Tag Archive for 'husband'

i think my sister-in-law is an alcoholic

Published on 1 year ago in married life and sand people. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So my husband and I vacationed awhile ago in the vicinity of Sister-in-law and was promised that she would make the 1.5-hour drive to eat lunch with us before we departed. Well, she decided to not show her face that morning at 8am as promised, which I could have cared less about if I wasn’t anxious to get started on our 8-hour drive back home that very same day. Not only did she not show up, but she also did not even bother calling to let us know nor did she (or Miniman) answer repeated phone calls that were made to them.

When we finally contact them, we find out that they have not even left yet and they have the audacity to try to get us to change our plans to work around the fact that they couldn’t get their horny lazy asses out of bed. My husband is far too nice about the whole thing (as usual), so I just grabbed the phone from him and proceeded to chew Sister-in-law out, about how she’s such a hypocrite for not respecting her elders (us) when she continually tries to make it seem like we don’t respect our elders enough (not true), about how she thinks that the world revolves around her, and how we’re supposed to follow her schedule even if it’s extremely inconvenient for us to do so. Suffice it to say, I made her cry, which is no big accomplishment because she cries at the drop of a hat. Well, my silly husband still wanted to meet up for lunch even after all of this drama, so we wait for them to show up. When they finally do, we meet at a restaurant, where we walk in to find Sister-in-law wearing sunglasses. Inside. Who the hell does that besides Hollywood celebrities? Seriously. Who does she think she is? When probed about her reasons for being so pretentious, she continually claims that her eyes are sensitive to light because she stayed out too long in the sun the other day. What kind of bullshit excuse is that?

Not only that, but she’s ordered a glass of wine to go with her lunch. Who the hell drinks wine at lunch with their family when no one else is drinking? And at a pizza place? It’s not like we were having $100-steaks or something. Bad enough she ordered one glass, she ended up ordering another. Maybe one is to be snobby to go with the shades inside thing. But two at lunch? That’s alcoholic territory. It really wouldn’t surprise me if she’s turned into an alcoholic. She’s a super narcissist with an extremely fragile ego underneath it all who’s with a short guy who might be a pedophile just because she’s desperate to get married. I’ve seen less narcissistic people become alcoholics.

Funny thing is…I mentioned my theory to my husband because no matter how much I can’t stand her, I don’t want to see his family go through the pain of dealing with an alcoholic family member and he summararily dismissed it. I hate how I get nowhere with them. They are the kings of deny, deny, deny. If we pretend there’s nothing wrong, then maybe everything will be okay even though everything is not. Well, when this all eventually blows up, he can’t say that I didn’t try to help.

a phd down, only an md to go…

Published on 1 year, 3 months ago in lab/graduate school. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Rejoice! I submitted my dissertation and received my temporary degree! Yes, that’s right…it’s doctor to you now! :P

After the hours and hours of agony that it took for me to finish my piece of crap dissertation, it was almost a let-down how easy it was to turn it in and get my degree. I almost wanted to scream, “That’s all?!” at the poor guy in the Graduate Studies Office as he handed me my temporary degree and alumni pin. All of that hard work boiled down to checking off items on a checklist, making sure my page numbers were in order and going in the same direction throughout, and random checks of my page margins? It almost made me laugh out loud. And I do laugh now, when I look back at how wonderfully trying my whole journey has been. In fact, my journey has been what a substantial portion of this blog has been about ever since it came into existence. And now that part of me is done. I am a PhD. I’m halfway there. What does it feel like? Strangely empty, I must say. Nothing changes, really. I still clean up my husband’s mess. I still do laundry. I still have to see the in-laws for the holidays. But now, I suppose they’ll have to call my Dr. Bitch. :P

All joking aside, it was really bittersweet to finally be done with this nasty journey that has taken up my life for 4+ years. And while I didn’t really care one way or another about receiving my degree, other people did. I actually put off telling my dad about it for a couple of days because I just plain kept forgetting. Then one day, he called to talk to my husband and my husband let slip that I had finally gotten my degree, not knowing that I hadn’t told him yet. I swiftly took the phone away from him to apologize to my dad for not telling him earlier (and honestly, a part of me figured that at this point, no one cared anymore anyway) and I was shocked by how happy he was to hear the news. The cynical side of me figured that he was so happy because he had thought that I was never going to finish and had given up on me. And if that were truly the case, then I’m glad I proved him wrong. But I don’t really think that he believed that. I think he was just genuinely happy for and proud of me, something that he hasn’t been able to be ever since I graduated from college with my multiple honors. And I’m glad that I made him proud. I’m glad that someone is happy about this degree because, well, me, I just feel meh about it. But then again, I am done and that is something.

update: of puppies, chanel, and iphones

Published on 1 year, 7 months ago in lab/graduate school, married life and medical school. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Yes, I’ve been MIA again. It’s really hard to write when I’m too busy being a blob.

