In which Mother Nature flips me off, then pees on my foot.

I should know better. I really should.

So, yeah, that last post? Where I scolded Florida drivers for driving too slow in the rain? (And in response to my eminently reasonable commenters, I’ll note that we had had very heavy thunderstorms in the morning that faded to gentle rain in the afternoon.)

Mother Nature promptly replied, “Oh – oh you were finished? Well then, allow me to retort …”

Tornado warnings. Rain lashing my windshield so hard I dropped to 5 mph while entering the highway. Massive thunder and lightning. My drive this morning was TERRIFYING.

Karma is a BITCH!

A quiet, genteel rant

Dearest fellow travelers of I-4,

It was indeed raining during last night’s commute. Truly, I sympathize with your desire to drive more slowly and with an extra dollop of caution. Nay, I applaud such action!

But, darling commuters, must you really decrease your speed to 10 mph? Thou art not wilting flowers, loves. The clear glass thingy that you look out of is called a windshield, and it will protect your dainty locks from that nasty ol’ rain. You needn’t worry about your delicate toes, as there is also something called a floorboard — that’s the carpeted surface upon which your appendages rest — and it will shield your tender toes from the wicked wetness.

In short, beloved fellow drivers, kindly do not allow a little fall of rain to completely erode whatever little driving sense you possess.

With deepest affection,
Lissa

P.S. you suck!

Leaves and Roses

I potted a mini rosebush two days before Christmas so that my front walk would have some decoration. Naturally, I bought the plant with the most blooms (3). Since December and January are — y’know– WINTER, I promptly lost all but one bloom and got stuck with just a bush.

That’s why I was so pleased when it started sprouting new blooms. Now I had four flowers! Now five! Holy yellow roses, Batman!

And then the leaves started splotching brown and black and falling off. So now I’ve got bushels of flowers and no leaves. Guess I can’t have both at once.

Damn you, Black Spot mold!

Grumble, grumble, mumble and snarl.

Student study, teacher quarrel.

Yeah, yeah, it’s no MacBeth … But aren’t you impressed I found ANYTHING to rhyme with snarl? 🙂

Anyway, the prof moved up the test to this week, rather than next week. Which conflicts with a work seminar that I can’t skip. Which means I’m going to start the test about an hour late and I’m going to miss the 30/40 minutes of Open Book testing. (In the first two tests I didn’t need more than that period to finish the test.) So now I’m cramming and memorizing. Grrrrrr …

(Oh, and when they talked about the fears and anxieties of middle childhood, they had a special box on counseling children during upheaval, war, terrorism etc. Guess what photo they used?)

Redneck, or Genius? You decide!

Snapped at a red light on my commute home:

I’m speechless.  I can’t decide if that’s the most brilliant MacGuyver solution EVAH, or the most white-trash slapdash creation in the state of Florida.

What do you think?

OMG best restaurant review EVER!!!!

I’m still cackling like a hyper-spastic drunken hyena over this beautifully-crafted gem of a restaurant review.

Twenty minutes later, possibly under their own steam, the snails arrive. Vesuvian, they bubble and smoke in a magma of astringent garlic butter and parsley. We grasp them with the spring-loaded specula and gingerly unwind the dark gastropods, curling like dinosaur boogers. They go on and on, expanding onto the plate as if they were alien. We have to cut them in half, which is just wrong. The rule with snails is: Don’t eat one you couldn’t get up your nose.

Dinosaur boogers?!? I may never eat escargots again!!

I have decided not to go for the famous roast chicken, mainly because I’ve suffered it before and I’d just been watching a Japanese couple wrestle with one like a manga poltergeist from some Tokyo horror movie, its scaly blue legs stabbing the air. So on to the broiled kidneys. Nothing I have eaten or heard of being eaten here prepared me for the arrival of the veal kidneys en brochette. Somehow the heat had welded them together into a gray, suppurating renal brick. It could be the result of an accident involving rat babies in a nuclear reactor. They don’t taste as nice as they sound.

Everyone needs a good laugh on a Monday morning — go read the whole thing 🙂

(h/t Go Fug Yourself)

Test over! Happy Caturday!

Whew! I don’t know if I aced it, but I’m fairly sure I got an A. Of course, I had a slight heart attack because, while I knew perfectly the STEPS for each, I suddenly couldn’t remember the NAMES of endochondral versus intramembranous ossification. Thank goodness I guessed correctly, or it would have cost me 15 points of essay. Yay!

In celebration, I offer you a Helpful Rajah, carefully assisting mommy in her studies:

Friiiiiiiday!!!

I’ve always loved Friday – who doesn’t? But the new, spiffy reason this is a marvelous day is that I can leave ten minutes late and still get to work on time. It’s the only commute in which my speedometer breaks 50 mph.

That was the happy news. The sad news is that I shamefully neglected my studies last night, choosing instead to wash some dishes, talk to my mom and catch up on all the blogs I haven’t been reading. Life is short, y’know? *sigh* Cram session tonight on the skeleton!!

Happy Friday, all!

Like stabbing a needle into my foot.

EXACTLY like that. Twice.

In other words, I went to play with the podiatrist yesterday. The MRI seems to indicate that, if I suffered from avascular necrosis, it’s not actively happening right now. Also, since the unevenly sized sesamoids appear exactly mirror imaged bilaterally, the doc agrees with smart-lady B. — it’s just a genetic or physical quirk.

Then she stabbed me in both feet with syringes of cortisone. *whimper*

Actually, it wasn’t THAT bad. It did hurt, but they blast you with cold spray so it numbs it a bit. More uncomfortable was the fact that my feet were tingling and throbbing for the rest of the day. Twelve hours of pins and needles, yay!

So we’ll see. If it helps I get to do it once or twice more. If it DOESN’T help, well, it was worth a *shot*. (ducks and runs)

Happy St. Patty’s Day, everyone!

Why do you assume I think like you?

“Can you believe that situation in Wisconsin??”

I look up warily — this could be going in either direction. I sneak a peek at the computer screen … CNN.com. So that probably means …

“Can you believe they’re trying to stomp all over the unions’ rights? It’s unbelievable!”

Well, that’s clearly what YOU believe is happening. So it can’t really be *unbelievable*, can it?

**************

Now, I just came from Boston. I’m quite used to people on the opposite side of the political spectrum assuming that everyone shares their views — statistically, just about everyone does.

But this is FLORIDA. It’s a classic swing state. Why assume that your audience has the same political outlook?

Due to my locational history, I’m used to liberals assuming I agree with them. Has anyone experienced it the other way? A conservative / small gov / 2nd Amendment-er / Republican / right-leaning person assuming (wrongly) that his or her audience shares the same political framework?