Emmy and Becca

Two of our friends from nursing school came to visit Ashley and me this weekend, Emmy and Becca live and work in Atlanta but decided they were in need of some west coast sun so they flew out this past Thursday and got a whirlwind tour of the city before having to head back Monday morning. The hardest part of having people visit is trying to decide where to take them... you want just the right mix of cheesy tourist stuff (Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills, etc.) and local hang-outs so that they feel like they get to see the sights but can also find out what it is really like to live here (surprisingly enough, we don't go shopping on Rodeo drive everyday). One thing everyone wants to do is "go to the beach" but even that request is not quite as straightforward as it may seem. For starters there is not really "a" beach so to speak, there are tons of them! Which do you choose? The closest/most easily accessible beaches are also the most crowded. The most famous beaches (Malibu, Laguna, etc) are about 45 minutes to an hour away but there is only one road that runs along the coast so if you get stuck in traffic (and odds are not in your favor on a beautiful weekend) you are S.O.L. - plus it seems a bit ridiculous to sit in traffic 200 feet from the water when you could just pull-over at any time and still be at "the beach". So today we decided to drive down to Hermosa/Manhattan beach for the day and all I can say is wow. No really, wow. It was gorgeous, a quintessential beach town filled with cool shops/restaurants and tons of beach bungalows... I have a feeling that my love affair with the area has only just begun - welcome to California ladies.

"They put the chic in kicking ass." - The New York Post

The vast majority of the time I was in Gainesville I knew most, if not all, of the people in the bar/at the grocery store/in class/etc. L.A. is exactly the opposite. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do because I don't know anyone in the entire town... come to think of it, I don't really know anyone in the entire state - or anyone on this half of the country for that matter! This has given me a clean slate - I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want. If I want to go to the beach without shaving my armpits, so what? No one knows me! If I want to go to the grocery store and wear my bike helmet around the whole time I am inside, so what? No one knows me! If I want to wear spandex to the gym, if I want to wear high heels when I go out (even though I am guaranteed to fall over at least three times throughout the course of the evening), if I want to sing out loud to the song on my ipod while I walk down the street... so what? No one knows me! No one to judge me (well, they probably are but I'll never have to hear about it), no one I feel obligated to include in plans, no one to have awkward conversations with at the grocery store when all I really want to do is go home and cook dinner and watch Lost... I am finding that people from home generally can't understand this, they hear "I don't know anyone" and they are immediately like "Aren't you lonely? Who do you do things with? I could never do that, I would miss my friends too much." I don't think they are giving themselves enough credit, there is enough technology around these days (email, facebook, blogs, skype, airplanes) that you can see/talk to people from home as much as you want... but when I don't want to, I don't have to and that is a beautiful thing :) Since (up until this point) I have rarely found myself in a situation with all complete strangers, I have never really given much thought to having to "watch out" for myself or be mindful of who I was with. Now that I am in this new city, mom keeps asking (justifiably) if I have gotten myself some pepper-spray and I am happy to say that I have finally gotten my act together. I couldn't just settle for any old type of pepper-spray, no sir: I went on PepperFace.com and ordered myself not one but two stylish palm defenders - be proud. As noted above, "they put the chic in kicking ass"... the photo I posted is a prime example of one such ass-kicking moment.

Ibiza y Barcelona

Katie called me about a month ago to give me a heads up that she was probably going to be out on the west coast during her spring break. She didn't have many details, she only knew that she was probably going to be doing some road-tripping with friends up north and that she would love to see me if I could get time off. I got excited, told her that I would love to see her and said to just let me know when and where... a few days later I got this email:
"Hey Paige,
Holy crap you will not believe where I am going for spring break:
Ibiza, google it, you are about to be sooooooo jealous….
I love you tons, but I’m sorry this totally trumps the California road trip.
-Katie"
Can you feel the sisterly love just permeating that note? Well I could, especially after I googled Ibiza - oh just kill me now. It turns out that Katie's new BF surprised her by planning this trip and not only did she find it in her heart to ditch me, somehow the idea of the Mediterranean helped her to overcome the fact that she has spent her college career avoiding the sun like it may cause her to spontaneously combust or something. Anyways, after I got done crying myself to sleep (and mom got done cautioning Katie against strangers) I reminded her that she has a digital camera that, while covered in three years worth of dust, is good as new and not to forget to pack it so that if I couldn't be on the trip I could at least see it. She and Sheldon did a bang-up job with the pictures (cool thing: check, digitally documented: check) now all I need is for her to post them on Shutterfly and she will have officially earned the title of "blogger". However, she keeps reminding me that some of us (said in an exasperated tone reserved for small children who just can't grasp a concept) are busy and don't have time to post. So I swiped some of the pictures off of her Snapfish account - I have no further explanation of the subjects of the pictures aside from "Katie and Sheldon in Ibiza and Barcelona" but it they looked like too much fun not to share!

