Yet another nightmare...

A couple of people have suggested that the nightmares I've been having lately are related to how hot it is here.  Damn heat! Damn living in a place where we don't have airconditioning because it only gets like this once in a while... Anyway on to this morning's dream...
My friend Janel had died.  I was living with Michelle in a dorm (although not any at UAF I don't know where we were) and it was time to move out of the dorm for the year so we were supposed to be packing.  All I could think about in the dream was Janel and her two sons and her husband (which given that the boys didn't come along until well after college is a bit weird.. as though the dream wasn't weird...).  I was so distraught and crying the whole dream.  At one point I went to the student counseling center but they couldn't help me and only offered me a plate of bacon.  For the first time in a long time my alarm clock actually woke me up (usually I wake up before the alarm and just let the alarm warn me about when to get out of bed.).  I got up to go to the gym, but was so distraught I couldn't bear to go so I went back to bed and slept fitfully for another hour and a half.  So... dreammoods.com tells me:

Moving: To dream that you are moving away, signifies your desire or need for change. It may also mean an end to a situation or relationship and your are moving on. Alternatively, it indicates your determination and issues regarding dependence/independence.

Death: To dream about the death of a loved one, suggests that you are lacking a certain aspect or quality that the loved one embodies. Ask yourself what makes this person special or what do you like about him. It is that very quality that you are lacking in your own relationship or circumstances. Alternatively, it indicates that whatever that person represents has no part in your own life. 

Dorm: To dream that you are in a dormitory, represents the value you place on knowledge and education. You believe that you are always learning and not just in the classroom. If you are currently a college student who live in a dormitory, then this symbol may just be a reflection of your current surroundings and hold similar meaning as a house.
 
Bacon: To see bacon in your dream, symbolizes essentials, staples, and life's supply. It may also be a play on the common phase "being home the bacon" to refer earning a living.

Crying: To dream that you are crying, signifies a release of negative emotions that is more likely caused by some waking situation rather than the events of the dream itself. Your dream is a way to regain some emotional balance and a way to safely let out your fears and frustrations. In our daily lives, we tend to ignore, deny, or repress our feelings. But in our dream state, our defense mechanisms are no longer on guard and thus allow for the release of such emotions.

To wake up crying, suggest the grieving of your soul and that you need to change your ways.  (apparently I did not change my ways from the last time I had the crying dreams)

To dream that no one hears or responds to your cries, represents your helplessness and difficulties and frustrations in trying to communicate with others. You feel that your words are falling on deaf ears. Perhaps your dream is telling you to be more vocal and work harder to get your point across.

Michelle, Care to take a stab at this?

Random Potentially Racist Question...

Is there a reason Asian restaurants can't take the chicken fat off the chicken before serving it?  I was eating Vietnamese cuisine today and kept getting gross slimy chicken fat in my mouth.  YUCK!  (ok ok I do realize that with quantity cooking blah blah blah but still...)

Boring Gym Stuff redux

So today I went to the gym and was a wee bit sad to discover that my gym buddy flaked again this morning.  That's Monday she flaked, Tuesday we agreed to skip just because we're tired and today she flaked.  I however, have been faithful to gym schedule (except Tuesday when we both agreed to skip and which is traditionally my day off anyway)... and that's 1/2 the battle right there.   Two very exciting points to share... 1 - I have to do shoulder weight stuff because my shoulders are killing me with the big back pack I carry every day now.  Since we shower at the gym, I now cart my towel, clean clothes, shampoo/conditioner, soap, lotion etc etc etc back and forth to work every day.  I'm discovering my shoulders don't like this so much.  Now I know what all those pantywaist highschool kids complain about with regards to their big back packs.  Anyway way off topic there... I've been doing shoulder weight stuff for the past few weeks.  Shrugs, something called tea cups and a couple of others that involve freeweights.  This week I discovered I was able to move up from 8lb weights to 10 lb weights.  Yippee for me!  The 2nd which I may or may not have shared previously is that I am now able to do 3 sets of 10 leg lifts on the Roman Chair.  I do 2 of those extending my legs out straight and 1 set is knees curled up.  I am very pleased that I can do them without feeling either like I'm going to fall off or die.  I've also upped my weight amount on the torso twist thing (50 lbs here) and the back machine (70 lbs on the back machine baby!)... Now if only the gelatinous blob around my mid section would go away... I'm not asking to be a size 2 or anything, but you know... Of course if I actually restricted what I eat that would help, but nah... I like food too much. :)

Launch

Yahoo!! (hee because Yahoo owns Launch) Launch FINALLY has some Dave Matthew's band stuff loaded onto their site so I can listen to it at work.  I lurve launch.  Of course it has taken me like 5 years to get my station to almost where I like and I still get crap from them sometimes.

Rattlin' around in my head

I've had a bunch of things rattling around in my head today to post and I just didn't feel like posting them until now... (which means I'll probably forget 1/2 of the things I've been thinking about)
 
1 - Sometimes I wish upon stars or my pennies in the fountains.  There's so much I don't believe in (god, guns, blah blah blah which reminds me of another random thought that I'll share in a moment).  I find it slightly odd that I so want to believe in wishing on stars.  Too much Disney (my house of worship) I'm sure.
 
2 - According to the Michigan militia, I am a hmmm... I wish I could remember the word... it was like dereliction of duties (that may have actually been a phrase) because I do not own a gun.  How can I protect my family?  This I learned from my good friend Michael Moore & my new favorite movie Bowling for Columbine (ok probably not my favorite).  The reason we call cops, according to this militia, when there are intruders, is because they have guns.  I really liked how they were doing these interviews so that they would seem less crazy... not so much.
 
3 - I put on my capri pants (that are relatively new) and was happy to discover that they are a little bit more baggy!
 
4 - I bought myself some roses tonight.  I love flowers.  I know that they just die blah blah blah, but they really make me happy.  Mr. Future Hypothetical Right had better buy me flowers. :D
 
5 - I can't believe I almost forgot... but I have a new work stalking victim!  The 3rd cute candidate (the one I liked the best of the 3) got the job and will be starting in Augustish... mmm... stalking victims... :D

Best 10 Inches EVER!

Would be the new fan I just bought this weekend.  It is a little box fan and it sits in the window of my apartment and just cools everything off so nicely.  V has been encouraging me that a fan would help the outrageous heat my apartment builds up every day because I'm on the 'sunny side' of the building.  Usually I have 2 schools of thought on the fan issue.  I want one but I'm flat broke... or I don't need one it is 55 degrees outside.  Today I decided to break down the fan barrier and buy one.  Actually easier said than done.  Now that my beloved Fred Meyers is leaving the hill, I couldn't get one there.  Bartell didn't have one either.  When walking home, what did I spy?  A display of fans, at Rite Aid.  Yippee!  Only little ones, but it is better than nothing. 
 
I just watched Bowling for Columbine on Showtime (look, they DO have something worth watching).  It was very interesting.  I cried during the 911 calls from Columbine and the black and white footage of the school cameras.  I think I can get behind his theory about the fact that the US exists in a constant state of fear and this is what causes the US to such a high gun violence rate.   It was alarming to me that in a post 9/11 society (I say that like it wouldn't disturb me in a pre-9/11 society, suffice to say it would) those two boys (both under 18) were able to go into K-Mart and buy all the ammo that K-Mart had that day.   How is this acceptable?  I don't know what a standard hunter would go through in one - two hunting excursions, BUT teenagers can buy ALL the bullets including for handguns that K-Mart has?  I won't stand too long on my soapbox... and I'm sure you can figure out where I stand on this subject.  One of the most traumatic experiences staying with my brother-in-lawwhoIhate (also known as Satan) was opening a closet in the diningroom and seeing something like 6 - 7 rifles.  Then noticing that there was also a handgun on top of a shelf in the living room and upon further exploration another one in their (satan's and my sister's) bedroom.  As a person who has always felt she would never live in a house with guns to find somewhere around 10 of them just casually around was a little disturbing.  It did confirm 2 things... 1 - exbrotherinlawwhoihate is satan and I will NEVER again live in a house with guns. 
 
Ooh... almost forgot in my rhetoric... V & Matthew (his boyfriend not MattyP) and I went to Bite of Seattle.  It was interesting, but I don't think I'll go again next year.  I really hate crowds.

Dreams

I woke up this morning at about 2:00 in a panic and full of such despair... At the time, I remembered the dream I was having, although now in the light of day, I can only remember two distinct features... 

1. My sister was alive.  Not only was she alive, but she was pregnant.
2. My father was leaving.  This piece is a bit fuzzier actually.  I remember he was leaving and I was in the driveway of my parents' house screaming Don't take my daddy! Then falling in a slump on the oil stained driveway.  That's when I woke up.

There was much more back story before all this, but I can't remember it.  Only the sister and my father. 

Dreammoods.com tells me:

To see your dead sibling, relative, or friend alive in your dream, indicates that you miss them and are trying to relive your old experiences you had with them. In trying to keep up with the pace of your daily waking life, you dreams may serve as your only outlet in coping and coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. 

Dreaming that someone has been kidnapped indicates that you are not letting aspects and characteristics of that person be expressed within you. You are trying to contain and/or suppress those qualities of the kidnapped person

Seeing your father in your dream, symbolizes authority and protection. It suggests that you need to be more self-reliant.

To see an oil spill in your dream, suggests that you are in emotional turmoil. You are experiencing problems and distress in your personal relationships.

To dream that you are wearing a cloak, signifies the need for security, warmth and the feeling of being well protected. It may also mean that you are trying to cover-up or hide something.

