Talkative today aren't we?

Two posts in one day? Suuuure she is studying. For the record I just returned from a very productive meeting with a couple of people from my anatomy lab. I have spent at least 4 hours today going over bones. I dream about them in my sleep. This means I qualify for the new nickname of Rover because surely no one besides pre-health students and dogs dream of bones. The reason for this post, besides procrastination, was because of the study session. I just have to comment on how much I enjoy being around other people who are interested in the same field as I am. Our conversations are completely random and probably would not make sense to anyone outside of the imaginary world we have built for ourselves out of text books and irrelevant medical terminology. Honestly, no one would want to listen to them. We are boring. But still it is nice to have found a niche where I am not made fun of because I spend hours and hours with only the company of notecards, text books, and online resources. Okay nowadays no one I hang out now with really makes fun of me for the whole studying all the time business, that was more of an issue I dealt with last year. Ah the suffering of the nerd. But I am a happy nerd and that is what really matters in the end. Right now if you were to take a sharpie and draw a line to mark the level of happiness contained in my person it would be right about at ear level. The rest the space is filled up by air and guilt for procrastinating. Okay there is a lot of air in there.. maybe we should move the line down some. Other thoughts before I go hit the books, again... (I keep hitting them but I must not be hitting hard enough, maybe I should get a sock and put some bricks in it....)

I haven't bothered to publish this painting yet, so I thought I would throw it up here so I don't feel like an artistic slacker. This is one of my latest watercolors/doodling and not doing homework pieces. By latest I mean I did it a couple of months ago.... bad sara not painting. No cookie for you! Shwa, I mainly put this on for you. :) I'll get you into watercolors yet.

Today's corny joke, curtsy of a non-melting Popsicle :

Q: How do you prevent your pets from getting ticks?
A: Don't let them wear watches.

ha ha ha... oh humor, you tickle me.

Can I go outside and play? Pretty pleeease

Today I feel like the orphan kid locked away in the tower watching all of the other kids playing in the street below but unable to join them. The bricks of the tower consist of my higher education. Aka... school sucks and I have to study right now because I have a test tomorrow over all of the nooks, crannies, crests, bumps and lines of every bone of the human skeleton. What I want to be doing is drinking beer and playing paintball with everyone out at Hutchison's house. I feel like a petulant child, I want to stamp my feet and say "no, I don't wanna" over and over again, then hold my breath until my face turns blue and I get my way. Sadly I think if I tried that I would just pass out because there is no one here but me. In fact the only reason I can't go is me. I am a very strict parent of myself. Actually that isn't completely true. Around finals this year I decided that I wanted to play instead of study like I should have and I bombed the final... that still kind of stings so here I am being studious and complaining about it. Meh, I guess I learned my lesson at least. See? She can be taught! Blah...

In other complaining and whining news I also couldn't watch Joey race this weekend which I think is one of the first weekends I have (semi-)willingly missed since we met. It is very strange not watching him go round and round in circles while wearing purple spandex. And dare I say, I miss it??? Curiouser and curiouser. I think I am addicted to the boy. I need a support group. We'll need coffee and another addiction to take the place of Pinkerton but I believe together we can make it through. One day at a time.

Okay enough complaining. It's not nearly as much fun or as releasing as it should be. I have good news! I found a car! I will be buying a 2003 Nissan Sentra SE-R on Monday. It is a 6 speed, with a 2.5 L engine. It goes fast, I like it. The comical part is that I am going from a teenage mutant ninja turtle green car to a razzmatazz blue car. So much for a subtle black or silver like I was hoping for. ha ha. Oh well.. that just gives it more personality. I enjoy things with wild personalities because then I come off as something closer to normal... (Note to self: when trying to come off as close to normal maybe don't do it in the same paragraph where you are explaining that your kool-aid blue car to be has an eccentric personality.)

This would be the car. It is car like. Four wheels, a steering wheel, headlights... yeah.. very car like.

