Bugaboo

I forgot that I was going to post about this over the weekend. Whilst at the Festival, I saw one of the infamous Bugaboo strollers. Why or how is it infamous you ask... it is $800.00 for a stroller. I'm not really sure how or why I heard about this. Maybe Michelle. It does look pretty and the reviews on Amazon imply that it is practically a miracle. I'm kind of amazed that anyone would spend $800 on anything related to a baby. Don't they just grow out of it? Or maybe it is because I'm hard on my own things that I own that I can't imagine actually using one with a real live infant. My point is, I actually saw one in real life and found myself staring at it and wondering who the guy was who was so fancy pants he spent $800 on a stroller for his kid.

Ghetto CPR

Oh my g_d! This was the BEST CPR class I've ever taken. It was truly awesome and I loved it and I am so taking community based CPR classes in the future. If any of y'all have ever taken a Red Cross CPR or First Aid class, you know what I'm talking about. They are very stuffy. Very formal. Very boring. Very painful. It is hard to explain. Maybe it is because it is so precise that it was just painful for me. The guy read from the book. I can read dammit!

So tonight's class was totally ghetto. It is sponsored by either the city or the county. It was done by a firefighter (retired not one of the young hotties. :) ). But basically he showed us a video and we practiced with the video and then we were done. We practiced very quickly on an adult that was supposed to represent a child model. It was easily the best CPR class I had. I felt like I got the information I needed (which surprising to me the American Heart Association was advocating stuff I had never heard of.). And it was quick and to the point.

HOWEVER I do still hate the 'burbs. I got off the bus at the wrong stop. Apparently I got off the bus at about 10 blocks before I was supposed to. I was vaguely relying on the bus map in the bus and I thought I was a lot closer than I was. I was so mad (at myself) and I fully expected to get sent away without being able to take the class since I was about 8 minutes late. (If it were a Red Cross class I probably would've been.) (Also a bus issue. I caught the right bus to downtown and walked to the place for the bus I needed to catch and somehow I missed the busI was supposed to catch and caught the later one. Luckily I wasn't late (or wouldn't have been late if I had gotten off the bus at the right place).)

Clearly I watch too much Law & Order SVU

I had a dream this morning that disturbed the heck out of me. I dreamt that I was walking on Pine (by now I really should know which one is which and yet somehow I don't) near where the new Walgreens went in and in the parking lot (I know there's no parking lot there. In my dream it was in the place of the Egyptian Theater). There was a guy attacking his daughter. In THAT way... (Ok by THAT I mean seksually) She was struggling and I went to the car and broke the windshield and pulled him off his daughter and chased him down the street. Then Kiefer Southerland from 24 jumped out from behind the dental building and was mad at me for stopping the guy. Apparently they were trying to get the guy and others as part of a ring and were using the girl as bait. And so in my dream the cops yelled at me for screwing up their sting operation. And then the mom of the girl yelled at me because now all her kids were going to get taken away from her and separated into different foster homes. There was just a lot of guilt bogging me down in the dream.

Excruciating

I attended Red Cross first aid training tonight. Oh holy hell. It is excruciating. And it is always excruciating. Seriously. It was too long and I swear the things that they have us practice are so useless. Plus, the videos are so bad and the instructors weren't that great either. (The worst part... I gave them a good review. Why? I'm a volunteer and they were volunteers and they seemed nice enough even though they were not good trainers. I don't think it was necessarily their fault they weren't good. I think it was mostly the method that the Red Cross makes them train.) I sat there writing "Killing me..." over and over in my workbook. Seriously, the class was sapping my will to live. Tomorrow is CPR and I anticipate it also being icky. The videos rarely change. The knowledge doesn't. The tests don't. I wish there was a quicker and easier way to do this. Until I let my certifications lapse last year, I had been certified in CPR every year since I was 14. And I was certified in First Aid every year since I was about 17 or 18. Painful. Honestly.

Crazy Changable Seattle Weather

Yesterday I volunteered at the Northwest Folklife Festival. (Aka dirty hippie festival). I had a lot of fun and during the morning I volunteered next to a hottie acrobat. The things he could do on that trapeze... oh my. :) My left arm got a bit burned though and now there's a spot that is blistered. Yet the rest of my arm isn't even warm anymore. :(

So today, I go to my volunteer shift with short sleeves and my rain jacket only. And I was FREEZING. It was crazy cold outside. So weird. (Also no hottie mc hott at the next booth.)

Both days I've spent the day volunteering at a booth where this really nice old couple were teaching bocce ball to the kids. It was fun. I'll spend tomorrow doing the same thing. Yay! :)

Downloading fool

Thanks to this stupid committee I'm on, Sampson (the laptop) had to make an appearance at work today. Since I have all this great wireless downloadability here at the U, I decided to download a few more favorite episodes for Pica. So... although technically I was allowed to leave at 2 and it is now 2:13 I'm only still here because I'm downloading: Diversity Day and The Alliance from The Office and Die Hippie Die and Tssst from South Park. Yay! It should only be a few more minutes. :D

Shiny pink lipgloss

Tonight to take away the sting of having to talk about camping, I let the girls make their own lip gloss. First we went over the packing list. I said 'panties' multiple times which cracked them up. I loved it. :) Then we made our own lip gloss using a kit I got from Oriental Trading Company. (How much do I love them?!) It came with everything we needed and they were so thrilled with their little pots of gloss. After they left I made a pot for me too. :D I have to have sparkly lips too you know. :P

A blogger wish...