So if we piece this all together... Well... I don't know what exactly it all means.  Do I miss my sister?  We weren't close, so I don't know.  Christmas 2001 was the last year I saw her before she died in 2002.  Prior to Thanksgiving 2001,  I hadn't spoken to her in like 2 years.  Not because of any rift or anything, but with the 10 year age difference and the vast life experience differences, it was difficult to talk to her.  She was much closer to my younger sister who went through some similar life experiences.  I am also not sure what aspects of my father I may be supressing... He and I are actually remarkably alike, very laid back and easy going.  I am probably more maybe compassionate is the word I want.  He is an almost 70 year old Republican.  He remembers the 40's and is a pick yourself up by your bootstraps kind of guy.  Security and self reliance... that I'll almost buy.  It is a wee bit stressful to think that when it comes right down to it, all I have is me.  I didn't think I was feeling any emotional turmoil.  Things have been pretty good lately.  I think I'll chalk up this odd dream to drunkenness and the downer feeling usually brought on by that.

WTF?

Tonights WTF moment brought to you by the letters D (for drunk) and T (for tipsey).  So, Vladdy and I were sitting at the counter in RPlace playing trivia when this lesbian Vladdy knows joined us.  I think she was checking me out, but I'm not so vain to think that everyone is in love with me... but seriously... I think she was.  Anyway... she and V start talking about her life.  I glean both from my observation and from her appearance that she is a short (er than me), fat(ter than me), homeless and I believe jobless lesbian, yet, much to my utmost depression, she has a man.  WTF?  Of course, we have not seen said man.  It is entirely possible that he does not exist or if he does he looks like Sloth from the Goonies...

New Features

I'm not 100% sure I love new features...  It just took me over 15 min to get that other post put up correctly because it kept doing odd things that I never told it to do... making the font tiny... bolding certain parts... centering the whole post.  I'm not that dumb.  I can figure this stuff out.

Yum Cute Candidates

You will have to forgive this post a little bit... I am playing with the new features.  I am excited about them!  I LOVE blogger and would be slightly interested to know how they make their money... Paid blogs I suppose. 
 
Today's Topics:

• Yummy candidates
• People
• Peaches

Yummy Candidates: So... The past three days I had candidates in my office who were interviewing for a specific position and we were discussing their benefits if they were to be hired.  They were all HOT HOT HOT... And 2 of them were, I remember, super nice.  The other one... all I can remember about him was that he was chewing bright blue gum the entire time we talked.  If he did that while he was being interviewed that would be a huge black mark in my book. 

People: I can't remember what I was going to say about people... Probably something about how they annoy me.

Peaches:  (wow that color is visually difficult).  I am no longer going to bring peaches in my lunch.  Thus far, Monday's peach.. .mealy.  Tuesday's peach I forgot to eat.  Wednesday's peach didn't get brought to work since I ate lunch out on Wednesday.  Thursday's peach... gross, bruised and battered apparently the victim of rattling around in my lunch bag.  Who knew you had to wrap them in bubble wrap to protect their frail little bodies.  To quote Michelle...

Now will you try nectarines?

Michelle's Dream Analysis

The Dream
I was in the elevator at work, heading upstairs from the parking garage. The elevator was basically just a large platform with a vertical metal beam at the back that had the floor buttons on it. I pushed the button for my floor and it light up red. The elevator started moving up and I was thrown slightly off balance. The elevator went past my floor and kept going. It was very high and I was quite nervous about falling off so I held on to the metal beam, closed my eyes and leaned my head against it.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the sky, so far above the ground that I could only make out geographical features, not buildings. I thought, "I guess this is a flying dream." I didn't seem to be able to fly, though. The elevator was gone, but it still felt like I was being taken somewhere and I was scared that I was up too high. The land was very green with rolling hills like you see in movies about Ireland and Scotland. Turns out, though, that I was going from my building in Santa Monica to Las Vegas. As I was getting closer to Vegas, I began to worry about the landing. I was dumped off in the pool of a fancy hotel. I was meeting some friends there.

I got out of the pool and dried off. I went inside to a lounge just off the pool area. My husband and some friends were in there waiting for me. After I ordered a drink and joined the in-progress poker game, Adam and his wife walked in. They were very excited about the time share they had just purchased.

The Meaning
(according to dreammoods.com)
--Red: Red is also the color of danger. Perhaps you need to stop and think about your actions.
--Elevator: To dream that the elevator is not letting you off, symbolizes that your emotions have gotten out of control.
--Machinery: To see machinery in your dream, suggests that you are going about your way without much thought. You are making decisions without thinking it through.
--Flying: If you are feeling fear when you are flying or feel that you are flying too high, then it suggests that you are afraid of challenges and of success.
--Pool: To see a pool of water in your dream, denotes that you will find much happiness and pleasure in love and marriage. Your social life will keep you busy.
--Alcohol: To dream that you are enjoying alcohol in moderation, denotes contentment and satisfaction in the decisions that you have made. Chance for success is likely.
--Poker: To dream that you are playing poker, suggests that a situation in your waking life requires strategy and careful planning. You need to think things out before carrying out your actions.
--Time Share: To dream the your friend has purchased a time share means that you think your friend is a hothead who acts rashly, but you like him anyway. Kidding, Adam. Chill.

The Analysis
I started out at work but I made the decision to push the elevator button without giving it any thought. This resulted in the elevator not letting me off which means that my emotions about something are out of control, likely my feelings about not wanting to work anymore, which have been getting stronger lately. Then I was taken out of my workplace and I was fearful while flying, which suggests that I am afraid of challenges and success. Two night ago I had my first screenwriting class to make sure that quitting work next year to get an MFA in screenwriting is really what I want to do. It really is, but that will definitely lead to some uncertainties and challenges. At the end of my flight I landed in a swimming pool at a hotel where my husband and friends were waiting for me. Since seeing a pool in a dream indicates that one will find happiness in love and marriage, I take it to mean that no matter what the outcome of my work or school situations, my family and friends will be around and I will continue to find happiness in that aspect of my life. Since I was enjoying a drink with them which means I was content with my decision and that the chance for success is good, it seems like everything will work out fine, even if it is challenging and frightening along the way. The poker game was like a final warning to think things through and plan carefully before making big decisions.

MPA

Eeeek!! I just ralized that if I do this MPA program, I am going to have to stick to this job for at least 3 years to do it. Yikes... that's a commitment. I don't know if I'm ready for it... Info session tonight, I'm nervous... very nervous. It has been a long time since I did real school work.

I went to the info session after work. It seems like this will be a good program for me. I think this is the direction I want to go with my future. I have to start working on my application. If I want to enter for the fall, I have to get the paperwork in as soon as I possibly can. I have to come up with my two letters of reference. I hate having to have people do that.

Should I get another pet?

Baxter actually answered that question tonight. There was an email on my ferret list from a person who was looking for a place for her ferrets for just tonight and tomorrow. So I called this person and let her know I would let the pair stay with me and Bax. So she comes over and brings them. We let them wander around individually and one of them was fairly aggressive towards Bax. I haven't seen her since. She is hiding out in my bedroom. I think that much of Baxter's aggressiveness is due to her very small size (small dog syndrome). She is about 1/2 the size of these two ferrets. I think she will be better off being an only fert so I will have to put my kitten want on hold until Bax passes.

Hmm...

If I ran the world (maybe that's universe), grownups wouldn't get zits in the middle of their foreheads or on the ends of their noses. (ok grownups wouldn't get zits at all... c'mon I finished adolesence YEARS ago!)

I noticed yesterday as I was watching Dead Like Me (only like 13 days until its season premiere) I realized that my two favorite TV shows right now deal with things I don't believe in. I love Joan of Arcadia. She talks to God... yet it isn't preachy (like 7th Heaven which I wrongly watch mostly because it is such a trainwreck!). It is just a well done show I think. Then there's Dead Like Me which deals with, well death. The main characters are all reapers who 'help' their charges across to the other side. Basically they 'pop' the souls out of the body just before death. It is actually a fascinating concept. That you will meet a person who will touch you a minute or two before you die and they will help release your soul from the physical body. I kind of like how they make each of the doors to the other side significant for the person... It is a nice idea. Maybe someday I'll buy into the whole thing.

Random bits of trivia

While walking home from work today I started chuckling to myself. Now where I live, laughing to oneself isn't that uncommon but, I am usually not this mental. As I was walking I had this flash in my head of a scene from the terribly funny Attack of the 5 ft 2 Woman. I saw it a couple of times in college and it always made me laugh until I cried. So the scene that flashed in my mind was this one with Judy Brown as Lorena Bobbitt. She is in the car holding the 'member' and yelling at it. "You piss me off... You piss me off" It really is a 'you gotta see it' kind of a thing. So I recommend that all of you run right out and rent it.

So for some random reason I'm having a searching for mr. rightish obsession right now. It will pass, it always does... but yesterday I was thinking as I made nachos for the 4th meal in 2 weeks that I should find a nice Mexican guy. I like Mexican food.. then it dawned on me that a real Mexican likes things like mole and menudo... I like food more along the lines of Baja Fresh and packaged sauces. But I did end up eating enchiladas all week last week for lunch and tonight's dinner... tacos. It is obviously a sign... although maybe not, last night's dinner was pork fried rice which will be lunch for the next several days. It could be more of a function of the whole not eating wheat so I can't eat sandwiches and have to come up with meal alternatives. mmm... I lurve me some fake americanized tacos. :D

Two new volunteering things I will be doing this month... 1 will be volunteering at a fireman gala/auction. In my expression of interest, I said I was interested in working behind the scenes and she already wrote back and let me know that there were some behind the scenes jobs open. Yum firefighters. Then sometime in July (hopefully this one is more tentative)I hope to go to Carnation with this volunteer group. They harvest fruits & veggies for farms and the farms donate a portion of what is harvested to our local food bank. It is a good example of the barter system working... The farmers get their crops harvested and the foodbank gets a donation of fresh food.

Final news I think I am going to go back to school for my MPA. SU offers a degree that is practically written for me. Since I work there, I can take classes for free so I should. I am a bit nervous, though. It has been so long since I've had to think or something like that. I'm going to an info session on Wed night. I'll have a better idea then I hope.

Oh final thought... SO I'm all excited about showtime because I can watch Dead Like Me. Well apparently that's all the current stuff they offer. All weekend long I kept looking for something to watch. All their movies were so old... It makes me sad.

