Greedy & Ungrateful

It has already started. I hate the holiday season, and in truth I only hate it for one reason. My family and gift giving. If I thought I could get away with doing no gifts at all for and from my family I totally would. Every year it gets worse and worse and every year I get grumpier and grumpier about the whole thing.

The problem... my mother. First of all, we must provide lists. I'm cool with the list thing. (Although she will not provide one much to my chagrin.) Believe me, I'd rather her get me something off the list than some random thing she has decided I must have. So I dutifully give her a list of good ideas of things I would like in a wide variety of costs, including (this is new for 06) whether or not this can be purchased at a yard sale, which she frequently does (whether I say it is okay or not). I also send her links to things if I think she might have questions about specifics. I could not be more clear, right? No. Now the negotiations begin. Now she has to go through the process of finding the cheapest version of what I've asked for possible. So now begins the process of sending me link after link of the clearance version of what I've asked for. I really want to say to her that if it is THIS much of a hardship, don't fucking bother. It drives me completely crazy. And ultimately makes me resentful and angry. Truly. I understand the financial limitations of my parents. I know they are both retired blah blah blah. That's the whole reason I give them a wide variety of prices, this way, theoretically, they could get me something I would like without breaking the bank. Instead it becomes this whole tit for tat thing where I end up regretting asking for anything at all. Yet, if I were to say there's nothing I need or want I keep getting harrassed until I give up a list. The whole thing is so infuriating I just want to not have to do it anymore.

Winter has descended

I spent the weekend at the Pacific Science Center. Much to my chagrin, the Dead Sea Scrolls is in a special exhibit that I didn't get to go into. I'm going to have to go and check it out sometime. I did get to spend time in the Butterfly House and I watched the 'science circus' twice which was fun and cool. I really liked spending all that time there and seeing the cute kids in their costumes. There were a couple of very earnest little boys in costume. When I commented about them being Captain America or the Grim Reaper they had to very carefully tell me that although they were dressed like that, it was just a costume. They weren't really that guy. It cracked me up.

Taking care of my friend's dog was also fun. Her little dog was so excited to see me every time I came in to walk her. I'd spend about 45 minutes with the dog petting her and scratching her. She was very sweet, which is NOT how she usually is. :) I think it was the stress of having nobody there most of the rest of the time.

Sleepy

I stayed out way late last night. I didn't end up getting home until 1:30. Crikey work was early this morning.

I spent the day stuffing envelopes. I spent the entire day stuffing envelopes. (I don't think I can stress that enough.) It was brutal. And lucky me... we are completely short staffed tomorrow and so I get to spend most of the day sitting at the main reception desk. SUCK!

I'm spending the weekend volunteering and dogsitting. My friend Isa has a silky terrier. Jomji is very cute, but kind of high strung. (Kind of... that's like saying Phoenix is kind of hot in the summer). She is afraid of me so instead of acting like a dog she flips out and barks her fool head off. It'll be fun to play with a dog though. I'm just supposed to go by in the morning and evening and walk her and check the food and stuff. It'll remind me why I really don't want to own a dog while being an apartment dweller.

I'll be spending the weekend at the Pacific Science Center. If you've got nothing else happening you should come down! :) They'll have The Dead Sea Scrolls. How cool is that??

I've also finally figured out what I'm going to dress up as for the Peevery Halloween Costume Contest. I'm hoping it is clever and doesn't require too much explanation since that defeats the purpose.

I AM judgy

You ever have one of those conversations with a person and think, "Oh my god, are you really saying this?" (Completely and totally unrelated, if I weren't such a hippie about things I think I totally would've found my new car. Apparently some new fancypants lexus parallel parks itself. I don't know how to parallel park for anything, this could be awesome for me). Ok back to the tale of the Oh my god are you really saying this? Moral Turpitude and I were instant messaging this evening and he emails me a picture of a girl he's communicating with. She lives in Russia. So I make some comment about wouldn't it be easier to find a woman, you know, where he lives and not one internationally. Apparently he found her on a marriage site. She is one of 3 he is communicating with. Now this is weird for so many reasons, but the number one reason being that he just broke up with someone not 2 weeks ago because he was still hung up on this other girl. The funny thing is that before he told me the whole thing I made some snarky comment about yes marrying some chick from another country you don't know would be the solution to all your problems. And he asked me what problems? What problems? Is he serious? I deferred back to him and agreed with him... he has no problems. Freakin' weirdo.

