So I'm running a half-marathon...

Yeah...how weird is that?  Me, the girl who doesn't run...ever...unless something happens to be chasing me, then I'll run.  Or if it's a case of finding the bathroom or soiling myself, I'll run then too.  But to run for the sake of running, that is something that I just don't do.  Until now, apparently.

I've always hated running.  There are a few reasons that I don't enjoy it, but mostly I don't like it because I have trouble breathing while doing it.  I've suffered from exercise-induced asthma for years, so I've been limited to sports and activities that have rest periods...even short rest periods give my lungs time to relax and regroup.  In the past, I would get so out of breath while running that I would start to panic, which in turn just made the breathing more difficult.  I've realized now that I need to tailor my pace to my breathing.  I run really really really slow.  I can probably walk almost as fast as I can run.  I don't know if what I do even qualifies as running...it's probably more like slow jogging.  But I'm doing it, and so far it's working.  

A few weeks ago I was out to dinner with my friends Ellen and Molly, and they convinced me to run a half-marathon in Orlando with them.  I had already been planning to attend the race, but only as a spectator with an obnoxious cowbell.  I have to admit, they were very convincing in their assurances that I would, in fact, be able to do the race rather than just spectate.  I don't know if it was the wine or the fantastic steak or those heavenly garlic mashed potatoes that we happened to be enjoying at the time (we were at Pittsburgh Blue...yum!), but somehow I agreed to run the race.  I still haven't signed up, but I will.  I'm actually looking foward to it, and have even begun to train.  How crazy is that?  I ran 2 miles/walked 4.5 miles on Monday.  I felt good, I was able to breathe the entire time, and I wasn't even that sore aftewards.  This might sound a little overconfident, but I'm really not all that worried about tackling this race.  However, most people I know who have run half-marathons have said that I should be. 

Here is why I'm not worried about it.  I have 3 hours and 30 minutes to go 13.1 miles.  I have every intention of using every single minute of that time to finish this thing.  I figure that at the very least, I can maintain a 4 mph walk and still finish the race in the allotted time.  I don't have any goals regarding finishing within a certain amount of time or running a certain number of miles.  My only goal is to finish it.  That's it.  A few people I know who have run marathons and half-marathons have their reservations about my attitude towards the race, but it is what it is.  I'm not an athletically competitive person by nature; if something is too hard for me, I have no problem quitting.  I hate competitive sports...even volleyball has lost its appeal for me, which makes me a little sad because I really used to enjoy it.  I like to watch other people play, but I don't enjoy playing it myself...partly because my skills aren't what they used to be, and partly because I don't like getting all worked up over a game.  And I secretly am afraid of getting creamed in the face by the ball, which would be unpleasant.  When it comes to my personal physical fitness, I tend to gravitate towards things that are individualized...where I set the pace, I control the weights, and I decide when enough is enough.  I don't push myself beyond what I feel is reasonable, and I don't exercise for the sake of exercising.  As long as I can fit in my clothes and look halfway decent in them, I'm happy.  It's true that in the last 8 months I've been going to the gym as regularly as I can, and that I get outside several days a week to go for walks.  I've even made peace with sweating, which was a huge obstacle for me.  I know, it sounds silly, but I've never been a sweaty person, so initially it felt really gross.  I've come a long way in just under a year, and I'm happy to say that I'm proud of myself.

So now that I've got running on the brain, I've got all kinds of crazy goals for myself for 2013.  The first is the Disney Princess Half-Marathon at Disneyworld in Orlando in February.  I'm not a crazy Disney princess person, and I haven't seen a Disney princess movie in years, but the atmosphere of the race promises to be a good time, so that's why I'm doing it.  Most of the racers dress up in tiaras and tutus, and we'll be running through the Magic Kingdom.  I've never been to Disneyworld, so this will be an interesting way to see it.  And I'll be running with some pretty fun girls, and I'm sure they'll motivate me to do more than just walk the entire thing.  I do intend on running at least half of it.  I'm glad to see that it seems like a very non-intimidating race, meaning that people are mostly just there to have fun.  Right up my alley.  We're planning on making a weekend of it by going to Epcot and visiting some of the giant outlet malls that are spattered throughout the city.   

The second is the Lululemon Half-Marathon, taking place in Vancouver next August, and Simon might run this one with me.  Ellen and her boyfriend Fred might be joining us as well.  This is a marathon put on by the yoga/run clothing line, Lululemon.  I'm obsessed with their clothes, I'll admit it.  I love the fit, the function, and the quality.  I'm slowly replacing most of my wardrobe with Lululemon pieces...as slowly as possible or else I'll go broke!  On any given day I pretty much look like I'm either coming or going from yoga...but I don't do yoga...hahaha!  But clothing aside, Lululemon seems like a pretty neat company.  They don't just seem to be in the market for making money (although that's a huge part of their business model) but they also encourage people to be healthy.  They even go so far as to offer free yoga classes and run clubs.  I followed a few blogs regarding their half-marathon from this year, and it looked like an absolute blast.  They had everything from drag queens to people dressed up in Barney and Teletubbie costumes running the race.  The Lululemon Half-Marathon is not a qualifying half-marathon...there are no prizes for anyone finishing fastest in their age/gender range.  Everyone gets the same medal, and everyone is encouraged to have fun.  And the race is run through Vancouver, a city I had the pleasure of visiting in June, and I absolutely loved it and am definitely looking forward to this opportunity to go back.  Not that I need an excuse to go back, but this helps motivate me.   

The third race will hopefully be the Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k, which looks awesome.  It's a lot like the Warrior Dash/Mud Runs that all the kids are doing these days, only you're chased by people dressed up as zombies as you're trying to manage the obstacles.  You also wear a little flag football belt while you're running, and the "zombies" try to grab the flags off as you run past them.  How many flags you have left at the end determines whether you finish the race as a person or a zombie.  I'm by no means a Zombie Apocolypse person, but I think that the idea of running an obstacle course while people are chasing you sounds like a lot of fun.  And somewhat weird.  They have the zombie races all over the country, so I guess I'll have to see where I'm at when they're available.  I don't know that I want to fly anywhere for this one.  My marathon-running dentist gave me a funny look the other day when I mentioned it to him (I was cavity free, by the way...yay!).

And if I haven't had enough running after doing those three, I may just jet on over to California and do the other Disney Princess Half-Marathon at Disneyland.  We'll see about that one though.  That's a lot of traveling in one year, and a lot of running, to boot.  I'm told that if you do both Princess marathons in one year, you get a t-shirt.  I'm all about free stuff, but how far am I willing to run to get it?  Not that it's technically free, once you factor in entry fees, hotels, flights, etc.

So yeah.  Those are my up-and-coming running endeavors.  We'll see how they all pan out.  I'm hoping for the best, but am harboring zero expectations.  Wish me luck!  And if any of these runs sound fun or interesting to you, feel free to join!  I need all the motivation I can get!  ;)         

It's just me...again. :)

I’m inspired to write!  It’s been a bit for those of you following along...and for those of you I’ve lost along the way, hopefully I’ll have some interesting things to say in the weeks and months to come.  

Simon and I have begun a new chapter to our travels in St. Cloud, MN.  I’ll be working as a nurse for the summer, Simon will be working on his art.  So...for those of you interested in some Simon artwork, now would be a good time to commission him for some projects.  He’s working on making high-quality prints of some of his more popular pieces, so hit him up if there’s something you’ve had your eye on.  There was my shameless plug for my other-half’s aspiring art ambitions.  :)  

So St. Cloud.  It’s been four years since I’ve been employed in this town, and not a whole lot has changed, at least not at a first glance.  One of the best and most exciting things that’s changed around town is the expanding craft beer availability.  St. Cloud used to be (and still kinda is) the mecca of chain restaurants, but there are some mom-and-pop shops giving the corporate guys a run for their money.  It’s refreshing and fantastic and I couldn’t be happier.  The other day Simon and I even saw an actual hipster...a flannel clad, mustachioed, ten-speed riding dude (I’m sure the fixed-gear bike is in the works).  Not that I identify with hipsters, in fact, I think they’re pretty ridiculous to tell you the truth, but I never expected to see one here.  I always assumed that St. Cloud didn’t quite have the right blend of underground, off-beat mystique that would draw a hipster crowd.  A lot can change in four years, I guess.  

