Please visit me!

Yesterday it finally happened. I reached the end of my feigned aloofness rope when the ninety billionth person asked me "are you a REAL blogger? or is it just for fun" I finally asked the question that's been burning a hole in my pockets since "what the heck is the difference?" Apparently, the difference lies in my dedication to getting paid. Shocking.

Getting 'paid' in the theoretical sense for running a blog is surprisingly easy to do. If you're not too profane or inappropriate (which I am apparenlty not) Google AdSense is free and user friendly program that pretty much does it for you. So, because I'm here anyways, since it (probably) can't hurt and because 2010 has officially been dubbed "The Year of a Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action If You Please" I have decided to be a sell out and give it a go. Since I have a whole 5 followers, my expectations in regards to the earning potential of this scheme is well adjusted. I figure by about 2045 I might maybe make $5. But you know what? That's five smackeroos that I didn't have at the end of 2009. I can buy a cup of caffeinated goodness from some other commercialized soulless schmoe working at Starbucks!

So far today, I've made one (1) cent! I'm already ahead of schedule!

So oh gentle readers (most of whom have this blog delivered right to your inbox in my shameless attempts to get you to read it) pleeeeeeeeeeeease oh please would you visit the actual page?

Linkey-poo to the blog page: http://somuchtosay-somuchtosay.blogspot.com/

Most of you already have my undying love and affection, but seriously...this could totally lock that in for all eternity!

Feeling guilty

for raging about EVERYONE ELSE'S lack of consideration yesterday afternoon...only to have EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM be insanely sweet and nice pretty much immediately afterwards.

Blogging Without a Baby

I have a blog.

I do NOT have a baby.

After a quick perusal of the dozen or so blogs after mine on BlogSpot that these two facts are largely incongruous in the blogging world. Apparently a baby is the number one reason to develop a blog these days. I admit it makes sense. Blog = one stop shop for Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Second Cousins and interested friends to keep up with the happenings of a burgeoning family. Not to mention the enjoyment that childless friends glean from reading along in real time as new parents rapidly approach a cliff of sleep-deprived-life-changing insanity then slowly retreat as their new family members learn to sleep for decent stretches of time and poop less often.

Since my blog is not specifically themed to reviewing cookbooks or commenting on politics, and it is not geared towards documenting the development of a newly created human being, it is apparenlty called a "rant and rave" blog. While I like this mode of blogging (I get to write about whatever I'm thinking on any given day) it has caused some concern amongst some people that perhaps I share too much on this blog, that somehow these items will come back to bite me in the ass. I am fully aware that it may.

Do I really share too much?

This assessment disturbs me given how much I DON'T share here, aware as I am that my mother is reading this (hi Mom!) and that since it is on the Internet, it is accessible to my boss, co-workers and just about anyone who cares to look for it. (I have to argue that given the numbers on my visit counter...not many people visit my blog and I'm probably relatively safe at the moment.)

As for concerns of offending those people who cannot fire me...does it really shock anyone who knows me that I am a liberal, feminist with a lot of opinions? Should I really be hiding the fact that, like millions of other women (and men) I struggle with eating and body image issues? That I get angry with our government sometimes or that I'm living with my boyfriend? Are these things to be ashamed of?

My ultimate goal here is not to offend or upset anyone. This is who I am - at least for the moment, and these the things that I think and do and the life that I live. Judge me if you will, but please, easy on the hate mail :)

Not Born to Run

I recently read a really great book called Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by. Christopher McDougall. It's part adventure novel, part expose on why some people seem to be able to run, run, run, run, run, run, whereas other people develop and are plagued by knee, back, ankle and shin injuries. It's a good read and it got me thinking that you know, maybe this guy is right, maybe I CAN run like that.

Now I remember, no, no I cannot. I'm sitting here with my left leg propped up on my computer tower because my left knee has resumed it's clicking, swelling, aching activities following 1 Zumba class and 1 short run. I'm not even sure that we could call it a run, light jog perhaps.

I'm very tired of you left knee, acting up whenever I start getting into decent shape and have an inkling to run, jump or get down like James Brown. While I primarily wish that you would just plain stop clicking, swelling and aching following any kind of high impact activity, I would be satisfied if you would simply respond to the ice and ibuprofen combo that all trainers, nurses and excercise magazines suggest. If not, well, you're forcing my hand her oh' devilish left knee of mine, I'll just have to go get a pair of robot knees.