Simplicity is good

So my notboss is leaving to be a stay at home mom. (She's my notboss because although she's higher on the food chain than I am... she is not my boss.) And I have been having this anxiety because my biggest boss said that we are doing this thing tomorrow as a send off and we all contributed money and then he said we should do something 'like you know... funny or whatever...' I assumed that we had to spend money and was totally peeved about that until I talked to coworker and got it figured out. He didn't necessarily mean spend money... just come up with something more personal I suppose. Ok so now I've got a clue. Earlier this year I did pot painting with the kids for their moms for mother's day. I have plenty of paint and pots left over I'll make one of those. So I painted one with flowers and dragonflies that I stamped on there and I looked at it and went ew. Too busy. So I went back to the drawing board (actually I fetched another pot out of the cupboard) and started over. I painted some 'grass' and a 'sky' and then I whitewashed it so that it was paler and not quite the harsh dark colors. Then I used yellow and purple and orange little teeny tiny dots to be like flowers in a meadow. And then I used more yellow to make spots in the sky to be fireflies and then I darkened the top part of the pot so it seems like the evening is falling. It turned out ever so much better and yet was so much simpler to do.

Unrelated, I finished up a book tonight called The Widow's War by Sally Gunning. It was great! I highly recommend it. It is set in the 1700's in a whaling community on Cape Cod. A woman's husband dies (hence the Widow title I don't think I'm spilling anything) and she fights with her family to assert her rights, of which she had very little. I was really fascinated as I read through the whole thing.

I also finished up a couple of chick lit books this weekend. Those I enjoyed somewhat less.

Singletini is typical chick lit. Twenty something girl struggles in her life blah blah blah. There were definitely funny parts, though but reading about some size sub-zero's "pooch" annoyed the crap out of me. (Of course that is how 24 year olds talk so...)

The Cinderella Pact I really wanted to like. I had it on reserve for goodness sakes, I must've seen something in it that appealed. Although I liked some aspects, it was this book that caused the gripe about fat chicks in chick lit.

Sufficient Grace was the 3rd book I read recently. I rather liked this one as well. A woman is suffering from the onset of schizophrenia. She flees her family because the voices tell her to and she spends months living with an African American family, the matriarch had taken care of her many years in the past when she was a child. It was a little sad but touching. I even liked the transformation of her husband, a mechanic, into a chef even though it was probably a little unreal.

Snippets

This morning I called the Reserve America line to try to get a yurt for the weekend of July 20th at Cape Lookout. The phone lines open at 8:00 and I called at 8:15. I spent 20 minutes on hold to find out that there were 3 yurts available... None of which were at Cape Lookout or Nehalem Bay which is where we wanted to go. They could've gotten us in at Bullards Beach but that is REALLY far from Seattle and much further than we wanted to go. I'll try again next Friday right at 8, but I don't hold my breath. If we can't get it, we'll just use tents. I was amazed that by 8:35 in the morning 120something yurts were reserved in 35 minutes for a weekend 9 months from now.

I still have a cold and I was called yesterday to donate blood cuz they are low on my type. My type never gets called for. I was all excited until I remembered that I am sick and she told me that I can't donate while I am. Darn. (Honestly though, Aleve Cold & Sinus is the bomb. I worship at its ground. I feel almost human while on it.)

Our new work study student sucks major ass. I have been searching for a form for weeks panicked because I thought I lost it. I checked the employee's file about 3 times and never saw it in there. That's because new work study put it at the very back of the file. Also he is VERY slow. I am not fond of him. Is it vaguely wrong that I keep hoping he'll fuck up again so Isa will have to fire him?

Earlier today I was talking with WC and this other guy. Other guy had taken a cherry lolly pop from my candy dish even though I had tried to convince him that he wanted a pink lemonade one. I made some crack about that's because I like the cherry ones and so he said to me, "You want me to give you your cherry back?" The three of us paused for a few moments and then burst into laughter. I threw them out of my office and as the WC was leaving he said that he didn't think Otherguy had the ability to do that.

I went and watched a movie over at V's today. We watched Run Lola Run which was much better than I thought it would be. About 3/4ths of the way through the roommate came home. We chatted a tiny bit, but not too much. I decided to leave after the movie because I'm just exhausted. If only I could figure out a way to spend more time with this guy...

Why do I eschew the soup?

For the past two days, since I've been getting sick, I've gone and gotten Pho with chicken from the Vietnamese place behind my office for lunch. I've added hoisin sauce and the red really spicy sauce so it provides me this really spicy, really warm chicken noodle soup. (Pho is made with rice noodles not wheat noodles hence it is okay.) And it has been REALLY good. Now ordinarily I say I don't like soup and now I'm wondering why that is. Because this... is hitting the exact spot right where I need it. My sinuses feel so much better (at least for a little while) after it.

