Scrubs, whales and Scrubs again

I am watching Scrubs again.  The best show on TV.  It reruns on TBS and I didn't watch it when it first came out so now it's all new to me.  But more about Scrubs later... A commercial came on just now that was for one of those new cell phones.  It had two people floating under the ocean and they were talking about the phone.  Then a woman floats up to them and says "nice phone" and this big honkin' whale swims down on her from above and eats her!  It completely freaked me out.  That was one f**ked up commerical.  I may have nightmares.

Back to Scrubs.  Best show on TV.  Yesterday I was watching an episode and Dr. Dorian (Zach Braff) was trying to diagnose a patient and he comes up with this diagnosis that is a remote disease that only people in the Congo get and has been eradicated since the late 18th century or something like that.  Dr. Cox's character starts on one of his truly priceless tirades about Dr. Dorian "looking for zebra's".  It was hysterical.  What made it even funnier was that when my brother was in medical school he told me a story about exactly that.  Med students, who have only learned enough to be dangerous, that come up with these remote diagnoses for people who have something simple and common.  But they are so eager to save the world and see something they learned about that they will look for "zebras" in a field of horses.

Reading it over, I realize that it looses a little something in the relay of the story.  But I don't care.  My blog.  Neener neener.

Goin' to the chapel...yo

Not me of course.  I would never go to the chapel for the purpose of getting married.  However, my oldest friend, Cindi, sure did.   I just returned from her wedding in NY.  It was really amazing.  A wedding right out of "The Sopranos".   Aside from the fact that the wedding took place on the first night of Hanukkah and was a full Catholic Mass ceremony which was ironic only to my Jewish ass, it was truly something wonderful.  For several reasons...

To begin with, I was a first time bridesmaid.  All kinds of cool stuff comes along with that.  We get to wear really beautiful dresses (although I am told that we lucked out and that most bridesmaid dresses are these lacy, poofy, taffeta numbers that no person who isn't a pre-op transexual would be caught dead in), we get to ride in the limo, just us girls and the bride!  Although the limo, in this case, was a stretch Ford Explorer, and we get to sit in the 'bride room' during the cocktail hour portion of the reception and get fed and liquored up by a private wait staff.  I tanked on Shirley Temple's.  Bring on the grenadene and marachino cherries!

If I forgot someone's name during the course of the week, all i had to do was shout out "Joey" "Tony" "Anthony" "Johnny" or "Bruno" and I was bound to be right.  Italian Catholic wedding.  Being that the wedding took place in my home town in NY, i found myself wondering on many occasions if I ever sounded like that when I spoke?  Ay yo. Yo ay.  I was laughing most of the time which was really great, and when I wasn't laughing, I was scarfing on the best Italian food in life. 

Overall the trip was a great success.  I suppose that this means I need to learn how to spell Cindi's new last name.  It's some Italian number that starts with an "M" and ends with an "i".  You'd think that since her and her now husband have been together for almost 8 years that I would have tried to figure that part out sooner.  Who knew?

Here are some pictures! 

Better get used to it.

About two entries or so ago, I had mentioned that I would be moving in less than a year.  It's the normal rotation of most officers in the military.  Three years then it's off to a new place.  There are lots of officers who don't like that very much because they have families, kids, whatever.  I, on the other hand, love the idea of moving every three years.  I get to go and see new places, experience new things, meet new people, etc.  What's even better is I have no family to 'uproot'.  Just me and my dog and she doesn't really care where we are as long as I am with her and bring food.  I was really looking forward to my next move. 

Now, however, the military has decided it was too expensive to move people every three years and has extended all orders to four years.  I was so disappointed.  As I have mentioned several times before, it's not bad here in Shreveport Bossier,  but i was looking forward to going someplace new next year, and now I am not going anywhere until the fall of 2008.  Two full years from now.  I am sure I will get over it, but in the meantime, I am just going to whine about it,  and maybe upgrade my counter tops to granite.

"...the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumkin patch..."

I carved my very first pumpkin tonight!  WOO HOO!  I did good too! 

