Thoughts and ruminations on googlestalking an ex

Don't do it. Even if you think it might be okay it isn't. After the dreams of the ex recently I decided to google him and see what came up. What came up... a page about him with a link to myspace. Of course I had to follow this through to fruition. I had begun the soul destroying, I couldn't stop. The end result. He still is hot. Maybe hotter than he was oh so many years ago. Hard to say. The other end result. He could still be a jackass and he definitely is unmotivated. Not that I require a CEO or anything but oh so many years after college he should have a degree of some sort by now. (Please notice how I don't spell out how many years oh so many is because when THAT dawned on me I contemplated how hard it would be to cause myself to spontaneously combust.)

I think this was primarily prompted by a rash of recent facebook friends updating their profiles (well and becoming my friends to begin with). Everybody I knew in college and high school has a spouse and children. Ok that's probably an exaggeration, but the ones that post a lot of updates all seem to and it is forcing me to have the oh so unhealthy dialogue of "Huh, how'd she manage to find a husband?" in my head. And they all post pictures of their kids and it is so cute and it might be making me a little bitter. So for about 10 minutes yesterday I felt sorry for myself hence the googlestalking which made me more bitter. :) Isn't that how it always works? So maybe the real lesson here is Facebook is the enemy. Ahh... yes that's the real lesson.

A bunch of random thoughts leading up to one whole post

I donated blood today. I was pleased I managed to have enough iron in my body to do it for a change. Usually I get yellow carded for at least the first two attempts. They have a new machine, now, to test the hematocrit. Weirdly, the first time they did it I totally failed. You have to have a 12.5 reading and I only had a 11.4. So they did it a 2nd time and passed it. It did make me wonder.

I've been having crazy ass dreams lately. Two nights ago it was a long drawn out dream that actually continued after every time I woke up. There was something about children and I rescued them from the side of the road where they were just sitting. Kind of like picking up a stray dog. I took them to work to find their keepers and I can't remember the rest. Although in the beginning of my dream they were boys but by the end of the dream one was a girl. I can't remember last nights except that an ex made an appearance and it was so real when I woke up this morning I was briefly confused as to whether or not I had seen him in Seattle. (He's not from here so why would he be here?).

Other thoughts include that I find this one concept for mascara creepy... lash tubes. I don't really get it but every time I see the ad on TV I get creeped out. (Completely illogical I know)

I'm trying to cook more at home. So far I've managed two meals in a row. That's not saying a lot. :) Although both were really good. :)

Chocolate for Itches

Last night Stephen and I went to NARAL's Chocolate for Choice event at Safeco Field. It was an interesting gathering. I probably won't attend again, but I'm glad I did and I picked up some nice chocolate. There was a silent auction, which Stephen won something from, and a regular auction of cakes. I didn't bid on anything, but I considered it. I always feel badly for the things that don't get bid on. Like somehow they weren't good enough. It's weird, I know. I think it is actually that I feel badly for the people that donate the item. I know that if I were donating an item (and a lot of the items were handicrafted) I would take care and choose carefully picking something that I thought would earn money for the charity. I guess I would be disappointed if I thought something was great and nobody else did. I might be too sensitive about rejection (or perceived rejection). :)

One thing I should have thought about, but failed to, was the amount of food I might be able to consume. I know I read that both bakers and confectioners would be there, but it was mostly bakers. There were only a few stalls with chocolate that wasn't a baked good. Although Stephen more than made up for my inability to have things. (I'm pretty sure he ate more chocolate than I did all the while proclaiming his dislike for chocolate. ;) ) I did have this wonderful chocolate gelato that had a burnt sugar something or other that was divine. I also got several truffles from theo's chocolate so that I haven't tried yet. I picked up some fudge. Have I ever mentioned I don't really like fudge? I know, for a chocoholic like me to not like fudge it is a weird thing, but I think it is the addition of condensed milk which kind of burns my throat that does it.

