Sisters

My older sister is in town visiting me and my little sister. It's great fun having her here, although her main interest is shopping. She LOVES to shop. I don't.

I get dizzy, tired, hungry, warm, cold, irritated, everything at once when I shop. My ol' sis, however, lives for it. We go into the city and she's in a store within 5 seconds after exiting the subway, literally. It's very draining.

My lil' sis' took care of ol' sis' today and they went to Williamsburg to shop. I'm so glad I got out of that. Huge vintage clothing stores - so much potential for me to start crying.

Tonight we're cooking pasta and after that we'll go out for beer. Much better.

Crap * 1,000,000

Turns out the cat's tumor was malignant. Devastating news for our little family. His cancer is aggressive, but at least it hasn't started to metastasize yet. If we're lucky, the tumor won't come back right away and we will have many more happy days together before illness strikes.

Ironically, I have a cancer-screening appointment scheduled for myself next week for the same cancer the cat was just diagnosed with (I have no symptoms, so no worries). My sister had colon cancer when she was my age; hence, the doc says I have to get checked just to be on the safe side.

It will be revenge for the cat - his turn to throw me into the cat carrier and schlep me to the evil people with intrusive instruments...

Crap 3

The cat had to go back to the hospital to get the tumor removed. The vets found a tumor when they were treating him for constipation the other week. Kitty doesn't seem to be sick at all, and we're obviously hoping it's benign, still waiting for the tests to come back.

I've spoken to the vet several times (the cat is still over there, recuperating). "He's a tough little guy and he's recovering very well," the vet said, "but he's really quiet."

Well, yeah...? He's a CAT. What's he supposed to do, talk to you? Him being in a cage at that clinic is like us being stuck on the subway or in an elevator. You don't talk to other people. And if someone tries to talk to you, you raise the volume of your iPod or you pretend to be asleep.

#1

I found out that I'm #1 in my EMT class, I'm ranked at the top of the class based on my performance so far. I'm the BEST. This means that I got first bid on choosing my ER rotation, yup.

During our break I made sure I rubbed it in as much as I could, that I'm number 1, and one disgruntled fellow classmate responded: "You know, it really doesn't matter how we rank..." Oh yes it does. I'm the best, and you suck! The competition is on.

Wall Street

I can now add to my list of accomplishments that I work on Wall Street. Turns out that the chiro's office (where I worked today) is on Wall Street.

I wore my new scrubs, picked the cornflower blue (next time sapphire, Johanna), and did an ok job for the first time out. I had eight patients in about four hours, the actual treatment time for each patient was 30 min. They all presented with lower-back problems, shoulder injuries or a combination of both. I got into my new role pretty quickly - walked out into the waiting room and said "Ms. Johnson? Come with me..." and then, in the treatment room, I asked as many questions about their health as I could. It was kind of fun.

I hope I can do this once a week for a while. That way I will have some $ for food again.
[Fru Johnson heter egentligen någonting annat]

Scrubs

I just bought scrubs. I love wearing scrubs. I bought two sets, both blue but different shades of blue (one sapphire and one cornflower blue). With my stethoscope around my neck I look absolutely great, if I may say so myself. Love it, love it, love it. I'm going to wear scrubs tomorrow when I fill in for a massage therapist at a chiropractor's office downtown. I'll get to wear scrubs AND get paid. I won't get to use my stethoscope though, it might be a little bit silly to carry that around my neck for people with scoliosis.

What should I wear tomorrow, sapphire or cornflower.....?

Crap 2

After several vet visits, the cat is feeling much better. His constipation is gone, and so is $1,500 dollars. The first thing I do every morning is check the litter box for poop. I go "woohooo!" when I see poop. I'd never imagined I would be woohoo-ing over such a thing. You never know.

Bugged out

My sister stole my exterminator appointment today. She totally did. I usually have them come over once a month to spray the apartment and the hallway, just to be on the safe side. Bug man was supposed to stop by today and he had promised to call me before heading over. But nobody called and nobody came over.

Unsuspectingly I talked to my sister on the phone later in the day and she said: "It's funny because the exterminator called out of the blue and said he was on his way, so I told him to 'come on over' and he just sprayed our place."

