Reading

Since the Hummer was made available commercially for civilian use in the early 1990s, it has increased dramatically in popularity, attracting such diverse constituencies as: soccer moms, drug dealers, and professional athletes and other celebrities. You may well ask, “Where do I fit into this mix?”

I love it.

There's No Place Like Home

Thank God.

Scene 1: I run up behind my least skinny sister, J, and grab her and tickle her belly. E is another of my sisters.
J: "Hahaha....don't grab that!"
Me: "Don't grab what?!?"
J: "My stomach. E calls it my criminal."
Me: "Your criminal?"
J: "Yeah. She said it's my criminal cause it makes me do bad things. Like eat ice cream for lunch."

Scene 2: I'm in one of my sisters' bedrooms. M and J (my two youngest sisters) are sitting on the bed talking to me. And then I notice the stuffed animal over the curtain rod.
Me: "What is that?"
J: "A koala."
Me: "Where's the rest of it?"
J: "Gone."
Me: "You decapitated the koala?!??"
M: "We didn't decapitate it! We just cut off its body."

Scene 3: My parents have an in-ground pool. I am in a hammock studying for the stupid MCAT while my youngest sister M swims in the pool. J and E are about to get in the pool. M is just swimming around when all of a sudden she starts screaming and makes a beeline for the ladder.
Me: "What's the matter?!?"
M: "There's a rat in the pool!!!"
Me: "Is it dead?"
M: "No! It's in the strainer! I can see it standing there moving!"
J: "Give me something to hit it with."
Me: "NO! Girls stay away from it!! Go get Dad."
M: "Let me just take the lid off the strainer so I can see him."
Me: "NO! Get Dad NOW!"
Trust me, this tone was necessary. These are the same children that called me a year ago and said they just got a new pet. When I enquired as to the animal species, they replied that it was a possum. That they trapped. On our patio. When I asked if my parents knew, they replied that they weren't home. My sisters trapped a wild possum in a dog carrier and expected to keep it. You have to watch them. They have no fear. Not even rational fear. Psychos.
So, E goes to get Dad. Mom starts screaming at us out the window.
Mom: "Go get a shovel! Then let him climb onto it and fling him into the yard."
Me: "Mom, what if it climbs up the handle and bites someone...or if we don't fling it far enough...or if you do fling it and he's out loose in our yard?"
Mom: "Just use the shovel!"
Dad: "M, go get me the BB gun."
Mom: "USE THE SHOVEL!"
Me: "Awesome."
So M goes for the BB gun, my 11 year old sister comes back wielding a BB gun and asks to be allowed to shoot. Dad tells her no and proceeds to line up his shot from the other side of the pool into this litle pocket across the way. We're standing there watching him take shot after shot. The girls are confirming hits. J leans over to me.
J: "We're watching Dad shoot a rat with a BB gun."
Me: "Yeah. I know."
J: "This is the most redneck thing we've ever done."
Me: "Yup."
So Dad shot him to death. The rat ended up looking like he came out on the wrong end of a Godfather movie. Dad chunked him out in the woods. I went back to studying. And 5 minutes later J and M got back in the pool.

Sick.

Flare-Up

1. My hairdryer caught on fire this morning. Nothing big. Probably just too much hair wrapped around the fan or something. That's the second time I've done that to a hairdryer in a year. Perhaps it's time for a new hairdrying strategy...perhaps not putting hair into the hairdryer. That might help.

2. Driving to work this morning, there was smoke rising from something in the middle of the street. I thought maybe a kid had lit a leftover smokebomb from the 4th of July. Of course I stop my car to gawk and figure out what's on fire. Turns out someone had lit a t-shirt on fire and thrown it into the road. I didn't look to see if there was more clothing out on the lawn, but my money's on cheating boyfriend. Setting his clothes on fire and then letting them get run over? At least it's original.

Holy Cajun Corn Sticks!

My officemate just offered me a snack.

Her: "Hey Sam, Want a hot cajun corn stick? Praise the lord!"
Me: "Umm...huh?"
Her: "Look at the label!"

She bought this snack food at the grocery store and I swear to you the label says:

Hot Cajun Corn Sticks
12 Ozs.
Praise the Lord!

Welcome to Alabama, people.

Episode Two: The World Cup Final

I don't really know what to say about the World Cup final. I changed allegiances throughout the tournament. Primarily because my favorite teams kept getting eliminated. Specifically Ghana, Trinidad/Tobago, Ivory Coast, and Australia. (I'm big on rooting for the underdogs.) But when it came to the final 4, I was decided. Anyone but Italy. Preferably Germany, because it's great when the home team wins, but I was okay with anyone but Italy winning.

So of course, Germany got knocked out by stupid Italy. I probably should have changed my strategy to rooting for the team I didn't like and see if that helped. And then it became Portugal vs. France to see who would go to the final against Italy. And as much as I wanted France to win...because I wanted Zinedine Zidane to win the last World Cup of his career, I rooted for Portugal. Because I thought they would have what it took to beat Italy. And that's all I wanted. Beat Italy. Italy has been plagued with scandal for the past several months because some of the players in their league have been accused of match-fixing. A lot of the accused are on their national team that was competing. Also, the Italians play dirty. Constantly fouling people...diving...things of this nature. I don't like them. Not one bit. And I thought that Portugal would be able to take them. Mainly because they play just as dirty (if not more so) as the Italians.

