Good and Bad

I fully and truly enjoy the following low-cal, healthy foods:

Black coffee

Oatmeal

Hard boiled egg whites

Plain yoghurt

Beans

I balance out the healthy eating with these nutritionally void items:

Generously buttered toast

Opa fries with a whole lot of tzatziki (I have a hunch the base for their version may be more mayo, less yoghurt)

Peanut butter chocolate anything

A barbecued smokie

Come to think of it, all of these items could have quite possibly been consumed on the same day in my past...it was a good day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Aka: The ranch known as the Workman household.

Betina is absent from the scene, picking up Eden from piano lessons.

Oakley yells that he needs help wiping. Yeah, well, I suppose when you choose to wipe a #2 with your hands, you quickly run out of clean surface area. After Oakley and I both throw all sense of decency and self respect out the door, I throw him in the shower, the boy bent over at a 90 degree angle, and I more or less give him an enema with the shower head.

O "Is this the part where you're the mom?"

Auntie Nunu "Yeah Oak. This is the part where I'm the mom".

You're not kidding.

On the brighter side of being 4'11

(Faint knocking in the background...)

N answers door

'Hi.'

Salesman 'Is there anyone else home right now, like your mom and dad?'

N, humouring herself, 'No, my Mommy and Daddy are not home right now'.

Salesman 'Alright then, have a good night'.

Guilt induced crisis averted.

PostRejects

Can't sleep...I think cause I ate a lot of Nutella and now my tummy is achin' from the sugar. (Sugar?  I thought Nutella was made of skim milk powder and the goodness of 34 roasted hazelnuts with a touch of cocoa)

Everyone knows about PostSecret. At one point, I may have even identified myself as a fan. That was until I got sick of all that emotional crap and found www.postrejects.blogspot.com. 

Hands down, my favorite. I've been stifling my laughter to not wake up the roommate for the past half hour. You're welcome!

At least I remembered my leave the house pants

 I have half officially started my pre-training for my training for the (half)Marathon. I made it to the gym 3 times last week! I realize that this number really should be doubled, but considering that I went to the gym 0 times a week for a couple years, I'm not gonna beat myself up about it. 

I go the local YMCA, which means there's always a lot of ragamuffin children running around the place. I don't mind though, I actually think their boogey dance classes and swimming lessons for the chillen' are great programs. One thing I do not like is the all day long bouncy castle monstrosity that smells like urine. 

Last night, I decided to make a second appearance at spin class (sidenote - the female teacher has tree trunk legs. This is not what I want), left my lil apartment in time, walked 25 minutes through busy streets, got into the changeroom with 10minutes to spare, only to discover that I left my pants at home. My workout pants. Thankfully, I did have my walking to the gym pants on. THAT would have been embarrassing. Feeling completely bothered and annoyed with myself, I lunged all the way home to compensate.

Aww shucks

While I was out studying at Starbucks (can one truly study at Starbucks?) the gentleman beside me started a conversation, you know, "What are you studying" blah blah blah...but it wasn't far into the convo before he dropped a "you are so gorgeous!" followed by a "seriously, you should model", then a little bit o "my goodness, just look at your cheekbones" and before you knew it, my ego went straight through the roof. I think he was gay...straight men just seem to lack the vernacular depth to include word and phrases such as "the depth of your profile" and "lip symmetry". Anywhoo, this guy totally made my day, and I probably won't think about getting a nose job for at least a few weeks. 

And in the name of shakin' what your mama gave you:

Any beauty that I do  have I owe to 23 of this beautiful lady's chromosomes. Doesn't this pic just make you think of words like swell, swoon, and dreamy? 

Bus Balancing

I don't own a Wii. I don't own the Wii-Fit program, balance board, tennis racquet or heart monitors to go with it. I DO commute daily on the bus, where I can practice stabilizing my core by not holding onto any rails (easy to do on a crowded bus where the hand rail is up way high) and fighting to maintain my balance against the inertia and/or obese children around me. For more of a challenge, I throw on a backpack complete with a large fluid filled Nalgene bottle to throw off the distribution of the weight. Seriously, it's a great exercise. 

odds and eggs

All I've wanted to eat for dinner the past couple of weeks are scrambled eggs with cheese. I've already gone through a dozen eggs since I've been back from holidays. Tasty tasty eggs. I know this is a lot of cholesterol, so I gotta cut back.