I deferred my second rotation because the ghost of my dissertation just would not stop haunting me. Translation: my asshole major professor kept demanding a draft from me despite the fact that no one really expects us to pump out a dissertation during our third year of med school. It was a tough decision, but it was just something I had to do in order to make sure that I could focus completely on my rotations so that I don’t fail. One can skate by with only half a mind on Psych, but not while on Peds or Medicine. And I’ve been making good progress so far.

This whole deferment has allowed me to enjoy life a bit more, which is good because I’ve learned to appreciate the little things, like watching my adorable corgi puppy sleep in my lap all day long. It’s also bad because I will have to learn to live a shadow of a life once I return in August. I’m not yet sure how I’ll deal with that yet, but my preliminary plan involves large amounts of Prozac.* Speaking of my puppy, he is absolutely awesome! He’s the cutest thing ever! I always thought that I would miss him having a tail (my other dog has a really fluffy tail that has a tendency to knock things over quite often), but I now find my puppy’s little nubbin to be quite adequate at expressing his emotions and quite cute to boot. From behind, he looks like a bunny hopping when he runs. He’s a handful, but nothing compared to the horror stories I’ve heard about other breeds. I definitely cannot imagine my life without him and can see why Queen Elizabeth II has a bunch of corgis.

What else is new? Well, say hello to my new acquisition:

Isn’t it pretty? It better be because it costed $1000 more than our 52″ LCD TV. I could also have bought the Macbook Air with the amount of money I spent on this purse. Or that Canon 40D DSLR that I’ve been coveting for a year now. But, no, because I am a woman after all, I instead blow my money on a Chanel purse. And all because it’s purple and shiny and super-limited-edition. It was supposed to be my reward for finishing my first draft of my dissertation. I was just at the boutique to try it on so that my husband could then later buy it for me when I fulfilled my end of the bargain, but we ended up buying it because Chanel newbie that I am didn’t realize what incredible good fortune I had to even be able to find it at this late juncture, but at least had the good sense to know that I would forever kick myself if I passed it up. So I possess this purse that I wasn’t planning to buy for another 10 years now and I am quite broke. It is also still all boxed up (my husband was kind enough to let me take it out for a few hours to take pictures of it) waiting for me to finish that draft before it can come out and play. And now you know why I’ve been so productive as of late.

And lastly, somehow beyond all reason, my husband was able to convince me to wake up at 4:30 am the morning of July 11th to head out to our local Apple store to wait in line for the iPhone 3G. Because, of course, I just had to have it. So that’s what we did. And it was quite the interesting experience. We were, of course, not the only crazies as there were already 50ish people there by the time we got there and the line grew to well over 100 people by the time the Apple store opened. I thought I would feel really lame about waiting in line for a phone, but I have to say that I was glad to have experienced it. Of course, my shiny new iPhone 3G was defective and I had to go back a week later to get it replaced, but at least I have one now. By the way, it’s also all sorts of awesome.

*I kid. Sort of.

like a prisoner being given his last meal

Published on 1 year, 11 months ago in married life and medical school. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

That’s what I’ve felt like these past couple of weeks. Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy everything while I still can as if I’m some prisoner enjoying my last meal before my execution. Sad how that statement is pretty much true. It is so unbelievably hard for me to accept that I’m going to have to give up everything that I enjoy indefinitely. Simple things like lounging around the house with my dog, playing Rock Band, cooking, blogging, sewing, tennis…all the things that make me me. All those things will no longer have any place in my life as I enter the abyss that is the third year of med school. Having these things then having to give them up again makes me almost wish I’d never done a PhD so that I would never have tasted such freedom because it is now so hard to let it all go. Well, I think you get my point. Enough whining.