Light random mostly uninteresting things...

This morning I was running totally late to the gym. Luckily enough, so was the student worker who opens the gym up in the morning. We ended up just walking several times around the block instead of working out. When we were done (a litle after 7) the gym was finally open, which was good since I needed to shower.

Michelle (and others who know me and know my affinity for odd colored nail polish) will be glad to know that I now limit the bizarre colors (blue, green, black although not silver) to my toes. Right now I'm wearing a very respectable shade of rust on my finger nails... Unfortunately I am wearing it in a very trailer-trashy way because it is completely chipped and should be removed. However, I am noticing that my finger nails are growing fairly nicely right now and that makes me happy.

I bought some beautiful fruit over the weekend, a cantaloupe, watermelon and peaches. I cut up the cantaloupe and watermelon and have been eating it for breakfast and for snacks. I love cantaloupe! The peaches I am taking for my lunch at work. I have a weird thing about peaches. I like the taste of them, but I am not sure how I feel about the skin texture in my mouth. It will take me probably 30 minutes just to bite into this peach today.

Arrrgghh!!! Some people!

You ever have one of those people in your life who just know which buttons to push and pushes them. I've just had a rather long IM convo with someone who does just that. It started out with a conversation about my sex life... big surprise considering who this was... He doesn't grasp why I'm not a big fan of the one night stand. I'm 30 fucking years old... don't you grow out of that shit eventually? (holy cow there'll be much swearing because he has agitated me so much which of course leads me to the questions of 1 - why do I let him piss me off and 2 - let's consider who this person is before I take his opinions seriously enough to make me this angry.) So then we were talking about volunteering and why do I volunteer so much. He knows that money is tight in my world so his simplistic answer is to get a 2nd job or a better 1st job. These are not bad ideas... and not ones that I haven't tried. So I think my agitation comes from two different areas. I can't find a 2nd job and his implication that it should be so easy I should be able to just put my hand out there and anyone is dying to hire me. Let's look at how long it took me to find the 1st job that I have. Eight months to find a job that I hated and over a year to find this one that I like (and if my boss would just accept her destiny to be a stay at home mom I could have her job). I have to back up though before the job convo we were having a discussion about homelessness. He apparently has read a statistic wherein so many homeless choose this lifestyle. While I do not doubt that there are plenty of people on the streets who choose this way, I sincerely doubt the estimated 40% of the homeless population that are FAMILIES choose this route. The fact that to afford a 1 bedroom apartment at fair market value on the average wage right now a person would have to work 89 hours per week... PER WEEK! His answer... they can get two jobs. If they can't find the first job how in the hell will they find a 2nd job? AND if they have children (either singly or with a spouse) who the hell takes care of the kids while they are working these 89 hours per week to pay for their 1 bedroom apartment... When I also pointed out that the homeless have a hard time finding jobs since they don't have an address or phone number to put down... use their welfare checks to get a cellphone. OK... Homeless individuals (approximately 60% of the homeless population) don't get welfare. You have to have kids. And for the average cellphone company, they like an address for you the subscriber. I've forgotten how damn easy it is when you work for the same place you worked for in college! which was 7 years ago! He apparently did work a brief time for someone else... but now... back for the same housing office from his college days. GAH! He was rather surprised to find that if V hadn't gotten this job he just got, V would join that homeless statistic. Michelle (who hopefully doesn't mind too much that I am using her name in vain) looked for quite a while before she got the new job she has now... and part of the thing (but not all of the thing since she really is anal enough to be very good at what she does) that helped her with this job is that she works with people who knew her at her other job lending at least a bit of truth to the "it is who you know". Maybe part of the reason that I get so agitated is that at least on the job front (not on the sex front... his views on sex and my views are about as far apart as possible) is that some of it is what I think. I do think I should get a 2nd job... It does bother me that I owe as much as I do. So hearing it from someone who already annoys me periodically doesn't help. Gah... why do I even bother talking to him? That's the ultimate question.

Mundane weekend

Contrary to what I'm sure y'all believe, I do lead a pretty boring life. I know that it's hard to tell given all the wild and crazy adventures I speak of oh so frequently, but much of my weekends are spent doing the following: grocery shopping, laundry at 6:00ish Sunday morning, dishes, and Friday dinner of Tacos Del Mar (sometimes Sat dinner depending). This weekend, no real exception. Oh wait... there was one. I took Baxter for a walk. The Bax doesn't especially like going on walks. I drag her out periodically because I think it is good for her. Once we're out, she doesn't mind it. She crawls around in the grass, digs in the dirt, all those cute little ferrety activities. Today we followed some bizarre scent all over the place. I think she thought she was hunting a squirrel. We didn't find it which is probably good for The Baxter because these city squirrels would kick her ass.

Sometimes I have an idea that sounds better in my head than it might actually be. Since March, I've been thinking of getting a kitten. Mostly to join Bax as a playmate but also because The Bax is already 6 and ferrets only have a life span about 7 - 8 years, so in a year or so I get to look forward to another death which may actually break my heart more than Minka's. Anyway, I've been thinking about getting a kitten and I actually emailed someone I found on craigslist (I think I have to give big props to Michelle for hooking me up with this site. I lurve it!) who had an orange male kitten for free. My older sister claimed that boy cats are generally more loving and cuddly than girls. Something about how in the wild cat world, the girl cats go out and hunt and bring the food back for their family and the boys just lounge around. Hence boy boy cats are lazier and more cuddly. So I expressed an interest in a kitten. Then I had expressed interest remorse. I got an email back from the girl and was given a phone number. I waited most of today and finally called. I was relieved to discover that the kitten already found a new home. I would've felt bad if I backed out but that she couldn't find a different person for him. I've seen another kitten group on craigslist and am fighting the urge to email them.

It is kind of funny... major life things, I just do... little random things I'll obsess and think about forever before actually doing it. I've been considering this kitten thing for 4 months. 4 MONTHS (and I'm still waffling on the decision and making the commitment). I considered the tattoo for years before I finally decided to do it and then the design took many many months of consideration too. But the decision to move to Seattle? One random day. I just up and decided to do it. Didn't really obsess about the idea, decided to do it and 4 months later once all the details were ready... did it. Decide to move to CA... Michelle emailed me and just agreed like in one day. So.. I'll probably end up doing a Dharma & Greg thing and get married like 2 days after meeting Mr Hypothetical Right, but obsess for 6 months before buying my first new coffee table.

Phone Numbers

Apparently the person who had the phone number before me had issues. For months after I just moved in, I would get calls for him from all sorts of far away places like Chicago. We would have to go through a series of questions and answers, where I would say "No I'm afraid you have the wrong number." And the caller would say something like... "Well is this 206-555-5555" and I would say "Yes but no one by that name lives here." And then they would ask randomly if I knew where the guy went... "Um no, I don't." "Okay thank you." Then the person would finally hang up. (I know I know I could've hung up right after the i'm afraid you have the wrong number but I'm polite on the phone.) So today I get a message on my voicemail telling me to call "Miss King" at an 800 number. I have no idea who Miss King would be and what she would want but for some reason instead of ignoring it like I usually would, I called. It is apparently the court house or some variation of the courthouse. They were looking for the guy who had my old phone number possibly because he owes them money. So when I called I get surly courthouse worker who says "What number did Miss King call you at" and I told her. She said do you know Joe whateverhislastnameis? And I replied no and she said oh we have the wrong number then. And that was that. I was a bit nervous, though, because the place I called came across as very official and for a brief second I thought there had been some snag in my deferral of my speeding ticket of almost a year ago. I think Miss King isn't a real person, but like a code... I wonder what that guy did.

greener grass

Top 3 Good Things About Being Married
1- The security of having someone else be partially responsible for my well being. If I got laid off or was unable to work or something like that, there is someone else around who can share the load with me and take care of things. I wouldn't have to resort to going back to live with my parents who aren't even going to be around when I get old. (So, this would be a good thing for Joanne whose mom is crazy and both her mom and dad aren't exactly in their youthful prime.) For me, I would not have had this same feeling living with someone who said he was always going to be around but who I wasn't married to, so marriage was my choice.

2- Companionship. It is nice to have someone around to talk to and share things with. I never have to worry about finding someone to do things with when I want to. I have someone who is fairly obligated to do things with me. This is probably the easiest one to get without being married, though. If I was single and had a close girlfriend as a roommate and a good circle of friends? Problem solved. Notice I said "girlfriend", however, I don't think a gay best friend suits the purpose as well. They are great for many things, but there are some things they will never be able to help with. Sending someone to the store for feminine products when I am sick is a good example. Either a husband or a best girl friend would go for me. A gay best friend? Not so much.
(Note: I IM'd my husband and he said that I am the reason he chose married life over single life and that companionship is the #1 benefit.)

3- Physical affection. People need hugs. It is a scientific fact. The cuddling, the snuggling - all very nice. A person doesn't necessarily get sex whenever a person wants it when they are married, but very nearly. Like most things, though, I find that if I can get it whenever I want it, I start to want it less. Still, even disregarding sex, it is nice to have someone around who touches me out of love and affection. This I can get with a boyfriend, but since I am a woman I will find myself thinking neurotic things like, "How come I am always the one who hugs first?" or "Why won't he hold my hand right now?" Things are more certain in a marriage. I am no longer thinking about what he really feels about me. I know. He married me.
(Note: My husband also cites "no more worries about STDs" as a benefit. Nice.)

Top 3 Bad Things About Being Married
1- He is always there. This is the flip side to #2 Companionship above. I am, by nature, a solitary person. My husband is a very social person. I need time alone. I like to be by myself; not all the time, but on a fairly regular basis. The time I spend commuting in my car doesn't count either. I need quality time alone with myself. I used to do a lot more things alone. Work out. Crafts. Write. Clean. This may also be a result of having to commute to work, but honestly, that is one of the bad things about being married, too. If I wasn't married, I would be able to live closer to my job and I wouldn't have to commute and I would have a lot more free time.

