The Nurse Boom and Banana Farewell Tour

Nurse Boom and I went down to Orlando about a month ago for a weekend at the Annual ACRP (Association for Clinical Research Professionals) to get our learn on.  While not intentionally planned as such, it was a well-timed farewell hoo-rah as we've been conference going buddies for almost five years now.  Much like I already miss seeing her face every morning, I will miss the funsies of going to conferences together. 

Okay, so it's not a picture from the conference but still: Boom and Banana!



Before I get to telling you all about the impressive swag that we acquired there (and it's worth waiting for, I promise), we went to a keynote speech by Charles Sabine, a news reporter turned Huntington's Disease advocate.  His speech was, for lack of a better word, outstanding and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  Mr. Sabine's family has been ravaged by Huntington's Disease, a hereditary disease that causes nerve cells within the brain to degenerate, resulting in debilitating physical deterioration and dementia.   It's a terrible disease for which we currently have no preventative or curative intervention.  Mr. Sabine has watched his father and uncle deteriorate and die from it, he is currently watching his brother deteriorate rapidly and he himself will someday soon begin to experience its symptoms and inexorable decline.  It is an area in which clinical research is much needed, hence why he was in Orlando talking to us.

If I related to you all of the things that he said (which are continuing to resonate even now), we would be here all day.  I'll spare you and just throw out there that which struck me as the most powerful:  the complete uselessness of defining a disease as incurable.  (The following is essentially a paraphrase of his speech this morning, a thing that I think he might be okay with if only because it might make 18 more people in the world a little bit more aware of this terrible disease.) Most illnesses and conditions that affect us are incurable: the common cold, influenza, depression, chronic cancers, heartbreak.  We cannot cure these things but rather, we’ve learned to ameliorate their effects, to minimize the lasting impact that they have on our lives.  Beginning a person’s experience with this disease by telling them that it is incurable does them a great disservice, it removes their hope.  Hope is what pulls us through the darkness, it what makes us look for something better and it’s what all research is built upon.

It's just a thought.  A thought that makes me proud of the very small part I got to play in heme-malignancies research over the past five years.  Thanks Universe. 

Now on to the swag!



ACRP swag 2013

That's a grand total of four bags, two t-shirts, three stuffed animals, two coffee mugs, two water bottles, a calculator, six pads of post-its, a medical dictionary, a calculator, three mini bottles of cetaphil body lotion, four pen sized hand sanitizer dispensers, three car iPhone charger, a desk iPhone holder, luggage handle, a ruler, a snap bracelet and five squeezy "work missile" balls.  Impressive huh? 

We also did some old-school Tebowing;



and even made some research-y friends:

 

So far as farewell tours go...it was pretty darn awesome.  I love you Nurse Boom! 



Maroon5 me on a desert island with Adam Levine please!

I developed my first rock star crush five years ago at a Foo Fighters concert in Tampa.  Before the concert I'd limited my crushes to pretty boys like Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew Fox and Freddy Prinze Jr.  I blame private school. I went in to the concert a mediocre fan (at best) and left with a raging desire to jump the dirty, probably a little smelly, long haired gremlin who had just sung an acoustic version of Everlong.  Nothing quite like watching a man smoke a cigarette through a nostril right before killing Monkey Wrench to knock the private school out of the girl. 

Yes Please

Well shove over Dave Grohl, I have tired of how stubbornly you have remained happily married (because clearly it's your married status that makes you unattainable), and you've been replaced by the single talented new man of my dreams: Adam Levine. 

Two weeks ago, on an afternoon coffee run at work, my friend Christine was all: "hey, I have an extra ticket to Maroon 5 on April 1st, do you want to go?"  And I was all: "do bears poop in the woods?"  I make it a personal life policy to never miss out on concerts, especially when nice people invite you.

So my badass self said "eff it!" to work and stats class (and by "eff it" I mean that I requested the day off from work in advance and emailed my teacher ahead of time and apologized for missing class; there's only so much private school you can take out of the girl.)  Two words: worth. it.  We were crazy close to the main stage (thank you Christine!) and wicked close to the floating, mini-stage.

 

So here's the thing about Adam Levine, he's way less dirty than Dave Grohl (I know, but bear with me) but the guy has charisma just pouring out of him.  Apparently I'm a crazy commie, hippie, socialist-Marxist for having missed this before now but I'm a better late then never kind of girl.

