Seriously? Today?

Dear Quitline.com,

I don't smoke but I appreciate that you are trying to positively impact the world by enabling people who do smoke to quit.  As the daughter of an ex-closet smoker (sorry Papa, but you've quit and there's just no reason to be in a closet anymore) and the girlfriend of a current smoker, I applaud these efforts.  Research has shown that five years of not smoking can outweigh 15 years of smoking - this is something worth letting people know. 

What I don't appreciate is that your 30 second add is currently hindering me from viewing the lyrics to Mumford and Sons' "The Cave."  While I'm sure a lot of thought and research went into your commercial, as a non-smoker the images of chest x-rays, smokey backgrounds and earnest looking actors-playing-physicians were as influential on my life as the shenanigans of the Jersey Shore Crew.  That is to say, it was a waste of my time!   Couldn't you have included an I'm-not-a-smoker clause that enabled me to escape? 

Sincerely,

Anna

OotD: this one's for Leslie and Laura :)

"Kids are definitely the boss of you. Anyone who will barge into the room while you are on the commode is the boss of you. And when you explain to them that you're on the commode and that they should leave but they don't? That's a high-level boss."

- Tina Fey 

Redemption

Usually I don't blog about the interesting things that happen at work, primarily because I am interested in keeping my job.

Let it suffice to say that I HAVE BEEN VINDICATED!!


(please insert vindicated laughter here)

Adventures in Hot Yoga

When a friend texted me yesterday to see if I wanted to go to hot yoga I thought, "oh...well that might be fun." Wrong.  So very very wrong.

The first time I heard about hot yoga I couldn't help but wonder why.  I live in Florida where it's a virtual sauna four months of the year and during the three months that it's cool and breezy and wonderful, I'm going to go sit in a stuffy 105 degree rooms that smells like sweat?  Right, awesome idea. 

I think there might be something to yoga that I'm missing though and so I went.  I am increasingly convinced that there is something very awesome about practicing yoga that I just can't quite put my finger on yet but last night the only thing that was missing was oxygen.  I'm not sure if my heart was racing due to exertion or because it was about to explode from over-heating.  It was around the time that I got dizzy wiping sweat from my shins that I started wondering if maybe there's also something to the whole concept of hell too, because if there is, I'm pretty sure it's an eternities worth of hot yoga...and in hell there won't be Jolly Ranchers either. 

I came home feeling like a rubber band that's been stretched out and then let to snap back.  I swore I'd never go back and then the next day happened.  It was awesome.  I didn't wake up even once in the middle of the night and then the next day, well it wasn't necessarily a good day but it was....smooth.  It was a busy day and while I generally hate recruiting to multiple studies simultaneously (keeping them straight makes my brain ache) today it felt, productive and doable.

I can't help but think that maybe it was the yoga, next time I'll go somewhere not-hot instead.

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. :)

Resolved

I am resolved to, should I ever get arrested and require a mug shot, to smile in my mug shot.

I mean admittedly I'll be in jail and that alone would probably warrant a sour puss but trouble doesn't seem to stop Joe Lewis or Murry from purring so why should jail make me frowny?  After all, there's always time to gloom and doom once I've hit my cell.

so about that 5K...

So the thing about writing things on the Internet is that sometimes details just have to be omitted for the protection of those around me.  Usually it's a details schmetails kind of situation but other times, well...the whole story just doesn't get told.

About a month ago I ventured down to West Palm to run in a 5K with Club Fun and I blogged about it here.  Looks like a lovely weekend yes?  Well it was, but it was exceptionally lovely due to a delightful little tidbit that I may have left out. Yes, Club Fun ran a 5k but it was a Club Fun of 4 instead of 3 as we had a new member along for the ride in Ashleigh's tummy.  Nine weeks along, little Blueberry Bullivant participated in what has become a Club Fun tradition to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research, such a little activist already. :)

So now that this news is out (with the permission of the proud parents of course) I need to call attention to the Club Fun Incubator who ran the race 9 weeks pregnant and distinct shade of pale green.  I can only tell you what a trooper she is and how I will never, ever be caught running a 5K at 9 week pregnant.  Squdges to you Madame Incubator, you are all that is woman. :)

I have to admit that when they first told me that they want to put someone up for consideration of membership I was not so sure, but one glimpse at the little tadpole in the ultrasound pic and I was convinced as to what a perfect fit he/she will be.