Rode hard put away wet - a rare wprk post

This has been a long hard past two weeks at my office. Firstly it is always hard to come back after two weeks off. I don't know how I'm going to survive it when I go to Ireland (unless I meet a wildly attractive Irish man who will sweep me off my feet and take me away from all this forever... a girl can dream right??) :) Coming back will be HARD.

Second, some parts of my job are uncomfortable. I work in benefits and some things I have to do are difficult. We have had two people die at my work in the past two weeks. I get the fun job of speaking with family about things like life insurance etc. Both were sudden so their families are broken up.

Third, I've been working with someone who just frustrates the hell out of me. He also is a major time suck and what should be a simple meeting turns into an hour and a half of me wanting to bang my head on a desk.

Next week will be a better week, I'm sure of it. (Or not, but my fingers are crossed that it will be).

Party Harty

I actually went to a party yesterday. I thought about skipping out on it but since I was meeting a coworker at the U and we were walking over together, I couldn't really skip it. I had 2 mixed drinks (pineapple rum and oj. that's some good stuff right there). I don't think I got tipsy even, although while walking home I was wondering if I was stumbling. :) It was (oh crap I have to get my gear together for water aerobics which means tomorrow in the AM for my shower I have to shave) a coworker's party. She is my water aerobics instructor (hence the sidebar) but she also works with new students. I like her, but like most Student Development people she's kind of effusive and touchy feely. I had hopes for possible single people but alas, apparently all the guys her husband knows are not. She seems to have an interesting mix of friends, but you could definitely see a divide among the cliques. I spent a lot of time talking to coworkers. I talked to this one guy for about 30 minutes (at least) about retirement planning and all that. That's his job too. There were a couple of people I knew from hanging out with her before but not that well and I'm not so good at the talking to random people. I'm impressed with myself for even going since usually I wouldn't.

There was a sign on my elevator last night when I got home that said the heater would be off and turned back on in the morning due to a burst steam pipe. I have no idea when that happened but I can say today it has been sweltering in my apartment. I turned down my own radiator to the lowest setting becuase I'm so hot. I was impressed when I did laundry that the newest manager (that would be #7 if you're keeping track) FINALLY replaced all the burned bulbs in the laundry room. We've been operating on 1/2 light in that room for at least the last year.

Headed to the library today to pick up some new books. They were taping a show called "The Phone" (?) at the library. I didn't see the cameras but there were official looking people wandering about and there were signs as you walked in saying that basically going into the library means you accept that you might be taped and shown on TV. I can't imagine what they were taping in the library, there seemed to be a heightened number of homeless in the library today.

While at the library I photocopied a roadmap of Ireland. I'm going to put the 4 pieces of the map together so that I can really study it and figure out the best places to stay. We're going to try to stay only in 4 to 5 towns that are centrally located to the region and then travel from each of those towns to the sights. In the driving vs public transport debate there are good arguments for either side. On the driving side is the ability to do things on our own schedule and not the artifical schedule of the buses and rails. There's also the expense of public transportation. They offer an Emerald Card which is good on the entire country's various public lines - trains, DART, buses, etc - and it runs like $180 Euro (which is about 250) but that would be good for our entire trip. So that's about $20 a day in transportation costs. The con to driving include the fact that apparently most rental cars in Ireland are manual. I can drive a stick but Lyday can't. Of course that may be a good thing (she knows I'm nervous about her driving, this is no shock to anyone). But I don't have car insurance so there's an additional expense on the car side. Also, gas runs almost $5.00 a gallon. Yikes. Oh and there's the whole driving on the left hand side of the road thing which you can toss on driving down narrow and really unfamiliar streets. So I don't know. Although if we're going public transport route (which I think we are) that will impact some of the places we go to and how long we spend there. Just about 2 months until vacation. Whee!!!

Damn Weak Dollar

Of course it is 2 and a half months before I go on vacation so things can change before then but currently one dollar is only worth .73 Euros.

