Rolls

These rolls go in my belly. And then I get rolls on my belly. I call it January-February Disease.

Thanks, once again, to the Pioneer Woman for the photo tutorial on how to make these delicious swirls of diabetes and the insanely fab recipe (which I halved and still got more than 30 rolls).

Jen, I'll be bringing you your very own batch of miniature ones the next time I see you.

In the mood.

Guess who has a test tomorrow? Which is why I also have a party mood board for an upcoming baby shower!

My friend Becky, who I met through the Lexington Art League, is having a girl, and she and her husband Nick are artsy types. They're designing a nursery based on Dave Egger's book It Is Right to Draw Their Fur, which has lots of drawings and sentiments that are funny/tragic/awkward/poetic. Here's one of my favorites:

I love the twisty darkness of the animals and the sayings, but it does make for a challenging baby shower. Lots of artsy types are on the invite list, so rather than typical shower games, we're going to do a Onesie printing activity, where guests get to block print an Eggers-ish animal or an unusual sentiment on a Onesie. I've never done this particular crafty project before, but if it works out, it could become an obsession. You have no idea the instant gratification of cutting stamps.

Now, isn't that more exciting than ulcerative colitis? Or, better yet, anal fistulas?!

Uno Año

I believe this sufficiently depicts the evolution of a sugar high. And the joy that is cake and babies.

Apples and trees and no, this isn't about gravity.

I made my New Year's resolution to watch 2 hours or less of television a day. I know, that is a sissy resolution and what am I doing watching that much television as an adult in nursing school anyway. But, you guys, have you seeeeeen Workaholics? And Gold Rush? And you know Jersey Shore is back on, right?

Anyway, I'm doing a pretty good job keeping to the 2-hour max... okay, there was a sort of hangover day where I watched way more than that, but to be fair, it did make me really annoyed. To fill the extra time, I've started a few good books, signed up to plan a baby shower, did a photo shoot with sweet little Iris, and have been going to the Y to do yoga. I'm also cooking a lot more often, the dishes stay pretty done, and I am way on top of laundry.

Learning pharmacology, though. I have not yet become that desperate.

Tonight, after I turned off the Betty White birthday special, I decided to go through some photos from Christmas. That's when I found this gem.

Much like having Renee was like being a grown up and getting to know Shannon all over again, except this time I was 30 years older than she, having Kieron is like getting to see Renee if she was a baby boy.

He feels so familiar in that video that I spent a couple of hours tonight going through Shannon's old blog and watching videos of Renee when she was a brand new baby. This just proves that genetic stuff is uncanny.

Renee was a little ham hock when she was a baby, so tight and stacked it earned her the nickname The Meat. Well, if she was The Meat, Kieron is The Sausage.

He is already more than 20 pounds, he eats in his sleep, and if babies could play football, he'd be a starting player. They have the exact same nose, the exact same disdain for being annoyed, and the exact same ability to make their auntie do ridiculous things to make them laugh.

Wishy Washy

Someone's got a birthday coming up, and since she's got the smartest auntie in the world, she is learning some valuable skills in preparation for the big day.

While "where's your nose" isn't going as well as we hoped, she's pretty much there with giving five and has basically mastered this vital skill...

Why does the fan have all that shit on it?

My "Uncle Ron" died of pancreatic cancer.

My mom got in a fender bender.

Charles lost his job.

Hey, 2012, lay the fuck off, okay. And just because you deserve it, here's me and Ben giving you a giant middle finger because THAT'S HOW HE DRAWS HANDS.

My List of Things that Are Destroying Humanity

Sorry, but I can't keep this in anymore.

1. Crocs
They're just rubber toe jam vessels. It's disgusting, just revolting, to think of cooks, dishwashers, nurses and surgeons wearing these foot condoms. Look, guys, tying isn't that hard, and if you "cain't bend," the last thing you need is a shoe to enable you.

2. Recliners
I like to lay down and watch TV as much as the next person, but when you're being that lazy, you shouldn't have an audience. You should be filled with a quiet shame that keeps you from making sitting on your ass in a Cadillac chair your favorite past time. The recliner is in the living room, where other people are living. You do not need to show off your sleep apnea and how close you are to death by sleeping in a recliner. 

3. Snuggies
Really? Is it that hard to keep the blanket up by your neck? Are your arms really so cold all the time that you simply have to have a backwards fleece robe to keep from getting hypothermia? Is a throw blanket seriously not cutting it for you? If you put on a Snuggie, even if it's at an outdoor sporting event, someone needs to slap you.

