Inane Chatter

I like to make plans.  No, that can be stressful.  I like to have plans.  I like to know someone is coming to visit or that we’re going to visit someone or go on a trip.  I like the lists and the anticipation.  I don’t always like having to do all the things on my lists, but having someone come over is often the push I need to get something done.  Like…oh, I don’t know…scrubbing clean the rocking chairs and swing on the front porch.  They are really really dirty, and I would like to be able to use them without covering them with a towel first.

We’re thinking about redoing our guest room.  It kinda sucks as a guest room for more than one person, as many of you know.  We keep two twin beds in there, one trundled under the other most of the time.  When we pull the second bed out, the open floor space completely disappears.  Sure, you can put your suitcase on the floor at the foot of the bed, but you’ll have to leap from the doorway onto the bed to go to sleep.  One twin bed leaves a lot more space, but it’s not very often that we only have one guest at a time.  We’ve talked about replacing the twins with a double bed, but I just did some measuring, and I’m not sure that’s going to work.  If we put it one way, it blocks the closet, another way and it’ll block the door – there are two possibilities left, and I need to really see it before I’ll know if it will work.  I have that problem with spatial…things.  I need to see it all laid out in front of me.  My imagination doesn’t really work with furniture.

They say money can’t buy happiness.  I say they’re liars.  I can think of a number of ways a nice BIG cash windfall could make me very happy.  For starters, if it meant I didn’t have to work, I’d have all the time in the world to do all the things I want to do.  As it is, our weekends get over-scheduled in the blink of an eye, and then when we want to squeeze something else in, there’s no time.  And it’s not like we don’t want to do the stuff we’ve already planned.  For various reasons (seeing friends, doing homework for classes we chose to take, visiting family, hosting family), we really do.  I just want MORE TIME.  I know – everyone does.  I’ll shut up.

So…I bought new yoga pants yesterday because I found a hole in my old pair.  I’m sure the hole came from overuse and the fact that they were cheap pants and is NOT a commentary on my weight.  I’m sure of it.  (Me?  Defensive?  No…)  Anyway, I was inspired to get rid of other old clothes – clothes I don’t wear, clothes that even if I could fit into them I wouldn’t wear, other clothes that are so old they also have holes in them.  I went through every drawer in my dressers and filled one garbage bag with clothes to give away and another one with clothes (old socks, old underwear, a pair of sweatpants that has holes AND is covered in paint, etc.) to throw away.  Okay, the trash bag of trash isn’t filled with clothes.  I don’t have that many things that were so torn apart they had to be thrown away.  Although I am throwing away the pair of red nylon running pants I ruined with a hot iron.  I honestly can’t remember why I tried to iron those.  Seriously, let’s think about this.  For one thing, I HATE ironing.  I do it when I have to, but usually I just ask to John to iron something of mine when he’s ironing his work shirts in the morning.  For another thing, these pants are NYLON (or some other synthetic fabric that MELTS when it gets hot).  I had that information before I tried to iron them, really I did.  I knew what would happen, but obviously, my brain wasn’t present at the time.  For one more thing, these were jogging pants.  Why would I be ironing them?  They don’t get wrinkled in the first place, and even if they did, who cares? Maybe, just maybe, the pants happened to be on the ironing board while I was in the midst of ironing other things (unlikely – see my first point), and I just happened to set the hot iron on one of the legs.  But that doesn’t ring true.  We might as well assume I’m an idiot.  It would be closer to the truth.

I’ve been having some problems with my cell phone lately.  My wonderful was-state-of-the-art-almost-a-year-and-a-half-ago phone.  That I still love.  Except for these problems.  I’m going to list them.  Because I like lists.  And choppy sentences.

1. My phone reboots when I’m using the Hulu or Netflix app to watch TV.  I can get through about 20 minutes and then my phone turns itself off and takes forEVER to turn itself back on.  Much longer than the usual startup time.  And it’s not a battery problem – I usually have at least half the battery life left.  Maybe it’s an overheating problem, but it doesn’t happen to John when he watches something for that long (or longer) on his phone.  And once it reboots once, it’ll do it again within about five minutes.  Irritating.
2. My battery only lasts about four hours, even when I’m barely using my phone.  I don’t leave unnecessary or power-hungry apps running when they don’t need to be.  I don’t know why I would see such a sudden change.  Maybe my battery is going.
3. My phone can’t find the GPS satellite anymore.  The last few times I’ve turned on the GPS…tracker..thingy, my phone says it’s searching for the satellite and never finds it.

So I called Sprint for help.  Oh my god.  It started out promising.  The tech I talked to had a deep, calm, capable voice, and he was very nice, but it was all a lie.  Well, not all.  He was calm and his voice stayed deep.  And he was nice.  Not so capable, though.  He was kind of an idiot, and he clearly didn’t understand how the phone works.  The GPS thing completely threw him.  But it was over half an hour before he gave up.  He did absolutely nothing to help me.  He couldn’t even give me an idea of what the problem might be.  The next step is to take it to a repair center.  I might try talking to HTC first, though.  Actually, I think the very next step will be to put John’s battery in my phone and test my issues.  He’s not having any of these problems.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll call HTC.  Then try the repair center.

