Veronica M.D.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Best of 2009 Challenge

Since there are only a few days left of 2009, I figured I should get on the ball and finally start the Best of 2009 challenge.

Night out
The greatest night of 2009 technically started in 2008 but rocked late into the first day of 2009. Is that cheating? Wait. Never mind. I don't care, because no night could have topped this night:

My Wedding.

I know. Swoon.

As some of you may know, I got married on December 31st, 2008, and the reception raged late into the new year. It was a night filled with my favorite people, lots of dancing, and so many memories that I know I will never ever forget.

Moment of peace
This one is simple: My honeymoon in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Oh. My. God. An amazing week in the sun at an all-inclusive resort.

THIS was the view from our balcony:

Yeah, our balcony with a BED on it!:

There were multiple pools that were only a few feet from the ocean ...

... and, of course, lovely swim up bars ...

... where we were got special "honeymooner" drinks in addition to all our other free drinks!

Yeah, and a waiter or waitress was assigned to you all day, and they would bring you anything you wanted, no matter where you were:

We had free 24-hour room service ...

... and they made us sweet desserts like these:

I wish we could have stayed forever.

Blog Find of the Year
Since I only started blogging this year, all of my finds are ones I lived without until this year, but I have found some real beauties. I love Pilgrim Congress for her drawings in Paint and Jesus jokes, Live It, LOVE It for her general hilariousness and TMI Thursday, and Ex Hot Girl for her inspiration.

However, if you have read my blog in the last week, you know who my fave is: Hyperbole and a Half. Imagine David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs. Now make it a straight girl (not that there's anything wrong with that!) who did not have such a devastating childhood. Add lots of long sentences and an out-of-control imagination and use of sarcasm, and you have Allie. Go check her out!

Book of the Year
David Sedaris' newest, When You Are Engulfed In Flames, rose to the top of my list.

If you are a Sedaris fan and haven't read this book yet, go buy it!

Album of the year
Well, since I am a LAME-O, I will leave this one to my husband.

He reports: "I have co-winners ...

Arctic Monkeys, Humbug

and Them Crooked Vultures, Them Crooked Vultures

TV show of the Year
The Office is definitely the one show I cannot live without.

Honorable mentions: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Hoarders, and 30 Rock

Film of the Year
Simple. Inglourious Basterds.

A-maz-ing. So wonderful, interesting, funny, sad, moving, and inspiring.

Honorable mention: The Hangover. HI-larious.

Best change made to the place I live
We have not been able to make many changes to our home this year since we are renting, but we did make two purchases that really changed the look of our whole living room:

This TV stand makes us feel very "adult."

However, hands down, the best "new addition" to our home was our little sweetheart, Cleo.

She brings us so much love and joy every day, and she is such an important part of the family.

At first, MoJo wasn't too keen with the changes made to the family structure, but they are now buddies.

Or, they coexist somewhat peacefully. Whatever.

Challenge.
Well, that would have to be my job. To make a long story short (which I am not so good at -- have you READ this blog?), I was handed a lot more than I signed up for this quarter. I was happy (kind of) to step up and help when I was really needed, but it certainly made for a long and soul-crushing few months. The positives were that I tested my strength, I made it out alive, and because I had to go "above and beyond" my contract last quarter, I will get a break in my schedule next quarter but still get the same paycheck. Say what?!? I am looking forward to that. Big time.

The best place.

Please allow me to be schmoopy and dorky. Oh, wait, you can't stop me! Muahahaha!

Anyway, my favorite place is laying on my husband's lap on our big red couch.

I had a million other possibilities, ones that made me sound more interesting, hardworking, driven, or artistic, but they were all lies. My favorite place is being curled up, safe, and relaxed with the husband.

Word or phrase. “2009 was _____.”

Evolution. I moved up at work, it was the first year of my marriage, and we got a dog. Things were certainly happening this year, and I feel that it was a very natural evolution into my more "adult" life.

Resolution you wish you’d stuck with.

Well, duh. I wanted to lose eighty trillion pounds, and eat much healthier, remember to take my vitamins every day, and exercise five days a week. EPIC FAIL.

However, I think I have set some more realistic health goals for this year, and I am going to have a little checklist on my fridge so I can remember to accomplish them every day. Here's what I have so far:

Eat one salad a day

Take a multi-vitamin, Calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin C every day

Include a healthy lean protein in my lunch

Have two small snacks during the day to make me less hungry during meal times

Eat at least 5 servings of fruit and veggies in a variety of colors

If I don't do structured exercise, I have to walk Cleo for 40 minutes

Okay, so I didn't answer all 31 questions, but these are the ones that really apply to me and I will want to look back on 10 years from now.

So, what are YOUR bests of 2009?

Monday, December 21, 2009

An Ode to SNL

It seems whenever I ask people if they watch Saturday Night Live, they always say something like "Oh, I used to watch it, but it isn't very funny anymore."

Well, guess what? FALSE.

I love SNL, and to bring back viewers to my favorite Saturday show, I would like to provide you with some of my favorite recent funnies.

Please, do enjoy:

First up: "Snookie" from Jersey Shore shows up on Weekend Update!:

Next, SNL continues the tradition of hilarious commercials:

Now, a topical Twilight sketch that is even funny for non-fans!:

And one of my favorite cast members, who I seem to like even better in drag:

How I Learned Physics is a Cruel Mistress

The other day my mother-in-law told me what is possibly the world's grossest/creepiest story.

