September 17, 2005

  • Nothing to Fear

    Soooooo... I ordered some preemie clothes from babygap.com. At the
    hospital where I work we occasionally get donations of baby clothes,
    but not many of them are what I call "IV/ hospital compatible." To be
    hospital compatible they have to be relatively easy to unfasten and
    remove should there be an unexpected emergency-- if they are in really
    critical/ unstable condition, they are usually not dressed except for a
    diaper (don't worry, if they are that sick they are either in an
    isolette or on a radiant warmer bed, we don't just leave them naked and
    cold). To be truly IV compatible, the shirt has to open across the
    shoulders to accomodate IVs in the hand/arm. Baby Gap has a onesie for
    preemies that opens across the shoulders, down the front, and at the
    crotch (it would be awesome if they made them for older babies, but
    they don't). Anyway... so I ordered a bunch to donate to for use on our
    preemies because a) they're cute and b) the hospital issue shirts
    ironically don't open across the shoulder and are HUGE on the little
    preemies... BUT they never arrived. When I finally tracked the package
    on UPS two weeks later, the website said it had been delivered and *I*
    had signed for it. Oh, really?

    So, thinking that this was going to be a big PITA to resolve, I put off
    calling UPS for a few days. When I finally called them, they said that
    I needed to call the Gap and talk to them and that they (the Gap) would
    then deal with UPS. So, dreading the rigamaroll I was sure would ensue, I put off calling the Gap until tonight. And you know
    what? No big deal. At all. I called them, told them what was going on,
    they asked for my order number, verified my address, and said they
    would reship the order. Sweet.

September 6, 2005

  • Confessions of a Sore Loser

    Okay, first, I have to say that I *love*
    being able to do the rich text editing, I knew if I held out long
    enough, Xanga would cave and give it to everyone-- now, if I can figure
    out a way to put pictures on my blog without paying for premium, we'll
    really be in business (DP, evil computer genius that he is, says that
    there is a way).

    Okay, so I admit it, I am a sore loser. I am very competitive and I
    HATE to lose, not that there are people out there that love to lose,
    but it just doesn't phase certain people the way that it phases me-- my
    DP being a good example. As I've gotten older, I've become better at
    acting like I don't care (and sometimes not actually caring!), but
    every now and then, much to my chagrin, it comes out.

    So, recently DP finally bought a tennis racket and we went and hit the
    ball around, which went fine. I suck, which is to be expected given
    that I've never had lessons and I've only played a hand full of times.
    The second time we went out, he wanted to play an actual game and keep
    score. He might as well have taken a baseball bat to my right arm,
    because either I'd hit the ball so hard it was out of the court (or
    over the high fence surrounding the court in one case) or hit it into
    the net or miss it altogether. He won one game simply because I
    couldn't manage to serve the (expletive of your choice) ball.

    The upside is I invented a new game-- Netball. In Netball, you get
    points for hitting the ball into the net or fence, extra points if you
    hit it over the fence, and, the coup de gras, hit the ball into the
    side fence such that it ricochets directly into the garbage can-- which
    I did. Even I, in my foul, pouting mood, had to laugh when that
    happened. I may suck at Tennis, but I am kickass at Netball.

    DP and I went to play today, no games, just hitting the ball around and
    I did much better. My serve was better, though I did invent a new
    Netball move-- on the serve, hitting the ball with the rim of your
    racket directly into the post holding the net up-- that's 10 points
    right there.

    P.S. You're all welcome use Netball when you're losing at Tennis, or
    any raquet game, really. You just stop in the middle of the game and
    look confusedly (it's a word) at the other player and say, "Wait, what
    game are you playing?" And
    when they say "Tennis" (or ping-pong, or badminton...), you act
    surprised and say "Ohhhhh, that it explains it. I've been playing
    Netball this whole time."

August 31, 2005

August 29, 2005

  • The Sound of Silence

    So... I've been quiet. Quiet on the blog-front, but also quiet on the
    calling-people-emailing-people front, too and I am afraid said people
    (and by this I mean close friends and family)
    may be taking my quietness personally, which is understandable. And
    then, I feel bad for not calling/emailing and feel afraid that they
    might be mad at me and that just causes me to want to avoid the whole
    situation by not calling/emailing. The truth is, I just don't feel
    like I have that much to say. Probably because, except for work, I
    really don't leave my house much. Which, I am actually emotionally okay
    with (as in, I don't feel depressed), but intellectually I feel like I
    should be doing more with my time-- like taking yoga or going to the
    gym or doing something besides reading, surfing the web and watching TV.