I wish that the tags were easier to fix when I make a mistake or think of a better tag title later on.

Also, someone who is more experienced with the phenomenon known as Itunes... how is it that you stop the syncing that screws stuff up? I have autosyncing turned off. BUT, the day before yesterday, I plugged Pica in to charge and then yesterday I noticed that my sad lone episode of the office was gone off of her. Hmm... So last night I plugged Pica back in and loaded it back on. Apparently it had pulled it off because it was set to sync unwatched episodes and since I had watched it apparently I didn't want it there anymore? But then while it was syncing pictures, it dropped the episode back off. It is a rather annoying thing and since I plan on deleting the episode from my hard drive, I don't want it to disappear off my iPod and not be able to get it back. (Maybe I have to turn off auto syncing with every tab??)

Unrelated... but sometimes my job makes me sad. In my work with benefits, I see the sick and the dying. We have a custodian who I adore. He's got the type of life that a lot of people would envy. He's got a wife that loves him and a farm and a chocolate lab puppy and an inoperable brain tumor. That will kill him. And we've got a painter (building not artistic) from Russia who came to this country with his wife whom I can tell he loves very very much and she has breast cancer. And I just spent about 20 minutes discussing with a professor his options to help care for his wife who also has an inoperable brain tumor. They've probably been married 25 - 30 years. Getting ready to do their last few years at their jobs and retire together. The daughter is grown and out of the house and now this. It is all just so sad...

My theories on child rearing

Stephen once asked me if I would ever date a guy with kids. I have thought about this before. And lets face it, as I get older, the odds are more and more that I'll face that scenario. So I thought about it and said "It depends on his relationship with the baby mama." Which, of course, prompted a puzzled look from him. So I explained my theory... if I'm part of a parenting 'team' so to speak, I want to know that my contributions aren't going to be undermined. I can fully and truly accept that I'm not the mother and hence my input to their child's decisions isn't going to have as much weight as either of theirs will, but at the same time, I don't want to find myself in a position where I'm denigrated or disregarded by the ex spouse and by extension the kid. If I lay down a punishment on the child or enforce a rule, I don't want the mom coming in and totally undermining me by giving in. As I would do the same and expect my husband to do the same for her.

One of my theories on kids is that the grown up shit shouldn't have to be the kid shit. It is our job, as adults, to make the kids feel secure and loved and all that and not have their heads messed up by our petty crap. I taught a kid once whose parents were divorced and he had a week on week off scenario where he lived back and forth. His dad claimed it cost him an arm and a leg but he thought it was important for the son. I talked to the son one day about it and he had a different problem with it... he would just be getting used to how his mom liked things and her rules and then he would have to go to his dads where the rules were different. He'd get in trouble for things at one house that weren't part of the rules at the other. And this went on all the time for him. I thought about what he said (and clearly it has stuck with me since that was over 12 years ago we had that talk) and realized how much that sucks for him. These adults in his life couldn't get their shit together to say these are the 'family' rules we expect you to follow at both houses.

Stephen also pointed out to me that I may marry someone who has different parenting styles than I do. Also a good point. I thought on that after we had dinner and realized (and we talked about this last night) that for me part of "My shit shouldn't be their shit rule" is that the grown ups have to learn to compromise. And grown ups have to present a united front. If my spouse is adamant about a clean room and I'm well, not but it isn't a big deal to me either way I totally don't have a problem giving in on that point. At some point Stephen and I had talked about financing education (mine was and his was not) and he was against it for his son (well not 100% but he also wouldn't hand a blank check and say here you go son, party your way through college). I am of the opinion that if I am in a financial position to be able to help out, it is my job to do so. I think we do kids a disservice by sending them out to the big bad world saddled with horrendous amounts of debt. So I used that example as something we both disagree on yet it could be possible to come to a middle ground by each side giving a little. For example if the kid worked and saved his/her money for college and then the parents matched the money earned then both parties are in a way getting what they want. The kid worked for the money so it isn't just 100% gift and yet I would be getting to contribute like I feel is important. :) And to further that point if at 18 my kid said, 'you know I don't want to go to college.' The money would give him/her a start out in their regular life.

Of course all of this is hypothetical. :) Goodness knows what will really happen if I were to find a guy to adopt kids with. It could throw all my idealized theories out the window. :) And of course, I'm not 100% certain that if said husband didn't stomp my heart into a million pieces by breaking one of my big 3 grounds for divorce (physical abuse of me or the kid, cheating and there's a 3rd that I can never remember) that I will be able to be mature enough to set aside the parent shit for the kids. But I can say that for all Satan's faults and no matter how much I loathed him, I never say a bad thing about him in front of his kids. And I yell at my parents (mother) when they do it because I really feel that isn't right. So maybe my cool unemotionalness will prevail. Who knows?! :)

do do dododo do do do do... Hi!

