I don't know if Captain Phil has ever talked about crab farts before, but it was new to me last night and I was cracking up.  Oh, my.  And dare I say that Crab Farts is a good name for a band?  I always like watching the "After the Catch" specials, but...what's up with Ben Bailey?  Dude, quit trying to cuss like a sailor. You can't pull it off and you sound stupid and the whole "Cash Bar" thing is kind of dumb.  I miss Mike Rowe.

Got a long day ahead - I usually leave at 5 on Wednesdays but I'm working a later shift today and staying 'til 7.  Yesterday was nuts, too, but I was kind of on the edge of it because I was in surgery all day - I only had one patient, but between late starts and the surgery taking WAY longer than I wanted ("What are you going to do? Bleed on me?"!) I didn't have to dip my toes in the Waters of Chaos.  But I'm bringing my water wings today, boy.

Well, Lisa left this morning...but it was so much fun having her here!  Tumnus was very excited to see his auntie, of course, and she brought him a couple new squeaky toys that he is now obsessed with.  Yesterday was a lot of fun because we went downtown.  We walked along the lakefront and then headed to the Art Institute...I'd been meaning to go back there for a long time, so it was a lot of fun to go together.  And then last night we got together with Erica and Ali for Indian food, which was most exellent.

So now the T-bear and I have a few days to ourselves and then my family is coming up for the weekend of the 4th!  So it's a busy week.  And I can't say how nice it was to not go to work yesterday.  I've worked the past four Saturdays in a row, and it was ouchy.  Now I get next weekend off, too!  Sort of.  I'm on call for the 4th, but that just means taking care of the pets boarding there.  It's usually not too bad.

One thing that Lisa and I discovered while she was here is that there is a Half Price Bookstore about fifteen minutes from where I live.  This is both a fantastic and potentially bad discovery for me to make, because I could spend hours in there fighting the urge to, ironically, spend seven million dollars buying super cheap books.   As it turned out, I was a good girl...I bought a copy of Wicked for four dollars and found the second book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde.  So I behaved myself.

Ugh.  Today was a KILLER.  For everyone, not just me, particularly this morning.  Just chaos.  I think I found cancer in one of my patients, which just sucks (actually, now that I think about it, it might be two patients).  But the upside is I got almost everything done that I needed to do (all the important stuff, anyway), I'm home and eating ice cream, tomorrow is my day off, and I think with a little bit of peace and quiet, I'll feel a bit less frayed.

And Lisa's coming tomorrow!  Yay!  A couple of our other friends are coming with her for the day, so that'll be fun.

Of course, they're coming a lot earlier than I expected, so the Numminy-bear and I are going to have a late evening cleaning session...which will be me cleaning while he tries to eat things.    It won't take long because I keep the place fairly neat anyway, but...yeah, I thought I'd have time in the morning and I don't think I will.

But yay!

...now if I could only find the energy to move, I'd get to work...

Oy, is it HOT!  But there's no way I'm going to complain.  Not after a winter with - 30 windchill.  Besides, I've got central AC, so what do I care what it does outside?  I hear people say "Oh, I'm trying to save money so we keep the air conditioning at around 80".  Bah.  Not me!  I can't stand it warmer than 75 inside.  I turn it off when I'm at work (which is most of the time) anyway, so the air is only on for about half the day.

When I was home this weekend, the Padre did something super nice for me.  I knew he was going to change the oil in my car, but he ended up also changing my transmission fluid, spark plugs, washing the rugs, dusting, washing and waxing, and replacing my windshield wipers.  I can change my own oil, but the Padre will often do it when I visit home (and I swear I don't plan to visit every time I need an oil change...it just happens that way).  And I was going to buy new windshield wipers this week, but he noticed one was tearing and beat me to it.

The Padre is just the awesomest.  I used to feel a little guilty for "making him do all that work" until I realized that he does things for people to show them he loves them.  So now I just give him a big hug and say thanks.

Wow.  I went to go see "Wicked" yesterday and OH MY GOSH is it GOOD!!  If you ever hear that this musical will be anywhere within your general area of the country, I highly recommend that you make the drive and go see it.  Just amazing.  I really liked the book, but I liked the musical a LOT better, so if you read the book and didn't like it, don't let that stop you from going.  The characters are a lot more likeable and the ending is a lot more optimistic.  Gregory Maguire is a really good author, but most of his books have a certain creepy/squick factor to them.  The musical doesn't have that.

So GO!  I command it.

Got another busy week ahead.  One of my best friends from vet school will be here for a few days later this week, so I am super excited to see her.  And then the fam is going to come up for Fourth of July weekend.  This means more excitement for Tumnus.  He's not going to know what to do with himself after these few weeks are over when he's just stuck with boring old me.

Happy birthday to me!   I guess I now officially qualify as "late twenties" since I'm 27 today.  Twenty-seven sounds a lot older than 26, but I don't feel older at all.  Tell the truth, I still feel like a kid.

Bro and I went to the Field Museum today.  They have an exhibit there on pirates, so of course I had to go see that while it was there.  It's about the Whydah, a pirate ship that sank in a storm near Cape Cod in 1717.  It was a pretty wicked exhibit.  The youngest pirate on board was John King, who might have been 8 or 9 years old.  He was on a ship that was raided by the Whydah and he insisted on joining the pirate crew.  The wreck excavators found one of his shoes and one of the bones from his leg.  Really, really interesting.

Tonight Bro is taking me out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, so that should be fun.  Plus, you know...cheesecake!

