Halloween. I was Gahlinda.

I was Gahlinda and Sarah was Elphaba. I heart this girl!

I live here.

Pictures of the new apartment...much like the old apartment, but with pink bathroom stuff!

A recap of the birthday parade O' fun.

So, Sophia sent me my birthday crown. Just my luck, I forgot it before the little burrough pub crawl to celebrate our dear friend's last day and sort of to celebrate my birthday. In my defense, I had been feverishly working on my first postdoctoral grant submission for weeks an hadn't slept in awhile. Anywho, lucky for me, I was provided with a new hat. A princess hat with ruffles and ribbons. It didn't stay on very well, but was accompanied by glow bracelets. So, there's that. Here's the new Professor and I before her departure.


Very early the following morning, I got on a plane to NC to celebrate my birthday (28!) with family. Here is my mom and I at dinner. You can't see because of my crazy pale skin, but I'm wearing a lovely necklace of pearls that was one of my birthday presents. I love it.








That was Sunday, and I spent Monday going to lunch with my friend Amanda (one of several Amanda's I know), shopping, and working. Tuesday, working. Wednesday I drove out to WS to get my hairs cut. I had been growing my hair as long as I could for as long as I could stand it. And I got to the point where if I didn't hack it off, I was going to take to it with any cutting device nearby. I also wanted it a little lighter. I've been getting my color done in Philly at one of the Aveda schools, but hadn't felt like making the effort to go back lately, being unsure of what I wanted. I've only had my hair cut once up here and paid the same that I pay for an amazing stylist in NC, but had 1/3 of the results. I didn't hate the hair cut, I just didn't like it, and since I always love what Ally does for me, I prefer to wait and go back to her. Besides, I'm home enough to make it work.



After getting my hairs cut (and working while my highlights highlighted!), I went to have a quick dinner with Sarah, who surprised me with a quick dinner with her, but also, with Abby, Sophia, and Kristen! What a great surprise! I hadn't wanted to tell everyone about me being in town since I didn't really have enough time to see everyone I wanted to see. And I knew I'd be back. But, I hated not getting to see some of my old friends. So, hooray for that! My hair was so cute, I don't know why it looks like I just woke up here. Oh well.





Next, it was on to the beach. My old favorites Emily and Chelsea, and Chels's work friend Jill headed to Wilmington to go sit on the sand for a few days and enjoy various nonsense. And eat fish tacos. And try not to get burned. I was almost completely successful... my SPF 70 worked well, but on the second day, I missed about a 10 sq in section around my neck. Whoops. Given my propensity for burning, I still consider this a success.

So, all was well. I really enjoyed Chelsea's friend Jill, and per usual enjoyed my time with Emily and Chelsea.
An example of nonsense?
Here I am behind a tree. In the elevator. With a "Caution" Sign. We put both in the elevator in honor of last year when we found such nonsense already in place for us.





But, then, it was time to go. To make the whole ride back to my parents home more painful was a succession of thunderstorms and sunshine. The girls boarded a plane and I spent one more night with my parents. By Monday afternoon, I was back at my incredibly messy desk. Looking up antibodies and drinking starbucks, while I polished off the last little details to send my proposal off to NIH and looking tired.

BTW, notice the little pirate skull on the phone. Jealous?

A story about birthday miracles...

Today, I have a story for you. It starts in 2007 with a girl's 26th birthday. I was given a birthday tiara by Sophia. It has pink feathers and rhinestones. See? It's there to the left.

Well, it was silly and fun and whatnot. I passed it on to Sophia for her birthday last year so she could have the wonder of the pink tiara.

Today an email chain started with work people. It said the following: "What say you? Who wants to wear hats for the occasion? Just Joy? Yeah, that's what I thought."

So, to that I respond that I will not wear a hat unless it looks like this and then attach the above picture. But, at the time, I know I am safe from wearing the tiara, as I no longer have it. It's sad, but it's ok. I figure that I can find something else to amuse those around me with.

Then, I get home and remember that the front desk of my building called to let me know I had a package. As I didn't remember ordering anything, I hoped it could be an early birthday surprise. I go to fetch the package and when I see it's from Sophia, I'm fairly certain it IS a birthday surprise! But, I had no idea that it would contain...

...

The pink tiara!!!!! Hahahahaha! I was delighted. Especially with the note that reads: "I hope all your birthday wishes come true! Starting with the one about wishing you had your pink birthday crown!" Hahahaha! Love it.

So, dream little dreamers. Wishes do come true.

I suppose it's nice...

