kapachino

Category: personal

  • The Photographic Evolution of an Injured Toenail

    This is going to be your favorite post of all time, I just know it.

    Right after it got bruised:

    The bruise painted over:

    Another soccer game cracked it open.

    I didn’t want it to get infected so I took the polish off. The blood underneath had leaked out.

    This time an indoor soccer game did the damage.

    Its final days:

    The moment arrives.

    And you know what? Losing a toenail isn’t nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be. Turns out that half of it has already grown back underneath. It’s not too pretty, and it’s a little tender, but a Band-aid fixes it right up.

    Happy Tuesday!

  • I Lost $182, But At Least I Have My Truck Back

    This morning I was awakened around 6:20 a.m. when it began to storm. I thought, “Ahh, what a nice morning to sleep on.” I knew that soon enough I had to get up and start work on my research paper, but it wasn’t time yet. It was raining pretty hard, and then I heard a strange noise outside my window. I just figured it must be hailing, and I actually thought to myself, “I’m glad my car is in the covered parking spot.”

    A little later on in the morning, my roommate Carmen went to go work out. When she came back she asked me, “Kathleen, where’s your car?” My stomach sank. I looked out the window and sure enough, it was not in the spot where I had parked it the night before. “Carmen, I have no idea where it is,” I responded. I went outside and looked around, called my mom to make sure no one in the family came to get it–she said she thought it was probably on its way to Mexico–and so I finally came to the sad conclusion that it must be stolen.

    I immediately called the police to file a report. My mind was racing. How much money was this going to cost me? How am I going to get anywhere? What did I have inside the truck? I loved that little thing. I was going to drive it into the ground. Was this really happening? After speaking with the police, I called my insurance agency. They were asking me a bunch of questions and while I was on hold Carmen and I began to talk things out. Through this process I realized that maybe my car wasn’t stolen–maybe it had been towed. So she ran to the apartment office to find out if they knew anything while I was on the phone. The insurance agent was in the middle of telling me what was going to happen when Carmen rushed back and said, “Kathleen! It was towed.”

    What happened was that when I renewed my registration a few weeks ago, I was sent new license plates with a new number. I forgot to notify the apartment office of this, and they did an inspection of the lot last night and since the plate number didn’t match up with what they had on file, they towed it without even considering that it was the same car. Do you see the irony my friends?? It got towed because it was parked in the covered spot. So Carmen took me to pick it up, and it only cost me $182.39. What did I get for that money? I got my truck back–but it shouldn’t have been taken to begin with. I got my stress level elevated a few dozen notches. And I lost basically the entire morning since I could hardly concentrate on anything after the fiasco. I am not a very happy camper.

    But I do have my little delinquent truck. When I picked him up I felt like I was bailing a kid out of jail. I of course documented the experience.

    dscf0609 The auto storage place

    dscf0616 The sign out front

    dscf0623 Signing my life away

    dscf0620 There he is! (The tan one.)

    I am trying extremely hard not to be stressed out with my life these days, but I have a feeling that sometime within the next month there will be a breakdown. I am serious about this. But for now, I am holding it together.

    P.S. UCLA let me down tonight, and I had to say goodbye to the trophy that could have been–and one day will be–mine.

  • Some of Today’s Happenings

    So, someone was murdered on a public bus today. Two blocks from my apartment. I ride the bus three times a week. It really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

    Also today, I went back and worked a half day at the cancer clinic where I worked for two years before starting nursing school. I can honestly say that if I hadn’t left when I did, I might’ve lost my mind. Things are crazy over there. They are at least 3-4 full-time staff members short. They are weeks behind. They have papers to be filed out the wazoo. I barely even scratched the surface when I was there, and I will probably end up going back to work more half days even though I really don’t have the time.

    And finally, be very excited because after my soccer game tonight my toenail is now hanging on by a thread! A momentous day is coming soon…

  • Lofty Aspirations

    My family is very sports-oriented. One of the manifestations of this is that each year we are involved in fantasy teams and pools and such. For as long as I can remember my dad and my uncle have picked the NFL games, and when my brothers were old enough they joined in. Being the only girl, I wanted to be involved too. So when fantasy leagues started becoming popular, our family decided to create a private fantasy baseball league for ourselves and I jumped in. The way it worked was that whoever won the NCAA tournament that year got first draft pick in fantasy baseball. Well, we did that for a couple of years and then I WON. After that, fantasy baseball was dropped. My brother Barry cried that the draft was unfair that year, but I know he’s just having a hard time accepting the fact that I am, indeed, a fantasy baseball master.

    The way it stands today is that our family picks the college football bowl games with each other, and also the NCAA basketball tournament, which is of course going on right now. This year, my uncle won the bowl games, but I CAME IN SECOND, beating out my entire immediate family. Currently, I am in last place in our NCAA pool, but I still have a lot of points remaining and I am the only one who picked the team that I picked to win the entire thing – so I still have a chance. And things are getting serious now! There is a trophy:

    stagg-sports-selection-star
    This trophy is soon to be mailed to my uncle for winning the college bowl pick ’em, and then it will be transferred to the winner of the NCAA tournament after July 4. I have to say…I want it bad.

    My dad is excited about it, too. After he showed it to me last night, he said, “Just think, Kat. When you and your brothers get married your spouses can participate too!” And then, abruptly, “But we may have to drop you. You won’t have our family name anymore.”

    “Dad! That’s not fair!”

    “I don’t know, Kat, the trophy has our name on it, and that won’t be your name anymore.”

    “But I will always be part of the family!”

    “We’ll have to see what the jury decides.”

    I think my dad is just simultaneously dreading and elated about the possibility of me getting married at anytime in the next twenty years. It’s cute and all, but I don’t appreciate being threatened with disownment. (I think I just made up that word.) For now, I’ll just try to prove myself while I am still definitively a part of this family.

  • Bird Flu Phase One

    So I got a lot of grief from some people for enrolling in the bird flu vaccination study. People were telling me that it was stupid for me to put myself at risk, no matter how small, of getting the bird flu. Well, I wasn’t worried. And today, I got vaccinated. I found out that there is absolutely NO risk of me contracting the bird flu because the virus they inject you with is killed. So that should put all the worriers at ease.

    I was nervous about the whole ordeal because I knew I would have to get two injections and have my blood drawn. When they took my blood pressure beforehand, it was a little high. My blood pressure is always high when I’m at the doctors’ office. I know that it’s probably because I’m tense and in a new place and not relaxed and all that, but I still worry that I’m going to end up with chronically high blood pressure.

    Oh! I also found out that I indeed am not pregnant. (We were required to submit a urine sample for them to test.) Not that I was particularly worried about that due to many reasons, but it’s still comforting to know that no miracles in the vein of Jesus’ birth will be happening in my life at the moment.

    The next step after the urine sample and the vital signs was the blood draw. I don’t know why but every time I have my blood drawn, even if it’s just a little bit, I feel weak. I can’t even watch it happening at all; I try to completely distract myself. But I made it through, only to have to get stuck two more times. These vaccines hurt going in, but they didn’t hurt much afterwards. The woman who gave them to me was apparently in training, because she had another lady talking her through the procedure the whole time. I have sympathy for her because I am in training too, but when you’re the subject it’s just not the most comforting thing to hear instructions being given to the one holding the needle.

    So the first visit is over with. If anyone is interested in participating in this study (remember it pays $400!), let me know and I can get you the details.

    Also, Baylor College of Medicine has other clinical studies going on requiring healthy volunteers, and the UT Health Science Center does as well. Check out their websites if you are interested. I have already signed up to participate in a study where you play computer games while having an MRI done. This may turn out to be my new part-time job!