Sunday, May 27, 2007

Twiddling My Thumbs....

Ok, for real now...absolutely nothing is going on in my life. I realize it has been almost a week since I blogged last but I have hit a wall here in my 3 months off. I am ultra bored. Here is a typical day in the life of Jessie:

7:00 wake up
7:30 get out of bed
8-9:30 eat breakfast and drink cup after cup of coffee while watching the Today Show
9:30-11 work out
11-12 shower and watch Rachael Ray
12:00 eat lunch
1:00 - ??? watch endless hours of tv
10:00 go to sleep

My God, you probably fell asleep while reading my daily schedule. And to make matters worse, the HLM is leaving on Wednesday to go on vacay for a whole friggin week!! What the hizell am I supposed to do and why don't I have any hobbies??

Well, hopefully I will have some great dreams tonight and become inspired to hit you up with an awesome blog tomorrow. Otherwise, I am going to need someone to save me from myself. I mean, right now I am watching an episode of my favorite guilty pleasure show, The Girls Next Door, that I have already seen at least twice. Just damn.

UPDATE: June 1, 2007 8:52 AM

Cheers!!

This new signoff is brought to you by none other than the blogaholic Susanj.

Monday, May 21, 2007

My Life on the Wagon



Bad news everyone. This blog is about to get real boring real fast. Since I still have a month and a half left of the last vacation of the rest of my life, I decided it was time to get in shape. Yeah, yeah, I hit up the gym a few times a week already, but the reason I do this is solely so that I can continue my lush lifestyle without becoming a total fatass. I am definitely NOT in shape. So what I'm talking about now is serious shape. I even went out and hired myself a Nazi-style personal trainer named Sue Mi to kick my ass thrice weekly.


I mean, Sue Mi is no joke. We had our first meeting on Saturday before the Crawfish Festival. We spent an hour and a half just talking about what this experience is going to be like, and what I want to get out of it and blah blah blah....Most importantly, she told me that I have to keep a food journal and turn it in to her every time we train. Oh and I had to start today, the day of the Crawfish Festival. For those of you who don't know, a food journal is a book that you use to record everything that goes in your mouth every single day. I told her that I wasn't totally into that, but then she of course told me that this was not an option, I had to do it. Well, seeing as how she was going to be judging me three times weekly by this food journal, I decided to be really up front with her. I informed her that I had no problem eating healthily, but that we might run into a slight problem when it comes to the drinkie drinkie. So Sue Mi gave me an extremely detailed diagram of exactly how each page of the journal should look and told me that the beverage portion works by a hash mark system. For every 8 oz of beverages other than alcohol or coffee you drink, you give 1 hash mark. For alcohol and coffee, every 4 oz is a hash mark. Excuse me please, but when was the last time you drank 4 oz of beer? Let's just say that I got off to a bad start on Day 1 with a grand total of 2 hash marks by water and 18 by beer. Not surprisingly, Sue Mi was none to pleased with the food journal at our first training session today. And she was even less pleased that I had a dinner party last night and drank champagne and a few glasses of wine. So from here on out, I am on a strict 2 glass max diet. Now you understand why this blog is about to get really friggin boring.