I remember pumpkin carving as a young child.  My dad carved the worlds greatest pumpkins.  In upstate NY, not long after apple season, was pumpkin season.  Each year in late September we would go to the apple orchards, pick what seemed like a hundred apples, bring them home, peel 'em up, and my father would make the worlds best apple pies with us from scratch.  Then, usually about the 2nd week of October, we would go to the pumpkin patches and dad would let each of us three kids pick out a pumpkin for ourselves, (as big as we wanted as long as we could carry our own), bring 'em home and he would carve a pumkin for each of us.  He would carve whatever face we asked him to.  Happy faces, scary faces, funny faces, crooked faces, whatever we wanted.  He would do it and they would be the best pumpkins on the entire block.  Dad rocked.  He was the worlds best pumpkin carver.  Did I say that already?

So each year since I have lived on my own (18 years now) I have said to myself, "This is it, this year I am going to buy a pumpkin and carve one myself!"  About 6 or 7 years ago, I even went so far as to buy one of those little pumpkin carving kits with the patterns you can use to carve and the little pumpkin carving knives in it.  Cute little kit.  But I never actually bought the pumpkin.  Well this was finally my year.  Maybe it was finally living in a part of the county that gets cool in the fall again.  Maybe it was because I can go outside here and smell Halloween in the air (something I am convinced that only a true northerner can relate to).  Who knows.  But I bought me a pumpkin.  And tonight, after having it sit on my counter for a week, I dug through my drawers, found my little pumpkin carving kit, picked out a cool witch pattern and carved my pumpkin!

I have a whole new respect for my dad.  First of all, scooping pumpkin glop from the center of a pumpkin didn't bother me nearly as much as a kid as it did tonight.  I swear I remember it coming out in one clean batch as a kid.  I know 18 years isn't quite enough for pumpkin evolution to have taken it's toll, so I must have blocked it out.  I also know that there isn't a chance in hell that i had anything to do with the actual carving part.  My wrists will never bethe same.  And i can do 50 pushups!!! By the time I was done mangling this pumpkin to within an inch of it's life, i was covered in pumpkin gloop, seeds, and underneath my nails was orange.    But damn.  It was worth it.  I did a pretty bang up job (that took every minute of two hours).  I got the seeds roasting in the oven and a candle burning in the center.  I love Halloween. 

I know I will go to bed tonight hoping that the Great Pumpkin will rise up out of the pumpkin patch and pick my pumpkin as the best pumpkin on the block. 

It's been awhile...

Wow, has it really been since mid Aug that I last updated this journal?  My bad. 

I just got back from a run.  The weather here has finally cooled off some and i can run outside again without eating a million mosquitoes.  Life is good.  Admittedly, I slacked off for a while on the workouts. I was maybe running once a week.  I get fat really quickly when I am not exercising every single day.  Of course, when one is only 4' 9" tall, the fat really has no place to go and the whole world can tell when you gain 5 pounds.   To make matters worse, I just went to get fitted for my bridesmaid dress for my friend, Cindi's wedding, which is coming up in December, and my dress is a size 10.  A freaking TEN!  I was mortified. The woman at the dress place said that you can't use that as a guide because wedding and bridesmaid dresses are sized differently than other clothes.  Whatever.  All my other clothes are either a 4 or a 6. Even a six is unacceptable for someone of my size, i realize, but I am realistic. A loose 4 would make me happy.  So, far be it for me to bitch and not do anything about it, I will bitch and work out.   Life is good again.  The good news is that I loose weight as quickly as I gain it as long as i am working out every day.

I started my new rotation at work this past Monday.  It was hard to leave the flight I had grown to know and love, but it's part of my career.  I have to rotate as a career requirement.  Over the next 2 years, i will rotate two more times at least.  I am the Group Practice Manager now and I think I am going to enjoy it once I learn the in's and out's of the job.  I am looking forward to the change and, at worst, I am only there for another year before I am scheduled to move to another base. 

I love the idea of moving to a new place.  It's not that I don't love my home, and this town, although painfully tiny, has grown on me a bit.  But I love going to new places!  A year will be over before I know it.  Life is good.