It’s nice to be back in the great state of Minnesota, and it’s been great living so close to Simon’s sister, Abby.  I feel like we don’t get to see enough of her with all our travels, and now we have the potential to see her almost every day if we wanted to.  Simon’s mom lives just over an hour away, and my family is about three hours away.  Definitely driveable for visits.  

There.  I started out on a positive note.  Let’s get right down to the complaining, shall we?  We all know I can’t write a blog without complaining about something, so here goes.  We are living in squalor.  That’s about the only word I can use that can capture the state of the apartment that we’ve been placed in.  Arguably one of the dumpiest apartments I have ever lived in, in my life...including college.  401 Olmsted for those of you unlucky enough to have visited me at that apartment in Winona came close, but it was still a step above this place.  Let’s set the stage.  St. Cloud is literally infested with apartment complexes.  I don’t think you can go more than a block or two in any direction without running into an apartment complex.  One would think the pickings for apartments would be abundant.  There’s one caveat...about 1% (statistic made up on the spot) of them that allow dogs.  Snap!  Huge bummer.  Given the condition of our apartment, I can understand why apartments don’t allow dogs.  Our blinds have all been chewed on by something, pieces of the carpet are ripped up or missing all together, and there is not one square foot of the remaining carpet that doesn’t have some sort of stain.  I’m not exaggerating.  It’s disgusting, and I honestly can’t believe the management would allow new tenants to move in without replacing the carpet, at the very least.  The carpet had been shampooed prior to us moving in, yet the stains remain, leaving me to assume that the previous owners did nothing to try to remove the stains as they occurred.  Gross.  I could decide to just let my dogs poop and pee all over the carpet, and you’d never know.  Fortunately, I am a responsible pet owner and I expect and require my animals to do their business outdoors.  And if in the event they have an accident, I deal with it promptly.  I would assume that any normal human being with a sense of smell and a desire for basic cleanliness would feel the same way, but apparently that assumption would be wrong.  Two of our three closets smell like litter box/cat pee, and we all know how I feel about cats so I won’t even waste my time ripping them from one end to the other...I understand that the fault lies not with the cat (much as I hate to admit that), but with the crappy owners.  Even responsible cat owners can agree that if you don’t take care of your little box, it reeks.  Reeks reeks reeks.  And if the litter box isn’t cleaned, the cat starts going outside the litter box.  Again we can all agree that cat pee reeks.  Reeks reeks reeks.  Some people should just not be allowed to have pets.  And honestly, what fun could possibly be gleaned from a pet that poops and pees all over your apartment?  

So...in hind sight, I maybe should have left the dogs with my parents for the summer...I could have had much nicer digs.  But...they’re my dogs and I shouldn’t expect someone else to take care of them for me.  So here we are.  I just have to laugh that I’m 32 years old, I have a professional career where I make good money, and this is where I live.  Many would point out that I shouldn’t be complaining about living somewhere for free, but I gladly would have paid above and beyond what my company is paying to have had a clean apartment.  Since moving in I have also duct taped one of the fridge shelves to keep my condiments from falling out and rolling all over, I’ve covered the exposed carpet tacking with a rug so I don’t step on the nails and get tetanus, I’ve been obsessed with parking near the handicapped spot so I can only get door dings on one side of my car, and I’ve spent a good amount of money on air fresheners.  I’ve also gotten strategic about fan placement to try to take full advantage of the wall AC unit that barely keeps up...it’s been hotter than blazes here this summer.  The apartment is now liveable, however I will probably not be entertaining any guests here.  Comes with the territory, I guess...I chose this particular facet of my career, and I have to take everything that goes with it.  Good with the bad, pee stains with the view, litter box smell with the opportunity to not live in Minnesota in the winter, and so it goes.

One funny thing about our place is that there is a gamer that lives somewhere in our vicinity...I think we’ve finally figured out that he (I’m assuming it’s a he) lives above us.  And he’s not just a gamer, he’s a gamer with a subwoofer.  Yes, some nights it sounds like World War 3 around here.  At least it’s not crappy music...I would much rather try to fall asleep to the sound of mortars crashing than the bass line of some crappy music.  Last night there was some sort of wrestling match going on up there...I thought for sure someone was going to come crashing through our ceiling.  Ah, the joys of apartment living.

One tradition that we always have when we move into a new apartment is that one of the pugs usually christens the place with a turd.  Sometimes they both do.  It’s infuriating.  There’s few things worse than being in the throes of moving into a new place and then having to stop everything to clean the carpet.  And usually when we move in we don’t have any paper towels, so we’re stuck cleaning up the mess with whatever we have on hand.  Sometimes it’s literally our hands, gross as that is.  One time the pugs ate the turds for me...that was nice of them, I guess.  We’ve been working with them on this pooping business, and at 8 and 10 years old you’d think that they would have outgrown this by now, but they’re pugs and they’re stupid and the only way to beat bad behavior out of them would be to beat them to death, and you can only expect so much of them.  So THIS time around we walked them until they had all pooped and peed prior to bringing them in the apartment, ensuring that there would be no turds.  And there weren’t.  But Lady vomited a huge pile on the carpet a mere foot from the linoleum.  Gah!!!  She’s the good one!  I almost lost it.  I dragged her over to the linoleum where she immediately collapsed out of fear, and then proceeded to vomit while she was on her side.  All efforts to get her to stand up and vomit were unsuccessful.  Who vomits on their side?  So weird, and I was afraid she was going to choke on it.  The next day Brie overdid it on the water and vomited on the carpet mere inches from the linoleum.  It’s amazing I have any hair left...or that they’re all still alive.  So we still have yet to move into an apartment where one dog or another doesn’t immediately do something to soil it.  Maybe next time.       

The job is a job.  It’s better than the one I came from, I’ll give it that.  It’s presenting its own challenges though, and I’m slowly working through them.  St. Cloud Hospital utilizes a lot of LPN’s, and that’s taking some getting used to.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy working with LPN’s and I definitely appreciate their help, I’m just struggling with the idea of having someone else do my work for me.  At least that’s what it feels like.  In reality, we’re working together, but it feels like they’re doing all the work and I’m doing all the charting.  My first few nights assigned with an LPN were terrible, and I think it was mostly because I was trying to do too much myself, but partly because 9 patients between two people is still 9 patients...that’s a lot of sick people to keep track of at one time.  And it’s not like we split the assignment to where she had 5 of them and I had 4 of them...we each had 9 together.  It’s kind of hard to explain, but that’s all I got.  I know that eventually I’ll find my stride and everything will be just fine.  I really enjoyed working here four years ago, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy working here this time around as well.  Ellen tagged along with me from Florida, and we ended up having pretty similar schedules, so it’s been nice having her around too.

I had a conversation about work with a friend of mine recently that really made me think about the job market and what having a job means to people, especially people my age and younger.  My friend is involved in the hiring of new employees where she works, and she said that the younger generation isn’t just motivated by salary or loyalty anymore, but also by how much fun a job is.  People are looking for jobs that are emotionally, socially, and mentally stimulating, not just to take home a paycheck.  It’s interesting to think about it that way.  I think about my grandparents and even my parents, who have/had been at the same jobs their entire lives...either out of loyalty to where they work or motivated by pensions and whatnot.  I feel like my generation isn’t afraid to leave a job that isn’t meeting all their needs.  I’m realistic in the knowledge that I’m not going to get a pension.  Even when I worked for Mayo after graduating from college, they promised a pension but made so many changes in the four years that I was there as to when you could receive it and how much you would inevitably get, that I put it out of my mind.  I wasn’t going to spend the next 40 years of my career stressing about pension.  I just lived under the assumption that I couldn’t count on my employer to provide for my retirement, and I’ve taken measures to save up for retirement myself.  Pension means nothing to me, and maybe that’s the wrong approach to take...I might regret this decision someday.  But at the same time, I don’t want to stay at a job I’m not happy with in the hopes that I’ll get a pension someday.  It goes both ways, I guess.  Right now I’m happier with my job than I’ve ever been, and that means more to me than the somewhat transparent promises of a future pension.       