So sadly, even with my 18 hash marks from the Crawfish Festival, nothing much to blog about. It was fun, but did not top last year what with Angela taking her top off at the neighborhood bar, being asked to leave the bar, Angela hiding her beer between her tig ole bitties, and then being trailed by a police car for the 3 blocks that it took us to walk back to my house. It's hard to beat that.
Last night I had a Bon Voyage Debi dinner party at my house which was attended by Team Anxiety (Debi, Blair, Kaki, and I) + the HLM. We prepared a Mediterranean feast and topped it off with a strawberries and cream ice cream cake from Marble Slab (pictured above) to send Debi off in style. Side note: The four of us are dubbed "Team Anxiety" because we got so anxious before every oral exam in medical school that we managed to stir our other group members into a state of sweaty frenzy and they all wanted to kill us. Anyways, Debi is the only one of us leaving C-town and moving up to the booming metropolis of Winston-Salem where she will complete her anesthesia residency at Wakeforest. After many tears were shed over how much we are going to miss Debi we decided to each tell our funniest memory of Debi from med school. I'll share my story so that you have a little sampling. One night when we were studying late up on the second floor of the library we decided it was time to take a dinner break because we were all starving. Debi said she had to go to the bathroom down on the first floor (which has a certain "meaning") and that she would meet us downstairs in a few minutes. So I waited about 10 minutes, walked downstairs, and didn't see Debi so I went into the bathroom and saw that she was still in the stall. I, in classic Jessie fashion, said "My God! What are you still doing in there??? Pinch it off already so we can go get something to eat!!" To my horror, I walked out of the bathroom and saw Debi sitting at a computer checking her email. Needless to say, we got the hell outta dodge. A great time was had by all and we are going to miss Debi very much, but not really because her new home has a bar and wet bar. Much love to Debi!!
Ciao Venezia!
Some BIZ-NASS: I have had many complaints from blog-fans that they have written comments but they don't post. I would totally think this is a bunch of b.s. and people pretending to comment, but it has actually happened to me too. So what you have to do is write your comment, then click "other'", type in your name, and hit publish. Any other order will not work. If you don't see your comment immediately then it did not post.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Doc the Cockblock


Just want to give a shout out to all the blog-fans who kept the blog alive by commenting TWICE as much as the goal of 16 comments. Whoa.

One of my friends was telling me the other day about how her dog is such a cockblock. First of all, just hearing that word made me laugh, and then threw me back to all those nights in college when your roommate or your suitemate or that pain in the ass friend ended up being a total cockblock whenever you were trying to get some play. I even dated a guy for 3 years in college whose nickname was "CB" which stood for "the cockblocker." Not a nickname anyone would strive for. Apparently, he had the uncanny ability to walk in a room at exactly the wrong minute and disrupt any would be play. Unfortunately, this particular person had many other less than ideal nicknames. Fortunately, CB does not read the blog. Anyways, my friend told me that her and her male friend were hanging out on the couch getting a little smooch on when her 70lb dog jumped up on the couch and started barking directly in the guy's face. The dog was clearly not happy with this man getting a little frisky with his mom. So they decided to move to the bedroom and shut the door. Well, this solved nothing as the dog stood outside the door and barked for the next hour or so. Nothing kills a romantical evening like a barking labrador retriever. The next day, my friend (who I'm sure you have figured out the identity of by now) had me over for dinner and told me "God, my dog is such a cockblock."

I am sure most of you know my angelic little pussycat Doc. Well maybe not so much of a little angel and more of a big fat bitch. He is an angel to me, but pretty much Satan in the flesh to everyone else. When I first got him from the shelter he was teeny tiny and looked like he was about to die at any minute. It appears that after a few weeks of spoon feeding him wet cat food, he just never stopped eating because he is enormous. I'm not talking just another fat cat. He is definitely the size of a medium sized dog and his belly drags the ground when he walks.

Anyways, Doc is also a total cockblock. He doesn't follow in the footsteps of the aforementioned dog and meow my male friends to death though. He actually tries to castrate them. His favorite room in the house by far is the bathroom. Anytime someones heads for the bathroom, he's headed that way too. For such an enormous cat, he is lightning quick when it comes to getting in the bathroom. My male friends say they don't even know he's in there until they start doing their business and then get attacked by claws coming at their manhood. I am not sure if it is the stream or the actual frank, but my cat tries to castrate all men in the bathroom. Men beware if you ever come to my house. Satan lurks in the bathroom.

All this to say, if you are a single person out there looking for some love, think twice before getting a pet. You may have inadvertently let a total cockblock into your house.

Monday, May 14, 2007

A Blog about the Blog

All right folks. I hate to be a nag, but we need to get something straight about the blog. You may think that I blog to have a record of my life or that I blog for my own mental health, or maybe even that I blog because I have nothing better to do. Well, if you think any of these things, you are wrong. I blog solely for the comments. The first blog started off with a whopping 16 comments. Next blog, half as many. This last blog about my GRADUMUCATION only scored a measley 2 comments. And one of those comments was from my brother-in-law who was sitting directly beside me when he wrote the comment. This is sad.

