Oh Come ON NOW!

Yes, it's snowing again.

Actually, it's quite lovely: medium sized flakes, streaking across my window, upper left corner to lower right. Though seriously? I am a bit tired of it all...

My boss told me I could leave early last Wednesday in preparation for the snow that never came. We all ridiculed the meteorologists and local reporters for playing up a storm that failed to live up to it's snowpocalyptic predictions, and now, we New Englanders are complacent a sh*t. I saw the snow this morning and thought "eh. It's nothing." Now I would really like to be home.

Of course this might have to do with the fact that I am tired. I had a very restful, very lovely weekend, filled with the fiance, food, and the Olympics. It was glorious. But then I came home and had to fix my closet, which turned out to be nice because I got to redo it entirely - but after a 4 hour plus car ride, it's was very tiresome. Oh, and I think my car needs a new muffler. And just the thought of dealing with more car trouble is exhausting, especially because it will be one of those days where my dad insists on driving me to work, controlling the whole situation, picking me up. I do, I do appreciate it. But dealing with it? Ugh.

It may also have to do with the fact that I downloaded Bright Star from iTunes and spent a glorious two hours wallowing in the beauty of summer in the English countryside. Complete with a mulberry tree and butterflies. If you are looking for a feast for the eyes, watch it.

But then.
THEN there are the ALLERGIES. OK, what the hell am I allergic to in February?? Today's after work mission is picking up a prescription and finding non-drowsy Claritin, because srsly? I can't breathe! I am used to allergy congestion, but this takes one a whole new form. I'm congested to the point where I am gasping for air, like my asthmatic coworker....or a dying fish. It is super-unattractive, nevermind dramatica. I'm not used to the whole "I actually can't breathe" thing. Usually it's just a sniffle situation, but this is full-blown allergic badness. Time to medicate.

Seeing all this snow makes me wish that I were a badass skier or snowboarder - despite my New England roots I am neither, and am pretty sure that I would severely injure myself if I tried to snowboard. True, I survived a single skiing lesson when I was sixteen or so, but to try it now, nearly 12 years later? I am not exactly rushing to the mountain top. Just watching moguls this weekend made my knees hurt. Apparently our Jr. High Youth Group is skiing in a few weeks. I may be in the ski lodge. Knitting.

Oh and speaking of knitting and of things Olympic, I entered Ravelympics. Yes, how stupid can I get, right? The goal is to complete a project, start to finish, between the opening and closing ceremonies in Vancouver. The only rule (ok there are other rules) is that the project has to be new, or untouched for a long while and that you have to 'challenge' yourself. Naturally, being an idiotic overachiever, I choose to resume a long-abandoned difficult project: my sister's made of honor shawl. Here is what it is supposed to look like:

via knitspot @flickr

My version is a big ol' mess right now, but I am hoping that once I get through the first two sections, I will be a knitting machine. Some people on Ravelry claimed to have finished this in like, 9 days. Hopefully I will be as speedy, or at least finish before the end of the Ravelympics so I can feel like I accomplished something. Meh.


What else. Oh yeah. I was so bored at work today I took a color quiz. I am a bright red. I feel that.

You boast incredible willpower and are capable of overcoming obstacles that would normally leave others shaking in their boots. You have a penchant for colorful environments and often impress others with your energetic bursts of energy. Your interests in many areas of life often leave you scattered, but when you focus you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.

Calmer, Nicer, with a Bandaid On It...

Thanks for letting me vent about my issues, LOL. Just in case you thought I was all birds and unicorns and Africa and sh*t. I have my problems too, but that little issue, it's better, and blogging it out, helped a bit. Mind you, not all the elements are fixed, but the most important ones are, thank goodness. So I'm calm today. Feeling serene. And craving a red velvet cupcake for some reason.

So since that's out of the way, and it's already February, I thought I'd do a little book review, the Top Fiction and Non-Fiction of 2009.

Here goes (in no particular order)
Fiction:

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - a novel by Nicholas Drayson
If it takes place in Kenya, I am mostly likely going to eat it up, so I am biased. If it has birds as a main theme, I am going to eat it up. Kenyan birds and a sweet story about two aging men competing for a date with Rose Mbikwa by having a bird competition? Fantastic. It was a quick and pleasant read, it brought back a TON of fond birding memories, and I loved every second of it. Thanks for giving it to me, Rach!

The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott
This was a very entertaining read, taking place in post-Napoleonic France. There were a lot of botany/ecological specimen references as the work is narrated by a young Englishman, fresh out of medical school, and pretty damn naive. He gets wrapped up in a plot with a famous female thief and the police inspector who wants to take her down. Tangled web, mystery, cat and mouse game ensues, etc. And Napolean is in it too, on his way to exile.

The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner
Fun read. Takes place in Boston, is very mysterious and has a twist at the end. Great great great summer/pool/beach/vacation read. I'll probably read some more of her books this year when I'm looknig for something fun.


The Russian Concubine and The Girl from Junchow by Kate Furnivall
I totes got sucked into these. Loved the historical fiction (though it's probably riddled with flaws that I am too dumb/oblivious to to detect, which I have learned from partaking in book club for the last five years. BUT THAT'S OK!!) I love love the scrappiness of Lydia and her fight to survive...then there's her illicit affair with Chang An Lo....hells yes, I loved every second and stayed up all night to finish The Girl from Junchow. I just hope there's more to come!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The best book I read in 2009, hands down. It's hard to believe that this is Stockett's debut novel, it's so well-written and cohesive and the characters are fantastically developed. I found it hard to put down and the story riveting - revolving around black maids in Mississippi (the "help") in the 1960's, and how the white children they basically raise grow up to be just as overbearing and racist as their parents. I admired the main character, "Skeeter" Phelan, who boldy decides to write a tell-all book about the life of a black maid, for her determination to bring awareness and incite change in the community, as well as the maids who bravely step forward to help with her project. I hope that if I had been born in a different time and different place, I would've been a Skeeter Phelan...

Eclipse by Stephanie Meyers
Yes yes I know that the Twilight series is poorly-written (in my opinion) and that the teen craze is more than a little nauseating. I also know that the Twilight series was freakin' CANDY for my brain, amazing, delicious candy. I was so into this book that I almost missed my train stop. It was pure, delightful entertainment, and I love that I barely needed my brain to read this, LOL. It was also the first book where Bella wasn't an insipid little beast, full of whining pathos. If you haven't read these and want to, I suggest seeing the movies first - Kristen Stewart makes Bella likeable, and it's easier to read the first two books thinking of likeable K-Stew, rather than annoying written-page Bella.

Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout
Normally I try and avoid short stories because they irritate me (I don't know why, they just do). This was a great collection of interwoven stories set in Crosby (woot woot) Maine. Olive is a mean ol' lady.....and I love her for it. She is totally cranky and grating, but that's what makes Olive, Olive. I hope when I'm old, I'm a lot like her!

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon
Ok. This book was freaky as HELL. It's about an undertaker, and it took a lot for me to stick with it because there are a lot of work details in there....draining things and sewing things (and by "things" I mean "dead bodies" ew ew ew scary freaky). It also involves solving the murder of "Precious Doe," an unidentified child and murder victim that came through the funeral home. The book is set south of Boston, which made it additionally entertaining, but also disturbing - the imagination didn't have to take such a big leap to envisions certain things happening in the communities mentioned...