But I'm still going to complain for a moment that it is not summer in Philadelphia. I mean, really, you shouldn't take me seriously, because it might get hot eventually and then I'll be whining and moaning about how it's hot. AND, I really like the mild 75-80 degree low-humidity weather. It just doesn't really feel like summer.

I guess I'll have to go to NC. Oh wait, I AM! In like 2 weeks! Hooray for that! Except, I've been a tremendous slacker on this big assignment I have to complete before I go. So, there's that. And now, the timing is so critical that I've become mostly a hermit during 6 of 7 evenings and really should be so 7 of 7! It's like thesis-writing-critical mass, except, not as big, and I'm not as productive. But the same level of ohmigoodnessihatethisandwhydoihaveto-ness.

Separately, let's talk about my hair. I really like it long. But I really hate it long. And I really love it red. But, I really rather miss the blonde. And I don't want to take the time to go to the school where I have been going to get it done (4+ hours...shoot me now), so I tried a semi-permanent dye at home, but it only slightly minimized the difference between my roots and color. Sigh.

I don't know. I'm just avoiding. Writing.

As seen on NPR's webpage this afternoon.

Take the quiz and see how well you know various things concerning science as compared to other Americans taking the quiz!

http://pewresearch.org/sciencequiz/

Customer Service

I'm sort of fed up with such a thing. Or, really, lack thereof.

Since moving to PA one of the things that I have noticed that overall, one of the biggest differences here is that the majority of service people hate their jobs. Or hate customers. I'm not sure. It comes across similarly. This is particularly true at grocery stores (except Trader Joes, but really truly at Acme and Genaurdi's). Restaurants, stores, anywhere that makes and sells anything.

In the last week, I've had to call two major corporations to request some help. This, by the way, has nothing to do with PA, but, perhaps, because of the PA-service-hating-environment, I am more sensitive to such irritations.

Or maybe I'm just easily irritated. It's possible.

Anywho, Customer Service...

First, I call Amazon.com about an order I placed that took over 2.5 weeks to be delivered. I was fairly sure nothing was wrong with the order and I had chosen the free shipping option. But, 9 days was to be the upper limit of the shipping adventure. But, by 9 business days, there was little indication that my "shipped" packages were arriving. This made me feel annoyed. So, I called and tried to ask what the deal-i-o was. The first lady I spoke with was awful and condescending. She made sure I understood the difference between calendar days and business days and explained that the free shipping option takes longer. After I got fed up with her and her apologies that "I felt my order was taking too long", I got an email from Amazon asking if she had solved my problem. As I started to write out, no, no she did nothing to help me, I decided to call back instead.

I appologized right off the bat to the man that answered that I was already pretty annoyed at the first woman, but explained I was a long-time customer and this was my first complaint. He did, in fact, help me, which was great. He tracked down exactly what went wrong and explained that since DHL went bust, there have been some issues with the free shipping option in its execution. So, great, but it's still mildly annoying that it took 2 calls. And, I've since ordered again from Amazon and it looks like the same crap is happening, so I'm going to have to find another vendor, perhaps, for my cheap books and DVDs.

Secondly, I called a credit card company (Chase) about combining two accounts that are now with the same company ever since one of the banks went bust. Furthermore, their relationship with my favorite bookstore is ending, so I see no need to have that card anymore. The guy I spoke with must be best friends with the first amazon lady and told me 3 times that it was not an option and was there anything else he could help me with. Well, Buddy, you didn't help me with the first request, so why would I want any more of your "help"?? After asking a few questions to find out why my request was not an option, I finally ended the conversation with, "Well, that was exceedingly UNhelpful, thank you" and hung up.

I don't know. It isn't like I have dreams of impossible things. Or maybe I do.

Like Customer Service of major corporations providing "customer service" for non-technical, non-difficult tasks and questions more times than 1 out of 3.

Dream, little dreamer, dream.

One of the few pictures from Barbados.

Barbados!

I spent one month in Barbados in college my sophomore year. I went to a school with a January Term, which was one of the best things. January 2001, I went to Barbados with my advisor and 5 other girls to doa tropical marine ecology field course. It was a lot of work, but what an amazing place to be swamped with work. Especially when your work is outside IN the paradise, rather than, say, an office that is AT paradise.

Anyway, there are lots of memories from that trip. And this entire post was inspired by my dinner. Yes, my dinner. Follow with me, but first, we'll go through all the stuff that ISN'T my dinner.

Like, say...

... the little rum shop across the street from where we stayed that as far as I recall did not sell rum, but soda. We would go buy a bottled coca-cola after being in the water and sun for over 8 hours looking at tropical marine life and before we went to the lab to identify said marine life that night.

...also, every morning while we ate breakfast, monkeys would run across the courtyard on part of their morning paths to whatever.