Blow, hand sanitize, repeat

Somene gave me their cold. I am not amused. I have a shit load of work to do. I do not have time for this. I currently am sitting in my office, blowing my nose and then immediately hand sanitizing so I can hopefully not contaminate the entire rest of the world. Sigh.

Stereotypes

Lately I've been reading a lot of chick lit. Mostly because I went through a phase where I read a lot of depressing family lit and I was looking for something light and fun that doesn't require a lot of thought. Plus I'll be taking a test later this year that does require a lot of thought and preparation so light and fun is good. I've run into, though, a massive stereotyping that is starting to annoy the crap out of me. I've been reading 'fat chick lit' which interestingly enough is its own catagory under the chick lit label. Originally I was bugged by that fact, but then Michelle pointed out it does make it much easier for me to find books that are NOT about size 2 girls who work in New York City or London in publications or PR. Instead I can find size 12 girls who work in New York City or London in publications or PR.

This brings me to a bunch of questions. Why do many of the women in chick lit work in publishing (magazine or book) or PR? Are women unable to be astrophysicists or is it that astrophysics doesn't create a compelling backdrop? (I know that probably the thing is that the girls who are writing these books all are coming out of the publishing/pr fields but still... it's called research.)

So lately I've been reading fat chick lit because after awhile it is gross to keep reading about the size 2 who obsesses about her thighs and tit size. Now I'm offended by fat chick lit. Why is it impossible for a fat chick to be happy in her size in a novel? Why is it that every main character I've read so far has to go on a drastic diet to discover that really she's great at whatever size she is? How is it romantic for a guy to say to you 'you'd be really pretty if you lost a few pounds'? If a guy said that to me I'd kick him to the curb so fast. Why do all fat chick novels have to have at least 2 scenes where the fat chick binges so much that it would make a trucker sick? I've never eaten an entire bag of chips. I don't even eat an entire pint of ice cream, let alone an entire quart. And I certainly have never eaten both in one self pitying life defining moment. I started reading one book and got so disgusted I returned it after 2 chapters. I looked toward fat chick lit because I wanted at least a little bit of relatability, but not every fat chick is a sad sack. Yes, there is some anxiety the first time the guy sees you naked, that I can relate to. Buying clothes from Lane Bryant and then tucking the bags into bags from the Express or Limited so no one knows I bought from Lane I can't. That's just pathetic at a whole other level and frankly I can't stomach it any more.

Pea Pods & Broccoli Oh my!

I do not like how I cooked the pea pods tonight. They may be better in something else, but the Kung Pao stir-fry was not the best choice to make them. I'm going to try them in something else. Maybe in the lemon stir fry it would be better. It seems like it would meld well? Broccoli also not good in this either. It was bitter. I'll give broccoli one more try before I give up altogether on it. It may not be for me. But I can say I've given it quite the try once I do. :) So far both times I've tried it cooked in a stir-fry type of meal. It is part of my potato medly so maybe there it will be better.

I'm trying to reserve a yurt for next year's annual girl's camping trip. Things are not going well. I'm not sure if it is because everyone has already booked them (and you can only go book 9 months in advance and today is 9 months before the 3rd day of our camping trip so honestly everybody and their brother has already booked all the yurts already?!). The other option would be to call them tomorrow. Maybe I can understand the problem with the reserving I'm trying to do.

I received the encampment call in schedule on Thursday. At first I didn't really think too much about it, we're number 24 and in the second round, but for some reason on Friday that started sticking in my craw. That's not right. So I look up the rules for the lottery drawing and basically the put people into 3 piles based on what they ended up with last year. Both piles 1 and 2 are people/groups who did NOT get a spot the previous year. We shouldn't be in pile 2 since we did have a spot. What to do... I ended up emailing the council person in charge of the lottery. I don't want us to get moved back in the pack, but at the same itme I don't want to take a potential good spot that some other group should've gotten. I haven't heard back from her about what this means for us.

Nostalgia

While standing in the grocery store staring at the wide variety of frozen vegetable medleys trying to find something that appealed to me, I had this total falsh of memory about one of the grossest vegetable products ever... Veg-All. The years I spent at camp, somehow Veg-All was always served at least once over the summer. It was bought in #2 cans and I remember just being so completely grossed out by it. For some reason I just stood there and cracked up.

