hawkeye

I feel like L posted this already in the comments somewhere, but in case he didn't, here is Rufus the pigeon chasing hawk of Wimbledon. And if anyone knows who's doing the voiceover, I would really like to know. He sounds so familiar.

One of the first times Sherlock watched tennis with me, one of the commentators talked about Federer's dislike of Hawkeye, and Sherlock was convinced for days that Hawkeye must be an actual person, because who would dislike a computer system, that just wouldn't make any sense, right? I have a picture he drew somewhere of Hawkeye scowling. He had an eyepatch I believe.

We have Mycroft home again with all his things, all over the living room, and all his dogs, also all over the living room (and Anthea, not all over the living room). He said there was no point taking it all up to his room as he'd have to bring it down to wash most of it tomorrow, which I think means he's turning into an actual teenager. Also his shoes have formed a nest with L's by the door to trip unwary newcomers.

And now I should probably get to bed. L and I have been up talking about the op he has coming up, which I mention only as an excuse for being up so late because I know you lot will worry otherwise. It's...not ideal, but nothing too bad. And of course if it goes well, the result will be a very good one, so fingers crossed. 

did you know

Did you know there used to be a tradition of medical students posing with their cadavers? This is one of the more serious ones. I saw one with the students and cadaver playing cards...and another that had been made into a Christmas card to send to friends and family. 

And another 'did you know'...that some idiots are leaving their dogs locked in their cars with this heat? And that the police are allowed to break their windows to rescue the dogs? A broken window's the least of what they deserve, really. 

Since Sherlock learned that little fact, he's been on the lookout for dogs to rescue, and today... 

It was some sort of vastly unhappy terrier mix. Poor thing. Mycroft had some very strong words for the owner when he came out to complain about his window.

And lastly, L tells me I need to complain about the heat more and stop acting like I'm made of asbestos, so: it's hot. 

bike day, the third

Sherlock, L, and I went to pick up L's new bike today. It's very...shiny. And sleek. Obviously I am not jealous at all, no matter how new and nice looking it is, and how smooth to ride, and... Not jealous at all. And I still maintain that my bike is superior (for me).

We went to pick up Mycroft afterward, so he could ride it too, got a snack together, and delivered him to his school before his housemaster could start making disapproving faces. Good day.

Last night...was strange. I got a call out a little after eleven, went from that to another, and then got another when I was heading home. Home happened around three, I think, so all in all I wasn't even gone that long. It felt much longer and like no time at all.

In some ways, it was like being back in a war zone. A lot of differences, too, obviously, but that familiar sense of urgency, of things that need to be done right this second, the feeling of not a moment to lose. Different consequences, too, but still the same feeling.

The first and last were fairly straightforward drugs incidents, no overdoses, no one too badly off. The middle one was a man who'd had hot sauce thrown in his face, one of those hot sauces with dire warnings on the label. I hadn't seen that before. I think I can now definitively recommend against it. 

i got the job

I was expecting to be told thank you and we'll let you know in a week or two. Instead it was thank you and when can you start. Bit of a shock. I told her after 2 June, and she looked harried, but I don't see how I can start sooner. We leave for Italy at the end of this week. Which is very, very soon I suddenly realise.

She said she'd email me some information, and I have things to sign, and I should know my first shift date before we get back, assuming we have wifi there, not sure about that.

Meanwhile, I have laundry. And packing. And cleaning. And...something to confirm for tomorrow. But for now, I get to meet L and tell him the good news in person. :)

PS: telepathic rats

whitstable

L has the day off tomorrow. I asked where he wanted to go, and he said how about Whitstable, and now we both have this song stuck in our heads. Maybe forever.




We will be buying vegetables while we're there, obviously.

car punching

I had another interview yesterday, with Dr B, who thankfully did not google me. He was a bit older and called my phone an infernal device, so I have a feeling google is not top of his list for information sources. He's been doing this a long time though and had some interesting stories. Not sure we're going to suit though. I suspect if he had read the blogs, he wouldn't have approved.

Today, lunch in the park with Lestrade, who could speak and was not wheezing, so that was lovely. Beautiful day.

On the way to pick up Sherlock, I saw someone get cut up in traffic. He started shouting at the man who'd done it and got out of his car at the next light. I thought there might be trouble, which...I suppose there was. Of a sort. He walked up, punched the other man's car, got back in his own, and drove away when the light turned green. He made no impact on the car. I hope he didn't break anything in his hand.

I also looked at more wedding bands.

