Hello Newman

I took a quick jaunt up the east coast to sunny New England this weekend to visit some friends and family. Much like the last time I flew into the Hartford, CT airport, my flight was delayed over two hours due to lightning on the runway. I suppose one can't really argue with a lightning delay, but it's really annoying to have the start of what is already a too-short weekend postponed when it isn't even raining outside. Anyway, the weekend officially began at 7 am on Saturday when Baby BT arose to greet the day. We had lots of fall fun in the Pioneer Valley including a trip to Atkins for cider, a Tailgate picnic at MHC, and ice cream from Friendly's. I guess we really just ate our way through the day...

Baby BT is exceptionally adorable and very articulate (surprise, surprise!). One of his favorite expressions is "Hello Newman," which he says with perfect Seinfeld intonation. He's also very tough - we took a walk through a little zoo and he started running down a hill ahead of us. It all seemed to happen in slow motion... his upper body pitched forward and his little feet slid out from under him and his whole body went up in the air balanced on the side of his head in a Matrix-esque, time-standing-still maneuver. Fortunately, he got up, looked around for a minute, decided that he was okay, and kept going.

On Sunday morning I made my way down a maze of "scenic routes" with really low speed limits into Connecticut to visit my great grandmother. These days I've been spending lots of time with old people - people in their 80's and 90's - none of whom are as old as my great grandmother. She will be turning 105 years old next month. 105! And she's completely with it still, she knows who I am and that I'm in medical school and when I'm going to be graduating. It's pretty amazing, really. I just wish I could spend more time with her.

The geri's are doing fairly well. We lost a patient over the weekend. We had seen her on Friday and she had some abdominal pain, but she seemed okay. She passed away in her sleep that night. I suppose this kind of thing happens frequently when working with the elderly and I'm very glad for her that she wasn't suffering, but I was alarmed by how quickly she went from being alive and seemingly healthy to not being alive anymore. I guess you just never know what's going to happen, huh?