worth it?

I'm back from the exciting Volunteer State, woohooo Tennessee. The vet visit went exactly as I expected...fifteen quick minutes of "Oh, he looks fine...keep up with the medications and remember, you can never use too much eye gel." So let's break that fifteen minutes down shall we:
o The visit itself cost $60.00...so that becomes $4.00 per minute of the vet's time.
o The whole trip took 7.5 hours...so for every minute the vet spent with Iniki, I lost 30 minutes of my ever diminishing young life.
o I had to fill up my gas tank twice...so $20.00 a pop and god knows how many pollutants, well I don't know how to break it down but it still seems like the doc is coming out on top.
o I had to drug-up my dog...and considering I don't know exactly how much to give him, it's a pretty damn good chance that my dog is overdosing from too much benedryl...so the cost of another vet visit for the toxic drug reaction plus the pulmonary problems I've created by funneling drugs into his mouth...god only knows.
But there is a bright side to this situation. I got to go to Jack in the Box, they don't have Jack here in Kentucky. I had some yummy yummy curly fries and my fave...Jack in the Box egg rolls. YAY! I don't know what they put in those rolls to make them so delicious, probably something really evil like ground up bones of bengali tigers and the flesh from baby seals. But man, they were good. It doesn't even matter that I burned the roof of my mouth and tomorrow it will be a bunch of tender, blistered mouth meat. It was worth it.

headin' south for the winter

Well damn-it-all, the day has finally come. I have to drive to Nashville to see the super-special veterinary opthamalogist today. I am very much NOT looking forward to three hours of constant whining and the possibility of cleaning vomit out of my drink holder...and god knows what the dog is capable of. Ugh.

a piece of advice, direct from me to you

When a recipe calls for a 10x10 in. square pan, it REALLY isn't a good idea to use a 9 in. round cake pan in its place. This, at least according to the box, is SUPPOSED to be lemon bars. What it actually looks like is yellow lava.

winky and twins

Katie and I went to the movies last night. We had wanted to see Closer but it isn't playing in any of the theaters around here any longer. It was playing yesterday and had been playing since it opened, but I don't just use my amazing procrastination skills for studying alone. So instead we went to see Sideways. It was HIY-LAY-REE-USSSS!!! I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm a little wary of movies that are critic favorites because frankly I like my movies Oscar-worthy (and not this Oscar, this Oscar). This one though, its got enough low-brow humor to keep me happy. AND it has gratuitous nudity, but not of women...no this movie shows the man-junk. This got me thinking. Independent flicks (well movies made on a non-Hollywood massive blockbuster scale) love to show penises, unlike the Hollywood movies which are all about the women's bits. Why is that? Does showing a penis somehow give legitimacy to a movie as a NOT-Hollywood movie? Are smaller producers giving Hollywood the finger by showing the crank? Or is it because we're so unaccustomed to seeing old winky and the twins that it can be used incredibly effectively for shock value and laughs?

stewing in it

My friend B. is coming over on Sunday and I am making stew, so tonight I went out and bought the ingredients. Seriously, I go to the grocery store once every two to three weeks and always at different times of the day...so what are the chances that Sam the Meat-man will be there, ready as ever to stalk me??? Pretty good, let me tell you. I saw him long before he saw me. Frankly, he's not hard to spot since he looks like a beer-drinking, hirsute Poppin Fresh. So being the stealth former commando that I am, I went down two aisles and snuck back into the flesh-peddling section. But the meat-man...he got mad stalker skillz yo! There I am, making my selections and out of the corner of my eye, with my uncorrected peripheral vision, I see him ambling over with a goofy little grin (pause for gagging). Man, I have never pushed a cart so fast in my life. I was down the kool-aid aisle before they could call a clean-up on aisle four. I need a new grocery store, this one is going to cause nightmares.

didn't your mother teach you not to believe everything you read

So after blowing the other quiz in my poli-sci class, we started talking about standing to sue and finding fault. So we start talking about the infamous McDonalds coffee case, then we move on to litigation against tobacco companies, which leads us to trying to sue McDonalds for making people fat, which brings us to suing gun manufacturers. So there are different opinions and eventually we end up talking about tort reform, just a cursory conversation. This one guy starts on about how lawsuits are getting frivolous and people are winning large sums of money for their own stupidity. He tells everybody about this ONE CASE where some guy buys a new RV and takes it on a trip. The guy sets the cruise control and leaves the driver's seat to go in the back of the RV. Of course the RV crashes and the guy sues the RV company for not properly explaining cruise control and wins a large sum of cash. Ironically, while not studying for my quiz....I read this today. What are the chances that some random dude would talk about some random lawsuit/urban legend that I randomly read about on a random webpage?