In related news, I just signed up for my very first half marathon! I'm very excited, very nervous, and will surely be biting the dust of my experienced, seasoned running sisters. I can live with that, I've always been a runt. But to be in a cool city (Seattle has been pumping out kick ass musicians for years) with my sisters in the summer, with my glimmering diamond sweat running down my *hopefully* toned body parts...well excuse me I'll just stop right there. Ahh forget it, I'm off to scramble some eggs.

Sick Day

After catching Eve's cold from hell and not sleeping all night, I took a sick day today. 

Besides partaking in lots of Rest and Fluids, here's how I spent my day so far:

• Watched Breakfast at Tiffany's; sent out positive thinking waves to the universe in hopes of becoming as stylish and skinny as Holly Golightly
  
• Created all possible concoctions of peppermint, chamomile, ginger, honey and lemon
• Napped on and off in a nest of tissues, a deena, vaseline and sudoku books
• Looked in the mirror. Screamed
• Searched for pho soup delivery. Failed. 
• Sneezed loud enough to cause uncertainty and a feeling of impending doom for all residents of the 8th floor

As Per P's Request

Patience complained that I don't blog enough for her liking, and went as far as to suggest a topic, so here you go Poo!

I love my name, it's very unique and I think it suits me pretty well. It is somewhat of a conversation starter (aka:TIME WASTER) when all I wanna do is order pizza or get a coffee. Those times, I use a fake name, usually Katie or Sara. The other day I tried Maggie on for size, but the store keep thought I said Meghan. So I guess it happens with normal named people too. 

A few years back, I was starting to get really tired of talking to people about my name. I'd quickly bark back the answers to the questions I knew were coming and roll my eyes. I say that only because every single person I've ever met asks the exact same questions.  "Oh what a beautiful name! Where does it come from? How did your parents choose that name? Do you know what it means? It's just so unique! Blah blah blah!", and I would feign interest and flattery. 

So now, if I don't lie about my name to the barista, I lie about the background of my name. It's a lot more fun for me, and it's really funny to see what new stuff I can make up and what people believe. Last Sunday my name was Ukrainian and my mother was an immigrant, from whom I got the name. Yesterday, to the shoe guy, I was a Native girl from the Sawridge tribe who chose not to obtain my status. Even though I'm whiter than snow, I quite often have people believing I'm half South American/Native/insert your favorite culture here. But I get my fair skin from my Scottish father, of course. Now when I have to talk to someone knew, I'm genuinely interested. I wanna see how the heck this story ends just as much as they do! 

I suggest you try making up stories about yourself. You might just find yourself much more interesting and ethnic.

Sleepy Sunday

Last night I attended Debbie's 50th birthday party, which was so much fun. She is the secretary at our school, and I always share my baking with her in turn for first pick of clients. Not crazy, booze filled, can't remember anything the next morning kind of fun, but fun nonetheless. She had some family over, and a neighbor, and there were great amounts of spicy Indian food with meats of unknown delicious origin. I wanted to ask what kind of meat it was, but I thought that might be rude, no? I arrived around 6pm, but we didn't start eating until 10:30pm, birthday cake even later. I think this may be part of the Indian culture. Children were present, and I overheard the parents mentioning that said children, ages 3 and 10, had napped earlier in the day so they could come over. 

Long story short, I got home much later than expected and slept through my alarm. I had previously arranged for a ride from a boy, and had to cancel. In my sleepy state, I agreed to go over later for lunch with his family and a Family Ties marathon. Now this boy is nice enough, but I have zero attraction or interest in him that way. For me to meet the family over traditional French Onion Soup Sunday and participate in marathon watching of the beloved childhood memory kind would just be misleading. Right?  To be fair, I did have an assignment to tackle, and I would like to think that I would commit myself to my homework even if I were interested in him (but who I am kidding). I feel like a total b word for bailing over txt message, but wouldn't it be worse if I went over with a 'let's just get this over with' attitude? 

Must be more assertive. Scowl more, smile less.

Level 3 Clinic

Bear with me while I stress about all things that are required of me in the next 6 months. I am by no means complaining, just making a list so that I can start to visually attack things.

 - 3 Minimal Cases ( 1 with Rads )

 - 2 Perio Cases ( Both with a FMX or Modified FMX ) No Panorex here, just old school PA's and     BW's which is so very time consuming...we're talking 18 pictures of your teeth in one sitting.

 - 2 Senior Cases ( 1 with Rads ) While I love my senior clients, they are by far my most reliable,    everything must be slowed down to their pace. And that pace is very, very slow.