I’ve been MIA for quite awhile now because I’ve been enjoying my last meal to the fullest extent possible and was on a last-minute vacation. It was fun, but the spectre of third year was never far behind so it wasn’t quite as fun as it could have been. But at least I won’t regret not taking a vacation later. I don’t do much on vacations besides eat and shop and this one was no exception. And for some reason, I was obsessed with finding a perfectly functional handbag because I was finally tired of my small yet not-so-functional collection. Not one to cheap out on such things, my husband insisted that I only look at designer bags. I had a Marc by Marc Jacobs in mind, but it ended up looking way better online than in person. I guess handbags just can’t be functional and fashionable at the same time. I then found a Burberry one that I could live with and had settled on it (and was planning to buy it once I got back home) when my husband insisted we check out the Louis Vuitton store on the way out. Now I don’t like LV stuff because I don’t like the monogram and how it’s everywhere, but I decided to humor him since he had already humored me way more than he had to with my great handbag search of 2008 and I figured he deserved it. I really hate going to these high-end stores because the people are just so snobby and act like I don’t even deserve to be in their store. One day, I swear, I’ll stroll in in my scrubs and white coat just to see if I get treated differently. Suffice it to say, I was trying to get in and out of there as quickly as possible, but my husband made me look at their bags, theorizing that maybe so many people have them because they’re functional. Well, he was wrong. But he also found the perfect bag for me while he was at it. And even though I don’t like LV stuff, I caved in and bought it.

There was no way I was going to be able to resist my special shade of purple. And besides, it’s a really nice bag. And it doesn’t have that ostentatious LV monogram all over it. And I’m now $900 poorer. I figure I won’t be shopping much once I start rotations again, so it’ll be okay.

So I start tomorrow bright and early. I still wish I could freeze time and be a slacker forever…or at least until I master every instrument on Rock Band on expert, but I have no choice but to forge ahead. I might disappear for extended periods of time, but not forever. You’re just going to have to be patient and you’ll be rewarded with stories aplenty, I’m sure.

And to those who responded to my Dear Reader post awhile ago, I haven’t forgotten you and will be getting responses up as soon as I stop admiring my new LV bag find the time.

ack, my dog is fat

Published on 1 year, 11 months ago in married life. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

So I took my dog to the vet today for his annual checkup and vaccine boosters in anticipation of not having the time to do it later in the month. Now I’ve been noticing that he’s getting a little chubby, but my husband doesn’t believe me and has not cut back on how much he feeds him. Of course, my husband has not once gone to the vet with me and has never seen the charts they have in the vet’s office showing what a healthy dog should look like and my attempts to describe these charts and my concerns to him fell on deaf ears. I knew that my dog had filled out a bit, but nothing could prepare me for how much weight he actually gained: a whole 10 lbs! He was 50 lbs before (which was his ideal weight or “ideal dog” in the chart below), so that means he gained 20% of his original weight! If I were to gain 20% of my current weight, I would have to gain almost 20 lbs! The vet now classifies my dog as “overweight” bordering on “obese” according to the chart below!* Talk about embarrassing. I spent the remainder of the vet visit trying to blame my husband (rightfully so, I might add) for my dog’s condition. But it didn’t change the fact that I was the one who got lectured instead of the person who deserved it. And to add insult to injury, my husband just keeps saying, “we can fix it” and “all we need to do is make him exercise more” instead of admitting that he screwed up and that it’s going to be hard to fix (and that he should have listened to me, as always). If obesity were so easy to fix, would we have such an epidemic going on right now? Hardly. So I really want to shove his stupid everything is fixable attitude somewhere where I’ll never have to see it again. When will he see that it’s much better to just not break things in the first place?

*You may wonder how I could possibly have not noticed that my dog is about to become obese, but it is rather hard because he’s super furry and I was in denial.

Image from: http://users.tpg.com.au/choclab/img/dog_weight_chart.jpg

puppy fever

Published on 1 year, 11 months ago in married life. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

I’ve wanted a corgi ever since my first dog, which was likely a corgi/cocker spaniel mix, died during my second year of med school. But after adopting my current dog and then another dog and then realizing that I couldn’t quite handle taking care of two dogs alone, I decided that I would stick to my one very low maintenance dog.

But every once in awhile, I get bitten by the I-want-a-puppy bug and ask my husband if I can get a corgi. He usually says, “Okay” and we never speak of it again. Well, I was bitten again recently and asked my husband if I could get a corgi. This time, however, he responded with, “Let’s do it!” I still didn’t think he was serious, even as I watched him look up breeders. Then he started showing me pictures of available puppies and talking about deposits and such and it dawned on me that he was really serious. Which led me to back things up and tell him that I wasn’t serious about wanting a puppy…that it’s just one of those things that I want but can never find the time to have. Which got me the whole “life is short” (as if I need to be told that) lecture. Well, to make a long story short, there was no way I was going to be able to resist once I saw the cute puppies and found one to my liking. So now, we’re expecting a little bundle of fur come late May.

