For posterity, lest I relapse into Sonic addiction

I have established before that I love me some Sonic, mostly for their dizzying array of ridiculously-named beverages that take the edge off of an irritating in-laws visit. Alas, there are no Sonics in Northern Virginia, and I am not willing to drive to Harrisonburg (lovely as it is, Geeky) Fredericksburg (whoops) for tater tots and a drink. My usual drink of choice from Sonic is a cherry limeade; although I know it is simply Sprite, cherry syrup, and a lime wedge, it’s pretty damn refreshing after a 95 degree day in Bumblefuck, VA. However, after perusing a few drink recipe sites and mishmashing the recommendations into my own tarty concoction, I can say but one thing:

Fuck you, Sonic, I make much better cherry limeades.

To wit:

• Frozen limeade concentrate (1 can). Yes, I should probably use freshly-squeezed limes that I have picked from my own garden while wearing matching gardening clogs and hat, but I am lazy and agriculturally uninspired.
• Cherry 7-Up (20-oz bottle).
• Grenadine (3 tablespoons, or to taste). I found a bottle of grenadine for a buck at HomeGoods, but one could also use cherry juice.
• Cherries and/or lime wedges to garnish. Neither of these are in my drink at present, because I was too lazy to go to the store.

This results in a beverage that is much more limey and tart than its Sonic counterpart. More importantly, this results in a beverage for which I don’t have to drive 120 miles.

(EDIT: I neglected to mention this, but Nic didn’t like how fist-bitingly tart my version was. He prefers it with a second bottle of 7-Up, which lessens the pucker factor.)

King Shit of Turd Island

[Background: Although we have been living in our apartment for almost a year, we still haven't bought a real couch beyond the crappy IKEA one we purchased the first week. Hey, housing is expensive here, and with me in school, we were lucky to make rent, let alone have something to sit on. To that end, Nic has been insistent that we take his parents' old living room set, which is fugly and reeks of dog pee. Needless to say, I strongly object.]

Nic: So the next time my parents come up, I’m going to ask them to bring that chair.
Nina: [impending dread] What chair?
Nic: The one in our living room—you know, the old one.
Nina: Uh, NO. Honey, that chair smells like dog pee, like the rest of their house, and god knows how many years Pepper [their elderly beagle/Manchester terrier mix] has been sleeping on it.
Nic: [impatiently] It doesn’t smell like dog pee.
Nina: Yes, it does! I sat on it the last time we were there, and it reeks!
Nic: [indulgently, yet turdily] Baby’s just being a princess again.
Nina: [completely losing shit] DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE CALL ME A PRINCESS. Just because I don’t want furniture in my house that stinks like decade-old dog piss, I’m suddenly a princess? Fuck that noise! If I WERE a princess, WHICH I AM NOT, I wouldn’t still be with your ass after three years.
Nic: [stunned into silence] What?
Nina: Jesus fucking Christ.

Clearly, I am not completely ready to renounce my twenty-plus years of POR credentials, college degree or no.

On Compromise, or Why I Should Have Paid More Attention to His Party Affiliation

Nic: wow, my life keeps getting better and better
Nic: first my iPod comes back to life
Nic: now I have Rush to laugh at all day long
Nic: you really should hear some of his callers
Nic: I mean, jesus christ in a cadillac
me: you’re not going to convince me to listen to that shit, so forget it
Nic: seriously, it’s hysterical
me: look, I like baseball and football, and I even gave Howard Stern the old college try
me: what more do you want from me?

Majestic effing caverns

First, some decent news on the health front:

1. Whatever has been wrong with me for the past year apparently is not PCOS or anything related to it. The second set of labs that I had done came back with normal blood sugar (the office didn’t tell me to come in a fasting state to the first visit), so I am not insulin resistant. The labs by themselves didn’t completely rule PCOS out, but the ultrasound I had also came back normal—no cysts or any other abnormalities.
2. However, whether or not I have PCOS (and I’m reasonably satisfied that I don’t), I still wasn’t getting periods, so I’ve gone on the pill to that end. Aunt Flo is beginning to return, albeit hesitatingly, and the stubborn acne I’ve had for the last year is starting to clear.
3. I went to the dentist last week, for the first time since 1997. I suppose consuming enough dairy products to feed a small country is helpful, as I had not a single cavity after a decade of no dental visits. Not surprisingly, I do need to have at least my bottom wisdom teeth out, but I knew that was coming.