...also, there was a large-ish group of Biology students at this little institute we were staying at from a small college in Kentucky. One of the cute boys that I talked to much while I was there was named Jordan I think and had curly hair like Justin Timberlake. Because of these two facts, my favorite on the trip Staci and I referred to him as "Boy Band Guy".

...also, I stayed in a narrow hallway "room" with 3 of the girls on the trip. One snored, the other talked in her sleep, and the third was fine, but a little strange. The fourth girl was the most senior and got a bed in the advisor's little apartment place. The room was right off the library and late at night, I'd go into the library to use the dial-up internet. It was better than sleeping in that awful room with the others.

...also, we were by a park on one side and a 5 star resort on the other side. Staci swears she saw Uma Thurman on the beach without Ethan Hawke (this was I think right before they split? maybe?) and she was pretty excited. All I know is that everyone at the resort and everyone at the park were enjoying the beach in bathing suits. We would walk out onto the beach every day in full wet suits and fins and snorkels and little clipboards that you can write on underwater. We looked like gigantic tools.

...also, another thing, I got a hand tan from wearing that wet suit. A hand tan.

...also we had limited food choices while we were there. There was a cook who would provide dinner for us that consisted mainly of flying fish. Breakfast consisted of weird peanut butter, toast, and awful cereal. One day I was so upset that the boys from Kentucky ate all the peanut butter because I couldn't stand to eat that cereal or weird milk. However bad and/or limited breakfast was, lunch was my favorite and was the same every single day. Amazing yeast rolls, New Zealand cheese, cucumbers and mayonnaise. That's it. And those sandwiches were so great. I don't know if it was the cheese, the bread (the bread was pretty amazing), or the fact that we were starving after 5 hours of swimming in our little get-ups, but they were so yummy.

I bring all of this up because I have thought about those cucumber sandwiches for, what 8 years now? And yesterday I saw "New Zealand White Cheddar Cheese" at Whole Foods. So I bought it. Now, I have no idea what kind of cheese this New Zealand cheese in Barbados may have been, but this was as good of a shot as any. So, today, I bought a cucumber and some ciabatta bread. Now ciabatta bread isn't anywhere close to the type of bread we had in Barbados, but it's been too long to think of what may be a good replacement, and I figure that the ciabatta bread is good white bread and may just do for my little experiment. I may have been dissuaded by the lack of Barbadian bread before, but 8 years in I was due for some semblance of this sandwich.

So that's what I had for dinner. A cucumber sandwich. And it was pretty good. Not as good as those in Barbados, of course, but it satisfied some curiosity and a craving.

And the whole thing? A little random. Which is why I share.

Because that's how I am. Random.

I know it happens.

I get wistful/contemplative/sulky every now and again about life and how it changes things/people/places/whatever.

This is another one of those times. Briefly.

Yeah, so, all my friends are growing up and moving on. Slowly but surely, they've been getting married and such. Now the baby rush has started. My friend Cameron, from college had a baby 2-3 weeks ago. Rafia, another college friend is due sometime in the late fall I think. Alix, from grad school, is due in a month. A MONTH! And all these people with babies don't even have the good manners to have their babies near where I live. I mean, what good does it do me for you to have a baby 8 plus hours away? Seriously.

Aside from that, my friends are moving on to real jobs outside of this mess of "training" that seems to never end for us stupid enough to do science. Most exciting is that Mandy was freed this week from her awful residency and is starting her first real job and moving to Florida this month. I got used to people leaving in grad school and now, my favorite new friend in PA is moving on. My friend Ginger just got hired to become faculty at a university in the South. Worse yet, she decided today and will be gone within a month. Sigh. Great for her, absolutely seriously great for her, I think, but bleh, meh, poop, sucky for me. At least I had an old friend EM! move closer before Ginger moves to help me through! Heh.

At least I've finished school. While I'm still technically training, and technically am under contract for 2 full years, I could move on. Sometime. I guess, maybe, although who knows where with just a one-year postdoc. Anywho. Life is good and all, it's just crazy when my good friends around me are making these major life changes.

That's all I'm sayin'.

I live alone with cats.

This is Oliver. He's an old man. He's losing his teeth. He likes cupcakes, milk, cheese, and treats. He's very deliberate with his treat-seeking.
First assess the treat. Notice the forward ears. And two paws up.

Second, get the treat. One paw, serious face.

Third, eat the treat. After the treat is securely in the paw, eat it. Nice.

This is Zoe. She's proactive. Rather than wait for treats to be offered, she just goes in the treat container after them. She shakes her paw until a treat will pop out. It's kind of genius. Evil kitty genius.