I’m a worrier by nature and I’m kind of freaking out about this whole thing now, especially because my last attempt at a two-dog household failed miserably. I blame it on my choice of second dog and hope that this time will work out. Well, I can’t really afford it not working out, can I? At the same time, I’m really excited at the prospect of finally being able to raise a puppy. I’ve never had that before…both my previous dog and my current dog were adopted. So it is with both excitement and trepidation that I look forward to our new addition…kind of like how I’m feeling about going back to the wards…

awkward encounters of the ex-semi-boyfriend kind

Published on 1 year, 12 months ago in lab/graduate school. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

I had a pretty tiring weekend and an extra tossy-and-turny-sleeping husband the last couple of nights, so I wasn’t quite 100% today. Even though I woke up early enough to primp myself up nicely, I chose to stay in bed a little longer and sleep in a bit. Who’s going to be at lab that I give a crap about anyway, right?

And since I was running around trying to get my immunization records all straightened out (since it seems the med school has magically lost all such information), I was kind of frazzled. As I turned into the hallway to my lab bench, I saw my major professor with someone, but didn’t really pay attention to who it was because I didn’t care and had better things to do. And he usually doesn’t introduce me to his visitors anymore–that spot’s been filled by Teacher’s Pet. So imagine my surprise when he calls out my name and makes me stop dead in my tracks, asking me if I remember his visitor. I take a look, and of course I do. It’s my ex-lab mate and his wife. Fun, I think to myself. And why, oh why didn’t I wake up early and pretty myself up? But then, I take solace in the fact that his wife looks scrubbier than me despite probably knowing full well that she would probably run into me, the chick who probably scarred her husband for life.* Awkward conversation follows and I beat a hasty retreat, glad that I didn’t stick with this guy because he got kind of chubby and still looks like a supernerd. Though I did feel kind of sorry for him because his wife looks and sounds like a bitch and he got chubby…

Even though things ended badly and I probably could have been nicer about “dumping” him, I’m good friends with his sister. We get along so well that I sometimes wish she was my sister-in-law instead of the bitch that I’m stuck with. Though seeing as to how they always come visit my major professor every time they’re in town even though he’s a narcissistic ass probably because his parents make them, I’m pretty glad I don’t have his parents as my in-laws. Ah, tradeoffs. Well, I’d much rather have my husband anyway, even if all of the in-law drama almost negates it. Guess that encounter triggered some introspection on my part, awkward as it was.

*DISCLAIMER: I didn’t purposely scar this guy for life. We were never even a couple. He’s just fragile. And took things way too seriously. And didn’t know when to back off. And never had a real girlfriend until he met and married his wife. So yeah. I’m no cold heartbreaker. Really. And no, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking getting involved with such a dork. We were all young and stupid at some point, right?

the worst in-laws ever

Published on 2 years, 1 month ago in married life. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I haven’t been posting much lately, but once I get through with this doozy of a story, you’ll understand why.

Two weeks ago, we got our arms twisted into visiting the in-laws because these super-awesome relatives from outside of the country came to visit (which they only do once every 10 years or so) and we were obligated to see them because they gave us soooo much money when we got married (Asians like to give money at weddings, and no, their little monetary gift was no where near the top sum that we received). Trust me, I complained about it as much as I could, but to no avail, because even in my bitter little heart, I myself was raised too well to not visit them. Of course, being agreeable didn’t make the visit any less painful. I wanted to give them some sort of nice gift (because Asian people also like to give gifts to people they visit), but of course, mother-in-law had different ideas and silly husband graciously gave in to her plan without so much as consulting with me first. Her idea, of course, was much more painful to my wallet as it involved taking these visitors plus any other relative who decided to tag along out to lunch. I protested and I protested, but of course, I failed. So now I’m out $120 when I didn’t have to be if only I had decided not to show up until dinner time for the going-away party that one of the other relatives was hosting. Why didn’t I make the obviously smarter choice? Well, because mother-in-law claimed that the party wasn’t happening because the out-of-towners were leaving that night. Liar, much?