It's white gold, and the centre bit rotates. Does that make sense? The raised part is not attached to the inner part, so they sort of spin around each other, but they're still connected. There's an animation showing it on the site, but you can only really see it with the one with the diamond in. Anyway, I thought it was nice. Unusual. 

souffle success

I made this. It...worked? Bit dense maybe? I don't have extensive souffle eating experience, so it's hard to judge, but Sherlock ate two of them, so it must've not been too bad. It was actually a pretty simple recipe. It made six, so Mrs Hudson got one, and security got the other. Hopefully they shared and didn't go for a fight to death or anything. They're more used to L's desserts, which are worth fighting over. Hopefully this has erased the shame of the cheese and vinegar incident from everyone's mind.

And here's a tiny bat for Sherlock (and everyone else who wants one):

Lestrade's feeling better, which is wonderful. Sherlock's not even fake-coughing, despite school tomorrow. There was sun today and it looks like there might even be more tomorrow. Things are looking up...and I'm reading about tasers. Or, really, TASERs, since it's an acronym. There's an entire chapter on them in Clinical Forensic Medicine.  Apparently the man who invented them named them after his favourite character: Tom A. Swift and his Electric Rifle (TASER). So, there's something I'm willing to bet most of you didn't know. And will never have occasion to use now that you do know it. 

slow day

Harry sent me a link to this article: We Found Our Son on the Subway. Lovely. You couldn't get away with writing this sort of thing in fiction; everyone would call it unrealistic. I kept expecting something awful to happen as I was reading through it and was very pleasantly surprised. I am so happy for them. And glad to live in a world where things like this are, occasionally, possible.

Lestrade's still ill. Sherlock, thankfully, is not, though he tried coughing and looking pathetic this morning in case I'd let him stay home from school. He couldn't maintain it though. He has too much energy to pretend effectively; it breaks out and suddenly he's jumping up and down on the sofa and singing about orange juice.

Lestrade is looking wan and pale without any effort at all, but I think feeling slightly better today, judging by his slightly renewed interest in coffee. He's mostly been on the sofa with a duvet and an endless supply of case files and autopsy reports. There are so many that I literally don't know how he got them home with them. I think the interior of his bag may be a Tardis. The coughing at night is the worst part, but at least he's had some rest today.

I've been making him tea and reading my new book, Clinical Forensic Medicine: A Physician's Guide. Not an exciting day, but there you are. How are you all doing? 

perils of the internet

I met with one of the people on my interview list today. We were scheduled to meet next week, but she had some time and called to ask if I were free, so we had lunch. She seems nice. We chatted for a while. And then she admitted that she'd googled me. And found the blogs. And I felt as if I'd showed up to the meeting in nothing but my pants.

So. That was interesting. I suppose I have to assume that people are going to do that. I'm lucky Sarah didn't, really. Although in a way, it might save a lot of time. If someone doesn't want to meet me after reading the blogs, I wouldn't have wanted to work with them anyway, so there's that.

Dr A (not even her actual initial; I'm calling them A, B, C etc for now) seemed fine with the madhouse that is my life and said she might even keep reading, at least until we get Sherlock bone-chandelier up, because she wants to see how it turns out. (So, if you're reading this...hello.)

It's an odd feeling. Partly because I'm used to presenting a professional front, but also partly because until L and the boys, there hasn't been all that much that... You know, even as I type that sentence, I realise it's not true. If I'd been keeping a blog in my thirties...probably anyone reading it would've thought I was writing fiction. Anyway. Odd day. 

narwhals and interviews

Narwhals:

I'm reading The Mauritius Command, and sometimes Sherlock perches on the back of the sofa and reads bits over my shoulder. The bit he read today was a scene in which a captain under Aubrey's command is convinced he has a unicorn's horn. It's really a narwhal tusk, which caused Sherlock to interrogate me for my scanty knowledge of narwhals (mid-sized whale, has an enormous tusk, lives in the Arctic), which was obviously not enough to satisfy him, so we looked on the internet for a while and found, among other things, the above picture. 

Before Sherlock got home, I called a few of the people on the list I got from the course to set up interviews for a potential...mentor? Supervisor? Both, I suppose. And instructor, since they're meant to sign off on me and attest to my general competence to do the job on my own after a few months. 

I called five people and got three interviews out of it. The first man said he was retiring soon and wasn't prepared to train anyone, and the third said he was moving to Ulan Bator in three weeks. I wish I'd thought to ask why. I really want to know now, despite it being quite obviously none of my business. I thought about going there to teach English for a while. 

Anyway, I'll let you know how the interviews go, and of course even if someone takes me on, it's no guarantee of employment. Just have to wait and see how it all turns out. Even if I don't get work right away, I might start looking at the requirements for the DMJ (diploma of medical jurisprudence). I think it'd be interesting. 