I'm restless. I may be driving my boss crazy today. Seriously. I'm twitchy and singy and by singy I mean I keep singing little songs and jittery. I also can't focus worth shit today. She may kill me. I don't necessarily blame her if she does. I'd kill me I think. :)

I thought I had more to say. But I don't. :)

Pretty good

The pool place we went to was actually pretty good. It is billed as chichi but it didn't seem overly so when we were there. I suspect strongly that if I were there on a Friday or a Saturday I would hate it. In fact when we were getting ready to leave I could see the patrons that were coming in were more what I expected to see there and more what would've annoyed me. I will say that I had the best plate of nachos ever there. It was huge and full of chickenny goodness and great cheese. Great yummy cheese.

Big R's boyfriend is a super nice guy. I really like him. Frighteningly (and Big R pointed this out himself) the boyfriend is somewhat a male version of me. Maybe I should take that as a compliment. :) He gave Big R the sweetest birthday present. He wants Big R to go camping with him (and this is a testament to their relationship that Big R is even considering it...). Big R is terrified of bears. (Who knows why.) So for his birthday the boyfriend got Big R bear spray, a bear bell, a book about what to do if a bear attacks, gummy bears and charmin toilet paper. Isn't that cute? Also a testament to their relationship... once upon a time Big R explained to me every thing he was unwilling to do with his partner, which for a gay man left almost nothing. They've crossed all those hurdles which I think is somewhat impressive since Big R was VERY adamant about that. :)

So two of my friends are now coupled up successfully (Lyday and Big R. Little hands is still a single gal). If I may have a moment of self-pity while I'm glad for my friends that they've found someone to make them happy for now. But it makes me sad for me. Am I that awful? You know?

Anyway, I've digressed and wallowed too much so moving on. Moment over.

I watched the last 1/2 of the season finale of Veronica Mars. Damn it was good, to me at least. If the whole season had been that good I don't think it would've been cancelled, but the rest of the season was not good. So sad for a show that started out with such promise and that I really loved the first season.

Cajun Style Pastries

I've had this new Chebe mix for cinnamon rolls or something like that for awhile now. Tonight I decided I wanted to bake them up. So I follow the instructions. Because I don't want to have too mnay I only bake 1/2 of the mix. I pop the other 1/2 in the freezer for later use. I do some variations based on the package. I twist some up with chocolate chips and others up with walnuts and the 3rd style I do is a braided rope style thing. All are relatively small, but (I will continue to insist this) I followed the instructions on the package. I heated up the oven to 375. Popped them in there for 30 minutes. About 25 minutes into I start thinking 'huh, that is really starting to smell...' I go into the kitchen and open the oven door. They're all dark. Dark dark. The ends are actually charred. They also didn't rise as high asI expected. The next time I try to cook them clearly I'll double check the oven temperature I set it to and watch them a little more carefully. :)

Stephen would declare it an addiction...

But, how excited am I that I walked from my employer yesterday all the way to downtown whilst watching 'The Injury' on my ipod? Seriously. It is awesome and you all should be jealous. :) I also then spent the time waiting for the bus playing Cubis2 on it. Since I have to bring the laptop to my office on Friday, I may download a couple of other fun episodes (of either The Office or something else, I don't know. The world's my oyster! :) ) Any suggestions? (I have only seen 2 episodes of Season 3. They were the one where Roy gets mad and punches Jim and the season finale.)

Apropos of nothing

Michelle recommended to me Pantene Ice shampoo and conditioner. It has made my hair so silky soft that I could just sit here and pet my hair all day long and be happy. :)

I am a petty petty girl.

This week is Big R's birthday. I messaged him on myspace last week and asked if he wanted to get together with little hands and I for lunch or dinner over the weekend. I didn't hear back (I feel compelled to point out that he logs into myspace every day and I saw that he had read the message). I texted him some silly message about how he can read my email but not be bothered to reply to it. He left me a VM about how he was at work and busy blah blah blah. I commented again to his myspace do you want to get dinner or lunch or something. I hear nothing back. Finally I hear from little hands that he messaged her on myspace letting her know there's a thing on Tuesday in Bellevue that this other friend of his is throwing but he's keeping out of it but she could go and let me know about it. She and I are honestly both peeved about this manner in which he asked us to go to this thing. I'm moreso than she is actually because he couldn't be bothered to even tell me directly about it? He had to invite me through someone else. And when little hands pointed that out to him he said that it was because it wasn't HIS deal and it was his friend's thing and he was keeping out of the invitees. He wasn't even sure if his own boyfriend was going. Little hands of course countered that his friend doesn't necessarily know me or the boyfriend and so he should logically invite whomever he wants to show up to it.

So now here's where I'm petty. #1 This is still bugging me for some reason. and #2 I don't want to go. Part of that is because of the way I was just kind of tagged in there 'oh ask J if she wants to come too.' and part of it is because I don't want to go to the place they're going. I'm also not that fond of his friends. They're all Eastside snobs. (Although I've not met his boyfriend, I think he is local and not at all snobby so he's probably okay.) I've met all his other friends and it could be me projecting but I definitely got a vibe from them. (Or maybe they were just giving back the vibe I gave them. Who knows.) In any event, this is not starting to sound like a fun night. But I'll go and I'll smile and I will have fun if it kills me. (And it just might. :D )

Monday already??

Last night I went to the Cuff, yet again, to help out with V's rugby thing. I spent the afternoon making jell-o shots. I've never made them before but now I know the secret. :) (Ok they aren't hard let's be honest. They are easy.) But I did make 300 something that the rugby guys sold tonight. (I have no idea how that went as I didn't go to the bbq tonight. I'm too tired of them.)