But you know what? I was okay with it. Or at least I convinced myself that I was. I figured that my $120 was well-spent towards earning good will from these relatives as well as mother-in-law. Now, all we had to do was take father-in-law out to lunch for his birthday the next day. Of course, there’s no such thing as taking father-in-law out without taking the mother-in-law out as well and I was resigned to that fate as well. What does father-in-law do? He orders lobster, of course! Which is fine and dandy as long as I can get this whole thing over with as fast as I can. But no, we get dragged back to their house where he proceeds to show us his vacation plans and inform us that we’re paying! You see, he could never go on vacation before because he was always busy working and now that he’s been laid off, he figures it’s the perfect time to go visit his homeland! On our dime, of course! Not only that, but when he failed to show up for lunch the day before with his own brothers and sister, it was because he was job hunting. And planning this trip at the travel agency! What exactly possesses somebody who just lost their job to decide to take a $1000 vacation?! What exactly makes these people think my money is theirs? I really wish I knew. By this time, I was beyond angry. So angry that I was going to make a scene. So my husband and I made a hasty retreat.

But, of course, running away did not quell my anger. So I figure that if I’m going to be out $1000 (which we really needed, by the way, as we’re still trying to recover from our excessive spending these last couple of  months as well as gearing up to pay income tax, property tax, and house insurance bills), I might as well make them feel really bad about it. Of course, I should have realized that such a thing was impossible since they’re under the impression that our money is their money. Of course, my other mistake was trying to make my husband the messenger since he is absolutely horrible at not being a doormat. In the end, all he succeeded in doing was make me look like a greedy wife unwilling to help out his poor dad who has never taken a vacation in his life. Trust me. I’m Asian too and my parents raised me well. I know that kids are supposed to “help” their parents when they grow up and have successful jobs. But you see, the key words here are: when we grow up and have jobs. Does it look like I have a successful job here? I’m not even done with school yet! And my husband? Well, he’s gone back to school! So now is absolutely not the time to be taking our money. It’s not that we’re selfish. We just can’t afford it!

So, after bitching at my husband late into the night, I fall into an angry sleep. And wake up the next morning with a plan. If I’m going to be out $1000, I damn well am going to tell these people exactly what I think of them. My husband thinks that I will only make things worse, but really…they hate me already…what am I going to do? Make them hate me more? I have nothing to lose. So because he’s a scaredy-cat, I drive down to their place myself to give them a piece of my mind. The fact that mother-in-law was absolutely terrified at seeing me alone was almost enough to make the whole thing worth it. I’m pretty sure she thought I had my husband’s body in the trunk of my car. But, of course, it went downhill from there. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise as she was always interrupting me when it wasn’t even any of her business (since her trip was already paid for by sister-in-law). And father-in-law wouldn’t even tear his eyes away from his newspaper to look at me while I was speaking to him (just like how my husband won’t tear his eyes away from his computer screen when I talk to him…if nothing else, this little trip gave me insight into where my husband got all of his annoying habits from). So of course, I’m getting angrier by the minute. And then, a visitor shows up! And because we’re Asian and we must save face and not allow outsiders to see any discord, I had to pretend that we weren’t just arguing two seconds before this visitor walked up to the door. In the end, I said what I wanted to say, which was rather satisfying. But then the both of them had to say things that riled me back up and that continue to rile me up to this day because I held my tongue in response to their comments. What did they say? Well, that’s a whole other post and this one is already way too long. So I left them with their precious $1000 check and underwent a little retail therapy (yeah, not a good idea since I was now quite broke, but hey, it’s that or kill them).

You would think the story ends there, but it doesn’t. Because it’s been over a week since I handed them that check and they still haven’t cashed it yet. Even after I told them that if they didn’t cash it, I would personally return to their house with $1000 in cash and throw it at them, they still have not cashed it. Even though they’re scheduled to leave this Friday, they have not cashed it and bought father-in-law’s plane tickets. Even though they caused so much drama to get this money, they have not cashed it. Why can’t they make anything easy for me? First, they want my money. And now, they’re making it hard for me to give them the money. These people are seriously trying to put me in the crazy house. I told my husband to relay them the message that if they do not cash the check by Thursday, I’m driving to their place and assaulting them with cash. They should know damn well that I will do it too. I’m really hoping they know what’s good for them. Because, really, I don’t want to spend my Valentine’s Day with them.

So that’s my story. Unbelievable, no? Well, I hardly believe it myself. Even now. That’s why I was sort of MIA last week. Because I was sulking over this whole situation and processing it. Oh, and bitching at my husband to never let it happen again if he doesn’t want to live the rest of his life in the personal hell I will create for him if he fails to prevent another such situation. Because, really, this all could have been prevented if he wasn’t such a damn doormat.Â