I will probably have to name it something. Right now in all of my immaturity all I can think of is Stitch from Lilo and Stitch but that is a silly name for a car. I'll come up with something better. The color gives me a creative road block. It is a very girly looking car, but then again so was my Toyota. I think that since I'm a girl I can get away with it. It will look much more like my kind of car once I get a bike rack on it. Joey and I were having a conversation last night about cars having personalities. I was raised with the firm belief that cars have distinct personalities and that you need to be nice to them and treat them well otherwise they will get pissy and break. This was a lesson from my father the mechanic. I believe it with all my heart. Joey does not. He believes in the personality part but not the you need to be nice to the car (or the car will get back at you) part. I kind of hope that car karma bites him in the butt just to prove without a doubt that I am right about this. Even though I would not sink to the level of "Neener, Neener! I told you so" I would still enjoy being right. Okay, okay not really. I don't want his car to break. I like his car, it is fun to drive...for an automatic.

Well I suppose I should go do that bathing thing I have heard so much about. I have a study group at 1 pm and it would probably be best if I didn't smell funny for it. I don't want to have to sit by myself on one side of the room or hand out clothes pins to every one. So getting wet and using s-o-a-p it is. I'll even use that fluffy, puffy thing joey made me get. See, it's all about compromise. I use the fluffy thing and don't make fun of roadies and he gets to believe in car karma. Some one send him a memo or something. :)

Rose's left ear

Today I met the cadaver I'll be working on this summer. She was the first cadaver I have ever really seen...well aside from body world, but this is different because they were all dried out, and she was kept very moist. It is can be easy to forget that you are working on a real person. Someone who once had a name, a family, hopes and dreams. But every now and then you get a reminder. When we were told were were going to be introduced to the cadaver today every one became a little bit nervous. We are all going into the medical field but most of us have only been learning from books, models or random organs of the body. Never a whole person. In front of the class room there are large, silver caskets..they reek of formaldehyde. We all crowded around, there are not too many of us in the class, and they opened it up. Inside there is a person, wrapped in wet blue towels. None of us are standing too close partially because the smell is over whelming and partially because the idea of it is intimidating. They tell us what they know of her. For starters it's a her. Not an it. A her. They don't know how she died, they don't know how old she was, they only know her name. And the only reason they know her name was so that they could compare all of our last names and make sure that we are not going to be seeing our Aunt Lola de-skinned and laying on a table. That thought made me swallow. We are told if you are going to pass out, or if you feel dizzy tell someone right away. They do not want anyone fainting and hitting their head on the medal edge. Then they begin to unwrap the towels. They start with the feet. The feet move. They muscles are not hard, or tight... they are relaxed and soft. They get to the toes and fold the towels down. They continue to unwrap the body but I am still staring at the toes. The toe nails are painted bright pink. The polish hadn't even chipped. That is the real point when this went from being just another learning tool for me to a real person. I sigh and wonder if she was ticklish when she was alive. I look at the rest of the body. The skin has been removed everywhere except for around the belly button so that we can see the muscle structure. I look up at the face. They have shaved her head. I look at her eyes, I look at her mouth. I stop when I see her left ear. On her left ear there is a mole. On the mole there are two hairs. This gives her a personality. She was an older women, she was not very tall, she looked delicate. I wonder how many storied those ears listened to. If they heard children running down the hall late at night. I wondered what type of music was her favorite. I wonder what the last person said to her and if she smiled in response. They cannot tell us her name. So I name her Rose. She looks like a Rose. My thought is that this was a person and deserves respect just like you would give any other person. A lot of individuals will do everything possible to make their cadavers less human so they don't have to think about what they are working on. I don't think this is how it should be. I want her to have a name. I imagine a very happy life for her. She had a loving family family, she liked classical music and peanut butter cookies dipped in chocolate milk. She donated her body to science so I imagine that she was a science teacher. Her wish was to have her body used to teach others.. all of us young rising stars who need to know what they are really working with so that they can go out and help others. I will treat her with respect, I will tell her thank you for this advantage. I will never again think of her as just our cadaver, I will think of her as Rose. This may all sound a little strange and morbid. It's not. I have to learn, she understood that so this is okay. Quiet possibly I will do the same thing when I die. I'm not sure. It doesn't bother me seeing her when the casket is open, but I feel bad knowing that it is closed and she is alone in a dark room. If I could, I would sneek back into the building and turn on the lights and maybe some music. That makes me sound crazy. I'm not. Okay..maybe a little crazy but in a good caring way. My grandma used to tell me that heaven is not a place, it is how others remember you. My grandma is in a beautiful garden, full of flowers, sunlight, music and root beer floats. Today I met Rose. I have no idea what kind of life she really had, or if she was a nice person but I'm going to think of her in her own little heaven as well. It's a version of a thank you right?