A big change for Simon and I was the recent purchase of a new vehicle.  We are now the owners of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and so far we really like it.  It was a bittersweet move to make though.  My little Liberty was my favorite vehicle of all time.  There pretty much wasn’t anything that little bugger couldn’t do, almost no where it couldn’t go.  I’ve traveled across the country in that thing more times than I can count, and it’s been such a great little vehicle.  All those trips with the trailer though were definitely taking a toll on him, and it was getting to the point where he was getting too old to handle that kind of abuse.  I’m really going to miss that agile little guy.  The new Jeep is definitely more agile than any of the other similarly-sized SUV’s, but it definitely is bigger and I’m still working on parking it properly.  It doesn’t quite corner on a dime the way the Liberty did, but I’d say it probably corners on a nickel...that’s still pretty good.  I just don’t feel like this new Jeep is “us.”  At least not yet.  It seems like such an adult vehicle, and I feel like we’re going to have to grow into it a bit.  We did put a roof rack on it and have already had the paddle boards up there, so it’s starting to fit into our lifestyle a little better.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great vehicle and I know in time we’ll learn to love it.  It’s definitely going to be more useful with the trailer, and that was the main reason that we got it.  And we got it for a really good price.  We probably could have waited until the end of summer (and maybe for a red one to become available...I love my red), but we just couldn’t pass this one up.  I still look for my little red guy when I come out of stores though...hahaha!

Moving to a new city, a new apartment, and a new job requires a lot of handshaking.  I feel like I’m constantly meeting new people and shaking hands.  And I’m surprised by the number of people who have really limp handshakes.  I’m disturbed by limp handshakes...they give me the heebie geebies.  I don’t know why.  I guess I grew up around people who had nice, firm handshakes.  I don’t know what to do with those limp hands.  I’d rather not shake at all if that’s what they’re going to give me.  I do a firm but gentle squeeze and a pump.  Yes, I’m still talking about handshaking.  You perverts.

I recently learned what a tractor sprinkler is.  I’d never heard of them before, but it’s a sprinkler that looks like a tractor, and it follows the hose around.  It literally moves around the yard by itself.  I’m completely enthralled by them, and our apartment complex uses no less than three of them in their watering endeavors.  Every time I go outside I get to see a tractor.  I would stop to watch but they move really slow and Simon isn’t as amazed by them as I am.  I’ll have to add that to the list of things to get for our future home.  I’ll be entertained for hours. 

Cheeburger Cheeburger...where the service is always fantastic!!

I have decided that unless I get extraordinary service, I’m going back to tipping 10%.  I was annoyed when standard tipping went to 15%.  And it’s not that I’m stingy or a bad tipper.  Most of the time I tip pretty well, extraordinarily if it happens to be a Jimmy John’s delivery person...hahaha!  But I don’t like the idea of tipping 15% for someone to perform the very basic requirements of their job.  The other day my family and I were at the Mall of America, and we had lunch at Hooters.  Yes, my family went to Hooters.  There were 12 of us, the food court was packed, some of us wanted to have beer, and we needed a place that would seat a large party.  So we went to Hooters.  They ended up seating us 6 at one table, and 6 at another, which was fine.  Each table had its own waitress, so it wasn’t like one waitress was handling all 12 of us.  Our waitress started out with a poor attitude, and I don’t know if it was because she was taken aback my my dad asking what brand of root beer they have (he can’t have caffeine, and there are certain root beers that are caffeine-free) or if she just didn’t want to be there.  We had to ask for silverware several times, one of my four buffalo chicken sliders had a drummie in it rather than a boneless wing (Simon was the unfortunate recipient of that one), and at the end of the meal, the tab for all 12 of us was together, rather than by table.  We didn’t specify that we wanted to split the tab between the tables, but I guess we assumed that the bill would be split since we were at different tables with different waitresses.  There goes that assuming again.  So while we were figuring out the bill, my aunt from the other table was all fired up and didn’t want to leave a tip at all.  Apparently their waitress had been worse than ours.  We ended up leaving about a 5% tip because we felt guilty leaving nothing at all.  And still we felt a little guilty...guilty that it was too little.  But should we have?  Our service was poor, and the waitress did nothing to right the slider that was prepared wrong (I get that the kitchen messed that one up, but as the waitress she is our liaison to the kitchen and it’s her job to make sure that wrongs are righted).  Why do we feel that we should still tip for poor service?  And I’ve heard the argument from people in the industry that sometimes servers have bad days or sometimes they’re working short or that their base pay is crap, etc.  You know what?  I don’t care.  And maybe that sounds callous, but I don’t go to a restaurant expecting poor service...and rewarding it besides.  I also happen to work in an industry that feels an awful lot like waitressing some days, and people don’t care that I haven’t peed in 10 hours or that I haven’t had lunch or that I haven’t had a break yet or that I’m feeling a little under the weather.  They’re not there to care about my feelings and my well-being...that’s on me to take care of those things.  That’s just the way it is.  Poor service is poor service no matter the reason, and people shouldn’t be rewarded for it.  Now I sound like an old bag, but honestly.  

So after a month and a half hiatus I went back to the gym today.  It felt good, and I was actually a little surprised by the amount of muscle tone I had been able to salvage during my time off from the gym.  There’s those genetics again.  I’ve got some ground to make up, but I was relieved to see that I don’t have to start out at zero again.  The gym here in St. Cloud uses the same Body Pump program that I had gotten used to and enjoyed in Florida, so that was my main motivation in joining.  We joined what was formerly known as Gold’s Gym, now called Fitness Evolution.  Or Evolution Fitness...I’m not sure what order those words are supposed to be.  At any rate, it’s basically the same gym with a different name.  This gym is bizarre though.  I’ve never seen so many muscle bound (meathead) men in one place in my entire life.  I had heard along the way that Gold’s had a reputation for these behemoth dudes, and maybe a few rumblings of some steroid use, but I finally got to see it with my own eyes. These dudes are huge...and admittedly, a little bit gross.  I don’t know what possesses men to strive to be so big and muscular, but I find it very unattractive.  Not just the way it looks, but knowing how much time and effort goes into getting that big and staying that big seems a little pathological...and let’s not forget narcissistic, since there’s really no logical reason any person needs to be that big. It gets to the point where that’s not even fitness anymore...how much stamina can those dudes really have when those giant muscles are tapping all the body’s resources?  The free-weight area is always packed with these giant dudes...luckily the women have a separate free-weight area that is meathead-free.  Simon said that he wants to come lift weights on the women’s side...hahaha!  This morning while we were getting ready to start our body pump class (in a room with the door closed and away from the rest of the gym) we heard a man just bellering away in what I can only assume was the free-weight area.  Bellering.  Grunting.  Loudly.  I was embarrassed for him...although my embarrassment was undoubtedly wasted seeing as he was obviously purposely lifting far more weight than he probably should have been if it was causing him to yell out like that.  But I digress...it’s the idiots in this world that cause us to feel good about ourselves.  Am I right?  

I am inappropriate with little kids.  I can’t help it.  I try to remedy it, but that usually just ends up making it worse.  I was hanging out with my friends and their eleven year-old son recently, and he was talking about the SAW movies.  I told him I’d seen two of them, and he started asking questions about what it was about and what happened.  Some of the questions he was asking led me to believe that had seen parts of them, so there I went, giving him a graphic description of the movie.  I had been blabbering on for what felt like hours before I finally came up for air and saw all around the me the appalled faces of Simon and the boy’s parents.  Really?  Did I just tell an 11 year-old kid that one of the characters in the movie had to cut a key out of another character’s stomach while he was still alive, for the sole purpose of unlocking a spiked mask from her own head, thereby preventing turning her own head into a bloody colander?  Yes.  Yes I did.  I just don’t have filters.  And I try.  I try so hard not to swear, not to be perverted, not to act out, not to talk about adult things...and I fail every time.  I’m sure after every interaction with me, parents are forced to give their kids a disclaimer about my behavior.  Perhaps parents now are warning their children in advance.  There certainly has to be some measure of damage control whenever I’m involved. Oy.

And that's it from my end.  At least I hope that's it...this was certainly long enough!  Toodle-oo!

I'm thinking of something...

Things I'm thinking about tonight:

People are people.  Black white brown.  Gay straight Bi.  It doesn't matter who you are, who you want to be with, and what you want to do with whomever you choose to do it with.  In my life right now, I want to be with Simon.  And I am with Simon.  And if someone told me that I couldn't or shouldn't be with him for whatever silly reason they might come up with, I would have a problem with that.