Let me just say, all comments are welcome. Even if you are a crazy stalker person, your comment is welcome. Even if you don't want me to know that you read the blog but you do, comment. Even if you think I am the biggest loser in the whole wide world, leave that as a comment. From the lack of comments, it appears that no one is reading my blog except my sister and brother-in-law and if that is true, just damn. I talk to them enough that I don't need to blog to them. Your comment doesn't need to be witty, even though wit is always appreciated on the blog. How bout a simple "Congrats" or "I like the blog" or "I think you're stupid." All will be very much appreciated.

Soooo.... all this to say, I have made an executive decision to not blog again til this blog matches the first blog with a whopping 16 comments. I have faith and I know we can do it together.

Love to all my blog-fans,
Jessie

Friday, May 11, 2007

I'm GRADUMUCATING!!!

Well kids, the day is finally here. The powers that be over at the medical school are letting me gradumucate. At 12:30 PM today I will officially have a license to kill. Is anyone else as affected by that statement as I am??

I have very mixed emotions about this whole situation. Sometimes I feel like the past four years has just flown by, but then when I really think about it, I feel like the first day of medical school was back when women still wore shoulder pads and scrunchies. I would worry slightly about that last statement but if you are cool enough to read this blog, then you definitely aren't wearing no scrunchies in your hair. It's also kinda strange that I thought medical school was the worst thing that ever happened to me while I was going through it. Now that it is over, I look back on it and think to myself, "Self, that wasn't so bad." Hindsight is a funny thing.

I just don't feel like a doctor. One morning while we were in Italy we were having a lovely breakfast down in the hotel lobby when the mother at the table beside me started to choke. I heard these strange noises coming from beside me and when I looked over, she was standing up doing the universal choking sign where you wrap your both your hands around your neck. Her husband started giving her the heimlich maneuver and I just sat there in horror. Was I supposed to run over and help her?? These are the things they don't teach you in medical school. When the lady beside me starts to choke, do I run over? When I see a bad car accident, do I pull over?? All I know is that I completely freaked out about whether I was going to have to help that woman or not. Thank god her husband was able to wrangle the salami out of her, because I'm not sure I would have been able to. I told my friends Blair and Kaki (also in school with me) this story on the way to the lake the other day. I had to get their opinions about what they would have done. Blair said "Dude, I totally feel you because something like that happened to me the other night." Apparently, at 2AM she woke up to her doorbell ringing like crazy and when she opened the door her neighbor was standing there freaking out because her husband had stopped breathing and needed Blair's help. Fortunately, right when Blair started freaking out she saw the ambulance pull up in the neighbor's driveway so she was off the hook. Shhheeewwww. I just feel like at this point in my career I should be a little more confident in myself. Well, at least I'm not alone. There's always Blair.

So last night was Gradumucation Day Eve and I tried really hard to do it up right. For my college graduation, my sister, Jay, Jodie, and I (and the rest of the Clemson crew) got so lit on GDE that it was all I could do to even attend my own graduation the next day. After it was all over and I met back up with my family, I noticed that my sister, Jay, and Jodie all had enormous Hardee's cups in their hands. It turns out they were so hungover that they actually left my graduation and walked down to the nearest Hardee's for some refreshments. I was so mad when I found out but not because they left my graduation, because they got to leave and go to Hardee's without me. Those lucky bitches. Anyways, I went through all the motions last night and tried to recreate my college graduation eve, but it just wasn't the same. Boo. But there's always Daniel.

In other news, the Seis de Mayo party was a huge hit. The weather was perfect and it was bocce ball and margaritas galore. It was actually the most drama packed party I have thrown since college. Here's the rundown: Friend A hooked up with Friend B in the guest bedroom. Then later, Friend A hooked up with Friend C in MY bedroom. Once it got dark outside, Friend B was spotted smooching on Friend D in a dark corner of the yard. At the end of the night, Friend B went home with Friend D and Friends A and C made out in my front yard. I had to omit their real names because I am fairly sure Friend A and Friend C read the blog. I'll try to attach a group pic so you can play a little who's who. Note: I am none of the friends.

Ciao Venezia!