Sharkie

They don’t really need to tell you when you start this job that you ought not to get too close to your patients. Even if you’re not familiar with the survival statistics, common sense says “build a wall.” We build these walls out of self preservation, if we were laid low at the death of each patient we’d never get up off the floor. Be this as it may, sometimes when you aren’t looking a patient becomes a friend. This has happened to me twice in the almost two and a half years that I’ve worked here. I lost my friend Charlie almost two years ago, and I lost my friend Sharkie barely two days ago. We miss you already.

Sharkie was one of the first patients that I ever saw receive a bone marrow biopsy and it was awful. He was so sick in so many ways, if I could have left the room I would have but I was stuck in a corner and had to stay. I remember one of our physicians predicting that if he survived the week then he surely wouldn’t survive his first round of chemotherapy. Two weeks later he was feeling and looking better than anyone with newly diagnosed leukemia and receiving cytotoxic drugs has any right too. He ended up making it more than two years. Then again that was Sharkie: contrary in a rather delightful way. 

Sharkie was a truly gentle soul and that soul shone regardless of the seemingly endless rounds of therapy and the months upon months of illness. Even at his most ill he’d always manage a smile when we came into the room to visit. At times this smile was followed by complaints of the evil night shift nurse or wanting to go home, on better days it was whatever dirty joke he had recently heard. A lot of the time it was just a smile though, one that reached his eyes and told you how truly happy he was to see you. 

 

I didn’t see Sharkie on the day that he died. I saw him two days earlier, sitting up, smiling and with more color in his face then he’d had in months. It may have been selfish on my part but that’s how I want to remember him: sitting up, smiling and being mildly annoyed by concerned and hovering family members. I’ll remember him with his long white hair and permanent tan from fishing. I’ll remember his chicken legs and do-rag reclined in the Infusion Room. I’ll remember how excited he was to see his son’s when they came to town and how much he looked forward to fishing with them.

Leslie brought up the other morning an image that made me smile, one of Charlie, waiting for Sharkie at the boarder of this world and wherever it is that we go from here. Had they known each other in life they would have surely enjoyed each other.

To Sharkie, I hope you have found peace. You are dearly missed.

Quote of the Yesterday

"Ah yes, I can still hear her now, right before an exam...excuse me 'en examen' or a 'quizzie', "you are in deep shit Juan!"

- John Lybarger, reminiscing on the unmistakable
teaching style of Dr. Drummond

Oh dear...

I just found out that someone I email fairly regularly at work has a degree in English literature from Harvard. SERIOUSLY!!?! Come on!

The Harvard part doesn't surprise me, I work with a lot of people whose smarty pants have been permanently lacquered to their bottoms, but English Literature?!? This is health care for crying out loud, what are you doing with a Liberal Arts and Science degree?

So not only have a I wasted a good 20 minutes trying to remember if I paid proper attention to spelling, grammar and punctuation in EVERY SINGLE email email I've ever written this person, but I know have developed anxiety for future emails.

All I know for sure is that I will be veeeeery caaarefullly proof reading all emails from here on out.

blogging goes in waves

I have noticed that I blog in waves. There are days when there are just so darn many inconsequential things to ponder and inflict upon you, oh gentle reader, and then there are spans of time in which I fear my brain has atrophied. I have no explanation for this, but since it's been a week or so since I last expounded unnecessarily upon the workings of my life I'll just hit the highlights.

Wes' Pop-Pop, Frank A. Ramsden Sr. passed away last week. I only met him once but in that one meeting realized how much I owe to this man who made the man that I love, who he is. I learned that the liking that I automatically took to him (who wouldn't love someone who calls you a 'beautiful Polish woman' within 30 seconds of meeting?!?) was the rule rather than the exception. He was a brilliant soul and he will be greatly missed by so many people

I officially made it through the Atlanta airport, not once, but TWICE over the course of three days! Dare I venture to hope that the Curse of ATL might be broken??! Or have I just used up all of my good travel karma and now find myself doomed for Christmas?

For the first time ever, I disagree with Dooce. I am a complete fan of using "freaking" and "frickin'" in place of throwing down the f-bomb. Yes - I recognize that everyone knows that I'm really just itching to say FUCK!! But sometimes, an f-bomb just won't do and a "freak!" will.

I've been low carb-ing it for the past two weeks and would like to send out a giant nod of appreciation to everyone who has put up with me during this time of carbohydrate deprivation. Nurse Leslie, Laura and Wes, this means you. I refuse to zero carb it because honestly, a diet in which most fruits and a lot of veggies are off the table just seems counter productive to me. It seems that by making this logical decision I have doomed myself to the slow and steady as opposed to drastic weight loss.