2- There is so much stuff to do. Truthfully, I don't know if this is associated with marriage as much as it is with home ownership, but it always seems like there is something to do that has to be done by a certain date looming in the very near future and that isn't necessarily something I want to do. Whether this a result of being married or of owning a home is hard to say, but I wouldn't own a home if I wasn't married. Maybe. About a year before I got engaged, it seemed like my husband (then boyfriend) and I might break-up, so I was living with my parents, paying off my debt, and saving for a condo.

3- Anger. The more you love someone, the angrier you can get with them. There is a special kind of anger that comes only with being married. No one can push me over the edge as much as my husband. Also, I sometimes have to give in on something that I don't want to just because I know that he is getting angry like this and it isn't worth the trouble it is going to cause to stand firm on my position.

Like I said, there are trade-offs. For me, the good outweighs the bad. Marriage isn't for everyone, though. My brother-in-law, for instance, will probably never get married, but there is a good chance he will be with his girlfriend for the rest of his life. I found someone who I feel I can stay with for the rest of my life. I don't believe in soul mates. I don't believe that he and I were meant to be together. I do believe that we are compatible, in love, and committed to making our marriage work. I like being married.

That said, if my husband died or something bad enough happened to make us get divorced, I don't know if I would get married again. Now that I have been married and know what it is like, I can also appreciate the single life more now than when I was living it.

The grass is greener... on showtime?

Two subjects... one post.

Showtime Thanks to my whopping 3.5% increase here at the university, I will be getting roughly a grand 62.00 more take home pay per month. Now while I should do the smart thing and use that extra 62.00 to add to my credit card payments or even you know to live off of since somehow I still run out of money at the end of the month, I am not doing that. No. I am upgrading my cable to allow me Showtime. It is only 15.00 of my whopping 62.00 so there still remains a little extra on the table. :) Now you may wonder why Showtime. Why not the sporn capital of the world Skinimax or maybe the show heavy HBO (there really isn't anything funny about HBO)... I'll tell you why... Dead Like Me. I love this show. Back when I did the failed experiment of getting rid of all of my cable (who was I kidding really?), I didn't reup for the fancy channels I had before. Mostly because the fancy package I had before no longer existed and I was suddenly faced with paying way more than I signed up for. I gave it up. But now that Dead Like Me is coming back, I have to have it. The other plus side, is that for some reason I now get Encore. They each have like 15 channels of movies so perhaps I can finally find something worth while to watch in the evenings (yeah right.). In any case... I am overjoyed to find Showtime back in my life...

The Grass is Greener Earlier today, Michelle and I had a brief discussion about if marriage isn't one of those grass is greener ideas for single people. It is funny because just last night as I was sitting alone on my sofa I thought it might be nice to be married. Periodic bouts of that fantasy (damn you For Better or Worse) notwithstanding, most of the time I can't imagine being married. I would have to give up parts of my life that I'm just starting to relish (not to mention 1/2 my bed, closet, bathroom etc.). Right now I do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want (including move from state to state as randomly as I want). I like that freedom, and while I don't think marriage would require me to give all that up, some level of consideration would have to occur and I would not necessarily curtail my adventures but at least consult with hubby about them. (Well, lets face it, it isn't like I lead some wild swinging life where I do heavy drugs, riot and loot old folks' homes and/or have rampant kinky sex with a bunch of nameless faceless folks... Honestly on that last one if some of you knew how long it has been you would weep for me... :) BUT I would have to do things like dishes on a more regular basis (although that could be dear hubby's chore?)... actually get dressed on the weekend... and probably not let gay boys feel me up. I think the compromise is some long term boyfriend who doesn't live with me. Apparently as I have failed mr. craigslist's personal quiz I will have to seek other venues in which to find mr long term boyfriend who doesn't live with me. Otherwise I have to start obtaining cats.

Fun with Personal Ads

I am a huge fan of Craigslist. I read it daily and find it totally fascinating. There are a number of subcatagories on Craigslist that I love. One of my favorites is the missed connections. I think because I am a romantic at heart and I do kind of love the idea of 'they share that look on the subway and...' And they meet and live happily ever after. I don't think I will ever find myself described in there (with the exception of Michelle's post to me since she knew how much I love that section). I also love to read the personals on there. There is such a wide variety of posts. Obviously all the men who post on Craigslist are hot model types seeking the same. Since I am not a hot model type, I mostly just read them and don't bother replying. BUT one today piqued my curiosity. I am fearful that the guy's ad was serious, but it amused me to reply to it anyway. His ad had a list of 10 questions with multiple choice answers. The A answer was clearly doormat 'nice?' girl answers. The B answer was maybe middle of the road but some of them not so much. The C answers were like total harpie bitch answers. He also gave an option for D answers (D being create your own answer..). I seem to have chosen all D ansers. A couple of the question highlights with my answers...
- You meet up with friends for drinks and dinner and you notice him looking down the shirt of one of your big chested friends, you: My answer... D - Never would happen. I have the biggest chest of all my friends. (Random note... I was trying to buy a sports bra in JC Penney. Apparently they put the sports bras for girls my bra size right next to the bras for girls with no size... did you know almost A was a size?)
- You find out he stretched the truth a bit, this
girl he is still in contact with that he claims is
just a friend is really a ex-girlfriend and she’s a
stripper, you: D - I am pissed because he lied (this is not stretching the truth this is an outright lie). I don't mind that he has friends who he may or may not have used to boink... but tell me the damn truth about it. Hoping he keeps that in mind when he finds out about some of the guys I'm still friends with.
- It’s your best friends little sisters graduation party and he gets drunk and
is flirting with all the 18 year old girls, you would: D - Point out that at his age (38) it is creepy pervy to be hitting on 18 year old girls.

The rest of the questions are equally odd... I am almost 100% certain I won't hear from him based on my honest, but probably not girl of his dreams answers.. I'll let y'all know if I do. :)

Voicemail

Sometimes I love voicemail. Especially when I have to call someone and tell them news that they don't want to hear like no, they don't have that benefit because they didn't sign up for it when they were supposed to. When I get the voicemail I could cry I'm so happy because it means I don't have to deal with uberpissed guy. Maybe that's why I'm so sympathetic to the Airline Customer Service workers... I know what it is like to be yelled at by someone for something that was their own damn fault. :)

Adventures in drunkenness

So against my better judgement I went out with the boys last night. I had seriously thought about not going but there was nothing on TV so you know... nothing else to do, why not go drink and have a good time. V and I headed out to RPlace at about 8:30. When we got there, Matty P was also hanging out and playing darts so we joined him. I am usually not a terrible dart player, but I think because I haven't been playing as much lately, I've SUCKED. But it was fun so who cares? :) Two rather startling things happened while I was out. 1 - Jeffy who is a very very attractive (albiet YOUNG) bartender/barback came up to me while I was playing darts. Jeffy is a very touchy person so that's never very surprising. What he did, last night, though surprised me. He came over, pulled away part of my shirt and blew a raspberry in my cleavage. I was just drunk enough to be very slow at reacting and was mostly startled. I dropped my darts and got teased mercilessly by my other boys. 2 - Later, while I was standing with my back to the dart board, leaning on a counter that overlooked the 1st floor someone came up and smacked my ass hard. It totally surprised me (those who know me know how high strung I can be). I hadn't realized anyone was behind me so I squeaked which is a relatively calm response for me. It was the cute str8 bartender. Yum. He and his baby's mama have broken up. A girl can dream can't she. :) After that, the rest of the evening was not at all exciting. We went up stairs after a while and listened to scaryoke. I've never been to str8 karaoke so I have no frame of refrence, but gay karaoke... kind of alarming. These gay boys get up there and diva it up, or they are so drunk you end up with such campy extremely awful karaoke that you just have to laugh. I headed home about 11:30 and fell asleep finally a little after midnight. 5:15 this morning came VERY early. But I did get to the gym on time and did my 40 minutes.

Anyone know anything about spider plants? One side of mine is torturing me with brown leaves. I think I'm overwatering but I don't know. Since it only gets watered when I can remember to do it I'm pretty sure it is feast/famine for the little plant. Hmmm... I may have to Ask Jeeves. I love Jeeves. He's the reason I finally figured out how to get rid of the web search hijacker I had.

TV Listings

Why does the cable company even offer TV listings if they are not correct? Three times in the past 2 - 3 weeks I've tried watching VH1's 40 top reality show moments (Ok ok I will admit this is crap but usually I've tried going there because there was nothing else on and hey, that looks kinda interesting). Three times it has been something else, including trauma worthy Fear Factor Behind the Show or some such nonsense which included watching people eat LIVE CAVE SPIDERS! Not only were these spiders horrifying to look at but one with legs wiggling hanging out of girl's mouth? Trauma inducing. I couldn't hit the channel changer fast enough. Last night I went to watch some crap movie on Lifetime (28 Days with Sandra Bullock, I like it sue me and there was NOTHING else on)... No I didn't get to watch it though because it was some frightful movie with a very old looking Kate Jackson. Sometimes I just give up. Even TV has turned against me. :)

The Airline

I find this show FASCINATING. The bullshit airline workers put up with is amazing. It is almost painful to watch because I can't help but think who... who finds these behaviors acceptable. I like to think that perhaps people don't necessarily realize what they sound like. I will be the first to admit that I have had flight issues. The airlines not perfect. They do a lot of things (they being airlines in general not the poor schmo at the ticket counter) that frustrate people, like overbook. But DAMN... Some of these people act like these poor airline workers are out to get them personally. (I've both dated a person like that and my mother IS that person so I find that personality frustrating as hell) It isn't like the airline employee woke up one morning and thought I'm going to hassle the white guy today. Oh no... this blind guy is waiting for his 'blind date' (he is blind) and for a brief moment I was so scared she wasn't going to show up and the poor airline worker would have to console the poor blind guy.

