A fine plan, indeed

I went out with one of my good friends, LD, tonight.  Neither of us will be having children.  The following plan formed:

LD: "We'll be in the old folks' home together - taking care of each other."
Ms. V: "That's right!  We'll sit next to each other drinking our beers."
LD: "It's a great plan!  The one on Shelburne Bay is beautiful.  Let's plan to stay there."
Ms. V: "We can get rooms next to each other and knock messages through the walls, since our hands will be too arthritic to text."
LD: "On second thought... we could never afford Shelburne Bay."
Ms. V: "I'll have to work right up until I'm ready to be put in the home to be able to cover the cost.  I have decent benefits..."
LD: "I still can't afford it.  It's way too expensive."
Ms. V: "We'll get married!  My retirement benefits will cover you! It's perfect!"
LD: "DJ will be dead by then since he's older."
Ms. V: "I'm saving my 2nd marriage for you."
LD: "We need to pinky-swear on this."

:Pinky-swear:

Ms. V: "We could *totally* capitalize on this!  It'll fund our stay!  I can see the headline now... 'Couple marries after 50 years of friendship' - it would go on to describe our brief honeymoon on the lake and mention that we'll be making our home at the Shelburne Bay Assisted Living Facility.  A real American love-story."

:Pinky-swear again:

Folks, I found my 2nd spouse.  I couldn't ask for a better one.

xo,
Ms. V

What's that they say about apples not falling far?

My sister (EEV), my mother, and myself struggle with opening a bottle...

EEV (struggling with top)
Me: "Want me to try it with my giant man hands?"
EEV: "I think my hands are more manly than yours..."
Mom: "I've got the manliest hands of all of us!"
Me (struggling with top): "E! Do you have a set of pliers?!"
Mom: "Oh give it here..." - (Pops it off with ease) - "Now what was so hard about that?"
Me (in disbelief): "Jesus Christ..."

xo,
Ms. V

Pain relief

Work.  Planned Parenthood in Barre.  The fabulous Molly is my HCA...

I've got a massive knot in my right shoulder (as usual, thank-you stress & poor posture) and am massaging it against a door frame.

Me: "Hey Molly - want to inject some lidocaine into my shoulder?"
Molly: "Yeah!!  Wait.  No!  Wait.  What?  You do that?"

(No, I actually don't do that, but I had briefly considered it).

xo,
Ms. V

Life in the North Country and making your escape...

Winter will be upon us soon, a season I love but also a season that many people just don't understand.  On a recent trip to my grandmother's, my sister and I decided to dig through old photo albums.  We found one of our mother and her siblings standing on a rather large snowbank next to their ranch home.

Uncle: "Look at that.  That's the roof.  The snow was only 18 inches shy of the roof."
Gram: "That was the year we went to Florida."

The best part is that my grandparents' trip to Florida had nothing to do with the snow, it turned out.  My grandfather apparently made a bet with a friend that he & my grandmother could be in Florida by the next day.  They were.

Happy autumn-almost-winter!

xo,
Ms. V

iPhone genius

Recently, while trying out the facetime option with our iPhone 4's, my friend Laura and I were confused by the fact that our screens showed ourselves, rather than each other.  In other words, I should have seen her on my screen and she should have seen me.  Instead, I saw myself and she saw herself.  Our friend Evan witnessed this event and had the following to offer:

Evan: "Maybe it knows you're in the same room.  iPhones are that smart!"

:)

xo,
Ms. V
(we still haven't figured it out)

Further proof of my cooking skills

Hanging out with my cousin, Chris, this afternoon, I mentioned that I was about to go grocery shopping...

Chris: "What are you going to buy?"
Me (answering her adorable little baby because it's fun to talk to him): "Pizza ingredients because that's all I can make. Cheese, sauce, crust."
Chris: "Uh, how 'bout some onions? Peppers? Olives? Throw some veggies on there."
Me: "Mmmmm... too many ingredients. Three is my limit."
Chris: "You can buy them already chopped up..."
Me: "Ehhhh, nah, I dunno."
Chris: "Get them off the salad bar for crying out loud!"