Jen came to visit! She and Andy moved to Charlotte about 4 months ago and we have missed them! Wish that Andy could have come down also but it was great to see Jen again if only for a weekend! COME AGAIN SOOOOON!

I palpated an enlarged spleen! Granted I didn't know at that time what a regular spleen is supposed to feel like but splenomegally (what a great sounding word for a not so great symptom!) is pretty distinctive. All of this was done in the continue endeavor to learn as much as I can Myelofibrosis, yet another disease that I've put on my "do not get" list. Seriously though, if I had known that biology could be this crazy / amazing, I would have taken WAY more of it in college.

I got a Christmas card from Barack and Michelle Obama! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

oh dear this is amazing!

more Muppet Christmas spirit!! Ashleigh, this one is for you!

(mad thanks to Wes for finding this goodness!)

Can't stop laughing at Shiny Suds!

I know that this is supposed to be offensive to my feminist sensibilities...but I just...can't...stop....GIGGLING!!!

Method: Shiny Suds from Kreatif360 on Vimeo.

Quote of the Day:

"It was the fig I was worried about when I heard!! I feeling relief after reading about it that it will probably only screw up my lungs…not the fig’s!"

PSA

Do not go to the hospital.

Do not flush the toilets.

If you must flush the toilets, please make sure that the only thing you place in the toilet is toilet paper.

Do not drink from the water fountains.

Do not drive with a cup of hot coffee between your legs.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by 1/4 of the BMT Clinical Research Staff at the University of Florida

You many now return to your regularly scheduled activities.

Who needs bread!?

Seriously, who needs bread?! Bread is TOTALLY overrated. I mean, think about, I'm sitting here eating straight tuna fish and it tastes just like a tuna sandwich! I totally can't tell the difference at all. Seriously - if I couldn't see what I was eating or sense the fork in my hand, I'd never know the difference.

mmm mmm mmm straight tuna...ooooh yeah!

Thinking...

that I really need to make some roasted, candied walnuts to go in my salad because today's installment of baby spinach, veggies, crasins and left-over grilled pork chop is less than satisfying.

I really need something deep fried but will possibly settled for roasted candied walnuts.

something epic this way comes

I have reached a landmark in my life today. One of those metaphorical road posts that you look back upon and think, "wow - that was a huge step."

Today, this seventh day of December, two thousand and nine, I, Anna Kukulka did hereby eat a salad for lunch AND enjoyed it.

My incorrigible appetite has been not only quelled but satisfied with nothing more than spinach, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, green pepper, grilled chicken and feta cheese.

I would like a round of applause please. :)

Still giggling...

about the 10 and 2

It's still great....

We played a good season

You can't win 'em all.

Proud of our boys for making it as far as they did

and still DAMN PROUD

TO BE

A FLORIDA GATOR!!!

Don't pee!! There's a man standing there!

I used to LOVE Ally McBeal when I was in high school. While my inability to follow TV shows with any regularity has of late been attributed to my recent two year stint sans cable I was equally as apathetic in high school. I did however have an affinity for Ally. Perhaps it was her tendency to dance inappropriately to the songs in her head. I do that too. More likely it was a latent crush on Robert Downy Junior. Drug addiction, schmug addiction, that man's rendition of Joni Mitchell's "River" STILL makes my knees a-tremble. It may have even been the idea of a unisex bathroom, as an adolescent chica this intrigued me.

I have never considered myself to be prudish. Maybe I am biased in this assumption but I do have a number of irrefutable facts on my side. Fact number one on my side is the fact that even at the ripe old age of 26 I am still unendingly amused by fart and poop jokes. (Reading about "The 10 and 2" is up against that pecan-less tart that Leslie just tempted me with as the high point of my week.) Fact number two is that I persist in referring to said jokes as "poop jokes" not "shit jokes." Poop sounds funnier than shit. Numero tres: I think whoopie cushions are an entirely valid form of comedy. Fact number 4:I love me some Kevin Smith and applaud his ability to write a best selling autobiography that is 90% a synopsis of his bowel movements. My point you ask? I don't think that I'm prudish BUT I do have limitations. While I find it A-mazing that my sister and her husband seem to function on the premise "the family who farts together stays together," I am not that girl. I am not that girl nor can I bring myself to number 1, much less number 2 with the bathroom door open. Some things in life should remain sacred and unless I'm in the hospital having my I's and O's tracked, sacred shall these things remain.

Still, the fact that bathrooms are stratified by gender seems to me an odd concept, while not seeming odd at all. Are there any reasons beyond members of the male persuasion generally making bigger and (usually) smellier poops than women and their overall lack of aim when peeing, that we cannot pee and poop in cross-gendered harmony?