Wii want a car that runs.

I'm sure everyone is dying to hear the latest on my car. I know, I know... it is fascinating stuff and you have been holding your breath in anticipation of news. ha ha... okay so no one out there really care a smidge about my vehicle but me however since this is a blog about my life that means I reserve the right to ramble on about whatever I please. So the latest development: My car is pissed at me. She has a nasty temper when you rub her the wrong way, which I having never rubbed her in any manner besides lovingly, have just recently discovered. On my drive back from Denver yesterday the little girl begins to shake, she won't go above 60 or so even when floored, and she has a bit of wheeze. About half way home I rediscovered the act of praying which evolved into bribing this morning. I made it home, and I made it to campus for my 8 am anatomy lecture. After lecture my first stop was Midas to have the oil changed and to see if my problem was with the spark plugs. The whole way there I'm rubbing my steering wheel saying over and over "it's okay little girl, you can make it.. and when we get there I'll give you a couple quarts of oil and we'll get the doc to check you out. I promise you'll feel better really soon..it's okay baby." She made it! Barely. I go inside to talk to the mechanic and tell him my theories about what might be wrong. I have to admit I was getting a little teary eyed. That little girl and I have been through a lot together. Almost 10 years. I'm going to miss her. Lol... he patted me on the shoulder and promised to take a look. He was a very nice man who did not make fun of my attachment to a crappy old green car. He reports back with a diagnosis that does not point the reaper finger at my engine or my spark plugs but rather the aging wiring. Alright, go ahead, fix it. Make her better doc. Two hours later, I'm still sitting in a blue plastic chair in the waiting room. I feel like I am waiting to hear fatal news but all turns out well. They pull my little green goblin up to the front and I sign a paper giving them $400 of my savings (which is about half of what my car is worth, ha ha) and I go running out to take her in my arms. Just kidding.. I refrained from running. I did give her a pat on the trunk, and a kiss on the steering wheel when I slipped into the driver's seat. Holding my breath I started her up... purrrrrrrrr... happy little girl. She sounds better now than she has in over a year. I smile and drive off into the sunset. Yes I am still going to sell her. Yes I will probably cry that night and the next morning when I look out into the drive way and realize that she is not there, dripping oil onto the pavement, and protesting me starting her up so that I can get to my early morning classes. It is time to say good bye to my little girl.

My blogs are very long. I hope they are semi entertaining, granted if they aren't then you probably wouldn't have gotten this far in the post. HA! I win! Yes, I am avoiding doing anatomy homework but only because I feel that communication is so important. So last night...that was fun. Joey, Drake, Ashley and I all went over to Kendall's house. Kendall and I were planning on cooking dinner together since we are both fond of the culinary arts. (Ha ha.. and you thought I couldn't cook! I'm actually a pretty good cook, I just like to deny it). Anyways, dinner..amazing. Kendall did end up doing most of it because I ended up running late but I helped out with whatever remained to be done when I got there. We had a good time chatting and looking at the playboy magazine of the cooking world. Then people started arriving, by people I mean Drake. We all ate fabulous homemade chicken enchiladas and then the Wii came out to play. Joey and I have been on a quest for Mario Kart for a good week now. We probably looked at or called at least 20 different stores before we finally found one that had it in stock. But all of that was worth it. I enjoy Kart, I've spent a lot of time playing while Joey sleeps, or rides, or showers, or is sitting on the bed waiting for me to reach the next level so we can go. At the moment it is one of the main reasons I go to his house.. the Wii is addicting. The moral of this story is that I have spent a lot of time playing Kart the last couple of days and I am getting pretty good at it. This was not the case last night. Nope.. I was bad. Really bad. BUT we still had a lot of fun. After Kart Drake and I had a boxing battle, all four of us bowled, we played tennis, we all were terrible at baseball, and we couldn't even begin to figure out Smash Bros. Nothing was more entertaining though then watching four adults attempting to do what most 5 year olds can do without even trying. It was a very good way to spend a Sunday night. :) Thanks Joey's mom for getting him the best birthday present ever. You rule!

Hulk angry, popsicles no melt!

