Sicko makes me sick. Of this country.

I just saw Sicko today. I am so angry that I probably should not even be writing. It just makes me so mad, to see the injustices that are done every day by insurance companies. I myself know firsthand what goes on: in 2004, I had to call 911 to go to the emergency room for uncontrollable vomiting (The Ulcer Saga, Chapter 1). Afterward, I got a notice from the insurance company saying the $630 ambulance bill wasn't going to be covered because the ambulance company was an out-of-network provider. My jaw literally dropped. When I called 911, was I supposed to tell them my insurance company? Was I supposed to check the phone book for various ambulance services and run my insurance through first while I was vomiting all over the place? With the help of the ambulance company making a phone call on my behalf, I eventually got it covered. Of course, since my crappy insurance policy only covers 80% of expenses, I still had to pay $126 out-of-pocket for the ambulance. (On another note, the ambulance charges $8/mile and I had a 10-mile ride. I should have just called a taxi.) It's just ridiculous that we have to go through that kind of rigamarole when in other countries, everything is free. I've been banned for life, or something close to it, from having my left shoulder covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield, because of a pre-existing medical condition. The irony is that I developed that condition, and was treated for it, while on BCBS coverage under my father. When I turned 23 and bought my own BCBS plan, they said it was an excluded pre-existing condition and banned my left shoulder from coverage. Now I have to make sure that for the rest of my life, I don't have BCBS coverage, or that I only get it through an employer or school or something like that where the fine print says they can't deny me based on pre-existing conditions. It's just ridiculous.

The insurance I have now, through school, won't cover any adult immunizations, even if they are on the CDC vaccine schedule. That $360 price tag you've seen advertised for Gardasil? That's if you're a big provider and can buy in bulk; my student health center wants more than $150 per shot (it's a three-shot series), so forget about it. God forbid I ever have something serious happen to me. At least I have a life insurance plan so I can get buried.

Anyway, I guess the good thing about the movie is that it should make other people mad, too. How can you not get mad when you hear about children dying from 104-degree fevers when the ambulance brings them to the "wrong" hospital? Or physician medical reviewers being compensated for denying insurance claims to patients? In the movie, they interview a general practitioner who works for the British National Health Service; if he gets patients to stop smoking, lower their blood pressure and cholesterol, and in general, improve his patients' health, he gets paid more. That doesn't happen here; we place no emphasis on preventive medicine and as a result can barely keep our diseases in check.

Sure, free health care in those other countries isn't exactly "free"; they pay a lot in taxes to make sure it works. BUT SO DO WE. We just don't get anything useful out of our tax money except a war and roads that aren't maintained. Oh yeah, and our exceptional public school system (Note: I went to public school and loved it. But you can't say that it hasn't failed millions of children all the same). Probably one of the best quotes in the movie came from a former member of the British Parliament who was describing the evolution of the National Health Service. He said the people (the general populace) realized after WWII that the economy had been pretty good during the war, because people were being paid to kill the Germans. So they thought, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people get healthy." Bingo. It was pointed out, multiple times, that in a democracy, the government should be afraid of the people. Instead, in America, the people are afraid of the government, and we put up with a system where we get nothing, but are so tied down with debt that we feel it's safer just to stay quiet and subsist, rather than demanding what we want. So then we have a government of power-hungry, greedy individuals who know the people are too scared to do anything, and so are able to do whatever they want. It's a complete circle, and one I don't like.

To counter anyone who might think the movie is just a bunch of Michael Moore propaganda, here's an article from CNN that addresses the points raised in the movie: Analysis: 'Sicko' numbers mostly accurate; more context needed. In all honesty, it was a dead-on representation of our broken healthcare system. I can't stand it when people say they don't want the government determining if your medical treatment should be approved or not. Why on earth are you then OK with an insurance company determining whether it should be approved, when they have a vested interest in NOT approving it?

