You Too Can Be Like Me

I get a lot of compliments at work about my lunches. It always looks so good one person says. Or it smells delicious. Or wow you must be a good cook. Seriously... I'm not. I'm not a bad cook but in reality I'm not a good cook either. So here they are... my secrets for being a "good cook"

1 - I only cook what I like. I live alone. I don't have to cater to different tastes than mine. I cook what I want to eat.

2 - It's all about the mixes and sauces. I don't need to make Thai Curry from scratch... Combine a few tablespoons from a jar of curry seasoning and a can of coconut milk and there you go. Taco seasoning, lemon chicken, kung pao chicken, spicy beef and rice, blah blah blah... all from those spice packages at the grocery store. They have easy explanations on the back and if you don't like an ingredient on the list... exclude it. No big deal.

3 - Make enough so you have left overs. Don't want PB&J for lunch every day... bring left over dinner from last night. (Except fish. Everyone in your building will hate you if you reheat fish in the microwave. Seriously. I'm telling you. NO FISH!). Again, as a singleton, I usually end up with enough left overs for about 3 days. Most people don't have the fortitude to eat the same lunch every day for 3 days... but then again they do. They eat PB&J 3 days don't they now? :)

Could, Should, Will

Could: So we have a 3 day weekend coming up. I like to sit here and dream about what I could do that weekend. Fly down to Mexico. Train up to Vancouver. Go to Astoria and hang out on the coast of Oregon. (Ok probably not that one because hotels in Astoria are EXPENSIVE) I could go camping. Haven't been in awhile. It might be nice just to rent a car and spend the weekend camping. (Although camping is always more expensive than you think it will be)

Should: I should clean and work on sorting and packing. A three day weekend is ideal for this. I have stuff in storage to sort through. I have to clean. I can begin boxing things to get rid of them or to put into storage until I'm ready to move. I don't need all my bric a brac out or all my books and all that. (Or really I can get rid of things and throw things away and clean which is great and needs to happen.) I know I'm not moving yet, but I am going to move. Come hell or high water I'm moving somewhere...

Will: However given option a and b I think I can safely guess what will probably happen. I'll do nothing. There'll be some trashy marathon of some show I didn't know I loved like Burn Notice or Law & Order SVU or Lifetime TV movies and I'll spend the weekend slack jawed and slightly drooling whilst I watch trashy tv.

A world of Unknown

I'm frustrated. I had hoped to be on my way out by now which clearly is not happening. Philly has not called. I am emailing the recruiter today. I am sick of not knowing what is happening with that. Yeah, probably I'm not getting the job, but honestly they could tell me that you know? Especially as excited as they originally seemed about me. (Or if it is a 'hiring freeze' that would be nice to know too). My recruiter friend thinks they are still considering me but also weighing their options. I'm hanging a lot of hope on this one because there is not much out there right now frankly. The funny thing is that I thought I'd take a couple weeks off from the hunt because I'm burnt out on it... so now it is a forced couple weeks off and I'm panicking. :) Isn't that the way it always goes.

Work is particularly difficult right now. We're changing to a different life insurance vendor. That would normally be no big deal. The problem... I have 3 people who will be dying in the next few months. The new vendor won't pay their claims because they were not actively at work on the 1st of the month. The old vendor won't pay because they aren't our vendor anymore. Interesting Catch 22 that is. I'm working it out, but it is a bit stressful...especially for the one whose death is imminent. (Well or for the one who seems to be in denial about her status... she's a fun one to talk to).

I checked out http://www.adoptuskids.org/ last night. It is basically a catalog of kids in foster care looking for families. It is interesting and is giving me some good insight into my future plans, if I go through with them. A few blogs I've started reading are scaring the hell out of me. :)

Can I have my money back?

