Moose Mishaps, Vegan Victuals and Practice Peeves

First, I would like to draw your attention to my outstanding use of alliteration in the title of this post. It really is the little things in life.

Moving on, I am writing this as my laundry is spinning, my dishwasher is running, my Guinea Pig is fed and my life is generally on track (for the moment... don't jinx it!) while waiting for the premiere of the new season of Grey's Anatomy.

It brings me back to days where my college friends and I would cram into a dorm room, usually mine, and mow down on the three or so pounds of Wings Over Burlington we'd purchased while laughing, crying and cheering for the fictional characters of Seattle Grace Hospital for an hour each week. As I've told you, you would totally be Christina Yang, who (in Season 3, which I'm currently destroying on Netflix) is the top intern of Seattle Grace. She is in a serious relationship with Preston Burke, the best cardio-thorassic surgeon in the country, and she lives, eats, sleeps and breathes surgery. She is very ambitious and focused and was always at the top of her class, but has a wild side as well. She is also hot, obviously.

I find myself identifying more with Isabelle Stevens, or Izzy, as she's referred to. Izzy is a tall, blonde doctor who cut a patient's LVAT wire to stop his heard and worsen his condition so he would receive a heart transplant he wasn't in line for because she was in love with him. Yep... that'd be me.

Regardless of who is who on the show, it's started up again, tonight being the season premiere. In celebration, I have whipped up "Lactarded Buffalo Chicken Dip" (read "Vegan Victuals") for my lactose intolerant roommate and I to nom on while getting wrapped up in the fictional lives of Seattle Grace yet again. She's currently watching the finale from last season, which I can hear her gasping and yelling at from her room. Very exciting stuff, clearly.

As for my day, although it didn't involve 90lb patients going all Edward Cullen to my Bella breast, it did involve a practice after which my team captains approached my head coach and I telling us we basically weren't coaching in a way that makes everyone feel "respected," which wasn't fun to hear. However, it raised the flag of "these damn kids these days need to buck up" blah blah blah. Which made me really irritated, and I don't know if it was more at them for being sensitive or myself for getting mad at them for being so. Either way, it put me in a foul mood.

Which was instantly alleviated when I got home and the mister called me to vent about his day. Apparently oversensitive high school girls are a cakewalk compared to his clinically insane boss who put two full droppers of something into the mister's water glass and asked him to "tell me how it affects you" and then had him move a grand piano a half a mile down a hill because it was "throwing off the energy in the room" that it was previously occupying. Yeah... after that, I was completely okay with having to deal with overdramatic high school girls. As if that wasn't enough of a day from hell, the mister also spent two hours breaking into his brother's girlfriend's car, which caused him to be late relieving the woman in the office at the time, which in turn caused her to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and smoke a moose on the highway. Fortunately, she was safe, but the mister had to go and save her, since her little Volvo was totaled. Needless to say, he is knocking a few back tonight. Which will give me some good reading material in the morning I hope... the mister is a serial drunk texter.

Off to bed for me... have to run in the morning. Ugh. This half marathon will be the death of me!

xo

Brooke

I should get hazard pay

Good morning lover,

As I lay here in bed, painstakingly writing this letter by letter on my Itouch, my right breast is aching. No, I'm not pregnant, or PMSing, and for sure I'm not lactating. No, because my life is a joke, my suicidal, perfectly sober, combative patient bit me. Right on the tit.

Now, keep in mind that this girl, who could not have weighed more than 90lbs, was already handcuffed. We were physically carrying her out the door, kicking and screaming, and with no mention of dinner or a movie she chomped right down on second base. Broke the skin too, the bitch! She then proceeded to call me the "c" word about a dozen times, and informed me that it's her right to bite me. Just as it's her right to cut her wrists slightly and to wrap appliance cords around her neck. I'm told it's in the constitution...

So now I've got two little puncture wounds and I feel like this is something Buffy the Vampire Slayer should know about. Bets on whether or not I bruise?

Go ahead, lay it on thick and get it out of your system. I've already heard a dozen variations of "want me to look at that for you?" and "Most action you've gotten in a while huh?"

To bed I go. Good night and sweet dreams my love.

Your disaster of a friend,

Amanda

The World Looks Different from Horseback

Dearest Amanda:

I am happy to hear Operation Protect the Country was a success. You should have asked secret service to try and maneuver one of those gigantic diesel ambulances behind their tricked out bulletproof stretch SUV. Mr. Smith with his fancy earpiece and all black alien hunter suit definitely wouldn't have been able to keep up. Not to mention parallel park the thing at the end of the Biden parade. You win.

Sorry this has taken so long to respond. As you know, I have been in New Hampshire visiting my parents. Oh, and horseback riding on top of a mountain in Moultonboro overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee with apparently my future husband, or so he thinks. In any case, it was an enjoyable weekend filled with coffee, kissing, homemade buffalo chicken pizza and lots of random adventures. More on that later, though.

The thing is that now, after nearly 23 years of being petrified of horses, I am looking into taking horseback riding lessons on my own because I had so much fun! Maybe it was the company or the fact that I literally did nothing on the horse and she followed the rest of the group perfectly, but regardless, I have been bitten by the horseback riding bug. Can't you just picture me living in a log cabin somewhere with a horse, mucking out stalls at 6am every morning?

Yeah... me either. That's why my future husband better not mind shoveling shit.

