Drinking + Cat Antics = Hilarious

As it turns out, we decided not to go out after all on Saturday night. However, that did not stop me from drinking too many Jack and ginger's and waking up feeling like crap again. You would think by the third night in a row, I would have learned my lesson. I'm not sure what has spawned this self-poisoning binge, but I'll blame it on night shift again. I mean, if I have to stay up all night, I guess I might as well be drunk right? I don't know. Perhaps I'm worried about the new unit I'm working on, and I'm just not realizing it. Everything went fine on my orientation though. No, I don't think that's it. It's just that Jack and ginger taste so good. And plus, if I had been sober, I never would have spent 3 hours on YouTube searching for and watching what seemed to be hilarious clips of pet antics. I stayed up till 5 AM laughing my ass off at clips like this one:





Somehow, it's just not as funny today. Sure, I got a few chuckles out of it, but there was no maniacal cackling like there was last night. I think the part that really set me off was when the cat jumped out of the bush, trying to pounce on this innocent, unsuspecting child. Perhaps I'm twisted, but that's just plain funny to me.

Anyway, despite my hangover when I woke up, I ended up having a wonderful (and sober) day. We decided to take a walk in the late afternoon/early evening and discovered a beautiful sunset over the frozen, snow-covered Charles River. I didn't even realize how close the river was to our apartment until today. (And I never really knew that rivers could freeze either!) Then we made our way over to the Boston Public Garden, where they had the cutest frozen pond that people were ice skating and walking on. We were a little scared to walk on it at first, but once we saw how many people were on it, with no signs of any ice cracking, we figured it would probably be OK. Everyone around us was so cute and happy, it was kind of like we were in a movie.

I love discovering cool new places that I know I will want to revisit another day. It just reminds me that even though being lazy is so easy to do, once you get out and about, you never know what joy you might find in the day.

Party on Dudes!

So I guess I wasn't kidding when I was talking about living it up. These travel nurses really know how to party. It's kind of hard not to though. I think it just comes with the territory. We work night shift so it's easy to stay up all night. We only work three days a week, so we have four other nights a week to get into trouble. And every other travel nurse I have met lives in the same apartment complex. It reminds of my days as a college student living in Myers Hall.

For example, on Thursday night we were just hanging around the apartment, minding our own business, when all of a sudden my flamingly hilarious life of the party travel nurse friend stops by. He was on the way out to meet up with some people, and invited us to join them. Since we could throw a rock to the bar he was going to, and he's in general just a fun guy to hang out with, we couldn't really say no. By the end of the night I had lost count of the number of jack and coke's I had drinken, and I don't remember going to bed. But I paid for it dearly on Friday, when I woke up dehydrated and wondering if someone had spiked my drinks with Colon Blow.

So then Friday afternoon, just when I had woken up from a glorious couch nap, finally feeling somewhat recovered from the previous night, I received a call that ended in making plans for dinner and another night of drinking. We ended up at this really cool lounge, and we had a great time hanging out with a really fun group of people. However, $150 later, not including the cab ride, I once again don't really remember going to bed, but it was probably sometime around 3AM.

My Saturday has turned out much like my Friday did. When I woke up, I went straight to the couch, and haven't moved much since then. And just a little while ago, I received another phone call with an invite to go out again tonight. Don't get me wrong, I've been having an awesome time the past couple of nights, but sometimes you just need to stay in. It's Saturday though, and who wants to stay in on a Saturday?

Back to Work Again

This past week I have really taken couch surfing to a whole new level. I've done a few things here and there, but seriously, for the last five days I have pretty much been sitting here on this same spot on the couch doing nothing but watching TV or playing on the computer. Somehow, it's gone by really fast, and all of a sudden tonight I have to be back at work for the first time in two weeks. I hope I still remember how to be a nurse.