Apparently, when her grandfather was a little boy, one sunny morning (well, I imagined it sunny) he was minding his own business, sitting at the table and eating his breakfast when all of a sudden his sister (or maybe he did something to provoke her. Who knows, they were kids, after all) threw a spoon at him. It hit him in the face. More specifically, it hit him in the eye. To be as specific as possible, IT WENT INTO HIS EYE SOCKET AND POPPED HIS EYE OUT OF HIS HEAD!!!

Please take a second to re-read that. It is for real. He had an eyeball dangling from his optic nerve and flopping against his cheek.

That spoon scooped his eyeball out like it was digging into a bowl of ice cream. Too far? My bad.

Since his family lived up in the frozen tundra far from civilization, they had no access to a hospital. So his mom PUSHED HIS EYE BACK INTO THE SOCKET AND PUT SOME GAUZE OVER IT AND WAS LIKE, OKAY, MY JOB HERE IS DONE.

Please take a moment to re-read THAT little nugget too.

Thankfully, it turns out it healed and his eye was fine. But the story shouldn't REALLY end that way if it is going to have a moral, right? So here is what I will tell my children:

... His mom tried her best and nursed him day and night, but because they had no medical attention, the eye kept popping back out. Then he spiked a fever and his eye became infected and eventually the optic nerve that connected his eyeball to his brain disintegrated and his eyeball fell off altogether. Then his other eye suffered from sympathetic blindness and he lost vision in THAT eye too! He was ashamed and unable to do anything he used to do, so he withdrew from his family. Eventually, he became a hobo, and one night when he was trying to hop a train to San Fransisco, where he thought he could start over and he happy, he was crushed by the train because, well, he was BLIND. And the sister who threw a spoon at her innocent brother? She was shunned, cast out from the community, and fled to the woods where she spent the remainder of her days hunting and eating rats, possums, and raccoons and forgot English and spoke in grunts and snarls and began walking on all fours. She was never heard from again. This, my children, is why you should never throw a spoon at anyone, especially at his or her face.

I mean, It is really important to learn that all-important life lesson: Physics is a BITCH and she will wreck you when you least expect it. You shouldn't sugar coat it for kids.

Maybe my brother Tommy could put out some physics informational videos that show kids the consequences of their actions. Here's why: When my outrageous brother was taking high school Physics, he had a young teacher who encouraged them to think of creative ways to complete assignments and apply physics to everyday life. Big mistake. My brother decided to complete one of his assignments by making a video that showed the properties of impact. How does a normal person accomplish this? Get one of your friends to HIT YOU WITH A MINIVAN while the other one VIDEOTAPES it all.

From what I remember, he asked my mom permission and she gave it to him. I think she told the driver to keep it under 5 miles per hour. I'm guessing she had given up telling him no at this point and figured he should learn some lessons that involved broken bones. Plus, we had awesome insurance, so it was no skin off her back if he got a little scraped up.

My brother's videos became legendary, but now that I think about it, it showed physics in action, but did NOT show the terrible consequences of taking that lady for granted. After he was hit by a minivan in the middle of our street, he bounced back up, grinned at the camera, and shouted something like "IMPACT!" while waving jazz hands.

His videos did not properly illustrate how all the angles and velocities and thingity-bobbers can really screw you over. I mean, I'm no scientist, but getting hit by a car can be bad.

After hearing the story of my great-grandfather-in-law getting his eye poked out with a flying spoon, I began to wonder when I really learned not to mess with the forces of physics. I narrowed it down to two stories.

STORY 1: I was maybe about 8 years old and my little brother was about 5 years old. He was taunting me or something and driving me INSANE. He was across the room and I wanted to show him immediately that what he was doing should stop. So, my slippers being the only weapon currently in my arsenal, I pulled off one of my awesome Garfield slippers and threw it at him. It hit him in the face and he started screaming. My parents started yelling. I started screeching "It's a FLUFFY slipper! It can't hurt him!!" Turns out the slippers had little plastic eyes, and those eyes had somehow managed to smack him at just the right angle, whacking him in the face and leaving a welt the same shape as the eyeballs (which I personally thought was kind of cool). What are the odds, right? Well, that's because it was NO coincidence. Physics wanted to make an example of me and ensured the slipper would hit him at that specific angle.
STORY 2: Me, my parents, my two younger siblings and my grandmother had just finished eating at a Chinese restaurant. My mom was in the bathroom and my dad was up at the register, about 5 feet away, paying the bill. We had reached a fever pitch of hyper annoyingness and had run out of things to misbehave with ... until my brother realized the divider between our booth and the one next to it could be lowered. He unhooked the latch and let it drop. What none of us realized was that a knife was sitting VERY close to the divider, and when it dropped it hit the VERY tip of the knife, sending it flying in the air ... ONE INCH FROM MY GRANDMA'S FACE. Luckily, she was ignoring us because of how rambunctious and terrible we were being and my dad's back was turned. In this instance, physics was reminding us to mind our p's and q's and respect her. (Oh, and mom and dad -- if you had forgotten about this, I truly apologize for reminding you)

I think I've learned my lesson, and I will always imagine the worst case scenarios when it comes to trajectories, angles, and ... shoot, I told you I was no scientist.