SNOW

It's snowing in Houston !! SNOW SNOW SNOW !!!! Merry Christmas everybody :)

New People

So, I've spent the last two days being the social butterfly. Tuesday night I met friends for a tex-mex fiesta since two of them had been out of the state. Nebraska and Oregon do not lend themselves well to mexican food. It was also great to get to meet my friend's boyfriend, who I've chatted with many times online but never met in person. He's actually really nice and fairly quiet, which is exactly the opposite of his on-screen persona. Amused me entirely.

Last night I met even more friends for sushi at Blue Fish. I LOVE Blue Fish. Best sushi place in town ! Mmmmm mango rolls.

Getting to know Georgina better was great. She's a very interesting person. Quiet, thoughtful, a picky eater (who knew), and a lot of fun to be around

My brother gets home today and I'm very excited about that. I haven't seen him since July. It'll be very interesting since this is the first time I've seen him with his wife since they seperated in March. they're trying to work things out... so the dynamic will be strange. Hopefully there won't be any weird vibes going on. we'll just have to wait and see.

I leave for Dallas for Christmas with Greg's family on Sunday. Greg and I get to be together for a whole week and I'm very happy to get to spend some quality time with him. I'm so used to only seeing him for three days at a time. It'll be really really nice.

will someone please send the cleaning fairy to my house ??

it's was so beautiful out I had to go for a run... nice, slightly cool and sunny. GORGEOUS !! Even Tiger had a great time.

Catch up blog

well, I guess I should fill in the details of my weekend.

Friday night I wandered to the south side of town (pearland) to have dinner with my friend Theresa and her husband. Two other friends joined us for dinner, which was great since every one of us had something to celebrate. T's husand just started a new job that week, Pete started a new job that week and got final sigs on his masters thesis, T had just finished her first semester at Baylor Med, and the "other" Christine had just finished her third semester at UT-Houston Med. I got to celebrate being done with boards, finishing my second rotation, and being back with friends in Houston. We drank, laughed, learned a new dice game and had a great time.

Saturday I ended up attending two holiday parties. The first one was with the flyball team and we had lots of fun. Took VERY cute doggie pics of flyball doggies jumping through christmas wreath hoops.

The second party was at the home of a friend from high school. It was GREAT to see him and catch up. I didn't get to spend too much time socializing with him since he was the main host.. but I did catch up a little bit with his parents to see if they had news of our other high school friends.

So, for the high school friends who read this (Hi Hampton and Suz) here's the recap:

Tim -- teaching honors US History at Kempner High School , loving it , still living in the Galleria area and throwing lavish parties (would we expect less)

Julie Sheriff (now married -- now clue of her last name) is teaching somewhere in houston, she clearly did not want to be talking to me.. but her husband was nice.

Mike Pipkin -- Naval Chaplain currently serving in Iraq. i'm trying to locate an email address for him so I can write him overseas. His wife is in the DC area working with the CIA

Katherine Tryon -- Married and newly pregnant (due in July some time)

Elizabeth Angle -- married last summer had 5 month old in tow at the party. SO CUTE !

Those are all the names I was able to get out of the Angles. Ill see if I can get more out of Tim through email later on.

I left the party rather early since I was there alone and almost the entire party was married couples (or civil union type couples). I did have a great time.. it was just awkward since the only person I knew was the host. When I had my fill of socializing I vacated.

The most interesting part of the evening was watching Tim. He really hasn't changed AT ALL ... and his grandparents were there at the party. Apparently grandparents were unaware of Tim's lifestyle and he was rather nervous about the whole situation. I'm sure it was rather obvious though since half of the party was gay men. But, it was fun watching him get tipsy out of nervousness anyway. We had a good laugh and will catch up again in February for his annual pancake breakfast.

Used to Chaos

I'm so used to studying and seeing patients .. I'm not sure what to do with myself when i don't have 50 things to do at once. I've finished all my Christmas shopping (except for G's sister), finished the book I was reading, had brunch with my parents, gone to all my holiday parties, and been a bum. Now what ???

