Sick As A Dog

Well, not quite. But I am sick with some kind of cold. I think it's the first time in about a year. I remember having the same kind of thing last year when it was cold out and purchasing some elderberry syrup and zinc lozengers, but I'm not sure when that was. Whatever though. What I have is due to my coworkers. Alice had been sick for over a week and had even used some of her sick time she felt so terrible. Then Elisha, the girl I'm orienting to the unit, started saying her throat was bothering her. Nirmala and Paula complained of feeling tired and worn down... and the next thing I knew, I had the sniffles and a raw throat, and now I can't breathe too well and I keep sneezing and my nose is full of terrible mucus that I continue to inadvertently hurl all over the front of my shirt time and time again.

But it's really not too bad. Especially considering the fact that my mom had to be hospitalized last week. I don't really know what happened, but over the course of a day and a half her right eyelid started to swell until that eye was almost swollen shut. And she'd been complaining about skin and ear pain and swollen glands for a couple of days. Her forehead was red and swollen and her chin was beginning to turn red as well. I told her to go to the emergency room and she ended up getting admitted to my floor Tuesday afternoon. Then all the swelling on the right started to go down a bit, but it all began on the left. Sigh. A couple of CT scans, some hemodialysis, one more day and a lot of consultations later and she was discharged to home, but really nobody had any answers except that it was probably some kind of allergic reaction and that she should go for allergy testing as soon as possible.

Sigh again. The swelling is coming down slowly, but we can't figure out what she'd eaten or been exposed to that could have caused a reaction like that. So today she called for an appointment with an allergist for a follow up but they were booked for a month so I guess we'll all have to wait to see what's going on with her. In the meantime I'm crossing my fingers that she won't have to make another trip to the emergency room anytime soon.

Out Of Africa...Or Indonesia

After three long months, Laura Robertson has emerged from the jungle and has returned safely to Yale! Sorry farmers, jungle dwellers, researchers and primates, but this girl is mine and I'm really glad to have her back!!

A few Monday afternoons ago I went to her apartment (which I must say is absolutely GORGEOUS!) to hang out and we ended up going out to dinner and for bubble tea, but the tea house was closed. So we walked back and forth from her apartment to the store about a thousand times until I figured out that we'd gotten all the ingredients for me to bake a chocolate cake, but by the time we were done doing that it was after 10pm and I didn't feel like baking anymore, so we hung out while I made peanut butter almost-buttercream frosting for the next day, chatted and caught up, and then went to sleep.

Then in the morning I started work in the kitchen. I absolutely love to cook and bake, and I love doing it even more when it's for Laura. I don't know... something about her being pretty much a vegetarian and loving everything I prepare for her, and I'm so mommyesque anyhow-- makes it all feel so good. Anyhow, so I prepared a huge stock pot of hearty chunky vegetable noodle soup with lots of ingredients from my garden that cooked all day long so that by evening time it was completely infused with rich flavor. Mmmmmm. Then, in the afternoon while she was at class, I baked that double layer chocolate cake, layered it with frosting in the middle, covered the entire outside with the peanutty-creamy yum I'd made the night before and stenciled on a really pretty heart pattern with cinnamon. It came out great and when me and Laura, and her roommates Abby and Leila sat down to eat everything, discovered that it all tasted great, too. I'm such a homemaker!

After dinner had been cleaned up and I collected my things I had to go home since I was working the next morning and had a 70 mile drive ahead of me, but the feelings of having just had a really great visit lasted a long time. It was so good to see my friend... I can't wait to see her again.

RA Reunion

On Friday, August 11th (I know-- this post is so late!) a bunch of us RAs from back in the day at Bing met down at South Street Seaport in New York. The guest list included John Bonnes (the organizer), Jen Kwok, Laryssa Rupert, Jeff Glosick, Geovanny Suarez and his girlfriend Shaddya (though I'm not quite sure how to spell it), and of course yours truly.

We ended up just standing around for awhile and catching up-- everyone's doing great in school and in work, and it was so much fun hearing about all of the goings-on in people's lives. Of course we were sad that the rest of the crew couldn't make it, but I'm sure there'll be another reunion soon and hopefully more people will be able to come to that.

After awhile, we all walked around the seaport visiting and trying to figure out where to have dinner. Laryssa saw someone she knew from physical therapy school and I saw someone I knew from sleepaway summer camp in 1994, which was weird. When we finally found a restaurant and were seated, we toasted to lasting friendships and how well everyone was doing with pina coladas, daiquiris and pints of beer (mmm). Before I knew it though, I had to get going since I was working the weekend. We all parted with hugs and exchanges of well-wishes, and I was off as Jen walked me to the subway stop.

I'm so glad we were able to get together-- it was so much fun and just so wonderful to be hanging out with the old crowd one more time. I can't wait to do it again!

