an awkward day

Today I accidentally locked Y outside in the rain for 20 minutes, only to get stuck in the rain myself and end up like a drowned rat on my doorstep, ruined suede shoes in hand. Karma, right? This awkward, wet day brought out the worst in both of us: my utter pathetic-ness... and Y's, um, awesome spelling.

My tale of awkwardness revolves around this guy:

the giant poisonous snake that escaped from the Bronx Zoo

You see, today was one of those days where I left my windowless closet of an office maybe once and spoke to a total of ONE person the entire day. So when I got home and Y asked me how my day was, I had nothing to talk about... except my new twitter friend.

I literally must have told 5 different stories about the stupid snake's tweets. I had to tell Y about how it went on a Sex and the City tour and declared itself a "SSSSSSamantha". And how it went to the Seinfeld restaurant. After going on about the snake for a few minutes, I stopped, thought about the conversation, and realized how incredibly alone in the world I am.

Y's tale of awkwardness occurred while writing the first draft of his personal statement, which is necessary for applying to residency programs. It really needs no explanation:

his & hers 1: reading material

Sometimes the contrast between Y and myself makes itself obvious in the most interesting ways. Take, for example, our bedtime reading material.

An excerpt from my reading material: "Perhaps there is some sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." & "Ardisia maxi dress: $228".

An excerpt from Y's reading material: "boggy waterlogged sponge consistency of prostate".

arts and crafts time

Somewhere along the line, all of my friends really stepped it up in the crafts department and left me behind to spray paint pumpkins. For example, A. sews her own clothes and makes statement art for her house.

Imagine how embarrassed I was when I proudly handed her a meticulously decoupaged birthday card for her 27th birthday. She handled it gracefully; I think she's going to be a great mom someday.

One of the first friends I made when we moved here for medical school does the following: metalworking, jewelry-making, painting, children's book illustrating, and cake decorating. Usually on the same day. Oh, and she's an aspiring radiologist. I know, right? It took all the energy I had to decoupage one 4x6 birthday card.

I think I'm most impressed with my friend Diane, though. She's the first person I know who's decided to capitalize on her talent. Although she could have easily started a store selling light fixtures like the one she made for her kitchen... or reupholstered chairs like the many I've seen around her house... or her homemade Christmas stockings... I was pretty excited when she started selling her handmade clutches. And she even gave herself a brand name: Coventry Lane. (Which she claims is the first street she lived on, but I'm preeeetty sure is just the second part of her porn star name.)

Your homework: 1) Check out the rest of Coventry Lane's clutches and 2) impress me with your secret crafty talents. Is anyone else on the kindergarten-decoupaging couch with me?

perspective

The past few weeks have been about perspective; realizing your problems just might not be so bad after all. Clearly, the biggest tragedy lately has been the fact that my submission to White Whine was not chosen:

{screencap taken the morning the U.S. woke up and realized there had been an earthquake in Japan}

yogurt snobs

My greatest victory in this house was convincing Y that Greek yogurt is delicious. (Y would say his greatest victory is convincing me "Sebastian" is a bad name for a dog.) For four years, Y wrinkled his nose in disgust when I opened a container of Fage or Chobani. Now between the two of us, we eat three containers per day.

You think med school debt is bad? Try fancy yogurt debt.

It wasn't quite as difficult to convince Ike, the puppy formerly known as Sebastian:

deep. breaths.

Hi, and welcome to the first day of my yearlong panic attack.

Today, the class of 2011 found out where they would be spending the next 4 years continuing their medical education as residents. Here's how it works:

1. 4th year medical students go on interviews for residency at hospitals across the country.
2. After the interviews, they rank their top choices
3. Once the choices from every graduating medical student across the country are in, some fancy computer program matches the students' ranks to the feedback from the residency programs.
4. Students wait impatiently, hoping the system matched one of their top choices with a spot at a program.
5. Match Day is the third Thursday in March. On the Monday before Match Day, the students find out whether or not they matched. They don't, however, find out where. AS IF THE SUSPENSE WASN'T BAD ENOUGH.
6. If a student doesn't match, he has to "scramble" to find an open spot in any program across the country

7. On Match Day, all of the graduating fourth years, their families, and pretty much anyone who feels like watching, gathers to watch these poor souls find out in front of everyone where they matched.

8. Someone draws the name of a student from a hat. That person gets to stand up in front of everyone and open The Envelope.

9. And so on, and so forth. As each student's name is called, they drop five dollars in a jar. The $500 or so collected by the end goes to the last student whose name is called.

I'm already nervous about next year's match day, where Y will find out where he matched and where we'll be living for the next 3-4 years. Call me crazy, but there's something about not finding out a slightly important detail of your life until the very last minute... in front of everyone. Obviously it's stressful for everyone involved -- more for Y than myself, I'm sure -- but I think I'm struggling with the control issue. The issue being that I have none. It might make me feel a tad better if I could dress up as Y and do the interviews for him.

Or, uh, scratch that, because here's a story for you: Recently my boss and I visited a gastroenterologist's office. The doctor showed us a video from a PillCam (a pill with a camera, in case that wasn't clear) and I may or may not have said out loud, "It's just like the Magic School Bus!" (But seriously. It was.)