Saturday, May 5, 2007

Firenze and Venezia



I would like to begin this blog with an ode to nutella. If you don't know what nutella is, buddy, you are really missing out and you're gonna be really glad you read this blog. I could not think of any way to describe this wonderful gift from god and do it justice so I visited my favorite know-it-all for some help. Wikipedia defines Nutella as "a hazelnut based sweet chocolate spread." Ooooohhhhh yeah. My sister already knew about it before our trip, but I unfortunately did not. Here is the progression of the nutella obsession. At our very first hotel breakfast in Rome, my sister discovered little individual packets of nutella so she picked one up and spread it on some toast. I was shocked that someone had discovered how make eating chocolate for breakfast acceptable! So the next day, I thought hey, that would be great if you added some sliced up bananas on top of it. For our last breakfast in Rome we decided that the toast was just an unnecessary additive so we just started spooning the nutella directly onto the banana. I'm sure you can see where this is going....Well, for our first breakfast in Florence we could not find any nutella. My sister searched and searched and finally found little packets of stuff called Nutcao (which we have chosen to pronounce as "nut-cow" cuz its just funnier that way) which is a knockoff of Nutella. I'm happy to say that Nutcao is just as good as the original so we continued on with our daily breakfast of bananas and Nutcao. When we reached Venice there was no Nutella or Nutcao but there was DOL crem which appeared to be a knockoff of Nutcao (a knockoff of a knockoff) and was completely inedible. It didn't spread and it had a really bizarro semi-metallic taste to it. This just wouldn't work so we sought out a market and bought a big jar of Nutella. This is when we discovered, as you can imagine, that the banana was just an unnecessary additive also and we started spooning the shizzle straight out the jar. Since we came back from our trip we have started using the word nutcao in our everyday language because its just so friggin funny. You can say things like, "that stupid nutcao" or "why you gotta be such a nutcao?" Maybe this blog will get the word out there and then in a few months some random person will call me a nutcao. That would be awesome!

I'm gonna blog about Florence and Venice together because I'm having a Seis de Mayo party today at the hizzle so I gotta start getting ready for that. Florence was my favorite part of the trip by far. My new goal in life is to make enough money (or lets face it, marry someone who makes enough money) to buy a villa in the wine country. I didn't realize this but Tuscany is a large region in Italy and Florence is a city in Tuscany. So you just drive a few miles outside of the city and you are in the heart of the wine country. Florence was my favorite city for many reasons other than the obvious - it's in the middle of some of the best wine production in the world. It is a much smaller city than Rome but still has still has museums, restaurants, and shopping, and looks much more like a picturesque Italian city. And the people are much friendlier. For the second day we were in Florence we had arranged to have a private guide, Alessandro, take us up to the Chianti Classico region for a day of wine/cheese/olive oil tasting. I have to say, this was one of the best days of my life. The picture above is from the second winery we went to, Castello di Verrazzano, which had good wine but also had the best olive oil I have ever tasted. Check out my facebook to see the rest of the pics from this Florence.

From our day wine tasting comes one of my favorite stories of the whole trip. We started the day at 9AM at Castello di Vicchiomaggio, then went to Verrazzano, and then stopped at Montagliari for more wine tasting and to have lunch. After lunch Jay and I both had to go to the bathroom so we headed over to the water closet (what Italians and maybe even all Europeans for all I know) call the bathroom. There were two of them beside each other in a little building off the side of the area where we had lunch. Jay went in one bathroom and I went in the other. Once inside, to lock the door I had to work with some key on a chain that already was in the keyhole. I fumbled around with it for a good five minutes not knowing if I had locked the door or not before I said screw it and decided to just go ahead and take care of business. Right before I finished up and old, Italian man smoking a cigarette leisurely strolls into my bathroom and says very casually "Ooohhh, you forgot to lock the door" in a thick Italian accent and then takes a drag from his cigarette. Well, he didn't seem to be going anywhere very fast so I finished up and then asked him how to flush the toilet. Side note: in Italy, locating the mechanism to flush the toilet could be an Olympic event. Sometimes its on the sidewall, sometimes the backwall, sometimes the top of the toilet. Geez. Well, this time, as the old Italian man points out to me, it's hanging from the ceiling. So I flush the toilet, wash my hands, and then me and the old Italian man still smoking the cigarette exit the bathroom where we find a very drunk and confused Jay waiting for me. He says, "Ummmm....was he helping you???" I wish I had a picture of the look of shock and horror on this face. I do have to admit, the lack of urgency the Italian man felt to leave the bathroom once he saw me sitting on the toilet was kinda strange.