-

Aaaand apparently Sherlock is the proud owner of a giant purple sparkly bone, which we need to pick up tomorrow. The things that happen when I leave town for a week... 

city lights

A shot from the Met helicopter that L sent me: 

Our house is down there somewhere...

Beautiful, isn't it? Night shots of city lights always are. It's hard to imagine the entire planet dark the way it was really not very long ago at all. I wonder if any light source people could make prior to electricity would show up from space. Or helicopters. Alien helicopters, obviously, since we sort of needed electricity to... I'll just stop there.

The boys and I have been out enjoying the city while L slaves away at his desk, although Sherlock desperately wants to stop by in his continuing quest to get every single person on Earth to sign his cast. We might at least drag L away for coffee if he's not too busy.

One of the things we got at the end of the course was a list of names of FMEs (or FPs or FMOs or one of the other many acronyms that have been/are being used to describe this job) currently working in our home cities who are willing to supervise trainees - that would be us - for the first six months or so. The idea is that we call a few, set up interviews, and find someone we work well with. After we start working, we get to call them if we have questions, and they look over our cases, things like that, to make sure we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, and then, eventually, they sign off on us, and we're on our own.

So that's the next step. I'll look into it soon, but not until after the boys are back at school probably. Hopefully I can do the interviews while Sherlock's at school so I won't need to bother Mrs Hudson. 

sofa

Sherlock came and woke me up about half an hour ago. I got him some water, and now we're on the sofa. He's asleep again, sort of draped over me like a small, warm, bony blanket, with his arm propped carefully on cushions. My computer's balanced precariously on the back of the sofa, so this is probably not going to be a long post.

The course was good, despite the lack of decent tea. I didn't sleep well without L's freezing cold feet and his... Well. Just without him, I suppose. It's easier to remember where you are when you wake up in your own bedroom next to someone you love than it is when you wake up in an empty hotel room. This was the first time I've been away on my own since I met him and the boys, and it was strange to see how much I've changed. Even the concept of having a home is unfamiliar, at least since I left my parent's house, and missing it - not just the people in it but the physical place - is a first.

Got home around 7.30, locked the bike up, got hit in the midsection by a Sherlock-shaped torpedo and grabbed as tightly as he could managed with only one arm. There was some sniffling when I picked him up and he told me all about it (for the second time, because of course he told me on skype as well, but that's not the same) while Lestrade and Mycroft came to hug me slightly more gently and help me get my things upstairs.

Tea, biscuits, curry, my favourite people, two large slobbery dogs...a good homecoming.

I'll leave you with some valuable information from the course. One of the things we covered was 'demeanor in court', on which our instructor had this to say:

Consider carefully the proposed response prior to putting one's mouth into gear.

I liked it so much I wrote it down verbatim. I don't think there's any area of life that couldn't apply to. 

birmingham

Want to help name Pluto's moons? (Who wouldn't want to help name Pluto's moons?)

Anyway, I'm in Birmingham. This is the picture I sent Sherlock and L last night of my hotel room.

Unexciting hotel room

the lady of shalott

I'm tired, and extremely full of pie - still - so this will be short, apart from the poem, which is long. 

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we had to pick something to memorise and recite in class, and I did Resume, by Dorothy Parker, which you can look up  or find in the comments of the previous post. It was...not well received. It deals with methods of suicide in a more lighthearted manner than my teacher felt was appropriate. My parents were called, I had to see the headmaster, etc etc... Despite the fact that Parker was, as I insisted repeatedly, a 'real, famous poet'. 

I'd got it out of one of my mother's books, and my parents were, for once, on my side, and the only punishment I got in the end was to pick a different poem. I picked this one, primarily because it was the longest one in our book. I recited it as slowly as humanly possible. It took up nearly half the class. I also completely alienated that teacher completely, which made the rest of the year rather unpleasant. Still, no regrets. And I do like the poem. It's very peaceful. 

-

The Lady of Shalott 
Tennyson

fme and bed snails

Last night in the comments, I was being unintentionally morose about my lack of employment (I know, I do have a job, but with both the boys back in school, it really doesn't feel like it, and I'm not good at doing nothing all day), and L brought up the possibility of working as a forensic medical examiner.

Basic duties...I'll just quote Lestrade here: examining injured people in custody, examining people who claim to be sick/injured, people who claim to be the victims of police brutality, take blood samples, write out death certs. at scenes, and sometimes present your findings in court. And also, I think, from the reading I've been doing, examining assault victims. I'm going to talk to someone he knows about it and find out a bit more. There's not as much additional training as I would've expected, though there is some.