Actually, I'm kind of excited about going back to work again tonight. I get to start over in a way because although I'll be working at the same hospital, I'm going to be working on a different unit. I'll be working with a totally different population of patients since I'll be working on the Neuro ICU, and before I was working on Thoracic Surgery ICU. In layman's terms, I'll be working with patients whose "brain don't work" instead of those whose "lungs don't work." Most people don't like working with neuro patients, but I don't mind too much. The best is when they get all paranoid, thinking that you're trying to kill them and scream profanities at you. Either way, apparently the Thoracic Surgery ICU unit is the hardest and most dreaded unit to work on at this hospital, so the new unit I'll be going to can only be an upgrade. And honestly, the Thoracic ICU is one of the best places I've ever worked, so the Neuro ICU should be a piece of cake.

For those of you who have been following along with this little story of mine, you may be wondering whatever happened to the idea of us going to San Diego. The thing is, we realized that going to San Diego would be quite the logistical nightmare. Not only is it 3,040 miles away from Boston, but also we would have to deal with picking up our cars in Atlanta and driving out there separately. Plus, Dave and I have both found jobs that are going to look really great on a resume, and we don't know what kind of jobs we would be able to find out there. Besides that, Boston is an awesome city that we're just not ready to leave yet. As a compromise, I told Dave that we are just going to have to go on a vacation out there sometime soon. So here we shall stay for another three months.

One of the main ideas behind going to San Diego was that we wanted to go there for the nice weather in the winter. And what do you know? Even southern CA had freezing weather last week. Anyway, I haven't been too traumatized by the cold weather here so far. It's all about layering. Even last night when I went to the grocery store in 20 degree weather I didn't freeze to death. I was quite warm in my nice, snuggly coat. In fact, I've been a little disappointed about the lack of snowfall here so far. Everyone keeps saying "Get ready, it's coming!" Well I'm already ready already! Come on, I want to go sledding in the park!

So I just checked the weather report and it's currently 26 degrees and cloudy with a forecast for one inch of snow overnight. I guess I'll take what I can get.

I'm baaaack!

Where we last left off with our fearless heroine, she was reveling in the realizations of the new year. The next day she was off to save a few lives at the world-reknown hospital, the Brigham...

OK maybe not. But I did work 6 out of the next 7 days, roughly totaling around 75 hours in one week. And in the midst of all that, I unpacked and repacked for our annual family ski trip to Vail, CO. We left for Vail the afternoon of the 10th (after I had just gotten off work that morning), and we returned to Boston on the 16th. Since then, my ass has been plastered to the couch, catching up on emails, blogs, and TV shows. Anyway, here are a few stories of interest/ random thoughts from the last couple of weeks:

• I took care of the same patient for 5 out of the 6 days that I worked. Although he was very sick at the beginning of the week, he seemed to be improving by the 4th day, but then went downhill again by the 5th day. That kind of sucked. At least he had a super nice, really hot grandson who came to visit him every evening. It didn't hurt that he was wearing his police uniform either. (A note to all the guy readers: as long as you have a decent body, all uniforms are hot all the time.)
• And now, in order to redeem myself, I would just like to say that my man has looked exceptionally attractive in all of the new clothes that I bought him for Christmas. (exceptionally attractive= H-O-T!)
• It's amazing what 10,000 feet of altitude can do to your body. Ever heard of altitude sickness? All last week when I was in the Rocky Mountains I pretty much felt like crap in one way or another. "Feeling like crap" equals one or more of the following symptoms at any given time: headache, dizziness, lightheadedness, feeling "out of it," nausea, or just plain exhaustion. It didn't help that I was already tired from working, probably dehydrated, and that we went from sea level straight up to 10,000 feet in one day. Plus when you ski for 5 hours a day, using muscles that you haven't used since the last time you skiied a year ago, that probably doesn't help much either.
• Somehow between this year and last year, Dave's skiing has improved about 150%. Last year he was much more timid and much more likely to take the easy way. This year I was pleasantly surprised by his "F**k it! Let's try it!" attitude. He denies that he's been practicing while I've been at work, but I'm pretty sure he's lying. Either way, I'm proud of his newfound confidence on the slopes.
• The big event of the week occurred Saturday evening when our parents finally met for the first time. It was funny how it worked out because it just so happened that Dave's family randomly planned a trip to Breckenridge the same weekend my family was in Vail. They are only a 45 minute drive apart, so it worked out for us all to meet for dinner. I knew it was all going to be OK, when my dad said "At least we know they like to drink," when he found out that it was going to be at a brewery. Incidentally, that's probably about the only thing our two sets of parents have in common. Between that and a common love for socializing, everyone got along just fine, and it ended up being a really great night.
• While we were there, I experienced the coldest weather I have ever been in. I think the coldest it got was around -10. Even in the middle of the day while we were skiing, the high on Monday was like 5. It wasn't bad though. In fact, I think it prepared me for the 15 degree weather we came home to on Tuesday. Lucky for me, I got 2 pairs of silk long underwear for Christmas, which slides under jeans quite nicely and makes a huge difference in my warmth.