Non-Fiction

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
It made me like Ernest Hemingway. Which was kind of surprising.



Columbine by Dave Cullen
Best non-fiction of 2009. This book is amazing...it gets down to the root of what happened before, during and after Columbine. It's sad, it's disturbing, it's terrifying, but it's real and it's true. There's nothing I like better than the cold hard facts and this book delivers them.

Life List by Olivia Gentile
This is a fantastic biography of Phoebe Snetsinger, an amateur birder, who at the time of her death (and maybe now, still?) had more birds on her life list than any other person in the world. It really illustrates the fine line between passion and obsession (Phoebe missed her mother's funeral because she refused to cut a birding expedition short), Gentile delivers the details in a non-judgmental way, leaving the reader to form his/her own opinions.

A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found my Heart in the Middle of the Ocean by Tori Murden
Now I'm a Smith alumna, so naturally I am going to favor my fellow alumnae (ok maybe not, after all, do you see Commencement on this list??!) - Tori Murden's account of her solo row across the Atlantic was riveting. One of those "strength of the human spirit" books.

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
I hated this book...or rather, hated the author's tone. She was judging the Puritans, she mocked the Massachusetts Bay Colony! Sure, I'm only a third-generation American on both maternal and paternal sides, but HELL I am a New Englander, moreover I am from Massa-f*cking-chusetts, where we are proud of our history and our founding fathers/mothers dammit! Stop mocking John Winthrop! Do not make fun of the Merrymount folk! Luckily I went to an author's talk at the BPL to hear what she had to say (and I was all 'you're at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Sarah Vowell, how do you feel now? Do you feel the SPIRITS of the Mass Bay Colony hanging over your head, cursing you for your mockery! To the STOCKS!) Then I realized Vowell wrote the book from an entirely different perspective. She sees the link between current-day America/ns and the Puritans...and totally identifies the hardship facing the colonists. While Vowell is funny about a lot of things, she forces the reader (or maybe just me) to put a little more thought into our Puritanical roots...

Wildflower: And Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa by Mark Seal
This book. So tragic. It's sad because it really captures an ugly side of Kenya. I love to focus on the vibrant people, the parks, the animals, rather than the problems that completely plague the country: pollution, corruption, murder. Joan Root was a wildlife filmmaker turned conservationist, working to stop the illegal activities (fishing, draining, etc) around Lake Naivasha (my most favorite place in Kenya). She was found shot to death on her estate on the shores of Naivasha, some calling it simple robbery, others, a contract killing for her conservation efforts. I think the peak of Joan Root's influence in Kenya had not yet been felt, and that's the true tragedy of it all.

Tell Me Where It Hurts by Nick Trout
Written by a vet from Angell Memorial in JP. A great read for any animal lover, full of funny and heartwarming anecdotes. Yes, animals have souls and emotions, people. Duh.

Central Park in the Dark by Marie Winn
I had no idea what kind of things went on after hours in Central Park....well not of the animal-variety at least. This book chronicles the lives of Central Park's animal inhabitants: moths, owls, birds, butterflies, etc. Great fun.




What I want to read in 2010:

Usually I pick someone's list and try to read "literature." It has served me well in the past, and without Oprah's list, I never would've read something like A Moveable Feast. This year, however, I'm taking it easy. I've just finished re-reading and reading the Jade del Cameron series. God, I freakin' love it. It's set, of course, in 1920's Kenya, and our heroine, Jade del Cameron, is an American WWI ambulance driver now working for a travel magazine, having wild adventures wherever she goes. Sure 1920's Kenya's colonial set is notorious, but Jade is all the more loveable for rejecting British society for her motorcycle, pet cheetah, the darkroom on her friend Beverly's estate, and Sam Featherstone, the dashing war vet/pilot with wooden leg. YES! It sounds ridiculous when I write it here, but oh, the fun of it all. I adore the adventure, I adore Jade - hell, I want to BE JADE! She's very Emma Fitzgerald in The Heat of the Sun - actually, they're probably friends ;) I finished the fifth in the series today on the train and was shocked with a cliffhanger ending - surprise surprise - and was seized with panic that the author, Suzanne Arruda, had chosen to end her series that way. NOOO! I was relieved to find, after a visit to her website, that I only have to wait until fall for more. Umm maybe it'll be out in time for the honeymoon?!! Or maybe it's best if it isn't, Jam might resent the attention I give Jade and her friends, i.e. be annoyed when I don't come out of our hotel room because my nose is buried in a book.

Anyways, during my book research, I discovered that amazon had some recommendations for me (the whole "people who liked "The Leopard's Prey" also bought, blah blah blah" section). Um WELL apparently there are tons of lady detective-ish books set in the 1920's, just waiting for me to read! BRILLIANT! I put my name in for a few at the library, and plan to spend the next couple of months being delighted by independent-minded ladies. I'm suddenly excited to hit the library again...I haven't been there since 2009, lol, 'too busy' or 'too tired.' Now I can't wait! YAY FOR BOOKS!

Split Knuckle

And then I punched my Ethan Allen hardwood desk, because I knew I could hit it without breaking it (thank God I never downgraded to Ikea) and I had already shattered my bluetooth against my bedroom wall (I mostly fixed it).
Why?

1. because I am an a$$hole
2. because I was totally misunderstood and couldn't effing articulate it without exploding
3. because I am still mad about something that happened in December/January
4. because I was mad about being misunderstood
5. because between hating my job 60% of the time, the wedding planning, the money problems, the living at home still, my pending review for which I had not completed my self-evaluation and the lateness of the hour, I was stressed times a million
6. because I wished some people had followed through. and that others had been up front with me
7. because I regretted bringing it up
8. because men see things/issues in very clearly defined literal terms and women are about feelings and they don't translate well it seems
9. because no matter what it comes down to, I still feel like a jerk, even though I didn't mean what I said how I said it

10. because even after crying and throwing my bluetooth, I still had this pain/empty/hollow/stinging feeling and it wouldn't go away. So I punched my desk as hard as I could, hoping I wouldn't break my hand, have to drive myself to the ER at midnight and have to explain that I punched something because I have a bad temper and spend half the night reassuring a social worker that I was OK, things at home were fine, blah blah. I didn't break my hand, I just f*cked it up bad enough that it really really really hurt. And you know what? It felt really f*cking good to be able to point to it and say "THAT. That is what hurts. Nothing else."

But now it's infected. And it didn't really solve anything. And now I just feel hollow again, but can't punch hard enough with my left to get that competing stimuli to drown out the sad. So I'm going to try to not do that again. And I'm going to try and not be a jerk, but I will probably fail, because sometimes, I suck like that. Ugh.

Maybe something nice tomorrow. Maybe.

Revisiting A Goal

I haven't blogged in forever. Which is seriously how I start all my posts. Ha.

I actually have wedding things to talk about, but later. I'm kind of over them right at the moment because Jamaal and I spent the weekend scoping out wedding stuff - the reception venue, hotel, church, etc. Good stuff. Well I liked it. Jamaal just sort of hung out, and if he was cold/bored/etc, told me when it was time to go. Ah men.

