Time to Celebrate Ian!

Hello everyone, remember me, the dorky quirky microbiology grad student who goes by "The Microblogologist", "Micro", "MB", and occasionally my first name, Karen. Yeah it has been over a week since I posted, working a lot trying to knock the current project out ASAP and trying to catch up on my blog reading has not left much time for this. Oh and twitter totally does NOT help, evil addictive thing that it is! So why am I posting now? It's Ian's birthday!!!!! Put on your party hats and get ready to sing! I do NOT sing and when I write songs I make Ian sing them for me (he has finished 1 of 4 that I have written, I'm cutting him some slack because he is a first year undergrad and is in plays and operas and such, 2 or 3 at a time the past month or so) and so of course I made him sing the happy birthday song for me, feel free to join in:

OK time for the cake! I thought about having it be a dual purpose cake to also serve to celebrate Randy's journey to S. Korea but it is definitely not a "Randy cake" as it does not contain full frontal nudity, in case you want to see it and keeping in mind I am 100% NOT kidding about the nudity (my keyword list is likely to get interesting after this!) I'll link to his official farewell cake. I have never tried linking a facebook pic so if it doesn't work it doesn't work, I am NOT going to put it on my blog or into photobucket or whatever, go bug him (actually you should, he'll get sad if Gregg and I are his only readers!) Here is the cake that I got for Ian:


We've had our cake, it was pretty yummy too! The smiley face is definitely appropriate because Ian is totally a big ball of sunshine =)! Now it is time for the presents, here is what I picked out and if I were totally wealthy I would so get them for him:

Manpris for when it is too hot for pants but too cold for shorts!

Uggs, because he loves them and says they are comfy,
these match the manpris so he can show them off!

A nice polo shirt to go with the manpris and boots.

And what outfit is complete without a matching man purse!?
Coach of course!

Oh and here is another rendition of the birthday song for you Ian, I found it in the related vids for the first and HAD to post it!:



I hope you had a wonderful day, I am sorry that you had to spend it 400 miles away from your family and Pasha! My advice, celebrate it again when you go home next, it is not about the date it is about spending time with those you love. Love you kiddo!

Facebook Facts Meme

Uncle Richard decided to tag me for a meme thing on facebook. Since I am a blogger I decided to do it here and not there, I only use facebook to harass people.

25 Random Things About Me:

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note containing 25 random facts about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. Until I left for grad school and with the exception of two work injuries at the deli I always went to the same clinic/hospital that I was born in.

2. Doc has spoiled me by being competent and putting up with my silliness so I'll probably die if I go back. Seriously they are messing up my middle sister, her doc never heard of fricking MS (she may or may not have MS, we don't know because he is too stupid to test her).

3. I love my plants. They have their own room in my apartment, they share it with my computer/home office.

4. When I was an infant I shared my nursery with Daddy's computer until we moved into our house not long before middle sis was born.

5. The number 5 is my favorite number, I am all into multiples of 5, LiteralDan shares this obsession.

6. I collect GIANTmicrobes, I'm such a nerd!

7. If they made my research organism I would be so happy!

8. I am seriously considering using GIANTmicrobes to decorate any future offspring's nursery, if I have girls then syphilis and kissing disease, a boy perhaps cold and the clap...

9. I would rather have girls than boys if I procreate, which means I will definitely end up with boys with only the weird family thing to protect me from that fate. My Dad has three girls and has a granddaughter, his sister (who really wanted a girl) has three boys and a grandson.

10. I have a friend who only wants boys, I told her we should plan ahead so we can trade!

11. While Richard was top speller in the 3rd grade I peaked in 2nd by winning my class's bee, I blew the first word in the big bee (thru not through, lol).

12. I wanted to write a microbiology version of the 12 days of Christmas but got too busy and sick to actually do it, maybe I'll get it written for this Christmas!

13. Researching the Dreidel Song for my newest song made me fall in love with it and I think given how Christmas seems to be trying to kill me I might want to consider celebrating Hanuka instead, of course that holiday would have 8 days instead of just 2 to get the job done should it decide to kill me too...

14. I hope Ian records my new song soon...

15. Like Richard I can't dance, we are just too pigmentally challenged my dearest adopted uncle! It was hilarious when Niecey was learning to dance, you could tell who she was copying in the beginning, the slightest bob thing was my signature dance, with my bad knee and her poor coordination at the time it was the best move for both of us. Her style has evolved a lot since then but I think you can see some of her early influences, you be the judge (the tongue out arms outstretched is a new move she invented, the zombie!):

16. When I had my appendix out I "raced" the other appendectomy kid and totally smoked him, of course I was a few years older and had the laproscopic and I think his burst and they had to cut him all the way open. Either way I gave him a head start and I dragged my own IV and held my own guts in, he had two nurses!

