Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

I'm sure a lot of thought goes into the build of a car, but sometimes I really gotta question the logic behind some of the mechanisms. Like, how my husband has to take off the left front wheel in order to access the car battery. I know this wasn't just an oversight, because the engineers added terminals accessible from under the hood, so that you can still jump the battery without having to undo some lugnuts. But there are some things that you don't find out until you are in a specific situation. Like getting to your car after work, realizing the battery is absolutely dead--no lights, no sounds, nothing--and you need to get to your jumper cables in the trunk, but discover that the "pop the trunk open" button does not  work without battery power, and unfortunately the trunk doesn't have a keyhole. And it's a compact car, non-hatchback. Thankfully I was able to reach the cables by accessing the trunk through a small opening in the back seat--a secret hole th...

 As an aside, it is easiest to learn something new every day if you forget what you already knew. I am discovering that as I have to quickly re-learn various medical skills/facts that I haven't used in the past 2 years. [btw, in case you're wondering why it is easier to learn the same thing, it's because I already have all of the sources that I used the first time through.] This past week, I learned which way was north in relation to my apartment. I had thought the sun rose outside our bedroom window, making that direction east, making the left side north if I were facing east. Turns out the sun sets  out our bedroom window, making that direction west. I would have fared better just randomly guessing which direction the window faces, because north/south is closer to west than east is [so 3 out of 4 would be more right than the very wrong answer that I chose]. And another thing: did you know that although shredding mushrooms in a food processer does get the mushrooms in smal...

I should not enjoy puns so much. And I shouldn't use puns when I'm doing serious reflection. And I especially shouldn't use puns if it doesn't apply to a situation...yet here we are. Apologies. This post is not about dolphins at all. It's about seals, or rather, a scene from a nature documentary with a little vignette into a particular momma seal's life. As you'd expect from nature, her life is hard. She is desperately fighting off the advances of a bull seal, because she isn't ready to breed again, as she is still raising her newest pup seal. And suddenly her situation is poetically oxymoronic--she is so busy turning away a would-be suitor that she doesn't notice her baby slowly drown in the tide.  In case you didn't notice the paradox, I'll recap: she's not ready to have another baby, because she still has one on her hands [or flippers...] , but in her vehement denial of a [pushy, testosterone-crazed] potential-boyfriend, her very reaso...

 For the last few months, I've been taking advantage of DC's fabulous indoor pools [putting on sunscreen is too time-consuming] to exercise. It did not take me (or the lifeguards, for that matter) long to figure out that I was often THE slowest swimmer out there, or that I was swimming unconventionally. Those two might actually be related. I don't think I have a single normal stroke to get me across the pool. When I do my version of the backstroke, I keep my arms underwater and pull them from shoulder-height to hip height--basically like flapping my arms to fly. And contrary to what one might think for a fairly-inexperienced swimmer, I do not doggie-paddle--mainly because I dislike the strain it puts on my neck (but also because when I swim on my stomach like that, it feels like pressure from the water is preventing full lung expansion) .  It should be fairly easy to pick me out from all the other swimmers in their respective lanes, because I am the only one without goggles...

 When Mark and I visited my parents, we took a boat trip in the nearby water-- water which was "fine" in the "Frigid as Ice and Nearly as Excruciating" sense. My face in reaction to the temperature of the water To be fair, it only felt "fine" for the first 5 minutes or so. After that, the experience kind-of overwhelmed my senses. Also, I was concentrating on getting up on a wakesurf board. My brother giving me a pep talk before I went in Eventually I succeeded, but in the meantime Mark enjoyed taking pictures of my efforts. Me actually up! Oh well. I returned the favor.

 It's amazing how golf, as a concept, can be applied to other sport objects. Miniature golf wasn't much of a stretch, but frisbee golf and soccer golf certainly are creative takes on the game. [left to right] Julie, Dave, Ericka, Russell, Mark When Mark and I visited family in Utah right after our Idaho family visit, one of the first things we did--both with his brother's family and with my parents--was a golf alternative. As I've mentioned before, I am not very athletically coordinated. Before every kick in the soccer golf course, I had a brief moment of panic as I tried to figure out what foot to use (they're about the same in strength and accuracy [aka terrible] , so it doesn't particularly matter). One of the holes required crossing a little stream, and of course my ball went right for the water. After I rescued my ball and prepared for a second kick right at the edge of where I had gone in, I heard my sister-in-law tell one of my nephews that he needed to k...

 Have you ever run into a friend in a place you weren't expecting them to be? I have stumbled into a Utah nursing classmate years later in Texas, a Texas friend in DC, and Utah relatives in Missouri--all unplanned--but for some reason I wasn't nearly as shocked for those as I was when I ran into my husband in Idaho Falls. As a reminder, we had traveled to Idaho Falls together, but honestly he was the last person I was expecting to see in the restaurant. The "Ploughman's Melt" and the "Oinker" It goes like this: I have a friend (from Texas) who moved to Idaho Falls with her husband, so when I'm in the area, I like to see her [aka Melissa]. Mark (from Idaho Falls) has friends who are still in the neighborhood, and he likes to meet up with them when he's in town. Thus, when we were in Idaho earlier this month, we arranged to hang out separately with our respective friends. Mark had plans to go to some particular restaurant [with the word "Eagle...