Like Rebekah, I have been too lazy to write much in the past two weeks, but she and Weyull and Beacat came to visit us last weekend. We did do one small touristy thing, but otherwise it was my favorite kind of visit from friends: sitting around drinking, eating terrible food, and talking shit. I also sorely miss being around other Southerners, and an inability to pronounce a long i is music to my ears. (Also, it must be said, my own usually-modest East Tennessee accent magnifies about 500 percent when I’m around other Knoxvillians, which is both delightful and hilarious.)

I do, however, wish Beker and Weyull had been with us today. I have been bothering Nic for ages to take me to Luray Caverns, since I love caverns and Luray is one of the best in the country. However, although the drive was lovely and the cave was spectacular, I quickly remembered why I hate tour groups, particularly of anything natural:

Cave guide: “This rock formation emerged around 4 million years ago, and dripping water over millions of years formed these beautiful patterns that are very fragile. Touching rocks stunts their growth, because the oils from human hands disrupt the retention of water.”

Obnoxious American tourist, who is filming everything, for fuck’s sake: “I’M ‘ON PUT MY FINGER RIGHT HURE, AN’ I’M ‘ON TAKE A PITCHER WHAT FOR SHOWIN’ AUNT BARB!”

Cave guide: “We call this beautiful rock formation Pluto’s Ghost. It was formed millions of years ago and is one of the most famous in our cave.”

Obnoxious Asian group, who is doing nothing to downplay offensive stereotypes: [130-decibel babble, 750 camera flashes]

Cave guide: “This is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, which I’ll play for you.”

Obnoxious parents with 6-month old baby: [baby screaming, drowns out sound of organ]

Cave guide: “OK, now I’m going to turn out the lights, so you can see what it was like in here in the 1870s, when the cave was discovered.”

Some asshole, IN TOTAL DARKNESS: [camera flash]

My geography degree is a BA, not a BS, but I have a fairly robust science background and just finished a geology class, so this kind of stuff chapped my ass all the more. Every bit of water in the cave had at least a few coins in it, like the entire cavern was some kind of giant fucking mall fountain. Neither Nic nor I brought a camera, because we wanted to, I don’t know, LOOK AT THE CAVE, with our eyes instead of through a goddamned viewfinder? I mean, holy Christ, who ever wants to see someone else’s vacation photos, particularly of a dark cavern where the pictures are going to look terrible?

I still had a good time, but I cracked that I would gladly pay quadruple the normal rate to have a private tour, which I might actually look into. Lordy.

Eight

(This is for C, whom I did not forget, although I have been in the woods for the past week finishing my summer classes.)

Eight Obscure Things About Me:

1. I do not own a blow dryer, or even a hairbrush—I have had short (as in above the ears, close to the head) hair for over a decade, and the last time I owned a hair product other than styling wax was around 1998.
2. I have a total of four holes in my body that weren’t there when I was born, but I only use two of them. (They’re all in the ears, thanks.)
3. Speaking of things I was born with, I have an enormous brown birthmark on my right calf. Ro didn’t believe it was a birthmark because she’d never noticed it (in the dozen-plus years that we’ve known one another), but I have photographic evidence.
4. I am addicted to Mission: Organization, Design on a Dime, and What Not to Wear. They’re virtually the only shows that live on my DVR, in addition to my husband’s Law & Order fixation. (Not that I don’t love me some Law & Order, but we have a lot of them on DVD. Also, I was a die-hard Briscoe girl, and none of the other senior detectives—at least on the seasons that TNT shows—do it for me.*)
5. I cannot make up my mind about This American Life. Most days I like it, but some days I think it’s the most pretentious, precious drivel I’ve ever heard (this is spot-on, I think). And, it must be said, I can’t STAND Ira Glass’ voice—on a good day it’s just mildly annoying, but on a bad day it makes me want to kill somebody.
6. This isn’t obscure because I’ve alluded to it before, but I love to watch figure skating, and I put Skate America on my calendar like Nic puts Opening Day. I like too many skaters to list here, but my current favorite shares a university with Beker.
7. The farthest west I have ever been in the US is Memphis, TN—meaning I have never traveled west of the Mississippi River. This is pathetic, considering I have a degree in geography, for Christ’s sake.
8. The two foods that C mentions hating—cucumbers and watermelon—are perhaps my two favorite foods. Hee.