Marissa's Mom

I'm not sure exactly where I know Marissa from... we went to all the same schools in Tampa, then we both went to UF and now we are both living in LA - we basically grew up together and while our paths have continually crossed, we haven't ever really been in the same group of friends at the same time. Now that we've found ourselves on an entirely new side of the country, we've been trying to meet up - it is always nice to see a familiar face! Marissa and her fiancee Michael moved out here a couple months ago. They live in Culver City which is really only about 15 minutes away (a lot of the nurses on my floor live there to give you an idea of the distance) but we still hadn't managed to get together until this past Saturday. Marissa's mom was in town visiting and she was flying back to Tampa later that morning but she had promised my mom that she would try to set eyes on me while she was out here (to verify that I'm not spiraling out of control) and so they invited me out to breakfast Saturday morning at the S&W Cafe. I worked the night shift Friday (7pm-7am) but I was technically free and I really wanted to see them so I figured what the heck. I was a mess, but I made it. The food was great, I got a good mom hug out of the deal and I got to meet up with Marissa and Michael - hopefully it will happen again soon!
looking tired...

Weber Q 200

I got a grill! The only way for us to take full advantage of our porch situation is with a grill so I went ahead and got one last weekend... we broke it in last Monday night grilling hamburgers with Ashley, her sister (who was in town for spring break) and a couple guys from work. I'm proud to report that it worked like a charm and I have used it two more times since (the pic is of shrimp I cooked tonight - I am already on my second bottle of propane). I chose a portable one so that we can take it to the beach/camping/etc as the weather gets warmer! I think my favorite part is that the tiny little fuel tanks it uses are actually designed to be used with a blow torch ;)

El Matador

I passed the CTICU test! At least I think I passed... they never actually told me one way or the other but I have started working on the floor full time. The past week I have worked night shifts and I was really nervous about that (lets be honest, I am nervous everyday. If I blank when I am asked questions at 3pm then what is gonna happen when my preceptor starts quizzing me at 3am?!?!) but it has actually been really good. Things tend to quiet down in the wee morning hours so that our patients can try to get some sleep - this is by no means a guarantee, some patients require just as much care to sustain them through the night as they do during the day, but on average there is less elective stuff going on so it makes for a less hectic unit, which makes it a little easier to focus on learning the task at hand... and by the task at hand I mean EVERYTHING. Anyways, I am pretty tired all the time so switching my body clock over to sleeping during the day really hasn't been too hard. I actually feel like I am getting alot more accomplished when I am not at work because it is much easier to be motivated to study, run errands, cook, workout, etc. when you are off during daylight hours as opposed to when I work the day shift and I get off right as it is getting dark and all I want to do is veg out and go to sleep once I get home. Unfortunately, it turns out that our apartment becomes an oven as it sits in the sun all day (we have no A/C, only heat) which we hadn't really paid attention to so far because the weather has been quite mild, dropping into the 50's at night and getting up into the mid 70's during the day - so the gradual warming throughout the course of the day has gone unnoticed. But this weekend SoCal had a heat-wave. So here I am, fast asleep and we start topping out at about 90 degrees by 11am (which would put my room at a toasty 95) and I had gone to bed in flannel pants with flannel sheets and a comforter - to make a long story short, it felt like I had wet the bed by the time I woke up. Awesome. So today I took advantage of our newly warm weather and decided to sleep at the beach instead of in my room! I was not the only one with this idea so, in an attempt to escape the masses, I drove up the coast to El Matador beach in Malibu:
I didn't have my camera on me (only my phone) so you will have to excuse the blurry pics.

oh dad...

Katie emailed me this with the subject "do you think dad does this?"

and my answer is most definitely yes.

ps: Katie, this would have been and ideal first blog post for you, and i am still waiting for those Ibiza photos... you don't even have to make a real blog entry, just post them on shutterfly (click on the 'my life is documented better than many olympic sports' link)... snapfish is soooo 2007.

Everglades and Vero

All I can say about this entry is that Leslee and I both have great taste in music for our Blog Videos! I guess Dueling Banjos is the perfect mood setter for all types of Florida vacations! This video shows a few snippets from a great week Jeff and I had in the sunshine. Its been about 20 degrees here in NY for what feels like months, so it was amazing to get into some sunshine - in the middle of March.

Rum Island

Fact: That "empty nest" thing? You get over it. Then you find yourself at some crazy cabin outside of Gainesville on a trip with two great friends (Dada & Janna), involving canoeing on the Santa Fe River, wearing regulation ATF (all terrain footwear), trying NOT to look at "Naked Ed" perched on his dock (apparently something of a local celebrity), a couple steaks on the grill - not to mention a little relaxing in the hot tub with a glass of wine.
Life is good.....

Pimp My Ride

It turns out that work is pretty damn time/life consuming. I still love riding the bus to and from the hospital, but in an effort to add a little more exercise and fresh air to my daily routine, I bought a bike! The traffic is pretty heavy in the evenings so it is definitely faster to use the bike, and in an attempt to make myself as safe as possible in that traffic I sport a plethora of safety gear including a helmet, obnoxious blinking lights and a neon jacket with reflector strips - be jealous. Who wouldn't want to be a nurse once they see how cool I look?  Solving the nursing shortage one L.A. commuter at a time.