Breakfast

I know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I think sleep is more important.

This is why my daily breakfast consists of whatever I put my hands upon at four in the morning.

Eggo's take too long.

Ice cream is too difficult to eat while driving.

Which is why my breakfast the past month has consisted of Gatorade, fudgesicles, and cheese grits.  This is not a diet I would recommend.  It does let me sleep me an extra five minutes, and those five minutes are essential to my well being.  They totally make up for my elevated cholesterol.

*Photo from A Taste of Home.  I'm sure they have it copyrighted.  It is not mine.  

Pup, we're not in Kansas anymore

I am most definitely in the South again.

One might ask how I am so sure.

The local news I was watching a couple weeks ago is one sure sign that I have left the North far behind. Mixed in between news of robberies, murder, and kidnappings at the local mall was an interview with a man who called 911 because he saw Bigfoot in his backyard.

"He was just over there, and I saw him, and I got a big stick, and I shook it at him, and I said 'Get.  Get.'  And he get, went back down the path again."

This would never have made the news up North.  First off, if someone in the North saw Bigfoot they would never admit it to their friends and relatives, let alone to police and news crews.  Secondly, they are a stoic breed up there.  I've seen a farmer come in missing half of his arm and his only complaint was that it smarted a bit.  Bigfoot wouldn't be a blip in that guy's day.

The follow-up story was about a pie eating contest.

I most definitely missed living down here.

Matched

"Congratulations, you have matched."

I had been waiting to read that sentence since my rank list was certified in February. I hadn't slept well for weeks. I had been nursing a darling little stomach ulcer. I had been superstitiously afraid to jinx the process in any way, and so had forbidden anyone to say "when you match" in my presence. I had resigned myself to moving to Antarctica and working with a group recovering lost whiskey for the next year.

But one Monday, I got The Email.

Congratulations, you have matched. 

I wish I could appropriately convey the relief and elation that slammed into me at reading that one sentence.

I can't.

I spent the rest of the week wandering in a complete daze wondering where I would be moving in May. I forgot to eat. I forgot to return my library books. I remembered to brush my teeth. Thursday morning DH and I sat in our living room trying to ignore the fact our future would be set (for the next five years) in just a few hours. DH was doing a great job; I was failing miserably.

About 9 a.m. I checked my email for the eighty-sixth time that morning, and noticed a new message :

Congratulations! We are so excited that you matched with us here at World Famous Medical Center. (WFMC from here out.) We look forward to working with you in June. Let us know if we can be of any assistance in your upcoming move to The South.

I read it five times.

"We're moving to The South......oh my goodness, we're moving to The South!!"

Southern manners

Being born and raised a Southern girl comes with side effects.

I have a drawl that pops out when I am very happy, very mad, or surrounded by family (which usually brings on the first two conditions). I can drink sweet ice tea no matter what the weather is like outside. When I say "bless your heart" it can mean a hundred different things depending on the inflection. I am obsessive about writing thank you notes.

Last week I sat down with a cold glass of tea and wrote out my thank you notes for my recent graduation. I addressed them all, stamped them up, and piled them on the side table in the living room.

My thank you notes are usually awesome, by the way. You would totally know this if you had sent me a present or card. Linen paper, written with the quill and blue ink my little sis picked up for me in London, sealed with red sealing wax stamped with my initial. Oh yeah.

Except I ran out of linen paper for this batch and had to use off the shelf cardstock. Then I spilled tea all over them.

A blow-dryer on low heat totally evaporated the left over moisture, but they still looked rather unintentionally antique. I reasoned with myself that since it was only the envelopes, no one would notice. Scooped them up and cut myself on the edge. Shoot. Someone might notice the blood stains. Blotted off the blood as best I could, did a hazardous materials prayer (I'm pretty sure that's New Testament) over them, and sent them on their merry way.

My grandpa called me this evening to thank me for the note. He was so touched by it, he wanted to read it back to me. Red flags shot up everywhere. My grandpa is the best man I have ever known, but I wouldn't say he was sentimental.

"The back is tea-stained." Check. That I knew.

"You open the envelope, and the front of the card says 'Thank You'. You open the card and it reads ' Dear Grandma and Grandpa.'" He paused. "I suppose you wrote the rest in invisible ink or white out, because I can't seem to find the rest of the note."

I can hear my grandma in the background. "We already called your uncles and had them come down and look at it. Tell her that we talked it over and can't figure out how she can be so smart and a doctor and not finish a thank you note."

Frick. So much for Southern manners.