Y'all have no idea how much I appreciate having friends that like to do things on vacation but don't have any real desire to plan them. I have no idea why I'm like this with vacation. I'm not like this in anything else, but I LOVE to plan vacations. Figure out where I'm going and when and what all I'm going to do on it. Michelle said to me when we were planning our Hawai'i trip that if I didn't want to lie on the beach the whole time I had better figure out other activities and I totally did. Lyday, who is going with me to Ireland, is just letting me plan whatever I want to do. She's had a few requests but so far seems to be content with me just saying ok here's where we're going. I LOVE it! Even Matthew let me plan our adventure to see tulips.

I did fail my sister and our impromptu trip over to Leavenworth but if I had realized we would be spending two nights there (instead of the one we originally planned for) and if I had more time on Monday between getting home from the rental car place and packing for Leavenworth I may have done a better job. As it was, I forgot the name of the hotel we were staying in and had to call my mom and direct her to the web page and give me names and phone numbers of the various hotels that sounded right. It was a bit crazy, but I figured it out on the 2nd hotel.

So far we will be spending a lot of time outside looking at outdoor things. We're going to go caving (which I'm aware is indoors). We're going to cross a rope bridge. We'll stay in a hostel in a castle one night. I will step into the sea there and wade up to my ankles. (I do this everywhere I go that's on an ocean. I've been at least up to my ankles in Alaska, Hawai'i, California, Maine, Florida, and many states in between) We're going to go to the Waterford and the Guinness factories. I think we're going to use public transport as much as possible. I will have to do more research to figure out how to get to all my destination dreams via public transportation.

Random things

I like this idea I had while walking home today. Since Mandy's kid's spring break does not coincide with Lyday's spring break I think I could actually go for 2 weeks and meet my sister there for the first week and meet Lyday the 2nd week. That could be awesome. Of course to figure out the finances for that will take some doing but that may be the plan. Now to list the must sees, the nice to sees, the maybe sees and the eh I don't care about that to figure out where to go. Whee. I love vacation.

I was glad to get back when I did. The past two weeks I slept at three different places besides my apartment. That was fine, but I found it very strange that at all three of those places (yes one being Michelle's house) the showers were all designed for short people. The one at the hotel in Leavenworth was the worst. Not only did I have to kind of crouch my knees down but I also had to do the back tilt to get my head under the water. My sister is only 5'4" and it was short for her. So weird. Despite the hole in the wall, I do love my shower. The water is outrageously hot and I get good water pressure. AND it is plenty tall enough. Yay.

Tax Time!

It makes me a wee bit sad that my employer doesn't do my W-2 until the last possible minute. On the other hand, I'm absolutely thrilled that I just estimated my tax refund based on my Dec 31 paycheck and I'm getting back $1800. All of that is going towards the $1000 I already have saved and this is going to be a fabulous trip to Ireland! :) (Which there are dates by the way in case you care. Somewhere around March 19th through the 28th. Whee!!)

Vampires

As you may recall I got another tattoo last year during my visit to Michelle's... On around the 27th or 28th. When I got back to Seattle and was called to donate blood I explained I couldn't and wouldn't be able to until around the first of 09. I opened my email today and received a reminder that I'm now eligible to donate blood and I should make an appointment today. If only everything were as simple as that. :)

So sleepy

I hung out with Michelle's daughter yesterday while she and her husband had to go to work. Kids are tiring. I was dozing off on the sofa at 9:00. I also was dozing off on the floor while she played with shape sorters around me. Should have taken a nap when she did instead of playing Wii boom blox. :) But it was fun and we had a good time (I think). She didn't cry except when I accidentally turned on tickle me elmo. She's afraid of that. With good reason I think. I see all those kids on the commercials just loving that thing, I can't imagine why. They're kind of scary. Also because of all the mechanics to make it do its thing, you can't really cuddle with it. They have big heavy feet and weird feeling joints. Give me a simple stuffed elmo any day I say. (Or melmo as she says).