I don't want to exercise in the morning.  I know that I will though, because my desire to eat cookies and peanut clusters far outweighs my disdain for exercising.  Such is life.  I also downloaded an app that tracks my exercising and my food intake, and I like to see all the extra calories that I get to eat on the days that I exercise.

It's been an unseasonably warm spring here, which means no Lovebugs (yay!), but also no mangoes (boo!).  I rarely watch the news because it's too frequently upsetting, but last night I tuned in and learned that sales at the carwash are down because it's too hot and humid this spring for those dastardly little Lovebugs (Florida's  equivalent to Mayflies).  They stick to everything, but this year we get a welcome reprieve.  Unfortunately, what's bad for the bugs is also bad for the mangoes...the fruits are growing much too fast, much too early, and many trees are dropping their mangoes before they've even had a chance to ripen.  Many mango growers down here are of the opinion that there's always next year.  So those neighbors of mine with the sign in their yard threatening to prosecute anyone who picks their mangoes need not worry...there's likely not going to be enough viable fruit to steal in the first place.

I need to mop.  I hate mopping.  I hate cleaning in general.  I bought a Dyson a few months back, and I don't even know how to use it.  Thankfully, Simon does.  The toilet also needs to be scrubbed.  Yesterday I pulled the wookie out of the shower, but only because a friend of ours was over and was going to be using our shower.  For reference, the wookie happens to be the piles of my hair that tangle in the shower drain because I shed about as badly as the dogs.  From my head.  It's amazing that I have any hair left on my head because I swear most of it has to be swirling the drain.

I need to learn to follow a recipe once in a while.  Tonight I made a pad thai of sorts by throwing together some chicken broth, peanut butter, hot sauce, fish sauce, garlic, Soyaki, and rice noodles.  And I was angry the whole time I was making it because I had no idea what I was doing.  Against all odds, it turned out.  I was shocked.  And there's peanut butter everywhere...that doesn't shock me; I'm an absolute disaster in the kitchen.  There are times when I'm just throwing stuff together that I think I'm Rachel Ray, when in reality I ought to be on that show "Worst Cooks in America."

I got to see The Avengers tonight with Simon.  It was pretty good.  It would have been better had I not needed to use the bathroom in the middle of it.  Why do I always get the soda?  I know I can't drink a whole one and expect to make it over 2 hours without needing the toilet, but you can't have popcorn without soda and I always want popcorn, so it's really the popcorn's fault.  So there I was, wandering through the dark to rush to the bathroom, and on my way back I almost sat next to a stranger because I had forgotten where my seat was.  How embarrassing.  No more soda at the movies.

I can't get over how old Ladybird is.  I got her the summer of 2001, and she was at least a year old then.  Even if she was a year old when I got her, that would still make her a minimum of 12 this year.  A few vets that she's seen throughout the years think she's older than that though.  They guess her to be closer to 15, if not older.  How crazy is that?  And she's healthy!  She's losing her hearing, and she's a little slower than she used to be, but she's still pretty spry.  She still bites me in the butt when I come home from being out, mostly when I'm trying to let the pugs out of their cage.  I think she'd rather I just leave them in there...hahaha!  She's not too fond of the dummies.

I have less than two weeks left here in Florida.  It kinda makes me sad, because I like living down here.  It's also sad to know that I most likely won't be back here again for a while, at least not to live.  I'll miss the water, and my coworkers, and my roommate Ellen, and the sunshine, and the wildlife.  For the last three winters all that was able to balance out how awful the healthcare is down here.  But I need a break.  I can't surround myself with so many people who have no interest in getting better, and who would rather just drug themselves up 24 hours a day.  And working with doctors who support this behavior just adds insult to injury.  And I just have to wonder...when people live down here where it's sunny and warm everyday, where they can literally go to the beach everyday of their lives, what is so awful that they need to spend every waking moment in a drunken, drugged up stupor?  I don't get it.  I've tried to get it these last three years, and I just can't.  So I'm going to take a break and maybe gain some perspective, but I don't think it'll come.  It's hard for me to be unhappy here...except for when I'm at work...but let's be serious, who wouldn't rather be at the beach than at work??

And that concludes my thoughts for the evening.  A little scattered, but that's all right.          

As promised, here is The Blog.

Jim and Andrea's wedding at the Varsity Theater

Backing up a bit, Simon and I flew home at the beginning of March to attend my buddy Franko's wedding.  It was fantastic.  The ceremony was held at the Loring Pasta Bar (I had never been there before...it's on my list of places to revisit the next time I'm in the Cities...it was absolutely beautiful), and the reception was held next door at the Varsity Theater, which has been completely redone since the last time I was there.  It was gorgeous, and it was absolutely perfect.  Definitely a venue I could see myself having a shindig in one of these days...when I get around to it...and when a kind soul steps forward to pay for it...hahaha!

Having spent the last three winters in Florida, Simon and I were actually hoping for a bit of snow while we were home for the wedding, and Minnesota didn't disappoint.  I don't think there was much accumulation, but just seeing those big, white flakes cascading down from the cloudy, grey sky made me miss winters in Minnesota.  Well, I missed parts of Minnesota in winter.  I don't miss being cold for 5 months straight, nor do I miss below-zero temperatures, scraping the windshield off in the mornings, slipping on ice, kicking slush dingleberries off the undercarriage of the car...yeah, I guess I don't miss everything about Minnesota winters, but I do miss that fresh bite in the air, snow on the ground, mittens on the hands, and hot coffee.  Those things all go so well together.  :)

When I was back in Minnesota, I noticed there was a lot of honking...more than I remember.  I even got honked at a few times.  One time because I didn't turn right fast enough in traffic, apparently.  I really have no idea, but it was the only thing I could think of.  I really didn't have anywhere to go, but the person behind me seemed to think I should have been moving nowhere at a faster pace.  It felt weird to be driving in Minneapolis after having been gone from there for so long.  Part it was that I was in a rental car with horrible blind spots, and part it was that I haven't really driven consistently on freeways in over a year...especially not in traffic.  As I was nervously making my way up I-35 to hwy 36, it dawned on me that I've lost my big city driving edge, and with that I've kind of lost my taste for living in a big city.  Weird, I know, since I've been saying for years that I'd like to settle down in a big city someday.  Don't get me wrong, I like the big city, but it's so chaotic and indifferent.  There are pockets of calm, which I appreciate, but the problem with big cities is that you have to go outside of those calm pockets.  I suppose I really just need to reacclimatize.  I'll have the chance this summer (more on that later!).

I had a first during the Minnesota trip.  Well, I had a first prior to flying to Minnesota, I should say.  I pooped in the airport.  And you know, it wasn't all that bad...I have to admit, I was impressed with the ventilation.  Prior to this particular incident, I always wondered why people would choose to poop at the airport, as I felt like every time I use the bathroom at an airport, there's always someone pooping in it.  Having been left with two choices myself (poop at the airport or poop my pants), I decided that people probably don't intend to poop at the airport.  And really, why didn't I come to this conclusion earlier?  Honestly...who would plan to poop at the airport when they could poop in the comfort of their own home, with the good toilet paper, and their choice of bathroom reading materials?  So I will no longer judge people for pooping at the airport.  I will, however, continue to judge them for not flushing and for peeing on the seat.

So there's that.  In other news, my working out regimen continues.  Simon is completely boggled by it, as am I.  I exercise about 3-5 days a week, and it's paying off...although not as quickly as it used to.  I remember when I was in my early 20's, and I could tone up like nobody's business.  Give me a month at the gym (if I could make it that long...usually I didn't) and I could take a month off.  Now I feel like if I take a couple days off and throw in some not-so-stellar eating habits, I'm seeing the result of those bad decisions.  So now I'm stuck.  I like how I look and how I feel at the moment, so that means that in order to keep looking and feeling good, I have to continue to work out.  I've left myself no choice in the matter.  Dammit.  I have also started to come to terms with sweating.  I abhor sweating, and I've never really been a sweaty person.  The first time I remember ever dripping sweat was the summer of 2010 when Simon and I were living in North Carolina and the temperature and humidity would climb into the 90's.  So imagine my horror after those first few weeks (months, actually) of exercising here in Florida and coming home wet.  My face even drips sometimes, which I find disgusting.