In the end, it was not to be. France beat Portugal, and the final came to France v. Italy. Which I was pretty happy about. Zidane could make his final game the World Cup Final. Exciting stuff. Zidane scored the first goal of the match for France in the 4th minute on a penalty kick. Later in the game, stupid Italy came back and tied it. I'll spare you the details, but the match went into overtime. And during the second overtime, the unthinkable happened. Zidane had words with an Italian defender. And then Zidane fouled him. And by "fouled him" what I mean is, knocked the living crap out of him..soccer style. Hands-free. Really, if you're going to foul someone, I guess this is one of the more entertaining ways to do it. He reared back and head-butted the guy in the sternum. Who even thinks to do that?? Zidane. That's who. It was brutal.


And in the end, he was red-carded and sent out of his final match. It was a well-earned red card, but the manner in which it was given was unprecedented. Referees reviewed a tape on the sideline. In American sports, this is done all the time. But in soccer, it's a huge tradition that video is not used. They don't go back and review tapes...calls are not taken back after watching a playback. And yet, Zidane was red-carded for something that only the photographers saw him do. I'm worried about what this will do to soccer. But we'll see.

Italy won on penalty kicks, and Zidane won the Golden Ball Award for the best player in the World Cup despite his send-off. I think he probably won it because people who don't even care about soccer were watching the final just to see Zidane go out a winner. Instead, he went out as one of the oldest players in the tournament, sent off for acting like a 2 year old. Oh well. The next World Cup is going to be held in Africa in 2010. I am stoked. :)

Ramblings

Do you ever have one of those days that you reflect upon and think, "Whose life am I leading?" Not that it's a bad thing. It's just odd. If you had asked me 5 years ago where I would be today? This is not it. And it's not a bad alternate timeline. It's just one of those things where you realize how strange life is. I thought I'd be a doctor by now. I'm not. But I work in hospitals all over the country. I thought I'd be living in another state by now. I'm not. But I've survived in spite of it. Of course, I haven't given up on either of those goals either. In fact, I think the numerous delays have only strengthened my resolve to do what I want in any state but Alabama....and Mississippi. oh. and West Virginia. And Arkansas. And really any southern state. Ok...I think that's it. :) So, today.

1. Episode One: The Death of KU. The KU is a small propeller plane that is infamous at my workplace. Everyone, from the first day they found out about my aerophobia, has warned me about this plane. People who are perfectly fine with flying are terrified of this plane. Needless to say, when I book a plane, I request anything but the KU. Case closed. Well, today I had to fly to a hospital, and I didn't set up the plane. The coordinator on the night before (who obviously hates me and is trying to kill me) did. And he got us the KU. I get to the airport (unknowing) and see the world's tiniest plane. With duct tape. Duct tape on the fuselage. And cracked windows. In fact, the windows were cracked to the point of really being shattered in some areas...and also had some polarizing layer over them to keep the sun out of our eyes (cause God forbid you bleach your rods while you're flying around in a duct-taped wind-up toy.) One of the surgeons had a cracked lens in his surgical goggles. I'm pretty sure that if he'd worn those in the plane and looked out the window, he would have been able to see through time. So, I turned around to get back in the van. The other coordinator and surgeons prodded me into the plane. Dr. ACP wasn't even there to comfort me. He met us at the hospital after flying up in his own plane. We get in the plane...I'm trying to calm down. The other coordinator looks over, puts his hand on my knee, and says "Sam, it'll be okay. If one of the engines goes out, that other engine will take us all the way to the crash site." Great. I'm going to die on a plane full of smart-asses.

The trip to the hospital was pretty uneventful. I spent most of the (mercifully) short flight time staring at the cracks in my window getting bigger as we ascended. I also spent a little time searching the ceiling for oxygen masks. I asked one of the surgeons where they were. Apparently this tiny plane doesn't get high enough off the ground to warrant oxygen masks. The surgeon said that if we crashed we needed to remember to ask the pilot to try and hit something hard...because otherwise we'd all linger in terrible pain for around 3 days prior to succumbing to our not-quite-deadly-enough injuries. And apparently no one (but me) wants that. I'll take my chances with the three days.

I begged Dr. ACP to let me ride with him in his plane back to B'ham. No dice. Apparently you have to have insurance or some bologna like that. The ride back was horrendous. The plane rocked, and seemingly slid from side to side through the air. I screamed at one point....we lost some serious altitude. But it wasn't just me. When we got back, the other coordinator was nauseated, one of the surgeons refused to ever fly on that plane again, the other surgeon literally jumped out of the plane and kissed the ground, and when we touched down I heard the pilot say "I can't believe we made it back in one piece." I don't know whether that referred to our imminent death or the fact that pieces probably frequently fall off the non-duct-taped parts of the plane. Regardless, our director has promised me that we will never fly on that plane again. So goodbye KU. I really could have done without your final voyage...but I survived. And that's what counts.

Okay, I had other stuff to blog about, but this story turned out to be hella long. So I'll try to write some more tomorrow. From work. When I'm bored. :-p Laters!

What's Cookin'?

I was on Amazon, checking out what's on everyone's wishlists at the moment. In music, it's the Dixie Chicks. Electronics? iPods. Magazines? Mental Floss (incidentally created right here in Birmingham. Woo.) Outdoor living has some sort of cooking device. And the kitchen? Of course, it's babies.

Huh?? Oh yeah. That's right. Babies. Tender tender babies.

I hope I get the urge to write something interesting and insightful sometime soon, but I'm not making any promises. I spent most of today too hopped up on caffeine to string together coherent thoughts. But I did learn glycolysis. Go me. Only 46 days til the MCAT. Arg.

Reading

His belief is not of the "God said it. I believe it. That settles it," sort that fundamentalists embrace. Rather, Bush subscribes to a syllogistic doctrine of presidential infallibility: God works through Christians; I am a Christian; I have decided to do X; therefore, X is God's will.