Bad Dream

I had one of the saddest dreams in recent memory this morning, although I did not wake up crying which is nice. In my dream I had cancer and I thought I was in the cancer ward of the hospital but now that I'm thinking about it in the morning I think it was more like a hospice. But there was a room full of us and we were in bunks. The key players are me, a baby, a woman and her son who is maybe 4. The baby dies. That's all I actually remember about the baby. The son isn't sick. He is just there because his mother was there. She was doing well in the dream but got much sicker as the dream went on. At one point in the dream, she collapsed. The nurses/drs came in to take care of her and the little boy was so scared. So I went over and comforted him on his bunk bed. Then there was a barbecue but I was actually reading a book about a woman who was preparing to die. I guess I was preparing to die. It was altogether a depressing dream.

According to my good friends at dreammoods.com

Cancer: To dream that you have cancer, denotes hopelessness, grief, self-pity, and unforgiveness. You feel you are wasting your life away. This dream also represents areas in your life which are bothering you, disturbing you, and hurting you in some emotional way.

Die: To dream that you die in your dream, symbolizes inner changes, transformation, self-discovery and positive development that is happening within you or in your life. Although such a dreams may bring about feelings of fear and anxiety, it is no cause for alarm and is often considered a positive symbol. Dreams of experiencing your own death usually means that big changes are ahead for you. You are moving on to new beginnings and leaving the past behind. These changes does not necessarily imply a negative turn of events. Metaphorically, dying can be seen as an end or a termination to your old ways and habits. So, dying does not always mean a physical death, but an ending of something.

On a negative note, to dream that you die may represent involvement in deeply painful relationships or unhealthy, destructive behaviors. You may feeling depressed or feel strangled by a situation or person in your waking life. Perhaps your mind is preoccupied with someone who is terminally ill or dying. Alternatively, you may be trying to get out of some obligation, responsibility or other situation.

Barbecue: To dream of a barbecue, refers to a minor problem that is affecting your social life.

Book: To see books in your dream, indicates calmness. You will advance toward your goals at a slow and steady pace. Books also symbolize knowledge, intellect, information and wisdom. Consider the type of book. It may represent a significant calling into a specific field of work.

Hmmm..So apparently I feel bad about myself but that's changing?

July 4th

Happy Independence Day! :)

Well, surprisingly enough, a geeky idea I had actually came to fruition. I wanted to go to the Family 4th of July at GasWorks Park and watch the fireworks. I suggested it to V et al and expected V to flake. Not only did he not flake, but we had a good time and a crowd of people. We were joined by his boyfriend Matthew, Matthew's roommate Sunny, Dana, and a couple of old friends of V & Dana's, John, Nicole, their son John and Nicole's brother. It helps that Vladdy actually knows people since I don't. We went to the store ahead of time and bought a bunch of food. Too much food, but that's okay. We had a nice picnic on the grass. The fireworks started at 10. This is my first time seeing the fireworks here in Seattle, and my first time seeing fireworks in 'the big city.' When I was growing up in Arizona, they were put on by the Lions Club in the football field of my old high school. I remember we would all squash together onto one of my dad's old army blankets. They had 'donated' a dollar for each of us to get in. We brought snacks, because god forbid we were ever allowed to buy the 'overpriced garbage' they served in the little food area. Oh the things you want so much when you're a child. I always wanted the crap food from the food trailers. As an adult, not so much. The fireworks growing up were cute... and we would have these little displays at field level (like the American flag in red, white & blue sparklers) and then some up in the sky. There were always a lot of firetrucks on hand because Arizona in July is dry as a bone and if any of the ash from the fireworks came down on the grassy fields next to the football field, it would burn fast. There were always some teeny tiny fires out in the fields that had to be put out quickly. The 'big city' fireworks were different than the fireworks of my childhood. Bigger. Able to do more things... smiley faces? Giant displays of color. Curtains of light. It was only 30 minutes but it seemed to go on much longer. I really enjoyed it. Afterward, we just sat and let the throngs of people leave around us. We separated from the others and V & I caught the bus home. We stopped in R Place but there was noone really to see. In Alaska, we didn't have fireworks on the 4th of July. There's no point. It isn't dark. Fireworks are on New Years Eve. Of course then it is so damn cold you don't want to be sitting out on the snow watching them. And of course we had the Aurora Borealis, which is oh so much cooler than fireworks ever could be. 3 AM stumbling down the hill from upper campus, drunk... the Aurora was magical those times. I think I went to the fireworks once when I lived in CA. I went to Channel Islands Harbor one July 4th with a coworker and her mom and we went out on a boat and watched them. It was very cool. Last year I was working at the casino and my car was in the shop so I was doing the 2 hr bus ride. I didn't get home until after 8:00 and by then I was just tired and didn't want to deal. I think I tried to see them out the window of my apartment but the stupid buildings around me are in the way. :) Next year... who knows...

Alarm Clocks

There is a special place in hell for those people who go away for the night and leave their alarm clock on so that in the morning it just keeps going off for hours. There's also a special place in that hell for alarm clock manufacturers who don't build a default off after an hour or so.

Fellow Gym Showerers

I can't believe I forgot about these women. There actually are people showering at 7:00 when Jess & I shower. This group of (to my mind at least) scary swiming/bicycling/Ironman (Ironwoman?) freaks are in there every morning comparing their swimming notes and what races/contests they are planning on doing. They are fairly intense about it and I almost fear them. These are also the dreaded locker room naked women. IE they just wander around the whole locker room completely naked not really trying to cover anything. You can tell I grew up in a repressed Catholic non-naked house. We did not walk around naked. Ever. We did not see each other naked... we did not discuss naked... (hell we never discussed sex until I was an adult and my little sister was knocked up and my mother was explaining to me how I was incorrect in my assertion that she could've made him wear a condom. She said that men don't like them and I just don't understand... I, being 21 years old at the time did not correct her incorrect view. When I was about 16ish she wanted me ME to tell my sister the facts of life. When I refused, she bought Amanda a book. A book! Good luck to you Timmy on explaining to Curly Top where babies come from). So I am totally uncomfortable around naked people... really, in the gym.. how hard is it to put a towel around you? or you know put the panties and bra on at least.

Timmy missed me!

Awww. that's so exciting! So either his life is not better than mine, or his job is as boring if not more boring than mine. :)

All sorts of not particularly exciting things have been happening this week.

Wednesday (I think it was) I fell asleep on my sofa at 7:30... woke up at 8:30... went into the bedroom to put on jammies... lay on the bed fell back asleep until 9:00 tried to get up and come watch TV and finally gave in at 9:30 and went to bed for real. Woke up at 5:00 the next morning feeling rather crappy from too much sleep.

The reason I haven't been logging in and blogging lately though is that my left eye has been bothering me a great deal. Apparently I have a sub somethingorother irritation. My left eye is all very pink/red and actually rather painful. It feels like there is a huge amount of pressure behind the eye as well. It started last Thursday and wasn't terrible, but kept getting worse and worse. I finally went to the eye doctor yesterday. It has been over 2 years since I've been to the eye doctor and I had almost forgotten how much I hate that whole experience of "Which one's better 1 or 2... 2 or 3... 3 or 4..." You feel like maybe if you answer wrong it will be a really bad thing. He also spent a lot of time looking at my left eye and that's what he came up with... A sub somethingorother irritation. Basically between the 1st & 2nd layers of the eye. He gave me some drops and sent me about my merry way. Since it has been over 2 years and my glasses needs have changed I decided to get a new pair. This is DIFFICULT. The glasses I like are more than the $115 my insurance allows and honestly anything more than that is more than I went to spend. After 45 minutes of the little helper guy suggesting things and me rejecting them (really purple? what am I 9?? Tortise shell cat's eye, am I my mother circa 1968??). I finally settled on a pair that I don't think look hideous. (Funny side note... little helper guy had a tongue piercing that I think was new because he was having difficulty talking). So Thursday night I start putting the new drops in. Two drops every 4 hours. Thursday evening I was in so much pain I was lying on the sofa with a warm rag over my left eye. Didn't help and ended up having to take pain medication. No improvement today so I called the Dr and now have newer stronger drops. Lucky me.

I was dealt with some sad news Wednesday evening. My Fred Meyers is closing down. I love Fred Meyers. Once this shop closes down I'm going to have to leave the downtown/ Capital hill area to shop for the basic beauty necessities: shampoo, conditioner, soap etc. Grocery stores and drug stores are all rather expensive for these supplies. At least QFC (owned by the same parent co as Fred Meyers) is keeping the same rock & twig section so I'll still be able to get my GF food without too much trouble.

My coworker and I have changed up our gym schedule. I'm now leaving for the gym at like 5:50 AM to get there at about 6:15. (I walk and have stop lights and all that). We then shower at the gym. This is traumatizing to me. I am not a big fan of being naked in public. Even if that public is only the women's locker room at my university. (I throw this in just for Timmy)... It is so daunting to shower around all the perfect little college girl coeds who are all of 18ish and skinny. (honestly, though, at 7:00 in the morning they aren't there thank goodness because then I would really be neurotic about showering at the gym). But this shower switch now gives us about 45 minutes of a workout. I actually did 3 sets of ten leg lifts on the roman chair... 2 of those sets being legs straight out kind and not knee curl up kind.

Whee it is 8:00 and time for my next round of new eye drops...

Trash Nazi

We have this old lady who lives in the building. She is the self-appointed trash nazi. She is always leaving signs about appropriate recycling and trash can use. Today there's a sign downstairs about not leaving lids on plastic bottles. 1st they aren't called lids when they're on plastic bottles. 2nd where does it say that in the recycling instructions we all received from the city. It doesn't. She is also frequently redistributing the trash and going through the bins. It is gross and annoying.

