The Puns

I have always hated knock-knock jokes.  They're a very American thing and I never found them funny.  Probably because I don't care much for puns.  That is, until I heard Mrs. Cho tell Ellis's joke last night.

(explaining how her son Ellis doesn't understand knock knock jokes)

Mrs. Cho: He'd say, "knock-knock?"

Who's there?

"A boy?"

A boy who?

"With no body."  

Favorite knock-knock ever.

The Long Goodbye

Life Advice from the Best:

(discussing the fact that I still need to rely on Whitecastle's largess for part time employment because I continue to be not married to a wealthy man)

Moi: Whenever I meet med students now, I just think, "gosh, you still have so much longer to go.  I don't have time for this."

Whitecastle: You can't think of it like that.  It's a long game.

Moi: More of an investment?

Whitecastle: Exactly.  You have to scoop them up before they make their fortunes.

Boston Brahmin

I don't have a Boston accent.  There's no good reason that I should.  I don't even have a New England accent.  Like most suburban kids of my generation, my speech is more characterized by a lack of regional accents than anything else.  Any distinction in my pronunciations can be attributed more to having English as a second language than where my high school was.  That's not to say, of course, that New England hasn't left a stamp on me.  I pronounce 'aunt' as it is spelled.  I say pee-b'dee instead of pea-bo-dy, and I know what you mean by a bubbler.  

Today, I realized that years of riding the MBTA (i.e. years of not having a car, i.e. years of being poor) have left deep marks.  Asking for a Charlie Card from a station agent, I realized that "Cha-lie card" sounds much more natural in my head than "Char-lie card."  Similarly, it's "Hay-ma-ket," not "Hay-mar-ket."  Who knows what else the MBTA has snuck into the recesses of my mind.  But once I find out, I'm sure I'll let you know.  If I see something, I'll say something.

I Once Was Lost

There but the grace of God, Pretzels, there but the grace of God.

Over the weekend, Nik came down from B'town to visit B'more.  She could not have picked a hotter weekend.  Or a weaker tour guide.  Being great students of geography and meteorology, we headed even farther south and went to D.C. and spent the bulk of our time walking, sweating, and pausing every 10 minutes to sit and hydrate.

It's hard to pick a lowlight* of the weekend.  The obvious choice would have been standing there, hunched over the canal in Georgetown, feeling like I was going to die because of food poisoning/heat exhaustion.  Actually, dying would have been an easy way out.  I feared I was going to fall on the street and poop in my pants.  

Yet, the real lowlight was the preceding 30 minutes, even before the stomach grumbling, when Nik and I went on what we thought was a walk through the park path but was really just a small, barely cleared path along a creek that had a lot of weeds to whack through along the way.  We both thought we were going to die, though for different reasons.  Nik was afraid we'd come upon a molester/murderer/dead body.  I was afraid that 1 errant slip would send me crashing into the creek below (instead, 1 errant slip just gave me a gigantic bruise).  I'm just glad we put on a brave face for each other and didn't share our fears in the woods.

Lesson Learned: If a path in the woods in the middle of a city looks too random and sparse to be a trail on the map, it most likely isn't the trail you are looking for.  

*To be fair, there were also a lot of highlights, a lot of them involved food and spending time with Nik.

Extra Key

I got some proper furniture today (not grown up proper, but at least grad school respectable).  The kind made with proper wood and sort of goes with the rest of the apartment.  I also got new earbuds that came in the mail.  Plus $50 IKEA gift card (thanks, Zipcar!  you're the best).  Plus some sushi.

In short, today has been a good, good day.  But what has made it extra great happened this afternoon.

That was when the smoke alarm in the office rang, and I smelled smoke as I walked into the hallway, and I was concerned for a second, until I realized that the microwave in the kitchen was spitting out smoke and overheard a girl talking about how embarrassing it was that her popcorn caught on fire and now the whole building had to evacuated.  Then I was just happy.  It wasn't me.  It so easily have been me.  Caught on the camera.  But it wasn't me.  It wasn't me.

Responsible Adults

Last night was a lesson in the detrimental effects of peer pressure.  Despite the fact that New Roommate Anna had just moved in, there were boxes all over the apartment to unpack, and I wanted to get work done in anticipation for Nik's visit-- despite all these things, when Carrie showed up in the last 4 minutes of New Roommate Anna's move to 'supervise', and suggested that I host a pool party this week, I thought it was a fabulous idea.  