Spending time on Captiva Beach with the Pattens

Quotes to ponder: "If it's important you'll find a way, if not you'll find an excuse."  In the last year or so I've been trying to prioritize what's most important to me.  Top of the list is family.  It's difficult when I'm away so much, but when I'm home I try to spend as much time as possible with them.  I've also been using the ipad to video chat with my brother and his wife in Arizona...it works out pretty well!  I've been working on tolerance as well, as family can get under my skin like no one else can.  I've been getting better at accepting and appreciating my family for who they are, not who I want them to be.  It's important for me to have fun with my family...I want to have more good memories than bad memories, and life's too short to spend it arguing about trivial things.  Friends are a close second in importance, and several of them are like family to me.  I'm going to try to make more time for friends.  Like my family, it's difficult when I'm away so much, but with all the technological advances with video chatting, it definitely doesn't have to be.  It's more about finding the time than anything.  I've also decided to make my health important.  I have to remind myself of that on those mornings when I want to skip the gym, on those days when I'm at the grocery store and that red Doritos bag is beckoning to me.  Other things that are important...making time for my dogs, which sounds weird, but it's easy to get caught up in my own things and spend a lot of time away from the house...that's just not fair to them.  I've been making a point to stay home some nights to have a snuggle with them.  It makes them happy just to be with me (how easy is that??) and it gives me time to just sit and do nothing (it also gives me a nice serotonin boost!).  I need that time of nothing sometimes...I think we all do.  Next quote: "Make time for fitness now, or make time for illness later."  Truer words have not been spoken, and since I've been exercising the last few months, I truly understand that statement.  From a nurse's perspective, I come across patients everyday who are in the condition they're in because they just didn't take care of themselves.  Whether it's exercise, eating habits, personal habits (both good and bad), or regular check-ups with a doctor, it all makes a difference in a person's health as they age.  That's part of the motivation for my exercising...I know I can only ride on my genetics for so long before all those bags of Doritos start to catch up with me (side note: I've been Dorito-free since January!).  And lastly: "Eat well.  Stay fit.  Die anyway."  Sort of the antithesis of the previous quote, but it also holds a ring of truth.  I've seen 30-year old fitness junkies receive a terminal cancer diagnosis, and I've seen 95 year-olds who have been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day since they were 9 years old.  I think genetics plays a bigger part in our health than we'd like to believe, but I still think taking care of ourselves can't hurt, right?

Brie and I having a chill moment

Switching gears, I came across a bit of information recently that turned my stomach.  A few people on Facebook were going back and forth discussing the pros/cons of pet insurance.  More than a few people chimed in that they have discounted pet insurance through their employers.  Come again?  There are PEOPLE in this country who can't get insurance on themselves, and yet there are companies out there offering discounted PET insurance.  What is wrong with this picture?  What is wrong with our freaking country?  I think employer-offered pet insurance is disgusting and insulting, and it's a slap in the face to those individuals who either can't afford insurance, or who have a job that doesn't offer it.  But God-forbid our pets go without insurance, that would be tragic.  I'm trying not to judge here, as I know that to some people, their pets are equally as important to them as their children, spouses, etc.  My dogs are dogs.  I love them, I'm enjoying them while they're here, I will miss them when they're gone, but at the end of the day, they are not people.  I'll admit, I did look into pet insurance once upon a time when I first got my pugs.  The monthly premium was more than what I was paying for myself (my employer didn't offer a discount for my pets), and the yearly expense was more than what I would have paid for their annual check-ups and vaccinations.  And there were a lot of restrictions, such as breed-specific conditions/illnesses.  And seeing as pugs are one of the sickliest breeds out there, very little would have been covered by insurance.  I'm already donating my money to people insurance, I'm not about to do it for pet insurance.  But that's just me.  To each their own, people choosing to insure their pets does not affect me personally, and so on and so forth.

Busy street in Parimaribo, Suriname

Another rant, if I'm allowed.  I know you've probably all seen those bumper stickers that say, "This is America, speak English!"  I used to find those a bit offensive, but the more time I spend in areas where there is a large population of non-English speakers, the more I think maybe they should put in a little time to learn at least some basic English.  Case in point, the hospital.  Both in California and Florida (more so than other areas I've worked), I have come across patients who don't speak a lick of English.  People who have been living in this country since birth.  And in both places, I wasn't living in the sticks, and neither were they.  It boggles my mind how someone can live in a country where they don't speak the native language, and never bother to learn it.  Do they not associate with English speakers, or do they just not want to learn?  Do they not have access to people willing to teach them?  And going along with that, can they read English?  Should I be nervous about them sharing the road with me if they can't?  Spanish and English are so similar...even though my high school Spanish was years ago, I can still pick out phrases and words in Spanish when I hear people speaking it.  Immerse me in it and I'm sure it would come back to me and I would catch on pretty quickly.  I don't speak Spanish well enough to converse confidently with my Spanish speaking patients, but I don't feel I should be obligated to ineffectively speak to them in their native language.  We are, after all, in America where the official language is English.  It's the language I know best, and it's the language that I'm safest using.  Does that make me ignorant?  Intolerant?  Should I feel obligated to learn Spanish to speak with my Hispanic patients?  What about the German patients?  The Russian patients?  The Somalian patients?  I can't (won't?) learn all their languages, does that mean I should be able to expect them to learn mine?  I guess I feel that if they're going to live there, then yes, I do expect them to learn English...at least a little bit.  I would be terrified and uncomfortable to be in a country where I didn't speak the native language, and I'd like to think that I would put in a strong effort to learn the language as quickly as possible.  I was in Suriname (South America) for about two weeks, and by the end of my trip I could speak/understand enough Dutch (the official language, spoken mostly in the bigger cities), Saramaccan (I believe this language is used mostly by those of African descent, and it was the language that I understood the least), and Sranan Tongo (the native creole...easiest to pick up...it's like baby talk with Dutch, English, and Spanish influences) to mostly make my needs known, and to have simple conversations with the natives (of course I've forgotten most of it...I do remember that 'biggie bobies' means 'big boobs' in Sranan Tongo...hahaha!).  Granted, a lot of the natives there spoke enough English to bridge the gap if we got stuck, but still.  I personally think it's irresponsible and also dangerous to live in a country where you don't speak/understand the native language.  So my bumper sticker would read, "This is America, learning English is a good idea!"

To those of you who know me best, and those who follow me here, it's pretty obvious that I have a filthy mouth.  I've been working on that.  I was hanging out with some friends and small children recently, and I was talking about how I'm trying to get a handle on my potty mouth.  My friend's little boy came running up to me and exclaimed, "I went potty!"  I just had to laugh.  I'm getting better at curbing the potty mouth when children are present, and I'm pretty good at keeping the potty mouth in check when I'm working with patients.  I swear a lot in the car...and at work when I'm not with patients.  I'm working on that.  With the help of my roommate, Ellen, I've been substituting the F-word with the "Fist of Anger."  Basically I just raise my fist and shake it in the general of direction of whatever it is that's bothering me.  It might be a person not using their blinker, or a billboard that I don't like, or my ipad, or a pan of cookies that doesn't turn out.  The Fist of Anger has infinite applications.  I don't know that it makes me seem like any less of loose canon than spouting out a stream of expletives, but at least it's silent.  I do, however, need to keep the fist in check based on the company I keep.  Friends were visiting recently and the Fist of Anger came out multiple times during their visit...not at them, of course, but while we were in the car and passing motorists were driving like idiots.  By the end of the visit, my friend's little boy was giving the Fist of Anger to passing motorists who were drinking out of soda cans in their cars (he assumed it was beer and felt they deserved a fisting for that).  Whoops.      

