it. Yes, singing along. When I said "alone", I meant ALONE. No one else in the theater. Nothing like it. I commend to you Monday mid-afternoon matinees.

3. I met the first patient I have ever wanted to steal from another provider on Friday. To protect her privacy I will refer to her as Susana instead of by her real Biblical name. She's 9 months old. I have a lot of cute tiny patients, but this kid was so intensely charming and entertaining that I couldn't look at her and keep my mind on what I was doing. She had a mild eye infection and it made her want to squint a little, and when she realized that it was kind of funny she kept coming up with new variations on it that kept her mom and her aunt and I in stitches. I was trying to explain something to her mother and I looked at her and she did it again and I just lost my concentration entirely; she had me at [crinkle]. I'll do the right thing and not steal her. But if her own NP ever quits, that kid is mine.

4. I have really been enjoying the jokes about the iPad's absurd name. The best so far is Andy Borowitz's at www.borowitzreport.com/2010/01/29/apple-launches-text-sharing-device-the-cotex/ I assume only women read this (my) blog, so I figure it shouldn't cause much offense to direct you there. I mean, these guys had to expect....Hmm, they are boys. Maybe this is what they wanted?