Baltimore has been hot, hot, hot this week and last night was no exception.  For a moment last night, taking a dip in the pool, slurping popsicles with minors, eating Carrie's carrot chips* and C Lee's wonderful cherries, I believed it was all a fabulous idea.  When the pool closed and Mike(? C Lee?) suggested we go out for pho, that seemed fabulous, too.  And it was.  All of it was fabulous until I was in my PJs, ready for bed, and remembered all that I was supposed to write last night.  Perhaps I should have just called Carrie then.  She could have told me how being a PhD dropout will be fabulous, too.

*Ah yes, weird carrot chips.

Moi: I can't put my finger on it but this has a perfume-y aftertaste.

Carrie: The first bite tastes kind of weird, too.

Moi: So it tastes bad in the beginning and end.

Carrie: But the middle is so good.

Good People

Everyone should have a Doc Nice in their life (or a Prof Riles, or Doc Firewall or Prof Molten).  I am a student of Doc Whitecastle's brand of teaching, of gleaning nuggets of encouragement from a lot of sarcasm and put downs.  But sometimes, it is great to be cheered on by Doc Nice and be inspired on a lethargic, hot Friday afternoon.

Of course, kindness and sarcastic can also go hand in hand.

(earlier in our phone call, we established that I was feeling 'metered' today and not conveying my excitement with enough enthusiasm)

Doc Nice: (yawns) I'm sorry.  I'll be yawning throughout our conversation.  It's not from a lack of interest.  I'm just sleep deprived.

Moi: That's OK.  I have my metered response.  You have your yawning.  

Doc Nice: Whoa, I didn't say that that was OK.

Moi: I'm very sorry.  Please forgive me.  

Dear Toto

Last week, brainstorming for refreshments to serve the Christian fellowship at school, I came up what I thought was the simplest idea: the default meeting snacks of Box o' Joe and Munchkins (this post is brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts).  It's what everyone gets for a meeting when you don't want to put any thought into the food, right?

Turns out, outside of New England, coffee and Munchkins requires a lot of thought.  First, we had to find a DD.  There were none close to the school or by Natalie's neighborhood.  It fell on Aubrey to pick them up by car.  

And then there was the matter of the Munchkins.  It had to be explained to people.  (Am I not living in America?  On the east coast?!)  Natalie introduced the product (erroneously) as "small doughnuts," anticipating that the term would cause confusion.  I felt like an American abroad for the 4th of July, explaining my culture to the local population.  

At least no one called the doughnut holes Timbits.  I draw the line at Timbits.

Conjunction Junction

I remember a few years back, when I was either a freshman or still in middle school, talking to my brother and our friends about a movie coming out.  I couldn't remember the name of the movie, but I knew it was a one-word title.  "It's an adverb," I said.  

They laughed at me for that characterization, but when we finally remembered the title, sure enough, it's an adverb.  I wish I could remember the name now.  I have a problem with these things.  I was reminded of this little anecdote because it happened again tonight.  

Talking to Eldon, I was trying to remember the name of an action movie and all I could remember was, "It's based on a comic book, and there's a colon in it."  "A colon?"  "Yeah, there's a colon in it."

It took another couple of hours, but I finally got it-- Punisher: War Zone.

My memory may be flawed, but it's grammatically correct.  

Brrr, It's Cold In Here

I called home tonight.  Both Mother and Father happened to pick up the phone.  What followed was some really dark, dark jokes.

Moi: How are you guys?

Mother: Not good.

Moi: No?  Why not.

Mother: Your father hit me.  So I called the cops.

Moi: Yeah?  Did the cops come?

Father: No.

Moi: So they're racist cops?

Mother: They're racist.

Father: We shouldn't joke about these things.  

Stand Up Guys

At the student activities fair today, the Christian fellowship table was placed right next to the "Surgery and Public Health" table.  The surgery people never took their place their, to the chagrin of many incoming students.  And I got to break the news to them all.  For some reason, everyone wanted to make a joke about the no show.  

I went for the simple "they didn't make the cut."  Natalie said "they're still in surgery."  And a bunch of people (surgeons, I think) who stopped by found the no-show itself hilarious because "it's just like surgeons not to show up."  Maybe "hilarious" means something different to surgeons.