 - 1 Child Case, between the ages of 6 - 11

 - 1 Adolescent Case, between the ages of 12 - 17 ( either adolescent or child with Rads )

 - 5 coronal polish

 - 2 air polish (this one is fun...I spray baking soda at very high speeds in your face)

 - 2 IntraOral Camera ( I like to do before and after pictures with the air polish for a 'wow'         effect to remind my clients why they committed to spending 6 - 24 hours with me in the first place )

 - 10 radiographs attempted, 7 of which need to receive a grade of 80%. Does that make sense? Just some background, if you make ONE mistake on one film, for example overlap or too mesial, or your obnoxious patient moved his big fat head, you get 60% which is a big fat FAIL. 

 - 2 Nutritional Evaluations. Client must keep a record of their diet for 5 days, I write a paper about it.

 - 2 Medical History Evaluations. In order to qualify, client must have a disease or condition and I ask them lots of personal questions about it. This one is tough, because often, our instructors feel that the client is not 'diseased' enough. Well I'm sorry that I don't have cancer patients with mitral valve relapse, diabetes mellitus or Paget's disease knocking at my door.  Although last semester, I was able to get an eval from a child who wet the bed. The teacher wanted to see my ethics in action. 

 - 2 Oral Hygiene Evaluations. Last week I signed up for an eval and barely passed because apparently I 'lost control of my client' because he was brushing too fast. I mean really, it's not like he started busting caps in people's asses. 

 - 2 impressions. Clients phone in and talk about what an impression I have left on them. Kidding. 1 sportsguard and 1 whitening tray. We're only just learning alginate right now and it is trickier than candy making. Spatulate, spatulate!

 - 5 UltraSonic and 5 Instrumentation tests. Must be done on a client with heavy deposit, you sign up that day, and if you're lucky, the instructor might feel like testing you. They did not feel like testing me today.

 - 4 Sealants. Please don't salivate when you get these done. 

 - 30 Deposit Removals. Someone like myself or Eve is 1 removal, Dad maybe 3, heavy smoker man who hasn't seen the dentist in a few years is a juicy 5 or 6. 

 - 1 six week re-eval. I convince you to come back in 6 weeks so I can nag you even more about flossing. 

 - 1 paper about a disease. Crohn's was taken, so I'm still undecided.

 - Out of all the clients I see, I choose one to make a 'case study' and do a big paper and presentation and study models for. I'm thinking of using this one client who has 3 decayed roots ( no crowns left! ), a denture she removes about every leap year, one premolar that's hanging on for dear life and a Class 3 furcation involvement. That is when so much gum and bone has been destroyed that you can see the space between the roots, it looks like a little window. French for window is fenetre, which is the root of furcation. I just say that to myself though, I'm not sure if it's actually true. 

 - 2 Long - Term goals, related to clinic, one of which is research based and one which is a personal goal, and we give bimonthly reports on our progress of said goals.  I think my personal goal will be to have a regular bowel movement schedule. 

 - 2 placements at either a Pedo, Perio or Ortho office, all of which have waiting lists.

 - 1 afternoon with school aged children nagging them to floss

 - 1 afternoon in the community talking about oral hygiene or denture care or sportsguards, something of that nature. I'm thinking about teaching the Firemen...

I think that's it for now. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Now come visit so I can clean your teeth!

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

How weird is this? Some religious guy promoting tanning beds? 

I suppose it's one thing for the Rev to proclaim his love for the rays, but it's a completely other ball game when he gets a team together to mock up some posters and distribute them to tanning salons. Is this a church trying to reach out to a new demographic, or is it the tanning salons trying to attract a different kind of customer? Wait...maybe tanning salons and Reverend Carl are co-conspirators and skin cancer is the new blue kool-aid!!!!!!!! Eeeegaadd! 

Not Fair!

Pharm was my most challenging course this past semester (besides Clinic, but let's not get into that).  One of the last questions on our 130 multiple choice final was:

128.  Which one of these statements is incorrect?

a) ASA is not an anticoagulant*

* Okay, so I don't remember what b, c and d were, but that's only because I only needed to know the one correct answer.

I don't think teachers should be allowed to abuse double negatives in final exams. After 127 questions about parasympathomimetics, HMG coA reductase inhibitors, ACE inhibitors, barbituates and nonbarbituates and  carbamezipines, Dr. Mohanta's use of these negations nearly caused my brain to spontaneously combust. Which is just the sort of thing she gets off of, I'm sure.