So my job.  Lots of changes there and exciting things on the horizon.  Florida has been a nightmare this year.  They turned our quaint little 24-bed unit into a 36-bed unit with telemetry monitoring (heart monitoring).  Our unit is staffed completely by temporary staff, and because of that it's supposed to be a low acuity unit, meaning that we're not supposed to get overly difficult patients.  Well...that idea didn't really translate into reality, unfortunately.  I don't know where the breakdown was, but our unit ended up housing a lot of the suicide attempts (we're not a psych unit), the drug addicts and alcoholics (we're not a detox), and all manner of other stuff.  They understaff our day shift, which means day shift stuff frequently was either missed completely or carried over onto the night shift, which sets the night shift behind and has us calling the doctors for things at all hours of the night...and frequently we get yelled at for calling late or the doctors don't return our calls at all.  It doesn't sound like much.  When I write it out, I feel like there's no way for me to put into words how awful an average night shift is, but it's terrible.  I worked as a charge nurse on our unit this year, and my decision to do that has played a huge part in my frustration this year.  Honestly, they only reason I agreed to do it at all was because we'd been working without a charge nurse the previous two seasons, and were in dire need of one, especially with the unit expanding.  I pretty much knew that if I didn't agree to do it, we wouldn't have one at all.  So I bit the bullet.  The healthcare system down here is broken.  I don't want to say beyond repair, but it's going to take major changes to bring this place to the level that it ought to be.  The hospital recently hired a new bigwig who has already rid the hospital of 4 managers/supervisors, and it sounds like there will be more.  One of those managers was our director, who is "given" our overflow unit every winter season (I'm assuming against her will, but I'm not privy to that sort of information).  Our unit is completely mismanaged, neglected, and is an administrative after-thought.  Funny thing is, our unit somehow manages to pull in the highest patient satisfaction ratings.  I have no idea how that happens, but I'll take it.  So...the sunshine on the horizon is that the admins decided to cut our contracts short this season.  Simon and I were supposed to be working down here until June 9th, which didn't bode well for me since I mentally checked out about 4 weeks ago.  The only things getting me through my shifts were my friend's wedding in March, multiple visits from friends and family in March and April, and a trip to Seattle coming up in June.  My last day to work is this Sunday night, and I can't wait.  Simon and I will be spending the rest of May down here in Florida enjoying the sunshine and the company of our friends Ellen and Fred, who we haven't been able to see much this season because the powers that be scheduled us to work opposite shifts.  It'll be good...a nice ending to a not-so-nice job placement.

Simon windsurfing at the Sanibel Flats

And then...Simon and I had planned on taking the entire summer off to spend time with friends and family in Minnesota.  Well...a job opportunity at St. Cloud Hospital in St. Cloud, MN presented itself, so I'll be working there for the summer.  I had worked at St. Cloud Hospital back in 2007, and it's been one of the best hospitals I've ever had an assignment.  I'll even be working on the same unit as before, and the nurse manager remembers me...positively, I'm assuming since she offered me a job.  :)  St. Cloud itself isn't the most stimulating town I've ever lived in, but Simon's sister and her husband live there, Simon's mom lives about an hour from there, and the Twin Cities is also about an hour away...my family is about 3 hours away, but that's a lot closer than the 27 hours away we are right now.  I think it'll be good.  We'll be nice and close to the majority of the people that we wanted to see this summer, and I'll be making money to support this spending habit of mine.  Seriously, I try and try to save money and it just doesn't happen.  I wonder if it's possible (I must not be trying very hard).  We've also got a lot of fun things planned already for the summer, including 4th of July with my family, something I haven't been able to attend for a few years now, camping with my college buddies at a music festival in August, going to the Two Harbors kayak festival (it'll be my first time...Simon has gone before), a State Fair trip (of course), Labor Day weekend with the Frankos (I'm assuming I'm invited...if not, I'll just show up anyway...and honestly, someone has to take all the pictures so Senior has someone to complain about...hahaha!), and hopefully lots of visits in-between with family and friends.  My roommate Ellen also took a job at St. Cloud hospital, so Simon and I will get to spend the summer with her and Fred this summer as well.  As of right now, Simon and Fred don't have jobs and will just be bummin' around...probably spend most of their days trying to find a good lake to windsurf on.

And that's it for the time being!  Enjoy!

Coming Soon!!

Sorry, I know I've been on hiatus, and for those of you waiting with baited breath, you need not worry, a new post is in the works and will be coming very soon!  Lots of new and exciting stuff on the horizon in the life of Stef and Simon; can't wait for the next few weeks to see how everything plays out.  Are you interested?  Are you going to check back here everyday in rabid anticipation?  I hope I don't disappoint.  :)

Living the Florida Life

I love living in Florida.  3 years ago when I accepted a job down here for the winter, I was convinced that I would hate it, but there's just something about this place.  I love the palm trees, and I love the sunshine.  I love the water, the wildlife, and the salty breezes.  Just yesterday Simon and I went out paddle boarding for a couple hours, and while we were out there we saw a dolphin, two manatees, a spotted sting-ray, and tons and tons of birds.  When we got back to where we were parked, I wandered out into the water to cool off for a bit.  I noticed that there was an osprey circling around me, and I couldn't help but feel creeped out with each pass that he made above my head (and no, I'm not talking about the Osprey helicopter/plane).  I could have sworn he was looking at me.  There were a few times that he swooped down low, and I thought for sure he was going to impale me with his sharp talons.  I turned to Simon to see if he had a read on what was going on, and he said, "There's a probably a fish in the water and he wants to get it, but he's not coming down while you're standing there."  So I got out of the water and stood on the beach.  No sooner was I a few feet from where the waves were crashing did that little bird dive in the water and come up with a big fish.  It was insane.  I've never been that close to a bird while it was hunting prey.  He was so close to me that I could see all his markings, both of his big yellow eyes.  I could even see the scales on the fish as it struggled to free itself.  Unfortunately the bird was far more prepared for the hunt than the fish was, and off they went, probably back to the nest.  It was so neat.

After we were done boarding we went to have lunch at Cheeburger Cheeburger, a burger place on Sanibel Island that is absolutely fantastic.  I can't believe we've never eaten there before.  I got a burger topped with onion rings, chopped garlic, BBQ sauce, bleu cheese, bacon, and mushrooms...it was one of the best burgers I've ever had...definitely top 5.  And I've noticed something...three of my top 5 burgers all have onion rings, bacon, and BBQ sauce on them.  :)  To compliment my fantastic burger we ordered a basket of fries and onion rings along with two dipping sauces, one was creamy jalapeno and the other was zesty horseradish.  We had homemade Dr. Pepper and also had an Oreo cookie shake, and both were very good.  One of our coworkers at the hospital works part-time at Cheeburger, so we went there while she was working and she explained how all their food is prepared fresh on site, and that very little is frozen...you can definitely taste the freshness in everything.  I know that Cheeburger Cheeburger is a chain of sorts, so if there's one in your area, go to it.  You'll love it.

I continue to struggle with my job at the hospital.  I took on the role of charge nurse of our unit this year, and it's been a challenge.  Like most areas of healthcare, our hospital is faced with the task of making the most out of as little possible, while being completely overwhelmed by legions of sick people.  I don't necessarily regret my decision to be a charge nurse, because I feel like I contribute positively to our unit in that role, but I do get very frustrated with some of the choices the management has been making in regard to our unit and to the hospital as a whole.  It's not possible to provide good patient care when we don't have the staff to do so.  Period, bottom line, end of story.  Unfortunately this problem isn't unique to our hospital, it's everywhere...although some hospitals have it worse than others.  To say I've been making a stink down here is probably an understatement...I've been making such a stink that I feel I'm walking the fine line between having a job and being fired.  I don't know that I'm actually going to get fired, but that's probably the only way they're going to get me to be quiet if they don't start making some changes.  Making a stink wasn't a decision that came easily to me, and it's taken weeks of soul-searching and brain-storming to get to this point.  In the end I took some random advice that I'd heard somewhere along the line: If something is bothering you, either do something about it or quit complaining about it.  And that's kind of been my thing lately.  Decide which things are worth fighting for, and which are not.  If it's not worth fighting for, get over it and move on.  I decided the patients and my coworkers were worth fighting for, so a stink was made.  We'll see if anything comes of it.  I hope things change.  If not, maybe this place just isn't for me.  All I know is that things don't change if you don't set about to make them change.  Sitting around wallowing in self-pity and negativity doesn't accomplish anything.  Someone has to get the ball rolling, and maybe that person right now is me.  I guess we'll see.

And that my friends is it!  A short little blog.  :)

What's My Age Again?

