To Miami I went

Ah home.  Much like hobbits, I love being home and there's nothing quite like leaving home to remind me how much I my own bed, my kitties and my Wes.   It's boarderline pathetic I know, to become minimally homesick over the course of barely two days, yet there I was, hour 45 and just desperate to be home.  Still, being sent to Miami for work to learn something new is hard to complain about and there were definitely fun parts, so for your reading pleasure, I'll hit the high points:

2/3 of Club Fun had delicious Greek lunch.  Ashleigh put it best and so I quote:
    "that time we were both in Miami and got together for lunch but I got lost
     and you had to stand on a corner like a homing beacon and I paid a toll
     in pennies and we ate Greek food and drank Starbucks and I paid $15 to park
    in the scariest parking garage ever? That was awesome! :)"

Then I went to a conference where we talked about herpes and the impact of the latter on immunocompromised patients for TWO DAYS.  Seriously, two days of looking at pictures of and discussing herpes.  Varisella Zoster, HSV, Cytomegalovirus, Esptein Barr and that one with the insanely long name that I have no shot in hell of remembering. You get where I am going?  Lots and lots and looooooots of herpes, which brings us to high points numbers two, three and four:

Lots of coffee:

lots of coke can-bottles (which I find to be odd in a less than pleasant way):

and a little bit of happy hour while waiting for my flight home:

It was an interesting couple of days and when I got home I realized that this is where I love to be.  So I snuggled down in my bed and sent up a prayer of gratitude to the Universe for the fact that home equals happy.   Can't fight it and wouldn't if I could.

Meatless Monday Success!

The past few weeks I have tried to participate in Meatless Mondays (hence forth to be referred to as MM) not because I want to be a vegetarian (I'm not sure that I want to live in a world without cheeseburgers and steak) but because I see the health and environmental benefit to eating juuust a little bit less meat and a few more veggie.  I also think that it'll help me expand my veggie repertoire from the same old veggies that I prepare each week, perhaps encouraging me to eat more veggies, more often. My ass is displeased with this plan as it fears that it may, as a result of MM have a smaller role to play in upcoming years. Fear not ass-of-mine, I suspect that you are here to stay regardless of MM.

My previous attempts at MM have only been partially successful as I've ended up with turkey on a sandwich or bacon bits on a salad each time I've tried. This past Monday marks my first, 100% successful MM!

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

I'll admit that breakfast and lunch weren't too terribly impressive but I was quite pleased and satisfied with my Naan bread pizza with pesto, zucchini, tomatoes and goat cheese. This particular MM was both adherent to the concept and (far more importantly) tasty and satisfying.

ah to be cool someday...

Some day, I think that I'd like to be cool. Full of pith, wit and bite, I'd be mysterious and intriguing as I lurked in corners sipping on a cool glass of something. My friend Nicole is in fact cool.  Not only does she have amazing and impeccable personal style, she also just flew to Miami a few weekends ago to style a celebrities hair.  While Nicole also does my hair, that doesn't really make me cool, it's just her lending me an iota of her coolness every 6 to 8 weeks.

Recent events has brought it to my attention the past few weeks that despite my most fervent hopes to be cool, it's probably not going to happen. 

Cool girls have Bitch Face and I do not have Bitch Face.  Instead of Bitch Face I have Let Me Feed and Snuggle You Face.  While it's fail proof in seducing parents, cops, teachers and puppies, it is most assuredly not cool. 

Cool people manage to take things in stride and keep their shit in check, they're...for lack of a better descriptor...coooool.  I on the other hand tend to get inordinately excited over common place or even mundane happenings.  The little old lady who waved and gave me the thumbs up from the passenger seat of her car while I was running?  Yup, completely made my run and to be honest, the rest of my day.

I'm not particularly graceful, I have a penchant for attempting maneuvers far above my skill level and then masterfully landing on my butt or hurting myself in front of lots of people.  Its one of many reasons that I can most often be found in flip-flops.  I can't hold my liquor and I can't take shots, two must have skills for the cool girl set so I'm told.  I still love the Anne of Green Gables books series, and while I've admitted that I might as well cop to the Twilight series and the Little House on the Prairie books.  I like museums and libraries and would rather spend a day at either one rather than attend the Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party for even one more minute of my life. I think that someday I'd really like to learn to knit, it seems like a productive and useful skill to have.