People are dumb

I belong to this Celiac Disease (my condition) listserv. Basically all these people post their questions/answers, recipes etc. Sometimes they ask the most asanine questions that I just want to shout at them they should use some common sense. Today's was about beer glasses at bars. If they use the same glasses for beer as they do for soda could there be beer residue from badly washed glasses. I so wanted to reply to the guy "You are an idiot!" Now having worked in a rather large summer camp kitchen and a restaurant kitchen when I was much younger, I can tell you that nowhere that needs to serve more than 10 people at a time washes dishes by hand. They all use these bigass Hobart dish sanitizers. Yeah, periodically food residue stays on but beer residue? It isn't like anything chunky is in beer (I would hope). Now his email will cause a panic amongst all the other panic prone freaks out there about the cleanliness of plates and silverware in restaurants. Sometimes I think I should just stop getting the list, but every once in a rare while I learn something. Other questions/products recently asked about... household cleaners (it isn't like we're drinking them), deoderant (some believe incorrectly that we could absorb the gluten through our skin but in order for there to be a reaction it has to go into the stomach so not likely), laundry detergent, etc. Idiots.

In random good thoughts... rediwhip chocolate whipped cream is really really yummy. :)

Joanne's Scandalous secret!

Now that my apartment manager knows my most scandalous secret, I guess I can share it with the rest of the world. Here's how it transpired that he knows... I ran into him in the hall way as we both were leaving our apartments. He lives across the hall from me. He says to me that I'm probably the only person who hasn't called him to complain that there's no hot water. I looked at him and said, there isn't? He says no. I then replied well, I haven't showered yet today. He looked at me funny and said that it has been like this since yesterday. I said well, I showered before work yesterday and just haven't done it today. So there you have it. On the weekends I don't necessarily shower every day. Since I knew I would be cleaning today I didn't see a point to shower this morning before I just get dirty from cleaning. Big scandalous secret. :)

I am so easily distracted by commercials. I wanted spaghetti for dinner last night but since I didn't have any I didn't get to have it for dinner. So today at the grocery store I bought stuff for spaghetti. There was some steaks on sale too so I bought a couple of those. While watching an ad for Rainforest Cafe, they kept showing these delectible looking steaks. Now I know what I'm having for dinner... steak. :)

Finally! Hijacked search engine

Finally I have managed to find out how to get rid of mysearch. It had hijacked my search engine and anytime I tried to just type in a search in the address bar it would go to mysearch.com. I hated it. I have tried a bazillion different ways to get rid of it. I have searched the entire computer. I have uninstalled anything remotely related to mysearch. Thanks to this fabulous program, Hijack This! I found the BHO (I've already forgotten what BHO stands for) that was responsible for mysearch. I deleted it and it now uses MSN as my default search engine. That makes me oh so very happy. It has been over a year since I've been trying to get rid of mysearch. Ahh. Success!

Ugh! Drunk Gay Boys!

Ok and maybe I'm a little tipsy too. V, Matty P, Steve & I all went out tonight. We had a very good time playing darts and drinking a little. It has been awhile for me so I'm back to my light weight drinking stage. Plus I didn't eat much dinner. One of the biggest benefits of gay boy bars, too, is the amount of alcohol they actually pour in the glass. Very different than that what gets poured at str8 bars. So while we're playing darts, various people come in and leave. V & Matt's tranny friends. My gayboy husband Jeffy came by several times. All in all we were having a very good time. I have lost much of my dart skill. I should go out more often to get it back. After several games, we were joined by a VERY DRUNK gay boy, Matthew. Matthew was at that drunken stage where he will hit on and accost anything, including me! This does not make me happy for several reasons. 1 - he was stinky sweaty and trying to put his stinky sweaty hat on my head. 2 - he wasn't making any sense at all. and 3 - just eew... why is it never the really hot ones that get that way? ;) So after confusing Matty P and I with some random conversation, he left us. About 10:30, we FINALLY finished our last game of darts. Matty P and I were leaving. I signed out my tab, said goodbye to my friend Andrew (yummy) went outside and talked to Matty P and his friend Shane. At some point, extremelydrunkMatthew rejoined us. Where he continued to try to hit on MattyP, Shane and me. He tried slobbering all over my neck and I tried to push him away. He was gross! He kept trying to give us his hat and convince us that Juliette Lewis gave him the hat. He was really obsessed with the hat. I hate to think how many other heads it had been on before he put it on mine. They tried to ditch him, but he wasn't really that ditchable. Shane & I ended up walking with him while Matty P & Vlad went on to the next bar, Neighbours. DrunkassMatthew walked with us to Neighbours then went inside. Shane and I continued walking. We chatted for a few minutes and then split up, me to go home and him to another bar. A girl hasta go to bed after a while! :) All in all, fun. Which is sometimes necessary.

Random side note, my friend Tad is in charge of the RPlace float for Gay Pride this weekend. Typically I distance myself from Gay Pride events as much as possible. Extremely drunk & horny gay boys 100% more uninhibited than usual is just too much for me to bear. Tad asked me if I wanted to be in the parade. I felt bad turning him down based on the look he gave me so I tried a different tack. I asked him how early I would have to be there on Saturday. He said the parade was Sunday, so in my best str8laced voice I said, 'but that's the holy day. I have to spend the day in the chapel on my knees.' I then lost it and cracked up, as did he. He said 'I can't believe you just said that.' We cracked up for a while and then left it ambiguous, but the invitation is out there. I may have to violate my avoidance of all Gay Pride events and go to The Cuff (terribly frightening for a little str8 girl like me leather bar that I've been to twice and try to avoid if at all possible) because the gay pimp, Johnny McGovern will be there performing. He does this song, Soccer Practice, that I just LOVE. LOVE IT!

Things people should not do & coolness

I'll start with coolness... my middle boss (I have 3ish bosses... my regular boss out on mat leave, the middle boss and big boss) has announced that in order to maintain customer service levels on Friday afternoons, we will no longer be closing the office at 3ish like we have been for the past few weeks. This is okay, though, because instead, 2 of us will get to leave at 2:00 and the 3rd will stay until 4:30. We then rotate so it is fair. I won't complain. Having to stay until 4:30 on only 3 Fridays until September BUT getting to leave at 2:00 the others vs having to stay until 3:30ish or longer every Friday. That's quite nice.

Things people should not do: If you have kids, don't let them voice your answering machine message. It is annoying, especially to those of us making business calls to try to decipher what the little darling is saying, to be sure we have the right person.

Old age & hotness

While I frequently lament about being old (really I am not as hung up as I like to pretend I am), Michelle and I realized another sign of oldness (maybe maturity?). Responsible = hot. I read that in a TWOP recap recently and realized it was so true. Gone are the days when I find the starving artist who drives his beater car to burning man totally hot. Ok to be honest, I never really found THAT type hot anyway. Usually they are unwashed and have dredlocks which are gross and I don't actually know what burning man is (and please don't explain I don't want to know). But you know what I mean. You get to a certain point in your life and you realize that a guy who can hold down a regular full time job is more attractive than one who can't. Throw in the fact that he pays ALL his bills on time, lives in his own place (with or without roommates as long as they aren't his parents) AND if you see him interacting with kids and he does a pretty good job of it, suddenly Clint Howard looks like Brad Pitt. None of this is necessarily related to a desire on my part to be taken care of. I make okay money at my job (only very select few would actually say oh no I make more than enough at my job, please take some of it away). I am surviving just fine on my own thank you... it speaks more to the fact that a guy who can hold down a job for more than a year... lives in his own place... signed a lease!... etc means that possibly he can actually commit. The guy who is unemployed... lives at home... etc... could disappear at the drop of a hat. And yes, on the shallow side, it would be nice not to have to pay for EVERYTHING on a date, which you end up doing with Mr. Unemployed. Ahh the ideals of being a grown-up.

Cookies & Fremont Fair

I found the best cookies ever at PCC... I have no idea what PCC stands for, so don't ask. It is one of those rock & twig co-op places in Fremont. They are made by a company whose cookies I usually don't like (Pamela's) but damn. These are good. The saddest most alarming part... $3.29 for 9 cookies. :( That's .36 per cookie. But they are yummy, and for the rare of you that have actually tasted something Gluten Free you would know that yummy is a rare thing. Most of the time I describe whether or not I like something is if that is 'not gross.' There's not a lot I've found in the GF world that's not 'not gross.'

I finished out my volunteer work at the Fremont Fair by being 'sink monitor.' This basically meant I made sure the sink drained properly. It was one of those outdoor ones provided by the same group that does the porta-potties. Apparently some of the food vendors will wash things that are too large to go down the sink and then the pump will jam. I was making sure this didn't happen. Now, for those of you that know me, you will know that beyond any other household chore, I hate... HATE doing dishes. I hate touching that squicky crap that floats in the sink when you are done. I hate everything about doing dishes so this post... nightmare for me. A couple times I had to clean that crap out. :( UGH! I realized 2 things this weekend also. Most of the festivals I've volunteered for seem to attract the smelly unwashed hippie type. Where is a nice clean upstanding republican festival? (ok I'm kidding there). Second. Even though I like to volunteer for these festivals, I don't actually like to attend them. I think volunteering lets me get out and go to them, but I don't have to actually be a participant.

My bigger boss told me about tabletop dishwashers. I am SOOO going to have to look into this.

I have been thinking about moving recently. I know I can't afford to and probably don't really want to, but my apartment is now at that messiness stage where it would be just easier to give up, throw a match in there and start over. :) Guess I know what I'm doing this coming weekend.

Never Again

Will I complain about wearing a sweatshirt and jeans in June. Seriously. We've gone from really cold to really hot and I can't cope. I've lost all my survive in the heat skills (of course in Arizona we had a crazy little thing called air conditioning). I can't believe I'm excited to go to work tomorrow. :S

Morning Person, Religion & stuff...

