Snonna

While catching up on her blog (or is it this one...) I once again came across Nonna's obsession with the vile white crap that falls from the sky like manna but evil and not from heaven. Never mind the death and destruction it leaves in its wake, Nonna wants to play in it! I believe her and Niecey would get along quite well as the child loves snow (she will probably grow out of it living in the midwest). I decided Niecey was old enough to play outside by herself as long as she stayed in view of the window so I could supervise her from the warmth of my aunt's place over thanksgiving. She got her fix and stopped whining and I got to be the coolest auntie ever and stay warm, perfect!

And so, for Nonna, I put aside my hatred and "played" in the snow just for her:

Note my awesome not falling skillz! And in case anyone notices, no I am not wearing gloves, I do not get adequate circulation to my fingers to be able to really wear them. I am better off keeping my hands in my pockets with the exception of when I am cleaning/shoveling the snow I have a pair of gloves that have a mitten shell that work to a point and are better than leaving my hands completely exposed to the elements. I hope you all enjoyed my romp in the snow and those of you blessed with a warm climate free of the retched stuff appreciate how awesome you have it, if not I propose a switch, I live at your place and you can hang out in the frozen wasteland! I will admit that it can be pretty, here is an example:


I snapped this shot as I power-walked across campus to get to water aerobics, I was late and so went straight from work as the sun was setting. I couldn't help but stop to capture the bell thingy with the snow and sunset thing going on. It has a fancy name that I forget how to spell and it is a huge campus landmark, it makes noise every 15 minutes and a prof plays music on it at noon and I think sometimes later in the day as well, it is cool.

Ice Age Preparedness: Improvision

On Saturday we got some snow, 1 or 2 inches. We had a slight thaw beforehand, which resulted in ice formation, not a fun combination. Truth be told if I had to choose I would actually prefer the snow and cold to a day of it being a little warmer. As much as I loathe the cold having a sheet of ice covering everything is worse. When it is really cold and snows the snow tends to be the light and fluffy kind (yes there are different kinds of snow, many), this makes it much easier to shovel. The drawback is that it blows, this can be a nuisance in town but in the farmland, which takes up the majority of the midwest, it can be deadly because there is nothing to break the wind and there are hundreds of acres of snow.

I had to go into work today, I was supposed to be doing a run but since my cultures did not all grow I had to start over and just inoculated today instead. I procrastinated all day like usual when I am not on a time schedule and so lost some opportunity to clean my car off while the sun was out and possibly could have helped. I love Oldsie's dark color for that very reason, when the paint is exposed the sun hits it and warms the interior, not a whole lot in the winter but sometimes enough to soften the ice. Kinda sucks in the summer but all cars get hot then and mine doesn't get a whole lot hotter than the light colored ones. But I digress, between us having that mini-thaw and the new snow and the sunny day water got in my car's door and froze. I decided to share with you all how one such as myself deals with such a problem in case the ice age becomes more widespread and permanent (plus my intelligence/competence is being questioned after my last couple posts):

The neighbor was totally staring at me, like he has never seen someone perch a digital camera on top of the adjacent car and record ones self complaining about how horribly cold it is and such. He missed my awesome car opening trick so you don't get to see him standing there in awe of my brilliance. I wonder if it were his car, probably not since he took the bus to Cub Foods and who in their right mind would go shopping on a Sunday night with the bus, Sunday has the most pitiful schedule!


Oh and one last tips, never leave your car door opener in your car, and coat drawstrings double as an extra holder for things like car door openers and spray bottles of alcohol. Also carrying a spray bottle of isopropanol to the pharmacy while dying of the plague so as not to spread said plague will result in pharmacy techs who already thought you were amusing falling in love with you and helping you plot against your doctor giving you even better service (my pharmacy has good service to begin with). I have not had to take out and swipe my ID since November. The only reason I have to wait is because I want my favorite tech and will do the hover thing until she is free. I get to see her tomorrow, though it will just be a stopping by to say hi most likely since this visit probably won't result in a script but a referral, unless there is a wrist drug that won't screw me up...

OK I'd best get to work on preparing for my visit with Doc tomorrow, I told my lovely nurse to try and make it so he is complacent but she is so a double agent! And by that I mean she has my real best interest at heart and so totally sides with him when I try to get sneaky talk him into stuff and she often successfully tries to be the voice of reason. But I am so going to be super compliant (kinda, define compliant...) and brag about how I didn't down a bag of candy to gain weight before the visit (because I ran out, though brag worthy is that I could have bought more but chose not to). I will probably post about the visit, either way do not worry since as I have said before, my issues suck but they definitely are not life threatening or anything like that. Either way it should be fun, I hate being sickly but I don't get out much and definitely enjoy getting to see Medical Team Karen, they are the best!