Point - Counterpoint

Point

You are good to me. We can talk for hours with no effort at all. You help me study, you buy me birthday presents, you take me out for breakfast. You introduce me to your friends, and everybody you know knows my name, even though they've never met me. You have very nice teeth and gorgeous blue eyes. You take me to the airport and pick me up when it's raining. You call me to let me know when the cheese I like is on sale. Your very beautiful condo is always impeccably clean, no cleaning ladies involved. You bring me veggies from your mama's garden. The second you first saw me I could see your eyes light up, and they still do every time.

Counterpoint.

You only just moved out of you parents house as you entered your 30's. You're kinda bald, although I suppose that's not your fault. Everything you eat is composed of butter, red meats, bleached white flour and high fructose corn syrup. And rye, yechk. You take a lot of medications...again maybe that's not fair, but meds just weird me out. How about cutting back on the buttered meats before popping the Lipitors? You tell me about your money troubles (we all have them), but then you buy an Audi? You won't come to my school so I can clean your teeth. You don't floss. You snore. You shave your chest (WHY on earth do men do this? For the bikini shoot that's coming up? I don't get it.) You use Pert Plus. Back to the Audi thing....you place too much importance on these things. A cottage, condo and a luxury vehicle are great, but why not live within your means and not be a gazillion dollars in debt? You would never honestly appreciate a (hypothetical) dinner I'd cook for you. You won't let me clean your teeth the second time I asked you to come in when a client didn't show for me. 

So maybe I'm being incredibly picky; and I probably just revealed a whole lot of my own  shortcomings. But I still can't stop thinking about him. Le sigh.

Flexitarian

I've often referred to myself as a 'flexitarian'. Although I wish I could say I was clever enough to have created the phrase on my own, I read it in a random magazine at some random time and I think it is a term that describes my diet well. 

I can go probably a month without eating meat and not even realize it. I feel like my meat preparing skills are lacking, and am always shocked when I  compare a can of beans ($.79) to 2 chicken breasts ($8). 

But from time to time, I absolutely CRAVE meat and will stop at nothing until my hunger is satisfied. Here are my favorite meat dishes. If it weren't for them, I could be a vegetarian in a heartbeat. 

Rare Beef Noodle Soup (Pho) - Especially good served satay style sprinkled with peanuts, and with lots of basil, bean sprouts, fresh lime juice, hoisin and hot sauce. This delicious soup will cure you of any cold or sinus thing you got going on. You know the place is authentic when you write your own order down. You see, with the Vietnamese, their Pho making abilities decrease with the more English they speak. Its a fact. 

Greek Lamb - A lot of people don't seem to care for lamb, something about the smell. I, on the other hand, love it very rare, with any sort of oregano/mint seasoning. If I were on death row, my request for my last supper would be lamb, pita bread, tzatziki, kalamata olives, a fresh cuc and tomato salad and lemon wedges. Drool. Incidentally, that would also be my meal of choice for a Tuesday.

Sushi - Sushi? Sashimi? Regardless, I love em both. BBQ eel, yellowfin tuna, California rolls with real crab, no fake crap...mmm. Recently I discovered that I enjoy the little guys that have the fish eggs in them. I know it sounds so gross, but they crackle in your mouth 100 times more than rice crispies ever could! And they look like pretty, shiny jewels. I love how sushi doesn't weigh you down, and how it takes so long to eat. On the other hand, it drives me crazy when your friend, maybe someone from school, says "I LOOOVVE sushi, my boyfriend is  a quarter Japanese so we like, have sushi all the time" and then when you to MakiMaki they order tempura vegetables, edamame ( which she absolutley drowns in high sodium soy sauce ) and teriyaki chicken. YOU my friend, do not love sushi. 

I like leaving these tasty, meaty dishes to the pros who know what they're doing. So when my iron levels are getting low, this is how I indulge. What are your fave meat dishes?

Marco freaking Polo

I like kids. I really like the ones that belong to my sisters. I generally like other people's kids, and always smile or make funny faces at them in the elevator. 

But when all I here when I'm doing homework is "MARRRRCO POOOOLLLLOOOO" for 2 hours with increasing intensity and volume, it makes me want to build a gingerbread house, and, well, you know the rest of that tune. 

The Little Kid Table

When I was a kid, I always lamented the fact that I had to sit at the little kid table. It was so not my scene. Between bites of mashed potatoes and roast beast, I would glance over at the grown up table and dream of being included in their intellectual conversations, which were no doubt about the economy and foreign trade policies. Year after year of holiday gatherings I sat in those plastic chairs, with those plastic cups mocking me after every sip. I can drink orange juice out of a glass cup without breaking OR spilling damn it! 

