John's Last Meal

Today is October 1.  For us, that means (mentally play the "Jaws" theme song) that John just began two back-to-back months of the dreaded WARDS!  (Wards=Inpatient medicine month.)  For this first year of his residency, John has 6 months of working with inpatients in the hospital, and 6 months of electives.  He catches his breath during the elective months, but during the inpatient months John works 80-100 hours per week, and pulls an all-nighter while working in the hospital every 4th night.  It's exhausting!

  

Last night was John's final carefree evening before going back to the grind.  I asked him what he wanted to do for his last meal, and he requested the most relaxing thing he could imagine (at least for Milwaukee): watch the sunset over Lake Michigan while eating a delicious, nutritious home-cooked meal.


Turns out the sun sets over the west (!), so we didn't get to witness the glorious bright oranges and pinks in the sky, but it was still so beautiful and peaceful to watch the day end on the east side of town.  We'll have to return to this same spot at 6 AM some morning.

After our picnic, we monkeyed around the playground until dark.  We spent a lot of time along this shimmy-pole-zipline thing, and we were all pretty fast by the end.  (Especially John.)

Here's Benson holding on for dear life...

You have to really kick out to get enough momentum to make it across.  NOTE: I was asked about 4 times per week during college if I had ever been a cheerleader (nope), and I never understood why everyone thought that!  But now as I look at this picture, I think I get it.

Anyway, it was pretty sweet as far as last meals go.  We didn't do a fancy restaurant, just a simple home-cooked picnic, but there's a magic in ordinary days, and we felt it last night.