So yeah, I think that maybe it's time to give up on chasing the ghost known Coolness. I think that I'm pretty well okay with that too.

Quote of the Day

"The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life".

-          The Dali Lama

To clear up the confusion

There's been some confusion as to why I posted a YouTube clip of Grover, espousing the benefits of smelling like a monster.  Sheesh, you people must live under rocks!  Grover is spoofing Old Spice.  Below is the original commercial, and below that, I've reposted Grover. :)

Quote of the Day

"Hell's just another word for far from home, without your mittens on."

thinking longingly of that time when I was consumed with forming naive yet profound world views

This past weekend the Gators played LSU at home.  It was an ugly, ugly, ugly game and in lieu of dwelling on the ugliness that was the game, we will more on to more important topics, like tailgating.  A weekend of tailgating is good for my soul in that it reminds me of that oh so sweet period of life when I lived on bagels and didn't gain weight from it. I have several friends who attended colleges that didn't have football teams and will argue the superiority of such schools.  While I'm sure in some ways they're right, I went to college in the SEC which is just one step away from the fanaticism of Texas and college without football just doesn't make sense to me.

This past Friday and Saturday, I celebrated the upcoming game in true college fashion: downtown on Friday night, tailgating on Saturday afternoon.  Granted, the vacuuming and dusting that occurred early Saturday morning are less reminiscent of college, but they needed to be done and I can only suspend reality so far. 

The first and by far most life altering discovery this past weekend was that Ichiban Sushi serves curry.  Not just curry, but delicious and amazing curry.  Having previously assumed that my best options in Gainesville for curry were Chopstix and Amarit Palace, this is nothing less than huge. Chopstix is tasty but only if you have at least an hour to wait and don't particularly fancy water with your food.  Amarit Palace is much better known around these parts as Armpit Palace and well, I think that really speaks for itself.  So to find out that delicious curry can be had in conjunction with drinks and without a funky smell...well that's a win win. I hope you had a tight hold on your nipples, they might have flown off with the enormity of this news.

 A little less life altering (but not by much) is the discovery that LSU fans apparently smell like corn dogs. Strange, I know, but according to the rumor the drunk and anti-LSU bar cohort, true!  This was confirmed by the greater population of Durty Nelly's who took to yelling "I SMELL CORN DOGS" any time some LSU fans walked in the door. I'm not sure how I missed this stellar form of psychological warfare for the past ten years but I like it!

I also learned that I still have it.  Infer what you like, Sisters #1 and #2 (who probably don't read this blog) know what I'm talking about.

Saturday was beautiful out and so the last minute call to go tailgating was made. My favorite thing about tailgating is that it's perfect for wandering.  During my wanderings I had to make my way down Frat Row.  There have been times that I've looked back on college and thought: maybe I should have done that.  Walking down Frat Row on Saturday, I have never been more confident in my decision NOT to join a sorority. I find comfort in that I'll never wonder about that ever again.  Past Frat Row I bumped into some high school friends (one turned co-worker recently) and, as was appropriate given they were the last people I did such a thing with, shotgunned a beer.  (Sorry Mama.) I now remember why I don't shotgun beers - they make me burp like Homer Simpson.  Super klassy.

Moving on my way, I joined the Gainesville branch of my fam at their Tailgate for the rest of the afternoon.  I don't know why it's so satisfying to sit in a field, drink and joke but it is.  There's nothing like mid fall tailgating in Florida

And so here I find myself, thinking longingly of that time when I formed naive and profound world views that were immediately proven to be wrong the minute I stepped out into the real world. Ahh college, I don't really miss you but I do remember you fondly.

Fall...how do I love thee

We have officially entered my favorite time of year: Fall. Even living in a place where there isn't actually an Autumn but rather (as my Mama would call it) a Not Quite So Hot season, I still love it. 

I love that during the entirety of Fall, I barely work a full week of work.   Living in a Commie Socialist Marxist stronghold of Gainesville, we enjoy holidays such as Labor Day, Veterans Day and Homecoming.  Columbus be damned, we celebrate the Gators around here. 

Fall also notes the decline of humidity from the triple digits into the double digits.  This past week we've gotten to open the windows, take the top off the Jeep and reduce the amount of anti-frizz serum that I shelack into my hair each morning from buckets full to juuuust a palm full.  Dehydration has become less of a daily risk and my morning coffee tastes SO MUCH BETTER when I'm not sweating. I can also burning my pumpkin pie and mulled apple cider candles without shame. 