So my one little patient that I sent to a specialist is doing well.  I really like the doctor I sent him to, and this particular specialty center is extremely good about keeping us general practitioner persons in the loop. 

Bro and I have had fun.  We went downtown on Sunday and walked along the lake, and then went to Millenium Park.  I'd never seen The Bean before, so that was cool (and yes, the junior high part of my humor thinks it's hysterical that the Windy City is home to a giant bean).   Tumnus is thrilled that his uncle is here, and it works out nicely for him because my brother can puppysit, so he gets to stay home and par-tay instead of coming to work with me and being stuck inside all day.

My friend Ali recently gave Tumminy-bear a little rubber squeaky frog.  I can not believe how mesmerized Tumnus was by that thing.  Usually he gets a new toy and is distracted by it for a solid 10 - 15 minutes before he has to do something else, but this froggy kept him busy for almost an hour.  And every time Bro and I would give it back to him (because his toys aren't left out all the time), it would be the same level of concentration.  Of course, he's already chewed a hole in it and seriously impaired the squeak, but I'm going to go out and get him a bunch of rubber squeakies when I get the chance.

As a side note, the words "impaired the squeak" is really amusing me...

Well, the votes are in for the Matrix series, and the general consensus is that the ending sucked.  It was kind of like a novel by Arthur C. Clarke - really great story, very intriguing plot, and then in the last twenty pages someone dropped acid and it all went to pot.  If I can mix drug metaphors like that...   Meh.  I wasn't a fan.  And I STILL don't know what happened!  Last thing I know, Neo is doing the whole Maimed And Emotionally Scarred Hero Thing and sacrificing himself (I think), and then all of a sudden all of the Agent Smiths explode like water balloons.  Eh?   Where did that come from?  And how did the Oracle suddenly reappear?  And how did Neo's body die?  Did the Big Giant Head kill him when Smith took over?  And, okay, all the people in Zion survived (hopefully long enough to learn how to knit themselves some new sweaters), but the Matrix is still up and running...

Maybe they should have spent more time on story content and less time on pointless gun battles.   I think I'll just stick with the first film, mentally end the story there, and leave it dangling that eventually Neo and Company will manage to actually win.  Because I like happy endings like that.

Nothing else going on, really...One of my favorite patients was referred to a specialist yesterday - he's an incredibly sweet little dog with a lot of health problems and I've reached the end of my ability to help him.  My hospital has great resources and most of the time we can manage patients and we don't often need to use our local specialty centers, but this little guy needs some serious attention now.  So on the one hand I'm relieved that he's out of my hands and under 24 hour supervision, but on the other hand, I'm really worried about him.  So this little pooch could use some good thoughts right about now.

In other news: Yay!  Sunshine!  No more rain!  And Numminy-bear gets to see his uncle tomorrow!

What a week!  Oog.  Feels like it's been really long, but it went quickly.  I actually left work on time every day, but did a 12-hour day Tuesday because my co-worker and I switched shifts, and there's been a lot of stuff to juggle.  So I'm VERY glad it's my day off today.   Even though it's raining.

I got together with Carpool Buddy last night to watch the second movie in the Matrix trilogy.  I'd seen the first one enough so that I was familiar with the story, but I'd only seen the second movie once (and I think it was still in theaters) and I'd never seen the third.  All I remembered about the movie was the albino dreadlock twins, about four billion Agent Smiths, and the guy who looked like Colonel Sanders at the end.  The movie itself was okay, but I really enjoyed doing some MST3K-esque running commentary.  I couldn't help it!  There were some lines that I just couldn't let slide past without adding some snarky input.

I think I'm going over to his apartment again tonight for the third movie...he tells me that all the gaping plot holes are filled in by the end, so we'll see if this series has a satisfactory ending.

AD, nutella is a fantastic, gooey, chocolate-hazelnut spread.  You can usually find it in the peanut butter aisle.  It goes really well on fruit (if you mix fruit and chocolate - I don't) and is marvelous on peanut butter sandwiches.  And it's even better straight out of the jar.   But I'm very proud of myself...so far I have been ONLY using it on sandwiches, and it's been in my apartment for five days.  This might be a new record...

In other news, I was very distressed by what happened to the guys on the Wizard this week.  Those poor guys.  On the other hand, may I say that I really, REALLY like the Hillstrand Crab Dance?

Only two more days until my brother gets here!  Yays!

I finished The Sea Hawk this morning - fantastic book!  I highly recommend it.  I started reading Scaramouche (also by Sabatini) sometime last year, but didn't really get into it.  I feel like giving it another chance now.

When I was at work the other day, I said that I needed to go to the grocery, and then one of my coworkers stopped me and said, "Do you mean the grocery STORE?" Apparently you can't just call it "the grocery".    I don't use the word "supermarket" either...not a big fan of that one.  Then it came out that I call carbonated beverages coke instead of pop.  So my manner of speaking has been mocked at work now for several days.  But that's okay, I give as good as I get.

Am SUPER excited for next week because Bro is going to come and stay with me.  Yay!  After almost two years of me living out of state, he's finally going to visit.  I'll still have to work, but we should have plenty of time to hang out.  And Tumminy-bear will be ever so excited to see his uncle.

In other news, I was craving a peanut butter and nutella sandwich today, so I bought the fixin's.  I usually don't buy nutella because I have a very bad habit of grabbing a spoon and devouring the entire jar in a matter of days.  But I have sworn to renounce my evil ways!  This is the Sandwich Only Jar.  We'll see how long I last.