4. Forever Lazy
These actually have a way to zip open the ass. ZIP OPEN THE ASS. Why bother? If you're in a Forever Lazy, you're probably shitting your pants anyway because getting up to go to the bathroom, sitting down on the toilet, and squeezing out a loaf is just something you're too lazy to do. Forever Lazy ought to be called Mostly Dead.

5. Fast Food
This shouldn't even get to be called "food" anymore (except Wendy's, which does actually manage to cook some things themselves). It's chemically engineered mouth garbage, and it's worse for our humanity than meth. I'm convinced that both of them make you mentally retarded if overconsumed. I know the deliciousness of a McDonald's French Fry, and even knowing they're toxic, I sometimes succumb to them. By sometimes I mean once every 5 years. Some people consider this cotton candy shaped as burgers and fries as suitable for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... for themselves AND THEIR KIDS. We tax cigarettes and alcohol and those are now killing fewer people than fast food. That fast food isn't being taxed is a sin.

6. Walmart
Just going in to Walmart gives me anxiety. I usually last about 3 minutes before I've got to get out of there or else I'm going to start buying stuff to make bombs. I don't even care that Morningstar Sausage Patties are $1.30 cheaper there than at Kroger. I would pay $6 more just to avoid seeing those people driving their carts and filling them with ice cream, pork chops, and Mountain Dew, knowing they have health insurance and I don't.

7. Suburbs
Strip malls and cars and sameness, oh my. And I don't know why, but people triple in size in the suburbs. I grew up in the suburbs, and the suburbs of my youth are not the suburbs of today. We moved to the suburbs so we could ride our bikes and play in the safety of a cul de sac. Now when I end up in the suburbs, I never see a kid riding a bike or shooting basketball. I see fences and rigidly landscaped yards with Japanese Maples and giant garages. I know people live in the suburbs, but you never see them. 

8. PINK Sweatpants
I used to think PINK Sweatpants, the "college"of Victoria's Secret, were kind of cute. That is, until 90% of the women in my college starting wearing them to school. Sweatpants are fine if you're prepping to kick Creed's ass by racing up the stairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They're even fine if you're wearing them at home so that you don't resort to wearing a Forever Lazy. Sweatpants, however, are not appropriate attire for the public. Has the fashion sense of women really devolved so much in 50 years that sweatpants and Ugg boots are the best we can do? Am I crazy to think that jeans and a shirt aren't that hard to put on?

9. Cigarettes
These are worse than fast food by like a millimeter. Maybe even a micrometer. Maybe they're just as bad. As a past social smoker and an intermittent drunk smoker, I just wish they'd do me and everyone else in the world a favor and ban these things already.

10. Cars
People drive these 4,000 pound missiles like their riding in a little red wagon. They text and fiddle with the radio and talk on the phone and then they try to kill me in a crosswalk or run over me on my bike. Not to mention their contribution to our environmental woes and our sedentary lifestyles. We have one car, and when it's 17 degrees outside, I'm incredibly grateful for it. But I don't use it as a kitchen, I understand how a 4-way stop works, and if it's 17 degrees out, I'm conscientious enough to give way to the pedestrians.

Endings and Beginnings

My dad's oldest brother, Uncle Bobby, passed away just before Thanksgiving. I don't have too many memories about him, but I adore my cousins Magnolia and Shannon and once pretended I was Scarlett O'Hara at his sprawling country house in Simpsonville.

Bobby's was the second funeral for me in November, the first being Sarah's sweet, wonderful mom Sally. In the weird twists of life, I actually knew Sally better than my Uncle Bobby. She brought me a set of screwdrivers for a housewarming gift when I bought my first home on Picadome, and I brought her a cake for her 43rd wedding anniversary. I know she thought I was the reason Sarah always smelled like smoke in high school, but despite my bad reputation, she trusted me to flush her IV and thus was my first patient that I nursed without supervision. I barely recognized my Uncle Bobby at the family reunion/Pa's 100th birthday party in April.

Family is immensely important to me, and not just my immediate family. I have Scotts that I am bound to, Hensleys that I have adopted, Bachmans that I grew up with, and friends who are so close they feel like family. I'm not always as good to them as I should be, but when it really counts, I try to be there. So when Uncle Bobby died, when that loss left my dad with an oozing sadness, I headed to Louisville with chicken noodle soup, crusty bread, pumpkin cookies, and my camera.

