Three Little Birds

Last week before I started my job, we spent a beautiful afternoon in Fell’s Point. Please enjoy (or forgive) my pictorial homage to “Homicide: Life on the Street.” There are still memorials of sorts to the building they used for the police station – it was there already but was never actually used for that purpose. One of my favorite shows ever.

We indulged in more “Udderly Cream” ice cream and checked out some of the bricks by the water that you can dedicate. Personally I would have been insulted if I were part of “etc.”

We headed over to this cool shop called Galerie Collagia, owned and run by a local artist, Luana Kaufmann. She makes these wonderful collages and sells them among other cool things. She was nice enough to model a backpack (not made by her) that I would have killed for (pun intended) at some past time in my life. Check out her website: http://galeriecollagia.com/index.html.

In other news, I started my new job at the end of last week. As I have mentioned in emails and via facebook, everyone has been kind and welcoming. My position as psychiatric case manager is being defined as we go, but mainly I am the social worker for the two psychiatrists. I will be doing a lot of triaging of phone calls, managing their schedules and getting people in sooner if needed, some short-term case management, providing support of various kinds to the psychiatry clients in person and by phone, doing some crisis counseling and management  and referrals. At my last job, the only insurance I had to deal with was MediCal (California’s Medicaid program) and at my new job, there’s a whole slew of different types they take including Medicaid and Medicare. There’s a lot I won’t have to deal with with those and some I will.

Right now I’m starting to learn a whole new host of acronyms and a very large patient database that has a huge number of components. Mainly I stare at people blankly for awhile and also ask a ton of questions. I’m looking forward to next week when I will sit with a  bunch of the different case managers to be trained on numerous things like insurance, local resources, financial assistance programs and the like.

Meanwhile back at our fab apartment, Lori has been making some great local contacts and has two meetings set up with a web designer and a woman who connects women in business to other women in business. She’s also started karate in Pikesville, which may be the place I went to forever ago in high school that moved down the street or it’s entirely new. I will ask my friend Jen L who will know (or maybe you will read this and tell me).

Other than that we are still not entirely unpacked but a parental visit in about 10 days will light a fire under our butts. Speaking of butts, here are two cute cat butts sitting in the office window. The cats are pretty adjusted at this point and we finally got them new tags for their collars – they are indoor cats but you never know. One example of the unpredictability of our cats is that Lori found the freezer ajar this afternoon and went to close it when Buster leaped out of it. And Nikkyo is happily talking to and carrying her fuzzy toys (her “purple friend” and her “green friend”) from room to room every night, just like she did in Oakland. Who knows what she is telling them.

I’m getting along with my parents just fine – I now speak to my mom every night on the phone (where is Karen? what happened to her?) because it makes her happy and to be honest, it’s pretty sweet. Hopefully soon we’ll get them some wifi in their home. We did get my dad some speakers for the computer I gave him so he can hear the dvds he can watch on it better.

Lastly, I have been feeling homesick on and off all week, which is par for the course. I am so enjoying reconnecting with my east coast friends and hoping to see more of them soon. In June we may even be ready for a housewarming party. And I sure do miss my West coast friends, family and co-workers. All in all though, I’d say things are going rather well after a bumpy start. As a wise man once said, “Every little thing…gonna be all right.”