So one thing I hate about election time is the damn phone calls. I loathe being called by a recording to explain why I should or should not vote for candidate x, y, or z. I especially loathe it when the voicemail (it's always voicemail, I rarely pick up my home phone) is just a recording of how bad the other candidate is. It goes to my whole hatred of attack ads. I could not care less what candidate x is or is not doing. Tell me what YOU are doing. I think after this election I'm not going to vote for any candidate whose campaign includes phone calls. I'm going to make a list of which candidates call and leave me voicemails and I'm not going to vote for them. They may be the only candidate who is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-puppies and kitties on the ballot but I will not vote for them because they've pissed me off. (obviously it is too late for this election because I didn't keep track of the 4 different candidates who called the past two weeks. FOUR candidates for a freakin' primary election - although since I didn't keep track it could actually be the same candidate who I got called about 4 times... either way, there were 4 voicemails at home).

I was thinking about this whole stance yesterday before hopping in the shower and it made me wonder... if I had donated money to a candidate who then called with one of those recorded messages could I ask for my money back? Can you ask for your money back once you've donated it to someone? I think I should be able to. "You've pissed me off, I'm no longer supporting you... give me my $20 back!" I like that idea. :)

John Vogt sat in the wrong seat...

And other adventures in flying today:

So I've seen more famous people being out and about at the Burbank airport than I've seen anywhere else. (not that that's saying a lot. I have only ever seen Heather Lock lear in public doing normal people things). Today it was John Vogt. He was actually on my flight from Burbank to Phoenix. I wasn't sure it was him at first but he was literally right behind me as I was getting on the plane and I heard him on his cell phone. It was totally his voice. So I'm sitting on the plane watching him, since I'm about 4 or 5 rows behind him, and I'm apparently a stalker (I don't actually think it is stalking if I happen to randomly see someone famous on the plane actually) when first this woman gets on and sits next to him but then she goes to the back of the plane. Whilst she is gone another guy gets on the plane and takes her spot. She comes back and a discussion ensues and that's when John Voigt discovered he was actually in the wrong row. Hee.

So my next flight, it was REALLY empty. I'm in an aisle seat and this fairly youngish guy is on the window seat. After we've taken off I glance over to look out the window and notice he's watching something on his iPod. I look and realize he's watching p0rn on his iPod. P0RN! Seriously, dude? It's a 2.5 hour flight and you can't go without for that length of time. So once we're given the go ahead to begin moving about the cabin (because you can turn the electronics on before you can stand up) he and the iPod go to the bathroom. Ew. Ew. Ew. So during this 2.5 hour flight, he gets up no fewer than 5 times to go to the bathroom. Sometimes he brought the iPod sometimes he didn't. I kind of thought he might have actually been doing drugs in the bathroom, but I didn't really know. In any event he annoyed me greatly. By the 4th time he got up I kind of wanted to punch him.

In related news, the kiddos are very very cute. Tenna (as she calls herself) cracked my shit up. I spent the very short period of time being called Joyanne, Jordanne, Jodanne, and any other variation of Joanne you can imagine. That baby, Olivia, is a very good baby. I held her for a little while today before I left. It is not my favorite thing... holding little babies. They kind of freak me out.

It's like they're reading this blog...

Which I hope they aren't because that would be creepy and troublesome and undoubtedly would lead me to not getting the job. So I got an email this morning that they were still interviewing candidates and they would let me know what the next step is. (Philly that is). That's better than silence. :)

No news is ... well no news.

Every day I come home to the fear that there'll be a TNT (thanks, but no thanks) letter from Philly in my mailbox. (Ok by every day I mean today and Monday.) I think I want this job. I hope I want this job. I hope I don't just take the job because it is the first one I get offered. Then again, I move out to Philadelphia and the economy gets better and I can always just look for a new job.

I also haven't heard form the one I phone screened for on Friday. I'm not anticiapting on hearing from them. I'm really okay with not hearing from them. Seriously. I must have totally not been paying attention when I applied there.

This week so far I applied to one in Milwaukee and one in Virginia. I was about half way through my cover letter for another one when I reread the job posting and thought I don't want THIS job, so I didn't apply for that one. I think it was also in Virginia.