After 3 days in Florence we packed up and took the train to Venice. We got off to a bad start in Venice because my stoopy sister left her backpack under her seat on the train. I mean you're just asking to lose something when you put it under a seat. Just go ahead and kiss it goodbye. Well about ten minutes after getting off the train and hauling all of our luggage (which easily could have supplied a normal family for a year in Italy) over an enormous bridge complete with stairs, my sister remembered the backpack. She ran back there and the train was still there, but her backpack was not. Fortunately, her passport and money weren't in there but Jay's camera was along with a lot of other miscellaneous small stuff that is inexpensive but bugs the crap out of you when you dont have it....like Chapstick. We were lucky because I had also been taking pictures along the way, but it sucked because Jay had taken all the funny pics like the one of a guy wearing a shirt that said "F**k the Babysitter." We thought that was hilarious until we saw about 10 other guys wearing it throughout our trip. Anyways, Venice was great. It was much slower than Rome and Florence so it was a great place for the last leg of our trip. They say that you can't get lost in Venice because its an island, but if you have ever been to Venice you know that's a bunch of b.s. We got lost every single time we tried to go anywhere. For instance the directions we were given to get to a restaurant said take your first left. We thought that we took our first left but after being lost for a good 20 minutes we backtracked and found that the first left was actually what can only be desribed as crack between two buildings. It was only wide enough for a small animal or a human walking sideways. We finished out 3 wonderful days in Venice and then headed back to the airport for another pleasurable 11 hour flight. All in all, we had an amazing time and have even more amazing memories. I would tell anyone to take a trip over to Italy if you get the chance, just make sure you take a boatload of moo-la with you, cuz that junk is hella pricey.

All right, I gotta get ready for a day of bocce ball and margaritas. I'll try to upload a pic from the party on the next blog.

Ciao!
ps. How do my blog-fans feel about my sign-off being "ciao?" I am having trouble coming up with something non-gay sounding, but I gotta have some way to end the blog.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

When in Rome...


