Indecisive

I'm going through another bout of indecisiveness. I go through them periodically, usually when I'm tired or overwhelmed or something.

I couldn't decide what to eat for lunch today. I just wanted to eat.
I couldn't decide if I wanted to go to dinner with Stephen tonight. I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

I think buying my plane tickets has broken my brain for the time being. Maybe tomorrow I can make a decision.

Worst flights ever

I may have just booked the worst flights known to man to visit my family in AZ over Thanksgiving. (Related, I just remembered that my college does shuttle buses to the airports for holidays. I may luck out at least on my outbound trip and not have to take the bus or a cab. Yay.) I'm leaving on Monday at 5:55 PM. (That's why it is good that my employer does shuttles I can just catch one at work yay!). I arrive in Tucson at 11:42 that night. Yuck. The return flight is even worse.... I leave Tucson at 10:30 at night and arrive in Seattle at 2:53 in the morning with a flight change in Vegas. BUT I did manage to get all aisle seats which make me happy so at least I'm not flying in the middle of the night in a MIDDLE seat... or worse (to me at least) in a window seat with people in the other two seats. (I don't like the feeling of being closed in when I'm at a window seat with people in the other two seats. I'm fine at a window seat with nobody in the middle seat.)

I think it's because I got an email from her

But I dreamed about Kate and Dave last night. It was a weird dream and when I first woke up I remembered much more of it than I do now. Basically we were in college again, but we were our current ages and they were married and they had their kids. I only remember the kids part because the first part of the dream I was talking to Dave and I remember asking him where the kids were and why weren't they with him. But I don't remember his answer. So then I'm having to go to my dorm room and to get there I had to crawl up this really steep grade. It was so steep we had to do it on our hands and knees. And I think Kate appeared briefly in this part. But mostly I was crawling up this steep grade that was like a roller coaster track when the things I was crawling on started to fall and I fell through the track to the ground below.

Migraine!

I volunteered yesterday and today at the Pacific Science Center for their Halloween event. It was really fun, it always is. But about 1/2 way through yesterday I started getting a headache. It sucked. It was a migraine. I finished my shift and went to get some dinner. I thought maybe I hadn't had enough caffeine. That was not the case. I was sitting in the Seattle Center House holding my head and shielding my eyes because I felt so awful. Finally I got up and headed for the bus. I went to the stop near a Rite-Aid. I went in to get Excedrin Migraine (Clearly my migraines aren't too awful, Excedrine Migraine is all I usually need) and while I was waiting for the girl in front of me to buy her 30 bags of candy (ok probably not that many) and rummaging around for her cash my damn bus went by. That meant another 20 minutes of waiting. I sat at the stop and leaned my head against the bus shelter. A woman offered me a transfer. I think she may have thought I was homeless. :) FINALLY the bus came and I crashed at 8:00 when I got home. I slept until 6 this morning. How awesome is that?! I had a weird dream involving Kate this morning. I'll write a separate post about that.

Today I went back to the Pacific Science Center to volunteer again. I like it, but I'm actually kind of on the fence about volunteering for them again. In past years we gave out treats and did arts and crafts with the kids. This year they've done what several other places I've volunteered for do. They've gotten sponsors. I can understand the need. It allows them to have more activity options and costs them little to no money. The downer is that all the crafts were sponsored by various groups so I didn't get to help with any of that. That's my favorite part! So instead I did a lot of "roving" and "monitoring" and standing. I did have to work a couple of treat stations which have potential but one was in the lobby of the IMAX and so people barely came by.

Then Stephen picked me up and he and Ben and I went to the Zoo. They do a pumpkin prowl. It was fun but not what I expected. I think I thought we'd get to see animals.

A sign of the day to come?

I was putting stuff in my backpack this morning, getting ready to leave when I hear "tsssssssssss..." I investigate. It's coming from my backpack. I start to dig through all the crap that's in there until I discover the culprit. A can of soda has gotten poked with a pin and is now happily filling the bottom of my pack with Pepsi. Awesome. I tossed the can in the tub (nearest thing that had a drain) and cleaned out the crap that I needed for work/scouts today and changed bags. When I left Tess was happily chewing on the bottom of my backpack to get any soda out of it.

I lost.

I've been battling with something at work that I feel intrinsically is wrong. Perhaps I feel it because I honestly don't trust the person asking for the information, but I also feel she shouldn't have asked for it. She kept pushing. I kept saying no and a compromise was reached. We'd consult an outside source. The outside source says no violation so I have to give over the info. I still don't like it, but at least I know I did what I could to keep that info protected.