I haven't reached total desperation yet... although I'm getting there. Well not really. I just really want something to happen so I can get out of this limbo I'm stuck in. I don't want to make too many future plans because I don't know if I'll still be here in Seattle. I don't want to make too many weekend plans because I may need the weekends to pack. It just sucks not knowing what is going to happen.

Things I like right now

Sadly I'm not in a great mood lately. And honestly, you people that are happy with your lives, whatever. I'm bitter and grouchy and I may not be as supportive as I should. Get over it I say.

So here's a list of things I like right now. Yes I'm well aware most of this list will include escapist activities. We'll see how it pans out:

Burn Notice: I spent most of Saturday glued to a marathon of Burn Notice. I only wish they had shown the episodes in order because I am not a regular watcher of the show and it might help me out a little bit. Otherwise. Awesome show and I need to become a regular watcher.

True Blood: I wasn't sure about this season when it first started, but now that we might finally be getting some ending to the neverneding Mary Ann orgy and the Light of Day church story is coming to a head it is getting interesting. Apparently I'm much more interested in bloodletting than sex.

Movies: I went and saw Funny People this past weekend. It was pretty good but I agree with the critic who said the entire Marin County part of the movie shouldn't have happened. It started getting meandering and lost its focus. It as around the two hour mark I leaned over to Lyday and commented that the movie was getting toooo long. And we still had 1/2 hour left. But movie theaters are air conditioned and 2 hours of escapism is very nice.

Nintenduh: I've been playing Gardening Mama on my Nintendo since I bought the game on Friday. It cracks me up. It is not at all ecologically sound as I get to use pesticides to kill off bugs and some other spray to kill off viruses. Whee. :) Also fun is Final Fantasy Tactics Something of the Grimoire. The newest FF game I bought makes me motion sick. That sucks.

Mama Mia: I've watched this movie more times in the past month than I ever thought I would ever see it. It has grown on me and now I want to buy the soundtrack. But only if the cast is actually singing it. I don't want someone else doing those songs. (Yay! According to amazon.com it is sung by the movie stars!)

Unintentionally Hysterical

So somewhere along the line I applied for a job in a small town (townx) in a rural area of a mid-western state. I have no idea how this happened I think I thought it was actually in the suburbs of a larger mid-western town (towna). I had a phone screen for said job on Friday. I finally got some time to check out the website of the company on Friday morning and as I looked around the site it became apparent that a - I was wrong and it was not in the suburbs of larger midwestern town and b - it is not the type of company I would ordinarily be looking at.

As I was surfing around the company's website I headed on over to their community events. Oh... they do an annual day where the town can come and take tours of the factory and do arts & crafts... that's cool. And look they have a group that does trail maintenance neat. And they provide scholarships. Great! And hmm.. what could this last item be... disability hunt? Hmm... how wonderful, they take developmentally disabled folks out and do a scavenger hunt with them. Neat! No. If you take those two words at their most literal meaning you can get what the activity is... they take people who have been disabled out to go hunting. Like for deer. Or wild game or whatever. There are photos. I was cracking up.

Finally during the phone screen the recruiter mentioned that sometimes I may have to go down to the plant. In order to do that, I would have to wear jeans and steel toed boots. It was so hard not to laugh my ass off. I'm really glad she didn't ask why this job was important to me or what excited me about this specific job because I would not have been able to answer that at all.

We Are Family

While waiting for the bus after the Blue October concert tonight a guy came up to the woman and her daughter who were also waiting for a bus. He says to them, "You're family, where can I find a family bar?" She didn't get it. I didn't bother to explain what he meant by family. I really didn't want to get involved in a conversation with random bus people. But he kept asking her where are the family bars. Finally I pointed out that he wanted Capitol Hill and started reciting all the different bars depending on what he was looking for. We finally established Madison Pub was what he was really looking for and he went on his merry way. In retrospect I'm totally cracking up at myself... "Well if you're into the leather scene there's the Eagle or The Cuff, but if you're looking to dance there's RPlace or Neighbors but if you want..." All three people were looking at me like I was nuts but I can't help it... Also, the lady and her kid were not family they were just a lady and her kid. (I think he thought they were a couple)

