Can the Pig Look Sexier?

In perusing Dooce's weekly "Stuff I found while looking around" post, I followed a link to the following feed titled:  Could You Solutionize That for Me?  (When Clients Dumbest Requests Become Art) 

In the event that you need a smile today too, I bring you: can the pig look sexier?  

Nope.  The pig cannot look sexier.  She and her whale tale are perfect just the way that they are.

On the Election

The election went the way I wanted it to on Tuesday night, from the presidency, all the way down to state level decisions to allow gay marriage.  I voted for President Obama four years ago and I voted for him on Tuesday, so I'll admit that I'm feeling pretty content right now.  I do remember though, how frustrated and angry I often felt when President George W. Bush was re-elected and in some ways I understand the upset that Romney/Ryan supporters feel right now and so I'm doing my best not to gloat. Losing something that you feel strongly about is hard, I've been there.

This election season has been pretty rough all the way around though.  As reassured as I feel by the outcome of the election, I spent a lot of the last year feeling pretty darn disgusted by almost all the political commentary I read and listened to. When I'd rather listen to Bret Douglas on Kiss 105.3 in the morning instead of NPR, you know that it's bad.  

Regardless of whether people are currently celebrating a victory or nursing the wounds of disappointment, I am floored by all of the rage, hatred and racism that continues to get thrown around by both sides. Apparently if you aren't a racist Republican, then you're a racist Democrat. I think we need a new word to fling about because this one is losing meaning. Social media that is supposed to connect us with our friends and families has turned into a mudslinging, name calling free for all that would horrify our children. I'm grateful that most of my friends and family and even my office kept it classy despite opposing ideologies but what I've seen through the internet and friends walls, that sadly doesn't seem to be the norm.

I'm glad that the election season is over but I'm now more than aware of how far we have to go to be the place and the people that I once thought we were.  Then I found this quote from a writer for the American Conservative (not exactly a publication that I routinely follow) and just knew that I had to share it:

"I think both men – Mitt Romney and Barack Obama – tell us something very good about the US – seriously – where else could a Mormon and a guy whose grandfather was a Muslim run for the presidency? So despite some of the racist sounding stuff being said in the aftermath of the election (Karl Rove announcing “we’re outnumbered”) it looks to me like this country really is the land of opportunity for people of all races and creeds.

There is something amazing about it – consider that Romney’s grandfather left the country because he was persecuted for his polygamy and yet he could still a few generations later run for the presidency.And then there is Obama’s life story. This is a pretty amazing country."

 This IS a pretty amazing country. :-)

I feel like someone's been here....

This one isn't exactly secret and it really isn't limited to when I'm single, but I leave myself lists so that I don't forget things.  A lot of the time it's stuff that as an adult, I should be able to remember when I leave the house.  Like my wallet.  After enough days at work without a badge or a pager.I decided that it is in fact more adult to acknowledge that I just won't remember this shit 50% of the time and just leave myself a reminder.

Lately though, I've been finding helpful additions popping up on some of these lists. 

Because one certainly wouldn't want to forget Poland.  Much like forgetting one's wallet that could totally throw a massive kink in my day.

Then on Saturday afternoon I went to make GBC, my all time favorite fall food and I just knew there were fewer onions in the French's Fried Onion container than I had left the last time I made it.  Yesterday I checked my grocery list (yup - coffee, cat food and kitty litter; that's my life) and was vindicated: 

While I apparenlty have elves trolling my cupboards for tasty treaties, I guess I should be thankful that the that they are considerate enough to put the depleted items on my shopping list for me.  :)


 Just more evidence that my friends and family really are the mischief makers that I make them out to be.  

QotD: Greek Edition

A friend of mine posted this on his blog and I loved it and am stealing it for my own purposes. :)

“For kindness begets kindness evermore, but he from whose mind fades the memory of benefits, noble is he no more.”

- Sophocles

Get out the vote

I've been declining to comment on politics on any social networking for the upcoming national election.  As a reasonably loud-mouthed person by nature, this hasn't always been particularly easy because people from both political parties are pretty riled up over this one. Sometimes I understand it.  Other times, I don't understand at all. 