Fall means football.  Now, if you've ever met me you know that I couldn't give an emu's patootie about football.  I confess that I spent every Monday night of middle school and most of high school in the comfy blue chair reading a book while my family watched Christ Berhman and Monday night football.  It's fall damnit and this counts as family time.  Never the less, once I got to college, football took on a whole new meaning: beer. Just kidding. It came to mean friends, consistant part-ay-ing and (depending on the time of the game) screwdrivers and beer. One requires variety after all. 

While in Gainesville am a lackluster Gator fan at best, the minute I leave Alachua County I apparently become a RABID Gator fan. I have been lucky the past few years to have the opportuinty to travel quite a bit for work and these travels have, at times, required that I watch the Gators from hotel and airport bar.  It's strange that I actually seek a bar that's playing the game and even more bizzare that watch it in it's entirely, alone.  I've made several friends this way, more than I would have thought but apparenlty there's something about a girl, in a bar, yelling at the football game that attracts company. :)

Fall means soup and halloween.  It means Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Cool(ish) nights and the potential for a fire or two in the fireplace.  It means pumpkin spice lattes and open-air arts festivals. 

Sigh...I love Fall.

QotD: West Wing :)

"You can throw me in a vat of custard with a chocolate covered snorkel, it's gonna be you and me this weekend baby and YOU will be wearing a floppy hat!"

- Josh Lyman

The West Wing; Season 5

Quote of the Day

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;  an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty"

- Winston Churchill

Finally, an intelligent blog post

Seriously cannot stop giggling: The Fart Soundboard

fart    (färt) Vulgar Slang 

intr.v. fart·ed, fart·ing, farts

1. To expel intestinal gas through the anus; break wind.
2. To fool around; fritter time away.
3. The act of farting.

n.

1. An often audible discharge of intestinal gas.
2. An annoying or foolish person.
   
   
   
   

We like to say that we come to work each day to make a difference in the fight to cure cancer.  Really, we just love working with people who are completely okay with bodily functions.  And we like to giggle.

Thank's Dave for the link!

Quote of the Day

"I'm so sorry for the delay, I was munching on a bag of chips and time flies when you're eating chips."

Oh no they didn't

Sometimes, I like bad TV.  Yes, yes, I said it.  I like bad TV, the crap kind that rots my brain, whittles away at my self respect and encourages a life of depravity and sin. There's several levels of crappiness and for those days when Jersey Shore is a little too much, but Gilmore Girls isn't?  I turn to Say Yes to the Dress.  Just in case you have been living under a rock, Say Yes to the Dress capitalizes on the wedding mania that has seemingly gripped the under-40, female portion of the nation.  A 'reality' show based in Kleinfelds in NYC, each episode follows several brides while they try to find the wedding dress of their dreams.  If there is any show that elevates the Wedding over the Marriage, it is this one. 
The triumph of The Wedding over Marriage is nothing new but the glorification of it seems to be reaching a fever pitch.   There is a rhetoric that seems to surround weddings lately ( i.e. "MY special day" or the day that "I am a princess") that is lacking in the concept of 'we' that I thought was inherent in matrimony.  Please don't get me wrong - I've been to many heartfelt, sincere and beautiful weddings the past few years and I know that the concept of marriage is alive and well.  It's just this idea perpetuated by shows such as Say Yes to the Dress in which women, who identify having a more than ample budget of 3 thousand dollars with which to purchase a dress, throw all caution to the wind and spend the equivalent of the down payment for a house instead.  All because it is what they want.

My disdain for the ideals being portrayed in this show is hypocritical because it in no way, shape or form dissuades me from watching it.  The dresses are beautiful, there's just no way around that.  The people range from from blase to dramatic, completely normal to flaming insane.  They yell, they cry and then they just start making shit up.  It's always a good time, mostly because I can almost always find the entertainment value in the unwarranted tears of the self-absorbed and insane. 


While watching Say Yes today I saw an add for a special episode called "Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss."  A special show that showcases plus sized brides searching for their dream wedding dresses.

Excuse me?

