Half Nekkid Thursday

That's a scratch from my dear kitty Reggie last August. I was playing with him on the floor. He missed the ribbon he was swatting at and instead clawed my nose. I actually went into work and paged the ortho resident on call to come down and help me wash it out. We irrigated it with saline and peroxide. Then we attempted to steri-strip it because the most distal portion kept wanting to pull apart. The steri's only stayed on for the night. It is nearly a year from that picture and I still have a very faint ditch down my nose. It festered up the first week and looked like I had been hit across the nose with a hot poker. Now it is just a nice faint line that you can only see when I don't have make-up on or are very very close to me. I'll be permanently scarred but scars rock, right?

What are the keys to your heart?

Stole this from jason. Now I'm going to have to read them and explain if they fit or not. That will give me enough blog topics to get me to Half Nekkid Thursday!

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you.

You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something that will confine you. You are afraid of marriage.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

I feel violated

The boys and I headed to Rochesterfest last night. With Tammy moved to Phoenix it is just me and guys now. I'm okay with that. They are a great group of men to be friends with. Rochesterfest is a week long street party here in town. Events include family night, country night, street dances on friday and saturday, parades, greasy fair food, you know, the typical town celebration stuff. We went down on Wednesday night after volleyball to grab some deep friend breaded cheese curd, capable of clogging one's arteries in a few seconds flat, but damn they taste good. Last night, a larger group of us went to listen to a band called Tracy's Alibi. They aren't world famous or anything but they were pretty good. Sort of Dave Miller ish (Clinton-ish for those of you back in Montana). The average age of the crowd was around 18 though. A lot of drunk 18 year olds at that. But we stuck around until the band was done (midnight due to city noise ordinances).

This is where the night started to get interesting. While we were standing near the band area a very large breasted young woman ran into me. Now, it was a pure accident but once she realized her breasts were up against me she "stayed for a while". Just long enough to feel somewhat inappropriate. The guys loved it. they laughed, band ended, we decided to head to Kathy's Pub. Kathy's is a little two story bar that usually has music downstairs and a pretty reasonable game room upstairs. The guys and I headed upstairs to play pool. Again...four guys and me. I'm in denim short shorts and a brown silk camisole. Pretty basic summer wear with a touch of sexy. We start playing pool.

I'm leaning against the wall rail drinking my beer, chatting with Paul. I feel a caress. Not a tap, not a bump, a very definite, purposeful CARESS. A young, very intoxicated, blond is caressing my top and whispers into my ear "that is a nice shirt, I really like your shirt". I bust out laughing and sort of ignore her. The guys are begging for me to play it up. I can't stop laughing. I proceed to take my turn at the pool table, make my shot, come back to where I was at. I'm holding the pool cue and a good song comes on overhead so I start dancing a little. The before mentioned blond slides in between Dave and I, looks at him, says "i'm dancing with her". Now does he say, "nope, she's with me". OF COURSE NOT...his reply "sure". Thanks babe! I stop dancing, again start laughing and she wanders away. Away to the edge of the pool table where she parks her back side at every pocket I'm aiming at. By this point I'm near peeing down my leg I'm laughing so hard. The guys are quite disappointed, encouraging me to "take one for the team" to help this young lady out. Whatever!

Little innocent drunk blonde wanders downstairs. We continue drinking beer and playing pool. Again, standing at the wall counter, this time with my back to Paul and Dan. Quite unexpectedly someone smacks my ass. We are talking cracking of flesh on tight ass jeans. It stung! As I grab my ass to rub the sting out, I turn to Dan and Paul expecting one of them to fess up. Nope. They have this dumbass blank "oh my" look on their faces. I turn back to face forward and standing in front of me is another young lady, less intoxicated, brunette in a pink top about to fall off. She is giving me the finger in front of her pursed lips, doe eyed, "oh, did I do that look".

OH MY GOD! That made three women making less than subtle contact with my body. By this time the guys are nearly in heaven, begging for me to act on at least ONE of the three offers. Now, I don't want to sound arrogant, but I did look good last night. I was feeling my groove. None of the guys in my group were complaining about anything I was or wasn't wearing. But to have THREE girls cuddle, caress, and slap me? Come on! I'm not opposed to the whole girl on girl thing, I've done it on the dance floor...BUT with friends, GOOD friends at that!

Supposedly Kirk and Paul have pictures of two of the three women. If we can get them off their camera phone I will share. until then, OH BOY! That's all I can say.

Half Nekkid...and DIRTY!

Yes my bathtub is that white and yes my feet are that dirty. We lost all three games tonight but the sandy feet made for a good half nekkid picture. First time we have lost this season other than one game our very first night. UGH!!!

Posing at Split Rock

Me at the halfway mark down the 171 stairs following the path of the old tramway at Split Rock lighthouse. Os said I HAD to post one of them. My hair looks like crap, I'm wearing a hot pink bracelet to prove we paid for wandering around the park, and the shadows are really bad. But it was a beautiful day, the hike was great, company was good.

The weekend was a good time all around. I still can't comprehend why anyone would want to run 26.2 miles for fun. I talked to Ashlea and Eric today at work, both finished the race and both are walking like they are a 100 years old and both told me how literally crappy they felt through the majority of the race. Now, what is so fun about that. On the flip side, taking care of the runners was a real ego boost. Absolutely everyone who came to my cots was appreciative of the care they received. Even the previously mentioned poor guy whose body temp was so high it led to an induced psychosis...once he cooled down to a mere feverish range he began apologizing for getting sick on us (yuppers, puked on) and thanking us for taking care of him. Quite a few pointed out we were volunteering for this and yes, we were. But it is so different than work. My usual patients come to us due to accidents and acts lacking common sense. Then they turn it around and blame me, the provider for making them unable to walk for 3 months. Like it is my fault! Anyway...