I sat with my Aunt Cindy, my dad, and my cousins and poured over pictures of Uncle Bobby. I listened to stories of limo rides in New York City, laughed at all the what-were-we-thinking hairstyles, stared in disbelief at how much he looked like James Caan, and got to know the man who sent all of us those sweatshirts with the Manhattan skyline when I was in elementary school.

This year has been saturated with endings -- Uncle Bobby, Sally, the Onheiser's dad, Jess's dad. But it's also been one filled with beginnings -- Lilly, Kieron, Elly Gail, Charlotte, Anna, Hanley. I don't know what 2012 holds, but if 2011 taught me anything, it's to live every day like the end of the world is on its way.

Belize dat. This might be my first novel.

The first big trip I took as an adult – my first voyage to California, actually – took me 5 months to plan. The trip Mack and I just took to Belize? We spent all of 30 minutes on it.

Basically we decided we needed someplace warm, someplace where we could get by with English, someplace cheapish, and someplace we could fly to LA and Kentucky from that wouldn't take either of us a day and a half. Belize fit that criteria the best and won the honors of a visit from us. Belize is so lucky.

We decided to rent a car and drive inland for the first leg. I'd read about a cave where Mayans used to do human sacrifice and desperately wanted to check it out, and Mack wanted to lay on a beach and pretend he wasn't a med student for a week. I won... at first.

We hopped in our little Suzuki Sidekick and headed to San Ignacio. The highway was great and it was only a couple hours drive from Belize City. As I happen to do, I got hungry and decided we needed to stop and get some local snacks, so about an hour in, we pulled over at a little roadside market. I bought fried plantains and Mack was offered a special green juice from a toothless guy on the steps that guaranteed his penis would be bigger and harder, and probably faster and stronger too.

We got to San Ignacio just as it was getting dark. I always get a little nervous when it gets dark and I don't know where I'm going because, well, I'm blind. Mack started to cross a bridge to head into town AND THEN WE REALIZED IT WAS ONE WAY.

See, how lucky is Belize?

 
Some locals helped us save a little bit of dignity, and we eventually made our way to the Midas Resort, a little complex of huts in the middle of the jungle along a river. The place was adorable, but the best part of it was the breakfast, which is where we met Marie Sharp and her boyfriend the Fry Jack.

 

Marie Sharp's habanero hot sauce is HOT, and the Fry Jack is like a puff of unadorned doughnut, but when you put them together and sop up your black beans and eggs with them, commence addiction.

With full bellies we headed out to do some exploring. The side roads were a little rougher than the highway, but we figured we'd be alright with our trusty Sidekick. We took our time heading down Belize's backroads, and that is when we spotted them.

The Amish. On a horse drawn buggy. Just a riding down the road. Like it's Minnesota or something.

Apparently a group of Mennonites from the Netherlands went wandering around in the late 1700s and eventually decided Belize was awesome. It's probably a good thing too, because their little colonies feed a lot of the country with their farms and without them, there'd be no dairy. How anyone lives without cheese is beyond me.

We saw a sign for 1,000 Foot Falls and headed off the main side road like true adventurers. Mack was at the wheel and getting pretty good at dodging the major potholes and navigating through mud, so I just sat in the passenger seat like a happy idiot on vacation.

The thing about Belize and driving is this: everything is 4 times longer than it says it is. The 1,000 Foot Falls were supposed to be 7 miles off the main road, but I swear we drove 15 and... nothing. I knew we must be getting close when we saw another car of tourists on the road. Mack scooted the Suzuki to the far right to dodge the mud, and then this happened.

If you've never had the privilege of getting stuck in the mud with other tourists, let me just tell you about it. It's actually pretty wonderful. You don't have to feel like a total moron all by yourself. You don't lose your shit on your spouse because there's an audience. And there's a real sense of camaraderie that comes from trying to push a car out of the mud and getting splattered in the face.

After about an hour of feeling worthless physically, we started using our brains and paired our cell phone with their fancy resort to call for help. 

Once we were rescued, the only thing we wanted to do was drink a beer. We dropped the car at a car wash, popped open a couple of Belikins, made buddies with the car wash owner and his family, and literally washed down the dust.

At the end of that day, Mack was pretty fed up with my inland adventure and wanted to get to a beach. I managed to talk him into one more day to go on the cave hike human sacrifice adventure, and even though he started off mad, I know he absolutely loved it because he smiled ALL DAY LONG. This does not happen. See above.

