Little Laura Goes to War

A short while ago my good friend and former roommate Laura got a letter instructing her to get her gear, she's going to war. Deployment time. Brass knuckles time. Whether it would be Afghanistan or Iraq was still to be determined, but a few things were clear: she would be the first of us to deploy and she'd need to find a way to strap more grenades to her chest. As it would turn out her deployment was not per the usual, however. When her deployment letter finally came instead of being tasked to a forward operating base or major theatre hospital in country hers read: you're going on vacation! Her six months of service to the nation would be an all-expense paid trip to Germany where she'd visit the Swiss Alps, lounge in Bavarian beer gardens, and take in culture and class at many a Baroque Austrian palace or concert hall. Sure she'd be caring for patients and war wounded at the medical center in Landstuhl, but as judged by the constant stream of Facebook photos since, she's mostly there to party.
 
Despite the fact that she had likely ruined deployments for all the rest of us for all the future I decided to pay Laura a pre-deployment this-may-be-the-last-time-I-see-you-alive visit. It was also secretly a visit to the Historic Triangle of Revolutionary America and an excuse to get a tricorne hat. The trip was successful on all accounts.

The trip was not without hardship; however, especially if you like to use the word "hardship" as a stand in for "never ending rain." The rain didn't start till after we set out on our twenty something mile bike ride, but once it started it never stopped coming. Quickly we were soaked, but still we rode on.

Whenever I insisted we stop and admire a local landmark Laura often insisted she wait under a tree. We then had a very wet lunch, and proceeded to have a very wet ride back after leaving behind very wet chairs and table clothes behind us.

We didn't stay in Yorktown or Old Williamsburg all too long, but there's always time for victory poses. Just like back in 1776.

Once all that was said and done we settled down to what really mattered. College football and puzzles.

Laura made this while slowly losing her mind -- smashing together decorated styrofoam is apparently more difficult than it looks. Coincidentally I was also losing my mind for an entirely different reason -- thank you Fighting Texas Aggies. We also saw a movie, had some food and drink, and then Laura went off to war. Went off to war a few weeks later after visiting other family and friends to be entirely accurate, but I'm pretty sure what prepared her most was my inspiring visit. My hat spurred her into a patriotic furor.

Montreal en Lumiere

This last weekend I went to Montreal with Kristen for the annual winter festival. For those not in the know, which is I am guessing everyone south of the Canadian border, Montréal en Lumière is a yearly food and arts fair for those more cultured than myself. This year's theme was Belgium and so they had a variety of expensive Belgian food we largely did not partake in. But we did have Belgian waffles. Sweet, delicious, chocolate filled Belgian waffles. No doubt just like the Belgians make.

Montreal's about a three and a half hour drive from Lebanon, and it's a fairly beautiful one at that. The Northeast Kingdom, a green hilly feudal area I believe run by hobbits, is very picturesque and Southern Quebec though largely flat farmland is punctuated by mountains that emerge periodically from the country side, climb rapidly into the air, and then descend back into the flat plains just as quickly again. You'll have to take my word for this, though, we didn't take any pictures.

But we did take a picture at the border! It was a small crossing and so small in fact that the Canadians did not care to put much in the way of a welcoming banner around it. Just a sign at a largely abandoned rest stop.

Montreal is a beautiful city and Old Montreal is especially so. Although there's a fairly efficient metro system it's perhaps better to walk if the distance is not too far just to see the city. We got in Saturday afternoon and immediately headed for the festival. After redirecting ourselves in the proper direction about twenty minutes later we headed for the festival again. The fair grounds were a collection of random colored lights, plastic domes to keep warm when it got too cold (and which had their own random collections of random colored lights inside but otherwise served no real purpose), a Ferris wheel, bonfires, and a giant ice slide that unfortunately had a two hour wait. It was my only regret.

Things got a little crazy at times like when they played a trippy, psychedelic video short on the wall of one of the nearby buildings, and a little rowdy at times when the Canadians spontaneously broke out into dance during the free concert by a French Canadian band later in the evening. Belgian waffles aside, we also had some poutine which is Quebec's contribution to the culinary world. Seriously, though, I cannot get the video short out of my head. Or my nightmares.