It just seems that balanced, rational, calm discussion is completely out of the realm of possibility for most people, at least the one's doing most of the talking. It's all sound bites, bald accusations and exaggerations, and misconstructions of truths that weren't black and white to begin with. It's Fox News vs. "the liberal media." It's far slung interest groups calling for a moderators resignation from her private industry job for correcting a blatantly wrong statement. It's all catch phrases like as "Save Big Bird!", "Binders Full of Women" memes and the resurrection of the insidiously racist Birther movement. It's getting harder and harder to find facts on what laws actually say, who supports them and what each candidates actual plans for governing are.

It's infuriating, frustrating and it honestly makes me head-on-desk sad that this is what political discussion in this country has come down to.  

So when I saw this video, I just had to share. Not on Facebook (since I'm positive one of my wacko friends would ruin it with some nasty comment) but here, in my own little corner of the Interwebz.  There's no name calling.  There's no hatred.  Just women standing up and saying "I matter and I will vote."

That..je ne sais quoi.

I don't know if it's the residual warm fuzzies from a great weekend celebrating the impending arrival of one Charles Aiden Patteson.

It could be the come down from a successful, spur of the moment GRE taking. 

Or hell, it might be the beer, pizza and tv watching talking.

But as bad as I know it is...I'm totally going to see Taken 2 when it comes out. 

 

Liam Neeson...I still love you.

Unicorn

I met a unicorn yesterday. 

Sadly it was not a real, cotton-candy eating, skittle pooping unicorn but a metaphorical unicorn.  Disappointed?  Tell me about it. 

Abandoned by the other members of the Front Office for their vacations, I was feeling a tad bit bereft and decided to attend the noon Influenza-Gonna-Kill-Us-All lecture all by my onesies.  It's a small understatement to say that I've been looking forward to this lecture for a long time. Not long after I first started at this job the director of our unit gave a lecture on influenza, now it may sound bizarre and unbelievably geeky but this talk rocked my world.  Maybe it's because it was the first work lecture that I was able to comprehend, maybe it was because he mixed history with health care and then tied it back into what we do.  I don't know but I was so enthralled by this lecture that I went home and bought a (okay several) books on the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918. (My nerdiness truly knows no bounds.)  So it's fair to say that I've been looking forward to a reprisal of this conference for approximately four and a half years now and I saw no reason to miss it just because I had no posse. I left the conference and hour later still feeling bereft and even a tad bit disgruntled. What's the fun of a sensational virology lecture on pandemics when you're alone?  That's right, it's no fun all.

Being in the neighborhood, I decided to stop by the Cogle Lab.  I've been "learning" french via a podcast and was hoping that I could somehow convince Raphael (the french-speaking MD/PhD student in the Cogle lab) to say "Je suis prêt" and "sœur" without having to tell him why.  My podcast is broadcast by BBC Scotland and I've been minorly concerned that I may be developing a very strange American-Scotch-French accent.  I did not succeed in this covert endeavor but I did meet...the Unicorn.

It seems contrary to what you might think but people working with cancer seem to be an atypically happy group of people.  Wicked smart with dangerous senses of humor, my coworkers are complete lunatics but by in large quite happy.  Standing around talking about nothing in particular we came to the topic of GRE's and other standardized testing when The Unicorn walked into the room.  Never have I ever before met people whose math scores are what saved their GRE scores. Math scores, not verbal boosting the total score. I say again: math scores that ecclipse verbal scores? I seriously thought that such things were the stuff of legends, stories told to make liberal arts and science people like myself feel bad about our less than robust math scores.  Never in a million years I didn't think I'd ever meet such people in person and I admit that the poetry club nerd in me just can't help but rejoice in that I get to call them friends. 

The kind souls that they are they gave me a moment to gather myself as The Unicorn trotted in circles around me...and then we broke out the griddle and made some grilled cheese sandwiches.  True story. :)

Because I'm opposed to whining on FB...

...I'll just do it here instead.  I know I rarely (read: never) blog these days due to some  scheduling logistics (i.e.very little time and no spare brain power to put towards brainy things like recreational writing) and to return to this blog with no no purpose but to bemoan my current existence is pretty lame but Ima gonna do it anyways. Apologies...kinda.

The best that can be said for today thus far is that I got up and went to the gym for the 3rd time this week.  This means that my minimum-gym-going-goal has been met.  It was a piss-poor workout but I did it and probably feel better / am better for it.