sick

I think these little flash animations pretty much sum up what I feel like at work most days.

season of discontent

I HATE winter. Specifically I hate dry winters. I had a bloody nose this morning, in BOTH nostrils...at the SAME time. So I'm walking around with tissue shoved up both sides of my nose, very much not fun, though if it were somebody else it would be pretty funny. Also, I haven't quite figured out the whole science of how my hair manages to be dry, static-y, and full of winter snowflakes and yet still manage to look greasy and unwashed all at the same time. It is mystifying. Besides that I got my electricity bill and those corporate fascists at LG&E raised their rates like they do EVERY winter (this time by something like thirty-forty percent), I guess they didn't want to leave all the energy corruption to California, why let those hippies out west have all the fun right? Anyway, I can't believe how much it is and the thing is my house is COLD, the kind of bone-chilling cold you usually only experience in hospitals and museums. God I hate winter...every year during this time I constantly ask myself...what was it that I didn't like about living in Hawaii?
Now I must study for a Chinese quiz, hopefully I won't mess it up like the one I took yesterday.

beauty and the beast

There is a girl on campus who looks remarkably like one of my favorite young & quirky actresses. The actress in question plays my favorite cutting, punishment loving, admin. assistant. So this girl is totally cute, down to her wavy chestnut hair, button nose and double-sided dimples. Well, her boyfriend looks to be a mix of Grizzly Adams and a young Charles Manson. Yeah I know, he might be a great person, blah blah blah, although my thoughts on the matter are usually something along the lines of "Man, he must be hung like laundry on a Sunday afternoon." Not that it matters, it really doesn't. I'm just saying...you see a lot of really cute girls with some really not so cute guys BUT you rarely if ever see the situation reversed. I can't think of the last time I saw some hot guy with some average or subpar girl.

blast from the past

I woke up at the ass-crack of dawn this morning because I have to study for a vocabulary quiz. Not for my Chinese class however, because that would totally make sense; I'm studying for a vocab quiz in my political science class. God, I haven't taken one of these since like the sixth grade. In my long, drawn out college history I can't remember ever having taken a vocabulary quiz. I hope spelling, punctuation, and neatness of handwriting doesn't count too, 'cause then I'll be screwed.

Update: Dear lawdie, did I ever fuck that one up. I ASSumed the quiz would be multiple choice, but that professor...he's a sneaky one. It wasn't multiple choice, it wasn't even fill in the _____, it was the word and then some empty space to put the definition. Needless to say I wasn't prepared. Man, I haven't failed a quiz or test since...actually I don't think I've ever failed one. I have two more quizzes this week, maybe I can start a quiz failing streak or something.

silver mining

You know, I am a person of little sympathy and that includes towards myself. I'm tired of being depressed and sad, I don't see the point of it. And if I'm half as annoying as I find other depressed people, well then more the reason to try and snap out of it (ahhhh, if only it were that simple, but denial ain't just a river in Egypt). So, I'm going to try and find the proverbial silver lining in being alone and living alone:
1. You never have to close the bathroom door
2. Nobody ever complains about your conspicous overuse of toilet-paper
3. You don't have to brush your teeth within five minutes of waking up because the dog's morning breath...even worse than yours.
4. Nobody else eats the last scoop of Ben & Jerry's chubby hubby ice cream.
5. You can make up stupid rules like no fish stick eating while washing whites on Tuesday and the rules don't get broken
6. You can walk around the house completely naked, even on an ugly/fat day
7. Shaving your armpits and legs...only for special occassions
8. Sole proprietership of the remote control
9. You can play the soundtrack of Miss Saigon at dangerously high decibel levels and nobody complains
10. Nobody steals the covers on the coldest night of the year
11. In re #10, dutch ovens only exist in the kitchen

so where do i rsvp for this pity party?

I found this at work today...I think they were off by about two days:

If a British psychologist's assessment is correct, next Monday (January 24th) will be the most depressing day of 2005 for man.
Dr. Cliff Arnall, who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff in Wales, has devised a form for such factors as weather, time since Christmas, monetary debt and motivation levels, reports MSNBC.
"Following the initial thrill of New Year's celebrations and changing over a new leaf, reality starts to sink in...The realization coincides with the dark [winter] clouds rolling in and the obligation to pay off Christmas bills."