Shoes

What do y'all think. These are some ideas I've had, although I'm sure they're the wrong ones. ;) My sister told me I can't wear Tevas to this thing. She's no fun.

Option A. From Zappos.com. I don't think I like the square heel but I do like them otherwise. (I don't like rectangle heels like that usually) But I do like the ankle strap.

Option B. Also from Zappos. I don't think I like them actually but maybe. Hard to know.

Option C - Although they do look alarmingly high. But it isn't every day I go to a fancy thing.

Option D - Also alarmingly high. Actually now that I look at them seriously they are SERIOUSLY alarmingly high.

This is an artist's rendering of shoe option E. These are shoes I already own at home. :) They are black and strappy but it is a matte strappy since they are suede I think. They are highesh but since it is a thick heel I'm not worried because it is very secure.

Man Up

I've got to call someone and stand up for what I believe is right even though she's higher on the food chain than I am. I don't want to be a grown up sometimes.

The dress - Better??

So I went out shopping today and I was just going to look, but I fell in love with this dress at Nordstroms. The sales lady said that it was black tie and both sales ladies who helped me loved it so that's good I suppose. I love it.

Please forgive the excessively bad angle. Fat chicks should not be shot from the bottom. However, since the stairwell is the only place where I can set up my camera at a decent height that's why I go there.

Just the dress on the hanger. It is kind of hard to describe the color. The pictures make it seem silver but it isn't really. The silk bottom part is probably sagey, but a pale sage and the lace is silvery blackish gold. Very hard to describe.

This is the bottom part of the dress along with the wrap I bought to go with it. I went to the downstairs part and just said 'tell me what to buy.' I think they like that. :) This is the link to the wrap, although the website doesn't have it in the color I bought.

Slightly better angle. The bra strap that you can see is not the one I'll be wearing. I AM wearing an industrial undergarment in these photos though. I bought a new spanx high panty thing. I can now see why they are as expensive as they are. Next up... shoes. Sigh. :)

Wiped the fuck out

I'm coming down with a cold. There'll be a whole post on the difficulties in buying pseudoephedrine later.

I've had a long ass week that cumulated in me telling our corporate legal counsel that I will not give her the information she is requesting because I believe she does not have the right to the information. This could become fun.

I then spent 2 hours using our crappyass computer system to find salaries for faculty and in the process discovered a whole assload of them who termed and I didn't know it.

I'm going to spend the whole weekend reading about TQM (kidding) and lying in my pjs until I feel better.

Tangentially Related

Who knew that Nordstrom.com actually uses real plus sized models to display some of their stuff? One of the complaints I have had and I know others have had about places like Lane Bryant is that their models are plus sized, but they are 14 which is the smallest size Lane Bryant carries. It makes it somewhat hard to determine really what that looks like on my kind of girls. Well... looking at Nordstrom's page of "party dresses" for the plus sized gal, my red dress looks (to my mind) a lot like what they're showing so maybe it is okay?

HELP!!!

I've been invited to go to the gala that my employer puts on every year. This is a black tie event. I've never been to a black tie event. What do I know about a black tie event?! I am excited to go but at the same time I'm freaking out a bit. I'm not fancypants. So I THINK this dress might work for a black tie affair. I bought it years ago, yet have never ever had an occasion to wear it. So it sadly hangs in my closet all sad. It is red and the stripey part is an overlay of that thin kind of material... I'm sure there's a word for it, I just don't know what it is. Of course I would be wearing industrial undergarments with it (which I'm NOT wearing in the pic) and I have a pair of black strappy sandals with a chunky heel and I would get a black wrap to wear with it. What do y'all think? Does this look potentially okay or should I field trip out to find a black tie type outfit??

Snippets

When I was little apparently I used to like cutting paper smaller and smaller and making what my mother called snippets. They drove her nuts. In retrospect I'm not sure why they did since we were not the neatest people on the planet.

This morning I woke up and had the country Malawi on my mind. I have absolutely no idea why or what I was dreaming about in relation to the country. A few days ago my horrorscope said I should pay attention to my dreams, they are trying to tell me something. Are they trying to tell me to buy a Malawian baby? :) Probably not.

