Thursday, April 30, 2009

H one N one

Last week, all the top dogs in my company convened in Dallas, including one individual from my office. This individual just informed me that an attendee of that conference has since been quarantined under suspicion of harboring SWINE FLU!

I CANNOT get swine flu right now, I’m too focused on my career.

Official lab results due sometime today.

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Results are in: Just regular flu. Forget we ever had this discussion.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

I'll get used to it eventually, I suppose

This is what Penny normally looks like:




This is her as of this morning:



Jon took her to the groomers without me and told them to "chop it all off as short as possible". This is the only decent shot we got of it. She's pretty much the least photogenic dog ever. Scroll down for the most disturbing picture you've ever seen ................. IF YOU DARE.










(down)














(down)










...aaaaaand, cue horror music.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

some answers.

So we’ve understandably had lots of questions thrown our way about our med school endeavor. Figured I’d address them here and give an update.

First and foremost: I pronounce it “Cuh-RIB-ee-en”. “Care-uh-BEE-en” is generally gross, only allowable when saying “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and has no place in any other context.

Second, no, we still haven’t decided on a school. For one thing, we’re still hearing back, and for another, there are lots and lots of things to take into consideration. We’ve already narrowed down the list substantially, but a final decision will require more time, more research, and more pondering. For now, it’s sort of a muddled mess involving comparisons of costs of living, the schools’ clinical opportunities, the island’s accessibility, populations, LDS communities, crime/literacy/infant mortality rates, island amenities, etc etc etc. Hopefully it will become more clear within another week or so.

Third, most apartments in the Caribbean are furnished, so we don’t need to worry about shipping everything we own there. We’ll take some clothes, bed and bath linens, an air mattress, and some personal items with us. We’re selling most of our furniture (it’s all old, anyway) and storing the rest of it in Idaho in my parent’s crawlspace. Thank goodness they consented – the cost of public storage in Tucson is absolutely ridiculous. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Even with the cost of shipping everything to Idaho, we’ll still be saving thousands. We’re sending it all up by freight. My sister Annie and her husband Steve will be taking our new couches until we return (thanks, guys!!). We searched for three years for these couches and they’re the first ones we’ve ever found that we both agreed on. Jon was so particular that he’d write off an entire set if the height of the ottoman wasn’t perfectly even with the height of the couch cushions. An inch or two above or below and it was all over, no matter how much I loved them. With the fear of another three years of couch shopping looming in my mind, I would do almost anything to hang on to these. Luckily Annie and Steve live not an hour from where our freight truck will be delivering our things, so with the help of my dad’s Dodge, it won’t be hard at all to get them to their home.

And finally - our cars. We're undecided. We're selling the Jeep for sure, but the Mazda's future is still up in the air. I'm not sure Jon could ever part with it.

Sorry for the boringest post ever. I'm rewarding you for putting up with it by revealing something truly embarrassing about myself. The following song is my ultimate guilty, guilty, guilty pleasure. Don't judge me. It makes me happy. I want to dance to it on the beach.




Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones


You'd be lying your face off if you said it wasn't catchy.

Friday, April 17, 2009

33

Easter weekend last year, after filling up the Jeep with gas, Jon returned to the driver’s seat all freaked out because it had cost exactly thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents to fill the tank, and “that’s how old Jesus was when he died”. Easter weekend, $33.33. Crept him right out. I laughed for an hour, then forgot all about it until yesterday morning when he woke up and exclaimed, “I’m as old as Jesus!”. I considered gifting him a white robe and some sandals in honor of this birthday milestone, but ultimately decided against it (though Jon tells a hilarious story of a new convert attending a Halloween institute dance dressed up as Jesus. I wish I'd been there!). Instead, I got him the usual – a DVD, a sixer of his favorite non-alcoholic beer-flavored beverage, blah blah blah. Borrrring. Worst wife ever.

When I asked him what he was going to spend his birthday money on, he told me he was buying us both Keen sandals in preparation for moving to the Caribbean. TOO BAD, though, because we already bought them last week, NOT for his birthday, and there is NO WAY I'm allowing him to pass that off as his gift to himself. He’s always trying to do that – spend his birthday money on gas, groceries, etc. My mom has taken to getting him ONLY gift cards so he doesn’t have that option, but whenever she enlists me to figure out where he wants his card from, he always drags his feet for so long that I want to call her back and say, “ANTHROPOLOGIE. He wants a gift card to ANTHROPOLOGIE.”

Yes. We bought Keens, so I guess it’s official now. We ARE moving to an island. Jon’s been trying to get me to buy some for years now, but I never had any use for them. Let’s be honest, it’s not like I’m apt to up and hike the Narrows at any given moment, and before now that was really the only reason I could foresee having a use for high-tech hybrid waterproof shoes.






We got them in Phoenix last weekend. Then Penny contracted some form of stomach virus or something on Easter Sunday at my aunt and uncle's house, and it was not pleasant. Jon had to correct me twice when I misidentified the substance she was sharing her crate with. And that's all I want to say about it, because a delicious-looking lemon cake just came out of the oven, and I plan on eating at least two large slices of it immediately. Yes, it's a belated birthday cake, and I don't want to hear about it.


Happy Weekend!

Friday, April 10, 2009

So............you like.....stuff?

