I had a 13″ color television, a queen-sized bed and my own room in a Washington, DC townhouse on Capitol Hill that I shared with two hill staffers. We had a one year-old dog, jobs that provided health insurance, covered rent and groceries and bought us a few beers a week.

We were 24.

For some odd reason, I sat on the floor alone in my room that night in September to watch the pilot of this new hospital drama I had heard about.

It was early September a few years earlier when I discovered the fever and odd swelling on the right side of my face and neck was mumps.

“Mumps?! Who gets mumps?”

The infirmary wanted to quarantine me. I insisted that I lived off campus and agreed to refrain from kissing young, virile boys until I was no longer contagious, so they let me recuperate at home (where I secretly made a list of boys who deserved to be kissed by a mump-afflicted girl).

When I was a kid my mom was an ER nurse. This meant that she performed our throat cultures herself at home using what felt like a wooden spoon with a nerf basketball on the end. It also meant that when we needed a booster vaccination she might bring us by the ER for a quick stab on our way to the mall or the grocery store or my grandma’s–or sometimes not.

My vaccination records from my elementary school days are a bit sketchy.

That’s what we figured when, as a 20 year-old, I developed what looked in the mirror like a mild case of elephantiasis.

(As a complete aside, this post was going in an entirely different direction when I started it and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able bring it all around again. Trust me. My original concept was brilliant.)

So despite my mom’s home diagnoses and drive-by vaccinations, she had some experience in an ER. (Like on those Christmas Days we sat and stared at the presents under the tree waiting for her to get off of her 7-3 p.m. shift. Torture to a seven year-old I tell you.) And THAT’s why I called her the morning after the ER pilot to see what she thought.

“The medicine is a bit overly dramatic, but the show comes closest to any I’ve seen in capturing the drastic swings in activity in an ER. You can be sitting there one minute reorganizing the ace bandages and the next minute up to your elbows in drunks and motorcycle accident victims.”

Yeah, I can eat through any conversation.

I liked the show too. I watched it regularly for the first seven seasons or so, took a little break and then thank the heavens for the miracle of TiVO was able to follow it every week again for the past five years.

Today, I don’t have a room of my own. I do however have a 52″ TV, a queen-sized bed and own a house in the suburbs with my husband. We share it with three wild boys and an almost one year-old dog. We have jobs that provide health insurance, cover the mortgage and groceries and buy us a few beers a week–or so it feels in this economy.

I’m 39.

Tonight, I sat in the family room with my two youngest sons constantly asking them to keep it down and rewinding the DVR trying to watch the series finale of ER.

The change in Noah Wyle is what struck me the most maybe because we’re almost the same age. The 15 years since the pilot have created for him more depth in a way that makes his face more interesting to me now than when he was playing that young intern.

Those same 15 years have given my life depth that I never could have imagined sitting on the floor alone in my room that night in September.

Okay kids you have just a few hours left to win one of two HP Photobooks in the Where in the World is Mamma Contest. Get your guesses and rhymes in now. The final clue is at the end of this post.

DREAMS:
I woke up this morning having visited Broadway in my dreams. We never actually made it to the show, but we were contemplating the tickets we were going to purchase. The top show on our list? CHUCK! A musical adaptation of Chuck Norris’ book Little Brother.

You want the drugs I have don’t you?

OBSERVATIONS:
Tonight Larry King will host a number of stars who will be talking about the importance of voting. Now while this is a topic I can get behind 110%, I must wonder who Larry is using as a booking agent. The headling guest? Josh Groban.

What is this Soft Rock the Vote?

Or maybe this is Larry’s sneaky way to throw his support behind Hillary by getting all the middle-aged white women to the polls.

I’m looking forward to Tuesday. As BOSSY would say, I’m pulling for Barak Oboyfriend.

THE FINAL CLUE:

This is the reason I didn’t get to vote yesterday.

This is the reason it took me two and half hours to go the first thee miles of my commute.

I left the office at 5:45 p.m. and arrived home at 10:15 p.m. I had ten miles to traverse.

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I’m not strong with math, but I’m pretty sure that even after subtracting my one hour stop for peeing and food (what? there were no cups in the car) and the use of improper fractions, the rate of my progress was akin to Alice’s courtship to Sam, the butcher.