It's 3:30 in the afternoon on a saturday. I have spent the majority of my day weed eating the back of my yard. My yard is not really a yard. It is a jungle. The grass is three feet high and there are hidden boulders under it. There might be lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) but have yet to find them. There was a robin following me around and eating all of the now exposed caterpillars. If I were a robin, or a bird of any sort, I would not follow a human carrying a weed whacking, loud, plastic string thwacking machine around. I would be up in the trees peeping, "shut up human I'm trying to sing here! " As it is right now I am taking a break. I'm half way done with the back yard. Whew. I look pretty comical. There are bits of grass in my hair, on my shins, and in my clothes. My face is probably the best of all with green smears across it from grass guts hitting me in the face and bright, red puffy eyes to complete the look. I have allergies and apparently allergies protest and flare up when you spend all day rubbing pollen producing things in their faces. Who knew? I was prepared for this being a possibility this morning and I took a ton of little pink allergy pills and used some flonaze to battle off the sneezing, itchy eye syndrome. It failed miserably. This is how they should test those products before selling them to the masses. No need to test them on fuzzy little animals. Oh no, no need at all. Just get a person with really bad allergies, give them a ton of your product and then drive them over to my house and drop them off. I will promptly hand them my 3 pound weed eater, which dies from over load every 20 minutes, and then get my glass of ice tea and go sit at the picnic table. From this prime viewing location I will be happy to "observe" the test subject at work. I promise that I will write down every sneeze and eye rub on a lovely little white clipboard. You will only have to pay me a minimal fee for this service.

Other than that I have eaten 4 Popsicles and 1 fudgesicle in order to combat the heat of hard labor in the sun. Here is something curious and disturbing all at the same time, they have now made Popsicles that do not melt! I bought them on accident the other night and when I read the box this morning (at 9 am when I was eating my first Popsicle of the day) I noticed this strange claim. I rolled my eyes, said yeah right and tore the wonderful icey treat out of it's white protective wrapper and began to test their durability. It was surprisingly true. They didn't melt. In fact they did the opposite of melting. They took revenge on my mouth for having consumed hundreds of Popsicles over the years. Meaning of course that it was so damn cold, and unwilling to melt that my lips stuck to the stupid thing. I, while being impressed, am also pissed. Who wants a Popsicle that doesn't melt??? That is the whole point of the frozen goodness! You suck on it, it melts, you grin and have a bright blue tongue to stick out at your friends. Not the case with this new treat. Nope. This one involves a fight for the survival of the skin inside your mouth. Just think all that fun comes in three exciting flavors: cherry, lemon and strawberry-kiwi. Mmm... please ignore the taste of blood as it rips the skin off. By now you are wondering why in the world I ate more than 1 of these things. Well, silly, I had to try all the flavors. Besides I have to eat 20 of these little monsters before I can go back to the store and get my wimpier version of Popsicles which are so old fashioned that they actually melt when you eat them. 16 to go baby! I have to kind of wonder what exactly I am putting in my body by eating these things... it's probably some watered down version of formaldehyde. Yummy! Meh, maybe this will make my stomach last a really long time, it can keep Walt Disney company in deep-freeze.

The only other exciting discovery I have had today is that of Contact Juggling and Unicycling girl meets icescapades. The first just looks amazing and the second one puts my days of unicycle riding in elementary school to shame. Both are very cool, you should check them out. As for me, I am off to shower. I smell like butchered grass and I'm making myself sneeze. I'm gonna go with a hunch here and assume that looking like a stoned version of the Incredible Hulk is not the best look for me. I have an hour to transform back into a 5' 5" blond girl. Wish me luck!

NOTE: If no one hears from me in the next three days, I am lost in the jungle that is the rest of my back yard. Please send help and cold beverages. :)