*Uh, while I’m at it, why doesn’t TNT ever show any pre-1994 L&O episodes? I know Michael Moriarty is batshit crazy, but that doesn’t mean that Ben Stone wasn’t awesome.

Seriously, for no one’s edification

You want to know about my miserable, overwhelming time with medical issues, don’t you? Of course you do!

(Men, you probably don’t want to read this, unless you’re my husband and you have to hear it all anyway.)

Honor Doo Doo List

I forgot to mention this in the last post, but I received this in my email a few days ago:

Congratulations! As a result of your strong academic performance during the past semester, your name has been added to the Spring 2007 Dean’s Honor List.

We recognize your commitment to academic excellence and applaud your achievement. You have completed at least 12 credit hours with a semester grade point average of at least 3.5.

On my VERY. LAST. SEMESTER. I am retardedly proud of this, because y’all don’t even KNOW how I have beaten myself up for the last six years for failing to continue the kind of academic success I had pre-university. I’m horrifically undisciplined, but I’m a decent writer with a great memory and grudging tolerance for bullshit, all of which were valuable skills in American public high schools. I have been a lazy student all my life, but my motivation in high school was such that I could maintain a 4.0 without breaking much of a sweat.* (The fact that I wasn’t working two jobs then could have colored the picture somewhat.)

Nonetheless, laziness combined with several broke, mentally ill, excruciating years put my GPA in the toilet, and only after I left school for two years and came back did I start to perform even acceptably well. Not Dean’s List well, but at least above 3.0. Too late to save my overall GPA, of course, but enough so that the mental beatings abated somewhat.

So yeah, I am disproportionately proud of this small accomplishment that I’m sure most of my friends achieved every semester, but I don’t care. I worked my ass off last semester, and I’m glad it paid off, even in this small way.

*Full disclosure: I went to high school in Tennessee, a state not known for its high educational standards. You ever wonder why people call it The Edumacashun State?

Baby got diseases

§ Remember that gallbladder thing? Yeah, I have to have surgery. This does not please me, but thankfully I have excellent insurance through Nic’s job and will be seeing a great surgeon. I haven’t done the consultation yet, so it will be a while before I get sliced open (oh god oh god). None of this is particularly surprising, given my family’s terrible medical history and my own irresponsibility with regards to health, so I was semi-prepared.

§ My sister, her husband, and their stowaway (due to debut in about 8 months) came to visit last week on their way back south. I worked myself into a frenzy of cleaning our horrific apartment, but we had a good (if short) time before they headed to North Carolina. Nic, for his part, was more antisocial than I would have liked, but at least he didn’t sit on the couch in his underpants and pick his nose. Victory!

§ I have been obsessing over a couple of musical ladies lately, namely Charlotte Martin and Toby Lightman (warning: MySpace). I would dearly love to share some songs, but a) all of my tracks are from the iTunes store and b) my CD burner is broken. If you don’t understand how those two facts are related, don’t worry about it. Charlotte Martin’s Stromata is brilliant, and Toby Lightman (thanks, C) is pure Patsy Cline on some songs (listen to “My Sweet Song”). I am aware that both of these albums are from last year, but I am slow.

§ We had planned to go to the Nationals game today, but I managed to convince browbeat Nic into accepting my view of the situation: DC, as you might assume, is The Most Horrible Place on Earth (even superceding GW) on July 4. I have lived here for seven years and have spent the last five July 4ths in the area, and only once have I ever left the house on that day. That was last year, and the Metro on July 4th is an experience that I hope never to repeat.

§ While I’m on this subject, can someone tell me WHY tourists have to get on the Metro at rush hour? Metro is probably the most tourist-friendly public transportation system in the country, but somehow it’s incredibly difficult for people to grasp such simple concepts as GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY. Look, the monuments aren’t going anywhere, and the rest of us have somewhere to be. When I get on the Metro, I got shit to do, so get the hell out of my seat and go look at your map on the platform. There are a lot of things that I like about where I live, but the fact that my home turns into a giant theme park between the months of April and September is not one of them.