Warning: This post may contain disclaimers

So one of the things I did whilst in Chicago was drag Kate the Peon to the zoo. I think we had a pretty good time. One of the funniest things about the zoo to me, though, was the number of disclaimers. It was as though they wanted to be sure the public knew that they were well aware of every little thing wrong in each animal's habitat. In the Penguin exhibit, there was a disclaimer about a penguin who had trouble molting and some of the feathers hadn't come in. At the hippo exhibit, apparently the hippos were being introduced for potential mating possibilities and were a little like a typical chick flick. They hated each other on sight. So there's a disclaimer stating that the hippos may have some cuts and scrapes but that's due to their introduction for breeding. I'm sure that just like that Heigel chick and the oh so yummy Gerard Butler, they'll end up madly in love. There was one about some facial reconstruction surgery that one of the animals had... basically saying "yes we know its nose is deformed now move along." It was both hysterical and horribly sad. Horribly sad because you know they only have all those disclaimers because someone has reported to them x, y or z.

Meltdown!

I made a little girl (about 2) have a meltdown yesterday on the plane ride home. Her parents were in their seats when I boarded. As I was one of the last ones to board I think they thought they were home free and could use the extra seat for the daughter. Not so much, sadly for them. I took my seat and the little girl FREAKED out. She screamed. She wailed. She cried. She roared her terrible roars. She gnashed her terrible teeth. She kept plaintively wailing about her seat. "Seat!" "Seat!" she kept saying. She kept wriggling out of her mom's arms and puddling on the floor in a heap. I felt really badly but the plane was packed to the gills. As it was I think a US Air employee took a jump seat (the seats the flight attendants sit in) instead of taking a real seat. Finally she cried herself to sleep and proceeded to sleep the entire 4 hours to Vegas. The father commented she'd never done that before and pondered if it was a possible indicator of the future. :)

This Too Shall Pass

But right at this moment I hate my life.

More Offensive than Drop Dead Diva

So Drop Dead Diva is this show about a fat chick and a thin chick who each get into their own car accidents and die. Through who knows what kind of machinations the fat chick body doesn't die but somehow the soul of the thin chick ends up in it. And oh my god now the thin chick is fat. How will she survive?! Horrifying.



Yet, in my hours and hours of watching ABC Family channel, I have found something even more horrifying. Labor Pains starring Lindsay Lohan. In it she plays a girl who is about to get fired from her job. Instead she tells her boss she is pregnant. He doesn't fire her and then she continues on with the charade of being pregnant buying pregnancy bellies and all that. And this is a comedy? I can't figure out how she's going to get out of this mess without pissing off everybody except since it is a comedy you know she'll come clean and they will all forgive her because this is TV Land.



Later today I'll post my review of Harry Potter. It is mixed. Oh and maybe I'll finally take my camping pictures off my camera and post those too. :)

Better Week

I've decided this week is going to be a FABULOUS week. I believe this is my karmic pay for the jackass I had to put up with all weekend long.

1. I have a videoconference interview with a position in Philadelphia. I can totally do the job. I LOVE Philadelphia. Seriously this could be good. (Fingers crossed I don't come across as the total low self esteem boss hating neurotic I really am)

2. I'm going to go see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Thursday night. I've ordered my ticket on Fandango. I'm all ready to go.

3. Well ok so that's it for THIS week, but I'm sure there will be more good things to come (like Chicago and the ability to quit my job before I have to do my performance review with bossman).