I ask these questions because of a situation that arose at work today. The person who cleans the bathrooms in my office is a young Hispanic man, who I will call Pete. Every afternoon he hangs a sign on the door to the women's bathroom saying "Closed for Cleaning." I always assumed that this was for his own convenience because really, who wants to clean two feet from where someone else is pooping? No I and I assumed not he. So, having finished off my second liter of water this morning I went to the bathroom and upon exiting my stall found myself face to face with Pete. Apparently I had slipped in unnoticed while he was waiting for the bathroom to vacate so that he could clean it. The sheer HORROR on Pete's face when he saw me was astounding, I even tried my most charming smile to alleviate the panic that was spreading across his face but it didn't seem to make a difference. We, two members of the opposite sex had been in the same vicinity while I was peeing!!! I gave a quick check to make sure that I had in fact pulled my pants back up, I didn't have gobs of boogeys hanging from my nose and that I hadn't grown fangs in the past 10 seconds. Nada. The only option remaining was to say "lo ciento," lavarme las manos and get out. This seems to alleviate his concerns, but geeze, am I missing something?

Miss you already!

One of my favorite co-workers' last day was yesterday. :(


So in remembrance of Katie's stint with the Mean Girls in BMT Research, I thought it only fitting to share two of my favorite Katie pics.



Good luck Katie, we miss you already!!

Wondering...

What WOULDN'T I give to have my very own Diet Coke fountain at home?

Not much short of murder is currently coming to mind.

I'll never understand what God was about when 4 years ago the rat-bastard commies who run UF contracted with Pepsi, forever banning all Coca-Cola products from my place of education and eventually work.

Rock on Muppets

Nothing says "happy holidays" quite like listening to the Muppet's sing Silent Night in German with John Denver.

There's just nothing like Miss Piggy. Nothing

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

I purchased my first Christmas tree ever yesterday. That I am 26 years old and by all accounts a Christmas fanatic, this fact surprises me.

The past few years Meredith and I had Charlie, the Potted Holiday Plant, which can be best described as a tree-like-Christmas decoration.
Charlie the Potted Holiday Plant --->

As you can see he is a tad unfortunate looking, but all the more endearing for said squirrelly-ness. Additionally Charlie was non-denominational, impressively resilient and environmentally friendly. Even if you are feeling generous enough to classify Charlie as a Christmas tree, alas we did not purchase Charlie ourselves, he was a gift from Georgia.

Prior to Charlie the Potted Christmas Plant, tree's magically appeared in (and disappeared from) the living room of my parents' house for my decorating enjoyment. (Thanks Mama!)

This year however, I decided to pull my big girl pants on, one leg at a time, and get a live Christmas tree all of my own. On the recommendation of several more experienced tree purchasers I tooled down to Pam's tree lot last night in search of the small, festive fir tree that now sits in my living room. It took me all of 2 minutes to pick out my slightly lopsided but very friendly looking Christmas tree - thus prompting Al (the tree salesman) to comment that it usually takes women FOREVER to pick out trees.

It is by such comments that my list of stereotypical differences between the sexes continues to grow. This particular one is ranked rather low on the list in terms of utility, I don't really know where in life I will throw down the "women take longer to pick out Christmas trees!" fun fact. I did however, recently read (location unknown) that after being shown a plate of their favorite food and having had it removed, men forget about it within about 20 minutes while women continue to think about it for up to 5 hours. According to the study, this explains why men find it 'easier' to diet then women.

While I often take issue with generalities and stereotypes, I am 100% in favor of any 'fact' that reinforces my claim that it's harder for me to adjust my eating habits than for Wes to adjust his. Clearly, I am up against a biological obstacle. Recent events have only furthered my conviction that this particular gender discrepancy is correct.

Following the No Carbohydrate Left Behind Tour that I took in November, I decided that my organs would greatly appreciate a month or so of extra healthy eating. So on Sunday I took myself to the grocery store and stocked up on all sorts of tasty looking fruits and vegetables. Monday was Day 1 of no bread, pasta, rice or any amazing starchy, carbohydrate-y goodness and supristingly it wasn't so bad. I had some tasty foods and went to bed feeling MUCH less loogey than I had in weeks. I thought that perhaps the not-so-terribleness was my body saying, "yes please!" I was SO wrong. I woke up this morning having dreamed, (yes you heard me right:DREAMED) of eating golden, crispy, salty delicious french fries.

One day, ONE day, ONE FREAKING DAY of healthy eating drove me to dream of fried food. My emotional attachment to french fries / my psychological opposition to dieting is apparently far more developed than I had previously thought.