Huh?? He meant to call ME. They were supposed to come to MY place. Obviously they called her by mistake, since we have the same last name and since she's in their database as well, and she just went along with it. Not cool. She's probably joyously skipping about her living room right now, feeling safe.

Upstairs

Our upstairs neighbors have an amazing apartment. They occupy the two main floors of the brownstone, TWO floors, with a metal spiral staircase connecting the first floor to the second. The kitchen is huge, you can have several people cooking and eating in there at the same time. The ceilings are so high you can play volleyball in their apartment. Maybe even badminton. Volleyball and badminton at the same time. We hate them.

Right now I can hear their maid cleaning and organizing up there. Our neighbors are obviously loaded, and they seem to be in great shape physically and mentally too. He is a fairly good looking fellow who goes for long runs in the park every morning, and she is a pretty lady who speaks with a posh British accent. We hate them.

Legal

A kid in my chemistry lab tried to guess my age today. "You're 20," he said, "maybe 21..." This pissed me off. "I'm 31, damnit." The class gasped in unison after hearing this, and the kid exhaled a long "whooooaaah."

Why do people think that being taken for a 21-year-old when you're 31 is a compliment? It's NOT.

People under 25 have an underdeveloped frontal cortex, which leaves them highly emotional, obnoxiously opinionated, and extremely irrational. That's the opposite of who I am. I have graduated college more than once, I've graduated from my 20s successfully, and I've paid my dues in the corporate world. I'm a grownup - I have joint pain when it's cold out, my left big toe is starting to bend outward and I'm afraid of teenagers.

So what is it? Do I have an immature aura about me? Do I come across as highly emotional, obnoxiously opinionated, or extremely irrational? Is that it? Or is it just my hot, young, killa' body? Could be.

Crap

I just dropped my love off at the animal ER because he's been so constipated, poor kitty. They said they need to keep him overnight to flush the crap out of his butt, give him intravenous fluids and x-ray him. I feel like crying and I usually never cry (only when someone's yelling at me, or maybe if there's no hot water in the shower). I don't even cry when I cut onions or when I fall off the treadmill, but thinking about poor kitty is heartbreaking. I may need an extra credit card for cat emergencies which is also pretty sad.

Steps

As I got off the train today there was a young mother with her baby in a stroller who didn't seem to know how to carry the thing up the stairs. Being the nice person that I am, I offered her a hand. She was thrilled that someone was helping her and she kept yacking about how nobody ever helps her. The first few steps up the stairs I kept thinking "what-if-I-drop-the-baby-what-if-I-drop-the-baby-what-if-I-drop-the-baby" but as the infant got heavier by the step those thoughts changed to "lift lady, lift lady, liiiiiiift" The mother was hardly carrying any weight at all. And then a guy walking behind us said "women helping women, that's because women know what hardships other women go through." What? Feel free to take over anytime, dude. Or shut up, have a great night, and God bless you too.

Brunch

Some guy took a swing at me as I was strolling down 3rd avenue to meet Amy for brunch. An upper left hook, I believe, but since I was semi-prepared - the dude had just unsuccessfully swung at a lady ahead of me - I was able to duck just in time. I kept walking, turned around briefly as I crossed 14th street, and saw the guy shadow-boxing his way through a dispersing crowd. It's funny how easy it is to get infuriated with, for example, incompetent staff at Duane Reade, but when a psyho punches his way through the street there's not much to do other than shrug your shoulders. Which is actually what I tend to do at Duane Reade also.

Trauma

I'm having a lot of fun in my EMT class. Yesterday I got to be a gun-shot-wound victim as we were practicing assessment and care for trauma victims. I was shot with a 50-caliber in my right shoulder. Of course I have no idea what a 50-caliber really is, but the guys in my class told me that "the bullet is as large as your thumb" so I'm sure it's a cool gun. My partner did the intial assessment , applied a cervical collar, performed focused exams, and rolled me onto the longboard. Then I practiced the same things on him, but he got to be a stupid guy who had fallen off a ladder.