Typical Bizonion morning

What is a day like in the Bizonion household, you might ask? Well it starts off with being in a nice warm bed, happily asleep and perhaps snuggling like the kitty brothers are here.

5:45 am - My alarm goes off and is promptly snoozed, Fatcat takes this as a sign that I need some presto molesto and promptly proceeds to stomp on my bladder as if I will pee out grape juice ready for fermenting afterwards.

5:53 am - Alarm is snoozed again, husband is still oblivious and now Ninjacat has been disturbed by my repeated attempts to thwart Fatcat and so he decides to evacuate the bedroom. His swift exit prompts the Beast to wake up from a sound sleep and chase after him, only to return to his spot in the bedroom and fall back asleep (not without sticking his wet nose in my face first of course)

6:02 am - Alarm goes off again, and even though I am supposed to get up, the animals have all settled down and no one is bothering me so I decide I will just rest my eyes for 2 minutes and then get up.

6:13 am - Crap! That was NOT two minutes! I leap out of bed (okay so I rapidly stagger out of bed) and head to the shower, and almost accidentally decapitate Ninjacat as he runs in after me. Now begins the carefully orchestrated morning routine designed to maximize sleep time while still calculating in my lengthy shower.

6:37 am - Out of shower, head kisses for Ninjacat and then let in wailing Fatcat so they can both jump in the tub and start licking up the water.

6:41 am - I hear yelling from the bedroom: "you are not my wife! YOU ARE NOT MY WIFE!" and run in (concerned as to what random woman has tried to climb into bed during my absence) only to find my sleeping husband mumbling to himself while the Beast runs off in fear that I might have seen his stealth attempt to snuggle up on the bed (which is NOT allowed!). Fully conscious debrief later that day revealed that the Beast had army crawled onto the bed to spoon with Mr. B until his furry coat was discovered to be inconsistent with my (non-furry) self.

6:43 am - Now dressed for clinic, with hair still dripping wet, I attempt to coax the Beast from his apparently deep slumber (despite his escapades minutes prior) to come outside and empty his bladder. He pretends to be in a deep coma, arousable only by picking him up and hoisting him into a standing position.

6:47 am - Now that the dog has peed on a suitably smelling tree and I have pried the unidentifiable, drool-soaked object from his jaws, we run back inside so I can eat some breakfast before dashing off.

6:55 am - While eating my cereal and warding off Fatcat from jumping on my lap and covering my pants in his fur, I check my email on my ipod to make sure that no tenants have had any dire crises overnight that they chose to communicate via email and/or school has not announced a mandatory mental health day for all 4th year medical students (it will happen someday, I know it will!).

6:57 am - I realize that if I don't hurry up I will miss my bus, so I move to the kitchen and start making a peanut butter sandwich while finishing my cereal. The Beast is now fully awake and he tries to convince Fatcat that the game of "bite the kitty tail" is a wonderful way to start the morning.

7:02 am - I am now attempting to multitask while brushing my teeth and throwing the rest of my needed items into my bag: sandwich - check, ipod - check, dermatology text book (to not read on bus so as to not gross out fellow bus passengers with frightening skin disorders) - check, novel (for reading on the bus on the way home, on the way to the hospital I sleep) - check.

7:05 am - I should be leaving for my bus right now but I need to say good bye to the husband, so I sneak into the bedroom (much to the animals' dismay) and wake him up for a good bye kiss. He has no idea what is going on and mumbles something unintelligible but still manages the kiss part.

7:06 am - Bedroom door is left open so that the Beast can give Mr. B his own version of a good morning kiss (wet nose attack!) and then I am off and running down the stairs to the bus.

7:07 am - Thank goodness the bus was late again! I have settled into my perfected sitting up nap (while avoiding drooling on my seat mate) for the 15 minute bus ride to my transfer point to another bus. I am off for another fun filled day of "I itch all over" and "what's this funny spot?"

And that is how I start off my mornings!

Introductions

Welcome to the Bizonion family! Due to my psychic mind reading skills, I know you are wondering what the heck is up with the Bizonion thing. No, it is not my last name. No, it is not anyone's last name (that I know of, if you are a true Bizonion lurker, please come forth!). It is just a silly name I came up with one day while walking around with my (soon to be) husband talking about what a strange (or bizarre) little family we were, and that each little layer you peeled off (like an onion!) revealed even more craziness. Hence, the term "bizonion" (still don't get it? (you are a bit slow) bizarre + onion). This was also before we were married yet and I was trying to convince him that we should create a new last name for us to take, because I was incredibly annoying that I was the one needing to do all the name changing, but somehow he was not convinced to officially become a Bizonion. Which I still think is a shame, but I do admit that Dr. Bizonion doesn't sound like someone I would want giving me health advice. Anyhow, I digress. Let me officially introduce you to the Bizonion family unit (if I say the name enough times it will sound less and less weird):

Lady & Mister Bizonion: Sadly we are not royalty, rather far from it actually, but I like the names anyhow. In 4-5 years we will be Dr-squared (in 1 year for me, 4-5 for Mr. B) but this

works well in the meantime! We are both in our mid-20s, celebrating our first married anniversary this summer, and are enjoying the poverty that comes with being perpetual students. Mr. B is pursuing graduate studies in psychology and in his spare (ha!) time also works in an inpatient psychiatric ward - so he is full of fun stories about interesting things.