UPDATE (1/24/05)-Hmm, I don't feel particularly depressed but I did wake up this morning with a fever blister on my lip. Right now, it's just a minor irritation, like a burning zit. By tonight, it will have taken over my face. My fever blisters are like the British Empire, they colonize every scrap of space available to them.

bitter fruit

So I just found out that my ex is getting a fat-ass disability payment from the VA. First let me say that he totally deserves it because the Army screwed him every which way that they could. But you know I can't deny being a little bitter about this turn of events. Now that he's his own separate entity, not obliged to have anything to do with me (though I will say that we have maintained a good relationship), all sorts of good things are happening for him. He has a good job and now he'll be getting a nice little tax-free monthly stipend. So why the bitterness? Now that my life is slowly vortexing into a big pile of poo, everybody else's life seems to be percolating nicely. Sonuvabitch, where is the balance in life? HUH?!?! Where the hell is it??? And yes I realize this probably makes me sound like a vengeful, heartless, selfish bitch but since I know it's far more complicated than what this post can express, I can live with people thinking that.

debate

Okay, I've had this discussion before and had it again today. For some reason I always end up on the losing side of the argument but I stand firm in my opinion. You know the haircolor strawberry blonde? Do you consider it more red or more blonde? I say it is more red than yellow, therefore I consider people with strawberry blonde hair to be redheads. Everybody else I know says that they are blonde. What say you?

on the down-low

I'm feeling blue lately, at not a pretty sparkly iridescent shade that I prefer in my eye make-up, definitely more of a navy. I don't know if this self-pity (the most worthless emotion ever) has become part of my body's hormonal square dance or if I'm just starting to fully realize some things about my life, some bitter truths that I've managed to keep at bay. All I know is that I feel shitty, like at any moment if somebody looks at me too long I'll either start crying uncontrollably or smack 'em in the mouth. Lucky for me, I don't just bring overwhelming sadness with me on my journey through mild-depression, I bring unrestrained anger too.

achilles heel

I swear, if I were a superhero my kryptonite would be directions. I am so bad at directions. I could get lost going in a straight line between point A and point B. I'm smart in so many other ways, I don't know why getting from one place to another is so difficult for me. I guess it's a good thing I can always tell people that I like to take the "scenic route."

princess sophia v. krull the warrior king

We all have euphemisms for sex. It is inevitable that we come up with cute little ways to discuss something prurient in nature, particularly in a society that glorifies and yet at the same time is afraid of sex and all things sex related. For example, some of my old army friends and I devised the cheesecake methodology to talk about the ess-word. There was of course plain cheesecake, the most vanilla of all cheesecakes, cherry-cheesecake, and the epitome blueberry cheesecake. So going on with my previous post about BUSINESS, I give you my new euphamism-ratings system (a work in progress).
At the bottom: small business (tsk, tsk to the people that fall into this category)
At the top: Fortune 500 business or maybe publically-traded business though that sounds kind of slutty
Now my creative, funny friends, I need help with the mid-level euphemisms. Be creative, do it in the form of tax-codes or something interesting.

getting down to the meat of it

There are a lot of compelling reasons to go vegetarian or vegan, tonight I may have been exposed to the most compelling reason yet. I was at the grocery meat counter and immediately the guy behind the counter recognizes me, which is pretty unusual because people tend not to remember me. Then he starts getting my order together and says, "Nice BCGs." To those out of the military acronym loop, BCGs are birth control glasses and it basically refers to the ugly freebie glasses the military gives you...so ugly in fact that they are considered a form of birth control in their own right cause nobody wants to have sex with somebody wearing those glasses. Oookkkaaaayyyy, so first of all he's saying my hyper-fashionable, vaguely emo but mostly Wonder Woman's human alter-ego Diana's hip black-rimmed glasses were ugly. Mmmhhhmmm , the fastest way to win a woman's heart...insult her.
Then he says "Them glasses sure are purdy on you" (with no exaggeration on the twanginess of the compliment which immediately makes me think of "your mouth sure is purdy"). "Wow, your eyes are almost black, I never saw eyes that dark...I prefer brunettes myself, them other guys can have them blondes." Yeah right, Sam the meat-man, this brunette, NUH UH! Let's put it this way, ever heard the expression "A face only a mother could love"? Well I'm pretty sure he might be the mother-loving exception.
After that, as I stand there uncomfortably, wondering how long exactly it takes to wrap up a half a pound of ground round, it became the start of my favorite game. "Contestants, are you ready to play LisaM.'s favorite game...'What's your nationality?' You have five, that's right five, chances to correctly guess Lisa's nationality."
First let it be known that I was too tired to correct the meat-man about the difference between nationality and ethnicity/racial make-up so I let him guess. "German (uh no and a first for me), Italian (again no but one I've heard a million times), Irish (well half-right but still kinda no)." So I tell him, "You're not even on the right continent." "Not Indian? (well also part-right if he was referring to Native American, which he wasn't and let's face it, who DOESN'T claim one billionth part Cherokee or Sioux)...okay then habla espanol (nope not Latina either and frankly he was SHOCKED to hear that)."
So finally I was like, "Dude, I'm half Korean and half white." And then we moved on to the next part of the program..."REALLY?!?! You don't look half Korean (yeah, like I haven't heard THAT my ENTIRE life)...my cousin's brother's girlfriend's brother's friend is married to a Koh-ree-inn and her kids eyes are slantier than yours."
This is where I gave my faker than fake smile, grabbed my purchase and ran for the hills, just before my anger runneth over in a big old tirade. So...vegetarian...I did it once for a year or so, it's starting to sound pretty damn good right about now.