Much of the rest of the city was beautifully lit up as well, and we took pictures of some of it, but you're going to have to use your imagination for the most part. I was told by Kristen that much of it looked like Boston so, you know, if you've been to Boston before it's kind of like that but with more Frenchmen. The next day we tried to go to the biodome, but there was over a one hour wait in way too sweaty a line so we hiked over to the Montreal history museum instead. That's when our camera died, and when we'll say the trip ended. After a very long wait at the border to get back into the US. I'm pretty sure I've smuggled Mexicans across the border in less time than it took to get back into New Hampshire. It's good to know that part of the border is safe, though. From the terrorists and their flannel.

Pictures!

Volunteer to Make Money

Charity is supposed to be simple. You, in plenty, give; someone, in need, receives. You're hopefully a slightly better person as a result, God gives you a tip of the hat, and the individual receiving can lead a slightly better life afterward. The more you give the better, but every little bit helps. If you don't have money you can give time. Nobody wants your old frumpy clothes. See? Easy peasy.

One part of giving that seems to commonly confound is absolute giving versus relative giving. Should Mitt Romney be praised for giving millions of dollars to charity ($7 million over two years) or should we shrug that he simply gave just above the minimum required of him by his church and only a small portion of his enormous yearly income (16%)? And what should be done of Newt Gingrich who managed despite his professing of Christian values to give only a little over 2% of his similarly impressive intake ($3.1 million)? I'm sure in Mitt's case the rest of the money went to creating jobs and in Newt's well, shucks, he would have given more had he not been loving his country so hard. 

The uninspiring compassion of our politicians aside, I have recently come upon another problem of sorts. As I step further and further down the path to full blown, fully independent doctorhood I am finding it easier and easier to fill my pockets with cash. Cash being cash it is thankfully liquid. It's readily transferable to whichever charitable organization I fancy at the moment and cash in general has undoubtedly built many houses for veteran, one-legged snow owls down on their luck recovering from addiction. The ease with which money comes into my possession, however, has this year reached a critical level. I have arguably passed the point where it no longer makes sense to volunteer.

Now being board certified and fully licensed I have the opportunity to moonlight. I can sign up to work a weekend or night shift as a general internist for an hourly wage. And the currently reported going rate at our hospital: $100 an hour. A twelve hour shift can net you over a thousand dollars. If I were to then donate that to the local food bank for the poor and penniless they could buy chili mac for everyone. Even have enough left over probably to upgrade to frito pies. Heck, if I worked a few shifts they could even buy puppies and milkshakes for everyone. Milkshakes for the puppies too, why not. More pertinent to the point, were I instead to volunteer at the food bank making the same chili mac myself for those same twelve hours I'd arguably have only made twelve hours worth of someone else's donated chili mac. From a slightly different but purely economical -- and perhaps relatively dispassionate -- standpoint for every hour I moonlight I could hire ten individuals $10/hr to make ten times as much chili mac in the exact same time. My choice not to volunteer's friggin' creating jobs now! How then does it make sense sense to ever volunteer for anything else? To tutor a child is simply an inefficient waste of time.

Unfortunately where as I used to obtain a quiet satisfaction from sorting canned goods from boxed cereals I hate the very idea of moonlighting. I do not believe I'd obtain any joy from spending my evening sitting in the ED admitting people for chest pain rule outs. And there in of course lies the problem, charity is not supposed to be about the giver. It's arguably not even supposed to be about the gift itself either, yet the thought of volunteering to dig a ditch rather than volunteering to pay a team of ditch diggers just because it makes me happier seems selfish even if they are both acts of charity. Moonlighting is arguably one of the most generous things I could do right now and yet I still have no desire to do it. Paper Bird would be so disappointed.



Speaking of Paper Bird, here, finally, is a picture. He denotes all his money to charity. What a guy.