If you want to do something about it, read HR676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, which would create a universal health plan, and then go contact your congressperson to get him or her to support it. I really can't see anything wrong with this proposal that makes it any worse than the system we're already living in. It would be funded through a variety of means, including a higher tax rate on the top 5% of income earners (if I were making that much money, I would gladly pay it), and mostly, and this is the most astonishing, through the reduction of all the paperwork that goes on now. A large percentage of healthcare costs in this country goes to paperwork. It's absolutely astonishing. We had a lecture from a lawyer whose wife is a psychiatrist in town, and he told us how, when she opened her practice, she had to hire multiple office administrators to deal with filing their insurance claims. These office administrators are skilled employees, not minimum-wage personnel. So they would send out a claim for, say, $100, and the insurance company would pay $30. So then the office person had to go fighting for the other $70 that they felt they were due. The psychiatrist ended up paying the administrator more than $70 in salary for the time it took to get the extra $70 from the insurance company, if they ever even got it. So what's the point in that? Now the psychiatrist only takes cash payments, and the patients are welcome to file their own insurance claims. So get rid of the need for billing personnel by getting rid of the insurance companies, and focus on delivering healthcare based on need, not ability to pay, and that will reduce a ton of costs right there that could then go to paying for things like CT scanners.

Here's another argument I hate: "In Canada, they have to wait months for an appointment or procedure." Guess what; SO DO WE. Have you ever tried to make an appointment with your physician? Even if you're acutely ill, they often have no free time slots for you, so you are told to go to the emergency room. I've had to schedule annual pelvic exams six months in advance because the office is so busy. In the movie there's a clip of a talking head saying there's a part of Ontario that only has 1 chemotherapy machine in the whole area. I guarantee you there are parts of this country that have just as few machines also. Have a stroke while driving through small town, USA? Good luck getting tPA therapy, even if you get to the ER within 5 minutes. It doesn't exist. So don't give me the argument that in remote parts of Canada there isn't top-notch medical care, because there isn't top-notch medical care available in plenty of parts of this country, either. Heck, there are children in Kentucky who have never had a dental checkup and have never owned their own toothbrush. The website where I read that anecdote is down, but I promise you that it's not made up.

Like most of my rants, I'm not sure how to end this one. This is definitely one of those issues that is going to keep coming up, over and over again, until something is done about it. Unfortunately, my plan of action, the take-over-the-country-by-force-and-make-it-happen-myself plan, probably won't work. I have been slowly learning how to delegate tasks and recognize when things are out of my control, and this is probably one of those things that needs to be delegated to my lawmaker. But that part's done; John Yarmuth is a cosponsor of the bill. So we just have to keep pushing this thing forward. Because as Pearl would say, "I'm tired of this crap."

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The Golden Rule, Slightly Tarnished
Dora wonders how we have become a society that can treat people this way. But when you have uninsured, homeless patients dumped onto the streets of LA by taxis called by the hospital to take them away, you believe it's possible that someone would want hundreds of dollars to return your cell phone.

*******************
Congratulations to Karen and Jake, who are now the proud parents of Lily Elizabeth, born at 1:32 pm June 29, three days early, after "15 or 16 hours" of laboring by Karen, 6 lbs, 12 oz.

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Have I mentioned that I have to be at the hospital at 6 am on Monday, and even earlier the rest of the two weeks I'm on GynOnc surgery? No one has mentioned an end time, but twenty dollars says it's not before 5 pm.

Louisville features in Supreme Court decision

Louisville made the news today when the Supreme Court ruled that the Jefferson County Public Schools busing system was unconstitutional. I have to admit, I was bewildered by busing from the day I moved to Louisville. To me, busing was something that was done prior to Brown v Board of Ed to maintain segregation. I couldn't understand how busing a kid for 3 hours in the name of maintaining racial diversity could possibly help that child succeed as an individual student. Sacrificing individual achievement to bolster group color dynamics doesn't seem appropriate on an educational basis, let alone the fact that it arguably doesn't do much for racial diversity either.

Today, the C-J has an online package that tells a lot about the history of busing and segregation in Louisville schools. That might be helpful in case you, too, are as befuddled by busing as I am. I do see that it's a tough situation. On the one hand, why should poorer students suffer a worse education because they live in a worse neighborhood? (Of course, ideally, I don't see why the education a school provides should depend on where it the building is situated within the school district.) On the other, why should select students have to suffer a pretty significant individual time and distance burden to satisfy a quota?