I hung out for about an hour after the party started, working the door. When they had other guys to do it I bailed. I was tired. But I did watch 6 episodes from season 2 of The Office. I really like the show. This past week it even won over Ugly Betty in the battle of the season finales. (I don't have Tivo. I don't want to get Tivo.)

Best laid plans

Y'all know how I do that thing where I have what I consider to be a brilliant idea and it doesn't work out the way I thought or hoped? Yeah. I hate it when that happens.

My latest flash of brilliance came about last night while watching the netflix dvd of The Office. I love the episode "The Injury" so much I wanted it for my ipod. So I thought, really, how big can it be? (heh 228MB in case you care.) So I order it on itunes without knowing the size and see it start. Ok Holy cow. On my dial-up this will take 12 hours. Well, I reason, I'll just let it run overnight and then in the AM I'll have this episode that I love so much and it will be on my ipod and all will be happy. Right?

Well, apparently not right. My dial-up disconnects after 8 hours. Do you know how fucking close I was to finishing the download at 8 hours??? More than 1/2 way. So I restart without thinking about another 8 hours and go back to bed. (Since it was like 6 the first time I woke up.) I figured that what had already downloaded would still be there. And apparently the download starts all over again. When I get up about 2 hours later, I'm nowhere near where I was before. Well okay, I think. Probably that didn't work because it had disconnected accidentally, but there's a "pause" downloading. So in my brilliance, I pause the downloading to test my theory and then log off and then log back on. And it starts all over again. Sigh.

So... Ultimately I give up altogether and pack up Sampson and Pica and walk to my office building. There we have fast fast wireless. :) Yay for fast fast wireless. :D I start the download over and allegedly 20 minutes later but once I moved to a better spot less than 5 minutes later I have "The Injury" on Pica. Yay. (I also download a new game for Pica, Cubis2 in case you care.) (Oh and whilst here I downloaded another computer game for the computer itself. Seriously, I could do this like every weekend.)

A cox overdose

I went to help out V with his rugby stuff last night. First we were at RPlace where I was giving out packets to the various team members. That was fun and easy and I had a good time with it.



Then he mentioned he may need some help at coat check at the Cuff. I agreed to go with him to that for a little while. The Cuff has never been my favorite gay bar. In fact, I avoid it because I'm usually uncomfortable there. Unlike the other gay bars, this one rarely has women in it. I always feel like I stick out like a sore thumb there. I discovered last night the other reason I don't like it. They have gay p0nr on all the tv screens. AND right where I was sitting doing my coatcheck I was surrounded by it. If I looked a little to the left there it was. If I looked a little to my right there it was. If I stared straight ahead I could see the reflection of one in the picture in front of me. It was far more than I ever needed to see. It was fun doing the coat check though. I laughed and chatted with gay boys. I did end up staying much much later than I had intended. I had originally intended to not stay as late as I had but I ended up staying until 2:00 AM. I think working the coat check raised over $150 for the rugby club so that was good.

Hmm Could be some truth?

So I read this little blurb article this morning and there could be some truth there... Hard to know since they usually speak in generalities, but it does sound like me...

If you’re a middle child: Contrary to their rep as insecure messes (think: Jan Brady), middle kids actually make stable and loyal partners. “One thing you’re not is spoiled,” Dr. Leman says. You probably grew up feeling you got less attention than your sibs, and that drives you to work for every perk—including a happy relationship. Also in the plus category: You’re “a compromiser and negotiator,” Dr. Leman notes, so you’ll give your partner plenty of say in everything from how quickly your relationship progresses to where you go on vacation together. And your romance should be free of daily petty squabbles (middles hate conflict); instead, you try to put others at ease.
Your love challenge: Opening up. Have you ever been told you’re hard to read? “Middle children can be very secretive,” says Dr. Leman. “They got hammered by the first-born and swindled by the baby, so they keep their cards close to their chest.” You’re also not the best communicator when you’re upset. But if you learn to speak up instead of holding your anger in, you’ll have a more harmonious relationship.
Best Match: Youngest child. “Middles aren’t as threatened by last-borns as they are by exacting first-borns,” so the odds are good for open communication, says Dr. Leman.

Ruminations on a variety of topics

Alcohol - Didja know that you can't buy alcohol over the internet. Well you can buy absinthe but why on earth would I buy my almost 21 year old nephew that for his birthday. Seriously I don't want my already geeky nephew to become THAT guy. :)

Movie - I am watching The Breakup. So far it feels uncomfortable and I'm not 100% sure I'm going to watch the whole thing. But I will say that based on what I've seen thus far (and I'm only at the bowling team thing) the initial escalation of the whole thing is 100% Gary's fault. The pool table thing was a completly bad idea. [Ok I've watched more and now I'm confused.] Is this movie supposed to be a rom/com? If so, I'm not seeing it. I can't actually figure out what genre it is supposed to be. Weird that. Ok, so why don't they end up together? Isn't that what we want out of a chick flick? [Eep! Stephen, some weird group is singing Rainbow Connection at the end of the movie. It is just wrong...]

