Hump Day

Patients often ask me what I do on Wednesdays. They are really curious - "you don't work on Wednesdays? What do you DO all day?" This makes me laugh - why, more chiropractic-y things, of course! Tuesday nights after work I read chiropractic journals before bed (I put a heat pack on and go to sleep on a chiropractic table!), and wake up super early to spend the day adjusting friends and family! Of course sometimes I go really crazy and attend a chiropractic seminar, or spend a lazy day reading old chiropractic text books...

What did you think? What do YOU all do when you are not in my office?

Here's the truth: a day-off in the life of a chiropractor (today!).
Sleep in! Three days a week I see patients at 7:30 AM (I know, some of you didn't KNOW there was an AM version of 7:30...), so I enjoy this. Then it is off to work-out - check out previous posts if you haven't seen the videos. My sister-in-law has been joining me and it is a blast to watch a newbie discover the joys of hitting things. My rushed breakfast of a half-avocado and organic spelt ginger snaps (uh, maybe we need a post on nutrition soon?) leaves me hungry... so I grab a seat on a patio and enjoy a rye bagel and lox - YUM. I do some banking and consider closing a safe deposit box (help. Is it SAFETY deposit box, or SAFE deposit box? The latter seems to make more grammatical sense, right?). I decide to keep the safe(ty) deposit box for now, you know, in case I need to store large sums of foreign currency or passports. (I just watched the Bourne Identity, indulge me.) Off to the health food store for some brown rice and other healthy stuff, but I'm interrupted by a phone call regarding a somewhat urgent, non-chiropractic matter (all will be fine, but let's just say that if I had a fan, uh, some stuff would have hit it). Head home, do some bills and paperwork, deal with an electrician and a painter, get annoyed with bills and paperwork, head to Cost.co.

This warrants its own paragraph. I love Cost.co - massive quantities of everything you may or may not need, in one convenient warehouse! Here I purchase clinic necessities - toilet paper, paper towels, computer paper... when you come for your treatment, you sort of assume these sundries will be here, and hey - do you you think paper goods just grow on trees? No, your chiropractor spends her day off at Cost.co hunting and foraging the aisles for you. Somewhere near the food section I grow dangerously dehydrated, and pray to the Cost.co gods for a sample lady dispensing tiny cups of lemonade. Instead she offers tortilla chips and salsa, and in my dehydrated state I ration that 'salsa is wet'... tip for my readers, salsa is not a thirst quencher. On Wednesdays I evidently leave my brain at the office. And yes, I remember to stock up on Werthers. My dear, dear patients, you are obsessed with the Werthers jar, don't think I haven't noticed. Many a RHCC meeting has addressed these delicious caramel treats, since they consume 78% of our operating budget and are not exactly healthy - and yet I don't dare remove them, seeing as how you panic when the jar approaches half-empty (or half-full - ha!). So I pick up the 25 bag weekly supply of Werthers. And for myself? A school of salmon, a few buckets of dijon mustard and wheel of cheese. You asked! One other thing I noticed at Cost.co - do they sell babies there? I couldn't find the display, but every other cart had a baby in it, and I figured I may as well pick one up if the price was right... but then realized that being Cost.co, they would probably come in packs of 8, and my storage space is full of jars of dijon mustard and toilet paper.

Then with little day of my day off left, I head home to water the garden and mentally write this post. I catch up on some emails, deal with the bills I had abandoned and attempt to make a healthy dinner. Spend a few more hours alternately cleaning around the house, debating watching a movie and surfing the internet... and here we are.

Are you sorry you asked what I do? Did you imagine the free time of a chiropractor to be more exciting?

Or... maybe this is all a ruse to distract you, and beneath my mild mannered appearance I'm really a former assassin running from the government (think about it, I am referred to by more than one surname, I head to Europe quite frequently lately, and my martial arts training has made me a formidable foe... sorry, that movie really was great!). Or perhaps on Wednesdays I shed my business casual attire for a size small (fine, medium depending on the cut) superhero suit, solving mysteries in the Forest Hill area. Since I'm quite the raconteur, maybe I just sit at home and write adventure/romance novels under my nom de plume, Daisy Yohang.

Or maybe I'll just keep you guessing!

What do YOU do when you are not at the clinic?