Adam Levine's butt...because I can't help myself

I took several minutes to tear myself away from taking pictures of real-live-Adam-Levine booty, but when I did I realized that there was surprisingly little security between me and Mr. Lavine.  So little in fact that one good jump and I could have turned a visual, auditory treat into a much more hands on experience.  In my head I was all:

YOLO!!

Unfortunately, the same common sense of reality that tells us "only send a nudie pic if you're REALLY sure you don't want to run for public office" told me that however absent security seemed...they're sneaky mother fuckers who'd probably manage tackle and cuff my ass faster than a fat kid (me) can eat a doughnut.

I immediately regret that decision

So I did the mature thing, considered how getting arrested for assault could seriously derail my current life trajectory and decided that a little Adam Levine sweat probably wouldn't be worth it. Plus they'd probably make me wash my hands then it'd all have been for naught.   And so the list of things that by not doing in my early twenties, I've officially missed the boat for, gets one item longer.  The nose piercing and pink hair is probably for the best, not tackling Adam Levine? Le sigh.

Never the less, Maroon 5 (the whole band) is amazing live.  Neon Tree's opened and if nothing else, you should go just to see their drummer. She not only kills the drums but manages to sing at the same time.  It's one of the more impressive things I've seen in my concert going life, that girl is amazing. It' was a great night and it goes down as one more great memory for the books. :-)

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. :)

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...

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.

Christmas Parties are only fun when there is dancing!

There seemed to be an excessive amount of holiday party-age this year.  I went to three, count 'em three work Christmas parties.  Thankfully, of these three holiday gatherings all three of them had dancing.  I am a pretty reliable employee (if I do say so myself) but dancing, well that's where I really shine.

Heme/Onc Christmas party numero uno there was shaboogieing that would shame, well, pretty much anyone.  Thankfully there don't seem to be many pictures of said shenanigans but if anyone has a picture of the congo line that I started (see how coyly I just dropped that in there?  Because yep, I started that rockin' congo line) I'd love to see it.

Party number two had...wait for it...competitive dancing.

December 16, 2011

It was a delightful game of Jingle Booty, Anna vs. Nurse Leslie edition.  I'm not sure there was actually a winner but it was uh-mazing.  Pretty much the only party game I've ever enjoyed though and given how many faux-baby poops I sniffed and bridal bingos I've played, that's saying A LOT. 

I might have felt embarrassed by this show of jingle bootying but any twinge remotely akin to embarrassment was wiped away the following evening at holiday festivity number three.

December 17, 2011

That's right, that's the running man and a damn fine running man it was.  I actually find myself insanely jealous of Amy's running man, I will clearly be practicing this year in anticipation of next years dance offs.

Hey Gurl! (That's a wig bitch)

Just when you thought that Disney movies couldn't get any better, the Honey Badger Narrator Guy (I think his name is Randall?) took a swing at it:




Seriously though, who has this much time?

The Cat Haz Swagger

Two years ago, Old Spice came out with a GENIUS ad campaign with Isaiah Mustafa is the new Old Spice guy.  Isaiah Mustafa is a whole lot of smooth brown beautiful man topped with a voice that makes ice cream seem hum-drum, coupled with the hilarous add and they had a winner.

Then...THEN (are you sensing the awesomeness that's about to unfold?) Grover from Sesame Street did a spoof on the add.  Someone too what was already outstanding and made it outstanding again by replacing the half-naked beautiful man with a Muppet.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check here.

Now, NOW...it's back!

HOLY FRIJOLES!! IS GOLDEN EGGS!

Tickling Slow Loris

When you're stuck at work and full of vitriol and crankies, Slow Loris saves the day:

Rainy Days

The living room in my parent's house in Gainesville was made for enjoying an afternoon thunderstorm.

The northern and western facing walls of the living room are floor to ceiling windows that look out across the back yard.  From the far right corner of the couch you can see through these windows across the back yard, past the hammock and across the tree tops all the way down the street and into the adjacent state park. It's a rather nice view on sunny days but on rainy days...well it's just perfect for rainy days.