But then I put my dress on wrong after shower at the gym and only just now realized it.  I mean, it was on and all necessary pieces of me were covered by it which is something but it was certainly not done correctly or with any kind of grace.    What. A Buffoon. We'll just go ahead and put "cannot put clothes on correctly"  on the increasingly comprehensive list of Ways to Stay Single at 28.

Perhaps the root cause of most of this whining is that I am tired.  I haven't slept for a while, partially due to insomnia and part obligations that take up more of my allotted 24 hours than I would prefer.  I have an exam tonight that I do not feel prepared for.  I'd love to use some of my stock piled PTO to leave work early and study but because my big girl pants are (if not entirely on) at least pulled up, I am at work doing what they pay me to do.  (I hear that is how the big kids do it.) To add insult to not-so-terrible injury, my reason for being at work today is making me want to throw things or cry, I can't decide which.

All I want to do is go home, eat a loaf of bread (the good baguette kind, none of that sliced shit) and go to bed.

I just wanted someone, somewhere to know.

QotD

"Don't allow your wounds to transform you into someone you are not."

                                                                                            - Paulo Coelho 

Aleph

Gone 'Dilla Huntin'

This is exactly the kind of stuff that doesn't happen at other jobs: 

Zach: You might be interested to know...that I've been armadilla' hunting over the past two nights.

Jack: wait, is this happening? 

Zach: I used the umbrella from the table to try and spear it. I will fashion a real spear this weekend and I will get it.


Jack: You can totally blow dart it. Or you should have a bucket lined up and try to kick it into the bucket.  That way it's like a game and then it would be trapped.


Zack: can we make a note here, it is important not to chase a 'dilla barefoot because they WILL charge you...

More moosica

One week into the Summer A session of Anatomy and Physiology and the writing is on the wall: blogging is going to fall by the wayside.  As much as I love my little, almost entirely inconsequential corner or the interwebz, I love getting A's more.  I'm just that kind of nerd and writing for fun has already taken a backseat to less enjoyable but still necessary studying.  I'm still taking my pictures of the day but I'm guessing that it will be about 5 weeks before I have the time to sort through them much less post them.

More studying has resulted in less writing also in A LOT MORE Pandora listening and finding (if not new, new to me) songs that I love and more candidates for Song of the Day.  My study channel of preference at the moment is Sarah Bareilles Radio so the genre will be rather skewed but...meh. 

If I'm crying now, don't listen to it

It's only my heart

It's only my heart

Shake it Out - Take 2

I loved this song when Florence and the Machine came out with it and I posted it here as my song of the day.  I know it's not exactly creative to post a song twice but when I heard the Glee version I fell in love all over again.  

Same song.  New Voices. Still love it.

It's always darkest before the dawn.

Hug Train

I've talked about my friends here before, usually in the context of their being a bunch of the biggest assholes you've ever seen and despite the nice things that I'm about to say, I still stand by that.

The past few weeks though, I noticed something that I truly adore about these people: they're all huggers and they're good huggers.  Not those pansy, tap tap tapperoo on the shoulders, I'm talking full body contact, sguqdging huggers.

We hug to say hello and we hug when we say "smell ya later." We snuggle in close to watch football games and leap on top of each other for pictures.  We hug even though we just saw each other yesterday and even though its a billion percent humid outside and everyone is sweaty. And when several of us show up at the same time it starts a full on hug train, it might honestly be my favorite hug scenario.  It doesn't happen often but when it does it's awesome.

I love it and I love them.  My life would not be the same without them.

AAAAHMEN Chuck Lorre!

I always feel a a little guilty re-posting another person's work, it seems that taking someones else's words defeats the purpose of having a blog.  There are time though that something just begs to be shared, hence this re-post from a far better writer than I, Chuck Lorre. (We'll just pretend that we don't know he is responsible for Two and a Half Men.)  While the pronouns might be wrong for me but the sentiment isn't and I couldn't write it better so...a re-post it is.

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #387

He appeared normal. He spoke and behaved just like anyone else. The fact that he had no heart was very well concealed. Well, that's not entirely true. He did have one. It was just not in his possession at the moment. And this is where the story gets complicated. The woman who had the darn thing was blithely unaware of the fact. Well, that's not entirely true either. She knew that she'd left the relationship with more stuff than when she entered it, she just hadn't bothered to do a proper inventory. (Had she done so, she would have found several other hearts, as well as a few sets of balls.) Regardless, his dilemma remained the same. A woman had absconded with a vital organ and the gnawing emptiness he felt was a direct reflection of that vacancy. Well, that's not entirely true either. The gnawing thing had actually been with him since he was a child. He just liked to assign blame for the condition.