Anyway, I was reading someone's blog and they had this sort of bucket list thing on there, with a 101 things they wanted to do in 1,001 days. Well I am not there yet, but I did make a list last year of 27 things I wanted to do before turning 28. Twenty-eight is about 10 or so weeks away, so I thought "sh*t, I'd better look at my list to make sure I can get something done." Yeah yeah I know, I've read the literature about how women these days try to be their own personal superwoman and stress themselves out with lists and trying to be perfect, BLAH BLAH BLAH...honestly though? Nearly completing this list would give me a sense of damn accomplishment, something that's missing from my life right about now, as projects pile up, wedding planning slips from my once-firm grasp into the oblivion of in-completion, and my work life remains dull and somewhat unfulfilled....so here's last years list, with notes:

27 Things I Want to Do Before I'm 28:

1. Go somewhere new and somewhat faraway: Nope. Unless you count Middletown, NY as exotic. Oh well. There is the honeymoon, so that is ok.
2. Make a superfluous and ridiculous cake for no reason: surprisingly enough, I haven't done this
3. Finish my running excel file bird life list (uber DORK!): nooope.
4. Make a blurb photo book: YES! YES I made two! And they turned out so wonderfully that I know I will be making more this year!
5. Run the Boston Marathon*: No, and not going to happen, but I am ok with this since it was a suspected but unconfirmed stress fracture that sidelined me.
6. Take more photos of everything, especially people I am giving myself this one, especially since I even bought a new point and shoot for a wedding Jam and I attended. Here's a sampling:

Christmas Joy:


Sis in front of Town Hall on random Sunday:


My dad kayaking:


The Jamonster, kayaking:


My mom, watching the storm go out over the mountains:


You get the idea. I tried. :)

7. Become insanely and enviously organized. Hell no. Not *yet* I have some hope though.
8. Finish a long-abandoned craft project (under the sea cross stitch? sr year calligraphy project?) No. I am close though, with scanning Kenya pics. But I did make this, surely it must be worth some sort of abandoned craft project credit, yes?





9. FTDS and move in with Jamaal, opinions and judgments be damned OK I bolded this, not because it has happened, but because the opinions and judgments surrounding the move at this point, I think, are gone. PLUS the only reason we haven't taken the leap of living together has been his job situation. So it's not done...but it kind of is/will be. Kind of cheating, yes, but you get it.
10. Memorize a poem. Or two. No. I'll try.
11. Set the bar higher at work- I'm not organized, I'm not putting in 100%, and that makes me sad. I am getting there. It's slow. I am going to be moving offices and will try to get more organized. I am putting in about 85% effort, sometimes, on certain projects, 100%. I am a co-author on two published abstracts, soon to be papers, which is a huge milestone. I'm getting there, I haven't arrived, but I have set the bar higher.
12. GET OUT OF DEBT DAMMIT, ALLISON! Noooo.
13. Spend more quality time with Jamaal. We hardly have any down time or time to do fun things beyond go out to dinner. I want to do fun stuff for a change (not that food isn't fun, but you know). I want to do photo-worthy things. We're not totally at the photo-worthy point again, but we're trying! Jam finally completing his MBA has helped immensely!
14. See a Red Sox game LIVE (bonus points for a stadium other than Fenway!) No. Sad.
15. Skip work, even if just for a day, to do something furtive and fun, like go to the beach. ooooh the indulgence! No. Because I am a kiss ass.
16. Have the wedding planned out almost to completion so I enjoy the day Not here yet. Working on it. I think I will be able to reasonably bold this by my bday.
17. Take advantage of what Boston has to offer (restaurants, museums, shows etc) hmmff. not really. sad.
18. Help more people and animals. I donate platelets and all, but it's kind of removed from the situation. Uh...I sent money to Haiti...
19. Bird watch more - see five new species! (neeerrrddd alert) OK, haven't birdwatched a ton or anything, but I saw a f*cking ALLEN'S HUMMINGBIRD in Massachusetts in DECEMEBER. SOO hells yeah, I'm bolding this.
20. Take better care of my skin (beyond sunscreen, I don't do much of anything) If I have rocked anything on this list, it is skin care. Oh sh*t yeah. I have a damn regimen! I have been getting quarterly facials, and had the aesthetician analyze my products, make recommendations, etc. I am rocking sephora products and moisturizing twice a day, with sunscreen in the am and repair serum at night. I exfoliate any non-face skin with a sugar scrub and moisturize with Fresh lotion or some sweet St. Ives Target-style lotion. Is it sad that this has been my biggest accomplishment of the year? Part of me says "YES" but then this other part says "no, not at all. you'll never get a new skin and you have to live with the one you have forever, you may as well take good care of it and treat it with care." So there it is.
21. Chillax more. I am overbooked always, and feel guilty when I don't want to go to something, but have nothing to do otherwise. Have to stop feeling guilty too. I bolded this. Though I'm not sure I should have. eh.
22. Conquer a fear (this will be the hardest thing on the list!) Nope. At least I don't think so.
23. Reduce that knitting stash! Nope.
24. Visit the Mapparium Nope.
25. Reconnect with someone :) Yes.
26. Spend more time in my kayak taking in the world. It's been great, too.
27. Make a five-course dinner for me and Jamaal. I don't even know what those five courses would be really, but it's the kind of thing you hear in movies, and I'm gonna do it! Nooo. Maybe for Valentine's Day?

Oh lordy, not even half. I'm am going to "GET THERE." I'll report back on my bday!

heh?

I just noticed that "birds" appears in the title of my last rambling blog post.

I have no frickin' clue what it means. Isn't that weird?

I'm in a book club where I am the youngest member by 25 years. It has been a great lesson, not only in history (ha ha ha) but also in patience and fairness and listening. Anyways, the older members are always talking about how their memory is failing. "I can't remember where I put my glasses!" they say, or "I can't remember the last book we read!" Nevermind the fact that they are all busy people - many are still working, and those who aren't are heavily involved in volunteer work at their churches or other organizations, like the woman involved with the suicide support group because her husband and son killed themselves, or the lady who visits prisoners every week because her husband died in prison. There's a lady who spends a couple hours every week fighting her metastatic breast cancer (she is doing well, for now at least). One woman takes care of her husband 'round the clock - he is confined to a wheelchair. The rest of us work - lawyer, accountant, librarian, teacher, teacher, college administrator, and me, a researcher. We're busy - and that's why we can't remember stuff, not because we're (ok they're) old! Goodness.

When your read the above paragraph, I probably make book club sound terribly boring or depressing, but it's not, it's actually a night I look forward to every month. It's where we shed work (unless you have a funny work-related story), ignore illness and sadness, eat fattening snacks, drink tea from a teacup WITH a saucer, talk about the book for an hour or so and then chat about LIFE. It's great. Last meeting we covered the movie "It's Complicated" (great film, very entertaining), the virtues of spice cookies and lemon cookies, pet cats/kittens/old cats, how it's hard for international students to get a ssid, airport security, and the current job market for new MBA-grads. Leave no stone unturned. I always return home, happily tired, but grateful that I got to use my brain for something not work-related for a few hours.

Was this post supposed to be about memory? or bird? I forget. Ha ha.

In truth, the fact that I forgot what "birds" means in that title is really irritating. Ugh. So I leave you with a picture I took - a bird picture:

Mama Cardinal

Haiti, Birds, Money Woes, Wedding - Week 16/54

I started to write this post last week, but nothing really came out....it was supposed to be a wedding planning post...which only sounded trite in light of the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti were dead/dying/trapped/hungry/thirsty/hurt. Then I was going to blog about Haiti, but what was there to even say? That I was horrified by the death and destruction? That I hated sitting in my warm and sheltered living room while watching the news and feeling absolutely, positively helpless? That everyone should donate to the relief? Ugh, no, like that's even news. It's not. It's not news, it's nothing new, therefore, I had nothing to say.