Ok, so if I tried to tell you about the whole trip in one blog, you would be reading this until tomorrow so I have decided to divide the trip into 3 blogs. Blog 1 will be about Rome, blog 2 Florence, and blog 3 Venice. This pic of me and my sis was taken on Day 1 in Rome at 11am Italy time, 5am my time, after 15 hours of flying. If you check out my facebook you can a pic of what I really felt like at this time.
I'll start off by telling you about the worst part of the trip - the 11 hour flight. Twice. I'm not a great flier even on short little trips. I've got everything working against me: I have freakishly long legs for a woman, get sweaty at the drop of a hat, and am the most impatient person you will ever meet. We left Atlanta at 7 PM and were to arrive in Rome at 11AM Rome time, or 6AM Atlanta time. I was OK til about hour 5 when the bitching ensued. Actually, I think the bitching ensued around hour 3 when dinner was being served. We were informed that we had a choice of chicken or pasta. Seeing as my mom and I were seated in the next to last row (right in front of the smelly bathroom I might add) on a gigantic plane, by the time the flight attendants got to us it was 10PM and they were out of chicken so we had to eat pasta. No so bad you you're thinking, right? Well then they announce that there will be a complimentary alcoholic beverage served with the dinner. So once again, they start back at the front and by the time they get to us we have a choice of a Goldschlagger shot or a bottle of Delta Airlines Mojito mix (sans alcohol). Lovely. I mean, why they always gotta start at the front. Wouldn't it be just as easy to alternate?? Start at the front with drinks, start at the back with dinner. Then at least everyone would get one thing they want!!! Well, after dinner, a movie I had already seen, my mom squirting mustard and spilling coffee on herself, everyone started raring back, putting on their eye masks, and falling asleep. I would like to ask you, blog-fans, how can people do this?? I tried everything including drugs to fall asleep but I just cant sleep at a 75 degree angle with a pillow the size of a postage stamp. It can't be done!! So I started a cycle of sitting for a half hour and then walking around the plane for a few minutes to relieve the unbearable cramping in my freakishly long legs. I continued doing this for the next 6 hours until we were finally released from the hell that was Delta flight 7364. And don't even get me started on how long it took us to get off the plane after being stuck in the reject seats in the bathroom.
This blog is already too long and I haven't even begun to talk about the actual trip yet. Perhaps I should have divided the blog into 4 parts and given the plane its own section. Oh well, I'll hit up the highlights of Rome.
On Day 1, we were exhausted by the time we got to the hotel so we promptly crashed on our beds after waiting only an hour in a small room while a mean Italian man readied our rooms. After a quick nap we headed out for some pizza and wine and to the Colisseum and Roman Forum for a little sight-seeing. At the Colisseum there were a few questionably drunk gentlemen dressed as Roman gladiators hanging around the front so Jay (my brother-in-law) rightly exclaims "I think I feel a blog picture coming on!!" I really wanted a pic but after waiting in line behind dozens of four year olds and hearing that these highway robbers were charging 5 euro ($6.50) per picture, I gave up. Sorry guys.
Day 2 we did a whole lot of walking and our dogs were barking. Woof....woof. We saw the Pantheon and a whole lotta churches and other touristy stuff. Most importantly, I ate a lot of salami and cheese.
Day 3 was the best day. We walked to the train station and rode to the Vatican, which apparently is about 10 miles outside of Rome. We were scheduled to take a tour, which made me slightly nervous because during the previous two days walking around Rome independently I had seen many, many tour groups and they were all wearing some sort of embarrassing flare. Whether it be a neon orange bandana, a bright yellow shirt, or some sort of electronic headgear, they all screamed "Look at me, I am a loser!" Needless to say, I was very happy when we arrived and learned that we did not have wear anything other than what we came with. I failed to mention that before we arrived for said tour, we waited in a line longer than one for a Star Wars movie on opening night (I mean it wrapped around 3 walls of the Vatican) and every 10 feet or so passed by a different African trying to sell us some sort of fake designer bag, belt, or sunglasses. Well, our tour guide was a Brit named Agnes and she was awesome. I wish she could read the blog so that she could see her shout out. Not only was she extremely knowledgable, but in my mind most importantly, extremly sarcastic. She was very funny and said things like "jolly good." We had to be in line at 11:30AM and the tour was over at 5 so by 5, our dogs were barkin'. Woof....woof.
We headed over to a little pizzera to sit down and rest the dogs for a bit while having some drinks when I decided that I had to have a few knock-off purses. My sister and Jay being the masters of stragtegery that they are, helped me finagle my money into the correct pockets of my pants, and taught me the basics of haggling. I approached ready to buy 2 bags for no more than 25 euro. I found a guy with both the bags I wanted in his little display and got started. I got him down to 30 euro for both bags, but I was only willing to pay 25 so I started to walk away certain that he would come running after me offering to sell me the bags for 25. Well......he didn't. My sister and I couldn't believe it and didn't know what to do. So we cleverly hid behind some other purse stand and re-strategerized. We decided to approach his neighboring purse hawker (literally 3 feet to his right) and start the bidding. We got him down to 35 euro and he wouldn't go any lower. We tried to explain to him that his friend said he would take 30 so there is no way we were going to buy from him. As you can imagine, I'm pretty sure he had no idea what we were talking about with the HUGE language barrier. I mean he was negotiating by typing numbers into his cell phone because we couldn't even understand what numbers he was saying. Just damn. So....we left him and stepped 3 feet back to the left and began again with the first guy. After a few minutes, a new guy who seemed to be in charge came over, uttered something in the click-click language, and next thing I know, I have 2 bags for 25 euro. Job well done. We headed back to the train station fully loaded with pizza, wine, and knockoff designer bags.
Those are the highlights of Rome. I'll blog again about Florence in a few days after I recuperate from writing this blog. So sorry if you fell asleep somewhere during Day 1. I guess I'm not a very good summarizer. You can check out the pics from the trip on my facebook if you so desire.
For now,
Ciao!!