Christmas season is upon us. My mom is visiting and we are relaxing, as much as we can relax anyway. For regular readers, I apologize for not having kept up. I'm entering a busier-than-usual stretch in my education and induction into the American medical-industrial-complex. I'll do my best to blow off steam and let you know about the minor tragedies and major dramas of my family, but I beg your patience.

My mom is visiting us for the next few days and, when she visits, she likes to cook a lot of really good food. Unfortunately, our kitchen is deceptively small and there is really not room enough for more than one person to work in the kitchen at a time. Mom's food is great, but she seems to be out-of-sync with our normal circadian rhythms. For example, an eighteen pound turkey is sitting in the stove behind me as I type. It is fully cooked and ready to eat with cranberry sauce, stuffing (more on the stuffing later), sweet potatoes, and gravy, yet everyone is sleeping except for me. Then, when people are hungry and meals need to be prepared, Mom is working on her next masterpiece, which should be ready at 10:30 AM or so. Nevertheless, we are getting along well and I am on my best behavior, or at least I am trying to be good.

An important item in mom's stuffing and gravy are turkey or chicken giblets
which Jill loathes. After lunch today, Ben climbed up on the step stool to 'help' me with the dishes. He spotted a bowl of gizzards and turkey necks beside the sink. What could be a better treat? He grabbed a mealy, gamey turkey gizzard and began to eat it. He then ran upstairs where his mom caught sight of him. She came downstairs and we had a little fight about it.

Jill said, "Did you do that on purpose?"

I replied, "No, I did not."

Mom defended the gizzard eating, "Everyone in the Barasches and McCannons eats these, there's nothing wrong with it. Everyone does it. I don't know anyone who doesn't eat the gizzards."

Jill said, "You know me! I don't eat that!" She was angry. Then she fell asleep, too sick for lunch. She has a passing stomach illness that is greatly exaggerated by the sight of her offspring eating poultry innards.

I just finished reading a book for fun, though it has a passing connection to Neurology (my professors kept talking about it last year in neuroscience), called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's about a guy who has a hemorrhage in his brain stem and can thereafter only communicate by blinking. Before his accident, the author was the editor-in-chief of a parisian fashion magazine, so the text is very poetic. It's not as depressing as you might think.


May has beens struggling with potty problems since our Thanksgiving venture to NYC.