Welcome to the Club Mini-Bullivant, I am beyond excited to meet you and I promise that I will always share my Cheerios with you.  

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.

Liam Neeson, I love you!

I love Liam Neeson:

I'm not fully sure why, maybe it's because he was in one of my all time favorite movies Love Actually, maybe it's because he's half snuggly, and half bad-ass.  I can't justify it, I just adore him, he can totally be in my posse.

Thinking that Kelly Osborne might be a good candidate for my posse...

In the most shameful act since forming a staunch opinion on whose better for Bella, Edward or Jacob, I started watching Joan Rivers’ Fashion Police on E.  I caught it on TV one night when I was waiting for Chelsea Lately to come on and I’ve developed a love-hate fascination with it. 

I know that this may come as a shock but Joan Rivers is bat ass crazy.  Generally crazy with a battleship sized mouth wouldn't endear a person to me but I’ve discovered I am kinda a fan.  I won’t go so far as to include her in my posse because I’m not sure that I have the armadillo-like armour that would be necessary to have her in my imaginary crew, but so long as I remain nondescript and relatively unknown, I think we’ll be good.  


Guiliana Rancic now, needs to eat a stinkin’ cracker already because she’s starting to look like skeletor.  I know that it is unkind to judge a person based on weight but her skinniness has become plank-like and while pre-famous photographs indicate that she has fantastic genetics to start with, she’s also clearly exercising some seriously insane self-restraint at meal times, and I can’t help but drink the hater-ade a little.  Rachel Zoe always talked about how Guiliana’s body is like a clothes hanger” and how fabulous fashion looks on her.  Call me nuts but I just don’t think that we should aim to have our bodies look like wire hangers.  Needless to say Guilian will not be in my posse either because those who can’t appreciate a cupcake now and again need not apply. 


Then there’s Kelly Osborne who despite thinking that this fashion stuff is very very serious business and that celebrity stylists have “one of the toughest jobs out there” comes off as a genuinely kind person with a penchant for talking about “knickers” all the time.  She avoids the low blows and manages to be pretty darn funny all the same.  Oh what a sad, sad state of affairs we’ve fallen to when Kelly Osborne is the voice of reason and sanity.

Quote of the Day: Oscar's Edition

"I'm afraid that I have to warn you that I'm experiencing the stirrings of something in the upper abdominals which are threatening to form themselves into dance moves, which joyous as they may be for me, it'd be extremely problematic if they make it to my legs before I get off stage."

- Colin Firth after winning Best Actor at the Oscar's 

All politics aside

...this is stinkin' cute:

  
A temporary White House staffer brought his family to the Oval Office for a farewell photo with President Obama. The staffer’s son (pictured) told the President he had just gotten a haircut like President Obama, and asked if he could feel the President’s head to see if it felt the same as his.

Apparently President Obama and I have the same reaction to cute little kids who are dressed like adults: we turn into piles of goo. :) 


(Originally found at: http://www.buzzfeed.com)

and be one traveler, long I stood...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood...



First published December 1995; published July 1999 by Bartleby.com; © Copyright Bartleby.com, Inc.

Flowers make me smile

I may have drunk the hater-ade yesterday and pretended to be all cold and prickly towards Valentines Day, but drat if the flowers Wes sent don't make me smile. :)

The Project

I think that the course of this blog is going to change a bit in the coming months and sadly for you all I don’t anticipate it being for the more-exciting.  Lo siento amigos. I’d love to report that I’ve found a job rating five start tropical resorts and that in the coming months I’ll be regaling you with blow by blows of frozen drinks, complimentary spa treatments and long, long days of lounging on white sand beaches.  Sadly for all of us, this is not the case and instead I’ve decided to read more.  I know, you’re VERY excited. :)   

In all seriousness though, I want to talk like they do on The West Wing.  Not really because I know that it’s a scripted TV show and in real life nobody is quite that witty all the time, but I want to know more things and I want to be able to talk intelligently about them when the topics come up. I want to be not only well-informed but more importantly (at least to me) well-read.