I still have nothing to say really. Haiti is still sad, the saddest thing I've seen in a long long time. I am still stressed about planning our wedding...still hating everything, except the occasional glimpse of the future I'm able to envision when something, some project or other, is actually going really really well. I still feel broke as hell (financially, not spiritually!). So really nothing has changed since last week. Ha ha. Oh, except I figured out my wedding flowers. That was one of those intensely positive moments, during which I pranced around Michael's with arm fulls of fake flowers feeling like I was kicking the wedding industry's ASS. My mom and sister helped me figure out how to do my own flowers, and our mockups at Michael's totally rocked. I think once I start finishing projects I will be a little more positive. Oh, and just to clarify, I'm totally excited to marry Jamaal. Absolutely. And I am actually looking forward to our "wedding weekend" very VERY VERY VERY much. It's just that getting there? It's kind of a drag ;) Maybe it's because I am lazy. I dunnoooo. Though Jam gets major major points for nearly finishing his guest/address list. He needs to fill in less addresses than I do, which rocks my world. And my sister talked me into "The Young Victoria" which was totally the highlight of my long weekend. Rockin' film. :) Just in case you thought I'd be all doom and gloom today.

I'm going to sign off now though, before I start another boring-ass ramble.
Donate to Haiti. Vote for Martha. See The Young Victoria. Etc.

Facebook, I L You

I just found out some news.
Good news, from Facebook too.
I've mentioned my friend, Mboya before. I sent his sister through secondary school from age 13 to 16. Once she finished, he dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't hear from him. He disappeared.

I had a sneaky, awful, growling-in-the-pit of my stomach suspicion he was dead. Because that's what happens in Kenya when someone just gets cut off like that, you know? They get in an accident or murdered or something awful but you never know because they're Kenyan, you're white and American and technically have no connection to that person and there's no way to sort it out unless you go over there in person....unless you have friends you can ask. My questions went unanswered by the one friend with whom I'm still in touch, and I told myself that this wasn't because he didn't want to tell me what was going on, but because he barely had an internet connection at the outpost at which he worked. Plus the American standard of email etiquette is kind of lost on those guys :) Today I am tooling around FB and there on my friend's page is a thank you for the birthday wishes we sent, saying "I had a great day with Fred and Mboya and..."

There it was. In type. Mboya. He's alive and well and partying. Sighs upon sighs of relief.
Excuse me for now, I have to go electronically kick his ass for not replying to my emails.

Funny Typo

Because sometimes I revert to 13-year old status:

patient with mantle cell non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma who is admitted for febrile neutropenis

teeheeehee someone replaced an "a" with a "s"

Wedding Wednesday 15/54

Wait....it's a new year....it's a new decade....how'd that happen? and when? WAIT WHAT?

That's kind of been my 2010 so far. Kind of disorganized disaster. I haven't done my year in review in photos. I haven't done my "if I only read 10 books in 2009, it'd would've been these" list. I haven't even taken down my 100-ish books in 2009, though hell, it's not like the list is complete anyway. So yeah 2010 is a bit of a disaster.

Who was telling me about moving the beginning of the new year to August? I think it was my sister. Or maybe Andy Rooney bitching at the end of 60 Minutes. If so, brilliant plan. I think the enemy is not actually the "new year" but rather January itself. It's cold, dark and snowy and fosters immense expectations partnered with inevitable failure or disappointment and lack of productivity. Not that I am a den of productivity in August, but at least the days are longer and it's warm. Plus January almost always makes me sad because it was in the month of January that I left for Kenya and every time the anniversary of my "leaving" comes around, all I do is worry about whether or not I'll ever get back there and see my friends. Then because I am who I am, I worry about the ones I haven't heard from in a while, like Mboya. I am sure he is alive and well, but knowing he worked day to day in a cement mine has fed my vivid imagination and I have played all the possibilities of what could have happened to him over and over and over. Then there's the habit of family members dying in January, though we have been spared that the last couple of years, thank goodness. The noro-virus funeral was the last time it happened. *leaves desk to go knock on wood* Basically I AM NOT A JANUARY FAN.

Though honestly, I do think the snow is quite lovely. People fight me on this, but my parent's yard looks like some sort of fantasy woodland with the pine boughs covered in snow and birds flitting around and little grey and red squirrels frolicking to and fro....but I digress...

Needless to say, this 2010 general fail and disorganization has led to a factor of "0" when it comes to "things we checked off the wedding to do list." Yep. Z-E-R-O. And I thought I'd be sooo ahead of the game. HA! The only thing I've done since my last "wedding Wednesday" post is 1. ask Jam if he wants to go to the Barns bridal show 2. round the corners of my sample save the date and obsess about whether or not the rounded corners make it more refined and elegant 3. make lists.

*resuming from yesterday*
So I had to abandon my post yesterday to do work. ha ha yeah. I find myself a bit calmer this morning. I registered us for the bridal show and made no bones about needing to visit our venue and take lots of pictures - I believe I told the catering manager that I needed to take measurements as well. It's hard to catch tone with email, and I tried to sound nice but firm, and she seemed cool with everything. Jam and I keep telling ourselves that they probably deal with INSANE people on a regular basis, and the fact that we've only visited once, booked immediately and aside from one or two emails have largely left the staff alone til now probably bodes well for us. We're hoping that this will be our last trip down there for a bit; I thought possibly it could be the last trip to Middletown til the wedding in general, but I still need to see the church and find a florist, so more trips down are inevitable. Hopefully next time we visit it will be more a 'gathering info, paying vendors' type trip rather than "still planning things" trip.

I think another reason I'm calm is that I worked out some money things this morning. I wanted X amount of dollars in the bank by my birthday and found if I put around $30 a day I can make it. Now this probably sounds crazy (aka $900 a month!) BUT I spend money on so much useless shizz it's really not even funny - that has been the benefit of living rent free. I think that it's reasonable to guess that Jam and I won't be living together before my birthday. SO. Instead of wasting time blowing cash on stuff I don't need, it's time to tighten the belt and reinvest that money into ye olde savings account. Because once I have X in the bank, you are going to see my calm waaaaaay down, because it ensures that I've covered the cost of my half of the reception and have a decent chunk left for flowers, cake, tips...and maybe even a rehearsal dinner and post-wedding brunch, fingers crossed. So yay!

Finally, another thing that perked me up...I went through old Africa-related emails and found this one from right before I left for the airport in 2006:

from Jam to me

show details 1/3/06

I love you to pieces.

Oh look at you with the high-tech phone. I'm not going to worry about you because I know you have mad spear skills.

I love you.

Funny because, yes, I do have mad spear skills. And sweet because, awrrr, Jam loves me to pieces. And then funny again, because I loved that high-tech phone....so much so that I put it in the washing machine less than 2 years later. ha ha ha.

Finally, pictures of what we were doing 4 years ago today (how time flies)

happy :) nerd

*edit*
The bird died Tuesday night. Kind of sucks. Kind of sums up 2009.

I'm winding my way through snowy Connecticut Amtrak-style...my phone vibrates.