Homebuying - I went to a seminar on land trusts as a way to buy a home tonight. I'm about $300 away from no longer qualifying so I probably will not apply. It was interesting. I had a couple of other concerns as well. Firstly, it limits the amount you get back on the future sale of the house. This I can respect and I'm not wholly against but the model they use doesn't really allow for housing growth. So if I were to buy a condo using their trust the amount of money I'd get back may not get me into a place where I could buy a new place. And since it is only for first time home buyers I'd be screwed for my next home purchase. (If I needed to expand due to familial expansion.) My other concern is a little more neurotic but it has to do with the fact that I feel kind of like if I were to end up getting assistance, I would be taking away from someone who really needs it more than I do, you know? In the meeting there were people from a variety of walks of life, but they all just seemed to need the financial assistance more than I do.

A long and possibly convoluted story involving littlehands - Finally, here's a question (if you've read this far I'm impressed). Littlehands and I have a friend who I have mentioned before, I usually call her roommate because she was littlehands' roommate. She was dating a guy for awhile and then he stopped calling, texting etc. And rarely answered her stuff. (How assy is that?!) So in the midst of this littlehands was fooling around on myspace and found what she thought was his female bff. (BFF had no pics on her page to verify that it was who she was). Littlehands and all of us really had had dinner with boyfriend and bff and roommate at some point. So littlehands messages her with a Hi. BFF messages back with do I know you? And littlehands replies that she thought that bff was this girl we met and littlehands was sorry for disturbing the person if she was wrong. Littlehands never heard back from the person and honestly forgot about it. Apparently roommate and (now ex) boyfriend have been communicating again and she just found out that littlehands had messaged bff. Roommate has FLIPPED OUT. She screamed at littlehands and is not sure she can be friends with her anymore. So littlehands gets that she probably shouldn't have messaged the bff, especially because apparently bff and now exboyfriend all decided amongst themselves that it was really roommate asking littlehands to do it and not littlehands on her own. But how freaked out would you be? (We're all more freaked out that roommate is talking to exboyfriend especially considering he could believe such a thing about her.)

Encores at shows - Ooh final rumination... I hate encores at shows. When I work at The Paramount, we know exactly when the artist is expected to go on and when s/he will be done with the stage. So the whole encore concept is a crock. Really the artist is just forcing us to beg for what s/he has already planned to give us. AND it wastes our time with the artist since s/he goes off stage... waits a few minutes then comes back and does 2 songs then leaves and comes back. S/he could have played a song or two in that time.

Michelle visited me in a dream

I had a dream that Michelle came to visit. But I wouldn't let her in my apartment because it was too messy so while we were driving from the airport (surrounded by amazingly lush green pastures, it was definitely NOT Seattle) I was trying to go on hotels dot com (which is funny in that in my dream the webpage was up exactly the way hotels dot com really is) to find a hotel I could afford to put her up in. Actually I was trying to be all sly and pretend like the reason I wanted us to stay in a hotel was for the fun and pampering and all that. Hee. (Like she totally wouldn't see through that.) Then suddenly it was like I had morphed into a Supernatural episode. The boys were there. We had to be standing in a square or touching a certain wall in this old church to make sure the demons wouldn't get us. The demons were these red whispy ghost looking things. (Not even ghost looking things more like red scarves but longer.) And then I woke up... Very weird. Ooh also Michelle was gone by the time the supernatural thing started and in my dream she was middleish pregnant so she had a pregnant belly but not like PREGNANT.

Friend: To see your friends in your dream, signifies aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to integrate these rejected part of yourself. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. Additionally, this symbol foretells of happy tidings from them and the arrival of good news.

Green: Green signifies a positive change, good health, growth, healing, hope, vigor, vitality, peace, and serenity. Green is also symbolic of your strive to gain recognition and establish your independence. Money, wealth and jealousy are often associated with this color.

Red: Red is an indication of raw energy, force, vigor, intense passion, aggression, power, courage and passion. The color red has deep emotional and spiritual connotations.
Red is also the color of danger, shame, sexual impulses and urges.?Perhaps you need to stop and think about your actions.?

Computer: To see a computer in your dream, symbolizes technology, information, and modern life. New areas of opportunities are being opened to you. Alternatively, computers also represent a lack of individuality and non expression of emotions and feelings. Too often you are just going along with the flow, without voicing your own opinions and views. You may also feel a depreciated sense of superiority.

Ghosts: In general, ghosts symbolizes aspects of yourself that you fear. This may involve a painful memory, guilt, or some repressed thoughts. You may be afraid of death and dying. Alternatively, ghosts are representative of something that is no longer obtainable or within reach. It indicates a feeling of disconnection from life and society. This dream may be a calling for you to move on and abandon your outdated modes of thinking and behavior.

Interesting. It all seems to be pointing that I'm a big ol' scardy cat. :) I don't know. I suppose deep down I do know what it all means.

Shoulda woulda coulda

I walked past a condo building (is that right or am I being redundent?) this morning and noticed the flyer posted for one for sale. $268,000 for 1 bedroom and 687 square feet. Had I bought in that building when I first thought about it a couple of years ago, I could've bought one for $189k and roughly the same size. Sigh. At this rate, I'll move to someplace cheaper. :)

Also I'm seriously now regretting the decision to rejoin eharmony. If I didn't have friends who had success with it I wouldn't have done it. I was just saying to Lyday last night that I felt like I had been baited and switched. While I was not a member I was getting tons of matches blah blah blah. Now that I've joined I get very few. So then this morning I was semi-excited that I had 5 new matches. By the time I logged in, 4 had already closed. Le sigh. I know it has only been a week and I've paid for 3 months by gum but still.