I was trying to think about other Halloween costume ideas for this year. I volunteer every year at the Pacific Science Center, which I love, and they encourage us to dress up in G-Rated costumes. Usually I wear my poodle skirt that I made 2 years ago and a white sweater and go as a 50's girl. This year I was thinking of something else. I briefly thought about dressing up like a postulent nun (I think that's the type before they finish their vows) ala Sister Act. How hard could it be? A black skirt and dark sweater and sensible shoes and a black scarf with a white band. I either have all of that or could obtain it easily. Then I laughed to myself because the only crucifix I have is a glow in the dark one from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Hee.

I watched Mary Poppins on the big screen yesterday with Ben and Stephen. It is a LONG movie, 2+ hours. Also the big screen really highlights how bad Dick Van Dyke's teeth were then (as well as the little boy's and the little girl's.) Ben got restless towards the end. I love the movie though and I've never seen it in a theater so that was pretty awesome.

Fun meeting

Last night we had a great meeting! It was fun. We have a new girl and she was actively engaged. It's meetings like that that make me love being a leader. We played charades for the theater badge. I wrote up a bunch of different type characters and they had to guess what each other was doing and then I let them make up their own. It was fun. They weren't unruly. I like meetings like that. :)

Moneywatch day 4

It's been 3 full business days since I called the bank. The money is STILL there. Seriously. Now I'm getting annoyed. I called the bank again today and the woman today put a hold on the money so I can't accidentally spend it. I probably wouldn't since there still is some of my own money in there, but that's a nice gesture. She and I are both a little surprised that noone has called the bank saying where the hell's my money? Clearly that person is more independently wealthy than I.

Moneywatch Day 3

The money is still there. Of course it is only 8:41 in AK, but still. I called them almost 24 hours ago.

In other news... I bought new shoes! These were also purchased at Nordstroms but future Nordstroms purchases are tabled until my customer issue gets resolved. I took my other danskos in to be repaired and they can't fix them and they did not offer to replace them for me, instead blaming me for the way I walk (which is not necessarily untrue but the it really varies from shoe to shoe because my tennis shoes don't look like that at all and my physicial therapist actually thinks I walk inward). I was actually fine but Big R was incensed so he's emailing them today. (It helps to be friends with a diva! :) )

Random Extra Money part 2

I got a hold of the bank this morning. I told them that I was 100% positive that it wasn't my money and the person looked up the transaction. It was done in person at a branch in Fairbanks so she is now researching the money to find out where it should have gone or whose money it is. Hopefully the person isn't NEEDING that money. It's 4 days without their cash. (Although if it is some sort of Karmic anonymous good deed, I won't turn it down. ;) )

Random Extra Money!

Too bad it isn't really mine. I just went online to check my account balances for the rest of the month (since I'm horribly horribly horrible at budgeting) and there is randomly more money in my Alaskan account than there should be. And by more money I mean over $1,000 more. Only $500/mo gets deposited into that account so you can imagine my surprise when I looked it up and there is over $1,000 in there. There are two deposits listed for October 4th. Sadly, for me at least, they weren't made by me. I have someone elses money and that stresses me out a little bit because I don't want someone else to be worried about where their money is. You know?

Maybe I could get new dots...

I drove out to my new favorite GF bakery today. Again it was yummy, AND the owner is so awesome that when I commented that there were no 'smoreos' she went into the back and put 8 together for me. I am slightly embarrassed though because apparently she read my blog post about her bakery. (which now that I reread the post I wish she had had some creme puffs because damn those were awesome.) Anyway, she remembered me and remembered reading my post. How embarrassing... although since I didn't say anything bad I guess I shouldn't be embarrassed. In fact it was clearly a rave review. :) I felt the same way when the producer of the movie I worked on commented that he read my blog post about the movie. It's like I've gotten caught gossiping or something. Anyway, I've fully digressed...

When I was out in Maple Valley I briefly entertained the idea of moving out to the middle of nowhere. I like the middle of nowhere. I can't imagine what the commute would be like. It would require 2 freeways just doesn't seem like it would be fun at all. Plus I would have to get a car blah blah blah. But it is a nice dream.

Sometimes I wonder about the career path I have taken. If I continue to work in benefits (which, why on earth would I want to start yet another new career path?) that will require me to stay working in larger areas. Not necessarily as large as a city like Seattle or whatever, but I would have to stay in a place that has businesses beyond what you usually find in small towns. (Well not all small towns. I know when I lived in Indiana which was a relatively small town it was the location of a large furniture manufacturer plant, including the fact that they own Brosendorfer pianos which are the ones Tori Amos uses) but still... you get my point. Hmm... this post did meander didn't it.