P.S. If you don't know a lot about the Match process and want to, Match Day by Brian Eule is helpful. Admittedly it's not exactly on my top 10... or top 100 books of all time, but it did kind of help decode the process.

Kiss me, I once spent two weeks in Ireland

I'll take pretty much any excuse to whip out pictures from Ireland. I swear the scenery looks greener every time I revisit them, and for a second everything just feels as fresh as it did there in July of 2009.

I hope we can celebrate St. Patrick's Day this weekend with some of the food we lived on in Ireland: Bailey's porridge, Banoffee pie, Bailey's ice cream, and of course, Bailey's. Who am I kidding, the likely scenario is that Y will have a glass of Bailey's at 7 pm and fall asleep for the night. Slainte!

if you like pina coladas...

{image: kamomebird}

Two things happen, without fail, each time I cut up a pineapple:

1. I get If You Like Pina Coladas stuck in my head for at least a day.

2. Ike gets a hat.

pretty/funny: Japan

The night before the earthquake hit Japan, I started reading a book called Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. It's about a childhood romance during WWII that gets torn apart when the little girl's family gets sent to an internment camp. So I've got all kind of Japanese sympathy floating around in my head. I know I haven't exactly kept up with my promise to recap pretty and funny things I see around the interwebs, but I thought a Japan version couldn't hurt -- I love seeing how everyone chips in any way they can, including artists.

The pretty:

Wieden + Kennedy is my favorite ad agency (you may have heard of their little client, Nike) and they put together this print. All proceeds go to the relief effort.

J Hill Design is donating all profits from her Tokyo print to Doctors Without Borders.

A poster by Paul Vickers. All proceeds to the Red Cross and Save the Children.

The funny:

Of course, there's not really anything funny about the situation (or The Situation - I'm watching the Donald Trump Roast right now and he's getting booed), but I laughed out loud several times at Jimmy Kimmel's account of vacationing in Bora Bora during the earthquake.

anatomy of a nickname: farmer ike

I've mentioned before that Y and I rarely have anything to talk about anymore -- he practically speaks another language and my days are so dull they're not worth mentioning. Our conversations these days are either duets about Ike or made up nonsense (see: pretzel romance, plus we once seamlessly transitioned into a 5 minute sports commentator bit while we watched Ike chase and catch a tennis ball. True story.)

Congratulations, Farmer's Insurance -- your jingle has been our go-to duet recently. And the inspiration for our latest nonsense conversation. Truly an honor.

This morning I woke up to Ike's nose pressed against mine, and naturally the first thing I thought to say...or sing... was Ike is a farmer!

Naturally, from the other room I heard Y call BUM BA DUM DUM DUM DUM.

And we were off. Still half asleep, I asked the obvious question: Ike, what kind of crops do you grow?

Ike -- or maybe it was Y in a high voice, it was too early for me to be sure -- replied, SUNSHINE, HAPPINESS, AND JELLY BEANS!

I call shenanigans, I told Ike, who at this point was licking my face and wagging his tail. Everyone knows jellybeans and happiness don't grow in the same climate.

I INVENTED A HYBRID CROP THAT ALLOWS THEM TO GROW IN THE SAME PLACE, Ike Y retorted. Oh, right. I should have known.

Scholarly Ike says, "it wuz a piece of cake, guys"

Later, at work, proof landed in my inbox:

Well. I guess I lose this argument.

What, you didn't think I was smart enough?

gardening

Remember Bob, my mysterious yet stylish birthday plant?

Good news for him: he has some friends!

He looks ecstatic, doesn't he?

puppy-boarding

No, I don't have dandruff, thank you.

I have yogurt in my hair.

Because that's what happens when your husband smears yogurt on your face and pins you down so the dog can lick it off.

When I can't think of anything to write about...

...you get vintage Ike.

Feel free to comment with your blog links, or your favorite blogs, or post ideas - I am in serious need of some inspiration. If not, you've been warned -- you'll be tortured with more vintage Ike.

my weekend in medical word associations

Remember this post, where I thought it was oh-so-hilarious that we talked about yeast infections over mimosas? Apparently the wise commenters on that post know their stuff - it. doesn't. stop. As I was looking over my pictures from the weekend, I realized there was a yeast-infection-mimosa moment for everything we did.

What's that, you ask? Art. Duh. At the opening night of Cakeland at a local art gallery, my friends and I discussed the schedule for the next year of med school. A nice break from all things disgusting, but, when it comes down to it, still a conversation about med school.

North Louisiana's Mardi Gras is not quite the same as New Orleans, but the parade we went to was about 100 times more fun than we imagined it would be. Even if, over king cake, the conversation turned to ass abscesses. And the lancing of said abscesses.

As a sidenote, despite anything negative I might say about this city, I do enjoy knowing I can go to a public event and be assured that everyone under the age of 8 will be able to do the stanky leg perfectly.

On Sunday while watching the Oscars, someone mentioned a dress with "batwing" sleeves. Which, naturally, sparked a conversation about winged scapulas. And then I won 70 dollars for guessing that the same things that won Golden Globes would win Academy Awards. Rocket science, people.