I was looking over my list for the weekend and I realized I left off something important.

1. Do my homework (I have an assignment due for Data Modeling and Design)
2. Finish Faithful Place
3. Start The Hunger Games
4. Exercise
5. Grocery store
6. Blah blah other boring things
7. Oh, also SLEEP

Aren’t I forgetting something? Oh, yeah.

8. GET MY NAILS DONE

How could I forget about that?  Something of such global importance?  Silly me.  I also don’t remember what the other boring things were (#6), so I’m considering them done.  But look how productive I was!  Homework, reading, and sleeping.  Good for me.  And the gym.  Better for me.  Poor John is still miserable (and he has to go to work today – poor John, indeed).  He spent most of the weekend resting.

I am going to finish The Hunger Games before I tackle the rest of my busy day.  OR…I could go to the store now and get my one chore out of the way early…  Decisions, decisions.

What’s worse than a work bathroom with terrible lighting?  A work bathroom with terrible lighting and a flickering florescent bulb over one of the sinks.  Come ON.  You’re already unhappy because you’re at work.  Then you look in the mirror and get depressed about the bags under your eyes and your death-warmed-over complexion, both caused by the sucky lighting (you hope).  You start to lose patience with all things work-related, letting your anger boil up every once in a while (but only on the inside).  THEN you realize that your increasing rage was created by the nonstop flickering of the light over the lefthand sink.  Your self-awareness of the cause of your rage doesn’t diminish it – oh no.  Your rage rockets to the sky because this light, this awful, headache-inducing, horror movie flickering light, has been flickering like this for MONTHS.  You’ve reported it to the office staff several times, and you probably aren’t the only one.  Have they fixed it?  NO.  I should get a medal (a raise would be better) for not going on a homicidal rampage.  The light made me do it.

I wish I could unsee this.  Seriously, I’m scared, so only follow this link if you are not easily freaked out.  (You don’t have to read the comments – just click on the picture at the top.)  Even John admitted it was pretty creepy.  But, you know, I had to share.  I can’t be the only person checking behind me every few seconds.

In not scary news, I know this guy!  Kind of.  He was a client at my last job.  He moved to Vegas to play poker professionally.  After winning a lot.  Good for him.  He was always nice to me.

I needed to scrub my brain after that eerie picture, so we watched an episode of Modern Family.  I love that show.  If you don’t watch it, you are missing out.

I had a dream my house was falling apart.  But you don’t want to hear about that.  Other people’s dreams aren’t interesting to anyone but the dreamer.  And maybe the dreamer’s psychologist.  I don’t have one of those, so I’m out of luck.

When it’s sunny.  I like the color of the sky.  And the leaves.  And we’ve had so much rain that the grass is still green everywhere.  I should take a picture.

Taken from my car window on the way home from work. I could crop the road out, but you get the idea.

Enough with the pretty – prepare for meanness ahead.

Here’s a tip you’ve heard a million times, but it’s important: If you want a job, PROOFREAD YOUR RESUME.  I read a pretty bad one recently.  If you’re not very good with that sort of thing, find a friend who is.  I don’t have high expectations for this person because she apparently can’t punctuate her way out of kindergarten.  Oh, let’s be generous.  Elementary school.  Also, she listed “Blackberry (Curve)” as one of her skills.  I don’t even know what that means.  Maybe she can program for that platform?  Impressive!  Then say so.  She’s not a programmer, though, unless she REALLY doesn’t know how to present herself in her resume, so I’m assuming she means she knows how to use a Blackberry.  That’s not a skill.  My 6-year-old niece can find her way around a smart phone.

I’m not trying to say that I punctuate everything correctly all the time.  (For instance, is it resume, resumé, or résumé?  Does the accent depend on something or are there just multiple acceptable forms?)  I do, however, tailor my writing style to my audience, and my resumé (I like this one best) is flawless.  (I know.  Arrogant, much?)  It might not get me hired, but it won’t get me dismissed out of hand.  Grammar is important, people!

/rant

Now, watch me post this with some hugely embarrassing typo I didn’t notice.

Oh, peoples, I’m tired.  And full.  But happy.  Good weekend.

Back to normal (eating, exercising, etc) tomorrow.

There is not enough caffeine in the world to make me alert today.  Roxy had a seizure last night (right on schedule – it’s been a week and a half), so we got to bed late, and then I got up at 5:15 and was out the door by 6:20 (for the third day in a row), which is clearly not early enough because I was trying to be in DC by 8 and it was 8:30 before I got there.  Traffic sucks.  And it was raining, which only makes traffic worse.  I stopped at Starbucks before I got on the highway, and then the barista handed me my coffee, and then she got this horrified look on her face (seriously, like the world was about to end) and said, “Oh no! I put TWO shots in your coffee!”  “How many are there normally?”  “Just one.”  “Don’t worry about it.  It might help.”  It didn’t.  I still had to sing along to the radio at the top of my lungs to stay awake on the GW Parkway.