:D

xo,
Ms. V

Welcome back Scott

After my dear friend and former fashion designer/model, Scott, returned from a 3-month long shoe-designing stint in Miami, we reconnected by hitting a local bar in a tiny town in VT. A random (and I'll admit - somewhat creepy) stranger struck up a conversation about the Miami club scene vs. the LA club scene. Scott had enough brewskies in him to get funny about it.

Scott: "Shit. When I went to the clubs I wore a speedo and cowboy boots."
Me (laughter)
Stranger: "Shit. What kind of club did you go to??"
Scott: "I helped build Von Dutch. I could wear an eyepatch and a smile."
Me (hysterical laughter)

The stranger was actually not so bad, and he knew Scott was just joking around and having fun, so it's all good, peeps. It's all good.

:)

xo,
Ms. V

When two people who don't watch TV suddenly have one turned on, this is what occurs

A road trip last year landed me in Quebec City with my buddy Ben. We spent the morning getting ready in the hotel room with "The Today Show" on in the background.

Ben: "The Today Show... I want to have a show called The Yesterday Show."
Ms. V: "This is what happened yesterday!"
Ben: "Or The Tomorrow Show"
Ms. V: "This is what we think will happen tomorrow!"
Ben: "I was going to say I want a show called The 5 Minutes Ago Show."
Ms. V: "For those with short term memory loss."

xo,
Ms. V

A piece of advice to previous civilizations...

From my buddy Mike:

"All I'm saying is: If you're Mayan, you should *not* show your face in 2013!"

:)

xo,
Ms. V

An open letter

Dear medical licensing "stuff",

Thank you for being such a tedious pain in the rump. Even though it seems like a bunch of ridiculous (and expensive) little hoops for practitioners (such as myself) to jump through, it protects patients.

xo,
Ms. V
(I like to try to put a positive spin on everything, folks)

Answering with an example

Ms. V: "C'mon. Aren't I the most indecisive person you've ever met?"
Bakondi: "I don't know."

xo,
Ms. V

What's in that stuff, anyway?

Four loco.

Patrick has had some interesting experiences on the stuff (apparently a lot of people have). I finally found some that sat in my fridge for a month...

Ms. V: "I had some four loco for us but I tossed it when I moved because I was sick of dealing with stuff and just emptied the contents of my fridge into the garbage."
*Note: before anyone gets worked up about me throwing away food, think for just a second about what few things actually resided in my fridge, then think about how many of those things were actually edible. Yeah, exactly... nothing was "wasted."

Patrick: "You just threw it out? Wha?? That's just sitting in garbage somewhere? It could leak on an animal and turn it into a ninja turtle or something!"

Miche: "Some poor, unsuspecting bunny doesn't know what he has coming to him."


They're probably right.
Side note: this is the 2nd time in 2 days that Ninja Turtles have come up in conversations. I love quirky coincidences. Good stuff.

xo,
Ms. V

Learning interesting stuff about your mother...

During a recent & rousing game of scattergories with my mother, sister, and sister's boyfriend:

Letter = B
Category = "Things you keep hidden"


Mom: "I put 'books'"
Ms. V: "What kind of books are you reading that you need to keep them hidden??"

Wine was involved.

xo,
Ms. V

Oh my.

On a rare and recent jaunt to the big K with my friend Michael-Sha-nay-nay, we stumbled upon these beauties:

Imagine my delight when a lengthy blog-worthy discussion ensued.

- Me (stops dead in tracks): "Oh my GAWD! I didn't think they were allowed to make these things anymore?!"

- Nay-nay: "You eat such horrible food."

- Me: "No, no. I won't eat these. I just genuinely thought they were outlawed."

