Falling in Love with Kentucky

shortly before he was fed 2 hamburgers, with cheese

It's officially autumn. Slept with the windows open by my bed last night and woke today congested. Hooray. Bailey slept in a small nugget shape between my feet and is still there kinda mooing. It's 8am on a Sunday and I'm awake and writing. What makes me grateful for fall? The summer was unusually hot, my work load unusually heavy, and my social life unusually congested. These are good things for the most part, but the slow pace, the college football the pending fires I'll light in my little cozy apartment make me happy. Last night at a tailgate I was leaving just before UK fed itself into an odd, but ultimately predictable end against Spurrier's Cocks(*I'll let you go where you want with that); a guy saw Bailey, (FYI my dog gets more come-ons than a sorority girl in cowboy boots and a tube top) and said "I have a lab too, he changed my life." It's actually true. Younger versions of me were known for partying, for being very mercurial and wild, it's funny how 69.7 lbs of soft good smelling fur and flawless good looks can make you settle in and want to spend time at home, or on a walk. It's fall, my dog can finally run comfortably without looking at me like I'm torturing him, and for the first time in my adult life, I have no desire to move away from one of the prettiest cities I've lived in. (You can keep your winter, Madison, we've got horses).
So if you're free and have the inclination, my door is always open- we can go caving, hike some local fall color, go apple picking and eat kettle corn until our lips crack, and drink a dark beer on a chilly day, or you can lose your shirt at horse racing while sipping bourbon made 15 miles from where you sit. Yeah, it's ok here.  


(I feel like this post is kinda over sentimental but should say something like "this post brought to you by the Kentucky Tourism Bureau: Kentucky, we've got more teeth than you'd expect").

if you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter

I live in Lexington, KY. Do you know what that means? It means people ask me if my blue eyes were to support UK. I feed patients with blue colored food, they think that's because of UK. At times, I imagine the pulmonary patients we see whose skin turns blue from the eastern Kentucky hills, I can see some people thinking "wow, they really go all out for the team." What's astonishing to me is this- we have year round sports, but just happen to wipe the floor of NCAA Basketball courts like an overly assertive cleaning service. Being a Georgia girl, I have SEC Roots, and also ACC (go noles!), but honestly the SEC at UK feels kinda like being asked to take your cousin to prom. It's all wrong.

What I've decided is this: the UK football team is bad. We know it, they make fun of the coach, who admittedly sometimes doesn't seem to fully understand the rules of college football- but his name is Joker...he's come a long way with what his mama gave him. The problem is this- without fans, ticket sales, justification our team WON'T be good. As a girl who loves a project, my new mission is to help UK Football. I am buying season tickets, getting a tailgate with a large blue overhang, possibly even making themed brunches to accompany it...whatever it takes. I'm only one person, but I do have friends and those friends have friends. The reality is this- they can fire the coach, they might even teach the players some rules of football, or a play besides, hold onto it and run directly toward the other end of the field even if the other team's defense is collectively 5 tons. We can do this...I almost think it could be a reality show "From Mildcats to Wildcats: The genesis of football in Kentucky"  Thoughts?

The fatigue effect on a single organism

When you do a google scholar search on "single" and "fatigue"...it's telling. It seems in nature, when you isolate a unit, a particle, a filament or a fiber, it has a set life before the tiring effort of sustaining integrity against resistance will cause it compromise. In NASCAR racing fatigue is studied to determine the impact of the environment, the turn percentages of the driver, the course of the track and how quick the responsivity of the wheels- in other world, it looks at how shit goes down and what it do to a bolt.

 If it's that simple in the muscle fibre of a mouse, how much harder on a 32 year old woman who carries 10 years of advanced education, a mountain of debt from that education and a house that flooded, and the mental burden of facing a life single, potentially barren... with a family that values grandchildren and husbands over education or professional acclaim. What it means for me is that the unconditional love of a dog, the clambering tendrils of a faith that slips every time you come into too close contact with other believers. and the realities of working your ass off only to recognize you do too rare a job to take a day off- they hit you. I'd like to take 10 days to lay on a beach in the Caribbean...to sustain the repeated oscillations of daily life without feeling "resistance fatigue" or "repetition stress" and allow my motor end units to stop firing.

They never stop.

I dream about patient care, I worry about people who are likely at home smoking the cigarettes that will cause the cancer I helped them fight to return, and I fear the appointment with "new pain" of "larnyx cancer returns!" thanks to the quasi-literacy of the scheduling system who types in "patient has teacheotomy" instead of tracheostomy, and larnyx for larynx...to announce that my job was only partially effective in helping them take control of their lives. I secretly fantasize someone puts the thought and energy into my success I put into others; but the reality is- the only creature that would notice if I overslept is a dog and he's rooting for the snooze button and a Sunday morning without inpatient coverage.

Bourbon.