4. Well I am going to cook enchiladas tonight. I do love the enchiladas. That's good too. I did very very well at eating at home mostly last week and not eating out too much (one lunch and one dinner only!). I'm going to try very hard to continue that trend. (And WOOT! Chicken breasts are on sale 1.99 a pound. It's a sign! :) ) (Ok I don't believe in signs, but if I did it would be)

My Girls

I never post photos of my girls. They are not my children so I won't show their face online even though I think on a good day only 3 people read this but I did like this photo and can share it. We went camping at Kayak Point Park in Snohomish Co. We had a pretty good time. Played a lot of Apples to Apples and played on the playground. We cooked and ate and did arts and crap. All in all it was a pretty successful camping trip.

Chicago!

So I'm going to Chicago for a few days later this month. Michelle's going to Blogher conference and I'm going to just be a tourist. You can imagine my joy at the email I received from my celiac group listing GF restaurants in Chicago. I'm not positive I'll get to go to one, but it is nice that there are options that I may be able to easily find. I may have to actively seek out Swirlz Cupcakes. Now to figure out what I'm going to do whilst there. :)

Wildfire
Rose's Wheat Free Bakery
The Balanced Kitchen
Da Luciano's
Stillwater Restaurant and Wine Bar
Gluten-Free Grocery
Adobo Grill
Weber Grill Restaurant
Lou Malnati's
Whole Bakers
Uno Chicago Grill
Vinci Restaurant
Lux Bar
Swirlz Cupcakes
Smith and Wollensky
Tavern on Rush
Ben Pao

Shop til I drop

Yesterday I went to Target to get an air mattress. $104 later I leave Target. How does it happen? Well I bought the mattress but I would need a pump to blow it up so that's another thing and then the pump needs batteries so there's something else and then I thought about how much I love Target's brand of fruit leather so I bought some of those and then I found myself buying more underwear and a couple of bras and there you have $104. Ridiculous isn't it?



I also traded in 4 video games and bought a new one and a previously owned one at the mall. I was sad to discover the health food store I used to go to all the time is now closed down. Oh and I went to the movies at the new theater in Northgate. It is a beautiful theater. Of course because it is brand new and relatively unadvertised so it isn't crowded at all and dirty yet. The chairs were super duper comfy. I liked it.


Today I went to the grocery store and that wasn't too bad but then I went up to the drug store and bought... yet another fan. I now own 6 fans not counting the ceiling fan that is in the kitchen that isn't "mine". Sadly, 3 of those fans don't work. I need to throw them away but I get all bogged down in the "can I throw this away?" question and instead I just store them in my apartment. I keep thinking I can't throw them in the trash and have to find another way to dispose of them but then I don't know what the other way would be. This new fan oscillates. It is the most wonderful fan ever!

I bought Big Brain Academy and Mario Kart for my DS. I spent 4 hours this morning playing Big Brain Academy. It might be an addiction. I like Mario Kart, but mostly I like the regular one and not the challenges. I need to practice the regular way before I get into them too much I think.

What does this even mean?

So I was reading my horoscope and here is what it is for today:

Prepare yourself. The more you've been thinking about doing something 'different' lately -- and the more restricted, controlled and constrained you've been feeling -- the more amazingly erratic your behavior has seemed to the people around you. That's not a reason to stop yourself, however. Every now and then, everyone needs to let go. It's officially your turn, and your turn has only just started.

My turn has only just started? I need to let go? I don't think I've seemed more erratic. How do I know? Whatever. :)

Photojeraphic Pimentos

So when I was a little girl I desperately wanted to go be on the Bozo Show so I could play the Grand Prize Game. If you didn't do well you got a 'photojeraphic pimento' of your time on the show. I totally didn't get that it was taped in Chicago and couldn't understand why we couldn't just go there. That's a long explanation that has nothing to do with this photo. :)

So obviously this is a photo from Disney World. I think my sister is about 3 which would have made me between 7 and 8. My mom posted an unedited version of this on her facebook account and I pulled it from there and ran it through photoshop. It helped quite a bit actually since her photo was faded and somewhat red. My actual point to all of this... for those of you with families. Take family photos. This may honestly be the only family photo we have that my sister is in. That's a little sad if you think about it. We took a bunch the last time I was visiting my parents for Christmas, but obviously it isn't the same.