I've been playing with this post for a while, and I have at least three additional paragraphs that I could put here, but I don't think I will. I don't know that I have enough authority to say anything truly meaningful that will add to the debate, and even if I just stick to my own experiences, well, the bottom line is that while I really like Louisville for a lot of reasons, I am just reminded over and over again how different it is here from the places I'm used to. In so many ways, large and small. Or maybe it's just that I was on Southwest last night because they opened up booking through January 2008 and I saw that Thanksgiving fares have already been completely sold out, realized that I don't even know if I can go anywhere for Thanksgiving, and got depressed about the fact that we live so far away from everyone.

Redbox

So, I pretty much never rent videos. We used to do Netflix, but by the end we were just wasting our money because these movies would show up and just sit on our TV for weeks while we did everything but watch them. The only movie I've wanted to see on DVD recently was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so I requested it from the library. After waiting two weeks and still being at the bottom of a 16-person waiting list (person #1 apparently was choosing not to return it), I gave up and went to Wild and Woolly Video and then Blockbuster last Wednesday. At Blockbuster they convinced me to sign up for the Blockbuster netflix two-week free trial, because in doing so I would get my Harry Potter rental for free, so I did it. The movies came, and now I have Stranger Than Fiction, The Holiday, and The Queen sitting on our TV. There's a chance I might watch them this weekend, since Eric's going to be at The Shore, but I doubt it. So why I even care about movie rentals, I really don't know. But I went to McDonald's today on my way home to get an iced coffee, but apparently only east coast McDonald'ses have iced coffee; Louisville McDonald'ses have sweet tea. So I got an ice cream cone instead. But I also saw that they also have Redbox, the pluses of which have been known to Maryland residents for some time and have also been lauded. But it's new here. You can rent a DVD for $1 per night. Did I mention that McDonald's is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to my apartment?

So, if I ever do need to rent a movie again, I can just go to McDonald's. I can't foresee that happening any time soon, but still, it's cool.

Oxford comma

I didn't know my comma usage had a name. I always called it the "serial" comma. I like "Oxford comma" better. It sounds so British.

"Why yes, I use the Oxford comma as a matter of principle."

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutother/oxfordcomma?view=uk

Whoa.

Bear mauls U.S. tourists, 1 dead

I don't know if you saw this story over the weekend; I did, and didn't pay much attention to it. But we found out today that the 26-year-old woman that the bear initially attacked is a friend from college. She's on her way home as we speak, taking medical leave (obviously) from her job there. I heard it through the phone grape vine, but the updated stories are now online as well:

Bear attacks Frederick woman in Romania

Crazy. I suddenly don't feel as excited about having seen a bear in Alaska. I don't know anything about Sara's injuries or anything like that, but I hope she's doing OK.

I bought tickets yesterday for Harry Potter. Saturday, July 14, 9:45 pm, row K, seats 6 and 7. $21 total with a student discount. It's the IMAX version (I asked; it is the IMAX film which is 70 mm instead of 35 mm, and the screen is IMAX height, but not full IMAX width or curvature like the science centers, although it is still a bigger screen than they use for regular movies), and the last 20 minutes of the film are apparently going to be in 3-D. Whoa. We are totally Harry Pottered out at this apartment, with Eric reading all the books for the first time, me being upset that I already re-read them all and don't have the reading-them-for-the-first-time-bliss he does, re-watching the movies, and in general getting really excited for movie #5 and book #7.

This weekend I'm going to be manning a single-payer health care booth at Baxter Avenue Theaters for Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare in conjunction with the release of Sicko. Yay, socialist propaganda! (Louisville shoutout: Footage of Congressional testimony by Dr. Linda Peeno, whose former job was to reject medical claims for Humana, and who was portrayed by Laura Dern in the movie Damaged Care, reportedly appears in Sicko.) Sometimes it's fun to be in the minority, able to associate with only a few friends over certain topics and spread my liberal agenda, but mostly I just wish I was back home, where I could make statements like "I'm going to see Sicko this weekend" and not have someone respond, "Why would you ever see a Michael Moore movie?" or not worry about what someone else might think. It gets tiring, you know, to always be aware of who's near and what you should think twice about saying.

This past weekend we went to a Bats game and we watched the Pawtucket Sox pitcher throw a perfect game for 8 innings. It was busted, and then it started to pour, so we left. I'm told I saw something momentous that I might remember for the rest of my life and relate to future generations ("Why yes, I once saw a perfect game. It was 2007, Sox vs Bats, and it was broken in the 8th inning."), but I'm sure I won't, so I document it here for posterity. Whatever posterity this blog might pose.

