FAQs

Why is your dog such a wimp?  What breed is she?

We don't know.  While the Humane Society (the wonderful shelter where we adopted her from) does an excellent job of letting new owners know the dog's history upon adoption, we really have no idea if Eva was ever abused or neglected.  She was almost a year and a half old when we got her, so there's no knowing what she went through before us.  Eva is a red-speckled queensland heeler.

What exactly is your job?
I would love to be able to talk more about it, but my personal and professional code of ethics prohibits that. I do direct clinical work (therapy) with at-risk kids and families. If you'd like to know anything more, please feel free to buy me coffee or a drink and I'll share the nature of my job with you in person :)

What the eff is a Sunshine Cupcake?

"Sunshine cupcakes" was the nickname given to me by my college roommate Anita, who I lived with during all 4 years of our undergrad. We lived in the dorms our freshman and sophomore year, and it didn't take us very long to discover that we are polar mood opposites. I'm a morning person, she's a vampire. I'm happy 99.99999999% of the time, she's grumpy. I like artichokes and mixing fiber powder into my drinks, she eats butter straight from the tub with a spoon.

Our freshman year dorm had a giant window on one wall, covered by some pretty awful brown curtains.

Between classes when Anita was gone, I'd come back to our room and fling open the curtains because I loved having the natural light in the room as opposed to the horrid fluorescent dorm lights we were stuck with for two years. When I was gone, Anita would come back to our room and shut the curtains, thus rendering our room a cave of darkness and depression. This was a constant battle with us - we usually settled on having the curtains open "HALFWAY!" when we were both at home because she just couldn't handle so much "GODDAMN SUNSHINE". I usually protested. From her bed, underneath the covers (at mid-day, mind you) with only a messy dark-haired bun emerging and the occasional lifeless arm, she'd shout at me, "NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS MADE OF SUNSHINE AND CUPCAKES, KARA. GAHHHHHDDDD."

And it stuck. Any time we were having a discussion and my response was something even slightly resembling optimistic, Anita's response would classically be, "Whatever you say, sunshine cupcakes." Then, she'd get back in bed with her posters of Poe surrounding her and settle in with a good Sylvia Plath novel, drinking black coffee and listening to Dashboard Confessional. Then, she'd tell me to leave her alone and go play with my magical unicorns. Okay, so maybe she wasn't that moody. But boy, did she hate it when I joyously flung those curtains open to let the sunshine pour in!

Also, lots of people have referred to my unfalteringly, annoyingly happy personality as "sunshiney".  I can't help it :) :)