    So... what has been going on with me? Well, I was sick for two weeks--
    but it was kind of random sypmtoms here and there (sore throat,
    low-grade fever, body aches) and I have gone over my sick time twice
    already since starting my current job last fall, so I was afraid to
    call in sick and just worked through it-- which culminated in my left
    maxillary lymph node (the one right below your jaw) slowly swelling the
    the size of a tennis ball (okay, so it was more golf ball size, but
    when it's in your neck and you can't sleep on it, it feels bigger).
    When I called to make an appointment with my PCP (if you don't know
    what a PCP is, then you have better health insurance than I do) I found
    out that she hasn't been personally seeing patients for about 6 years
    now. Bravo, Blue Cross! See, when I started my job and picked which
    health plan I wanted to go with, I had to just randomly pick a PCP out
    of their database. So, I picked the only one who was "accepting new
    patients" who had an office up on the campus where I work. Well, turns
    out that she oversees medical students who bill in her name, you don't
    ever actually see her. Okay, so I'm all for med students learning how
    to be doctors, but your (and I'll spell it out for dramatic effect)
    PRIMARY CARE PROVIDER should not be an ever-changing string of med
    students. Anyway, I chatted with some people at work and got a
    recommendation for another doctor and then had to call Blue Cross the
    next morning to have them change my PCP-- which was not as hard or
    painful as I though it would be. I was able to get in to see that
    doctor the same day (she and her staff were very nice, yay!) and she
    put me on penicillin and referred me to an ENT (an ear, nose, and
    throat doctor, not one of those talking-tree things from Lord of the
    Rings-- but that would have been cool, no?)  who took a look at me
    and prescribed me a stonger antibiotic (since I work in a hospital
    where all the antibiotic resistant stuff grows). One yeast infection
    later and I am all better now.

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June 28, 2005

  • Cool T-Shirts + Democracy = Threadless T-Shirts

    I may have to submit a design or two myself... that is, after I learn
    how to use whatever design programs that they require you use to
    produce designs for submission.

    I ordered this one.

    Fooey.com has some really cool t-shirts for kids. I especially like the green sprinkler one.

    Okay... time for bed. (I worked last night and I am working tonight, for those who were curious)

June 20, 2005

  • All colors bleed to red...

    Still red. Ow.

  • Stupid Stupid Stupid

    As in, I am. So... DP and I went on a little adventure today. We went out the the Ano (there's supposed to be an "~" above the "n") Nuevo State Park/ Wildlife Reserve to hike around and see the elephant seals.
    It was a beautiful, if not slightly scary (at times you are right on
    the cliffs above the ocean) and nauseating (twisty + hilly +
    easily-motion-sick = green mischievium) drive down the Pacific Coast
    Highway. Anyway, on to the supidity part (since I know that's what
    you're all waiting for)-- today was beautiful almost cloudless day, it
    was sunny and actually warm (even on the coast!) and we arrived at the
    park at about 1:45pm hiked out to where the seals were and got back to
    the car at about 5pm. What I'm getting at here is that we were out
    there when the sun was at it's strongest. For those of you who haven't
    met me, let me assure you that I am quite fair. Did I put on sunblock?
    No, no I did not. Why? There's no good answer to that question.
    Apparently I like to live on the edge by making myself even more
    susceptible to skin cancer.

    By the time we got back to the car, I could already feel my skin
    pinking up. It's currently quite red. Luckily I was wearing pants, so
    the damage is confined to my arms, neck/ chest (wherever my v-neck
    shirt didn't cover), and face.

    DP, naturally, got a rather nice tan with a little hint of pinkness. Good for him. (bitter.... bitter.... bitter)

    Anyway, other than the sunburn, it was a nice day. The elephant seals
    were cool-- for the most part, they laid on the beach like giant land
    slugs. We did see a couple out in the water sparing (ie attacking
    eachother). From what the rangers said, this time of the year, the
    seals that were there were mostly juvenile males who were molting
    (shedding their fur). The sparing isn't really to the death (as it
    would be, were it mating season), it's more practice for when they're
    older. We also watched a really big one come out of the water and make
    his way up the side of the dune-- quite impressive to watch.
    There were also a lot of pretty wildflowers on the trail (mixed with poison oak- yikes!).

    On the way home, we stopped at the The Half Moon Bay Brewing Company
    for dinner. It was a long wait (over an hour), but they had live music,
    so the wait wasn't too bad. The food was good, the service was a little
    on the slow side, but the ambience made up for it.