(reaches for phone to snap picture)

- Nay-nay: "These things are probably made out of strychnine."

- Me (doubled over in laughter from both disbelief of the cheese-balls' existence and Nay-nay's strychnine comment): "Oh - that is SOOOO going on the quote blog!"

(snaps picture)

"I'll even caption the picture when I upload it to facebook!"

- Nay-nay: "Yeah, the caption should read: 'Top two ingredients: strychnine and failure.'"

Nay-nay finally had to pull me away. I still couldn't believe my eyes. The best part is that they're generic and have *smart* in the name. Wow.

xo,

Ms. V

PS: I really did think they were outlawed. No joke there, people.

How women work

Pondering life's great question on our recent ladies' night...

Lara: "How much do you think it's going to cost to fix a MacBook after you spill a bunch of wine on it?"

Erika: "Did you try the rice trick?"

Lara: "No. Well, yeah, but it didn't work. Now it just has a bunch of rice in it too."

Thank goodness people exist to fix these problems. :)

xo,

Ms. V

Much to my chef friend's horror...

It pays to have friends who are chefs, especially when you don't particularly cook very often (or at all, for that matter).

Last Saturday I had a good friend over to catch up on life, since I've been such a hermit lately. He made some pretty fan-fricking-tastic thai tacos, which we promptly devoured. Upon putting leftovers in the fridge, however, he discovered the reality behind my eating habits...

Chef: "Are those... wait... are those spaghetti-o's? Are you *serious*? I'm going to cook for you every night!"

Me: "They're vegetarian with soy meatballs."

Chef: "Only $9.95 a can at 'Wealthy Living.'"

The poor guy is still in shock.

xo,

Ms. V

Classic movies scenarios that stick with us...

Scene: townhouse in The Noosk. Joe is upstairs cleaning. I am downstairs on the couch.

Joe (yells down): Hey! What's *this* remind you of?

:wire hanger drops from above:

Me: CHRISTINA!!!!!

:)

Sometimes it's fun to have a roommate who 'gets' your ridiculous quirks, and even shares them with you.

xo,

Ms. V

Things you think of when you work in reproductive health

Scene: a paraguard that can't be used is discovered and about to be discarded

Amy: I have one!! Right here. (Points to pelvic area).

Laura: Awww! It's like jewelry for your uterus!

:)

We have fun at work.

xo,

Ms. V

Why Ben thinks I should move to California...

Ben: "They've never even seen an Irish person before. In California it's like Barbie & Ken, not Irish Annie."

Thanks Ben. I always like to be in places where I'm one of a kind. ;)

xo,

Ms. V

Dinnertime!

Scene: Miche and yours truly at The Pour House; Miche with a bowl of Caesar salad and a diet soda; yours truly with a giant plate of nachos and a water.

Me: "Look at this! I've gorged myself!"

Miche looks up...

Me: "Though, all I ate today was a couple of truffles and a bunch of lifesavers..."

Miche: "That'll do it." [thoughtful pause] "It's better than a Moxie and some peeps for breakfast."

Me: "That's what you had, isn't it?"

Miche: "Mmmhmmmm"

Me (with hysterical laughter): "Oh, this is ALL going on the blog!"

Miche: "I'm a picture of health."

:D

Time with Miche is always sure to result in good conversations for the blog.

xo,

Ms. V

On a trip through South Dakota... I found a piece of heaven

Scene: Cross-country road trip. In the car. Zippy Jr. With Joe. On our way to Wall Drug in South Dakota to spend the night. Big billboards everywhere, advertising all of the things Wall Drug has to offer. A few in particular catch my eye...

Ms. V: "Homemade donuts?!?!?!?"

Joe: "I was hoping you wouldn't see that sign..."

Ms. V: "A bookstore AND homemade donuts?! Screw the Badlands. We're not leaving Wall Drug."

Badlands turned out to be pretty cool too though. ;)

xo,

Ms. V