This week is technically my first on Ob/Gyn, but we just have to attend lectures. Today I learned all about normal and abnormal labors and deliveries, with terms and phrases like "occiput anterior," "platypelloid pelvis" "engaging the pelvis," and "shoulder dystocia" being introduced to my vocabulary. Did you know that on average, the baby of a smoking mother is 9 oz smaller than one of a non-smoking mother? Or that the average length of the diagonal conjugate* is 12 cm? Or that the LD50** of blood loss is 1.5L? That's pretty astonishing when you think about the fact that when you donate blood, you give a whole 1L. Half of us are only 500 ml away from death when we donate to the Red Cross.

I requested the opportunity to observe at least one elective abortion during the next 8 weeks, a risky request by all assessments. But I thought I should do it, since this is my one chance to do so. There are only two physicians in Louisville who perform them (actually, they're the only two in the state, I'm pretty sure), and it all hinges on whether they are registered as gratis faculty with the university, so that my observations would count. So we'll see what happens. Again, I could do without the fear and nervousness associated with making requests like that.

My Ob/Gyn experience starts for real on Monday, when I'll be on GynOnc surgery for 2 weeks (that's gynecology oncology). Normally, we have to be DONE rounding on our patients by 7:15 am, which means, that's right, starting my day at about 5 am. Then it's surgery all day, which I've not heard good things about***. Other than that, I will reserve judgment until it starts. Open mind and all that...


*Don't worry, no one cares. But if you do, it's the length from the bottom of the pubic symphysis to the sacral promontory. That is, you hold your right hand like you're making a fake gun, with two fingers for the barrel instead of one, and put those fingers into the woman's vagina and feel for the sacral promontory, the bony protuberance that's sort of the bottom of the bottom spine bone before it curves into the tail bone. Here, this shows you. Only that's on a model pelvis, and it's very easy to forget that you are sticking your fingers into the inside of a woman and feeling around for bones sticking out at you while she's in labor. No, thank you.
**LD50 (the "50" should be subscripted) is the "lethal dose 50" or the dose that is lethal in 50% of patients. You usually hear it in terms of the LD50 of a drug, but here we're talking about the amount of blood loss that is lethal in 50% of patients. 1.5L, seriously. No wonder I have so many problems donating blood.
***As a medical student, that is. I'm sure it's fun to do surgery when you're actually DOING surgery. But I haven't heard rave reviews for retracting.

Charge to 360! Clear! [Thump]

I am now completely certified to perform CPR on you, use an automated external defibrillator, and, if we are in the right setting, use all the appropriate medicines and shocking devices to bring you back from the brink of death, should you need it. Not that resuscitation is ever a really sure-bet type of thing. But still. I would feel better about responding to those "Is there a doctor in the house?" calls now. (Don't worry, I won't pass myself off as a doctor when I'm not. But I can still push 1 mg of epinephrine, charge the defibrillator to 360 Joules, and shock you.)

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday. I'm glad my friend told me to sit through all the credits for the extra scene at the end. The movie started by jumping in right after the end of the second movie, assuming that you had rented it on DVD since last summer (I hadn't; it took me a while to remember a lot of the details it assumed you knew), and wasn't as great as either of the two before it. It needed more Johnny Depp. I'm sure they must have used a leg double for Keira Knightley's leg scene with Orlando Bloom, because she is way too thin to own the leg they showed. But overall, worth $6 to see in the middle of the day the week before your life goes crazy again. And they set themselves up nicely for movie #4, which I'm pretty ambivalent about at this point.

I had a dream the other night that I found out my board scores. I passed, but not by much. In my dream, I was just excited to pass. But then the realization settled in that my score was awful and I wouldn't be going anywhere good for residency. So it wasn't a good dream. I guess in real life, I'm just hoping for a pass at this point as well. But if July 18 comes and all I did was pass, that's not going to be such a great thing. Right now all I'm asking for is minimal success. But in reality, I need a lot more than that.