The hike to Actun Tunuchil Muknal, which they kindly refer to as ATM since no one can say those other words, involved traversing three rivers with water up to your waist, skating down a mud trail, and learning how not to kill a whiny woman named Mary who insisted her husband John hold her hand ALL THE TIME. I'm not gonna lie, I kind of wanted her to drown.

Once we got to the cave, we discovered we'd have to swim in. Like can't touch the ground swim in. It was absolutely one of the most awesome things I've ever done and one of the most mysterious places I've ever been.

We wandered through the cave for about an hour, and I showed off my amazing butt climbing skills. Eventually we came to a "cathedral," a giant dry part of the cave that's like an enormous room just asking for human sacrifice. We looked at some tumped over pots and learned that they were only used once and then even they were "killed"by breaking them or putting holes in them and arranging them a really special way. Then we saw bones. Then we saw skulls. Then we had to climb a ladder, Mary whined about it, I sacrificed her, and we saw an entire skeleton of a teenage girl who was like a princess who was sacrificed because, clearly, the Mayans were getting desperate and the convicts and children they'd been sacrificing were not making the gods very happy.

There are no words decent enough for this experience, no photos that really do it justice, but my god I am glad I got to do this in my life.

Feeling sufficiently satisfied by my inland adventure time, Mack and I headed to the cayes the next day. We hopped a ferry to Caye Caulker, a little strip of land with two dirt roads, no cars, and plenty of restaurants. It was a little touristy, but Mary and John were nowhere to be seen and that's all that mattered. Well, that and access to a hammock.

We managed to snag a room at Da Real Macaw for the night and sat on the porch looking out at the ocean while Mack won some kitty love from a little guy who'd been in so many fights his ears were round. There was a bar right next to our hotel that had swings, and that's when I discovered that the pace of life on Caye Caulker is equal to that of a swing blowing in the wind, preferably a wind scented by mojitos.

 

Having mastered the art of absolute relaxation, it was time for another adventure. We booked a snorkeling tour to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Not only did we get to tickle the belly of nurse sharks, pet green moray eels, snorkel with giant sting rays and sea turtles, and wander around a coral garden, we also ate fresh-from-the-ocean conch ceviche and finished 2 gallons of rum punch before the day was done. It was incredible.

Belize taught me that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, getting your heart beat paced by the waves is pure therapy, and any time you can get a man in a snorkel to give you the "blue steel" look, do it. But most importantly, it taught me that 30 minutes of planning leaves you plenty of time to find the most extraordinary surprises.  Belize Navidad!

Tacky/FABULOUS

I recently met a fella named Michael at a gal named Seana's sweet potato-inspired birthday party. Leigh introduced us, telling me that Michael was the one who'd had that awesome Martha Stewarty Halloween party that we missed because we met the Terminator that night (and maybe did one too many of a shot called Treehouse). I was already feeling like a kindred spirit, and then he sealed the deal when he said he said he was planning a Tacky Sweater Christmas party.

You guys, I was at a party devoted to sweet potatoes! I was talking to a Halloweenster! There were plans for a Tacky Sweater Christmas Party!

In anticipation of this spirited affair, Leigh and I spent weeks scouring the thrift stores. I knew I wanted a knit sweater and not some crap with reindeer in a hot tub on it, so I ended up buying pretty much every knit Christmas sweater I uncovered. I also got the one with the reindeer in a hot tub on it, just in case.

None of them were maximum tacky, so I decided to enhance two of the finest with lights and jingle bells to really bring home the kitsch. Then I decided to add some flair to the other ones, and before you knew it, I had a full on collection... a perfect addition to the Hensley Family Christmas Traditions. 

Leigh and I got to the party early, and thank god we did.

Tacky sweaters just scream for awkward family photos.

I have never met a gay man who doesn't know how to make punch. Michael had built an ice cave, had anchored snowflakes to the ceiling, had a train track on his mantle, had a Christmas tree so beautiful it could have been in a magazine, but the poor guy thought you could make hummus with a cake mixer. What he lacks in cooking skills, though, he more than makes up for in hunting down extraordinary kitchy oddities, so after we got the food figured out, we toured his home museum.

This man has collections that make me want to collect, but where mine would look like a hoarder's paradise, his look like, well, like a gay man's decor. Snooping through his house (I actually asked for permission!) was fabulous, as was his sweater with names of some stranger's family members ironed-on in Scrabble fashion. There was also a Liz Wear sweater with quilt-like squares that had things like reindeer and sleighs and ALIENS?!! on it that was pretty amazing. That party was a blast.

And so was revealing our new tradition to my wonderful, and no doubt grateful, family.