I currently have the pleasure of living in said Gainesville home, both evidence of my parents' generosity and my own privileged little life.  Had I begun to doubt the privileged nature of my piddly little life, this afternoon's monsoon-ish thunderstorm occurred just long enough after brunch ended to ensure that I was cozy on the couch from the delightfully ominous darkening of an impending storm, straight through to the drippy, sparkly, sunshiny end.

Life is a pretty simple undertaking but for all it's simplicity, it's rarely easy. I've been told that we learn from our mistakes and that when we stop learning, we stop growing.  If this is the case, I've grown a lot in the past few years, enough so that I'm unrelentingly mindful of how much more growing will be necessary in the years to come.  Even knowing that, the 45 minutes that I spent this afternoon in a beautiful (albeit borrowed) living room, watching the raindrops on the windows and the tree's dancing in the wind...well all was right with my world for that 45 minutes.

We're young enough to say...this could really be a good life

Song of the Month:

Sometimes there's airplanes that I can't jump out of

Sometimes there's bullshit that don't work now 

We are God of stories, but please tell me

What's there to complain about? 

When you're happy like a fool, let it take over you

When everything is out you gotta take it in

....

We're young enough to say

Oh, this has gotta be the good life

This has gotta be the good life 

This could really be a good life, good life. 

Ski Utah

A little over a week ago Wes and I hopped a plane to Utah to tear up the slope with some friends and some not-yet-but-soon-to-be friends.  I say not-yet-but-soon-to-be because there were a couple people on this trip that I had never met, including V, the mastermind of the whole event.  I've been told that it's a brave (or stupid) thing to embark on a 5 day vacation with 9 other people whom you may or may not know but I have a history of making "brave" vacation decisions that ultimately turn out well.  Exactly one year before this trip I flew to the Bahamas for a friends Dirty Thirty birthday and found myself at a rapidly closing airport in a field in the Bahamas realizing that if my ride didn't arrive in the next two minutes I'd be sitting, quite alone in an empty field in the middle of the Bahamas.  Talk about being the dumb girl at the beginning of the very bad Lifetime Movie Special. This years endeavor was far less nerve wracking in several ways, the least of which not being The Wes by my side, but quite similarly it worked out brilliantly. 

This was my first trip to the mountains out west and they completely lived up to the hype and then some. The mountains are insane.

The view from our front balcony at sunset

People warned me that skiing out west is different from the north east but I didn't understand it until I got there.  Suffice to say that it made me re-assess where I place my self on the ski-competency / skill scale.  .  One run down a double blue mogul run put six of us firmly in our place on the first day out. I generally don't get cocky about physical pursuits but I apparently I did with skiing and have since cheerfully placed myself  much more on the mid line than previously.

Thanks to V's impeccable planning skills we hit up three different resorts.

Park City: 

Nothing like a Blue Moon to make this even better

Brighton:

and Canyons:

There's nothing like a gondola ride to get you pumped for the slopes :)

WINNING!!

The skiing was unreal and one of the most fun things I've ever gotten to do, though I have to say that the three and a half mile run at the end of the second day was the longest thing ever.  The quads they were a-burning by the end of that one. 

After long days on the slopes we went home to to relax like the very fancy people do: next to the fire or with some drinks in the hot tub.  Yes I know, we are quite fancy.

Who would want to come home when life can be like this?! 

I'm not sure that any of us really wanted to go home at the end of the weekend, who would want to get back to business when there's hot tubs to lounge in, ski slopes to cut-up and friends to laugh with?! 

Still home we went to warm and breezy spring temperatures (well, at least the Florida contingent did, WINNING!) and the affections of two very snugly kitties.  Verdict: vacation well spent. :)

why I believe in hugs

I found this on Facebook this morning (who say's Facebook isn't good for anything!?) and have fallen off the deep end for it.

The back-story: Juan Mann (the guy holding the sign) comes home Sydney, Australia after loosing his job and ending a long-term relationship.  There isn't anyone meeting him at the airport so he makes the "free hugs" sign.  Nobody stops for 15 minutes, then someone stops.  An elderly lady, out looking for her dog that went missing that morning, stops:








Now tell me that doesn't make you want to go out and hug somebody.

One of the many reasons that he's fabulous:

Wondieful boyfriend has struck again.  After a stinkus day at work I come home to find this:

and this:

(not pictured is the dinner that I did not participate in the procurement of.)