One weird thing about Michelle's house... she doesn't have a clock in most of the rooms. At home I have a minimum of one clock per room (except the bathroom because, well that's just weird). Here there isn't one in the family room, the tv room, the bedroom I'm sleeping in. I had to go get my cell phone so I could know what time it was. I'm sure there's actually reasons for some of them... the room I'm sleeping in is about to become Kenna's big girl room so when it gets changed she may put a clock in it (although I don't actually think there's one in her current room either). Maybe I'm just obsessed with time. :) Actually at one point yesterday, I was almost positive it was at least noon and I checked the time and almost cried because it was only like 9:30. That would be a big red flag that I'm not meant to be a stay at home mom. :)

Otherwise the weather is beautiful. Kenna and I went outside twice yesterday and I was totally too warm in my thin sweater. There's no snow on the ground (although when we went to Palmdale to return the lesbian blouses I did see some very small patches of very dirty brown snow along the freeway). And so far a good time is being had. What a nice way to spend Christmas break.

Goals for the New Year

I'm in CA. Yay! Where it is warm. Double yay! Hanging out with a baby, and Michelle and her husband. Triple yay!

I took back most of the tops from my mom and got $77 in Dillards store credit. Luckily they allow you to use it online. Unluckily I think their sizes either run small or accurate because the shirts I tried on were uncomfortably tight in places they shouldn't be. Or maybe that was the style and they were supposed to be tight. I don't know. We had to drive out into the middle of nowhere to go and return stuff.

Anyway, goals for the new year...

1 - No more credit card use starting in February. (It has to be February because from paycheck to paycheck is 6 weeks in January because of the length of January and because we got paid before Christmas).

2 - Take my damn pills every day so my hand stops looking like I have the pox. Since I'm not as careful as I should be with my dietary restrictions I still sometimes get some exposure to gluten and that causes me to break out periodically. I take a daily pill that takes care of that but can't remember to take it every day anymore. Suddenly I have started taking them maybe once a week and I take like 4 at a time. But usually I only remember to take them because my right hand has started to break out. Hence my hand looks like I have the pox.

3 - Finish cleaning my apartment and keep it that way. I'll give it a try. It doesn't usually work out. :)

My mother thinks I'm a lesbian

That's the only explanation I can come up with for the shirts and dress she bought me for Christmas. Not only am I a lesbian, but I'm a 45 year old or older lesbian. AND she bought them at Dillards. We don't even have a Dillards here in Seattle. Guess what we're doing Michelle when I come and visit... (Do you have Dillards in LA?)

In other news, Leavenworth is gorgeous. I'll post pictures when I get around to getting them off the camera. The bus ride was okay and fairly uneventful. Vancouver was a brief trip surrounded by interminable car rides. We spun out on the freeway coming home and went to a hotel to spend the night and get off the freeway. We went to a hotel in Burlington, a Fairfield I think. It was really nice and definitely worth the bucks we spent. In contrast, I'm not 100% certain the hotel we stayed at in Leavenworth was worth it.

Today we got back from Leavenworth (after deciding to spend an extra night) and went to dinner at Cheesecake Factory. We also went to the movies - Seven Pounds. I did not really enjoy it honestly.

Hopefully I will be on a plane on the 26th to CA. (I say hopefully only because due to weather many of our flights have been fucked and there is a slim possibility I may get stranded.)

Let it Snow

The snow has been coming down off and on since Thursday. It is so beautiful. I really love it. My sister is enthralled with it. We went out for manicures and coffee and dinner and it was really coming down. It was really beautiful.

We're off to Vancouver BC tomorrow. I'm excited to go. Tomorrow we're going to Leavenworth via Greyhound. We'll spend the night there. It should be beautiful. I'm pretty excited by that too.

Wednesday we're going to Stephen's for Christmas eve dinner and we're going shopping. And then she goes home on Thursday. Hopefully we'll get the Christmas presents before Christmas and so I won't have to send Mandy's on to Florida.

Again my mother insisted she send them a way that requires my signature. What part of I'm not home during the day to sign for packages is confusing to her?? I thought they were going to redeliver yesterday but they didn't. They may on Monday. I don't know. So peeved by that.