§ I am going to the dentist on August 1, after over seven disgusting years of no health insurance and no dental visits. You’d think that after that long I’d have some serious bubba teeth, and I feel like I do, but Nic assures me that they look perfectly normal (hmph). I’m still worried that I’m going to horrify the dentist, plus I haven’t had my wisdom teeth out. If anyone’s got similar horrible dental stories with happy endings, I’d love to hear them.

Waking up the neighbors

I survived the in-laws visit, although not without some serious bouts of annoyance, to wit:

§ Happy’s Flea Market, which smells like a wet dog and looks like something out of one of my nightmares. Nic’s parents are so cheap that, at one point, all of their shopping was done here—my husband didn’t know what a shopping center was until his age was in double digits.

§ Endless turd-hunting by Nic for baseball card paraphernalia. I cannot believe, after an unhappy childhood of sitting around comic book stores waiting on my dad, that I married a fucking collector. Our apartment looks like a collectible shop coughed up on it, and one entire wall in our bedroom is devoted to baseball figurines. In case you were wondering, my husband is 29 years old.

§ I genuinely like Nic’s parents and I think they like me, but his dad can’t seem to resign himself to the fact that a fourth person is now, for better or worse, part of their lives. Yeah, we haven’t been married that long, but I’ve been around for three years, and we were engaged for over a year. I’d think Nic’s dad would have had some time to get used to it, but whenever I visit, he holes up in the TV room until we’re ready to leave. You’d think this would be a good thing, but the catch is, he hides from BOTH OF US. I don’t care whether he socializes or not, but it hurts Nic’s feelings, which brings out my righteous alter ego, Seriously Pissed-Off Wife Who Adores Her Husband (Despite His Baseball Cards), who is prone to saying rude things and endangering her spouse’s inheritance.

§ They live 200 miles away in the middle of NOWHERE, and their house smells like 15-year old dog pee.

However, I now feel bad for venting all of this spleen, since last night their garage (which, thank GOD, is not attached to their house) was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. No big deal, except that Nic’s dad restores classic cars, three of which were in the garage at the time. That’s years of work up in flames and, if their insurance doesn’t cover it, better than $100,000. His parents are devastated, and I find myself uncertain of what to say. Unfortunately, Hallmark doesn’t make Sorry Your Garage Was Struck By Lightning, Even Though You Piss Me Off cards.

Sigh. I am up for Supportive Daughter-in-Law Duty tonight, which is not one of my strengths. What makes people feel better these days? A sleeping cat, who looks miffed when she’s awoken?

Ok, maybe not. I’ll figure something out.

A little bobble there

Regarding stomach implosion, I am feeling much, much better—I can eat relatively normal food, and I haven’t had a gallstone attack since just after I got back from the ER. The doctor gave me a fistful of prescriptions, and the combination of acid reflux medication and Vicodin seems to be keeping the attacks at bay. I see the gastroenterologist on the 26th, where I will find out the word on possible surgery. For now, though, I’m doing ok.

In my post-graduation fit of power-lazying, I have been wasting an astonishing amount of time watching videos on YouTube, which leads me to reveal a minor fact about me that virtually no one knows: I desperately wanted to be a gymnast when I was a child. Those of you who know what I look like in person will no doubt find this hysterical, since I’m about a foot too tall and have all the coordination of an angry buffalo. I don’t know where this desire came from; it wasn’t the Olympics, since I was a little too young for Shushunova and Silivas in 1988, but too old for Gutsu and Miller in 1992. I did take gymnastics lessons as a child (around 1989-1990), but they didn’t last that long—it was expensive, and I sucked royally. Thankfully, I didn’t get far enough for my future boobs to go into hiding.

However, I do love watching gymnastics (and figure skating, but thankfully I never tried it), and YouTube has an enormous collection of videos, particularly of my favorite gymnast, from whom I derived hair inspiration in 1996. She also had the best bitchface ever, which I wish I could replicate at opportune moments, such as on EVERY METRO RIDE I EVER TAKE.

Since it is Father’s Day this weekend, we are driving down to Roanoke to spend the weekend with Nic’s parents and their menagerie of elderly animals. I like Nic’s parents, but his dad could annoy a saint, so I’ll probably be hiding in reading for my summer classes. However, I am willing to tolerate all of this because a) I love my husband and seeing his parents makes him happy, and b) I get to go to Cracker Barrel and Sonic, which we don’t have here. (Mostly, it’s the latter, but don’t tell Nic.)