By the end of it all I felt like this:

Fluffing leads to jail time

I usually listen to NPR's Morning Edition on the way to work each morning as a daily nod to keeping myself reasonably well informed on the world around me.  (Ok so it's a small nod but a nod none the less.) Before 6 am though, there is no NPR but rather BBC broadcasting and the other day my early birding was rewarded by a delightful little tidbit from an unidentified BBC show: Malawi is considering a public decency law that would ban "passing wind" in public.

Clearly President Bingu wa Mutharika was not raised by those who do not fart but rather "fluff."

Fluffing or farting, I am intrigued by how they might go about enforcing this law

Dancing Elephant

THIS is ingenious advertising.  I hope that someone got a stinkin huuuuge raise for this!

7 Hours of Solitude

Christmas Morning First: waking up with no fam around.  I thought that I'd be bummed but with Wessy and Club to fill the void, I should have known better.  After a round of coffee and snickerdoodles on the couch,  Kristin came over and we had a festive morning with homemade waffles, bacon, oj and coffee.  It was a Christmas morning feast and no worries, we kept the Christ in Christmas, Wes wore his Raptor Jesus shirt:

Happy Christ Christmas Christ Steven Colbert!

So after a final trip to the dog park, and after leaving my bathroom cleaner than it was when they arrived, Club Fun departed.  They did not depart however until Sabra and Murlester forged a friendship:

JoeJoe never left the bedroom during Sabra's visit but given his history with doggies, we can only respect this. 

With the egress of Club Fun we have entered our 7 Hours of Christmas Solitiude.  7 hours until my parents arrive from their bastion in the frozen tundra of Minnesota and the Kukulka Christmas festivities begin!  I think perhaps a nap is in order :) 

Hello There Christmas Eve

I woke up this morning to the delightful smell of brewing coffee. I snuggled up to Wondie-ful Boyfriend for a few minutes and just enjoyed the sound of the kitties purring.  After a few minutes of what one can only consider pure contentedness I wandered out to the kitchen and found not only freshly brewed coffee but my Ashleigh.  I started to wonder at this point if it was possible that I had in fact made it to heaven but then I thought back on my past year, had a chuckle and poured myself a cup of coffee. 

Today has not been my traditional Christmas Eve but darned if I didn't enjoy it all the same.  After some lounging around on the couch with coffee we took my God-Dog Sabra to the dog park to meet a Bestie, Meredith and Step-dog Roobert.  Not to long ago I would have considered a trip to the "large dog" park to be on par with an enema but since the advent of the Tilda-Roop it's become, dare I say, enjoyable.  I'm not exactly sure what I want to do with my life in its entirety (I think I've got some time before I need to know this) but I do hope that I can find something that makes me as unadulteratedly happy as dogs are when they play.

Now, I was planning to take today off from running because my knee's have been sore lately and also because it's a holiday and I'll take any excuse not to go running.  Then Ashleigh, the trooper that she is, decided to run the four miles between Matt's parents house and my house.  I just can't be outdone / miss a run with one my fave running buddies and so I ran out to meet her and we had a lovely 1 1/2 mile trott together.  We do have a 5K to train for after all. :) Next stop, Stubbies and Steins for a few Belgian Beers and some Pome Frittes.  Just your traditional Christmas Eve is all.

Home from Stubbies, Wes lit the fire and I put some Snickerdoodles in the oven.  Snuggled up on the couch with the last glass of spritzer, a fire and the smell of cookies in the air I was completely content.  Little did I know but the Beef Log was coming home to me...holy GOD.  I know that the English have gotten a lot of shit over the years for their, how shall I say, lack of cooking prowess but when it comes to Beef Wellington I must say that they have gotten something entirely right.  Add in the whole Earl of Sandwich thing and quickly the Brits are climbing in my esteem. 

It's been a non-tradional Christmas Eve for sure, there's been no pirogi and there's been no family but if this Christmas Eve was to be joyful while lacking in family, this one has been it.  My parents will be here tomorrow, there's the gig-hugenest piece of beef sitting in my refrigerator just waiting to be roasted and I'm surrounded by people I love.  I couldn't be more contented. :)

Word of the Day:

Diplopia: commonly known as double vision, is the simultaneous perception of two images of a single object.

okay, how much effing fun is that to say! 

Happy Feet

Just sharing my morning smile with the inter-tubes :)