Kaitlyn Grace

On April 16, 2012, Kaitlyn Grace Kieszek left us.
I lit a candle that night to help light her way on the path to wherever we go from here and I said a prayer so that she might be reassured on her journey by familiar voices assuring her that there was nothing to fear.

Usually I find comfort in admitting that I don't know what happens when we die, in giving that up to someone or something greater than myself.  I am finding small comfort in admitting that I don't understand why Kaitlyn was taken from her family so young, why her bright light was taken from us all.

What I do know is that Kaitlyn, you are missed and even in your absence you are loved dearly. Your near constant smile, your charisma and and your determination to not only achieve but to simultaneously find joy in those efforts, has touched and inspired me.  I hold you close to my heart.

I will miss watching you grow but I am comforted in knowing that you are at peace and hopefully enjoying the Popsicles and swimming pools that I am certain were waiting for you.





Next Time

"Next time I'll be braver
I'll be my own savior
When the thunder calls for me

Next time I'll be braver
I'll be my own savior
Standing on my own two feet"

 - Adele "Turning Tables"

French fried potatoes

He does not always eat french fries but when he does...

April 19, 2012

...he makes sure to eat them dantily.

At least now I know what a galette is now...

Roasted apple and butternut squash galette with maple mustard glaze.  Admittedly it sounds far more toothsome than it actually was but at least I know what a galette is now.

April 18, 2012

Muggles Rejoice!!

FINALLY!! 

You Get What You Wish For

Years ago I added "live alone" to my list of things that I wanted to do in my life.  To be quite honest, I'm not quite sure why I felt like living alone was such an achievement or why I felt that it was something I needed so badly.  I've sat here for over an hour trying to remember and I've got nothing, but the fact still stands that younger Anna felt I needed it.

Living alone is nothing like I expected in that I didn't expect to be doing it at 28 and single.  I didn't expect to be doing it in the aftermath of some of the most heart-wrenching decisions I've had to make so far in my life.  I didn't expect to being doing it with two cats.  I didn't expect it to be as easy as it has been.  I didn't expect to find the heavy, imperturbable silence when I walk in the door comforting in a lonesome way.  I honestly don't know what I did expect but for all the good and the bad, I am grateful for it. I suspect that short-term I would have been more grateful had it never been necessary, but that in the long-term I will be better off for it since it takes a sheer force of will not not learn a lot about oneself when living alone.

Some day I may be able to remember what exactly my expectations were and decide if I've fallen short, met or exceeded them.  One of the few things that I do know to be true though, is that twinkle lights make a place homey when it feels just a little too empty.

April 16, 2012

Jabba the Joe

Why sleep at the foot of the bed when you can luxuriate under the sheets and the blankies.

April 15, 2012

Augie meets Daggie

I think my Mama might be the only person in the world who gets this (and so to my other 10 readers I apologise for the ambiguity) but: it's like the perfect blend between Augie Dog and Daggie Dogfoot.

April 14, 2012

Oli-G's first Happy Hour

I suddenly realized that I'm falling behind in welcoming all of the newborn peanuts that keep entering my life.  The pace of new wah-wahs is picking up dramatically and I admit that I'm having trouble keeping up in more ways than just this blog.

Time feels like it's literally fly past me, I admit that it's not really a speed that I'm entirely comfortable with.  Where are the days going?  When did I grow up and start making regular dentist appointments, paying bills on a schedule and going to the Farmers Market for locally grown vegetables?  I don't really know but it happened and here I am, taking deep breaths trying to slow my wheels and desperately looking for a bigger picture. 

I can't believe that it was only year and a half ago that I showed up at the hospital to hold an hours old Oli-G in my arms and now she's coming to Friday Team Building with her mama.

April 13, 2012

I blink and they grow.

A little bit of Monica in my life...

Only at Mo's house would I somehow end up with some kind of soda I've never heard of before (and I thought I was a soda/pop/fizzy drink coinessour), a Belgian wheat beer and a cup of coffee all at the same time.

April 12, 2012

Cat Nap Trifecta

The ideal catnap location: on a blanket, in a basket, on top of a running dryer.