Cedar River Watershed

Sunday we went to the Cedar River Watershed. It was awesome. Basically it is where all of Seattle's fresh water comes from. There's also a hydroelectric power plant there (although the amount of power generated is minimal). It was really beautiful there. There were these houses built in the 1900s that the engineers lived in. The whole area was so untouched. Seriously it was awesome. Although it was also very cold outside. Stephen came along,and I think he may have caught frostbite. Poor boy was shivering.

A pretty flower. I think it is a dogwood, but I could be wrong.

Rattlesnake Ridge. There are no rattlesnakes on our side of the Cascades (Cascades?) but apparently a certain flower that we do have a lot of has a seed pod that when it blows in the wind it sounds like a rattlesnake. There were actually people up at the top of that. I know there's a hiking trail to get up there and I'm sure the view is AMAZING but you ain't getting my ass up there. :)

Stephen on the dam.

The Cedar Falls waterfall. Isn't it pretty. The picture doesn't really do it justice. The water was so incredibly blue. Like a crayon it was so perfectly blue. There was a better platform to take the pictures from but during the great windstorm we had, it was damaged beyond stability.

This is Chester Morse Lake. Basically, this is where Seattle's water hangs out. We are one of only a few cities that have unfiltered water come to us because of this watershed. (It does get treated but it doesn't require filtration as part of its treatment.) Boston, NYC, Portland and a couple other places who I have forgotten are the only cities in the US whose water is that pure.

The view from the dam. The dam has a name but I've already forgotten it. The lake on the other side is our water as well. The dam is what generates the power. There were two times in the history of the dam where the dam destroyed towns. Hence, the lake is only allowed to get so high before the city has to reduce the water in it.

The lake view from the dam.

Me in front of Rattlesnake Ridge.

The group that went.

Roots of a tree that was overturned. It was just so amazingly interesting and pretty to me.

Don't jump, Stephen!

GS Camping

The camping trip I went on the weekend before last was for the scouts. It was a weekend challenge for older girls. The girls were assigned to groups and had to work together and do team building activities. (Now I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I don't do trust activities. Well, bottom line is of course that I don't trust people but... when I was a camp counselor at my first GS camp job, we had a ropes course at the camp. You have to start out doing trust activities. I couldn't do the basic fall where they just pushed you back up. So then the lead counselor made me do one off the table. The girls line up in a row and catch you in their arms. The first week the kids caught me, no problem (well I did scream which they all thought was funny). The 2nd week the kids didn't. I ended up in the emergency room with a concussion and spent 24 hours in the infirmary. And... worse... I had to do it with the same group of girls. Nightmare! I did it. We all survived.)

My bunk. It was indoors. Yay!

The actual cabin. They were REALLY nice.

The arts & crafts barn. Isn't it cute?

These are cool mushrooms. I don't know what type they are.

The lake!

The camp director. This is going to be very unkind of me but seriously it is rather true. In MY experience, there are three types of women who work for GS. Fat ones, lesbians or ones who fit both bills. It is the oddest thing, but honestly every person who was out there that worked for our council was one of those 3. (Wait, there WAS one teeny tiny girl who may have been both straight and skinny. She's a rare species though.)

This was the units the girls were staying in. They sleep 4 to each cabin. Cute!

What to say...

Remember my friend who died suddenly last year? They are putting together a memory book for her son. I'm struggling with what to say. I hate this kind of thing. I am not that type of person. But even moreso I feel sad that the person putting together the project had to come around and ask because she needs more memories. Somehow that is even sadder to me. Time has passed. People get busy. The funeral was a packed house (and honestly the saddest funeral I've ever been to. When my sister died that was sad in one way personal to me, but this was sad in a whole other way. Perhaps because my sister didn't die suddenly. She'd been sick for a very long time.) and so I know people feel about this. Maybe they're like me and just staring at the monitor trying to make the words come.

Reminds me of my pops.

Last night I dozed off while on the sofa at like 10:30. Really I should've gotten up and went to bed. So when I woke up at 11:00 I logically decided to go to bed. And then I discovered that that 30 minute catnap screwed me up totally. So I tossed and turned and tossed before I remembered that I had looked at my Danskos last week and thought, 'hmm, I need to polish these.' So that's what I did last night. I hopped out of bed and got my little shoe polishing kit and polished both pair of my black Danskos so they look all shiny and pretty again. It reminds me of my pops because when I was little Sunday was boot polishing day and I would help him by taking the shoe brush to the boots. (He wore cowboy boots every day to work. I don't know why. An Arizona thing I suppose.) (I have no idea why the shoe brush totally works but it does. Weird that.)

I did a lot this past weekend, only 1 thing (oops 2 things) were volunteering. I volunteered at Rent (warning: it launches with music) on Friday night and at the Letter Carrier's Food Drive on Saturday. Yesterday I went to the Cedar River Watershed which was way cool. I'll have pictures up later.