I have to admit, my first reaction was positive.  The average size of a bride-to-be on this show is a size 4, four full sizes below the national average.  A more realistic pool of women searching for dresses would be welcome indeed, thank God for it!   Then it hit me.  Our own show?  Really?  My ass actually needs to be separated from smaller asses in IT'S OWN SHOW?

Oh. No. They. Didn't.

This attempt to be culturally relevant, to not perpetuate the image of starving, bony women as the ideal of beauty does the exact opposite.  It says that maybe it's okay to be larger than a size four, but while you are not exactly inferior, you are most certainly not equal.  In fact, you need your own show, because if we put you in the regular show then people wouldn't watch.  Yes, obesity is an issue in this country and yes it should be addressed, but it should not be divisive.  Fat is not a whole different demographic. If you want to support women of all different sizes then do it, but don't separate them into categories. 

 There has been a lot of press lately regarding a comment made by an actress from the HBO series, True Blood.  When asked about her diet and exercises regimen, Kristin Bauer admitted that she is, and for as long as she continues to be in show business will continue to be, hungry.  This is the price she willingly pays for being an actress.

I am glad that Kristin Bauer was honest.  I am glad that she did not toe the line of every size two actress out there who insists they eat cake and carbs and everything delicious, just "in moderation." I am glad in the way I was when Gwen Stephani told reporters that her body was not accidental, rather it was the result of hard work and never taking a day off from her diet.  Women are telling the truth about what they pay and sacrifice to be "beautiful" even when its insane, yet they continue to do it.  Somewhere along the way we decided that not eating was an okay sacrifice, that thin tastes better than cheesecake.

There is something that tastes better than being thin.  It's called self-respect.

A Concert Series

I've decided that its time for me to come clean.  It's time to stop cowering behind the information that I surreptitiously glean from conversations and car rides with Wes.  It's time to own up: I have abysmal taste in music.

The best one can say about my taste in music is that it is eclectic if inequitable.  I love Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac, but I also loooove Britney, Taio Cruz and Katy Perry.  It may seem wrong and deplorable but they are like children: different (VERY different) but equally loved and appreciated despite the disparity in their technical skill sets. 

Given this information, one would not anticipate what I am about to talk about.  It's one of those unlikely pairings like Othello and Desdemona, or maple syrup and pickles.  There's something about good live music that makes me want to shake my rrrump, smile, close my eyes and sway all at the same time. Just like there's nothing like a good thumping base (and some vodka) to make me shake my money maker, there's nothing like a concert to make me want to smile.

In July, Wes and I saw Dave Matthews Band in West Palm.  For those of you just tuning in, West Palm Beach is synonymous with amazing because it means I get to see Club Fun for a night.  Since the Universe was feeling kind said reunion occurred over an outstanding coconut shrimp sushi role. Thank you oh holiest of Universes for Hog Snappers all things akin to a coconut shrimp sushi roll.

Back to my point: DMB.  I have to admit that even though I've seen them live the last three out of four years, I don't love, love, LOVE DMB.  I like Dave Matthews Band but my like is pretty well limited to their songs with words.  What can I say, I like to sing along.  DMB live though is a lot of jamming, I'm sure it's a lot of fun for the band but I have to admit it doesn't exactly make my nipples fly off.  Regardless, while I sat on the lawn in the West Palm Amphitheater and I realized that I was just plain, uncomplicated happy.   Maybe it was the gigantic beers after a day at the pool, or maybe it was the relief of not getting caught in a South Florida summer rainstorm. Maybe it was being asked: "hey, will you stand in front of me so that strangers won't see me pee into this empty beer cup." I don't really know but I do know that I was just really...content. It was this amazing weekend that I haven't blogged about it because I just didn't know how to explain this contentedness with getting all gooey, mundane and cliche. I'm okay with gooey but there's nothing worse than mundane and cliche.

This past weekend we went to see O.A.R at the St. Augustine Amphitheater and I got it.  Somewhere amidst the pot smoke and saxophone playing I got it.  I love concerts because they are giant assemblage of happy people.  Everyone at a concert is happy.  People dance like arm flailing is going out of style and nobody's watching so the just go for it. Watching the other concert-goers this past weekend there was a freedom, a pure, unadulterated sense of glee and the need to move one's body in accordance. That is what I love about live music.

Fashion Week

This is an outtake from Zoolander right?

RIGHT?!??