I think it's a text, but it turns out it's my dad. "You won't believe this" he says, "but as of Tuesday there was confirmation that the rare Allen's Hummingbird you went to see is still alive"

My response? "Shut up. No way."

I had made my peace with the fact that it would be impossible for a small 3-inch bird native to California and Mexico could survive the last few weeks of New England weather, including about 20 inches of snow and evening temps in the single digits.

How is she surviving? Where does she go to shelter from the weather? I hope this is a sign she's a strong little thing that's going to make it through the winter and wake up one warm day in March, realize she's on the wrong coast and head west.

So I continue my journey to NYC with an even bigger smile on my face (it was big to begin with considering I'm seeing my fiance, haven't seen him since November) but this is sort of the icing on the cake.

Happy New Year all! I'll be back with a year in pictures and the NaBloPoMo January theme of "Best"

Kisses and peace out '09

A Quote From Christmas Eve Day

As I was polishing the silver with my mother...

(yes, sometimes I think I should quit my job and become a housekeeper...you know, and upscale housekeeper, Remains of the Day style, without the....er...weirdness/class issues)

....we were talking about my grandma's ridiculous requirement: admission to Thanksgiving dinner is a Christmas list. This came up:

Me: I don't know what to put half the time because I don't need anything. I mean Jamaal needs a job up here, we need a place to live, we'll need, like, furniture and stuff, but on the Christmas list level, I don't actually need anything. Oh. Oh actually, I totally need bras and underwear (said with hope in my voice...)

Mom: *long pause* Well. No one is going to get you that. You're on your own there.

Luckily the Semi-Annual Sale is on. I might go try my luck after work.

Wedding Wednesday 13/54

So my Christmas neuroses has helped me get A LOT done. I only have to finish one, maybe two things before Christmas, and they will be finished in time.

Of course my one fail was finishing the gifts for my Smith ladies. They're so close to being done...but not quite. We went out to dinner yesterday and they both had beautiful gifts for me!! I was kicking myself for not pulling an all-nighter and finishing, but luckily we have plans to get together again in a few weeks, so at least I know everything will be finished by then. I am tempted to make something else to stick in with the gifties now that I have more time. Hmmm...

Though I still have to make Jamaal's gifts...yeah totally put that off too. AND my second cousin just had the CUTEST baby, and I have to make her something. I know, I said I wouldn't take on anything not in the queue til after the wedding, but seriously, that child needs a five hour baby sweater. In red, to go with her dark hair. Adorable.

Then there will be some seriously wedding craft time. Our Save the Dates arrived on Monday and they are AWESOMEFACE! I love them. I'm glad I ordered just those and not the whole invitation suite because I would like to see more paper options (ok more luxurious) paper options for the invites. The "STD's" look great though:
I kind of love them. Hard. LOL. The fact that this wedding is going to happen is still not a reality in my mind. It still seems very far away and almost a fantasy. Each vendor we sign is a small reality check, but the save the dates have been the biggest one for me thus far. I can't imagine how it will feel when I get the invites printed!! This also means that it's time for the first wedding DIY project. These STD's need envelopes and DIY'd lined envelopes at that. Post Christmas rush and baby crafting, I'm going to take a day and go to town on these things. Some facebook friends said to send them out asap, but honestly, I need the time to craft and get addresses first! Plus these warrant some sort of special zazzle-designed stamp I think.

Another thing I did this week was book a string quartet for the ceremony and cocktail hour. My sweet dad offered to pay for it, though out of guilt I paid for the deposit. It feels weird asking them for money...yet if they offered I doubt I'd turn them down, LOL, but still, it's sort of awkward. Anyways, the quartet came back with a great bid for the time and I'm sending the contract off today. Great stuff. I just hope that we can make the music work. I love "traditional" wedding music, but am hoping to walk down the aisle to a Coldplay instrumental: http://www.youtube.com/user/VitaminStringQuartet#p/u/150/eVTwCfGrvyo
I guess we shall see :)

How My Neuroses Help Me Thrive on Christmas

So Christmas can be stressful, right?
Yes. Totally.

The sick thing is, I eat it up. The shopping, wrapping, decorating, crafting, cooking MESS. I am at my best when stressed and tired. It's when I do my best work. This scares the crap out of me when I think about the big jobs that I will have to tackle in the future, like wedding planning and moving in with Jamaal. Will I be knitting or cutting and pasting til 3AM on the morning of our wedding? Will I pack the night before move in day?

Maybe I should plan it that way, since that is when my productivity soars and flourishes.

I wrote about the bird and how I couldn't have a normal day after that. I didn't. I truly lolled about the house wondering what to do with myself. Sunday, however, was a different story. Not only was I expected to partake in some tree decorating, but I also had to make snacks for the Jr. High Fellowship kids AND finish some homemade Blurb books I have been making my parents for Christmas. I wasn't too worried about getting everything done....well not worried until I noticed the holiday deadlines on Blurb. If I wanted to get my books by Christmas Eve Day, I had to finish them by Monday at midnight. Oh.my.God. How did I let that completely slip by?

Naturally I was hustling around Sunday. After church, I worked on the book, then decorated the tree while simultaneously cooking about 2 dozen cupcakes. Then I blurbed some more, went to fellowship, made Christmas ornaments, came home and blurbed til 2 AM. The books got done though and they are going to look AMAZING.
Of course I was a waste of space on Monday and Tuesday and actually slept in til 8AM Tuesday morning (I'm usually at least halfway to work by then). By yesterday I was feeling better, and now I'm fully recovered from my almost all-nighter. Of course right now I am dying for a coke zero. I haven't had one in like, 2 weeks, but I need a lift. UGH.

Back to the point - I love the pressure. I am a procrastinator, and I think it's not a result of being lazy, it's a result of this neurotic need to feel hard core and accomplished. Sick, isn't it? I love having the huge list of things that must be done in the next week and crossing them off one by one. I feel like I am a rockstar when the list is done. Grrr hear me roar.

Here's my list til Christmas:

Today:

buy stamps
pick up picture for Jam's parents at Walgreens
upload photo contest pics to Ritz
wrap Jam's parents' gifts, address it
write thank you to bird people, include burned cd of photos, address it
write out Christmas letter (short)
double check holiday card addresses
go to MGH party with old coworkers
start cards for card exchange

Friday:
mail Brenda and Sharif's package
mail thank you package
mail Christmas cards
work on card exchange cards
meet sister at Derby St
pick up prints at Ritz
get Summer Shack gift card for parents
get holiday outfit (maybe)
finish Christmas gift for sister
finish Christmas gift for friend

Saturday
mail card exchange cards
mail photo contest submission
buy craft supplies at AC Moore for friend gifst
work on friend gift
work on sister's gift
buy squeeze bottles for cookie decorating party
buy food for Lily
wrap gifts
work on baby gifts
celebrate dad's birthday

Sunday
decorate cookies
work on baby gifts
work on sister's gifts

Monday
make sure girl's gifts are done
work on sister's gift
work on other friend's gift
begin Jam's stocking
wrap more stuff
buy canned goods for office food drive
buy toiletries for blood donor clinic drive

Tuesday
dinner with my Smithies!
pack car with crap for coworkers, food drive, toiletry drive

Wednesday
drive to work
wrap things up
donate platelets
FREEEEEEDOM!
finish crap at home that wasn't finished

So it's not that bad...but it smells like a challenge. Oh, and that's exactly how I want it.