3:10 to Yuma

I watched that movie last night... the new version not the 50's version. I don't know what I was expecting but I did like it. (Although I was weirdly distracted by the lack of saguaro cactuses in "Arizona". I grew up about 30 minutes from Bisbee and looking at a map, Contention (where they were going to) . We have saguaros. :) I think I liked it. Although it wasn't what I expected at all. I did require quite a bit of suspension of belief. But it is definitely a movie that has stuck in my head. I googled the original movie and then I ended up googling the story. Once I saw the cover of the original publication of the story, I realized why there was such a distinct 'honor among thieves' theme to the movie. I don't think I'm giving anything away with that. :)

Anytime I watch a western (which I weirdly love westerns) I always want to go riding. It's been years since I've been on a horse. I went once in college and prior to that I hadn't been on a horse since my childhood. I don't actually like horses, truthfully, but it takes me back really to my youth. And I can still remember riding from my hometown to Tombstone. So I think westerns remind me of that. AND since many westerns allegedly take place near where I grew up, I'm always on the look out for things I should recognize. That rarely happens, though. Although Unforgiven did film near where I grew up AND one of my students when I taught school was a kid extra in it.

2.7 miles

Today I had a meeting at a branch of the library for my new brownie troop. I got off at the wrong stop. Apparently there are two libraries on Rainier. I asked the woman in the library and she said it was about 7 minutes away in car. How far can that be I thought... 2.7 miles. That's how far it is. I leave the wrong library and start out on foot. I've got 20 minutes until my meeting is due to start. I figure I'll hike down there, it can't be that far. That was a frequent thought in my mind. I kept thinking actually as I walked "it can't be much further... it can't be much further..." And then I thought I'd catch a bus, but I'd stand and wait at the stop and get impatient so I'd leave and I'd be about 1/2 way between 2 stops and the damn bus would go by. OR I'd be at a stop and waiting and an express bus would go by and not stop on my stop. It took me almost an hour and 20 minutes and there are now blisters on the bottom of my feet. But I made it to the meeting and I've got a new troop of first grade brownies to start to corrupt. (This is in addition to my current junior troop.) I'm kind of stoked about them. :)

I like free good PR

I was sitting in my office yesterday afternoon when someone from our events group called. It seems there's a large, nationally known charity who would like to have an event here with a bus and information and fliers. Ordinarily when a non college group wants to hold something on campus they have to pay. Clever event guy called me. Since the large charity is health related he said we could sponsor it and then they wouldn't have to pay. Heck yeah we'll sponsor it. When I announce it, it'll look like our office is all concerned and stuff (and we are) so we'll get credit for bringing them here and all I did was answer the phone. Awesome.

Also I got head hunted this morning. I'm completely underqualified to be a sr. manager of retirement plans but whatever. I wonder if this is what it is like to be Stephen. ;)

Another Weekend of Reckless Abandon

Saturday morning I volunteered with my employer's Day of Caring. (It is a United Way thing where you go volunteer in the community.) We take groups of freshmen out and do some volunteering project. This is my 4th year and usually I love it, but then again after this year I might be over it. Actually after last year I thought I WAS over it, but like a moth to a flame, I was drawn in again. We went to Ravenna Park to do "Plant Establishment". I naively (is it vaguely wrong that any time I write the word naive I double check the spelling by thinking Evian backwards?) thought 'plant establishment' was planting things. Isn't that what you do when establishing a plant? Well, it wasn't. It was removing things. It was removing English Ivy and Blackberry. (speaking of blackberry, there were some on sale at qfc last night, I think I may go back and get some and make blackberry muffins... that sounds good. :) ) Anyway, I understand why English Ivy is a pest. It is ugly and it chokes out everything. We had some in CA (and at least 1 rat nest within the English Ivy as I saw on more than 1 occassion a rat go running across the patio and steal dog food) and I see it here on my routes to and from work. I never really got why the blackberry is bad... although apparently it grows like weeds here and the birds eat the blackberries and spread the seeds in their birdie poop. In any event, I spent several hours pulling blackberries and English Ivy. On the one hand English Ivy is fascinating... especially how it all interconnects with itself. On the other... weed pulling is exhausting work! :) But we did pull 8 cubic yards of stuff so that was cool.