Rent was okay this round. This is the 4th time I've seen it and I like some of the other ones better. I will say that they were very polite. I got to the theater at 6:30 (which is the usual volunteer call time) and Roger was milling around talking with people. And just after the doors opened the actor playing Mark and one of the actresses in the chorus came out and they were very funny about making sure we knew they were with the show so we would let them back in.

Snoqualmie Falls

Two, maybe three weeks ago I went to Snoqualmie Falls with Lyday. I don't think I ever posted the pictures from there. (Maybe I did and y'all are getting a repeat of the photos. Who knows. I had pulled them off the camera, I discovered this when I was pulling other pics off the camer and was in the process of saving a photo into a newly made Snoqualmie Falls folder when I discovered a second Snoqualmie Falls folder full of edited photos. Who knew? Also, unrelated, all of my Sunday Adventure photos go in a Sunday Adventure folder which then has sub folders. The damn folder is getting kind of big.)

On with the photos:

That's a picture of the Snoqualmie Falls with the lodge behind it. Aren't they pretty?! I love waterfalls. (Ok who doesn't? That's like saying I love puppies.)

The falls from below. There's a trail you can walk down a big hill to get to a landing spot. You are not supposed to be down where those people are. I have a pic showing the sign. You'll see it. There was also a funny little girl sitting on top of the rock you can just see in the foreground. She kept scurrying down and gathering boulders and then scurrying back up the rock and throwing them into a pool that was formed. It was funny. Ultimately we figured out she was trying to drench her dad.

Lyday at the falls. She doesn't really like people to take pictures of her.

Me at the falls. Notice my hair going everywhich way and my ever beloved green UAF sweatshirt. I still love that sweatshirt so much. I wear it camping every year when we go. It is awesome.

An interesting tree trunk on the trail. I like how another tree is basically using it and building itself from it.

Here's the sign about why you aren't supposed to climb down by the falls. Too bad I missed the shot that had the guy climbing over the wall right next to the sign.

A river kayaker. He was pretty cool they would fight upriver and then let the water push them back and one ended up doing the eskimo roll thing because he ended up underwater.

Just another shot of the falls. Cool, eh?

Other thoughts

1 - Ok I'm not THAT serious about this project. I just closed someone because his profession is dentist. I'm scared of the dentist. I can't cope with that.

2 - I've caused discord and strife amongst the boys at Ranier Vista Community Center. They are frequently outside my grocery store selling for $5.00 these packages of candy. I'll buy them after I go into the store to buy groceries and get cash. I will buy one from each kid. We've established this pattern. I'll double check how many boys are there (because I did once and only got $10 out and then a 3rd showed up and I felt bad but I only bought from the two that were there first.) and go in and do my shopping and buy one from each boy. Tonight as I was going in the tall boy was saying something about how I'm his customer. I really didn't pay attention, but I did come out with my 3 5s. Shortest boy said something about how I didn't have to buy from him and I could buy one from one of the other two. I said that wasn't fair and I wasn't going to do that. It is almost enough to stop me from doing it altogether. (I really think they should have a grown up of sorts outside hanging out with them to lend their project an air of legitimacy and to provide them with the guidence they need to sell them well.)

3 - According to the evil empire's website the reason my cpu usage goes up to 100% has to do with auto update. I've turned it off and we'll see if it works after that. Stupid evil empire.

Summer Project

So I have broken down and paid eharmony. I've signed up for 3 months. I'm jumping into this whole heartedly. I have sent the first communications to like 15 guys. We'll see what happens. I have a couple of pictures posted so they can see what they're getting. :) One guy was one who did the first communication and has already responded to my questions. We'll see how it goes. Big R and Lyday have both found men online. I have faith. (Cuz you got to have faith.... got to have faaaiith... :P )

It is good for my heart in more ways than 1

So I volunteer a ton, as y'all know. But now I just received an email about an article about how good it is for your health to volunteer 2 hours a week. (More than that is superfluous... good to know. I can cut back. :D ) Apparently it can cut my odds of heart disease, depression, and increase my longevity. Yay! From the article:

"There is now a convergence of research leading to the conclusion that helping
others makes people happier and healthier. So the word is out – it's good to be
good. Science increasingly says so,” said Dr. Stephen Post, a professor at the
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and co-author of the
forthcoming book “Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New
Research That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier,
Happier Life."

Here's the article. It does seem to indicate that a lot of these studies were done on people over 65, but whatever. It can apply to me too. :) (So all the bad things I do to my heart by eating bacon and hash browns every morning I can totally volunteer away!)

Only Morrissey Understands

When V & I were in college we used to play the Legend of Zelda while listening to Morrissey. Only Morrissey understands, we'd lament. I never fully got it until I listened to him last night. I was a volunteer at the Paramount for his show. I sold ear plugs during the opening act and the intermission. It was pretty fun. I got to answer questions at the desk. I kind of enjoyed it. I wouldn't necessarily mind doing it again. I also ended up handing out coats at coatcheck at the end of the night.

His show was good. Although I was exhausted from camping, more on that in a different post. I did find myself dozing off during some of his first songs. (It seems to be a pattern with me since I also dozed off during the Decemberists and sadly during the Foo Fighters. Loreena McKennitt next week should send me into a full fledged coma. :) ) But then I moved seats so I could see and I stayed more riveted to the show. He did How Soon is Now, which I LOVE. And while listening to it I finally got it. Strangely I've heard that song hundreds of times but until he was playing it live I had just heard the words. Now I know... only Morrissey understands. :)

The ridiculosity of it all... (A ridiculously long work post about IT crap)

I just got off the phone with a demonstration of an online benefits tool that the developers sounded so gleeful over and just made my head hurt.