Cross Stitch Progress on Mirabilia's "Christmas Flourishes" 12/16/04.  

relaxing can be fun.. really

Trivia last night was really fun. I met Pete and his new lab-mate Carlos at a bar called kelvin arms. every tuesday at 730 they do "impossibly hard trivia". For example: "East Pakistan is now what country? ". No clue. Although I know now cuz they went through the answers. Someone got bonus point for humor by putting "East Pakistan is now known as the Dell Customer Service Line". We managed with the three of us to get 12 of the 40 questions. yes, we truly suck. A few of them were a little old for us so the older patrons faired better than we did. once greg gets in town we'll have to see how we do with him in accompanyment.

Today Mom and I headed to Berry Hill for fish tacos. Mom had never been there and I had a hankering for fish tacos. The Berry Hill they're building by our house won't open for another month so we headed down to the galleria. (which my mother thought was so far away.. I laughed). She forgets that I drive further than that every single day to go to school.

I did even more cross-stitch today. I'm making progress. I've gotten beyond my section of metallic thread so that makes me happy. Once I finally got back to real DMC floss it seemed so easy in comparison.

Tiger and I went running today which is always fun.

The big news for the day is that my brother in his infinite wisdom has decided to apply for a position with the CIA. Say WHAT!!?? I'm not sure what he'd be doing or if he's even qualified for a job there but I guess we'll just see what happens. I'm wondering what his wife thinks of this whole thing. I guess I can grill him more when I see him next week. He'll be here on the 23rd. I just don't get why he'd want to give up the gaming business he loves so much and is so lucritive. weird.

Off to read. I'm currently reading "Digital Fortress" by Dan Brown while I wait for my next shipment of books from Booksfree.com.

Metallic thread can bite me !

For the first time in probably two years I had the time to pick up my old cross-stitch project. this is the first xmas I haven't had finals in three years. It makes me happy. What DOESN'T make me happy are annoying metallic threads that are sewn into this project. Especially the Nordic Gold thread which freyed on me the first pull through the fabric. I think my weave count is too small for the thread (since I'm stitching on 22 count and it says the gold should only go to 18 count). But, they stitched the sample on 22 count... so I digress. Let's just say it was NOT a fun time. I kept having to rip out stitches that came out looking ghetto and redoing a bunch of it. Grrr.. maybe that's why i stopped where I did two years ago.

Tonight I'm heading to dinner with pete and his new lab. We eating and then heading to a local Rice Village bar that does a trivia night. I've never been but it's supposed to fun (and really hard). I'll probably come home buzzed and feeling really stupid. It's been known to happen.

Go figure.. Suzy and I are the same

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Tiger at flyball practice on Sunday 

Doggie Love

My dog is now attached at the hip to me. He's so cute. I can no longer be in my house without him leaning against me or without a plushy toy in my lap.

My second day back I took him running and he LOVED that. Yesterday, i took him to flyball and he loves that even more. It was really great to get to see everyone at flyball. I missed my friends.

I'm keeping my friend jamie's brother in my thoughts this week. Saturday he jumped a 6' fence in his backyard to rescue his cat from a cat fight. His knees locked up on him and he completely shattered both legs. He's having complications and was transfered to Hermann this morning. Jamie is understandably worried about him. She's had a very rough week. I wish there was more I could do.

I invited a bunch of people to a Rose Bowl party on January 1st. Everyone's responding "maybe". I HATE that wishy-washy crap !! So i'll buy food and then only like three people will show up or I'll buy food and everyone will show up and I'll run out of food. So annoying. At least people are responding, I guess.

Home Sweet Home

So, I'm back in Houston.