I talked to Sherlock about on the way home from school. He seems alternately excited and worried about how much I'd be gone, which I'm a little concerned about too. Obviously, he and Mycroft are my first responsibility, and I'm not quite sure it would be fair to them. But I don't know enough about it yet to make a decision either way, so that'll have to wait.

I think I'm also signing up for krav maga lessons at a place Anthea recommended, too. I'll let you know how it goes.

ETA: This was Lestrade when I went into the bedroom just now...

grim grey palisades

We went to Spike Island. Over the years, it's had a monastery, a prison, a fort, and more recently a prison again. The prison was closed down in 2004, and now it's just a tourist attraction. 

The fact that it was a prison before it was a fort certainly shows, doesn't it? The weather was decidedly grey when we went to visit, and it made the whole thing still more foreboding. 

in the days of frost

Well. This was going to be about Laura's surprise visit, but if you've been reading the comments on L's blog, you'll know it's not going to be.

Someone sent photos to L at work today, pictures of all of us at bouncy Stonehenge. No note, apparently, no overt threat, but the fact that someone sent them is threatening enough. L couldn't reach me or Rachel at first and was understandably concerned, but everyone's fine, physically at least.

It's a difficult situation. I mean, I know I'm stating the obvious here, but...yeah. There's not enough information to actually do anything yet and no way of knowing when there will be. The police and Mrs H's people will be working on it, so that'll have to be enough. I hate the waiting though, always have. 

the moor, pt. i've-lost-count

I'm going to skip the part the Mycroft told you about, but I'll get us from where I left off to the place where Mr Hudson was holding him first. So...L and I and Sherlock got back to the house. Mr Hudson had hit Mrs Hudson and ran off with Mycroft.

Sherlock said he knew where he'd gone, and that he could lead us there. I was...not happy about that idea, but he said if we didn't take exactly the right path, we'd sink into the mud and never be heard from again. I don't think I even questioned whether it was a good idea to go at all, which you can put down to sleep deprivation and stubbornness, like most of the things I did that day.

Lestrade definitely did question whether it was a good idea to go or not. He wanted to wait for back up, which I still think was probably the more sensible choice. Despite what he says, the fact that it all worked out was more due to luck than anything else. Eventually, because he couldn't convince me not to go, he came with us, which I'm sure surprises no one here.

devil in the white city

Last week, while picking up Sherlock from school, I had a book pressed on me rather insistently by one of the mothers. (We know each other slightly and chat sometimes while waiting for school to let out; it wasn't completely out of the blue.) I took it, because she was so sure I'd love it, and because why not?

It's called Devil in the White City, and it's about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and the serial killer H.H. Holmes. If I'd known that last part, I would not have brought it into the house. Sherlock is wild with curiosity over 1) not just a murderer, but one with his last name, 2) a book I'm reading that he deems worthy (i.e. contains no magic, talking animals, and isn't about boring things like people and their ordinary lives which are not cut short by sudden death).

I can't decide whether to read him the fair parts and hope he gets bored with it, or keep him away from it entirely, but he's definitely not reading the serial killer parts. It's good though. I don't know how accurate the history is, but he's clearly done his research going by the forty pages of citations at the back.

In some ways, I wish it was just about the fair. The descriptions of it, and the quotes from people who saw it at the time, are fantastic, makes you wish you'd been there. I suppose the stuff about the killings wouldn't have been so disturbing before I knew L. Not that it was ever going to be light reading, but now it's impossible not to imagine what he'd go through investigating that sort of crime.

(Also, I'm glad to see I've finally found someone who can beat Genghis Khan in the poll.)

threatened with a pork chop

Around ten this morning, a very large man came into the surgery, went up to the receptionist, and said, 'I've got a knife, right, so you've got to let me see the doctor right now.'

He had one hand in his coat pocket, presumably holding the knife. The receptionist rang for me to come out. He explained the situation re: his supposed knife. I asked him to step into my office so I could take a look at him.

Once inside, I explained he'd have to remove his coat and shirt, at which point he pulled his hand out of his pocket, grasping not a knife but a paper-wrapped package. 'I don't have a knife,' he said. 'It's just chops. Can I put them in your fridge?'

We put them in the fridge. I listened to his breathing, and the police arrived a few minutes later. He looked confused, said he hadn't done anything wrong, and explained about the pork chops. They took him off in a police car anyway. He left the chops behind.

As if that wasn't odd enough, one of Lestrade's colleagues stopped by an hour later to make sure everything was all right. Said he'd heard that 'Lestrade's doctor was in some trouble...again.' I hope I'm not getting a reputation...