This “getting older” stuff is the pits.  I’ve reached the age where when I see someone take a tumble on TV, I immediately think of how much that would hurt before I realize how funny it is to see someone fall.  And I should clarify that seeing actors fall is funny because it’s staged and it’s fake...seeing people in real life fall is not...real people actually do get hurt.  Chris Farley falling through a table used to have me in stitches, but I see it now and I think to myself, “he could have gotten a chunk of wood right in his eye!  Or his liver!!”  But then the sense of humor kicks in and it’s funny and I’m no longer thinking about chunks of wood in his eye...or his liver.  I notice aches and pains more and my first response is that there’s something wrong.  I never used to have aches or pains so it must mean I need to go to the doctor to be checked out.  I asked Simon the other day if he ever has random, unexplained aches and pain, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Yeah...all the time.”  So it’s not just me.  It’s normal to have aches and pains because I’m getting older.  I get that part.  But then of course my mind just can’t let it go and I have to obsess over what is a “normal” ache and pain and what is an “abnormal” ache and pain.  And there’s really no answer to that because everyone is different.  So I sit here with my aches and my pains, trying to trace them back to a specific injury or incident.  Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.  Sometimes I’ll ache for a few days and then it’ll be gone all together...sometimes replaced by a new one, sometimes not.  Frequently I don’t even realize that the first ache has disappeared until the new one shows up.  And part of this whole obsession with aches and pains is my irrational fear of cancer.  I guess this day and age it’s not really an irrational fear, but thinking that every ache and pain is somehow connected to some underlying cancer is somewhat irrational.  I just don’t want to be one of those people that ignores the signs, you know?  Like the person who had the stomach pain for three months and never went to the doctor, or the person who finds a lump or a bump and just thinks it’s a mosquito bite, or the mole that wasn’t there before.  I try not to think about those things too much because it’ll drive me crazy, but I also want to be proactive.  If there’s something big and ugly going on, I want to catch it when it’s little.  But...I can’t spend my life trying to prevent something that might not even happen in the first place.  

It doesn’t help that all this breast cancer awareness stuff has got me constantly thinking about how awful it would be to get it.  Every time I see one of those pink ribbons on something I try to remember the last time I did an exam, and did I actually take the time to do it right.  It makes me paranoid.  Maybe I should just have an elective bilateral mastectomy and be done with it.  But then I would be paranoid about something else so it’s best just to keep them around for time being.  When I was younger, I remember hearing that my grandma had had breast cancer and that she had to have one of her breasts removed.  I found that to be really confusing because Grandma always had two boobs.  There must have been some mistake.  This was of course when I was too young to know about implants or prosthetics. Then came the day when I stopped in to visit her unannounced and she was still in her nightgown, and the missing boob on her frail little frame was so very evident of her struggle with cancer that it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it.  To think about getting the diagnosis in the first place, to weighing her options for treatment, to knowing that she was losing part of what it is to be a woman.  Thinking about how she always wore that little prosthesis makes me sad.  Did she wear it for herself or did she wear it for everyone else?  Maybe it was a little of both.  When I start spiraling out of control with all this cancer stuff, I try to take a step back and think about something else.  Like shopping...or how much I hate picking up dog poop...or how I would love to eat chocolate chip cookies every day (oh wait, I already do that)...or how badly I’m going to beat Ellen in our next bike race...or getting another tattoo...or being in my best friend’s wedding.  There are so many things to think about that I shouldn’t waste my time with cancer.      

Back in the day, November 2nd, to be exact, I was born with a bum hip.  It was remedied and I remember going to see an orthopedic doctor here and there when I was a kid.  I honestly don’t even remember which hip is the bad one because I don’t remember having issues with either one.  My last orthopedic visit was when I was around 9 years old, and about the only thing I remember from the visit was the doctor saying that there was a good possibility that I would need to have my hip replaced by the time I turned 40 because the joint was going to be more vulnerable to arthritis.  I remember that 40 wasn’t even a real age to me at that point.  My parents weren’t even 40 then.  40 was so OLD.  40 is 8 years away for me.  40 is not old.  To this day I still don’t know which hip is the bad one.  My parents don’t even remember.  I like to think that it’s the right one because if either hip ever gives me any trouble, it’s usually that one.  But it’s so infrequent and so minor that I don’t really think about it.  I don’t like taking care of hip surgery patients in the hospital because it makes me think about how that’s going to be me someday (well, that and you move them the wrong way and the new hip joint pops out and they have to go back to surgery to get it put back in).  Well, it’s going to be a lot of people someday, but I know that it’ll for sure be me.  But then I think about my Grandpa and how well he motored around after having both of his hips replaced...he was like a new man.  When I think about him and what he went through with his hips, it makes me hopeful that I’ll be able to have the same positive result.  

I’m also sad to report that the dietary changes with age are starting to catch up to me.  I used to be able to pound 2 pint glasses of milk back-to-back with no issues.  I love milk.  My family loves milk.  When my brothers and I were still living at home, our family easily went through 6 gallons of milk a week.  We were a milk drinking family.  Simon has always been disturbed by the amount of milk I can drink, and you can about imagine his reaction when my whole family sits down together with our giant glasses of milk in front of us.  He would sit there and watch me with a look of disgust on his face as I would drink two full glasses of milk in a row.  And it’s not that he doesn’t like milk, but the thought of drinking that much milk makes him ill.  His sister is probably gagging right now as she reads this...she doesn’t like milk at all.  Simon’s mom is lactose intolerant, so when I hang out with the Webers, I usually have to bring my own milk along...hahaha!  And then I gross them out as I drink glass after glass of it.  But lately things have started to change.  I can’t drink 2 glasses back to back anymore.  Believe me, I’ve tried.  I get about halfway through that second glass and I start feeling really sick to my stomach.  I know it’s not a volume issue, it’s a milk issue, and that makes me sad (side note: the reason you can’t drink a gallon of milk in an hour is not because of the volume, it’s because the lactose makes you sick).  There have been a few times when I’ve made an error in judgement and have gone back for a refill, Simon calmly watching me and saying softly, “you’re going to get sick.”  And I defiantly fill that glass almost to the top with that wonderful white goodness, just to show him.  The last time it happened I didn’t want him to know I was getting sick, and since we were both eating chocolate cake, I offered to share my (second) glass of milk with him because I know that he likes to drink milk when he’s eating chocolately baked goods.  He was on me like white on rice (or milk, I guess you could say).  “You’re sick from the milk, aren’t you?”  Dammit.  So now I only drink one glass.  Bummer.  

I’ve also noticed that I’ve lost my tolerance for alcohol, and have almost completely lost my taste for beer.  It’s sad, really.  I used to love nothing more than a nice cold beer to enjoy out in the sun, out on the water, or with a good burger.  I don’t even know when I last had a beer.  It just doesn’t taste good anymore.  I’m disappointed in me.  And alcohol in almost any form just plain makes me sick.  I can usually have one to two glasses of wine, but it has to be red and it can’t be dry.  White wine tears me up.  Margaritas and mojitos thus far are safe as well.  Everything else...well, that’s a recipe for gastric disaster.  Unfortunately my decreased tolerance for alcohol has also decreased my tolerance for drunk people, not that I had much of a tolerance for them to begin with.  I now try to avoid places and situations that will put me in the company of large quantities of drunk people.  I feel like such an old fuddy duddy.        