I’ll tell you one thing I’m not looking forward to in preparation of this move – I’m not looking forward to the inevitable battle over Jon’s old things. If it were just a matter of de-junking, I would have eagerly started a month ago. But it’s not that easy. Throw Jon into the mix and the next thing you know, he’s threatening to cut off his right arm in exchange for that Hooter’s shot glass. It’s a mentality that, try as I might, I just can’t comprehend. Every inanimate object in the world that I have a sentimental attachment to fits into one medium-sized Tupperware container that sits on the top shelf in our closet. Every object that JON has a sentimental attachment to fills up the rest of our apartment, his parents’ basement, and MY parents’ basement. For those keeping track, that means his stuff spans two countries. Soon to be three.

And I’m not just talking about childhood keepsakes and souvenirs from his travels. I’m talking about entirely useless things that I have never known a human being to be attached to. For example. When we lived in Rexburg, he took to the notion that he had to have documentation of every single purchase he’s ever made, no matter how small. Next thing I know we’re drowning in receipts. They. Were. EVERYWHERE. Each time we grabbed a quick lunch at Wendy’s, the evidence was left to float around our apartment until he rounded it up into one of the receipt boxes he stored under the couch. Luckily he seems to have outgrown that particular phase. I’ll never forget the first time a convenience store clerk asked if we needed proof of purchase and JON TURNED IT DOWN. I fell down on the floor and had a fit of joy. Crying and laughing all at the same time. The clerk was all, “wtf?”.

So we’ve made some progress in the past few years. He actually got rid of a ninety year old Stussy T-shirt (though not before trimming off the sleeves and parading around the apartment in it) and a couple of pairs of jeans that had holes in certain crotchrial regions, pertaining to the crotch. So that’s encouraging. But I know that the second I suggest we get rid of this:



Or this:




I may not be met with enthusiasm.

We’re working on it.

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Jon’s reaction to this post [direct quote, received via email]:


“My ‘sentimental stuff’ fits into 2 hockey bags. My ‘useful garbage’ fills stadiums, and that is a scientific fact.”

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Texting, Episode IV

My cell phone inbox is full again! Seems to be an ongoing battle. Unfortunately, this time around there wasn’t TONS of fodder, but that’s not exactly my fault now is it?

Prior episodes and further explanation can be found here, here, and here.

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“Secretly liked the name Olive until I watched the FLDS Texas compound episode of Oprah and one of the girls was named Olive. Ruined it.”

“It was fun and we were all wearing sports bras.”

“I just realized that Oprah’s eyes are about a half-inch too far apart.”

“Just saw a guy walking around with a cat on his head.”

[during Obama’s first address to the nation]: “Maaan, we’re missing Fringe. Who talks for an HOUR? What is this? Conference?”

“I was in a public bathroom today and a lady was going pee next to me and it was LITERALLY like a fire hose.”

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Two Oprah references, that’s a first. Anyone else have some good ones? No? Just kidding. I’d also like to publicly express my disgust at Twitter for absorbing my most recent updates. I could only remember one of them, which I recreated, but now the timestamps are all screwed up and it bugs me more than it should. I don’t want to talk about it.

We found out yesterday that Jon got accepted to our (okay, my) top pick for med school – huzzah!

That’s all for now.

Monday, April 06, 2009

this blog is about to get even awesomer

So, we’re moving to the Caribbean! It’s for sure for sure. Jon got into med school (I know! You didn’t even know he was applying! We’re tricky!) for the fall semester. Where, we’re not absolutely certain. So far he’s been accepted to three, with more sure to follow in the next week or two. He's going to be an MD when all is said and done, and we're living in the Caribbean for 20 months starting in September. He does his basic coursework there (classroom stuff) then he finishes up in the States. Or Canada, if we so choose.

We didn’t tell a soul we were even thinking about it. Not even parents. It was sort of a shock for my poor mom (“Jon’s going to med school. In the Caribbean. And he already got in. Will you take our dog for a while?”). Sort of a lot to spring on a mother all at once. Luckily, everyone is really supportive, and yes, my parents are happy to take Penny. Though I still feel torn up about it. But between pet import laws, the cost of shipping, etc etc (it’s a long story that may or may not have involved me crying for two days after reading about dogs being euthanized in Caribbean airports), we decided it just won’t be possible to take her with us. My parents have two other dogs and a large acreage and she’ll be happy as a clam there running around and eating horse poo to her little heart's content, so I’m getting more and more used to the idea. She’ll probably hate me when I try to take her away. I’m imagining me dragging her to the car and her nails slicing the asphalt of my parents’ driveway.

Anyway, this is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time, and when Jon lost his job it was that final push we needed. We’ve been researching nonstop and feel confident in our decision. We’ll be leaving Tucson sometime in July to spend a few weeks in Utah, Idaho, and Alberta, and New York (seeing the new baby!) before we take off for good. The amount of stuff we have to get done between now and then is giving me permanent angina. Please come visit us when we're there. Srsly. Open invitation.


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PS- Completely unrelated: today was a big day for my little blog! Aside from this announcement, my brother-in-law Kyle caused some buzz over the Rexburg names list (below) when he posted the link to his twitter AND Facebook accounts…exposing it to about 1,000 people combined. Then these guys picked up on it, too. See my twitter feed for more info.