Back in the Day (which was a Wednesday if you didn’t know)

(Reminiscing) I remember when I could drink and drink and drink and reach that perfect point of pure euphoria-with no repercussions.

Well, times, they-are-a-changing.

I went to a hockey game this week, which involved your typical pre-game tail gate. The food was sizzling and the beer was flowing. Life was good. I had consumed 2 beers prior to entry into the rink, where I went on to purchase another cold one. I was feeling great, screaming my heart out (which I don’t get to do as much as I would like), chatting, laughing, blah, blah blah. At this point, my beer count was only 3, and since I wasn’t the DD, and the game was going into over-time, like most, I got up and purchased another beer. Now I am not a *small* person. Three beers shouldn’t put someone like me “over the edge.” I had trained myself in the UK to be able to drink at least 4-5 of the Queen’s pints, which for me, was completely respectable. However, once I took a sip of #4, my body went into a slight convulsion. I quickly pawned the beer off to some other, much willing recipient and left it at that. My team won the game (whoo hoo!), and after some more congregating we were on our way home. That turned out to be the longest car ride of my life as my body slowly started to destroy itself from the inside out (well, that is what it felt like at any rate). I did manage to make it home, but quickly set up camp in the bathroom were I sweated out my convulsions and the emptying out of my stomach.

More than anything, I am upset that my body can no longer tolerate what I once so enjoyed. I did have an incident back in college, where I can honestly say I drank way too much, as I was left incapacitated (and by incapacitated, I mean unconcious) for over 48 h after. I have never been the same since, but I am sorry body, that was years ago. Get over it.

The sad part is as well, that I FEEL hung over. I shouldn’t have the pain without the glory of the drunkenness that precedes it. Stupid body.

Food for Thought

I was recently informed that if you google the words, "North Carolina, frosty, and sperm," you will get my blog.

I thought that was an interesting piece of information about the wide-array of diversity within this blog. Hell, I think they were all even within one post.

At any rate...

A Christmas Story (Part II)

The month of December seemed to move by pretty quickly, and before I knew it, it was time to fly back and see the family. I’ve been spoiled in this regard, because I have never lived further than a 2 h drive from “home.” Well, except the one year I was in the U.K., but I digress… There was never much preparation involved, throw clothes in bag, and leave. Now, I must plan months in advance to obtain a reasonable airfare, coordinate the drive to and from the airport etc., and most importantly budget the money. I had gone home for Thanksgiving, and that was pretty uneventful so I became brave and decided tried a different airport an add in a layover to get an *extra* cheap flight. Everything seemed like it would work out just fine. I was leaving rather early for Christmas, thereby missing the usual holiday rush. The other airport added another 1 h to the my drive but that was fine, I was saving $100.

It was madness up until the day of my departure. I was rushing to get critical experiments accomplished, which honestly, any experiment I rush to get done never works. It is a universal rule, and I have yet to learn my lesson. A friend from grad school was also visiting the day before I left. I haven’t seen her in a couple months and there was so much to talk about in so little time. Then the next thing I know it was off to the airport at 8 am the following day. I am happy to say I didn’t get lost, but it was further away then I initially anticipated and it was a very small airport. Good at that second b/c there were not long lines, and it was a breeze to get through check-in and security.

Now I neglected to inform you that when I tried to check in online the airline I booked my ticket with, I’ll call it airline A, would not allow me to check-in. Instead, I was redirected to another airline’s website (airline B) where I figured out that my first flight had been booked by airline A for airline B’s flight. OK.

I’m sitting at the appropriate terminal waiting to take off, when they announce the flight is delayed. I don’t know what traveler isn’t used to such an annoyance, therefore I wasn’t really concerned. I expected to miss my connecting flight, but was confident that the airline would work something out for me. Much to my chagrin, I find that airline B was unable to put me on another flight with them b/c I ordered my tickets via airline A, and they couldn’t book me an airline A flight as my connecting flight was indeed an airline A flight. Confused yet? Their advice: my best course of action was to find an airline A attendant and beg for help. Being at a super tiny airport (although they claim it is an international airport…I think maybe one flight leaves for an international destination) there were no airline A attendants to be found. I could go back through security and try at the check-in kiosks, but then I would miss the already delayed initial flight. I even tried calling airline A (I was on hold for 30 min) only to find out they could not help me either. I “yelled” (I’ve only actually yelled at someone twice in my life) at them for tricking me into flying on another airline, and if they could mix and match passengers why couldn’t they do the same for me now??? Phone guy: “Well miss, next time check your itinerary for this circumstance before you book your ticket.” Me: “Bite me.” No, no I didn’t say that but I wanted to. I have a PhD, I feel confident enough to say that I CAN read, and it didn’t say I was taking another airline until I tried to check-in online (24 h before departure AFTER the ticket was paid for). What makes the situation even more annoying is that another couple booked the same flight as myself from airline B and was told their flight was really an airline A flight so they were in the same boat as I was, just in reverse. Now, does that make any sense??