I have to finally admit to myself I really am a morning person. I don't actually mind being up at 5:30. I can get laundry and other stuff done before most people are even up. Of course this means I have to go to bed kind of early... 10:30ish, but that's okay too. Really, what am I doing that late at night? Nothing. Watching mindless TV. I have a terrible time when I try to sleep late. I just need to say ok... this is who I am and I wake up at 5:30. :)

Most of the time religion is a non thing for me. I don't believe in any sort of higher power. I call myself an athiest, although I am probably closer to agnostic. I don't really care who knows it, except when dealing with children. While I am all for lying to adults (everyone does it shut up, although I guess I should clarify that by lying to adults I mean the mostly harmless... no your butt doesn't look fat in those jeans... no I'm just really tired so I'll stay in tonight... of course you're the hottest one here... etc), I don't like to lie to children about the big stuff. You get found out anyway and may as well be upfront. With kids it gets complicated for me. I don't want to contradict what they've learned from their parents, but I don't want to tell them a full blown lie either. Luckily my brownies haven't ever asked me about my beliefs, but they did ask me a St. Peter question the other night at our last meeting. One of the songs we learned while camping, "Found a Peanut" has the singer dying and facing St. Peter. Of course the question... who is St. Peter. I have to answer this delicately since I don't want to say "According to some religious mythologies" which is what I want to say, but most people don't take kindly to when you call their religion mythology. So, first I had to think about who he was since I'm not that up on my religious teachings, then I had to explain it in a way that was the least offensive manner possible. I think I said something like, according to some religions when a person dies, they go to see Saint Peter who will tell them if they get into heaven or to the other place. I know all my brownies (except maybe 1) go to church, and I actually think they go to the same church. I have no idea what kind, though.

Other stuff - I don't like this host of the VH1 Countdown. Her name is Rachel somethingorother and she pronounced Nirvana... nirvAna... emphasis on the 1st A. I couldn't help but think that as a countdown host she should know how to pronounce the artist's names correctly. That is all.
Someone in the elevator today said I smelled beautiful. :) Gotta love herbal essences.

Saved!

Is a funnyass movie. V, Matthew (his boyfriend not Matty P) and I went to see it this afternoon. I highly recommend it. I read an interview with Mandy Moore who said that she was glad to get to play a villian for a change. She did it very well, I think. You felt bad for her even though she was so mean. You could tell that the character honestly felt the crazy God stuff she was spewing. Really, I thought the whole thing was well done and funny as hell.

I like the message of the new KFC commercials... I eat what tastes good. That cracks me up although since their previous Atkinsesque commercial caused everyone to go WTF, they obviously figured out they'd have to go this route... For those who missed the commercials... they tried to make it seem like KFC was 'health' food if they took the skins off. It was a very very WTF moment.

I volunteered at the Fremont Fair today. It was a beautiful day outside. I stood at the giving station and encouraged people to donate money for charity. It was a quick 2.5 hours. I am, however, sunburned on one arm. I got my shoulders covered with sunscreen, but didn't bother with the lower arms because they usually don't burn. Apparently I'm just a silly billy because they do burn. :) I go back tomorrow and am a 'zone' worker. I think that means I just walk a certain stretch to make sure things are going well.

Harry Potter & If I had a billion dollars

I went and saw HP today. I liked it. Apparently 4:15 in the afternoon is an ideal time to go to the movies as it was not crowded at all. There were a couple of scenes from the book that I would've liked to see on the big screen. One in particular when the Slytherin boys are playing a joke on HP and dressed up like a dementor while HP was playing quidditch. He wipes them out with a Patronus I think that would've been a funny scene. It is hard to watch the movies when I've read all the books because I think I'm getting some of them confused. I just remembered this morning another section I would've liked to see. At one point it gets explained to Harry that the reason Sirius and Peter Pettigrew learned to become animagus was so that they could support Lupin. They discuss how the boys all learned to transform in secret including HP's dad who transforms into a stag. Then they round it out with that his dad did help him with his patronus that appeared in the shape of a stag. That was a nice scene in the book.

I was thinking as I walked home more ideas about what I would do if I had a billion dollars. I think I would want to start a foundation. I could hire Matty P to work at it. Prolly V too to do computer stuff. Then I would infuse a ton of money into the city so that I would get invited to important things, but I would never go. I would become reclusive. I think that would be fun too. Hide out in my small house on the lake. Just go to work. Until I go completely mad then I'll leave all my money to my 40 cats or something like that. That's a good plan.

Dead Relatives

Wow! I have a large quantity of dead relatives in the country of Nigeria. Who knew? I have been contacted about 15 times in the past 6 months regarding these dead family members. I know I should feel more sorrow over all of this loss. We are talking at least 45 family members. If only I had known about all these Nigerian family members sooner, we could've been closer. Maybe I could've gone and visited them. Because I am so close to these family members, apparently I could be inheriting multiple millions of dollars. Golly that would make my life so easy! I had better get right on contacting this attorney to get my money.

Fucking Yahoo

If you can't make your fucking upgrades work, don't fucking install them! So far I have spent 20 minutes trying to read my fucking email in Yahoo. I keep getting those DNS errors. PLUS! I belong to a couple of lists where I get daily emails. One ALWAYS goes to my spam box. Despite my having added it as a contact AND the clicking of the 'this is not spam' box. What is the point of having these two options if they don't work?! Fucking yahoo.

Arcticness

I have found the secret to controlling the arcticness in my office. Close my boss's office door. With it shut, all her air conditioning doesn't come blowing in and makes my office a tiny bit warm. When I do have to go into her office... frostbite city, but I can cope if it means I'm not freezing too. The fancy new thermostats they have put in... I can't make mine work. :(

If I had a billion dollars...

This morning while walking to work I walked past a headline about a Boeing contract for 3.9 billion dollars. That got me thinking about how much money really is a billion dollars. Which got me thinking about the Pepsi billion dollar contest. Which got me thinking that if I won that contest what would I do?...
The list:
1 - Pay off debt. No brainer there :)
2 - Buy a little house. I don't need anything huge... just a cute little house maybe on the water.
3 - Buy a little car. A hybrid probably. If I move off of the hill to my little house, I would need a car to get to work.
4 - Set up funds for my nieces and nephew to go to college.
5 - Take a nice vacation. Of course to my house of worship. The nice part, I could stay in the FANCY hotel for a long time. :)
6 - Give some to the folks.
7 - Hire a housekeeper and pay her huge amounts of money to assuage my guilt over having a housekeeper.
8 - Charity... Charity... Charity.
9 - Give some to friends.
10 - Maybe adopt a kid or 2.

I like working so I'd keep working probably. Just live a little better than I currently do. I think I would fear ending up like all those other contest winners who you read about in People magazine who declare bankruptcy two years after winning the 2.6 million from Lotto or something.

What would you do?

Other thoughts

I saw an ad for pepsi edge (I think). Low Carb Pepsi. That's just sick and wrong. I am so done with the whole low carb thing. Give it up already, the guy died of heart disease isn't that enough of a red flag?

My gyno is leaving the clinic I usually go to, where my regular doctor is located. Since I don't particularlay like her, this isn't a huge deal to me. But it did get me wondering. Will she send out a change of clinic card like hair dressers do? Now I have to choose from the other 3 the clinic offers. We have young Asian lady, older man, and possible lesbian. For some reason, when the clinic sent me the info cards, each of the people lists their hobbies/interests. I don't really care about that info. All I really want to know is will they cause me pain (last one I didn't like did) and will they actually give a damn about whatever issues I have, as opposed to the "Let's wait until you decide to have kids to discuss whatever is wrong." The nice thing is that now I get a new doctor without feeling a tiny bit guilty about leaving the old one. (I know I know... there's no reason to feel guilt... I didn't like her I shouldn't suffer through bad care blah blah blah, but I'm neurotic. We know this). Ah well, I don't actually have to DO anything for like 6 or so more months... I'll deal then.

Encampment

It's over and I'm tired. The girls had a good time, I think. A lot of the adults said that it went well and it was well organized and well run. I could only really focus on the things going wrong, or the things I was struggling to ensure didn't go wrong.

The good: Kids had a great time (and really that's the most important good). My girls had a good camping trip too (and maybe that's more important than the other random girls having a good time). Things went off fairly smoothly. No one got injured. We got a lot of parent help with dishes and food prep so that was nice too.

The bad: People were gripey about certain things... like breakfast - Granola Bars, Muffins & Juice boxes. Get over it I say. I had one troop pissy because we made pb&j for lunch and they had a peanut allergy in their mix. To this I say, I asked your troop 4+ times if there were any food issues/allergies prior to the encampment... the answer I received "They're all with their parents so they won't eat what they aren't supposed to." Sorry can't be accommodating then asshats. Worse... We had a troop go swimming! SWIMMING! At no time did I ever offer this up as an activity. It was not hot... 65ish degrees. THe ocean obviously much colder. And when someone called them on it, they took their own sweet time to get out of the water.

The ugly: Me... at 11:00 this morning after not showering for 2.5 days... cooking with fire last night... hair greasy in the same gross pony tail it had been in all weekend... and my last nerve frayed. I dropped off my stuff at my apartment then took the rental car back. I caught the bus home and realized I probably looked like a homeless person. My shirt was filthy. My jeans probably could've walked on their own. The best thing ever... getting home and getting into that shower. There's something about that first shower after camping. It is like heaven. I could've stood under the hot water for days. I actually did the lather, rinse repeat. I could smell the smoke from the cooking fire just pouring out of my body. Ahh the blissful feeling of being clean.

Recognition

My brownies are sooooo funny sometimes. One of my little Brownies came in tonight and she hands me a paper and asks me why I needed the collage. I of course have no idea what she is talking about and the moms and other girls are hissing her name and trying to get her attention so that she isn't pointing out that they are planning something that will probably make me cry. So she keeps bringing stuff up and the others are trying to stop her. And of course I have to play stupid so that they can surprise me. Then the moms ask if we can have next week's meeting outside at the park area. And I said sure. They are bringing treats. They are so sweet, but this will mortify me I'm sure. I really get uncomfortable when people make a big deal about me. There is also a barbecue scheduled on the 21st for the service unit where they will recognize various things. I do not want to go to this, since one of the things they will recognize is Encampment Director. This too will mortify me.

Heee

My boss's (?) email is now being forwarded to me. She gets multiple porn spam emails a day. That is kinda funny considering how religious she is and this is the Human Resources department.