I feel I should back up. When I worked for the dotcom in CA at some point, we signed up for an online benefits tool. I was heavily involved in the training and testing and the building of it for us. It was awesome. It was pricey but it was awesome. It had its issues, don't get me wrong, but compared to what I do now and compared to what we've been shown by my IT group, it was near perfection. New employees could go in and do their enrollments. Current employees who had status changes could go in and do their changes and then we also used it for open enrollment. See all the functionality? (Ok, I did have to pull a report from payroll to upload to the database which that part was easy but I also had to do a crappy email matching thing to put the email addresses into it which sucked)

Currently we use an Access 2000 database. (One reason to hate the evil empire, Stephen, their own upgrades don't work with some of their products. Publisher can be the same way.) The database (with well over 1200 employees) has crashed every other version of Access I've tried to open it with. (Access 2007 may be okay, I haven't worked too much with it.) For the past 2 years that I've been here, I've done triple entry around open enrollment time. I enter crap into the access database. I enter a new hire into the first database and then I enter them into the 2nd database (because each year we have to rebuild the new database completely) and then I enter them into stupidass datatel.

Last year we got serious about looking at online vendors. We want them to submit the applications to the carriers electronically. We want them to load the deductions into stupidass datatel. We want it all. We went out to bid. We found a company that was awesome. We got good references for them. We were ready to go and just waiting on budget approval. Our loathesome IT department convinced the people in charge of the purse strings that they could build it themselves. HA! It will never happen. BUT we did get one good thing out of it. They managed to hook the access front up to a sequel (I know that's wrong) back end and for open enrollment only they can load the deductions into stupidass datatel. I still manually enter people into Access. I still manually enter new hires and changes. So we've taken a teeny tiny babystep.

This is a hugeass back story to get to where I'm going which is that I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with stupidass datatel and they are building an online benefits tool. I know we're going to get stuck with this shite and that's what it is... shite! It will ONLY work for open enrollment. It will NOT communicate applications to vendors. AND It will require a whole bunch of codes to do what we currently do with about 8 codes. (For example... it will take 22 different code options to set up 1 person with a medical plan for them only.) Which would be fine if this system could work for everything... both new hires and changes and open enrollment. It won't so I'll have to use these 22 different codes just to set up 1 person with medical insurance. It is like I'm dying of thirst in the desert and someone throws me a grape. Ok that will help, but really an oasis would be much better.

Stephen, you want to teach me to build computery geeky softwarey things so I can build one? ;) That way I could be rich!

Make Way for Ducklings!

Yay! The ducks are back. And they've brought babies! (Or they've had babies somewhere on campus. Last year was the first year they had babies apparently. I saw the boy and girl duck waddling around campus and then they disappeared so I assumed they moved on this year but they're back! (One of my favorite things prior to this, I would see all these cute little duck prints in the mud in one section of the lawn that a car had driven over so the grass wasn't growing. So cute.)

Also, y'all shouldn't be envious because I'm leaving work early today to do something fun like go camping. :) I'm volunteering to help out with a Girl Scout weekend. I'm pretty excited. I get to just enjoy the camping and hanging out with the kids without the actual responsibility of anything. :)

Last night the girls and I tried to make fire starters. We dipped paper egg crates with lint into wax. I'm not 100% certain they will work. I may take some with me this weekend to see if I can get one to burn. I think the girls used too much wax. They were a little zealous about the waxing of the egg cartons. And the wax wasn't paraffin wax which would work better but a soy based one that we could microwave. My hands did feel very soft yesterday after finishing the work. :)

Also, I'm really starting to enjoy Glutino products. I just had some vanilla wafer cookies and they are pretty darn good. They are weirdly packaged in that in the box of 10 cookies (yes 10 cookies... 5 bucks for 10 cookies... the wrongness of gluten free food.) has 2 cookies per little wrapped bundle. Yet the serving size is 3 cookies. So weird.

It's my most wonderful day of the year!

Forgive me a moment or 4 of bragging. Today is the annual benefits fair. I coordinate it. I invite all the guests. I secure the door prizes. I order the food. I spend 4 hours greeting and gladhanding employees and chatting with everyone. I rock! And as always it turns out amazingly well. And everybody always thinks it is awesome. And people rave about my food choices. And the vendors are all thrilled because I feed them. And we have a great turn out. And everybody thinks I'm awesome for arranging all of it. And everybody is impressed by me. And all in all I rule! :)

There is a little song that goes with this day for me: (Stolen from the most wonderful time of the year)
It's my most wonderful day of the year!
We have snacks and door prizes and vendors with toys and lots of good cheer!
It's my most wonderful day of the year!

(Yeah yeah it isn't good but I sing it every year. :D)

Yeah, you want to work for my company, you know you do. Also I got better reviews than the all company meeting we had last week. Ha! Take that Mission Day! (Yes Mission Day is exactly what it sounds like... we spend the day talking about our mission. And we had a "graphic interpretor" or something like that who drew pictures of what we were talking about. Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds.)