Another egg story

7. The I.Q of Farm Animal

I have another story from childhood involving eggs. This is a few years later, I was in fifth grade and a lot had happened since I was the five year old egg bomber. We had moved but we once again had a small farm and we once again had more ducks. These ducks started out as pets that lived in our bath tub. A lot of animals have spent time in this bath tub and very few children. It was a horrible green tub, and it still lives at my mother’s house. When our ducklings were old enough they were moved into our pond. It was a large pond full of chocolate milk water that smelled like reeds and rain. There were frogs and gold fish in this pond and more often than not a kid or two. We didn’t really “swim” in this pond. But we would float around on inflatable toys, and these big blue barrels. If we weren’t feeling lazy we would break out the big silver canoe and paddle back and forth across it, trailing our toes in the cold water. Sometimes we would chase the ducks with the canoe but not too frequently, I was trying awfully hard to make up for the egg incident by being extra nice to anything that had webbed feet. Our ducks were not too bright though. This was a discovery a friend and I made one summer day when we were out swimming around in the pond. Although sensitive about the whole egg issue it had come to my attention that these ducks didn’t lay as many eggs as the old ones did. That was strange. My friend and I were hunting for the one or two eggs we generally found around the pond edge when she noticed something in the water. It was an egg. Interesting. It must have slipped down the bank from a higher nest, but when we looked for the nest there was none to be found. So we returned to the water, wait a second, there was another egg! This just doesn’t make sense at all. The whole nest must have fallen into the water, or the water must have risen to cover the nest. We figured we would find 5 to 10 eggs at most in the water. So we got our floating toys and very, very slowly we floated around the edge of the pond picking up eggs. Four hours later we had a total of not 5, or 10 but 76 eggs. We loaded up my little blue wagon and took it up to the house to show my parents. The eggs were in various states of decay, some were green others were bright white as if they had just been laid. That settled it, our ducks were DUMB. They were laying their eggs in the water. We found 76 eggs by just looking around the shore. Imagine how many other eggs were still in the bottom of the pond. I had been swimming in this water all summer… ewwww….I lost some of my love for ducks. We took the eggs out to the compost heap far behind our house. We threw a few, carefully, but the smell got to be so horrible that the game quickly lost its fun. However when I look back on the picture of the two smiling, soaking wet kids with the wagon completely full of rotten eggs I have to smile. It helps that the memory does not come equipped with the smell.

Bombs away!!!! It was a good time being a kid out in the middle of no where. :)

Ironhorse/exposing Joey to my home town.

A sudden trip to Dgo was made last weekend, and resulted in a very good time. I got a call Thursday afternoon from my mom saying that she had found a car I would like and that I should come down and check it out. It was a 2005 Toy Corolla... which is a very good car, and the price was do-able so meh... why not? Check out a car, visit the parents, have a good time with my monday off. Woot. So off I go to my home town! Joey came with me because this was also the weekend for the Iron Horse. He was going to do the Crit since he is not a big fan of going up, and TT's are also not a big favorite. Which actually worked out pretty well, since the real race was canceled. This is only the second time in 37 years that has happened. The last time was in 1997 which was also the last time Joey tried to go. This leads me to think that maybe Joey is bad luck for the good ol' Iron horse. Hmmm..... :) (I'm just kidding handsome, I know that even as wonderful as you are you still do not have power over the weather. )

The drive down was awesome. Lots of time to talk, joke and sing to bad music. I had to play a little bit of country to get Joey in the mood... he loved it.. really... that grimace was filled with happiness. Ha ha. The drive wasn't bad, by the time we hit Wolf Creek the snow was mostly gone and there were only a few low clouds hanging on. We got into Pagosa and up to my mom's house about 6 pm. I gave him the grand tour of where I grew up and then we headed a whole 4 acres down to where my sister and her family live. We didn't stay long because we were planning on heading to Dgo that night so that Joey could make the early morning registration time. Once at my dad's house we enjoyed the classic Goulash dinner and watched some Fred Astaire. Then it was off to bed, we must have been tired cause we both passed out fully dressed and with the lights on. There is nothing as strange as sleeping in the room you had when you were 15 after you have been grown up and gone for several years. Lol, my little gothic teenager self even had charcoal painted walls with black trim. I felt a little silly showing that to Joe. Se la vie.

Sunday was the day of the crit. My mom was absolutely thrilled to get to see Joey ride. Ha ha.. she probably cheered louder than I did. I think Joey developed a fan base down in the southwest corner. He ended up getting fifth place, with 4 pros being the ones ahead of him. I was very proud of him. And it was a great finish for my mom's first time viewing a crit/a race of any sort involving two wheels. Mom's only complaint was that they were going too fast for her to take the pictures she wanted. :) There are still a few good shots though.





Sunday night we went to Pagosa again and had dinner at my sister's house and then started the long drive home Monday morning. Mom was nice enough to give us a bunch of bakery goodies for the drive...mmmmm mom's baking. Genes I did not get that I really wish I would have. All and all Joey survived seeing where this little country girl grew up and he still likes me. I think this bodes well for the future. That or I am going to have to be a lot more creative in coming up with ways to scare him off.