17. I rode a mechanical bull when I was 16 (give or take), it messed up my wrist and I suspect is part of why I messed it up so bad here. The only good part I can think of is that I was in a volunteering group and we went to the mayor of my hometown's wake and I made his widow laugh when I answered her question as to what I did to my wrist (it was splinted) with my standard, "I got into a fight with a mechanical bull, it won." It is one of the prouder moments of my life, it felt good to be able to give that poor woman something to laugh about in such a horrible time.

18. I wish I knew where my appendectomy video went, I'm afraid my mother recorded over it, it was pretty cool and I brought it to school to show my biology class.

19. I am going to ask for a vid of my stomach scope, if I think it is cool enough you will all get to see it too.

20. This is my least favorite kind of meme, I suck at thinking of stuff off the top of my head, I need inspiration to work my quirky magic!

21. I am giddy over the impeachment/impeachment trial of my former governor, my office mate told me I was enjoying reading the paper too much the other day since I kept cracking up while reading about it. Seriously how can you not when you read about how he is trying to cast himself as the victim and boycotting his own trial. He is a lovely dramatized version of Chicago politics, never trust a Chicago politician, the corruption jokes aren't actually jokes, the politicians are!

22. The thought of Blago making Oprah the replacement senator amused me greatly, I think I would have considered watching whatever channel broadcasts the senate stuff just to see if she treated it like her show, hehehe. Hell I'd consider voting for her just to see that, especially if the republican candidate sucked (probably would, it is IL and they all do in both parties)!

23. Adam Sandler has a special place in my heart, my mother really needs to start paying attention to if he is in movies she takes us to see. My prude and somewhat religious mother. Did any of you see Little Nicky? She made me see it because she somehow got free tickets and didn't want to waste them by not going even though I had a paper due the next day... Only reason she didn't walk out is because of the huge fit she threw to make us go, she was extremely offended by that movie and I enjoyed it greatly knowing that! His Zohan movie offended her too just not as much, hehehe.

24. I think I harass my doctor too much but probably don't see him as much as I should. I have trouble figuring out if whatever is bad enough to warrant a visit and since I am sickest at night and usually feel a lot better in the morning I usually put off calling for weeks. If he talked to me at 2am many nights in the past he'd have been able to convince me to have just about any test/referral he wanted. Figuring out this stuff was always Mom's job, I am so not into this grown up crap!

25. I always procrastinate going to bed, even when I am exhausted and it doesn't make much sense because I love being in bed!

Tags: Cheryl and Nonna, because you both bitched that I didn't tag you before when I made a point of not tagging anyone, congrats you've been tagged! Anyone who is bored and wants to use this has my blessing.

Introducing the Greatest Musical Team Ever!

So I have mentioned my good friend Ian before a time or two, and there will be more mentions of him if I ever get around to editing and posting another spotlight on nutrition video I took awhile ago (there are several of those along with other vids rotting away on my hard drive). He is a music major and I have to admit that at first I was kinda skeptical about the whole music major thing since the arts tend to be glutted. Then I heard him sing, holy crap that boy is crazy talented! He doesn't just sing either, he writes music too. I LOVE this composition he wrote for class, it has its own tab on my firefox browser so I can play it whenever I want, and usually listen to it on a daily basis because it puts out happy vibes that make me smile:



Now for my credentials, I am a bored grad student who sometimes has a spark of creativity and can't sing. Ask Uncle Richard if you don't believe me, he is my concert buddy and so has actually heard the train wreck that is my singing. Or better yet ask Niecey, she tells me to stop when I sing along with the radio when taking her out and about (I admit I ham it up just to harass her). Most of my musical talent lies in my ability to play the radio. I am also able to play CDs and get the songs from them onto my computer and from there to my mp3 thingy (thanks to Pasha, knower of all things tech and saver of this non-techie's butt in tech situations over my head).