April 11, 2012

Look to the right

To the right, directly under the "I Love Bats" bumper sticker.

That unholy bumper sticker.

April 10, 2012

Good to know that the same brain child who belongs to the American Turd Association also believe that that bumpersticker is in any way appropriate for polite society.

Spring has sprung

April 9, 2012

Windows Wide Open

This might not seem like a really big deal but dude, it's April 8th (now 22nd) and my windows are still open and the air conditioning off.  This is impressive.  Trust me.

April 8, 2012

The more drinks than I like to lay claim to series

I hate it when Project 365 makes me feel like a need more diversity in my activities. Definitley not the company though...definitely not.  

April 5, 2012

Happy Thursday Sangria!! The Virgin Mary totally approves.

April 6, 2012

Happy Friday Sister!

April 7, 2012

It's not a trip to Tampa unless it smells like SPF 100, you can hear the ocean and you're drinking hurricanes made by a really surly bartender.

Maybe a weird one...

This might be a weird thought but seriously, how can you not love a doctors office that comes with a mini-arm chair for small people and children?

April 4, 2012

Not Another Birlthday Ignored

And this girl said: nah, I don't really have any plans for my birthday...I don't really want to do anything.

April 3, 2012

Never say those words around me unles you're ready to have Feliz Cumplianos sung to you while wearing a giant sombrero. 

Happy Birthday Clare!!

Just because I liked it

Mox nix.  I just liked it.

April 2, 2012

Real friends don't underestimate Little Debbies

To all those girls who don't have girlfriends and claim "I just get along with guys better...girls don't like me", I have to ask you: will your guy friends bring you snack cakes and daiquiri's when you're sad? 

April 1, 2012

Nope.  Stop being such an asshole and get yourself some girlfriends.  They're where it's at.  I promise.

Happy Birthday I-Shien!

When I was a Freshman in high school I went out for the JV basketball team.  At the unexpected invitation of girls in my class, I had played one season of Rec ball in 8th grade.  It was probably an invite that these girls (and the coach) hugely regretted the minute I showed up for the first practice.  I was terrible. I was SO terrible that I didn't even know how terrible I was, hence the questionable decision to go out for JV ball the next year. 
All I can say, is Thank GOD for private school and it's willingness to put me on the team.  Whether it was because there were so few of us or because our parents paid a not insignificant amount for us to be there, it frankly doesn't matter. I found my uncoordinated, seriously uncomfortable self on the JV basketball team with as close to no basketball skills as one can get.

There was one girl. The most outgoing, the most universally loved girl in our class and one of the best basketball players (the only Freshman on the varsity team) was SO unbelievably kind to me.  Amidst the rolling eyes, she would come up and physically rearrange my arms and legs until they were at least close to the correct place.  She'd stop and spend 30 seconds re-explain what our coach had just spent 15 verbose minutes trying to say, boiling it down so that it made sense to me. 

She didn't have to be so kind, but in a world of mean high school girls it just who she was. 

There are few things that I feel defined my high school experience and basketball was one of them.  I played for all four years and learned an incredible amount from being a part of that team.  I learned that my body is capable of more than I thought.  I learned that you are who you choose to be, that you define yourself with each action and that you can change your mind. I would have quit the basketball team if it hadn't been for I-Shien. 

Two weekends ago, several high school friends and a handful of post-high school friends got together in Jacksonville to celebrate I-Shien's30th birthday. Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday I-Shien Shiao!!  We love you more than you know!

March 31, 2012

Twinkle lights and Margaritas

I love me some twinkle lights and I love me some happy hour.  Add some of my favorite people and you've got yourself a damn fine Friday evening. 

March 30, 2012

When do we grow up?

I still occasionally wonder what in the world I will do with myself when I grow up.  It's generally a wonderment that is quickly followed with the rankling idea that I am already grownup and it's time to figure it out already.  But I just take that feeling, shove it in a pocket and forget about it until it turns up in the wash or next winter when I pull that coat out of the closet. 
There was something about this woman on her motorcycle ahead of me on the way to work the other day that reminded me that while we may grow up, we don't necessarily grow old. 

Who says that you're too old to strap your teddybear on the back of your bike and watch the wind roll through your handlebar tassles? 

March 29, 2012

Not being seven anymore hasn't stopped this bad ass broad.