Unwedding Wednesday 12/54

Again, no wedding junk today! We are again at a lull. The happy news is that our invitation suite proofs will be done today...and since I don't anticipate any edits, I'll probably be ordering the first round of samples from catprint.com, a recommended printer from Printable Press - catprint is wind-powered - how awesome is that? I have, at times, stressed about the "disposable-ness" of our wedding, i.e. so much junk is purchased and thrown away. I've tried to cut down on things that will just be thrown out but the invites were one thing I wasn't really willing to budge on, as the only way to truly cut down on trash is to send out something like an e-vite. Uh, no. At least our invites will be produced at a green facility. And given the amount of scrapbooking friends I have, probably only 50% of the invites will get trashed, 25% will actually get scrapbooked and 25% will hang around in a box for years waiting to be scrapbooked. Oh, and I will probably fall into the last category, since I have a box of stuff waiting to be scrapbooked that goes back to 2006. Yeah.

Anyways, I just wanted to quickly share some pics for any bird nerds out there :)

Last Saturday, I had the chance to see a rare bird, an Allen's Hummingbird. While this bird isn't rare in the sense that it's endangered or there's only a known population of 50 individuals or something crazy like that, it is incredibly unusual to see one in Massachusetts - it's only the second documented Allen's EVER in Mass. How it got from California/Mexico to Massachusetts is anyone's guess. Most likely a storm system picked this poor lady up, crashed into an eastern storm system that flung her into Mass. Sucks, because she must be like 'um wait. why is it so cold? agh.'

The "keepers of the feeder" have been keeping this girl in nectar since the end of October and it is a testament to their dedication that she has made it this far. They've had the Audubon Society come out to band, measure and feather type her to confirm the species too, just to make sure the find is as rare as they thought. The couple lives near our friend and wedding photographer, who mistakenly told them I was an ornithologist (LOL). They thought that an ornithologist would jump at the chance to see their bird, so they called my dad, who in turn called me. While I clarified that I was not actually an ornithologist, but just a bird enthusiast, I did say that I would absolutely jump at the chance to see her. I was instructed to call at 8am Saturday morning to confirm that the poor birdie was still alive, and when I found out that she was still around and visiting the feeder, I hopped in the car and made it to the house in record time.

She visited twice while I was there, and I was able to snap these photos (which have been cropped and sharpened in Picasa):





It was so glorious. The lady of the house said "stop with the camera, look through the binocs!!!" but I explained that I see better through the camera - photographing something forces me to stop and concentrate, since you can't exactly shoot telephoto on the fly (frustrating for me sometimes). I got a great glimpse of her through my doubler, but I have a love/hate relationship with that thing, especially when I need to shoot quickly, and of course the pics are totally blurred. I wish I could go over to their house again and set up a tripod and the works, but I don't want to bug the people any more than I already had, though I think they were pleased when I arrived to find that I am totally not averse to sitting still for two hours waiting for something to happen. They went about their day while I sat, camera in lap. I didn't get into it with them, but I told them that I had spent six weeks in Kenya basically doing the same thing with large mammals and that I was used to sitting or standing for hours waiting for an animal to do something. Plus my bird walks in Kenya were usually most fruitful when I sat still and let something come to me. It is possible for me to have all the patience in the world if necessary.

So you may already get the sense from this post that I am hardcore into birds, and that this sighting is pretty much the pinnacle of awesomeness for me. Srsly. I actually had a hard time having a normal day after that as I went about doing mundane things like shopping for crap at Target and cleaning. Of course, at the same time I was incredibly grateful this little hummer had not chosen our yard to stay in - I would not get ANYTHING done for the stress of it all. The home owner said she often spends hours in front of the window, waiting for the bird to arrive - this is possible because I think she's retired, but oh my God, if it were me, I'd have to work from home or cash in some sick time. I'd be worried sick! For now, I am sending the bird "stay alive" vibes; hummingbirds can live on nectar for a while as long as their diet is supplemented with small insects, but I'm afraid those may become scarce in the dead of January. I suggested breeding fruitflies and releasing them but I'm not sure how practical that may be. Apparently other vagrant hummers spending the winter in Mass have made it, but I think the other Allen's only survived til January. I am really keeping my fingers crossed for this bird. I'm asking Mother Nature to not be such a b*tch for once, to send us a mild winter and an early spring, so this bird may find her way back home....

Unwedding Wednesday

Yup, I skipped Wedding Wednesday 11/54
Because....
It's been uber-busy at work
It's been uber-busy at home
I have nothing new and wedding-related to report, as we are stuck in the mud when it comes to wedding planning.

Maybe after the holidays.
We did pass a crazy milestone this week - 10 months to go. We'll be under 300 days to go next Monday. The time is flying by...

Thankfully this day has flown by as well. I am ecstatic that I only have to sit in my back-distorting office chair for another hour or so. Then I'm off to go Christmas shopping (so close to being done!) and be crafty for a few hours.

THEN tomorrow morning I am going to do something super bird-nerdy, but I can't write about it just yet, not only because it's supposed to be under wraps for a bit, but also because it might not happen. I will have to remind myself to go back home afterwards and not get sucked into birdwatching on the Driftway or some sh*t, because once I'm in bird mode, it's super hard to snap out of it. Especially with a camera in hand.

Because I have nothing else to share, here's a cute bird pic I took last winter. It's definitely going into my mother's Christmas gift (photo book...more on that later):



Happy happy weekend all!

Wondering

So my hair has this awkward bump in it today. I tried to be like all the cool girls I've been seeing out in the world, rocking the french braided bangs: http://www.hair.becomegorgeous.com/celebrity_hair/how_to_french_braid_your_bangs-1228.html

I kind of failed. It's cute, but it's not great, probably because I am shaky in the morning. Anyway, the style resulted in a weird bump in the back of my head that I didn't even notice til I glanced at myself in the rearview before exiting the car at the train station. At first I was horrified, then I thought "who cares, these people don't even know me." The more I thought about this though, the more I realized it wasn't necessarily true. Maybe I don't know them personally but I know my fellow train and shuttle bus drivers well enough to recognize them...I usually can tell I'm on the right bus or train according to the faces of my fellow passengers. So yeah, I totally recognize people, and that means other people must recognize me. I definitely see people consistently enough to notice things like hair and clothes too. SH*T. So others noticed the bump. Dang. Hopefully they won't judge me on that.

In other news, I can't believe it's Monday. Last week was a whirlwind, so I planned on having a busy, but very planned and evenly-paced weekend. Not to be. My car died on Friday, as I was driving to work. Everyone at my office was like "oh I hate it when my car won't start." Um NO my car started, it just decided to stop running about a mile into my commute. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE! Thank goodness I was able to pull over and wait for my dad to bail me out, yet again. This time he got in the car and experienced the problem (every other time the car has done this, he's driven it and it has run fine) and decided that it was time to cut the bullsh*t and take it to the dealer. I braced myself for significant financial damage and decided that if the cost of fixing it was over three grand, I'd price out a new car. Jamaal was all "we'll figure it out somehow!" but I really dreaded yet another monthly payment before next year's nuptials. I wasn't sure I'd be able to afford bills, wedding savings, and a car payment all at once, which pretty much took paying rent (ie finally moving out of my parent's house) off the table. I was a bit distraught.

