x games week

Twas a fun week with some relief at work. Slowing just a bit and it was the last week of Jenny helping us out so she now knows our system ans was able to help. Jenny is the new doc we will be having join us full time in October and staff/patients loved her. That is good. Then Friday night went to see Brad play music with a new band he is part of at a Jewish service in town (the Mozeltones) and it was fun. My first service and possibly my last (I did like the Mozeltones so may be enticed back once in a while but not often!). Brad will play with them maybe once a month in the future. After that we went to my friend Shereen's house for a fantastic dinner (Shereen was "splash" in our splash/crash/dash triathelon last year). Then we had an impromptu visit from Ken, Holly, Satori, Bodhi and their dog for the weekend. It was spectacular and we did a lot of cross country skiing past Ashcroft which was STUNNING! Then Ken joined Brad in another music event tonight playing at Highlands and they had a blast. Overall great fun/friends/food etc. Now back to reality :) Oh yeah, and I had my 10 seconds of fame featured on ESPN this weekend when a discharge note I wrote ended up on the show. That is all the fame I want :)

my first sign language teacher

So last week was fun. NY was not as "yuck" as I had expected it to be (see last blog... I even enjoyed it... ESPECIALLY the awesome restaurant that Jeff brought me to that last night and the great company of him and my folks that evening) and then got back to spend a spectacular bday at home with Clifford and Brad doing what I love including spending quality time inside and outside my fabulous mountain home. The hiking was incredible that day and I was so caught up in it that I was late to meet Shinta who had made me a fabulous bday cake. I continued to do a lot of hiking and enjoying not being in the office for the rest of the week. Fri night had a great bday dinner at Brad's folks and then Sunday had a great time skiing and later went to the deaf camp to give a lecture to the deaf women's snowshoe retreat group. There I met up with my first sign language teacher Dorothy Wilkin who I hadn't seen since around 1981 when I took her AWESOME sign language class. I had taken the course to get an easy A and instead she opened my life to amazing adventures and fun. To pass her class we had to wear "maskers" to make ourselves deaf for a whole weekend and write about it (amazing eye opener), go to a party of hers with all of her deaf friends and leave our voices downstairs, and go to dinner with her and only sign the whole dinner. It was a fantastic course and I learned a ton. After that course I immersed myself in the deaf community in Rochester and went on to do an interpreter training course and get my masters in deaf education. I had expected to teach the Deaf before the course but only in an "oral" environment. The education she gave of teaching me language and culture opened my eyes to a whole new world and made me a better person. I told her how much she changed my life and she mentioned that another student from that first class I took with her had gone on to get a PhD in Linguistics and is now working for her in ASL (American Sign Language) research. Pretty cool having 2 "doctors" still involved in the Deaf community coming out of 1 class! A tribute to how good she was.

in NY... YUCK...

Last week was busy with work. It is NOT slowing down like it usually does after the New Year. This is good for business but hard on staff. Fortunately we have the best staff we have ever had at AMC and I am very happy about that.
Worked the full week. We have Jenny C, our new hire next 10/2011, visiting to do a rotation, learn and help out. Interesting to see again why we don't bring in residents/students during on season. There is NO time to teach. She is doing a good job but it is still hard.
Sat flew to NY to celebrate some birthdays and visit my mom since she couldn't come to Aspen after breaking her hip. She is finally turning a corner and it looks as if there is some healing on the xrays. She moves around quite a bit (better with 1 or 2 crutches than without them). We had dinner with Jeff in the apt Sat night after I arrived (Thai) then yesterday we went to a movie and then to dinner with my uncles in New Rochelle (Indian). It was the first time my mom has been out and she did great and the food and company was very enjoyable. SO, all is well so far. Today is a walk in the park with my dad, a museum with my Mom and Dad and then dinner with Jeff down near his place. He gave me a great hat for my bday (will have to put in a picture later). All is well and can't wait to go back to my beloved CO tomorrow. In my absence Brad has been taking care of Clifford, had a GREAT gig at the Belly Up (which I wished I could have been at) and has been doing laps snowboarding around our house! Life is good :)