In case y'all care... I bought 2 different frozen veggie things. One, a stir fry, with water chestnuts, carrots (which I don't like cooked but I think that's usually a texture thing because I think they get squishy), broccoli and snap-peas. I think I want to like snap-peas. The other is a roasted thing with potatoes, red peppers and broccoli. I'm excited for the stir fry which I'll add to my chicken stir-fry tomorrow for dinner.

Look, Ma, no hangover!

I'm rather lucky this morning, I have no hangover. I totally and completely should. But thanks to Big R's magic bottle of water, I am not at all.

Last night I went to V's house to celebrate his birthday. I had entirely too much to drink, and then had 2 more on top of that. :) Peach vodka and orange juice is really good. :) Big R showed up about 1/2 way into the party and luckily gave me a ride home. I'm not 100% certain that I would have made it by walking. When I first got there there were not a lot of people but was there were mostly straight I think. This one guy just kept talking talk talk talking. It was painful. I had a really good time, though. I shamelessly threw myself at his roommate. (A straight guy who volunteers probably as regularly as I do. How could I not?!) I saw a bunch of gays I haven't seen in awhile and that was fun too. Best of all, somehow I managed to sleep late!

Now I'm starving and I have to get the hell out of the house so I can go get quarters for laundry for the next 6 weeks. Blech. :)

Goals and all that crap

The last time I did goals was in the spring. I still haven't found a yoga class, although I think I forgot that goal so I haven't been looking that hard. Since I've been doing the aquajog thing I haven't been going to the gym in a traditional fashion, but I think they are similar. Meal plan. I suck at that. :) Sunday adventures and walking to and from work I'm doing. Saving money not so much, but now that I'm making more maybe I'll be able to save after all. So now we're on to new fall goals! (I think I get somewhat meloncholy in the fall because I work for a college. There's stuff happening all around me that is new and exciting... for other people. I'm a part of it but not really, you know. Plus I have a lot of extra work in the fall. And as Michelle has pointed out it is getting darker in the fall, but at the same time Sheesh is right in that I don't get like this in January and it is way darker then. I don't know, I'm sure it is a confluence of a lot of different things all at once.)

Fall Goals!
1. Yoga. Again with this goal. But I think I really should start taking advantage of what my college's gym offers. They have yoga every night for goodness sakes. I need to just go to one or two classes. (Although now that I've looked at the schedule I can only make Wednesday nights. But one night in addition to my hydrofit class is more than I'm currently doing. :) )

2. Try more veggies. This is a frequent appearer on my goals list and yet one I can't really get into. In a few years I hope to be acquiring children through some means. I feel like I should be able to encourage good eating habits in my future unnamed children and I can't do it with my current eating habits. So to make this a measurable goal I will try one new veggie a week. So far I can say I do not like broccoli (too woody) or green peppers (bitter). I do like red peppers which I will now willingly eat. The veggies I've tried so far have all been in Asian food so there may be a slant there. If any of y'all have a veggie that works for you and/or a recipe that makes it good (nothing with cheese sauce though. I think it might defeat the purpose of eating more veggies.) please feel free to share. So far I eat carrots, cucumbers, lettuce (but not rock & twig lettuce, too bitter usually), corn, yellow beans and now red peppers. There might be something else but I can't remember what.

3. Cut back on the soda. I'm not willing to go to diet. I was successful for a long while, but it slowly creeped back up until my current level. To start I'll cut back to 3 a day (I know) and hopefully get down to 2 and maybe even 1 a day.

4. After Christmas pay more down on my credit cards now that I have more income. (I say that because I do have Christmas presents to buy and a bunch of damn birthdays in December.)

Those are good to start I think.

Shake shake shake

Yesterday I was sitting on my sofa and I thought hmm... It feels like one of the ferrets has climbed into the sofa and is digging around. Yet I reinforced the bottom of the sofa so they can't do it so I know that can't be it. How weird. Apparently Mt. Rainier had a rather small earthquake yesterday. It's weird, I admit, but I kind of dig earthquakes. Not the giant ones that cause damage buildings to collapse or trigger massive tsunamis that kill people, but the little gentle ones. In Alaska several happened while I lived there. Usually in the middle of the night so I just kind of felt it but didn't fully realize it. We did have one while I was working at the library and the bookshelves were swaying we were moving so much. Tornadoes and hurricaines, though, I don't want to know nothing about those things. :)

Dressy bessy!

Over at The Peevery KTP was complaining about her pants. Which totally reminded me of this doll I used to have. Thanks to the power of Google, I found it. Here she is. Dressy Bessy. I remember loving to fiddle with the snap. Ahh memories.