I took Part 2 boards all day Tuesday and half of Wednesday. I'm sure I passed it... it was just harder than everyone said it was. I even studied, unlike a lot of other people I talked to. I met a bunch of NOVA students at our lunch break on Tuesday. They were headed to the cheesecake factory across the street from the Office Depot Center where we took the exam, so they invited me to tag along. I was grateful, I hate eating alone. The only bad part about the lunch was everyone started comparing answers to questions. I HATE THAT !!!!! Once I take a test I'm through with it, don't want to know what I got wrong, and try very VERY hard not to look anything up. I learned my lesson the hard way in looking up answers after a final my first year in OD school worth 75% of my final grade. I spent two weeks stressing thinking I failed the class because of course the only answers you remember are the ones you didn't know. Which makes a weird kind of sense when you think about it.

After I finished my final section of the board on Wednesday I drove/raced back to Bradenton to pack up my apartment. I was 85 degrees and I was loading my car in jeans. I didn't want to sweat in December, really. It only took me an hour to pack and load so I was really shocked. I said goodbye to roomie's neurotic min-pins , locked up, and left keys with our neighbor. He's always home since he lost his job....it seems to only sit at home with a 12-pack since he got let go. But, I'm not going to get started on that.

Wednesday afternoon I drove as far as Tallahassee so I could put at least some kind of dent in my drive. I'm getting very good at driving insane distances. My poor 3 yr old car has 56k miles on it already. poor thing. Wednesday night in Tallahassee was the first good nights sleep I'd had in a LONG time because a) I wasn't sleeping on a crappy futon mattress and b) I wasn't stressing out about a huge exam I was taking the next morning. I passed out at 930pm and I NEVER do that. Partly, because I was watching the annoying Barbara Walters special and I really could care less what Paris Hilton has to say. I did manage to stay awake for Lost though (LOVE that show).

I spent all of Thursday driving to Houston so it was really uneventful. My dog was THRILLED to see me. He and Jackson danced around like crazy dogs when I pulled into the driveway. they also both slept on top of me all night. (joy) But, all in all... it felt great to be home.

Feel the Stress

I'm starting to get panicky about the board. I have to pack up and drive to Ft Lauderdale tomorrow afternoon to take it. This is my last real full day of studying. AHHHHH !! I feel like I know stuff.. I just always get psyched up before a huge test like this. Especially one that costs close to 700 dollars and effects my entire career. (FUN!)

I'm finishing my last round of laundry before I head back to Texas. I'll be doing a lot of traveling in the next week. but, in the end, I'm back in Houston with family and my dog (who I've missed terribly). I also get to get rid of roommate and her annoying little min-pin dogs. I like the roommate don't get me wrong... I'm just WAY too old for a roommate. Most of my friends are married for crying out loud.

I'll worry about the xmas shopping after boards. It's not like I have the money to buy anyone anything anyway.

Things I learned driving cross country with G

1. G is a damn good packer... who knew
2. It's amazing how much shit you can cram into a 14' UHAUL (even when you didn't think you had that much stuff)
3. Sleeping on the floor sux (I must be getting old)
4. Make sure the Jeep's 2 wheel and 4 wheel drives are FIRMLY in neutral before you start towing it on the tow dolly. the back wheels make a horrible dragging noise if the transfer casing is not firmly in neutral.
5. You cannot go in reverse with a tow dolly
6. LA sucks. Sucks. Sucks and Sucks some more. It took us THREE HOURS to get through LA (and went the "bypass" way at 1pm when it was supposed to be "easy")
7. You will not make it to Deming, NM in one day if you get stuck for three hours in LA.
8. Driving a 14' UHAUL with a Jeep in tow through high winds in west Texas is NOT fun !!
9. Exhausted and stressed out G is not a happy man to be around. (but I couldn't really blame him.. I wasn't exactly pleasant by 2am on the second day of the drive either)
10. Your knuckles turn very very white when you clutch the UHAUL steering wheel when 18 wheels pass you going 85 mph.
11. There is nothing in west texas
12. Cell phones do not like to take baths in coolers (they're sending G a new one)
13. IPODS do not like to takes baths in coolers either (but are still functional)
14. You will never be more tired than after days of loading, packing, and driving across country. I was in a coma as soon I got to a comfy bed in Dallas.