To make a long story short, after running around Cincinnati airport for over an hour, I did get my flight situation sorted out. After finally doing so, I asked the attendant, “What will happen to my luggage,” his response, “hahahahahahahahah.” I started to cry internally. To all those reprimanding me for checking bags, my response to you is I HAD TO. I did eventually receive my bags 2 days later, and left on the front steps of my mother’s home somewhere between the hours of 12-1 AM. That is another story in and of itself…

What I’ve learned from this experience:
1. Airlines are the devil.
2. Spend the extra money and take a direct flight from a *real* airport
3. Count your blessings, I complain, but my flight could have plummeted and crashed into a ball of flames/toxic fumes. I arrived, late but alive, and stuff is just stuff. Right? (;

After all this bad spiritedness (I don’t think this is a word but I will use it anyways) on my part, once I arrived at home I had a great time. It was probably the best Christmas I have had in recent memory. Lots of instrument playing, carol singing (my uncle got a karaoke machine and we went to town with it!), alcohol and family. Who could ask for anything more? It was the perfect prelude to the start of the New Year.

A Christmas Story (Part I)

I haven’t posted as frequently as I envisioned in my head. I have no excuses. Now, I am used to being *very* busy, but I had always managed to fit everything in, plus. Currently I cannot say that I am so preoccupied with work, social things, etc that I have no time to post. I am just lazy. I don’t know if it’s b/c of everything that’s happened in the last 6 months that has completely stripped me of doing anything then just minimally functioning or that I no longer have an ounce of motivation (probably a combination of both I imagine). I manage to find a way to utilize all my new “free” time by doing absolutely nothing. It’s quite easy actually. Anyways, that kind of set the tone for the holiday season. Summing up, I was just bah humbug.

Usually by Dec 1st, I have orchestrated a Christmas cookie party, festively decorated the home, blasted the holiday tunes, and sent out the Christmas cards way in advance of any US postal service backlog. This year however, to no surprise to those who actually read the first paragraph, I did nothing. It didn’t help that we were getting 70 degree weather here in the Carolinas, so to someone used to 3 ft of cold powdery stuff…wearing tank tops, flip flops, and basking in the sun outside didn’t have me anxiously waiting for Santa Clause (not that I am at all complaining about the glorious weather!) To all my faithful friends who didn’t receive lovely glittery cards, I am sorry but I just couldn’t get myself to do it (nothing personal and I hope you don’t remove me from your own lists next year). I did manage to set up a tiny tree, but that took me about three weeks to fully undertake. I also participated in the departmental holiday dessert bake-off which is the closest thing to Christmasy that I can claim. This leads me into my story of sweet disaster…

In lieu of the usual Christmas cookie party, I participated in the lab dessert contest for our departmental holiday party. Now this is a big deal, as the boss made sure to point out this fact during lab meeting. My self, along with two other women in the lab decided to take on this lofty task of creating the best holiday dessert the department has ever seen. After tossing around a number of ideas, we decided on reconstructing a three-dimensional version of Frosty the Snowman. Most sane people would realize this is next to impossible, but alas, we are scientists, nothing is impossible. Now, I have to let you know that we were doing this all free-hand, no molds, no recipes, just our pure creative geniuses.

We put Frosty together, frosted and decorated him. He ends up being about 1.5-2 feet high, we inserted a 50 mL pipette down the center for structural stability. His midsection was a little heavy and leaned slightly forward, as if he was on roids with a barrel chest, but nothing too concerning (at least at the time). Everything was going exceedingly well; a little too well. The night was still “young” in fact. Since we all take the bus to work in the morning, we decided to drive Frosty to the lab where he would be stored until he needed to be transported yet again to the Christmas party. We all had our reservations about the moving him part, but we had no choice. We took many pictures beforehand to document how awesome he looked in case something happened.



Frosty (before)

The rest is a tragic story. Frosty didn’t survive the car trip to the lab. He had severe structural damage that even 5 tubs of Betty Crocker’s frosting could not fix at 12 am in the morning. I was so disappointed. We, with the advice of the others in the lab the next day, spun him off as Frosty the half-melted snowman due to the unseasonably warm weather at the time. We fashioned a paper sun and positioned it next to our leaning tower of Frosty right next to his “before” picture. Although, not as aesthetically pleasing as he once was, Frosty sure was delicious. We even tied with another lab for “most creative” dessert, but honestly, the fertilization lab we tied with always does the egg and sperm theme, so to tie with them for most creative was a let-down.



Frosty, the half-melted snowman

I guess if you label something as Part I, you should probably have a Part II… I promise the rest of the Christmas series is not a modern rendition of "A Christmas Carol."

Fire, fire everywhere...the update

This is a picture my friends took (one of the couples that lives in the complex).

Turns out this incident was the seventh in a string of apartment complex fires in my area since Sunday! Luckily in this case, no one was injured but 25 people and 1 infant were displaced.

If you want to see some pics (as I was unable to email them from my phone) go here. Picture #2 was from my view.

Stop, drop, and roll...