Today I have to work. Last night I was up literally all night long feeling miserable (GI issues, I am so not eating dinner tonight and having a third night in a row like this, if you read this Doc* I have a few tricks to try before calling you to discuss my terms of GI referral surrender, I am not going down without a fight! And one meal won't kill me, I have chocolate and ensure!), I decided to go in and inoculate for tomorrow's run earlier than normal and then come home and sleep a bit and then go back and finish my work. I was eating whatever that meal is that you eat when you go to bed for a few hours in the afternoon and wake up and eat cereal because you are from the north and the thought of eating anything heavier when you wake up makes you feel ill (not GI and GI issue related), and then heard the rain and sleet start to get really bad. I'd already seen the radar earlier and knew that this band was going to be nasty and last forever and go from freezing rain into snow. Can't remember if they were saying 1-2 inches of snow in the afternoon and another 1-2 tonight or if it was 1-2 total, either way it sucks. The only good thing about the snow part is that sometimes it combines with the ice in such a way to provide traction (until the university brushes it off the sidewalks leaving the extremely slick ice behind, you think they'd learn in 150 years!). So I see the horridness that is the weather in this region this time of year as I know since I have lived in the midwest all my life but still I am pissed, I HATE winter!

Then something triggers in my disoriented brain and I decide to rewrite "Deck the Halls" into a song describing the tip of the iceberg of my feelings about the weather, I don't think it is possible to adequately describe how loathsome and vile I find winter. I put it into a skype chat that is populated be my sister's friends that I have been adopted into and by and now consider the majority to be my friends as well. Ian saw this and ran with it, he changed it up a touch where I lacked in rhyming ability and I nearly fell off my chair at the ending I was laughing so hard. I've been harassing him to record my songs before, this one had the good fortune of him seeing it when he actually had everything set up and was recording another song. OK totally hilarious, literally as I typed that line he linked the song I was referring to which he had put on the uploading back burner to get our Deck the Halls collaboration up, it is amazing so check it out, especially if the song this post is about offends you, it will totally win you back over it is that good!

Disclaimer: The F-word is featured VERY heavily in this song, if you are offended by this do not listen (nor click the F-word link, which is one of my favorites), if you have children present or are at work you may want to consider waiting. Or you can use Auntie Cheryl's rule and tell them, "Never repeat the horrible things Auntie Cheryl (or Auntie Kee and Ian in this case) says!" so you can listen to what I am quite proud of (non-profane lyrics below):



Here are the lyrics minus the swearing:
Deck the trees with freezing rain.
'Tis the season to be lame.
Don we now our not gay like Ian's winter apparel**.
Troll the sidewalks for not slick patches.
See the blazing snow come after.
Strike the sidewalk and break our [butts]***.
Follow me in dreary weather.
While I say it's bad as ever.
Fast away the driveability passes.
[Heck] this sucks ye lads and lasses.****

And now, those of you who have not been driven away by my vulgarity (all of which is mine, Ian did not add any), I have to get ready to brave this storm so I can try to get to bed early so I can somehow get my butt to work at 10am (instead of 11am, ew!). Too bad the secret motivation blog members would probably kill me if I joined them since I am struggling to keep on and at times gain weight, seriously how could they not want to kill me when one of my goals would be "maintain/gain weight without resorting to eating own weight in chocolate" (and two of them have my address!). At risk of hate comments/mail I envy those who want to lose weight, I've actually been there and looking back it was so much better, much less painful.




~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section*****~~~~~
*My doctor knows about my blog and has the URL but most likely does not have time to actually read it, seriously he has to read doctor stuff to stay ahead of my broken self as well as take care of his other, probably much less ornery, patients many of which are athletes and he has to go to their stuff and make sure natural selection doesn't select against the more valuable ones (hasn't lost one yet, go Doc!). My little disclaimers are there in part because it amuses me to pretend he reads and in case he does because he does care and I don't want to worry him too much and in this one give him a heads up that most likely I will be seeing him in the next couple weeks. Him being awesome earned him that at great expense to myself since he is way sharper and quicker witted than I, even with me prepped and him not for what I am going to throw at him, so really I am giving him even more of an advantage. Though I do have a good one up my sleeve...
**The use of the word gay is not meant to be offensive in any way except to Uggs, Ian wears the same ones as his mommy (she totally is copying him). Ian and I both love gay people and I love making fun of his Uggs.
***The real lyrics use the more vulgar word for the posterior...
****Yeah, little stronger than heck and I suppose I'm borderline on sucks, when I was a kid it was considered a swear but I think that society has excepted that as being a bit rude but not an actual profanity.
*****I seem to have started something here, Nonna and Sibling have both started copying me copying LiteralDan. I get minion points for having underminions right Dan? Either way it totally cracks me up!