I start OB/Gyn at 8:15 on Monday morning. It's weird to think that I'm starting a school year in June, first of all. Second of all, I thought the crappy hours thing didn't start until residency. Not so. In the syllabus for OB/Gyn, it mentions that there will be a two-week period of being on call for the university obstetrics team. Either 5 am to 5 pm or 5 pm to 7:30 am. Which adds up to no more than 72 hours per week (it's only 6 days/week; whew!). And then this sentence: "If students ever find themselves working more than 80 hours, please notify Dr. Fleming immediately." What? MORE than 80 hours a week!?!?! I don't think I was mentally (or physically) prepared for this. And surgery is reportedly even worse. Stupid babies. Stupid school. Stupid medicine.

I'm going to enjoy this weekend, that's for sure. Another half-day tomorrow, two full days this weekend, and we cleaned the apartment last weekend, so that's not hanging over our heads anymore. No big plans yet; I wouldn't mind just lying around for 64 hour straight.

Back on KY time

Alaska photos have been captioned.

The Lion King was amazing. The costumes were simply spectacular and breath-taking. I'm so impressed by people who are really creative and can come up with stuff like that. It really is awe-inspiring. I was really unsure of how they would translate the movie to the stage, but they did a really great job of it. My only criticism was the boy who played young Simba the night we saw it (they have two children each playing Simba and Nala; child labor laws, I suppose). He wasn't quite loud enough and his singing wasn't as strong as his dancing. But, he was only 9 or 10; I still have to give him credit. The girl who played young Nala was much better, and the woman who played the adult Nala was definitely the best of all the performers. It's showing at the Kentucky Center through July 8; go check it out! I'm really glad we got season tickets to the Broadway series this year. After seeing all the shows, I still think 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was the most fun, followed by The Lion King, Spamalot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and All Shook Up (again, 12 Angry Men is left out, since it is a play, and a very excellent play at that).

Kings Island was a lot of fun. It had none of the same rides that I remember from Kings Dominion, and that was nice. We rode The Beast, the world's longest wooden roller coaster (about 7,400 feet, if I remember correctly), and the new Firehawk, in which you are lying belly-down, arms out, Superman-style. We were really lucky, with very few lines, and we rode everything we wanted to that we could (one ride was closed and one broke down just as we got to the front of the line). The water park was a lot of fun, too. The nice thing about theme parks is that you get enough sun and excitement to wear you out, so that you get that all-over-body exhaustion that makes you sleep really, really well. Not that I ever have any problems sleeping.

We saw Knocked Up today. It was hilarious. It was also the first movie I've seen in a theater since February -- wow! I think I'm going to see Pirates next week sometime, because it turns out that orientation only runs for a half day most days.

We also went to a jazz club opening in New Albany that Eric was covering tonight. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was the main act, and they were really good. All the tickets had been sold out, but some people didn't show up for the 9 pm set, so we were able to sit down and enjoy the show. The kitchen had also been closed during the earlier set, due to being inundated with orders (opening night glitches), but after things settle down I think I'd like to go back and have a nice dinner while listening to some jazz.

Almost no cleaning has been accomplished since I last posted, other than laundry and dishes. Books still litter my desk and office. It may stay that way for a while...

Alaska!

That's right, we're back, as if the updated Free Stuff! post didn't give it away.

Here's two weeks in a nutshell:

• June 1: B-Day (that's Boards Day). It was definitely a stamina type of day. I was pretty good with timing, making sure to take each of my breaks in between each section, even if they weren't for the full amount of time. Kept a steady stream of caffeine and energy bars going, and I never really felt the post-prandial slump. I felt pretty good after I was done. Of course, most people apparently feel like they failed but turn out to have done fine, so by feeling fine, I probably failed. Oh well, nothing to do but wait until July 18 for my score. Picked up Eric at BWI, met Duc in Annapolis for dinner, and headed to Rock Hall, MD, where we picked crabs and drank beer.
  
• June 2: Aaron and Melanie's wedding. Pictures here and here (I got a lot of the reception; Duc got the night before at the crab shack). Highlights of the wedding: good bar, good fun, and someone else wearing the same dress I did. How embarrassing!
  