I took care of runner' from Minnesota, Cleveland, Kenya, just to name a few. 9600 runners participated in the event. Something like 4000 people volunteered to help as timer's, water boy's, drop bag picker-uppers, you name it. Overall a great experience for everyone.

As I have mentioned, or you should have at least picked up on...no way in hell would I ever run 26.2 miles. Something damn big and awful fast would have to be chasing me. So why do I WORK the marathon? In the fall of 2001, just after I started P.A. school my good friend Luke Roach died at the finish line of the Chicago Marathon. He was in his early 20's. Died of a massive heart attack when he stopped running. Sudden death happens in 1 in 50,000 marathon runners. Luke was an amazing individual and I guess I am doing this now for him. There isn't much you can do for those individuals who die of sudden death, but to know I can be there and help in some way means something. Not sure what, but it feels right. So, I'll keep going back to Grandma's for as long as I'm here. Having my sister and aunt there with me was extra special. I'll be back next year.

26.2 miles??? For real???

My sister and I on the canal after we were done. She is an athletic trainer as designated by the red shirt, I'm a PA and could write orders, hence the hat and blue shirt. It's a crazy organized mess but somehow it works every year.

This past weekend I drove to Duluth, MN to work on the medical team for the 29th annual running of Grandma's Marathon. it is currently 12:40 ish on Monday morning and I'm exhausted. I have an early meeting tomorrow morning so the stories from the weekend will have to wait but man "NO ONE IS GOING TO BELIEVE ME, NO ONE IS GOING TO BELIEVE ME!" (As screamed by one of the first finishers of the HALF marathon as his temperature spiked to around 105...for real, high temps can cause psychosis!) More later, until then...good night

Merretta, Aunt Brenda and me after caring for runner's for about 10 hours. Yes, we all have the same round, shiny cheeks when we smile!

Half Nekkid

Holding on at Hogback Mountain...Os and I went for a much needed afternoon drive before I moved out to Minnesota. This was a picture he took while I was climbing over some rocks. He made me stop climbing because he thought I was going to kill myself.

In training

Well, I'm finally confident enough in my workout to start training for an event. One of the other gals at work runs marathons and asked if anyone would be interested in doing a triathalon with her. I can swim but have a tendency to panic in open water, let alone open water with a bunch of other people thrashing around in. So I said no but I would do a medley. Well, we found one more person to join us and we are going to do a mini-triathalon in late August. I will be doing the biking portion. This weekend I went for a 19 mile ride in a serious thunderstorm warning. talk about head wind. I nearly died. Or at least I thought I was going to.

My question is this, does any one have a good website or such that offers a good outline for a training program? Liz, thanks for the help already. So far, i just keep trying to go further every time and also go further without resting each time. But I wondered if there is an actual good format out there to do this. If any of you have one, I would appreciate you sharing.

Wish me luck

Half Nekkid

The bar wench serving the nameless head at Halloween 2004. Yes, I'm holding the beer with "those".

I found THE one

I think....

Os, catch your breath, I'm not getting married. But I may have started the beginning of a long relationship today. I had my first hair cut with Patrick John today. I'm in love. I know it has only been a few hours (about 4 to be exact) but I just washed and fixed my new cut on my own and it looks great. It is all curling the same direction, there are no huge step-offs between layers, it feathers around my face, I have piecy light bangs. It is nearly the perfect cut. I'm not nearly as adept at blowing it out like he is but having done it just now on my own it looks pretty similar to how he did it. Salvation! In two weeks I am going back to have my color done. If there are any strays then he'll touch them up. he's good looking, gay, from Wyoming, and funny. The PERFECT man. Figures! When I get a chance I'll take a picture of the new do and share. Maybe once the color is done. Until then...I'm HAPPY

Ahhh, summer

So it isn't officially summer yet but today I had my first peach ice cream of the season and it's summer to me.

I have always loved peach ice cream but you can't get it year round. Growing up the only time we could get it was during the summer when the Schwann's man had it on his truck as a "seasonal" product. Then about the time school was to start up again, the peach ice cream was no longer available. It always tastes so sweet and the little frozen pieces of peach have that "icy slushly" consistency. Cool and sugary...the perfect summer treat.

Since moving out on my own I no longer have the Schwann man come. Everything comes in big boxes and I haven't lived in one place long enough until now to make purchasing and moving a deep freeze worth it. Anyway, I haven't had peach ice cream in a while. This week I caught the new
Cold Stone Creamery commercial on the radio. Cold Stone is THE ice cream store. All homemade thick creamy flavors with a gazillions "add-ons" to mix in. If you have never had it, you MUST find the one closet too you.
Over the last several months they have been having a "red pan" flavor. Usually the ice cream is in big silver pans. Now one of those pan's is red and is a new flavor which is not part of their regular line and only available for a month.

This month's treat is Peaches and Creamery. After surviving torrential downpours to get to the post office and Target today I figured I wanted a treat. i tried my little mini scoop full and it was pure bliss. That sweet, sugary peachness was just as I remembered. I had the gal whip me up the
'creation'. The peach ice cream with peaches, bananas and graham cracker crust mixed in. I'm getting ready for bed right now letting the last half of my serving melt in my mouth. I'm going to have to go back and have a gallon made up near the end of the month just so I can spread out the bliss of peach ice cream for longer than the promotions one month. So many memories of being a little girl to go with my sweet peach treat.

have a great week everyone! Take the time to find something from your childhood summers to bring a smile to your face.

Half 'Nekkid' Again

My favorite necklace during last summer...I think I wore it with nearly everything. This particular night was Alive @ 5 with The Clintons.