Agog

I got an email today that never in a million years would I have expected. It was an apology from someone from a long time ago. I never posted about the whole incident except for this one which doesn't really tell you anything at all. It is really interesting, though, because the topic came up a couple months ago when I was having lunch with Stephen. He asked me if there was any way I would speak to this person again and I said I didn't know. One of my own failings is that I hold a grudge. I'm well aware I do it and obviously don't care THAT much about it since I still do it. I don't know if this person was apologizing as a means to try to be friends again or because the person is a 12 stepper or because the moon is in retrograde or because the person really just wanted to apologize and then that's it. So I don't know what will happen now, but I guess we'll see won't we.

Sometimes I need a man

Ok so I admit that what I'm about to say is totally not feminist or independent at all but sometimes I would really like a man in my life. Today's reason... it would be nice to have a male to dispose of dead pets. I hadn't seen Tess since some time on Saturday. This has happened before, but I got a bit worried. My biggest fear with regards to Tess was to find her dead in the closet... You know where this is going right? While cleaning my room tonight I figured I had to go looking for her. Sigh. I found her. She was all folded up in an old blanket. I'm taking her to the vet's tomorrow to let them dispose of her body. I'm sad but not as sad as I was when Minka and Baxter died. I think I'd be more sad if I hadn't already been anticipating this for several months now. The biggest sign she was probably dead... there hadn't been poop in my bed since Friday night.

Also it is completely unenvironmental and uncharitable of me, but I threw the blanket she died in in the trash. The blanket was already pretty foul. It had been my sister's and I don't know the last time it had been washed. It sat in the back of my closet for the past 6 years.

Crap

I'm out of time and my apartment is nowhere near neat. I'm not even shooting for neat at this point just less not neat. Sigh. I've just got too much procrastination going on. Plus this week... every evening is busy. I hate that. Now it is 9 pm and all I want to do is go to bed. Is it wrong that I'm considering calling in sick tomorrow? Or maybe Wednesday. :) Blargh I can't call in sick tomorrow I have too much to take in to work. Sigh.

Yum

QFC has redeemed itself (well sort of, if they didn't have what I wanted when I wanted it does the fact they had it the next day make up for it? Not really) but they had chicken which is good. (Unrelated totally, one thing I don't get about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is was the character born an adult? That seems physically difficult for his mother or was he born a baby but then aged rapidly to start aging backwords. Ultimately I don't care that much because I won't bother seeing it. It seems to weird to me.) Back on subject... So I went to QFC tonight to get chicken (still no chips in the bbq flavor I want though) and I cruised the Asian aisle thinking what I was going to do with the chicken and I decided to make Thai red curry. I've never done that before actually so I wasn't sure how it was going to work out. Mostly it was good. It could have used a bit more of the red curry paste though because it was a tiny bit bland. But it wasn't gross and that's usually enough for me. :) Next I have to bake brownies for our work party and I'm going to bake a chocolate chip quick bread for breakfast this week. Yay!

Grocery Store Fail

So I went to my local QFC today to buy chicken for dinner and some chips. They were out of chicken breasts and the type of chips I wanted. How is that possible? It's a grocery store. My only option for chicken was the really fancy (and expensive) free range chicken. They didn't have any boneless skinless anyway. They only had like livers and legs and wings. When I asked the guy at the counter he said they were still recovering from the holiday. What recovering from the holiday? It's chicken and the holiday was a week and a half ago. Seriously. If they weren't the only place I could go to I would go somewhere else. So I got take out because I was so befuddled by the lack of necessities at the grocery store I didn't know what else to do. I was just kind of walking up and down the grocery store aisle like an idiot.

Unrelated I feel like I'm clenching my jaw/teeth too much. I wonder why I do that.

Unrelated to that, I have to make an appt for my annual exam. They have been calling and sending letters and all that because it has been over 2 years. Well the PA I used to see left the practice which is fine I didn't especially like her, but they want me to see my PCP for the exam. It is completely irrational I know but I really don't want her to do it. I need a separate 3rd party checking all that out, not somebody I see for all the other stuff in my life. I know, neurotic and irrational. Add to the list of neuroses, I think I have to have a lady lady parts doctor, I don't think I want a guy poking around. And she has to be old. :) Hmm... I wonder if Group Health can accommodate all that.

I accomplished 1 thing today.

