First World Problems / Pet Peeves

The title seems kind of self-explanatory to me.
There has been more than one moment when I have heard myself say or think something and then immediately hears myself say/think "God, First World Pet Peeves much?"
The struggle is real.

To better convey the deep seeded displeasure I have with these mild inconveniences, I have brought in the support of my good buddies - 'gifs' (pronounced JUH-iffs... like... Jiffy peanut butter without the "y" at the end. Not Gifs pronounced like you're trying to make a cartoonish and comedic swallow noise. Get it together.).


1. Black Friday Sales.... In Store Only!

Some of us are shut ins and/or live in super rural locations and/or work like 80hrs a week and ain't got no time for stores, or people, or driving, or movement in general. Like come on. Why would you make me put on pants and pre-plan my purchasing binges? Nope.

2. Commercials on Youtube that you can't Click to Skip

This goes for Spotify commercials too. 
If I can't click past you, you better guarantee your company just made the list of 'shit I will never buy simply on principle and curmudgeon-mindset alone. I'm looking at you, Ford vehicles.


3. Dishes that can't go in the dishwasher

What do I look like to you, a 19th century pauper living on the streets of some hovel in a colony betwixt smallpox and consumption epidemics? NO. So if you can't survive the dishwasher, you failed  house-initiation and go right to the garbage, mister French Press Coffee Maker. Just saying.


4. Burning things onto nonstick pots

WHY DO YOU FORSAKE ME, TEFLON



5. Glitchy streaming from my macbook to my apple tv

First netflix 'loading' and now this?! I can't even.



6. When I charge/sync my ipod and it doesn't actually do anything

What do you think I'm doing Ipod - connecting usb cords for my health? NO. I WANT TO HEAR MY SHITTY MUSIC AND I WANNA HEAR IT NOW I AINT GETTING ANY YOUNGER. How else am I going to overplay a song until I hate it in the car on the way to/from work!?! Moderation can go f*** itself, amirite?


7. Bugs in nature

I rented this expensive Air BnB cottage so I could get in touch with nature, not so it could get in touch with me. Get out my cottage, moths and get off my dogs, deer ticks.



8. My GI Tract's response to Indian Food

The world's most expensive laxative.
Like... I'm gonna keep buying it. I'm gonna keep eating it. And I'm gonna keep having to be single. I'm just saying.



9. When the Liquor Store discontinued my favorite low calorie low alcohol wine (Late Harvest, obvi)

I didn't want to get drunk OR fat. I wanted to look classy while binge watching Pretty Little Liars with several mixed flavors of kettle chips. What am I supposed to do now, settle for something heartburn-y like Skinnygirl red? ugh.



10. Buying a realistic artificial Christmas Tree

The only christmas tree I've ever owned since moving out of my parents' post high-school graduation was the christmas tree that a roommate left at my house one time like 10 years ago... and he got the tree from his parents... who got it from someone else and then like 40 years before i was born those original owners decided they were sick of this terrible tree so better give it away.

Last year I was putting it up (I even made a youtube video about it which I have since removed because nobody needs to see that) I accidentally stabbed myself on one of the metal pieces and bled and was concerned for a solid hour or two that I might need to get a Tetanus shot. Legit.

Long story short I decided after I moved out of Newfoundland that I would buy a new Christmas tree. But turns out Christmas trees are expensive AF (I thought mad like 125 bucks). Also, the more I thought about buying one the more lofty goals I made for my potential new tree such that now it needs to be at least 7 feet tall, totally real looking without being actually real (because Ezra eats trees...and candles...and pee pads...), already pre-lit with non-LED lights that are both coloured (for when I'm feeling festive) and all white (for when I'm feeling classy). Do you know how much a tree like that costs!? Like... a billion dollars. I can't even.

We're going to end up having to decorate a construction paper tree or something because I'm not made of money, Balsam Hill!!!

So now I have no christmas tree, because black friday only allows me to get 50% off trees and that just ain't enough when you want the same tree that the family's on that show The OC probably couldn't afford. Seriously, if i'm gonna spend that kind of money on a holiday that shit is going up for at LEAST 4 months.

--------
Fin.

-A.

Graduation

Welcome to the rest of our lives, friends!

I'm in the process of moving provinces but I thought instead of packing I would spend the morning drawing my first comic in like 2 years.

Who knows, maybe there will be a few more before life gets busy again !

xoxo,

- A. 

The Rise and Fall of Relationships (as told by Breaking Bad)

Explaining the Rise and Fall of Relationships

(with a little help from my good buddies at...)

***Before we even do this.... can I just say that I love Hank and I'm rewatching the whole thing and I'm on season 4 and I'm like.... like my heart is breaking for poor ole Hank. God love him. OK lets do this!*

Everyone starts the single life a little emo (once it hits them that they're single). Maybe you're just getting out of some kind of thing... or maybe you've just lived your entire life as an asshole. Whooo knows!

So you busy yourself with trivial things. Maybe you binge watch a series of something on netflix... maybe you waste your $$$ on weird and unnecessary thingamajigs to distract yourself from being you know.. alone or whatever.

All the while you're just like.. Hey man, what's wrong with me? I'm pretty friggen awesome. Coeds should be linin' up fer a bitta dis awesomeness!

And then, out of no where... some super cool but awkward and smart and funny and all things good in the world shows up and ur like.. HAYYYYYYY ;) 

And they're like... HOLY SHAT WHERE U BEEN ALL MY LYFE

And for a while things are just the bees knees, u know? You guys are all...expanding each others horizons and whatever... becoming better people etc etc etc. Shit's just THSUPERR!

And I mean, sure they have their little quirks, like eating kale salads or something nasty like that.. but those differences just makes them even more interesting!