Finally at 3pm the call came through: I needed a new catalytic converter, o2 sensor and right axle for $900, though the Subaru people said they could not replace the right axle and it would be about $650. Since I know people who drive Subarus who've had the right axle go WHILE DRIVING I gave them the go ahead to have that done too. The last thing I need is for the car to come to a full stop while I'm going 70 on the highway. Yeah.

Saturday morning I picked up my beloved Forester. Though I was $880 poorer, the car felt like new. For the first time in about two years, the car didn't chug at a stoplight. It was glorious. It was also a little bit of a special eff you to my know-it-all boy coworker who informed me that "cars don't use catalytic converters anymore." I raised my eyebrows at him and said "interesting, because not only is my car getting a new one, but I also know that that is how cars basically filter their emissions to mee the stringent state regulations for clean emissions in Massachusetts." Ha HA TAKE THAT sexist beast! For once high school chemistry/bio/physics came together to help me outsmart someone, lol.

The new catcon gave me the opportunity to go on a Martha Stewart Glitter Pack hunt. Amy and I had been to two stores looking for this. I really wanted it for the holidays, for future wedding crap that I will inevitably be diy-ing, as well as for a holiday card project. Both stores had been bought out completely. I had a list of all the AC Moore's and Michael's within a 50 mile radius of my hometown as well as my GPS - nothing would conquer me, and I would not give up til I had my glitter dammit.

I had to travel about a mile before I found it. I was almost disappointed that it didn't take an all-day search and 15 stores to find it, but I was willing to settle out of the sheer convenience of not having to leave town limits to buy it. Here it is, in all its glory:

I even had a 40% off coupon. Of course I also bought three Martha Stewart holiday craft punches, a 12-pack of food coloring for Christmas cookies, 3 skeins of yarn for the stocking I'm supposed to be knitting Jamaal, a Scotch gift-wrap cutter, and fabric to make curtains for my bedroom. Um yeah. Bad girl.

The rest of the weekend was spent 1. at the Apple store with my sister, where I had to speak face to face with my archenemy from high school. I think I won the faceoff, for a bunch of long and ranty reasons ;) 2. cleaning 3. crafting 4. doing church things (how did I get so roped in? Oh right, because no one says no to Jesus) 5. saving my pet fish and 6. Christmas decorating.

Yep, you read that one right. In one of my only animal-saving victories EVER I rocked this one. My poor neon was floundering....um for a few...days (ok I am not the best fish owner in the world) and I noticed it was only swimming straight up and almost tipping over backwards. Cause it's old for a fish, I thought "let it go" but the thing would not croak. Then I was overcome with guilt: the pain! the suffering! I decided to extensively google fish diseases and found that the fish was either constipated or poisoned by high levels of ammonia and other contaminants in the tank. Or it possibly had an undiagnosable, untreatable disease. Uh ok. I decided to go with a 50% water change, a filter change and some water conditioner. Wouldn't you know, it totally worked?!! After a few hours Mr. Neon was swimming parallel to the ground, finally looking normal.
I probably give myself way too much credit, but I was all "who needs vet school?!" walking around my house, patting myself on the back. Sad, but these are the things that keep me entertained.

Now that the Monday morning calls have stopped, I'm off to eat lunch and do some work. Fun times. Hope you all had a good weekend!

Wedding Wednesday/Thursday 10/54

I really don't have too much to report in terms of wedding junk.
Seriously!
I ordered our invites/std's/thankyous/rsvps this week, which was great. Of course, because I'm me, I had to fight with Jam a little bit before ordering. Ha ha. I felt bad later, bad enough to tell my mom about it, and she said "yeah, your father and I are like that, but we agree on the big picture....so try not to worry about it." I guess what annoyed me was feeling like I'm doing this entirely on my own, then having him pitch in his two cents. Not that I even really cared in the end, nope, not at all, it's just that I was sort of like "uh excuse me, when you're ready to help, then you can have an opinion." Bitchy! Oh well. He helped. By making up the menu....you know, that we won't actually need until a week before the wedding. Ugh. Whatever.

So I guess the goal of sending out save the date's with holiday cards has officially been thrown out the window, but that's ok. Some of them would've been lost in the Christmas madness anyway, plus January and February are, to me, two of the most boring and unpleasant months on the calendar (dark, cold) and I'll need something to keep me entertained, right? Yeah. So we'll tackle that stuff after the new year.

For now I am plotting some crafty stuff for Christmas. I've tried to limit the amount I'm doing, but it never ever works. I've worked out what I'm giving my girlfriends and am literally PRAYING that I'll get it done in time. Who knows. Hope they like it too. I at times feel bad for the people who are subjected to my homemade gifties year after year, but so far no one has really complained...thus I continue to holiday/birthday craft. My sister is getting a little crafty something, I'm supposed to be making a stocking for Jamaal and I have to finish up my ornament swaps by next Monday. So I'm on a tight schedule.

Of course, staying up til 1am making cookies did not help ANYTHING. I am still trying to figure out what the HELL made me stay up that late to make what will amount to be a tray's worth of bookclub snacks. I should've thrown away the dough when I realized it was a disaster and gone to the supermarket and purchased a snack. This is what happens when you are afflicted with the sad condition of "first-born overachiever syndrome." Sad. Those cookies better taste like little slices of heaven that were baked to perfection in a pan greased with my blood, sweat and tears, dammit!

What else? Oh. I have to go to the dentist today. Kind of a bummer. I hate it there. I often wonder to myself on the way to the dentist "would I rather be here, with someone's gloved hand in my mouth....or at the gyn...with someone's" Well you get it. The gyn usually wins, though since my friend brain integrated me and did whatever to try and quell my dental anxiety, I do not experience that sick feeling of badness I used to feel. So that's good, right?

Yikes. I'm so going to crash in about 20 minutes. My head may hit the keyboard. Might have to log onto hulu to have something going on in the background to keep me distracted.

P to the S: someone is feeding my work fish behind my back (I know because whoever they are broke the top of the food dispenser!) and it's causing a disgusting film of algae to grow on the tank sides. I actually had to hide the food this week. Annoying.

Poking Fun

So there aren't too many laughs here at the cancer hospital, as one might imagine.
Not that we don't have a good time, but it is sometimes a sad and mostly dull place to work. I do like my job, sure, and I think the work that I am doing is good and very useful, but it's not exactly a barrel of laughs, you know?!

Every once in a while, one of the physicians I work with does something so stupid I laugh about it all day. Thank GOD no one's life is at stake in the research field, unless you talk about death by stupidity, LOL.

We started a study about four months ago looking at the survival rate of patients with a certain type of disease receiving a certain type of treatment. We went back and forth between our country-wide team of physicians trying to figure out exactly WHAT types of chemo we'd be looking at and what course of treatment. We narrowed it down to patients getting A1, B2, and A1 plus transplant. B2 plus transplant is another option, but usually these patients had had a lot of chemo before transplant, had issues, did not receive treatment in a certain amount of time, etc. SO basically B2 plus transplant did not put patients on an equal playing field with A1 alone, B2 alone, and A1 plus transplant, so we took it off the board completely. We had a few phone calls about this, submitted a proposal that was approved by all our colleagues, and then submitted to a big hematological conference. The paper, to our delight, was accepted as a talk. Woohoo!