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

As is my usual lunch-time custom, I sat with the old people at work and heard tons of stories about kids and grandkids and blah blah blah. But today they were actually kind of amusing. This one lady, who talks about her daughter ad-nauseum actually made a funny today, and I thought I would share because a. friends don't let friends suffer alone...or is that drive drunk, after four or five beers I have trouble remembering and b. it actually IS kind of funny, a nice little anecdote to wrap up the evening. So apparently my co-worker has a daughter who's like 2 years old or 20 years old...I don't really listen to the details. Her daughter has apparently started to call her nether regions her "business." So she says stuff like "mommy i forgot to wipe my business" or "mommy my business hurts." Now phrases like "stay out of my business" or "that's none of your business" have a whole new meaning. So if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go "mind my own business."

eye of the tiger

My dog/child has congenital eye problems. He can't make tears. Because of this I have to give him multiple daily doses of a ton of really expensive medication and I have to take him to the vet a lot. You would think, considering the fact that my dog is like 1/10th the size of a person, that the bills would therefore be 1/10th of a doctor's bill. But no, it is outrageously expensive. I regularly spend upwards of $150.00 every time I see the vet and that doesn't include the special medicine I have to have shipped from New Mexico of all places. So now because the eye has gotten worse lately I have to go back to see a veterinarian opthamologist...and yes there is such an animal (excuse the pun). What this doctor should really be called is dog-lover's proctologist because I really end up taking it up the ass everytime I see this guy. Overlooking the fact that I have to drive to Nashville for the visit, which is the entire state of Kentucky away, this guy charges me a bundle for five minutes of "Oh he's doing fine, just keep doing what you've been doing." Yeah thanks, do I bend over now or would you rather I did it up by the credit card machine? So considering the amount of cash I have to drop to see this guy, you might assume that customer service would be included. OH BUT NO NO NO that is definitely not the case. Those office people can eat my ass. They were positively dramatic about making my appointment, all but blaming me for being too poor to see the doctor for the last two years. Oh I'm sorry mizzz nasally-borderline-hysterical receptionist, I forgot that you were doing a vital organ--doctor's visit exchange program. Didn't I leave my liver with you last time? Oh that only covered the visit, not the medication? Sorry, I guess this time you can have my bladder, I'll just have to start pissing out of my navel.

that's what friends are for

I was just commenting in my drinking post about Katie's lush-ful habits. See, Katie's family has a major hook-up. Her mom is friends with a liquor vendor so they have oodles of those little airplane liquor bottles in all sorts of fruity flavors like apple & raspberry vodka. So I started thinking about what other friends it would be good to have on tap:
1. Obviously a liquor vendor or a bartender. I'd prefer the vendor because with the bartender you would end up becoming a barfly at some seedy joint and once that happens, you'll never get laid.
2. A mechanic friend so you don't get hosed everytime your car makes a weird nose.
3. A manager at a really good restaraunt so you can get free food.
4. Somebody who works as a supply specialist for the government. You will never have to pay for office supplies again and unlike civilian businesses, nobody notices a ream of missing paper.
5. A doctor. At first I thought it would be good to have a gynecologist friend because the comfort level might make it easier on you, but then I starting thinking that I wouldn't want my friend to see my powderbox because then s/he would start telling all your other friends about your dirty bits and that wouldn't be good, especially if you ended up with a horrific case of the clap.
So what kind of friends would you like?