Bourbon. Aside from Ashley Judd, the oral surgeon's dream population for epidemiology research, beautiful horses and unfortunate overalls worn sans t-shirt....this is Kentucky's pride and joy. Oh, and coal, but we'll talk about that later. I love bourbon. I am proud to say I've had all sorts, even recently acquired a few bottles of elite hard to find stuff, and all in all, I understand it's complexity and savor the flavor profile. (If you add a cube or two of ice to a neat bourbon, it blossoms in a fruity way fyi). I don't know how many of you love bourbon too....but it's my blog, I have a glass of it in hand, and away we go.

The Federal Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits state that bourbon made for U.S. consumption must be:

• made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn
• aged in new, charred-oak barrels
• distilled to no more than 160 (U.S.) proof (80% alcohol by volume)
• entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 125 proof (62.5% alcohol by volume); and be
• bottled (like other whiskeys) at 80 proof or more (40% alcohol by volume).

Bourbon has no minimum specified duration for its aging period, but it must be aged at least briefly.

Bourbon that meets the above requirements, has been aged for a minimum of two years, and does not have added coloring, flavoring, or other spirits may (but is not required to) be called straight bourbon.

• Bourbon that is labeled as straight that has been aged under four years must be labeled with the duration of its aging.
• Bourbon that has an age stated on its label must be labeled with the age of the youngest whiskey in the bottle

Bourbon that is labeled blended (or as ‘a blend’) may contain added coloring, flavoring, and other spirits but at least 51% of the product must be straight bourbon. Bourbon bottle, 19th century.

In practice, almost all bourbons marketed today contain more than two-thirds corn, have been aged at least four years, and do qualify as "straight bourbon"—with or without the "straight-bourbon" label. The exceptions are inexpensive commodity bourbon brands (aged only three years) and premixed cocktails made with straight bourbon aged for two years. But at least one small distillery markets bourbon aged for as little as three months.
Whiskey sold as Tennessee whiskey is also defined as bourbon under NAFTA and at least one other international trade agreement, and is required to meet the legal definition of bourbon under Canadian law, but some Tennessee whiskey makers do not label their product as bourbon and insist that it is a different type of whiskey when marketing their product.

Ooooooh no. Your skin's all burned and junk.

I love the sun. Sun sun sun. Feel it's happy rays beating on my exposed flesh while I read textbooks for clinic and fantasize about NOT living in an apartment complex where the two most purchased items are Mountain Dew and Diabetic Test Strips. What does that mean for me? It means I go to the dermatologist. I haven't yet in Kentucky, but I DID get the chance to discuss annual check ups with a lovely woman at Rite Aid today who was buying hemorrhoid cream, sun tan lotion and virginia slims. She lives in my complex and we often sunbathe together. Evidently she went for her annual exam today and was eager to share what any normal person would consider concerning news.  "Oh I gots one of them basil (yes, I'm assuming she'd spell it like this) cells. It's real odd too, I use tanning oyyyyuuuul (emphasis/dialectal variation mine)." She's  getting a "bahopsee" and will get the "passology" results next week. My major concerns...mets to brain, or no brain to mets to.... Needless to say my motivation to strip down and lay out might be wavering a tidge.

Cancer.

What Cancer Cannot Do

Author: Unknown

Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot destroy confidence.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot shut out memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot reduce eternal life.
It cannot quench the Spirit.

When I moved here, I was reeling from my sister's diagnosis of colon cancer. As I looked around Kentucky, I saw the harvest wasn't tobacco, bourbon or any cash crop- but there was an abundance of opportunity to grow and reap hope and healing. I love this poem above... and for friends going through treatment, patients who rely on our presence, who require our diligence and care, and to my own family affected....today I send this to you. 

Learning to target the market

Brand new boo

I have been in a phase of waxing/waning singleness for some time now. The reason? I have a graduate degree and the men who want to date me aren't yet voluntarily wearing shirts, brushing their teeth, or completing their GED....translation= I bike 30 miles or run 5 miles a day and watch more episodes of True Blood than a God fearing girl should. What once felt like a vow of singleness has evolved into an "if I can't update you as "my man" on facebook without my mom feeling obligated to give me a cash bonus to remaining single, I'll have to bow out. Kentucky has amazing people, I have friends who never cease to uplift and enlighten, however I've also been on blind dates with men with no teeth, one brought a semi-automatic handgun to a date to walk dogs, one ate all my artisan cheeses and did laundry every time we had a date which involved my apartment. To prove my point, I give you google images result of "kentucky man". To all my lady friends pursuing PhD's, brushing their teeth, doing situps, or avoiding snorting lortabs, you can give up the ghost- this is the sample size of our choices...and yes- that's turtle man bottom right. My first step? I took off my bra and put something in the oven, aka, my "workshop."

AAAAAAaaaaaaand we're back.

I have a "wax-on" "wax-off" period in my life. Moving to Kentucky I went through a cavalcade of emotions. Some good, some bad, some almost sent me to Houston, Tx. For this reason, I didn't write online much, there wasn't anything good to say about a lot of bad situations. But I'm back, I made cupcakes, and I'm blonde so let's hit it.