Morning Head Scritches

Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

March 28, 2012

Not exactly a meatless monday

I know that it's Monday and Monday is supposed to mean meatless but bacon doesn't really count right? I mean, it's like 97% veggie and just the teensiest, most insignificant bit of salty delicious bacon to make the Brussels sprouts more, shall we say, delicious?

March 26, 2012

Tired of Playing Catch-Up

So I have been about two weeks behind on uploading my pictures of the day for about three months now.  I've been trying to upload two or three a day to get caught up but then I miss a few days and find myself even more behind than I was before.  I like to consider myself reasonably intelligent but this is complete madness and much like The Bumper Sticker of Doom, I refuse to let it hold me under it's tyrannical and evil thumb much longer. Similarly to how accumulating TV shows on my DVR occasionally results in irrational feelings of stress and anxiety, being this far behind on the blog makes me iggy.  I have so many things that I want to write about but I don't because I'm behind on my 365 project and keep putting it off until I get caught up.

So. 

Despite previous complaints that I post in waves, please prepare yourself for a blogging picture tsunami. I'm getting caught up so that I can write about the things that I want to write about, the things that are changing my life each day. 

Hold on to those nipples, a series of less than exciting pictures are soon to follow. :)

Just your average evening

Netbook - check. Kindle - check.  Kitteh treats - check.  It's just your average evening in the Kingdom of Ashton.

March 27, 2012

Tootsies

Hullo spring tootsies. 

March 24, 2012

Please pass the granola

This past weekend I went up to Jacksonville for my friend I-shien's 30th birthday.  It was a great party and deserving of it's own post, but of note is that during the morning-after-party conversation I was described as "totally granola."
Granola!? Me? And when I protested I was assured that I shouldn't worry, because I'm not "crunchy granola", just granola.  It's really not the noun that I would have chosen to describe myself but now that I think about it...I like it.  Still, I'm not sure the wearing flats and driving a Mini Cooper make me granola. 

But I do love my yoga, farmers market Wednesdays are a highlight of my week and I truly believe that organic apples, milk and eggs taste better than their non-organic counterparts.  That all being said, I think that these:

March 23, 2012

are crossing the god damned line.  Organic cotton balls, at (do the math) four cents a piece?  One the line between granola and crunchy granola you will find a bag of organic cotton balls and I'm staying on my side of the line.

Todays' workout brought to you by...

I think that I've mentioned that I've started theming my work outs with things that I want.  It helps when Khloe and Lamar are on the DVR and I just don't want to tie on those shoes to conjure up the sundress I'm hoping to wear in NYC in August to get my butt in gear. Shorts, muffin-tops, not hiding behind friends in pictures, beer on Sundays and taming the urge to scream and shed my own skin have all gotten me out the door over the past couple of weeks. 
Today however, was special.  I know I've already used muffin-tops before but this charming ensemble give "muffin-top" a whole new meaning:

Today's workout was brought to you by extra large muffin-tops and some other stuff that I don't have a name for.

Spring in full swing

I've been going bananas for the spring time this year. Everything that smells good and looks pretty starts blooming in Florida and the humidity is still low enough that you can actually smell all the good smelling things.  It's also still nice enough out that you can lay by the pool of an afternoon with a dwink and not risk second degree burns and heat stroke. Don't judge, it's a small window of time that needs to be fully appreciated and taken advantage of. 

I really love it when the azaleas and jasmine bloom.  The smell of jasmine just sneaks up on you, more on that later though.  Don't pretend like you're not antsy with excitement over that one. I really love azaleas though, so much so that when the neighbors bushes get pretty faster than the ones out front of The Castle, I get a titch jealous.  That being said, you can well imagine my glee when this little guy popped up outside the back windows the other day.


March 22, 2012

Now all that's left to do until Thanksgiving is hang out and sweat. Sigh...

Orange fur on the keyboard

Of that whole darn couch and he picks my teensie tiny netbook to park his cute little butt on.  Of course he does.

March 21, 2012

You'd better be running

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows that must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up.  It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle - when the sun comes up, you better be running."

- Roger Bannister

Stadiums

Spring always comes early in Florida but it came even earlier than usual this year. As gypped out a decent winter as a I may feel, it does mean that it's stadiums weather.  Who needs to run the stairs in LA when you can run the stadium in Gainesville?

March 19, 2012



oah, hello there

Did you want to wear these?  'cause I be-furred them just for j00!