I had a huge list of things to do and yet one thing prevented me from doing them and took me until 6:56 to accomplish. That one thing... a clog in my sink. Two days ago it filled with water and did not drain. I tried draino. I tried a 2nd bottle of draino. Nothing. Yesterday I bought a plunger. I plunged. I poured gross sink water into a bucket and plunged some more. I sustained a chemical burn on my middle finger because I had to hold the plunger in place in the water which was full of draino that hadn't done its job. This morning I got up and plunged some more. I'd take a break between plunging because the draino that was still in the plugged sink would suds up and then I couldn't see to plunge anymore. And finally at 2:30 I gave up and went to the store. Fuck the non-toxic way of doing it, I was going for the hardcore stuff. I have to say that during this time I was getting more and more frustrated with the sink I discovered three other frustrators. 1 - I went into the bedroom to change my socks and discovered that Tess had pooped on my bed AGAIN. This is becoming a thing with her. She's done it 4 times in the past two weeks. I don't own enough sheets for this to become a regular occasion. That pissed me off. 2 - There's a hole in the middle of my fitted sheet. I don't know where it came from but that is one more bottom sheet that is getting dumped in the trash. 3 - I missed a call from Stephen. I'm not really pissed about that because I rarely answer my cell at home BUT the reason I missed it is because one of my scouts changed my ringtone. Not only did she change my ringtone (that I could handle), but she recorded her random notes over the one I had painstakingly put in place several years ago. (My phone is so old it still has the composer feature and I programmed into it the Hedwig's theme from Harry Potter.) I've been using that ringtone for YEARS. That was like the final straw.

So I walked to get tacos for late lunch and bought some CLR and then also foaming pipe snake. One of those was going to work goddammit. I used the CLR power plumber and although I probably used all 15 applications in this one drain it cleared the drain. FINALLY. Now it's time to cook dinner and contemplating changing the sheets yet again. I'm so over that. Of course since I took the water I was scooping out of the sink and dumped it into the tub my tub is probably now clogged. Sigh.

Also I love the Pogues. I was just watching PS I love you and they have several Pogue songs. They're awesome.

My feet are cold

They are cold because I have all sorts of windows open. I have all sorts of windows open because apparently I tried to burn down my kitchen. Luckily I failed. :) My eyes are still watering a bit though. My living room was hazy for quite awhile and now I'm feeling a teeny tiny bit wheezy.

I've got a lot of charity shopping to do in the next couple of weeks. Stephen and Ben and I are going to buy presents for a couple kids off one of the giving trees at the mall. My department is working with other departments and we've adopted a family. Since I'm arranging it, I've assigned my department the mom. Buying for the kids is generally easier than for the adult I think. I still have to buy for Michelle and her husband and her mom and one more present for my dad. I have to wrap all the presents and get them together for shipping. Oh crap and I have to exchange one of the ones I bought for my niece (she has both a birthday and Christmas around the same time so I have to buy both).

I am getting excited about the break. Well not the part where my sister visits (only because I'm not done cleaning and not the part where she visits. I am excited for her to visit but my genuine lazy nature is really fighting my desire not to reveal my true messy nature - heh like she doesn't know... :) ) She wants to go to Vancouver and to Leavenworth. That should be fun I think. I also have to get off my ass and buy my plane ticket for CA. Each day I procrastinate I'm guaranteeing the price is going up. Sigh. Actually, I once read on Farecast.com that the best time to buy a ticket is about this time of night on a Wednesday and they are totally right. I just found a nice cheap ticket for Burbank although Michelle might hate me since the return trip leaves at 8:00 AM. But when I was looking earlier this week, it was going to be about $350 for the ticket. Now I'm paying $250. Yay. Ticket purchased. So on my list to do before 12/21:

1 - Clean the apartment. Seriously.
2 - Purchase presents for Michelle, husband of Michelle and charity
3 - Arrange for Tess & Rigby to stay at the vet tech's for the week I'm gone.
4 - Clean the apartment. Did I mention that?
5 - Haircut on Saturday the 13th
6 - Charity shop with Stephen & Ben