ok, now I can smile

Oh, joy! I just saw a commercial for the new episode of scrubs and my beloved JD is back!
Zack Braff, I take back all the mean things I said about you.

thankful...

It's Thanksgiving and once again it's time for:

Jeepgirl's List of Non-Obvious Things I'm Thankful For:

1) Anti-lock brakes
2) Cozy Cotton t-shirts
3) making lists
4) Shift on the fly four wheel drive
5) sunny afternoons
6) text-flirting
7) riding with the top off and the music cranked
8) bananas
9) bandannas
10) Santana
11) the summer I lived in Savannah
12) rhyming
13) beach sand between my toes
14) days when there is perfect timing
15) ibuprofen
16) peanut butter
17) tea on Sunday mornings
18) new running sneakers
19) jeans that fit just right
20) swimming
21) balmy summer nights
22) kayaking
23) the sound of rain on the roof as I'm falling asleep
24) water
25) yoga
26) nights when the moon looks gigantic
27) salads
28) learning opportunities
29) Ellen De Generes
30) The chance to reach your potential

400th Post

Today marks my 400th post. Four hundred posts!

I was thinking...I should do an extra special, super insightful, completely brilliant post.

And then I was thinking...about what?

The truth is, there are a lot of silly little observations running around in my head, but at the moment, nothing super-brilliant.

So I figured that in honor of the 400th post, I would share with you a list of superlatives according to me:

Best Netflix Rental: Last week, I rented "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog". It written during the writer's strike in 2008 and originally distributed via internet as an actual video blog. (You can see it on YouTube or Hulu. Or if you're technically challenged like me, you can just put it on your netflix list) Not only is it brilliant, but Neil Patrick Harris -- one of the funniest people on earth -- can flip from Dr Horrible to his alter ego, Billy, seamlessly and without missing a note. I highly recommend it.

Best Book I Recently Read: Loose Girl, A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen. (Calm down, Geek Hiker, it's not what you think!) It was beautifully written, but heartbreaking. One of the saddest books I ever read, but extremely thought provoking and definitely worth checking out.

Best Nickname: Occasionally, when appropriate, I pin a nickname on one of my patients. (I mean, I don't call somebody's grandmother "Old Bat" or anything like that. Just patients who have the right personality.) Anyway, one patient, who recently had a partial meniscectomy, was giving me shit the other day. From here on out, he will be known as "Half-Meniscus Harry"

Best Current Magazine: People. Johnny Depp as 'sexiest man alive'. I concur. In spades.

Best Current Song: Ok, I admit. I don't like a lot of current music. But I do like the New Moon Soundtrack. (yet another instance where the soundtrack is better than the actual movie)

Most Ridiculous Commercial: Tonight, I saw a WalMart commercial in which a lady says: "With WalMart prices, I can prepare Thanksgiving Dinner for 8 for less than $20!" Oh, really? Now there's one family who will be looking at two turkey pot pies this Thursday.

Happy 400th, everyone!

Unorganized chaos

Thanksgiving is this week, but it seems like the holiday season started last week! Suddenly, the whirlwind of activity had begun. I went to see the Tran Siberian Orchestra on Thursday with a friend. Then, I did a little Xmas shopping Friday and saw Santa Claus at the mall. Saturday, after a long run, I went to the movies with my friend and her teen aged daughter to see New Moon. Sunday was a Turkey Trot, the Thanksgiving festival at the waterfront, and watching the Patriots game with Dad. Fortunately for me, I have spent the last year decluttering, so everything went smoothly and easily from one organized moment to the next....Not!



I was late finishing laundry on Saturday which meant I was a little late to start my run. I had just enough time to shower and quickly dress to get to the movie theater. Except that the steam from the shower set off the smoke detector. So I started waving a towel over my head to clear the air under the smoke detector. And the towel accidentally hit a wooden sign hanging over the bathroom door that says "Imagine". The imagine sign fell off the wall and hit a big spider plant I have between the bathroom and the front entry way. Then the spider plant flipped off its stand and spilled water and potting soil all over the floor. The pot landed on my shoe basket and knocked a few shoes out. The shoes bounced down the stairs and right into my recycling pile, knocking aluminum cans down the rest of the staircase.



I couldn't have orchestrated that chain of events if I had planned it for months in advance.



Apparently, I still have too much stuff in my apartment.



So this week, I got rid of:

Nov 17: I went through the papers on the fridge and put all the expired papers in the recycling.

Nov 18: I went through the medicine drawer in the kitchen and got rid of an expired inhaler.

Nov 19: I put I book I finished into the book donation bag.

Nov 20: Changed the sheets today. I have some scented linen spray I spritz the mattress with when I change the sheets. It smelled...off. Very alcohol-y. Not very scent-y. So it got tossed.

Nov 21: Returned a library book.

Nov 22: I had a pair of sunglasses that got cracked. I figured, "I can fix this." So I did. With a dab of glue. But then the lens popped out. And I thought: "I can fix this." SO I did. And then the earpiece fell off. And I thought: "I could take an eyeglass kit and fix the hinge." But today, I just threw them away. Because, really, I can just buy another pair.

Nov 23: Finished another book and put it aside to give to a friend.

