#437

Today has been a good day. Ava was featured on our photographer's blog. And I am slowly piecing together our future bedroom decor based on this inspirational room. The crucial element to this room is the blue canopy striped wool blanket. But I couldn't justify buying a wool blanket given my allergy situation (sorry, Tom, we'll have dweebs for kids), nor one that only comes with a price tag in Euros. I reasoned that Pottery Barn must have made something similar a few years back in a duvet cover because...it just seemed like something they'd do. A couple of key strokes later, I am now the proud owner of Pottery Barn's Classic Stripe duvet cover in Ink Blue, circa 2007. And I bought it new on Ebay. Maybe not the best deal of the century, but I was fist-pumping and pretending to imbibe "happy juice" around the living room. (That was when I wasn't playing Mario. Curse you, Tom!)


But really, today is a happy day because The Hurt Locker was nominated for 9 Academy Awards. My father was nominated for an Academy way back in the 1970's. We don't have a Super Bowl in my family; we have the Oscars. Anyway, I saw The Hurt Locker back in April (?) or May (?) with my three best men (after Dad and Blaise, aka "Full Throttle"): Tom, my brother, and Romeo.


It was honestly one of the best cinematic experiences of my life. The situation was magical too: an invitation to a midnight screening by uber-cool big brother (the one who works with all sorts of guys returning from the Middle East, the one who used to help equip journalists for embedded assignments), a theatre on 42nd Street. (Side note: Blogger tells me "theatre" is mis-spelled. Au contraire! It is the correct spelling for a building. Plus one for me! Am I punchy or what?) I think what it comes down to is the idea that war, or situations of extreme stress, are such a high. It seemed to speak to me at the moment I saw it across the giant experiences I had just had in third year working ORs and codes. Trauma is such a high. I often find myself attempting to express the sheer emotion of what happened to me at the most inopportune times: say at dinner, or over a casual drink when talk of liver repairs makes other people squeamish. But in this movie, they got it. It seemed to explain the complicated twist of thoughts that run through your mind when you're touching a human heart. Or feverishly working to deliver a baby. Or praying that your medication decision will do no harm. The nomination came at an especially opportune time, too, as we spend the next 4 weeks of our required "Process of Discovery" course dreaming up ways to improve trauma care, particularly with respect to bringing the new frontiers of in-combat resuscitation to rural populations in the US. Today's lecture was from a vascular surgeon who had done two tours in Iraq. It was fascinating to hear about the air-borne ICUs they have constructed to move patients from the battlefield to "definitive care" (Walter Reed). Or the true meaning of "damage control medicine." And just like a trauma surgeon, he finished abruptly, with 30 minutes left in his scheduled hour. Nothing like an early dismissal, huh?


Anyways, I give "The Hurt Locker" two thumbs up. Way up. You know which way I'll be voting come Oscar time.