Yknow what made it even worse? There was no set age at which one graduated from the kid table to the grown up table. It was completely subjective! As the teen years arrived, I would say to myself, "This is it, Nawana. This is the year, I can feel it!". I think because I stopped growing around the ripe old age of eleven, it threw things off for me. 

And to add insult to injury, ( salt in the wound,  pickle in the sandwich, whatever adage you prefer), after I got a couple Christmases and Easters under my belt at the grown up table, all these 'husbands' started showing up at our house. Before you knew it, I was demoted to the kiddie table! Well screw you "brother-in-law"! You can't just show up at OUR house and expect your male grown-up status to trump the bond of blood! I knew these people before they reached sexual maturity! 

I think there should be a brother-in-law table where you guys can all sit in the plastic chairs and talk about how miserable your existence was before you were honored to meet my sisters. And when you come to the big table to get an extra jug of O.J. we'll all glare at you for being such an annoyance. 

I'm not bitter, not at all. 

 

I Heart Scarves

I am home alone this long weekend, and can only look at so many pictures of diseases of the mouth before I needed a break. So I decided to catalogue my scarf collection and wanted to share it with you. Yknow, for insurance purposes. Here are all the scarves I own, in no specific order, each with a story of its own. 

This is my most recent addition, from my San Fransisco-Eve visit. It doesn't have any fond memory associated with it yet, its still just a baby love scarf. And that is my kick ass name tag. It makes me feel important.

This was bought from a vintage shop in Camrose, and I adore the silk and paisley pattern. This scarf is purely decorational. When Bunny recently visited, we were just out the door and I said  "Wait, it might be cold, let me get a scarf", and returned with this one. She scoffed. 

This scarf is in the top 3. It is warm and pretty. Me and my good friend Jill waited in line outside the Edmonton H&M on opening day, and when they opened the doors and released us hungry wolves inside, it was one of the first things I grabbed. It has lots of coffee stains on it, and I also wore it at Patience's Winter Wonderland Wedding.

This scarf is ok. I bought it on sale at the Jacob Outlet. 

This scarf is the one that started it all! Patience went to Paris for a few months and returned bearing gifts, and in doing so, marked the beginning of my addiction. I don't wear it a lot, to be honest I'm not crazy about the dusty-rose shade, but love it because it was the first. A girl always remember her first.

This is my hippy love-child scarf, and I usually wear it in my hair like this. I rocked this look when we were in Nice when I had ugly-salty-ocean-sunscreen-my-north-american-styling-tools-do-not-work-in-Europe hair. It has a certain smell to it.

I bought this scarf in green for Bunny. I wore it in my hair and went camping with some Camrose friends, but left it in while I slept and almost choked.

Hey, I forgot I had this one! Will incorporate it into my look this week.

This is for when I'm feeling royal.

This scarf is ugly but very warm. I wish I knew how to quit you.

I really love this one. I've always been drawn to this mustard-yellow shade. I left it at Betina's once. It was a lonely couple of months full of uncertainty. I wore this scarf last night and scored myself a client, woohoo! Way to go yellow scarf.

This one is from Paris. Okay, okay, it's from the Zara's in Paris, and I'm sure that in the Summer 2006 season that Zara's the world over had this scarf in stock, but I don't like to think about that.

Boys always kiss me when I wear this scarf. Its the most magical thing I own, but as we have all learnt from Harry Potter, magical objects with a mind of their own are not to be trusted. 

I wore this scarf to a Gwen Stefani concert, but unfortunatley, I ate and drank and was very merry in the pre-concert jubilee and had to go home before Gwen even made it on stage. Just ask Serinda for the details. 

This is a classic black scarf from American Apparel. In their ads, they have emancipated girls wearing it as a dress or a tube top, but I just stick to wearing it this way.

*Author's Note - I also have a beautiful golden scarf from Ethiopia, but it is cut in such a way of which I'm not familiar, so I drape it over a tupperware bin and ta-da! Nightstand!

Friendly Umbrellas

I left the house yesterday quite early, while the sun was still shining. 12 hours later this was not the case, and me any my cute outfit got completely soaked in the heavy rain. 

Then at the crosswalk, with my cashmere cardigan I got on sale and love lots and lots over my head, the cutest Filipino lady motioned for me to huddle under her umbrella with her. She even went a couple blocks out of her way to walk me to my bus stop. This put a huge smile on my face for the rest of the day, as it was so kind and simple and sweet. Thank you so much for your act of kindness Umbrella lady, it was very much appreciated and made my day!