Now....how an I accident proof my life?

a crazy weird ass dream

I have always been a person who has had vivid dreams. I dream in color. I dream in plots and subplots. I swear, sometimes I have foreshadowing in my dreams.

Several years ago, I got some books on dream interpretation as gifts. I took to the books with reckless abandon, starting a dream journal, looking them up, and trying to make some kind of sense of my bizarre nocturnal shows.

I came to the conclusion that dream interpretation is complete bunk. One of the books was a little too...Freudian. (I'm pretty damn sure that if I watch Harry Potter and then I have a dream that I am on the Hogwart's Express going through a tunnel, I'm simply recapping the movie.) The other book was just plain strange. Why would that horrible naked dream that everybody has mean that I'm trying to hide something? OR a dream about running in mud mean I have low self esteem? Or a dream about a horse lead back to sex?

I came to the conclusion that dreams are just dreams. Rarely do I wonder about them anymore.

But this week, I had a dream that made me start wondering again.

I dreamed that I got a pet hamster. Or gerbil. Is there a difference between a hamster and a gerbil? Does it really matter? Anyway, he was little and furry and fuzzy and cute. And he had a prehensile tail. Which I'm pretty sure hamsters and gerbils don't have. (That would be an opossum, right?) But he did. He was special that way.

I named him Buddy.

I got Buddy a plastic cage with colored tunnels that he could climb through. I got him a wheel so he could run inside the cage and a ball so he could run outside the cage. I filled the bottom with wood chips and shredded paper. I gave him an empty toiler paper roll so he could hide. And I threw in ripped up pages of the arts and entertainment section in case he wanted to bone up on movie news. And pages from the food section in case he wanted to do some experimenting in the kitchen while I was out.

I was so happy with my gerbil/hamster/opossum thingie! I watched him burrow down in the wood chips a lot. We played some ripping games of hamster ball. It was great fun.

Then one day, I came home from work to find that Buddy had escaped from his cage.

"Crap." I thought. I needed to find him and quick! Hamster/gerbil/opossum thingies always make a dash for the heating ducts. They climb in and die. And when the heat comes on, the whole apartment smells like dead rodent. I could not let this happen to my little Buddy!

I tore the apartment apart searching. Finally, I found Buddy behind the dresser. He had turned into a white albino mouse by this point. How I was sure that this was, in fact, Buddy and not some other random rodent --who knows? But it was a dream, so I just went with it.

I pulled albino Buddy out from behind the dresser by his (still) prehensile tail to put him back into his cage. Buddy ran up my arm, across my neck, down my shirt, and then down my leg to my foot. Buddy then proceeded to scratch and bite the hell out of my leg repeatedly.

"Get it off! Get it off!" I screamed to my friend Shan, who had mysteriously appeared next to me. Even though she lives in Texas. And clearly would not be able to hear me if I screamed for help, much less transport herself into my rodent infested apartment to help me. But it was a dream, so I went with it.

We got Buddy back in his cage. Shortly thereafter, I gave Buddy away for obvious reasons. (Possibly to a friend with a snake) Just kidding. I still loved Buddy even though he viciously attacked my leg and wanted to kill me.

He almost did, too.

Because my foot became really painful and swollen. I was on antibiotics and prednisone and rabies shots. I had IV antibiotics. I soaked my foot in Epsom salts and...bleach. All to no avail.

And I HAD MY FOOT AMPUTATED!!!

It was a horrible dream! I wonder what the dream interpretation books would say about that?

I'm not sure. But I am sure that my real life pet? Is a cat.

fun new gadget and holiday challenge

I just found the niftiest new gadget, courtesy of logmyrun.com. Now I feel more inspired! I found this little ditty over at runtothefinish, who is also sponsoring a holiday booty buster challenge. I could definitely use some inspiration busting my booty, so I joined right up.

You should, too! Especially if the holidays tend to be way too tempting for you. (I know they are for me)

declutter update

This week, I moved into the living room area for decluttering. I started in the magazine basket and that turned into a giant project. See, the magazine basket has become a bit of a catch all area. So in the past, there was no problem getting 7 items right out of the top without digging all the way to the bottom. This week, I went digging!

Nov 10: Started with the catalogs. I pulled out ALL the catalogs and put the expired catalogs in the recycling. Then, I took all the catalogs that I'm ordering Xmas gifts from and placed the orders. So I could put those in the recycling too.

Nov 11: Pulled out any magazine that I was done with and put them aside to give to the gym.

Nov 12: Then, I went through the magazines I kept and ripped out any articles I wanted to read. Put THOSE aside to give to the gym.

Nov 13: Ok, now I was left with a giant pile of pages from magazines. Some I had saved for a web address or to look up a particular person. I pulled out all those and looked everything up. (It's much easier to just keep the web address in my favorites than to keep the entire magazine page) The pages went into recycling.

Nov 14: Then the rest of the magazine pages: they were either filed in specific file folders for different subjects or read and tossed.

Nov 15: They are collecting food at the gym for a food pantry for Thanksgiving. Went through the cabinets today and pulled out a bunch of canned food to donate.

Nov 16: Went through the other two baskets under the coffee table today (thank goodness they didn't take as long as the magazine basket!) Pulled out any unneeded papers and put them in the recycling.

Back to the kitchen next week!