March 18, 2011



St. Patty's Day!

There was no block party.  I could have SWORN that there was supposed to be a St. Patty's day block party it became unavoidably clear that I was wong because there was no block party. 

Thankfully, we bring the party wherever we go.  That and the ability to sing Baby Got Back at the drop of a hat.

March 17, 2012



Puppies!

Oh, if only I enjoyed running as much as these pretty ladies do.

March 16, 2012

I love my kittehs but I there is a special soft spot in my heart for that brown, fuzzy Boober on the right.  I never thought that I would love a dog but that fuzzy little puppy who couldn't walk up the stairs wormed into my heart four years ago and when I look at that sweet chug-a-lug I still see that snuggly little puppy. 

Rise and Shine!

"Almost nobody wakes up feeling like a million bucks ready to tackle the world. It is a conscious choice to decide how you want to feel and think each day."

And in accordance with this very positivie, go-get 'em attitude I bring you: a pot of braising kale!

March 20, 2012

This healthy dinner (and todays workout) was brought to you by Muffin-tops.  A delightful baked good to be sure but far less charming when hovering over the waistline of your jeans. 

Grace

I like the idea of saying grace before a meal. The mindfulness in recognizing that there is food on the table in front of you and as real as the frustrations of life feel sometimes, a good meal is something worth saying thank you for.   Even more than just saying grace, I like that people join hands around a table when they say it.

Spring Break 2012

He's drinking margaritas...it's DEFINITELY Spring Break!

March 14, 2012

Show and Tell AA Style

March 13, 2012

Yes Mama, I'll bring this vase with me to my first AA meeting. I promise.

The MOST!

I am not always annoying

March 12, 2012

But when I am...I am THE MOST ANNOYING CAT IN THE WORLD! 

Mani's = magical! or not?

I took this picture for a friend, showing off a.) my new favorite nail polish color, b) my accessorising skillz and c.) how my accessorising looks so much better when I have a manicure.

On second look, my fingers look no less chubster with a manicure and accessories. How sad for me.


March 11, 2012

The Catering Crew pulled one out

Lunch Impossible? 

Not so much, the audience was pretty lenient, not to mention hungry from a mornings worth of hard labor installing a new garbage disposal.  But our catering crew of two pulled it together and pulled out a stunning win with the sandwich you see before you.

March 10, 2012

And it began

Not my proudest grocery shopping moment but the start to a rather fun weekend nonetheless.


March 9, 2010

mmm gelato

This is how a brand new Certified Clincial Research Coordinator celebrates passing her exams.

March 8, 2012

Just add that to the list of achievments that people don't understand, actively disparage and which will most likely never result in a raise. 

But you know what?  I work very hard to be good at what I do and all these so called "useless" degres and certifications are part of that.  That and Sea Salt Caramel Gelato.

Kitteh paws

The best part about having a cat with thumbs? 

March 7, 2012

When he's probably doing his damndest to shoot me the bird, he looks like he's giving me a thumbs up. :-)

Happy New Car E & G!

AND they're REFUSING to name her! I cna't believe that I'm related to such party poopers!


March 6, 2012

These are the times

These are the times that try men's souls...what we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything it's value

                                                                                             - Thomas Pain

I find it comforting to see that someone, specifically Thomas Paine, has felt the way that I do now.  Granted, he was looking across bloodied fields, actual tyranny and carnage while I'm simply looking across what seems to me to be a depressingly base political scene where women's health, health care and sexuality are political fodder. Tomato, tom-ah-to; potato, pot-ah-to.  My soul feels tried and at times I'm tempted to give up and move to France.

Meatless Monday Rides Again!

It is my honest belief that if bacon cannot make a meal better, cheese can.  It's true, I have the belly and the booty to prove it.  Unfortunately, just because this is so does not mean that one should be adding these things to each meal and it is in the spirit of that (and my arteries) that I'm bringing back Meatless Monday.

Does fish count as meat?  The Catholics seem to think not as is evidenced by fish fries on Firdays but I've really always wondered why.  I ask because this picture is from a week or so ago and I ate fish tonight.  I hope this doesn't subtract from my record.

Behold! 

March 5, 2012

Roasted sweet potatoes and cherry tomatoes served wtih sauteed spinach and onions and topped with an over-medium egg. Suprisingly deee-lish!