Practical Jokes

Last night's episode on Friends was the one where Rachel teaches Ben to do pratical jokes and Ross gets all pissy and mad. He kept going on about how he hated pratical jokes and they are mean spirited. It got me thinking. I totally agree with that, I hate pratical jokes. I hate them a lot. I think that the reason people like Ross and me hate them is because we were tricked a lot as kids and never quite devious or quick enough to come up with a good one to retaliate with. I think if I were devious enough in school, I wouldn't hate them as much today.

Can't a girl catch a break?

Seriously... Work crush is being asked to go away. :( Just when I was delusional enough to think I was making headway.

Ok and here is one of those things I don't get. MTV music awards hasn't been on TV yet, but they've announced all the winners already. What's the point of watching then?

Scarred for life

I may be scarred for life... I just got chicken at the student center, and there was a feather still attached to the wing. EEK! I realize I am completely hypocritical when it comes to meat consumption. I find cows cute but still like a good ol steak. I realize I could NEVER EVER kill my own food. It would traumatize me. To that end, I like my food as far away from its original form as possible. At home I spend the extra for boneless/skinless so I don't really have to think about where this meat product came from. A feather... yuck. :(

hmm...

I'm feeling a little blue this evening. Probably because I have had enough alcohol to down me but not enough to bring me back up to that drunken happiness. I shall have to try harder in the future to get the balance just right. :) Plus I realize I totally have to go to bed but am not tired enough to do so so tomorrow is going to SUCK and not in a good way.

Li'l of this li'l of that

First thought of the evening, what's the point of having a "remember me" box for blogger to automatically log me in when it doesn't work half the time?

While walking home from a meeting early this afternoon, I walked behind one of the most unusual sights in my recent memory. No this wasn't a punk with pink hair, I see that all the time. This wasn't a guy covered from head to toe in tattoos... I frequently see that too. :) Nope, today's was these two visibly older gentlemen walking ahead of me up the road. Why were they unusual you may wonder? They were decked from head to toe in cowboy garb. Serious cowboy garb. Cowboy hat, bandana around the neck, plaid flannel shirt, brown leather vests, jeans and boots. They looked as though they stepped off the sidewalk in Tombstone (which since I used to live just 15 min from there I've seen 'real' cowboys.)

Encampment in t-5 days and counting. Am I starting to panic? Oh yes... I just want the kids to have fun and the adults to be reasonably useful... Is this too much to ask? Given that it is 5 days until the camping trip and I just called one of the leaders to confirm their attendence since apparently they couldn't do it before May 13th when I sent the confirmation request, apparently it will be. (phew one giantass runon sentence.) This year, we don't have the usual troop that does the cooking so we have a quantity cook coming from outside, I'm going to have to call on a lot of parents to help out in the kitchen with dishes and prep cooking. Yuck. And YIKES! Of course some of these troops are bringing 10 adults to their 10 girls. They can spare a few parent volunteers I think.

My mother yet again

The woman makes me CRAZY! She has entered this auction for a flat screen. Somehow she has it in her head that if she wins it is better if I go pick it up for her and ship it to her as opposed to the seller. Why? Why is this better? For whom is this better? She knows it takes me FOREVER to ship anything. I am not real keen on having to field trip to xyz place to pick the stupid thing up. Somehow this makes perfect sense in her mind... Now though she actually has the winning bid on a moniter from a company here in Seattle and she wants me to 'check them out.' Shouldn't I have done this BEFORE she won? Apparently she sent them an email and it got returned to sender so she forwarded me the email from them with all the headers and attachments so I can 'check them out.' Seriously, she. makes. me. crazy!

Memory & Me

So I have one of those types of memories that can't forget certain things. Typically when I meet a person, if I run into them again I will remember not only meeting them, but usually their name and sometimes where & through whom I met them. This would seem like not a bad thing, except sometimes I remember random people I haven't officially met but have seen several times. There's this guy I keep seeing around capitol hill that I've never met so all I know is his face. Strangely he is one of those people I can't remember why I know his face so it is just his face and me thinking... I know this guy who the fuck is he? Contrary to this face memory, I forget sometimes important things or common things. I spent 3 hours the other morning trying to figure out the word fire hydrant. I kept thinking I know that's a fire plug... but there's another word. I finally had to ask a coworker and she laughed at me.

Hot date

Tonight I have all the makings for a really hot date. Wine, chocolate, beautiful flowers... now alas and alak all I need is cute boy... Ah a girl can dream can't she?

One of these days I hope workcrush walks by just before lunch and I can some how work out a lunch date ... ahh that would be nice...

SU had our employee appreciation event tonight. I was at work until 7:00. So at this event they had food and long ass speeches... people were honored for anniversaries in multiples of 5 plus there were like 3 awards and then professors emereti and retirees were honored. It was LONG... My big boss said I was a kick when we were chatting and getting things set up. Is that a good thing do you think?

Final thought... is my regular boss EVER going to give birth?? Okay technically she is only due today so that she isn't really late, but really. A lot of us are assuming/believing she won't come back. For obvious reasons, I hope she isn't coming back.

Ok one other final thought... Jesse James of Monster Garage and car fame... HOT!

Baxter & Soccer Mom Hair

Bax went to the vet yesterday for her monthly Luperon shot. I know I always vowed I wouldn't be this pet owner, and you really don't think you will be until you are faced with the possible death of your pet and then suddenly you ARE THAT pet owner. Since her shot is only 35 bucks, she gets to live. I am very impressed, she did not try to bite either of the two vet techs. I was really surprised since she tried to bite the vet last month like 5 times at least in the 15 min he saw her. AND the vet techs gave her a shot. The shots are working... her neck and shoulders has all this fuzzy new hair growth that's all soft like a new buzz cut. Her ass still looks like naked mole rat with a bad combover though.

Sometimes in the morning I do my hair in what I call soccer mom hair. I don't like my hair in my face and now that it is short, but growing out, it falls in my face all the time. I pin back the sides in 2 barrettes and think I look like a soccer mom, and today's outfit of shortsleeved sweater with long skirt encourages the look. Probably all I look like is a fashion victim from the 80's. :)

Stadiums & Names

I do not love it when ginormous corporate sponsors buy a stadium or arena or whatever and then rename it after themselves. For example, in California there is this beautiful (to me at least) outdoor amphitheater that at one point was called Irvine Meadows. Now it is Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. How craptastic is this? It would be like calling 'The Gorge' something like Clorox Wetjet Now With Added Bleach Theater. I bring this up because the news has been having teasers all evening for what the Seahawk's Stadium's new name will be now that it apparently has been purchased by a ginormous corporate sponsor.

Thread Count & King of the Hill

Thread Count - I discovered last night that thread count DOES matter. I was looking for clean sheets for the bed and could only find this one old sheet from when I lived in Alaska. I haven't used it in years. I swear it must have like a 10 threadcount. It is so uncomfortable. Luckily it is just the bottom one, the top one is from another set so it is much softer. I wouldn't even have bothered except baxter got sick in my bed. :( I went to put a good set of sheets on and Baxter helped me spill soda on the next sheet I was about to put on. It was a difficult difficult sheet night.

King of the Hill - There is an episode where Hank goes to buy a new toilet and discovers all he can find are 'low flow' toilets. Wacky hijinx ensue and they have a discussion about how it takes several more than 1 flush to flush properly. That's kind of what it is like here recently. For some reason all our work toilets take a minimum of 2 flushes, just for regular going... Stupid toilets.

Last Post on Random Stoppers, I swear...

I can't believe I totally forgot this, but MY MOTHER is a random stopper. I hate walking with her because she always stops suddenly. (I was going to say without warning, but DUH that's what suddenly means) When she does this, I physically push her to one side and tell her that she is random stopping and it is annoying to those of us walking near her. I think my father hates random stoppers and that's where I get it from.

work crush

My work crush stopped by this morning. He checked as he was walking up the stairs and waved before he went into the controller's office. Then on his way out he stopped by and we chatted for quite a few minutes. *sigh*

Density

Sometimes I'm dense and I don't even realize it. I've been calling all over trying to get 1 12 passenger van for our camping trip. The best deal I've been able to find is for over 350.00. That's a lot and our troop can't afford that. So then someone said, oh we don't have 12 passenger vans, would you like a quote for 2 minivans. TWO MINIVANS! Why didn't I think of that? Duh... So now we are renting 2 minivans, with Brownies subsidizing part of it and each family chipping in 20 bucks. That's a good deal. :)

Gym & Other random thoughts

Wahoo! I was at the gym for some unknown reason at 6:40 (usually I get there 6:55ish). That gave me my 30 min workout on the elliptical trainer and then I did a bunch of weight lifting. I did that stupid Roman chair thing and managed to do 10 leg lifts, fell off, but the exciting part... 10 more before I fell off again. Then 5 then 5. But I am finding that I can hold myself up for a little bit longer each time before falling like a complete idiot. :) This makes me happy. It also makes me happy that I've been blogging my exercise periodically so I can actually see how far I've come... from barely doing the elliptical trainer for 20 min at 120 strides/min to now 30 at 160+ strides/min. I know my goal is to get up to 40 min on it, but I still have to consult with my physician about some other asthma issues and now since my regular medication is coming up soon I figure I should just combine the two visits.

So the high drama this weekend was a fire on the monorail when it was full of people. Keep in mind this is the first fire since it was built in the 60s. Now I'm sure for those on the monorail this was a nightmare, but all things considered only 8 people were treated for smoke inhalation and 1 firefighter got a knee injury. All were seen in the hospital and released that day. Now of course, people are starting to question the new monorail being built. The most annoying part is the headline on the Seattle Times this morning "Fire Marshall says new monorail should have catwalk." Why this annoys me... they've been saying for a while now that it would in case anything happens. It has been discussed ad nauseum in the papers since the fire that the new monorail would have a catwalk to ensure the safety of the passengers. This isn't NEWS.

One more thought re Folklife

Folklife festival attracts the donotshowerhippie types. I really want to yell at them that this isn't Alaska, they probably don't live in cabins and really really water and deoderant aren't bad things.