With that success under our belts we got down to the gritty details of the project. Even though the talk is officially based on an abstract and not a paper, we wanted to cover all the bases, which not only made us look good but also made publication an easier and more likely process. The doc who is my direct boss is a perfectionist and has worked tirelessly to make everything just so. We discussed the talk on our HUGE conference call two weeks ago. We sent out the presentation last Wednesday for the rest of the doctor's approval. And heard

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

I sent a reminder last night giving everyone til Wednesday night to respond.
Who should pipe up but a doc from the West Coast who 1. never responds to emails 2. never joins conference calls OR RSVP's for them and 3. allegedly ignores her data collection person to the point where they can't even schedule a meeting together. Not only is her email a grammatical nightmare (not that I can talk b/c you've seen this blog, but at least I'm not sending professional emails here!) but she writes "On slide 3 you should really have B2 plus transplant because that what a lot of people get here"

I want to hit reply and say "Dear Dr. X. Thanks for your keen observations. It is quite obvious that you have looked at all of the slides. If you had been as observant the past four months as this study moved through the various phases of approval and discussion, you would be aware that we dropped this specific group of patients from our study for a number of reasons. The study parameters will not be changing, as the presentation at the annual meeting will be taking place in less than a week."
Thanksbye.

UGH. While I did have a good laugh over that (though nothing will ever be as funny as the dr. who could not read a bar graph and morning conference) it is equally irritating to have to deal with these people. Some would probably say that this proves that doctors are human too. Of course. We all make mistakes. We all have insecurities. The thing that gets me is that this doc, much like the bar graph lady, made a huuuuge deal about the "mistake" and "omittance" they "discovered" and even after letting them down easy, they continued to make a fuss. They seem to have no sense of self-preservation, no instinct to save themselves from embarrassment. This woman's name is on our paper...what if someone had asked her a question about it? That would make the whole lot of us look bad!

I think I'll let the doc I work for handle this one. I think today I might just sit back, relax, and bear witness to what I know will be a very interesting conversation.

A Random Post Containing Complaints, Fueled by the New England Patriots playing the undefeated Saints on Monday Night Football

The Bad/Ugly
1. Advice Giving
OK so I belong to an online wedding community. Part of this community is a board organized by subject. I rarely start my own topics, but for some reason, am addicted to throwing in my two cents every once in a while. It's fun. Especially when it's stuff like "how did you meet your fiance" or long-distance relationship junk. Today I commented on an "emotional" post, a post where the author mentioned that she couldn't quite get past the feeling that her fiance's friends wondered whether she was "good enough" for him. Instead of giving constructive advice and support, people were like 'oh just breathe' (though they typed the egregious mispelling 'breath' ugh) or "be yourself" or "love yourself as much as your fiance loves you." Oh please. This girl didn't post to be told to inhale, people. I know what it's like to get the whole 'hope she's good enough for you' deal. It SUCKS. Then people on the board turned and were like "someone had to tell me to cut through my own bullsh*t and help me realize I'm a great person." While I did not reply to that, I thought, "oh honey, I know I am a good person, and plenty good enough for the man I am marrying. That I know this is all that matters. There are going to be people who judge you no matter what happens. You might be the nicest person in the world, and they'll still be people that hate you. The trick is learning to rise above and ignore them, not to take a breat, not to stare in the mirror and tell yourself you're fabulous, to IGNORE THE HATERS."
Ahem.
The end.

2. I get emails from my employer every once and a while informing me of new cancer drugs that have made it into the official treatment guideline. Without fail my data manager fowards them to me with a "FYI." I just never respond and delete them. But a big part of me wants to say to her "Don't you think I get these emails?! I'm in charge of submitting these new drugs for coding as well as concordance, don't you think I covered this already?!" Instead I just delete and go about my day, mildly annoyed that this woman thinks that I don't subscribe to company updates. A better person would say "oh thanks XYZ, I saw this just this morning in my inbox!" but I did not feel like taking the higher road this morning.

3. I am so sick of wedding plans and fighting about wedding plans I want to scream. Lately, I've kind of hated every second of it. Especially when they cause me to b8tch out my fiance. *sad shame face* The end.

4. I want to throw my stupidass Blackberry out the window. It's busted. I need to go to AT&T except the last time I went there after work I waited for 90 minutes in line and then another 30 while some barely-in-high-school teen messed with my phone, spending at least 20 of the 30 minutes staring at it till he realized it needed a new sim card. Annoying.

5. I overslept and got here late so I have to stay late. It's already dark as night. Thus, I am cranky.

The Good

1. Football is on tonight which simultaneously pleases and scares the sh*t out of me.
Example:
The Patriots will take on the Saints in prime time, allowing me to run on the treadmill whilst watching football. Hurrah!
The Patriots are taking on Drew Brees and his undefeated team..oh SH*T.

This is mostly good because I have faith in my Pats.

2. Thanksgiving. It was really really nice. Chill even. The food was delicious, two of the three pies came out really great and the other was totally decent and edible (just not my thing). The fam was on their best behavior and we managed to play a post-dinner game of Pictionary without murdering one another. Though everyone was made and my sister and me who have a nearly telepathic method of winning the game; we are so similar in the way we think that we dominated things from the beginning. For examply my sister drew something that resembled this :
/--/
I I
and I guessed electric chair. Sick, eh?

3. Free food. Jam and I earned a free dinner when we were up in Portsmouth. We had a 2 hour wait for din din which was made ok by drinks, crackers, conversation and a couple rounds of checkers, but once seated waited 30 minutes to even put in a drink order. I was pretty pissed but didn't say anything. Then the managers came over and were srlsy embarrassed. I actually started to feel bad for them! They comped our drinks. Then comped dinner. THEN gave us tea, two t-shirts and a 25$ gift card. Yikes! I have to add "send CM a note" to my to do list this week!

4. Peabody Essex Museum. Those three words sum it up. It's AWESOME and fun and I could seriously go back there tomorrow because it's not overwhelming and there's a lot to see. If you're over that way (thanks for the edit, R, especially after I talked smack about the breathe/breath people!) be sure to check out the Yin Yu Tang house. Fascinating.

5. Wedding planning. OK it's not all bad. I'll be ordering our invites tomorrow. Yay :)

6. Smith. I swear, it's the only organization that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when they hit me up for cash. As I type in my credit card information I can't help but hearken back to the good ol days when work study left me with a serious cash flow problem and I was typing the same credit card digits into amazon.com and other websites to buy random crap I didn't need....like wooden platform shoes....then in turn this makes me think of all the fun times I had in aforementioned wooden platform shoes....and remember how great college was! the friends! the camaraderie! the food!! the parties and drinking and the quaint New England campus. Glorious! Then I remember the academic pressure and struggle and think "glad I don't have to do it again...but I'll gladly give you money so some other poor, unknowing, idealistic, naive soul can try in my place." heh heh heh.

Well I think my six good things have officially outpaced my five bad and ugly things. I just had an impromptu meeting with a doc I'm working with and she is a total rockstar. She reminds me a ton of a friend from college who is in her fourth year of med school, maybe that's why we get along so well. So I guess maybe this day hasn't been a total bust after all. Hmmn.

Ok, off to cheer for the Patriots! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading about my complainin' :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Every year as we practically roll our overstuffed bodies down my grandparent's driveway post-Thanksgiving, it seems unfathomable that in less than 24 hours we'll all be heading back for leftovers...

Yet every year we do. Tommorow, despite my overstuffed-ness will be no exception.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thaanksgiving holiday!