New Format

For now I've added an official title bar to the production of my posts I guess just for ease of archiving. So perhaps now instead of the title plus the first couple of words for each post being located on the right-hand "previous posts" sidebar of this blog, only the title will show up.

Shrug.

I'll give it a whirl and see how I like it. Feel free to make comments, Noodle fans.

Happy Belated Birthday Rob!

Rob! You're 23*!! I know this is late, but you probably don't read this blog anyway so who cares. Laura Bonilla, if you also even read this blog, here's a recent photo of your beloved. Happy birthday, brother!


*when you're younger brother is older than your significant other it reaches that kind of disgusting zone, but I'm just going to ignore that for now by rationalizing that Rob is really only my *step* brother.

**also be aware that my youngest step brother, Scott, has not been arrested lately (despite having made the news over and over again in the past few months), so I'm not going to jinx anything by talking much about him. But I love you too, Scott!

Four Weeks Is Too Many Weeks

I just got back from a six day trip upstate and it was splendid! It all started with a drive to Bing on Thursday the 31st. When I got up there it was already pretty late... like 10pm or something. But Robin wanted to hang out, and Brian wanted to get together too, so the two of us met him at the Sports Bar and watched while he played beer pong, which was boring as hell. I felt like the oldest woman alive since the three of us, aside from the bartenders, were at least a thousand years older than everyone else there and everyone around us was binge drinking their butts off. Sigh. So after Robin and I got bored and when Brian decided to stay on for another round, the two of us left for the diner where we caught up over coffee, which was really nice. We got back to her place, which turned out to be a converted funeral home (scary) and went to bed around 2:30am. Then in the morning Robin and I met up with Brian once more for a late breakfast before I left town and headed up to Auburn.

Auburn was a lot of fun-- Matt and I hung out with his friends a lot and even ended up driving down to Rochester one night with Hiro Naro and his girlfriend Jen to go out with Ryan Quinn. Matt stopped drinking early so he could drive, and Jen didn't drink at all, but I tried to keep up with the other guys which ended up proving to be detrimental to Ryan's bathroom. But Matt was a sweetie and held my hair back and everything-- he's so good to me! I couldn't believe I'd gotten that trashed though... it'd been a long time since I'd drank like that, and as everyone knows, I'm really quite a lightweight with alcohol. So I guess I had too much. And I was kind of embarrassed and I ended up being weird and trying to convince Ryan not to have any naked girls at Matt's bachelor party (who even said we were getting engaged?)... but who cares. It was fun!

Anyway, I didn't really drink the rest of the trip up there, but I did have a blast spending time with Christian Thygusen and RJ, Hiro, Jen and Ryan, and even spending some time with Matt's parents and aunt and uncle. Oh, and I hung out with Matt a little bit, too. We unfortunately did not get to see Jon Arliss or Bob Rutan and I still have not met Tim Seneca, but I'm sure I will at some point.

I was having such a good time up there, but since I had to work on Wednesday, Tuesday was a bummer. Matt and I stayed in bed all day, which was lovely, and then left at the very last minute to say goodbye to his family before I had to head back downstate. While I was still inside his house with his mom, Matt told me he'd be in his dad's garden picking some corn and garlic and stuff for me to bring home, and when I got outside and went to get into the car I saw he had picked a very happy and huge sunflower for me and had propped it in my passenger seat so I could drive home next to something bright. He's so cute!

When I finally left, I stopped off again back in Bing for dinner with Robin, Brian, Annifer and Robin's roommate Matt. The food was good, the company was great, but the time finally came for me to shove off. Susan kept me company for hours and hours on the phone during the drive home, which was good since I didn't arrive at my neighborhood until almost midnight Tuesday night and by then I was exhausted and was dreading the day at work coming up in seven hours.

So that was it. The trip was great, but it had been a month since I last got to see my manfriend and it'll most likely be another month before I can see him again. The next trip will be to Boston and this time we'll be joined by his guyfriends since there'll be a concert involved with that trip. And a hotel. Yay! It's going to be fun and I can't wait!!

*PS- I was trashed at that time that these photos were taken, which is why they are all crooked and blurry... heh.

Back To Working It

Finally, after two months of workout celibacy, I broke my dry spell and made it back to the gym. It was very brave of me, I think. I'm fatter than I was two months ago after the terrible toilet incident that injured my back. And though I'm still not completely healed (my back still hurts quite a bit at times and I've got a renewed pain down my right leg that had been absent for quite awhile), I was really happy to be there. My first return workout was a simple one consisting only of 45 minutes on the elliptical machine followed by some stretches followed by 20 minutes on the stair machine followed by some more stretching. And then I went home and negated everything I'd just done by eating a giant bowl of edamame. But that's besides the point. The real victory was that I went. And I'm preparing to go back again tomorrow night after work since I won't be able to go until Monday at the earliest due to the gym's hours and my having to work the weekend.

But whatever. I'm just really glad I'm getting back into it. What a relief!