In case you didn't feel like reading all that, I'll recap the past two weeks for you in the next five words: work, altitude, ski, family, fun. Now I shall continue my couch surfing for the next three days, until I have to work again. I heart weekends.

I Wonder How Long it Will Take me to Stop Writing 2006

Well I am happy to report that I have successfully survived another holiday season and another year. We made it back to Beantown yesterday afternoon after a delightful visit to the ATL. As always, the time really flew by. We got to spend adequate time with both of our families and got to see almost all of our friends. Although it seemed short because we were so busy, we sure got a lot of visiting done in the time we had there. It was nice to be back and to remember all of the things that I love and miss about Atlanta. For example, the weather cooperated, and it was so warm there that I didn't wear even one wool sweater. Also, I realized that I haven't even thought about traffic in at least two months. What a nice comfortable feeling it was to ride in Dave's Altima with him driving and me deejaying, just like old times. Plus, I finally got that Chik-Fil-A sandwich with cheese that I've been craving.

What is it about being away that makes you realize how much you took for granted while you were there? Around three years ago, when I first started planning to be a travel nurse, there was nothing I wanted more than to live anywhere else in the world besides Atlanta, Georgia. I hated the traffic, I hated the pollution, and I didn't really feel like there was anybody to stay around there for. I'm not gonna lie: In general, it was a pretty rough time in my life. I was single, looking for love in all the wrong places, and I had several close friends that were getting married that year. I pretty much felt like I was being abandoned by everyone. But.....

Then I met someone (guess who?) who throughout the last two years and eight months has influenced me in ways that have completely changed my outlook on life. Three years ago, I pretty much just figured that I wouldn't ever find anyone that would want to marry me or vice versa. I thought I would just travel around until I found a cool city and end up staying there. And I always imagined myself as being very independent and just doing my own thing all the time.

But somehow over the past few years, my life plan has become our life plan. And although I was pretty resistant to the idea at first, mostly due to my own insecurities, I have slowly but surely warmed up to, and become quite fond of, having a plan that includes somebody else. The cool thing is that throughout this process, we have developed a strong group of wonderful friends to have fun with and that we know we can count on no matter what happens. So maybe Atlanta is polluted, trafficky, spread out, and not near the water, but it's always going to be home. And home is where your peeps are, which is where I want to be ultimately.

So I am coming into the year 2007 with more and more realizations about who I am and where I want to be. It will be interesting to see what this year brings since we will have to work on getting re-established back in our old hood again. But for now, I'm just going to focus on enjoying my time here in Beantown, and getting everything out of this experience that I can. If I just sit around and miss Atlanta all the time, how am I ever going to have any fun up here? Not that I haven't been having fun, but I want to make sure that I'm aware of it if I start moping around. So here's to 2007.... I'm ready to live it up!