time to make the doughnuts

So I'm back in school, nose to the grindstone and all that. As is my usual custom I made a noisy little entrance into my Chinese class. I walked in the door and somehow ended up knocking over a podium thing. Clang, bam, boom, it toppled to the floor and everybody looked up at me like I had just developed a third eye in the middle of my forehead, then the giggling started. Luckily I didn't have any coffee to drop and spill all over the ground. Even luckier, I didn't fall on my ass. I swear, klutziness is now becoming part of my schtick and I can't even blame it on public drunkenness or some weird physiological disorder.

aging

Do you remember how, when you were younger, all you could think was "I am never going to turn into those old people." Well lately I've come to the stunning realization that I am getting way too old. First it was television, who can watch all of those stupid reality shows? Then it was music, I can't recognize two-thirds of Top 40. Now liquor has turned its back on me. I remember when a bottle of cheap wine coupled with a few swigs from a forty was just a precursor to a night of heavy drinking, dancing on speakers, and vomitting in alleyways. Now three measley drinks is all it takes for me to have to choose between telling strangers I love them and telling them to meet me outside for a colon examination courtesy of my black leather doc marten, mary jane encased foot. All the while Katie, the young doe, is drinking just as much as me and even has to finish my beer in addition to her own. Oh well I guess if you had to put a positive spin on getting older...it's a lot cheaper to get drunk.

let's get physical

So Men's Fitness Magazine, not to be confused with Men's Health Magazine, which is often mistaken for the International Male Catalog, did their annual rating of the fittest and fattest cities in the United States. The top three fittest cities are Seattle, Honolulu, and Colorado Springs. Ironically, I've lived in all three. Trust me it's definitely ironic because at this very moment I AM the poster-child for at least two of the seven deadlies. I'm sitting here couch potatoeing it up at my computer, alternating between shoveling big spoonfuls of Cocoa Krispies into my gullet and drinking copious amounts of Red Bull to keep me going for the rest of the night.

another one bites the dust

So the smarty-pants mice turned out to be not so smart. Last night in the wee hours of the morning I heard the traps go off which lead to numerous dreams about rats. When I woke up this morning at first I had decided that I would deal with it when I got home from work, but then my curiosity got the better of me and I went to check out the traps. The traps my landlady bought that we put in the pantry had been released but there wasn't anything in them. So I picked one up and looked at it, it was COVERED in blood, it was like watching Terror Firmer again. Then I looked under my sink and there were mice in both of the traps I put out, teeny dead little mice with their big black eyes and pointy noses. So I had to pick them up and throw them away. I felt guilty about it all day. Yuck.

of mice and men

The mice in my house are straight out of The Secrets of Nimh. On the left you will see what the mouse trap looks like right out of the package, and on the right you can see what the mouse (mice?...shudder) did to the trap. Monk ate all of the peanut butter off of the plastic and then ate some of the plastic too. YAY for mice that are smarter than me because though Monk et. al. managed to elude capture, my thumb somehow managed to get mangled and let me tell you, it hurt. I'm so creeped out right now.

creepy

I've been working in various aspects of the medical field for about ten years now, so you'd think I wouldn't be shocked by much. But today I was walking into work and I saw these two empty gurneys pushed up against a wall. It was clear that they were gurneys from a mortuary, although the black and charcoal gray clad workers that usually accompany the gurneys were nowhere in sight. So after ten years you would think I would be accustomed to the idea of death, particularly death in a hospital, but I can say without a doubt that I am NOT. I am still shocked to see those gurneys in the halls. Just as I'm shocked when I open the pathology refrigerator and see a sawed off leg just sitting there like a leg of lamb waiting to be cooked for Sunday supper. It doesn't gross me out like it used to, like when I threw up when I saw a breast from a mastectomy in a jar of brown liquid. But I'm definitely not jaded. And you know, I hope I never will be. I never want to go into work and see body parts or hear about somebody who died and think to myself, "No kidding? (pause) What's on the menu for lunch?"

nah-may-stay

I have a belly full of Indian food and beer and just had an eyeful of a mostly Indian movie although the movie part wasn't planned. It was pure serendipty that we would find it on the television after watching Garden State, a really good movie that almost made me cry. I'm almost afraid that I'm turning into one of those pretentious people who "loves everything about __________ culture." But I can't help it, masala is delicious and even better when you have a healthy buzz.

revenge

I think I have a subconscious passive-aggressive thing going on. For the last week I have forgotten to put deodorant on before I leave for work. I wonder if anybody else has noticed.