Crappity crap crap

I just did a little google searching. The mold behind the tiles is very bad. VERY BAD. I'm going to have really spend the weekend cleaning my ass off so that I can get the manager in next week to repair. CRAP!

Karmic balance ass kicking continued

So yesterday I had this meeting and it was our first of the year and I'm the new service unit manager and I'm all excited and I buy treats and doorprizes and 3 people show up. THREE PEOPLE SHOWED UP! Fuckers. And just to illustrate how fuckers the rest are... 1 was a new troop leader who doesn't even have a troop yet. One lives around the block from the church. One is the registrar who was there to pick up troop registrations. Fuckers all the other ones.

But yesterday I also picked up my new glasses. Yay! They are essentially the same as my old ones except copper in color. 0ooh they're the titanium kind that means I can twist them so that's cool. So there's a good.

This morning while showering a tile hurled itself off the bathroom wall and hit me in the calf. There are others threatening to follow and what looks like mold behind the tiles. Fuck. I will be spending this weekend cleaning my apartment's ass off so I can call the manager to fix it.

Karmic balance is kicking my ass

I received word this morning from my boss that I am getting bumped up in dollars and in job grade effective 9/25. Yay! And by bumped up in dollars I mean BUMPED. (Ok $5k a year but it is sorely needed I tell you). Plus, this new job grade means I am no longer a non-exempt employee. I love it! No more time sheets! So that's the good.

The more than annoying:

Tonight's the first Service Unit meeting of which I am in charge. I have to go to the Girl Scout office to pick up the keys to the church. A - their hours are only from 9 - 4:30. Ok, that sucks. What about those of us who work. So I check out a flexcar and was going to take a long lunch today to go get the keys and some 'door prizes' in the hopes of attracting people to the damn meeting. (Typically there are 5 of us there. There are WAY more than 5 troops). I start walking over, in pain because the boot is at home because I can't drive with it on, when I suddenly think about the keycard to get into the flexcar. I check my wallet. It isn't there and I forgot my cell phone. Fuck. I walk the 3 blocks back to campus and search my pack and jacket. No dice. I have no idea where it is. Fuck. So I call the Flexcar people and now with the new smartcard they can't remote unlock like they used to. Fuck. So I'm out of luck. So now I'm being billed for flexcar time that I didn't use. I don't have the crap I need and I have to leave early instead to catch a bus to the damn Girl Scout office and deal with this.

Acceptance

I don't like indy films. I really need to just accept this fact. I keep getting my hopes up, though. I'll see one that makes me think, 'oh they aren't that bad', and then I'll see 4 more that make me think 'I HATE indy films'! Netflix delivered to me Friends with Money. I love Joan Cusack and I like Jennifer Aniston. But Friends with Money was just painful. It just kept meandering to me and I wanted to shout at the screen 'get to the bloody point already!' So I'm back on the I hate indy films belief and I think I'll stick with it.

Also, unrelated but it may help me remember things, I don't like Raspberry Cream Italian Sodas.

Tired of life

Sometimes I get tired of my life. Not in a 'goodbye cruel world' type of way, just in a 'can I tuck my head under the covers and wake up when things are a little less crappy. And sadly, things aren't actually even that crappy. In all honesty, my life is actually pretty darn good. But every once in a while, I look around me and think, this can't be all there is. Like Ariel "I want more..."

V and Isa are both afflicted with a condition wherein when they are talking about someone (usually smack) they turn around and that person is there. It is uncanny actually. Today that actually happened to me. Big R and I were in a coffee shop and I was trying to remember what kind of Italian Soda I liked and whether or not I liked it with cream. And so I playfully smacked his arm and chastised him for not being Matthew who would know that. We sit down at a table to work on his resume and not two tables away is Matthew who had been sitting there working. We said hello. That was it.

I went to Dim Sum with Isa, and Big R and a bunch of other people today. I think I'm not going to go anymore. I just order off the menu while the others do all the Dim Sum. I just think it is way pricier than necessary.

I think a fun name for a drag queen would be Anita Dix.

It is hard to stay totally blue when one is watching Grease 2. That's just fully cheesbally.

Also, I'm so glad that the WB and UPN combined because otherwise how would we have valuable channel space for My Q TV channel? I can't believe I'm paying for that non-existent useless channel.

Finally, how can you tell if your desire to just sit on the sofa and do nothing including eat is depression or laziness? I'm leaning towards laziness but it would be nice if it were depression so that I'd have an excuse.