Identity Crisis

So I was shoveling my parking place the other day, in subzero temps since I read that it was going to snow again and be even colder and the wind chill was going to be in the -30-40°F range. I figured I'd best get it done while the risk of frostbite and hypothermia was a little lower. During this activity I came across something strange, can any of you tell me what it is:


Also look what happens when one breathes in subzero temps, especially one wearing something over the bottom of their face which causes their breath to channel upwards:


That's right, there are ice drops on my eyebrows and eyelashes, that was the best picture I got out of it. I think it was about -5°F at the time, it got down to -28°F at one point, horrid (it was worse up north in Minnesota, ick!). We really need to build a border fence between Canada and the US, keep their cold air out! We really need to increase our emissions people, I want me some global warming! Polar bears can kiss my frost bitten butt. I am not going to think about believing in their little global warming hypothesis until they can with 99.9% accuracy predict the weather on day 10 of the 10 day forecast, in detail. A model system that can't even predict much beyond 2-3 days is NOT enough to convince me. I believe in conservation and recycling and alternative fuel and such, don't get me wrong, I just don't like the idea of some crackpot hypothesis/theory being used to try and force it on people. Sometimes scientists need to take a step back and think about what they are saying and what the limitations are on their research and how valid their conclusions are before sharing it with the general public.

Stay warm all you cold climate readers, and for you warm climate ones does any of you want to adopt an adult microbiology grad student?!

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!

How to Survive the Coming Ice Age

While some of you might believe in global warming there are those of us who know that in reality there is an ice age coming instead, for some of us it has already arrived (current temperature here Actual: 24°F Feels Like*: 18°F.) While there are some people who are excited about the coming death to us all the rest of us are doing all we can to survive until maybe someday Al Gore's predictions of a future utopia will come true and running our oldsmobiles when we can to try and do our part to bring this dream to life.

It has recently come to my attention that one of my favorite Floridian's will be traveling north from her tropical paradise into the land of ice and snow and needs the help of someone who has managed to survive 25 consecutive winters. With the help of Flat WeaselMomma we are answering this plea for help, not only for the obviously humanitarian reasons but also because McMommy's blog rocks and should she perish in the wasteland that is the North from October to April we would lose one of the greatest bloggers on the blogosphere. And so here is the official Microblogologist's Guide to Surviving a Northern Winter:

Start:
Step 1: Long underwear, I personally prefer the newer kinds that are more like leggings and do not have that old school square weave, they can be purchased at walmart for about $7. Unfortunately for me this year they seem to have decided medium is the new small and so my new ones are baggy.Step 2: Optional extra pair of long underwear, if it is really cold or your pants are not made of thick material a second pair of long underwear can save you from freezing to death.Step 3: Clothes.Step 4: The hoodie, this is a very versitle layer, it can work in chilly weather by itself, it can be worn indoors either zipped or unzipped based on the coldness of the establishment, and in this context it is a layer that doubles as a head cover since it seems that winter coats these days do not come with hoods without that tacky fake fur (no offense if you like that kind of thing). I make use of my hoodies pretty much year round since air conditioning is often cranked lower than my comfort zone (~70-85°F).Step 5: The ear/forhead band and boots. My beloved Aunt bought me a headband last winter, I used to scoff at them but now am 100% in love with them, they really help keep the ears warm but also for those of us who have ditched the bangs look it also helps keep the forhead comfy. Boots are somewhat optional if you are not going to come into contact with snow and there are a variety of different styles, I personally went for a cheap and simple black boots that match my coat and do not see the point of spending a lot of money on name brands that you can buy walmart version for a tenth the price. If either not wearing boots or it is very cold wearing two pairs of socks or getting special thick socks will help keep the toes from freezing off.Step 6: The winter coat. The key here is that you want a lot of insulation, make sure it has a decent amount of stuffing in all areas. Step 7: Scarves and hats. Scarves are often used as fashion accessories but more importantly they keep the face and neck warm as they were originally made to do. Hats of course help keep the head warm, a lot of body heat is lost through the head (at least that is what adults told me growing up). Step 8: Gloves/mittens. I never wear gloves, my hands are almost always cold due to a condition I have called Raynaud's Phenomenon**, all year round (it is a huge reason for my cold intolerance). Gloves seperate the fingers and actually cause them to get colder than they would be without the gloves, mittens are better for me but they are very clumsy, I usually ball my hands and keep them in my coat pockets. In normal individuals gloves or mittens can be highly beneficial.And there you have it, all you need to survive the winter and coming ice age. Keep warm!

~~~~~Copy Literal Dan Section~~~~~
*Here in the frozen tundra there is this phenomenon called "wind chill", this causes the perceived temperature to be lower than the actual temperature.
**Raynaud's causes the blood vessels to constrict, I have a pretty mild form but it is definitely not pleasant.

Updates

Big Bear's old bow has safely arrived, Niecey Poo is very happy to have it back along with all the other stuff I sent. I think Graw opened it with her so there was no mysterious sugar high, lol.

In other news the super yeast appears to be working, I am working on getting Daddy to e-mail me the details so I can have the next installment of The Adventures of Super Yeast for you guys. I'm also begging for pictures, unfortunately there are none of the beginning steps, perhaps next time.

Also I have declared an ice age, it is 53 degrees outside, so much for global warming! This has been an unusually cold summer here, while it is nice not to roast in the heat I'd rather not freeze to death in August. Have I mentioned I don't like cold weather? Have I mentioned I don't like it getting below 65 as the low? Have I mentioned that it is quite common to see me in a winter coat in April (it did snow this April...)? Yeah, I am a bit of a baby about the cold, but in my defense I have a circulation thing and am somewhat allergic to the cold (I had no idea it was possible but it is). And yes I should totally move down south but pretty much everything I hold dear is up north so I'm kinda screwed. At least I have my electric blanket and comforter!