I’ve had boobs on the brain lately.  That’s a weird thing to say, isn’t it?  But I have.  Boobs are weird.  My boobs and I have a love/hate relationship that is currently hovering somewhere around indifference.  I could take them or leave them, to be honest.  My boobs came in late, they came in fast, and they came in big...I was completely unprepared.  For years I struggled with my hatred of them while my smaller chested friends all told me how lucky I was.  Had there been such a thing as a breast transplant from one person to another, I would have gladly been a donor.  And really, boobs are such a hassle.  Try finding the perfect sports bra.  It doesn’t exist.  Sleeping on one’s stomach doesn’t occur until all the appropriate adjustments have been made.  Men suddenly forget that your eyes on your face and not hovering somewhere on your chest.  Most women’s clothes aren’t made for small women with big chests, and too frequently the clothes that are aren’t very tasteful.  Or maybe it’s just that the clothes aren’t tasteful to me...in the past I’d had negative feelings towards my boobs so I tried to cover them up. They were such an embarrassment, and I hated catching guys looking at them...I still don’t like that, but am sometimes able to find the humor in it.  They’re just boobs for crying out loud, get over it.  Maybe what’s coming out of my mouth is so unpleasant that the boobs become the only positive part of associating with me?  Truth be told, I buy all my t-shirts in the men’s section at Express.  And I love them.  They might not be the most feminine shirts in the world, but they’re comfortable and they cover up what needs to be covered.  It’s a shame men don’t routinely like wearing more girly colors.  :)  They do shrink in the wash though, which is kind of a bummer...wish the boobs would shrink in the wash...hahaha!  Ask around though, and you’ll find all sorts of dismay with boobs.  Little boobs, big boobs, saggy boobs, perky boobs, lopsided boobs, boobs that have been made bigger, boobs that have been made smaller.  Are any of us truly happy with our boobs?  And what is the root cause of the unhappiness?  Have our boobs become (or have they always been) a measure of our self-worth?  Are there types of boobs that are more preferable than others?  Who’s the defining judge of that?  Maybe I’m thinking about it too much.  Maybe it’s as simple as preferring one hairstyle to another, one type of car to another, apples to oranges.  Things make us happy and things make us unhappy, and boobs are no exception.  Aside from the dismay associated with boobs in general, there’s also the aging bit (even better!).  The ol’ fun bags are very slowly attempting to personally say hello to my belly button.  They remind me a little bit of glaciers...on this slow quest to move southward.  When does it stop?  At the waistline?  Sign me up.  Really, please do.  I’d love nothing more than to be like my 80+ year-old patients whose boobs hang so low they are in real danger of catching them in the zipper of their pants.  A few coworkers and I were talking about that the other day.  I have no idea how the topic of boobs came up, but there it was anyway.  I was lamenting the inevitable gravitational pull when one of the women said, “I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about that.”  I looked at her and wondered why.  She pointed at her chest and lo and behold, no boobs.  I had never noticed, and I had been in her company many times before.  She said that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer years ago and that she elected to have both boobs removed to decrease the chance of reoccurrence.  So now she doesn’t have to be afraid of the dangers the zipper on her pants may someday pose to her boobs.  I found myself feeling jealous of her lack of boobs.  I was going on about how a few of my old lady patients throughout the years had wished that they could just have their boobs removed since they were no longer of use for feeding children or attracting men.  When you really think about it from an evolutionary standpoint, that’s all boobs are really for, right?  I don’t plan on ever having kids so my boobs are a waste of a nutritional supplement, but I suppose I ought to keep them around in the off-chance that Simon leaves me and I need their help to lure in another unsuspecting victim.  That and I have a lot of bras that would go to waste.  I suppose I could make beanies out of them or something...complete with chin straps.   

As you may or may not know, I recently started exercising regularly.  Yes, the girl who hates exercise is exercising.  It was all very surprising, especially to me.  And now that I exercise regularly, I find myself actually enjoying it.  How weird is that?  I go to the gym about 3-4 days a week, and then paddle board or go for long walks in between.  It’s working out pretty well and I hope that I continue to keep it up.  I haven’t actually lost any weight yet, but that wasn’t really my goal anyway.  I look different and my clothes fit different, and I feel like that’s a better indicator of what I’m trying to accomplish.  In truth though, I’m really not trying to accomplish anything specific, I’m just trying to be healthy.  I guess I figured that I’m not getting any younger, and it’s about time that I start getting into the habit of being more physically fit, because the longer I wait, the harder it’s going to get.  Obviously I’ve known all this for years, but just never had the motivation to do anything about it.  Living in Florida where it’s nice everyday leaves me no excuse to not exercise (and really, it shouldn’t matter where one lives...there’s always time to devote to exercising).  That and living with Simon and Ellen has really helped.  Simon has always been into exercising, but I’m kind of intimidated exercising with him because he’s so much more fit than I am and I feel like I’m holding him back when we exercise together.  He exercises a lot because he gets stiff and sore if he doesn’t...I unfortunately don’t have that problem.  I could probably lay on the couch for a week and not have any problems at all.  Ellen is more on my level, even though she’s already competed in a triathlon and runs competitively a couple times each year...so I guess maybe you could say that I’m really not at her level...but she’s closer to me than Simon.  I feel like Ellen and I exercise more because we want to, not because we have to.  We take mutual lazy days together, but then we’ll go to spin class and race to see who gets the farthest.  It’s usually me, but I know she’s going to catch me one of these days.  That and she usually has more resistance on her bike than I do...I’m kind of a wimp.  Simon likes to make fun of the fact that we race on stationary bikes.  Ellen and I have decided that we’re going to up the ante and get bike jerseys to wear to class.  We also thought it would be funny to wear helmets, but that might be going a bit far.

Unfortunately exercising may or may not have brought about its own new set of aches of pains.  About a month after really starting my exercise regimen, I was diagnosed with a Ganglion cyst in my left wrist.  They’re not usually a big deal, and there’s really no evidence that it was brought about by the exercising, but I didn’t have it when I started exercising.  So I’m blaming the exercise.  It doesn’t bother me too much, it’s about the size of a pea, and as long as I don’t hyperextend my wrist (which I do all the time...my joints are kinda bendy) or put too much weight on it, it hasn’t been a big deal.  I do have to sleep with a wrist brace on though because I bend my wrists pretty weird when I sleep.  So now I clunk around in the bed with that thing on.  Ganglion cysts were more commonly known as “bible cysts,” and treatment for them included banging on and rupturing the offending cyst with a large book...a bible, if you will, since most households contained large bibles.  Maybe in my house it should be called a “Stephen King cyst,” since his books are the biggest books I own.  Fortunately my nurse practitioner has been much more passive in her treatment.  In fact, there’s really no treatment at the moment.  I can have the cyst drained if it starts affecting my feeling or mobility, but eventually the cyst would come back.  Otherwise if it’s too bothersome I can have surgery to remove it all together.  I’m not a fan of elective surgery, so until I reach the point of being an almost-cripple, I guess I get to have a little bump on my wrist.  Yay me.

On to more positive things.  I’ve had the pleasure recently of being in the company of some really inspirational women who have really made an impact on me.  The first woman moved here from China over 30 years ago when she was just 10 years old.  She told me a little bit about what it was like growing up in America, learning English, and adjusting to living in a country full of free will while still having to adhere to a strict Chinese way of life at home.  She told me the story of how her father passed away at 59 years old, and he told her that he was dying with his own worst enemy at his side, meaning himself.  What he meant by that was that he didn’t take good care of himself when he had the chance, he didn’t put himself first, and he didn’t listen to his body when it was trying to tell him to slow down, to stop, to take a moment to rest.  He told her that when she dies someday, he hopes she’s her own best friend.  And what she took from it was this: take care of yourself, because at the end of the day, you can’t count on someone else to do it for you.  Friends, spouses, parents, siblings...you can’t count on them to pick up your pieces.  Listen to yourself, take time for yourself.  That really struck a chord with me.  How often do we put others first, do we put work first, do we put laundry first?  How often do we endure that low-back pain and go to the grocery store rather than the massage parlor?  How often do we not eat the cookie?  How often do we bounce from one thing to next without really thinking about why we’re doing it in the first place?

The second woman is one whose husband recently passed away and who is considering a big career change.  She’s nervous about her options but she’s also really excited to start a new chapter in her life.  I told her that she should go for it, and if it doesn’t work out, she can always come back.  She just looked at me and smiled and said, “I won’t come back.  I’ve always believed that life is about moving forward, never back.”  It was interesting to hear that perspective, mostly because since starting this whole traveling job, I’ve been operating under the mantra of “If it doesn’t work out, I can always go back home.”  It’s comforting for me to think that I can always go back home if the going gets tough.  But someday my parents won’t be there anymore, and then where will home be?  Maybe when you reach a certain age, home is wherever you are.  I think that’s where this woman is.  It takes a really strong person to say that they always move forward and never back.  To really go for it.  It’s daunting, really, but it’s also very inspirational.  It’s making the most of where you go and what you do, and putting yourself out there to go after what you want.  It’s about not giving up, and approaching the next chapter with an open mind.  I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to visit with these two women.  I feel like too often I get stuck in my own little rut and just keep plugging along, following it wherever it might lead, never considering pulling myself up to see what else is out there.  Of course, that’s all relative coming from someone who moves across the country a few times a year...but you know what I mean.

So that’s me.  Definitely getting older, hopefully getting wiser.  :)