I think that I may have been this once, back when I was in graduate school, but that’s the beauty of school,  it can force even the most reluctant into awareness.  When you’re in school it’s your job to learn and if you perform at even the most mediocre of levels,  you inherently become reasonably well-read.  I majored in history and took American history classes but also classes on Native American nations, religion, European revolutions and British government.  I took Latin and translated Roman poetry and the Aeneid.  I’ve taken classes in Anthropology, Algebra, Literature, Astronomy, Biology and Education.  I’ve passed tests, written papers and given presentations on all manner of things.  Some of it I understood well and the rest of it I understood just well enough to fake it.  The problem is that all of these things are in my past and the act of being informed and being well-read only counts in the present tense.  I fear my present tense isn’t very impressive.

It occurs to me that in my post collegiate years I have become over-embroiled in pop culture and that the portion of my soul that likes to believe that it is well-read has become more than a little deluded.  I don’t like this.  Without the onus of exams and term papers my world has become...well...smaller.  In my defense, I’ve spent a lot of this time learning about blood cancers and clinical trials for work, but that’s about it.  It’s been incredibly interesting but it’s also a very small area.  In my free time I’ve  abandoned my three book reading system and instead I’ve read what is entertaining: mostly novels and a lot of pulp fiction.  I’ve found my comfort zone and I’ve been staying in it.  It’s comfy here in my little box but as much as I have enjoyed reading the whole Twilight series I don’t think that I’m doing myself any favors.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do with my life.  I love the work that I currently do but for reasons that I’m not going to go into (in large part because I don’t want to pull a Dooce but also because it isn’t pertinent) I distinctly suspect that I won’t be doing this for the rest of my life.  Which leads to the question of what am I supposed to do with my life?  I have absolutely no answer to this question.  I was a Liberal Arts and Science’s major after all and in practice that’s just another way of saying I’m a pansy-ass-waffler with an above average understanding of English language mechanics.

I’ve done a few different things since I matriculated but am struck by a crazy desire to find something that I love, not just hope to tolerate for an extended period of time.  This is probably unrealistic in that no matter how strongly I enjoy my work, there’s always going to be a time when it feels like, well, work.  I’ve gotten a slew of advice in this area and while the honest encouragement to pick something that sounds good and then make it work makes sense to me, I honestly don’t even know which way to turn on this one.  How do you pick when you don’t even really know the options, or more accurately when the options are so vast and overwhelming that they all blend?  I’ve never been this at odds with the task of living my life or this uncomfortable with the unavoidable fact that I’m one hundred percent responsible for making all the decisions. I am not qualified for this level of responsibility.

In my experience the only way to combat rampant not knowing is to just start knowing things.  My world has shrunk significantly since I left school and it’s time of come out of the corner that I feel so backed into.

The task that I’ve set before myself is to read Modern Libraries Top 100 Nonfiction books.  I looked at a lot of different “top 100 books” lists and settled on this one for several reasons.  One, it was one of the few lists that didn’t have Bridgette Jone’s Diary on it.  Now I’m not trying to knock Helen Fielding because let’s face it, she’s had a least one more book published than I have but I am confident that it’s not the kind of reading I’m looking for.   I felt similarly to most other novel lists, there’s dozens of fiction books that I’d like to read  and the lists looked fun-ish but the nonfiction list looked, well, intimidating.  I know that I can read literature but Albert Einstein?  Richard Feynman?  I just don’t know about them because I’ve never tried.  If I’m really lucky I might find something intriguing that makes me sit up and think about running full steam ahead towards it.  If not, I’ll at least know more about 100 things that I didn’t know about before.

There are several books on the list that I am looking forward to and several that I want to run so far and so fast from (ahem Principia Mathematica) that I’d give Usain Bolt a run for his money.  To avoid any chicken pooping out on the harder texts I’ll be working methodically from number one, straight through to 100 and heralding you with the things that I learn along the way.  I know that this is vaguely Julie Julia Project-ish but since I’m very well aware that this will most likely not be my path to fame and riches, I’m okay with that.  As thrilling as it was to watch a neurotic girl cook her way through a 365 Julia Child's recipes, I’m pretty sure that watching a neurotic nerdy girl read would be even less so.  The blow by blow would be interminably painful and thus I’ll just be hitting the high points, and no worries - I’ll still be up to my usual shenanigans and writing about trivialities, besides, if it gets to dry around these parts I’ll just start drinking more and that should spice it up!