• June 3: Woke up at 5 am to hit the road and drive back to BWI. Got on a flight to Seattle, scored a 3-seater row all to ourselves on the first leg and the coveted two-person exit row on the second (love you, Southwest!). The only disappointment was forgetting my Southwest drink vouchers back in Louisville. Not that there was going to be any drinking on that flight, not after the previous night. But you know, a cocktail on our way home wouldn't have been bad. Made it to the ship. Pictures of the Alaska trip are here (although the captioning process hasn't been finished yet).
• Ziplining in Ketchikan was awesome. Did you know that Ketchikan is the third rainiest place on Earth after Kuaui and the Amazon? Luckily for us, it was a beautiful day!
• In Juneau (rainier day) we went to the Mendenhall Glacier, and then took an "unofficial trail" that led much closer to it and a waterfall. We scrambled over a rockslide and got right up to the waterfall -- it was awesome. There's nothing like breaking the rules and risking a broken neck for an adrenaline rush.
• In Skagway we took the White Pass and Yukon Railroad into Fraser, BC. The railroad ride was really gorgeous, and it was amazing to see the landscape change so dramatically between Alaska and Canada. The mountains got craggier and there was much less low-lying brush and trees. It made us wonder if the geography shift was how they decided where to put the border in the first place. Oh yeah, and the dandelions in Skagway were gi-normous (apparently the bears eat them after waking up from hibernation, because they serve as a natural laxative).
  
• Victoria was an absolutely gorgeous city -- flowers EVERYWHERE. And I saw multiple gardens growing calla lilies, which I've never seen growing in real life before. There were also these funny little blue flowers that grew in bunches on a bush -- does anyone know what they are? I've never seen them before.
  
• Wildlife count: whales (gray or humpback, not really sure), a bear, eagles, mountain goats, and assorted birds. We were too early for the salmon run, it was the wrong part of Alaska for moose, and we did see two reindeer, but they were penned so I don't think that counts.
• The weather was really nice. It was only rainy on the first part of the first day at sea, and in Juneau. The other days were sunny, mostly clear, and mostly not-cold.
• It's kind of bittersweet that most of those port towns are only still in existence because of the cruise lines. Ketchikan's claim to fame, other than being rainy, is to be home to the largest collection of native totem poles in the country. Or something similarly boring. Oh yeah, and it has a former bordello. Skagway is similarly tied to the gold rush, and also proudly boasts a former bordello, but has only about 300 year-round residents. The towns have otherwise no industry, nothing to do. The cruise ships come in, drop off 3,000 people who all flock into the same souvenir shops or cruise line-owned diamond and tanzanite stores, and sustain the few hundred locals. All of our tour guides were seasonal transplant workers as well. Most people book a shore excursion that takes more advantage of the wildnerness -- either ziplining (which is pretty fake, when you think about it), or riding the railroad, or taking a charter boat out for whale watching or sport fishing, or taking a seaplane or helicopter ride. And those trips are EXPENSIVE! So on the one hand, I'm really happy I got to see Alaska and do what we did, but it's definitely also weird to think that so much of it is either falsely extending the gold rush era or completely manufactured.
  
• Princess isn't a bad cruise line. The food was good but not outstanding. I think the next cruise line up is only about $100 more per person; next time I would be willing to spend that to see if the experience is significantly better. We had the cheapest room (bottom deck, forward), and you could definitely feel the boat moving and the motors running, but we didn't stay in the room all that much, and we were so tired at night that we slept through all the commotion.
• Weird Princess cruise lines thing: soda was not free. You could buy a can of soda for $1.75 (no way!) or purchase a seven-day all-you-can-drink pass for $30 (also no way!). So we didn't drink any soda, not that that's a bad thing at all. But when you CAN'T have it, you want it really badly. So in Juneau I popped into a drug store and bought myself a nice, cold can of Coke ("only" 85 cents).
  
• Some of the food highlights on the ship were Alaskan king crab legs (the waiter noticed that I was working through mine with gusto and offered me another serving; he will forever be in my good graces for that), lobster tails, and prime rib. And lots of fruit, including watermelon, strawberries, and papayas. Someone really knows what I like to eat, that's for sure. We also had Alaskan seafood chowder and reindeer chili.
  
• We went in the hot tub on the top deck almost every day, and I'm really glad we did. On one afternoon, we ran onto the deck in our shorts and flip-flops (it was pretty chilly) and one of the waiters exclaimed, "Good afternoon! Welcome to the Caribbean!" which was awesome. As was drinking cocktails in the hot tub in 40-degree weather.
  
