Curious Notions

I’m wearing my cat ears from last year’s costume to work today. There’s a bunch of cats roaming our office wearing black scrubs. I’m also working on a big chocolate covered banana lollipop in celebration of Halloween. Yum.

I like Halloween. It’s a very youthful holiday. Everyone dresses up and giggles at everyone else. I’m going as a Hula girl this year. Pictures will be taken tonight.

I leave you with a picture of Alan and me last year when we were just roomies.

My brother loves to create things with Legos. Lots of things. When I told him what Alan was going to be for Halloween, he sent me a picture of his mantle to send to Alan. Aqua Teen Hunger Force!

Thomas sent ME a link to pass on to the brother. Http://brickartist.com. My brother’s response?

“That dude is a genius. I’m just a fart in the wind compared to this guy.”

Hee. Fart in the wind.

I had one of those Mondays today. I looked especially bad this morning when I saw myself in the mirror. Eyelids puffy and I looked washed out. I tried to soften up the pitifulness that were my tired eyes with mascara and eyeliner. At most, I’d wear eyeliner but hardly ever do I wear mascara. It ended up clumping and since I was running late, ended up just resigning to have clumpy lashes and puffy sad eyes and went into to work to start off my work week. Only when I parked my car did I remember leaving my frozen lean cuisine lunch on the kitchen counter.

One of my first phone calls I took this morning was from a patient inquiring about Drug A. I heard Drug A but ended up telling her all about Drug B, only realizing that I was telling her about the wrong drug 15 minutes into our conversation.

I just felt so crabby all day. I looked and felt like a mess. My hair was abysmal. You wouldn’t be able to tell if it was in a haphazard bun or a haphazard ponytail. It could equally be mistaken for either. So when I saw a patient for one of my coworkers today I had to really try to be cheerful enough. She was an older lady with a post doctorate. I forced a few lines of small talk and smiled through gritted teeth. I was with her maybe 5 minutes and was jotting something down when she just blurts out, “You’re beautiful.” Seriously, it was by far one of my crabbier days at work and my body image more than reflected it. Stunned, I seriously about cried.

My highlight for the day. From a stranger.

The day is still somewhat young. I’m going to a movie with Jessica

I kind of had a blah weekend. Friday, 4 hours of sleep, Saturday I took a three hour nap which made me sleep through a downtown invite (sucked because I’ve been feeling restless), the nap kept me up til 5:30 in the morning and I slept to 8:30 this morning. I haven’t had more than 4 hours of sleep at a time.

I had a few highlights. Happy hour with work people, UT won, dim sum, and a nice, full writing club meeting tonight. I decided to just write crap. I’m plagued with writer’s block and in the past three months not counting tonight, wrote only one piece of fiction. So to combat the block, I decided to not fear writing crap. That I should embrace writing crap for now just to get in the groove. So that’s what I did tonight at the meeting. I read crap.

Last month, I missed the pee art one of our patients leaves us when we collect urine samples from him since I was in Orlando. Coworker sent me a picture. Hee. A boat sailing pee water. Nice!

This past week he came in again and left us a Halloween themed drawing.

I can’t believe it’s already Halloween.

I have less than 2 weeks til my first 5k. I ran around campus with Nisreen and Katambra yesterday and Monday. We won’t be able to meet Thursday but we gave ourselves an “on your own assignment” of running on the treadmill on Thursday.

I’m our team’s team captain only because I get anxious when things don’t get done. After I sat anxiously waiting for someone to finally start the team we were all talking about, I just finally took initiative. I’m the least sporty so most unlikely team captain. We have about 10 people? in our writing club, Ink Spots. I figured maybe 5 people would join and then Power of Ten dictates if we get 20 people to give 10 dollars each then our goal for fundraising should be 1000. I think I bit more than we could chew since only 4 people signed up including me. Only Nisreen and I have managed to get fundraising so far. I think I will email them for some encouragement as to not forget about the funding part.

Anyway, what I’m trying to lead to is that I’ve reached my personal goal of 200 and am now working on surpassing it. I didn’t even have 20 people donating but I have a handful of really generous friends donating more then ten and friends who are broke broke broke sparing me a ten. I’m reminded of how truly blessed I am. In life, whenever I need support I’m never lacking. What a blessing. I feel lots of gratitude.

I’ve also early voted! If you haven’t already, go! It’s so much easier than waiting for election day and having to look up your precinct. When you early vote you can go anywhere and you only need your drivers license. Who did I vote for? I ain’t shy. Obama, baby. Friends have told me it’s futile since Texas won’t go Democratic til when, Will? 15 years from now. A girl can dream.