June 6, 2005

  • Romance and Weddings

    So, for Memorial Day weekend DP and I took the red-eye to Boston for a
    wedding. On a whim, I decided to buy a trashy romance novel from the
    airport convenience/book store. For the unitiated, and I am barely out
    of that category myself given that I've only read 2-3 romance novels in
    my life and that was back in high school, there are different levels of
    "trashy-ness"to romance novels ranging from highly-contrived plot written at
    6th-grade reading level with copious amounts of  amour 
    (uber-trashy) to extensively researched and well written with copious
    amounts of amour
    (faint whiff of trashiness). Now, for someone as relatively
    inexperienced with this genre as I am, I apparently have very
    particular tastes, as I discovered when looking at the back of various
    books. I prefer historical romances, set in Europe,
    involving castles and horses and Ladies and Lords. Traces of my
    Disney-Princess upbringing peaking through, no doubt. I am, for the
    most part, immediately
    turned off by anything that takes place in modern day.

    I specifically wanted an UBER-trashy novel because I wanted to read
    something that wasn't terribly emotionally involved, was easy to read
    and would keep my interest since, as I said, we were taking the
    red-eye. I wanted the literary equivalent of a one-night stand. :o ) The
    only book that met all of my criteria in the small
    selection at the SFO airport was "A Loving Scoundrel" by Johanna
    Lindsey. Feel free to laugh, I did. The book delivered pretty much what
    I expected, but I have to say that even I, who am by no means a grammer
    maven, was tempted to take out my red pen and correct the sentence
    structure.

    On our last day in Boston, we found ourselves with a bit of time on our
    hands near Harvard Square. On the lookout for a book for the plane ride
    home, and enjoying the irony of going to the bookstore of the most
    prestigious university in the US to buy a decidedly nonintellectual
    book, I went into the Harvard COOP, or at least the non-textbook
    portion of it. They actually had quite a selection, but I couldn't
    quite find what I was looking for-- I couldn't bear another Johanna
    Lindsey romance, but I didn't want to start a saga (ala Clan of the
    Cave Bear) either. So, though my curisosity was peaked by the novel
    above, I passed it up. When we were at Logan Airport, however, I saw it again
    and, after rummaging through the rest of their meager collection, I
    resigned myself to the fact that I was going to read it and probably get
    sucked in and want to read the rest of the series-- which, given that
    the first book alone is 850 pages, is no small committment.

    What I didn't account for is how well told and interesting the story
    is, especially if you know very little of Scottish/ English history (I didn't/don't),
    and how almost unbearable the last 150 pages are to read. My favorite
    psychology professor talked about the two-sided coin that is
    horror/facination. It is what makes people slow down as they go past
    car accidents-- you are curious and want to see, but most people who
    have really witnessed or been victims of such a circumstance wish they
    hadn't. It is this horror/ fascination that drove me through the most
    difficult part of this book. I didn't want to know what happened, and
    as bad
    as I thought it might be, it was worse. Without revealing too much for
    those who would like to read the
    book, I will say this, I think what happens toward the end of the book
    struck a chord in me-- it gave me some insight into a problem/
    experience that has haunted the life of someone very close to me.

    To me, that's the difference between a good story and a bad story, and
    good and bad art, for that matter-- does it move you? Is there something
    that rings true? Is there something that let's you know that you are
    not alone in your hurt, your rejoicing, your experience of the world?  

    Dammit. Now, I guess I have to go buy the sequel.

May 13, 2005

  • DP and I went grocery shopping and  DP put chocolate cake mix in
    the cart-- which is rather unlike him-- but, he put it in the cart and
    then continued down the aisle right past the frosting.

    So I said, rather logically, I thought, "Ummm.. aren't you going to get any frosting?"

    He looks at me, smiles like an enthusiastic child, and says "I'm going to frost it with chocolate pudding."

    Of course, what was I thinking?

    I did try and point out the difficulties he might run into-- like the
    pudding (he planned to just use Jell-o instant pudding) might make the
    cake soggy--

    "Not if you eat it fast enough."

    Or that the pudding might just slide down the sides of the cake-- this
    actually gave him pause. I explained how he could use pudding as a
    *filling* for a cake, if he wanted, but he seemed less than satisfied
    with the relatively small quantity of pudding you would use. Now he's
    researching how Boston Cream Pies are made.

    Where did I find this strange bird?