Which is convenient, because apparently the man who wants to be my future husband, or so he's telling everyone, is a pro at shoveling shit. And unloading bales of hay. And riding horses. And basically everything that you would ever need to own a horse. Ever. Which fits perfectly into his support of my dream to become a rodeo barrel racer.

No, not really. But if he's as serious as everyone keeps telling me he is, then I won't be mucking any stalls at 6am.

So, back to my incredible weekend. It started off with a gorgeous drive through Crawford Notch, my favorite of all the notches, to Conway where the mister lives. We then went and bought pumpkins, pumpkin pie fixings and pumpkin beer (Shipyard Pumpkinhead was all out so we went with Blue Moon) and prepared to have a pumpkin filled evening. We then baked the pie and drank too much to carve pumpkins (oh well) and went to sleep.

The next morning, the mister had to help his dad and brother unload 800 bales of hay for their family farm while his brother's girlfriend and I went to Dunkin Donuts for our caffeine fix. On the way, she and I talked about how the mister is always talking about how he is going to move with me and how he wishes he could do it now. We returned and gave the boys their coffees so they could finish the job, and then the mister took me to the Castle in the Clouds for a fun filled day of sight seeing, touristing and horseback riding. We overlooked the lake while eating lunch on the balcony of the Old Carriage House, an early 1900's horse barn that cost more than my entire life. We wound through mountain trails on horseback for an hour or so, which was petrifying, because of my aforementioned fear of horses. But, the mister would just smile and laugh while looking back at me, smiling like a fool on top of my horse, because I was "adorable." We then went to the actual Castle, the former home of Mr. Plant and his wife back in the early 1900's before the stock market crashed and they lost everything.

After the mister footed the bill for our passes to take the cute little red trolley with wooden benches to the top of the mountain, which gave me a good laugh because his 6'5" body barely fit into the seats, we sat through the introduction and then went on our own. He gave me the tour, having done it a dozen times before, telling me things about the house and Mr. Plant that the tour guides didn't even know. We examined original wallpaper almost 100 years old, perused rooms used by the many servants the Plants kept, and got some ideas for our future homes based on the absolutely gorgeous architecture. Apparently, Mr. Plant had a fetish for marble, because it was everywhere in the house, including a beautiful piece around one of the fireplaces that he let "age" to a specific shade of green with huge rust veins running through it. Now, I was unaware that you could age marble like cheese or wine, but apparently it is possible, and Mr. Plant had his marble aging down to a science. I'm currently plotting ways to break into the estate and steal the marble from the fireplace, seeing as now I'm a professional horseback rider and all... now I have a get away plan!

The mister took me outside the estate into the garden with the wishing well, where we tossed pennies in after a few silent moments in concentration. We walked the garden and where the green house used to be, checking out all the old piping and other hardware still inlaid in the granite walls. The mister held my hand and brought me to a corner of the grounds under a gazebo, where he pulled me to him and kissed me.

And then he told me he loved me.

How fucking fairy tale, right? I almost died. Here we are, the sun about to set, overlooking Lake Winnipesauke from one of the most beautiful places in New England, and he looks at me with those brown eyes and that smile and says the words I've wanted to hear for four years in something other than a text message.

I am terrified. I feel crazy. I can't stop smiling. That must be love.

Unless I am crazy. Which I know you'd tell me if I was. So... what do you think?

Lerv Yer,

Brooke


(PS: you can get a lady without having "date night approved" clothing... lets be honest.)

The cat is in the cradle... Code hula hoop! Code hula hoop! This is not a drill!

Dearest darling Brooke,

Despite the exciting nature of the title, I did not get to experience a single use of code words during my 9 hour "parade behind Joe Biden" detail. Though, please note that when you fail to immediately accelerate to mach bejeesus on the highway in your massive diesel ambulance, secret service gets edgy. Disclaimer: No tires were shot out in the making of this overtime shift.

Seriously though, pretty neat stuff. Also, Joe Biden is a lazy butt and should wake up earlier. Lots of waiting, then driving fast and erratically though highways with no cars and lots of cops. Then more waiting. Got my picture taken with the VP and his wife though! Should see that in a governmentally approved 6 - 8 weeks... Provided that I don't go to federal prison for accidentally letting slip to my dispatcher what hotel he was staying at last night. No idea what's classified or not.

So, my life is obviously not as wonderful as it was when I was visiting you, but I bought a new shirt and a vest-type thing so go me! Nothing date-night approved, so we need to work on that or I will never get me a lady!

Now, to find out if anything cool is happening in Manch-vegas tonight, and to take myself out for a drink! Oh, also sit-ups... Cause I REALLY should do a couple of those first... Ugh.

Lerv yer!

Amanda

New Beginnings

Dear Amanda:

As I sit here on my porch overlooking Wimbledon while you contentedly finish the last of your leftover Pho Haung lunch beside me, I am a happy person. Why? Perhaps it's because I have a belly full of two varieties of wine (good thing we got that coconut water for later!) and my own delicious Vietnamese dish, plans to hit a comedy club later and am on the front half of my two week vacation still. Perhaps it's because my 6'5" piece of mountain man who has become my phone boyfriend is being extra cute tonight. It might be because it's Autumn and everything is pumpkin and my birthday is coming up and I just generally love my life at the moment.

Or, it could be because for the first time in a year, I have my best friend back. And I have missed her terribly.

Here's to courage, confidence, and every other attribute a strong woman like yourself exhibits when faced with a difficult decision. Welcome back, love. 

xo

Brooke