Archive for the ‘The Friends’ Category

So, you may or may not have known that I spent the past weekend at my new best friend, Daisy’s house.

She and I had both worried about the awkwardness of meeting in real life after our very limited interactions of texting each other 10,000,000 a lot of times and emailing pretty much constantly a lot of times. But, dude, it was so not awkward. It was fantastic (okay, maybe the first few minutes were a little clouded by having just found out that my cat was lost and then having sobbed through O’Hare to such an extent that a woman gave me a full bag of tissues. Um, yes, I am a sexy crier- why do you ask?).

On Saturday, I did not go to my interview. It wasn’t laziness or the fact that there’s like almost zero chance we’ll end up moving in Chicago, but rather that we both learned that, hey, guess what? “North Chicago” and the “north side of Chicago” are not the same place. And also? That it’s too effing cold to get up to catch a 6:30 train to get to the interview 2 hours early because the next train wouldn’t leave early enough to get me there on time.

So I didn’t go. Instead, we went window shopping and building admiring and then came home, I watched while she made dinner (pork tenderloin with goat cheese mashed potatoes and steamed fresh green beans), we made cinnamon rolls from scratch (which required both of us to roll up and involved serious hemorrhaging of cinnamon butteriness. But holy hell are we good bakers!) and then we waited for the Chicago blog (Chicog? Blocago?) crew to show up.

And they did. Included in this group was The Alleged Lady, Law with Grace, The Namby Pamby, The Artful Blogger (who I did not mention when I initially posted this because I am a huge jerk. It should be noted that the Artful Blogger brought a HUGE 3 layer red velvet cake, which was superb and taught me a little about the history of DNA. And that I feel super bad for not listing him earlier) and several other of Daisy’s good friends (including Melissa, who comments here and who is bloglessly awesome). If I had to guess, I’d say that about 8 bottles of wine were imbibed by the 8 of us, and the next morning Daisy asked me if she’d broken a wine glass (she had) because she couldn’t quite remember. And I had/have a goose-egg the size of, well, a goose egg on the back of my head from slamming it into her wall. Both signs of a rocking good time.

Oh, and Grace? Totally called me a whore. (Did you hear that? That was the sound of a whole crap load of google searchers finding my blog with the newly introduced swear word. By the way, also, this no-swearing resolution is going crapfully awesome.)

Sunday morning, Daisy and I sat on the couch until noon, then we did more awesome window shopping (okay, we bought some chocolate, but otherwise no money flew out of our collectively barren wallets) and then had like the GREATEST LUNCH OF ALL TIME. Seriously. It was amazing.

And all too soon after getting back to Daisy’s (and meeting BISMOW), I had to get to the airport. Where I had my bag searched because Daisy gave me “Bath Bombs” from Lush, which, when I was asked about them at airport security I called “Bath Balls” because puns involving bombs are just not really appreciated at the airport.

And now I’m home. And in case this update was boring, no worries. Because I have an entirely fresh rant coming tomorrow. That New Year’s Resolution is also going swimmingly, obviously.

In short, Chicago rocked and I can’t wait to (hopefully) go back in July. Where I will not be called a whore and not slam my head into a wall. But I might bring Bath Bombs Balls with me. Just to freak out airport security.

One of the things I’ve learned since moving to New Orleans is that to celebrate any even slightly important day, like, you know, Thursday, there is a parade. Not a parade like the ones you see on TV or the ones your kids might have marched in at Christmas time- these are floats on a flatbed of a big rig truck and have wooden siding. And people do not ride and wave, they ride, drink a lot and throw shit (sometimes, literally shit, but more on that later) to the people screaming on the streets. It’s fantastic.

Today I went to see the St. Patrick’s Day parade with Nola, her family (not just CS and Sun, also her siblings, grandfather and more) and Pontchartrain Pete, and it was an absolute riot. I had read ahead of time about this particular parade, but even with advance notice I still found myself on side of the road wondering if some of these people were unaware of these magical places called GROCERY STORES. You see, at the St. Patrick’s parade people are literally screaming for food. Prized catches include cabbage, carrots (Nola got 2 moldy ones), Potatoes, Celery, Scallions, Lemons, Bell Peppers and of course, Ramen Noodles. What says Irish more than Ramen Noodles? The music is also quite fitting, I mean, I’m pretty sure Sir Mix-A-Lot was Irish, right?

Seeing as how I still lack the ability to tip my head back and stare up, this parade was particularly frightening because people are throwing full heads of cabbage and potatoes, and hey, did you know it hurts like hell to get beaned in the leg with a potato? because it does. There were also many beads thrown, and myself, Nola and at least two other members of her family caught beads with underwear attached. The man who gave them to us insisted that we put them on (um, no thank you) and I’m pretty sure one of the highlights of the day was when Nola’s sister walked up to her and said, “lift up this leg so I can put these drawers on you.” I died. It was great.

There was also some bartering at this parade, when someone in our group caught fake dog shit instead of the carrot she was yelling for, she made lemons into lemonade and traded the shit for a head of cabbage (ironic since when you cook cabbage they pretty much smell the same!). The only thing missing, and technically it wasn’t missing, I was just too stupid to use it, was sunscreen and subsequently half of my body is sunburned. It’s actually quite an attractive look.

It was really such a fun day, and a nice reprieve from the past two weeks of studying hell. The only things that could’ve made it any better were if The Fiance had been able to come, if this cold would ever die (I sound like a pubescent boy, it’s awesome) and you know, the sunscreen thing. I’m going to go bathe in some aloe vera gel and stalk my wedding registries some more.

In case you needed a visual, here’s what my chest/shoulders look like with the full sunburn having set in. Can you guess what kind of shirt I was wearing today? (and yes, I’m wearing a shirt in the picture, I just cropped it out…)

I heart weekends.

I need to be studying, but I just thought I’d fill you in on the dinner last night with NOLA and her husband and Sun (who seriously, just could not be cuter). We had wonderful food at a little restaurant I surely never would’ve stumbled across on my own, easy conversation and just a nice time. Even though I’d already met NOLA and Captain Sarcastic, I was a little nervous, though I did not iron my jeans this time (I may have de-wrinkled The Fiance’s…shhh). My nerves were unfounded and I really genuinely enjoyed the hell out of myself. Conversation with adults is so incredibly refreshing.

I’ve lived in this city for a year and a half now and I cannot remember the last time we went out to dinner with friends who were not in medical school and who, though fun people, did not plan on either getting completely shit-faced at dinner or high when they got home. And I know I don’t know NOLA that well, but I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt that neither of those are true. And that RULES. I feel like I might be growing up. No really, it’s like I have real adult friends who can have real adult conversation. Who even knew that was possible?

That said, I think next time we’re going to have to bring out a wii and do some cow racing, and or duck hunting and if I can convince them of the wonders of Super Smash Brothers, some super smashing.