• We played trivia almost every day as well; they usually had a late-morning/brunch-time trivia and another one around 4:30 pm. We always finished in the top two or three (20 questions, all sorts of random stuff), but there were a few other die-hard trivia groups in attendance as well to beat us. However, we finally won one morning, and earned four travel alarm clocks as our prize. Our crowning glory, though, was "Jeopardized Trivia," for which we came back from Victoria early and rushed through dinner to attend. We were the only team to get the correct answer for Final Jeopardy, and since most teams (including us) had bet it all, we ended up with a whopping $3,600, to claim the prize of two bottles of champagne! Woohoo!
• After the cruise got back to Seattle Sunday morning, we spent the day there, checking out Pike Place Market and some of the more notable neighborhoods. After a long day of plane rides back to BWI Monday, we finally got back to my parents' house for the night, and happily greeted Moxie and Mojo, who had been consorting with dogs for three weeks. Tuesday we drove for 12 hours back to Louisville, and today I made a tiny dent in all of the housework that needs to be done.
• Bad news: Even though I would be so tired every evening on the cruise that I would fall asleep by 9 pm at the latest (one night I fell asleep at 7 and slept a full 12 hours, which I haven't done in forever), I am now stuck on Alaska time, which means I'm wide awake at 2 am, feeling like it's 10 pm. Oh well.
• Overall, it was a great trip. It's been a rough few weeks, but I'm glad that it's over, glad that I survived, and really glad we went to Alaska. I'd definitely like to go back, maybe next time in more of a camping/wilderness mode. Maybe.
  

Plans for the rest of the week:

• More cleaning: dirty laundry to wash, clean laundry to put away (the worst part), cat hair to vacuum off the carpets
• More organizing: putting away every single textbook and packet of notes that was ripped from the bookcase over the last month, gathering donations for Goodwill, and figuring out something to do with my ever-growing pile of JAMAs (it just feels wrong to throw them away, but no one wants them, either)
• Movies to see: Spider-Man 3 (maybe it's at the $1 theater by now?), Pirates of the Caribbean, Knocked Up, and Harry Potter 4 (rental), among others.
• Tomorrow night we see The Lion King, which will be the final show for our 2006-2007 Broadway Series (sniff).
  
• Friday I'm going to Kings Island (that's the Ohio version of King's Dominion for you east-coasters) with some friends, and I'm quite excited. You might guess that since I was 100% excited about ziplining, that I like thrill rides. Rollercoasters and water slides are pretty much guaranteed happiness for me.

As is champagne won by being smart.

Free Stuff! Update

Instead of re-posting the first part of the list in order to add to it, I'm just going to post the updates. If you want to see what free stuff I had gotten before May 18, click here.

Here is what has shown up in the mail between May 18 and June 12:

Dove Advanced Color Care shampoo, conditioner, and radiance enhancing treatment, 0.28 oz each. I don't even color my hair...

Dove Regenerating Calming Night body wash and night lotion, 0.30 oz each (actually, I already got that on 5/2, didn't I?)

Dove Energy Glow body lotion, the gradually-builds-a-tan kind. Of course, with only 1.0 oz of the stuff, I'm either going to have to just test it on one part of my body, or else go out and buy a whole damn bottle. And I'm not really all about looking tan, so I'm not sure where that leaves me. (Pale is beautiful, people!)

John Frieda Frizz-Ease shampoo, conditioner (0.28 oz each), and hair serum (0.15 oz)

Head & Shoulders With Hydrazinc Formula Restoring Shine 2-in-1 dandruff shampoo (and I don't have dandruff...), 0.34 oz

Crest Nature's Expressions toothpaste in Pure Peppermint Fresh, Citrus Clean Mint, and Mint+Green Tea Extract, 0.25 oz each

A medium-sized piece of Reynolds parchment paper. Honestly, people, I have no idea where this came from

Two bags of Celestial Seasonings Raspberry Gardens Green Tea

A bag each of Classic Indian Spice, Egyptian Licorice Mint, and Black Chai tea, all from Yogi Tea (active offer)

A 1.4 oz container of Folgers Gourmet Selections Lively Colombian medium roast ground coffee, enough for 9 to 11 cups.

Two Cascade 2-in-1 ActionPacs dishwasher tablets

A 1-load packet of Biz laundry detergent

11:15 pm update: Oh yeah, and a 6 oz bag of Purina Naturals Cat Chow