I had a great weekend, spent mostly with Alan. Friday, we had chill night at Dave and Busters. Saturday, we went to the UT/Missouri game (UT won 56-31!) and then met up with some of Alan’s friends for birthday celebrations. Today, I had lunch with my brother and dinner with Bing, Nisreen, and Nino. Good weekend.

At Dave and Busters on Friday, I noticed a guy putting on a gas mask before doing a dance on one of those dance games. He started to get really into, having the piece memorized, dancing with his back turned away from the prompts and doing handstands. After the song we were going to go when Alan noticed he had a whole bag of costumes. We watched him do one more masked dance. I told Bing and company about him tonight over dinner when Bing and Nino informed me that this guy does it at other arcades as well. Neat hobby.

I took a cell phone video of the performer.

The first picture, Alan wasn’t smiling because he was experimenting with my cellphone. Second picture, I look weird. This is right before we left with maybe 4 minutes left of the 4th quarter. I think I fell in love with UT football. In college, I went to many games without really loving the game. I enjoyed going and cheering but it was more a socializing event for me. Now that I understand the game a little bit more, I don’t get distracted watching. Mostly due to Alan’s patience in answering questions, I’ve learned a lot more about football ever since Cindy and I talked about learning more about football. I find UT football especially addicting since I have an automatic sense of loyalty to my Alma Mater. Dare I say, I’m hooked? Who would have thunk it? Alan got us some amazing seats. Never sat that close before. 30 yard line, 6 rows back from the field. We could see Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens from our seats.

There’s Derek at the game with Minka Kelly, the actress who played the head cheerleader of Friday Night Lights. My good friend Nicole was Minka’s stunt double on the show.

The stadium was packed. 98,383 people. Alan said this is the first home game we’ve had where we were ranked no. 1 since 1977. Pride!

Seriously, though. I like football? How crazy is that?

I leave you with a football joke.

Why are football stadiums always hot after games?

Because all the fans leave.

Lily’s sister went to the JFK museum in Dallas and shared some interesting links between Abraham Lincoln and JFK. Some of it is silly but a lot of it is just uncanny! Enjoy.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost a son while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both were shot behind the head.

Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners.

Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are made of fifteen letters.

Mr. Booth shot Lincoln in a Theatre called “Ford”.
Lee Harvey Oswald, shot Kennedy in a car called “Ford” Lincoln.

Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

A month before Lincoln was shot he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A month before Kennedy was shot he was with Marilyn Monroe.

I bought my car last year in July after my first car accident. I wrote the biggest check of my life so far for the first deposit and started paying my car off in August 2007. Since then I’ve paid $9,439.85 and $1,011.65 of it went to interest. This year I so far contributed $4,439.85 and $499.28 of it was interest. My new years resolution was to pay it completely off which means I have a little over 2 more months to pay off $2,782.31. Ug. I guess I know where my Christmas bonus will go towards.

My monthly minimum is only $175.99 so a year’s worth of only paying the minimum would be $2,111.88. That means all together since August 2007, I’ve paid 4 years worth of minimums in less than 2 years. I should be proud but I’m more anxious to get rid of this debt.

Mooyah

Thomas told me about this Texas burger chain yesterday. It’s our claim to an In-n-Out comparative. Nothing previously frozen, so fresh as you can get! Unlimited free toppings that include but are not limited to jalapenos, grilled onions, sauteed mushrooms, etc etc. Buns are baked fresh everyday. So I wasted no time in trying it out. Actually, I sent the link to Alan without much else in the email thinking “let’s eat here, soon” would be implied. He really is the one who wasted no time in trying it out. (Before he clicked on the link he thought I wanted to make him go milk cows with me. Previously I was bent on going to a cornfield maze so he worried I was turning into some sort of country bumkin.) The Austin location is BRAND new, only a few weeks old. Located in the same shopping center area as Trudy’s and Chillis on Burnet and 183.

Here’s the menu. The Junior Cheese Mooyah is one meat patty whereas the regular is two meat patties. My Junior was 3.80 something. Toppings are free.

The buns are a little sweet. Honey? Mmm. Meat wasn’t very flavorful; I got mine with lettuce, tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and jalapenos. Alan got the regular with grilled onions, jalapenos, lettuce and tomatoes. You can’t see much difference in size when I post pictures. Veggies are super fresh. Fries were good. Nothing too special but I do enjoy that they’re fresh as well and fried in trans-fat free oil. We. pigged. out.

Alan’s burger

My burger

Also, Austin Restaurant Week is here! Click here for a list of participating restaurants. Restaurant week is an annual event where you can get ‘fine dining’ 3 course meals at a number of quality restaurants for flat fees of either 25 dollars or 35 dollars.