But then simple things start turning into bigger deals... and suddenly all those weird things that were quirky and adorable are just reeeeeal friggen annoying.

NO SHIT THANKS FOR TELLING ME

And then they start keeping shit from you...

And criticizing your everything

And just being an all around *expletive deleted*

At some point the lines of communication break down

And there might come a time when you resort to name calling

So instead you try to find solace in other things

And then... you know.... surprise surprise things don't work out and that once super romantic and adorable relationship you had going for you ceases to exist.

So you spend some time catching up on your "you" time. Doing all the "you" things that you need to do to get back to some kind of normality.

And when that doesn't work you turn to your girl friends. And you whine and whine and be annoying etc etc etc.

But your friends, because they're your friends, don't let you get on with that shit; they tell you all the things you already know. THAT BOY WAS A WASTE OF TIME GURL YOU CAN DO BETTER MMMHMMM

preach it, girl!

So you do what anyone should do post-break up and get rid of all the things that remind you of said person who wasted your time

And you say goodbye to all them memories you thought you were gonna make with your imaginary kids and imaginary house with your imaginary sunny weather every day

And then before you know it, you get up, dust yourself off... and get back into the world better and wiser than before.

But then, you know... if that doesn't work there's always the nearest Home Depot

Jk :)

Fin.

That Time My Dog Got Sick

Prior to 3rd year medicine, after class every day I would come home and play with Indie forever until I eventually had to study. Indie was totally cool with our arrangement until I started clerkship when all of a sudden it was no longer possible for me to skip off classes to instead chill with my dog. As the weeks went by she got more and more squirrely. I'd come home and it seemed like she was less happy than she used to be back in the days that I dutch ovened her for fun on the couch.

So the decision was made to get a second dog so that Indie could have a friend. If there is one lesson that having a puppy teaches you it's that looks are deceiving.


New dog gnawed on the table, on the stair case, on Indie's tail...and on me. And what's worse was he had the most never-ending bag of energy that no matter what you did he just COULDNT CHILL THE FUCK OUT. After a 17hr day in the hospital you can imagine how less than relaxing that was.

Not only that, but APPARENTLY puppies don't come automatically potty trained. And they are disease bags. And they hump everything. I was quickly reminded that puppies are more or less the spawn of satan. Never the less I was convinced that I am some kind of czar of dogs and therefore am totally capable of handling the hardest year of the MD program + a new puppy + a barely-trained 1yr old dog without the bat of an eyelash.

As I write this I am reminded that I wrote basically the same exact thing on here when I first got Indie.

I SHOULD GET A DOG HOW HARD COULD IT BE

I SHOULD GET A SECOND DOG HOW HARD COULD IT BE

About a week after I got Ezra, Indie fell super ill and ended up in doggy ICU (yes that's a thing).

OH GOD CAN'T HANDLE THE FEELS :( :( :( :(

 I convinced the vets that I could take care of Indie overnight, even if that meant changing her IV fluids and whatnot all night long. Whatever I had to do as long as she could sleep in bed with me so I could make sure she wasn't alone.


Turns out dogs hate having IVs in their arm and they REALLY want to have them out by any means necessary. Dogs also have legit zero memory and so then they get SUPER surprised and upset when their arm hurts after they gnaw an IV needle half out of themselves.

You know that thing Louis CK says when he's like "When I have a child I will answer ALL his questions and broaden his mind to let him grow "WHY WHY WHY "BECAUSE SOME THINGS ARE AND SOME THINGS ARE NOT"? That is my life with two dogs.

Controlling two small creatures that are 5X faster than me on my best day is close to impossible. Hoping a 11week old puppy who is a walking chew/bite/bark/pee/poop/fart/energy factory will behave long enough for me to sterilize an area, inject a 2-3min infusion into Indie every 30mins (plus clean up any profuse vomiting and diarrhea that came out of whatever orifice it wanted to) proved to be less than simple.

-J. dropped by that night Indie was home with an IV in her arm for moral support ...but not even he was immune to my stress-wrath.

Perhaps the real "straw that broke the camels back" occurred after Indie got better and I was back to having two energizer bunnies living with me. Ezra is smaller than Indie (for now) so his only real defence is "Bark forever and hopefully annoy everyone until I win whatever war I think I'm in with everybody else in this house".

Unfortunately for me, 'barking' is up there with 'the smell of diarrhea in the morning' for things I just do not want in my life. No matter what I did Ezra was just BARK BARK BARK and jumping and running away and being an all around dick. In the process of jumping on and off the couch while barking for all eternity both him and Indie knocked my laptop off the couch. I'm out in the kitchen just hoping he will STFU when out of no where I hear this huge CLANK BANG... then silence.
When I walked out into the living room and all the dogs were standing around like "shit Mom is gonna be PISSED" and the laptop is in a heap on the floor. It was a rough night.

After that event, I had a long hard think on what is my life and Ezra was banned forever from the couch.


But then... he got sleepy and everybody knows that sleepy puppies are the cuddliest puppies. So about an hour after being banned from the couch forever, the three of us took a nap where Ezra offered to be my pillow. The trio nap was so cute the owners of all 1980s Disney movies would have giardia-vomited with adorable-overload.

Anyway, long story short after all that... I'm sitting here on the couch writing this blog while sweating like a greasy pan of bacon on a family sunday breakfast cookout because all the dogs are asleep on my legs. And until they wake up... my life is totally perfect (as long as I ignore the fact that I smell like pee/sleep deprivation/am unshowered and still in pjs at 2pm because I haven't trusted the dogs alone long enough to go upstairs to get dressed).

LIKE A BOSS.