Fatcat: (he specifically requested a dignified photo for his introduction, since he is a bit peeved about his unflattering psuedonym, this was the best I could find) We adopted the brother kitties about 3 years ago, before we were even living together. Fatcat was not fat at the time, and seduced me with his cuteness, as Mr. B had already picked out Ninjacat. He has since then proved that his only survival skill is his cuteness, as he is remarkably stupid for a cat, and is much too overweight. But do not underestimate the cuteness! His powers are strong (and yes, he is on a diet now). His favorite activities include: "presto molesto" (a spontaneous purr/kneading attack on unsuspecting victims, which often ends as abruptly as it began), feeding the Beast food from his dish, distributing fruit (such as tomatoes and cherries) from the dish on the counter to the inside of our shoes, getting his massive tummy rubbed and shedding copious amounts of white fluff onto black clothing items. He dislikes: not being fed, having his fat jiggled while being laughed at and being tattled on by the Beast when he jumps on the counter.

Ninjacat: Looking nothing like his brother, he is sleek, agile, usually rather intelligent, and stood out as a kitten for his athleticism and determination to kill the fluffball on the end of a string. However, he has an impressive assortment of suicide attempts that include swallowing several feet of ribbon and getting himself stuck in a ceiling. His favorite activities include: being a ninja, snuggling under the covers when it's cold, licking plastic, being spun around on a linoleum floor, eating wires/cords/string (basically anything linear and potentially dangerous or inconvenient), running into the bathroom right before the door shuts and meeting new people. He dislikes: the Beast, when his brother squashes him with his fatness, having his paws touched and being locked in closets when he is accidentally using his ninja skills.

The Beast: He has no resemblance to the beast from The Sandlot, but compared to the kitties he earned this nickname anyhow. The newest addition to the family, we adopted him from a rescue that pulled him from death row about 6 months ago. We have no idea what his mix is and have deemed him a "super mutt" (maybe some cattle dog, corgi and shepherd?). We are still in the process of gradually converting the country dog into a city dog, and he now boasts a few tricks (while still not managing to walk on the leash properly), now knows how to swim, and is 95% housetrained. He would love to be best friends with the kitties, but has somehow only managed to convert Fatcat to some level of tolerance and Ninjacat is still convinced that he is the devil himself. His favorite activities include: chasing tennis balls, eating anything that will fit into his mouth (especially tissue), getting belly rubs, pulling all the fluff out of stuffed toys and then eating it, peeing, trying to catch the light reflecting from his tags (otherwise known as "shinies"), going on road trips to fun places like the family farm and running around like a maniac at dog parks. He dislikes: getting locked out of a room, having to be tethered to a leash on walks, not getting to wrestle with the kitties and not getting to jump all over people to say hi.

That's it for now folks! Now you know the players for future entries. And before anyone asks, there will be no human additions to the family until AFTER residency, at the very least (translation: at least 4+ years from now). We can barely keep our heads screwed on properly with the zoo we have currently and the thought of some tiny creature, with the potential of mastering the English language, depending on us is a horrifying thought.

Hello blog world!

So this is my very first blog post ever! My husband has been harping on me to start a blog ever since I wrote some blurbs for our wedding website a while ago and apparently amused him to some degree. I used to journal ever since I was a kid (even when I was in elementary school and would circle all the words I didn't know how to spell, like a good little first grader!) but it's been really sporadic and now I average maybe one journal entry a year. So, I thought writing my own blog would be a fun way to document the craziness of my life, let my husband think I have a "hobby" (who has time for those things I ask you?!) and give me yet another activity to add to my list of productive procrastination diversions.

Disclaimers:

• I do not promise to write regularly, in fact, if I am on call every 4th night sleep will trump everything and I will not find staring at a computer screen to be a priority and I may go AWOL for a few weeks.
• I enjoy parentheses (who doesn't?) and will use them at a rate of approximately one set per sentence.
• I did not major in English or photography, my grammar may be shoddy and my photos will definitely be less than perfect.
• I don't know anything about designing webpages and will use whatever template on blogger has the most green in it, and then only consider upgrading if my readership extends beyond my immediate family.
• I have a lingering fear of crazy internet stalkers (probably left over from my mother's outrage at my father putting pictures of us kids on his website when the internet was just rolling out - "you put pictures of our children on the WORLD WIDE WEB!? but they will be kidnapped!!!) and will attempt to maintain some anonymity with the use of pseudonyms and lack of identifying human pictures (you will however see plenty of the furry beasts) and any other such trickery I see fit.
• Any stories involving patients will have so many details changed that HIPAA will have nothing on me, and you couldn't figure out who I was talking about even if you were there for the H&P yourself.

At this point you may be asking yourself, why am I reading this blog? And what is it going to be about anyhow? It is going to be about my life. I (excuse the cliche) wear many hats: medical student, apartment manager, newlywed wife, self proclaimed urban enviro-hippy, daughter, mother to three furry creatures (Fatcat, Ninjacat and the Beast - the animals wanted pseudonyms too) , frugal 20-something, sister, poorly motivated homemaker, even less motivated crafter. I may choose to write about anything from how the dog ate my hat today (that was actually yesterday, and it is still a tragedy) to how the little old lady I saw in the ER the other night told me I was a "kind soul" but then assaulted a nurse the next day.

So without further ado, I introduce to you the Bizonion family blog. May it inform you, inspire you, amuse you, update you, but most of all I hope it will at least make you laugh. And Ninjacat says that if you are half as happy with this blog as he is with his box, then life is good.