Double *grrrr*

I am on the phone with my brother this evening, and I was asking him if he ever knew anyone who has ever bought a car using Ebaymotors.  He asked me why? I told him the story of my car drama.  During the conversation, I was sharing with him the little things that frustrated me about my Toyota that I mentioned in my last entry.  Including the fact that I can't open the trunk from the inside of the car.  He stopped me and said that he had never heard of that.  I told him I know and that is one of the reasons why it irked me.  You should be able to open the trunk from the inside.  He said have you looked for the switch inside the glove compartment?  Glove compartment?  Why in God's name would I look for the trunk switch in the glove compartment?  Every car I have owned has had the trunk switch near the gas cap switch on the floor by the drivers side seat.  So, with him on the phone, I went out to my car, with dread in my heart, as my typical M.O. crept into the forefront of my mind and opened up the glove compartment...

I was happy to see, at first, there were no obvious buttons or switches that looked like, or were labeled, "trunk" but I felt around anyway and as my fingers passed over the little black button my head fell down into my chest.  I pressed the button which was answered with a simple "pop" as the trunk opened.  "Son of a..." I exclaim as I hear the first vestiges of what was going to be a full four minutes of laughter out of my brother.  Admittedly, I laughed pretty darn hard myself.  Mostly out of embarrassment as I recalled a very similar story involving me, my lawn mower and it's "primer" button that i didn't know existed.  But also out of sweet relief that I now know something new about my car that will certainly make my life easier when I travel!

Thanks, Chuck, for making my life easier and not making me feel TOO foolish about it!

Grrrrr!

Almost everyone who knows me learns very quickly how I feel about my car.  I love my car.  I have a Toyota Solara convertible.  I love convertibles and I have always had good luck with Toyota's so it was only fitting that my upgrade vehicle would be a Toyota convertible.  It's a Camry so it's got a very nice, large back seat and is more luxurious than the other cars in it's class, but it's not the Audi or the Saab.  No matter, though,  it's a convertible and it's mine.  I have had the car for three years now and have been happy with it. 

However, over the past two weeks i have gone from loving my car to hating my car.  Since I had the car, there have been a few little things that have bothered me, but nothing that i found bothersome enough to dislike the car.  Things like the fact that you can't open the trunk without the key.  There is no trunk opener inside the car so the car not only has to be parked but turned off so you can open the trunk with the button on the key chain.  I didn't find this out until the first time I went to the airport and they made me "pop the trunk".  It was all this drama because the trunk doesn't open from the inside of the car.  Still, not a really big deal and when i travel, i have gotten used to turning off the engine so i can open the trunk.  The other thing is the remote entry key itself.  The button to unlock/lock the doors is positioned in such a way on the remote that when you press it, your other finger triggers the alarm button that is on the back of the remote.  It takes some fancy finger work not to set off the alarm every time i lock/unlock the door.  Again, not bothersome enough to dislike the car.  I just worked around it. 

Then, there is this issue i have with the car pulling to the left after i get over 35 mph.  I have brought the car in 6 times, at least, just for the pulling alone.  They would "fix" it and i would be on my way, only to have the problem return the next day.  I finally stopped bringing it in, but I know that has to be part of the reason i am on my third set of tires.  Still love the car, but getting frustrated...

The last straw has been the convertible top itself.  I had to get a new top 2 days after i bought the car because it was not aligned right.  I would open the top and it would catch and bend before it opened.  They replaced the top and, although most of the time it was working fine, it's been happening more and more lately.  Well last week, the back window on the convertible top fell out.  It literally FELL OUT.  And it happened at the most inopportune time.  The night before i was supposed to fly out for another TDY.  So I had no time to go to the dealership to get it fixed.  I had to take the car to the airport on the interstate with it pulling to the left, stop the car and turn off the engine to "pop the trunk" when i got to the airport, and tape the damn rear window back into the convertible top like i live in a trailer park and pray it didn't rain during the next two weeks that i was going to be out of town.  I put a towel down on the rear seat just in case it rained and leaked.  

I got to my TDY, which happened to be in Orlando, and started looking up how much it was going to cost me to get the window fixed on my car.  That is when i discovered Pandora's Box.  Turns out, these problems are not just mine.  They are common among owners of the Toyota Solara convertible.  The more I researched, the more I began to hate my car.  I have even started looking into the Saab and the Audi (because I can't afford the BMW to be quite honest).  I still love convertibles and I have to say that I haven't had any issues with the engine/drive train/transmission at all.  But the number of things that have been going wrong lately have made me nuts. 

Stupid car.