Fire sucks. Especially when you live in the south where it hasn’t rained in months, therefore making everything matchstick potential. Apartment fires have been the new “trend” in the little town I live in lately. Just this summer there have been three separate instances of apartments going up in flames, destroying belongings, and in some cases individuals’ lives. Hearing these reports sends a chill up my spine, b/c I can imagine how devastating something like this can be. However, the events that transpired tonight brought that feeling to a whole new level.

I had come home in the evening around 6 pm, I started to make dinner and the next thing I know I hear running on the steps outside my apartment and a subsequent knock on the door, “GET OUT NOW THERE IS A FIRE!” Mentally, I think, “yeah, right,” until my heart starts skipping beats and my blood pressure rises to an unhealthy level (snaps to the autonomic nervous system on this one). I quickly grab what I feel is essential to my life without possessions, namely my wallet, car keys, and passport. Why passport? I don’t know. Perhaps my subconscious thought it necessary that I not only leave my apartment but also the country to be as far away from this damn fire as possible? I run out of the building, noticing that my neighbor was in such a panic that she left her door open. It is at this moment that the realization hits me that *my* building is not the one on fire, but rather the neighboring complexes building that are about 100-200 ft away from mine. It is literally right across the parking lot. There was no way to miss it. I have never seen anything like this in my life and I was scared! The sky was filled with smoke, the whole building was consumed in flames, and I was being covered in ash by the minute. Now I have a number of friends that live in this complex, and at first I seriously thought it was one of their buildings that was on fire. After about a dozen panicked phone-calls to them and just about anyone who would be in contact with them, I finally found out that 1. It was building J that was on fire (they live in building K) and 2. They were OK, but not before I totally freaked out.

By my calculations, it only took the fire less then a half hour to completely consume the building. I entered my apartment a little after 6 pm, and I heard the sirens about 20 min after that. Whatever started that fire was major, and since these building were constructed before the NC alterations in fire-code they do not have sprinkler systems and still contain functioning wood-burning fire places. Yes, feel free to gasp now. They are the ideal tinder for a fire.

It is one thing to hear about such devastating events, but it is totally another to witness it first-hand and have friends who may be directly affected by it. Which brings me to another point, local news here is awful. In OH, if something happened to a person who was related to someone in our city, it would immediately be posted on a ticker and scrolling on every major channel. Here…nothing. So I still don’t know the fires source or if anyone was hurt…I certainly hope not.

Well, thanks for listening to me. I am starting to remember to breath now, so I think I am calming down a bit. In the meantime, I have mentally planned my own fire escape routes, namely jumping out the windows.

Get your freak on

So yesterday, as many of you are well aware, was Halloween. Halloween, for whatever reason, is a huge "holiday" here. Upwards of 30-60,000 (I don't know how they accurately track the numbers) people congregate in this little town, on one main street and parade up and down. To the extent that probably 90% of the police force are walking the beat, closing down streets, and confiscating potentially harmful objects (e.g. plastic/real knives, scythes, battle-axes etc) from the intoxicated and thug-type. One would think that the frightening part of the whole night would be the undergrads and fraternity types in their scantily clad outfits (yes, and there were many!), and outrageous costumes milling about in an orgy of drunken debauchery. In fact, the scary part of the whole event was the people NOT in costume, lining the edges of the streets gawking at the costumed and taking their photographs. Now for full disclosure, there are some who watch for pure jest and enjoy the festivities of the evening without trying to touch, or visually rape you. The latter are those that made my skin tingle. It was reminiscent of those individuals who produce "girls gone wild" and convince the drunken to do outrageous things and then film and broadcast their stupidity for profit. Well, maybe not exactly, but you get the picture.

I, of course, participated in the full glory that was Halloween, along with my fellow compatriots, dressing up and crashing undergrad keggers. All in all, good fun. I even had two somewhat non-creepy people ask me to pose for a photo. By far the best part, was being in the entourage of a friend who dressed up as Frosty the snowman sans button nose (he used a carrot instead). Mr. Frosty was *the* local celebrity. Girls and guys alike clamored to take their picture with him. Let's just say Frosty was in pure snow heaven, and his wife thought it was hilarious. He even had the best cat-calls, such as "it's too hot for you mother f*ker," "it's frosty the gosh-darn snowman" (but didn't use gosh) and "it's Jesus as a snowman." The last one is my personal favorite.

The rest will be explained via photographs as this is the best medium with which to express the flavor of the evening.

Welcome to blue heaven.

We can totally kick your ass.

Frosty. Note to self, long orange nose makes it hard to consume alcoholic beverages.


How true it is. (You don't have to have a good time to drink)

God, I loved this game.

Britney post-break down with Samuel L. Amazingly, Britney in this photo is a man, his celebrity resemblance was uncanny.

The masses *before* midnight.


My other all-time favorite part of the evening was when birth-control (blurred above) got "attacked" by the mass of sperm-dressed fraternity boys...complete with accompanying egg. I give them credit for the original, positive, public-health promoting costumes. We can send a message.

Hope your "holiday" was just as spooktacular.