Also, I think I’m over my usual Starbucks order.  It hasn’t come out right for weeks now.  Disappointing because when it’s right, it’s SO good.

I’m in the middle of a long post about today, but I’m too tired to finish it tonight.  Tomorrow is a new day, with fewer aches and pains.  I hope.

Um….it’s Friday night.  Saw some old friends last night, had a good time.  Had a busy day at work.  Left with nothing to say right now.  Which generally means I shouldn’t be here.  Also, if I’m sticking to reasonable bed times so I’m rested for Sunday, well, I shouldn’t be here.

Tomorrow, babbling will ensue.  Probably.

Tonight’s random hodge-podge of things I feel compelled to tell/show/say to you is brought to you by Dire Straits, who have gotten stuck between my ears.  It’s mildly uncomfortable.

First, an apology to everyone who let me complain to them today: I’m so very very sorry.  On the phone, in person, over email, I was all bitch, bitch, bitch, and moan, moan moan (with a little bit of whine, whine, whine here and there), and you know what?  You didn’t need to hear that.  No one deserves that.  And it didn’t make me feel better, either, so who benefits?  Exactly.  I’m sorry.

Second, this video is cool (from The Daily What).    I love Disney (I can ignore all the evil corporate stuff because I love the movies), and I LOVE when they release stuff like this.  My edition of Lady and the Tramp shows Peggy Lee singing “He’s a Tramp” (with the guys howling and barking as back-up) intercut with the animated footage.  Fun to watch.

Last, yoga is HARD.  (Yes, broken record, whatever.)  There must be a name for the sequence we start with.  That’s the hardest part, moving from one thing straight to another like that.  If you know the name (I could ask the instructor, but how is that fun?), please tell me.  We start in downward dog, then extend one leg up behind us, then bring it forward into a deep lunge and reach up with our arms (crescent, maybe?), stretch forward, then into a plank and down to the pose that sounds like chupacabra and looks like the down position of a push-up, and then up dog and back to downward dog.  And all over again with the other leg, and we repeat more times that I can keep straight until I fall over.  After I fall over, we move into things I can actually do (kind of) and that don’t hurt (much).  Then we stretch.  I love the stretching part.  And the breathing part.  And now I’m home and I just ate more rice pudding then I meant to and I need to go to bed because I have get up absurdly early again to go back downtown in the morning.  So good night.  I said good night!

John and I have lived in this house for almost six years.  We know the people in three houses around us by name, and of those three, we only know the last names of the people immediately next door.  We say hi on the sidewalk, help them shovel snow, and occasionally chat with the kids.  Six years.  Pathetic and anti-social, that’s us.  In our defense, everyone in this neighborhood has kids (except us, of course), so they all know each other from school and play groups and the bus stop.  Paper-thin, I know.  We haven’t made an effort, and honestly, we haven’t minded all that much.  I’ve met a few more people who live nearby since I joined the gym six months ago, but that hasn’t lead to real relationships.  Until now, possibly.  Maybe.  Friday afternoon, a woman I know from the gym called to invite me to play bunco with her club that night.  They need 12 people, and two of their regulars couldn’t make it.  “Is it a problem that I don’t know what bunco is?”  “Not in the least.  Bring $10.”  Yeah, that doesn’t sound shady at all. Come play a game you’ve barely heard of.  We’ll take your money.  She said it’s easy and mindless, and the club is really just an excuse to for the members to eat, drink, chat, and maybe win a few dollars.  I went.  She wasn’t lying – all you have to do is count, and the rest of pure chance.  I can do that.  And with only $10 at stake, it’s no big deal if I lose.  Which I did not do.  There are twelve rounds (six winners in each round), and I won the most rounds, so I took home $40.  Not a bad way to be introduced to a game.  I’m certain it’ll never happen again.  (This is how it starts.)  I played, I met 10 new people, it was enjoyable enough, and John and I were invited to a block party the next day.  That was a bit more awkward than bunco night, but shortly after we sat down at a picnic table with our food, a couple came over, said “Oh, good – faces we recognize!”, and sat down.  They’re the neighbors across the street and over one house, the ones with the very friendly cat and five kids (mostly grown, all living at home).  Now we know their first names (but not their last name – what is wrong with us?).  Had a good time chatting with them for over an hour.  So, yay.  Neighbors.

There was a spider in my car today.  It was crawling across the roof (upside down, on the inside of the sunroof), and I know this because I was watching it when I should have been watching the road.  Spiders are not allowed in my car!  Maybe I need to put up a sign.  Maybe our new neighbor friends are exterminators.  Except they’re not.  Every single person we met was either a teacher or a government contractor.  Not that those are bad things to be, but they don’t help me much when I’m trying to keep a crazed and bloodthirsty spider at bay while making a left turn.  Inconsiderate of them, to say the least.

…but I recently had two “Are you kidding me?” moments.  One was today.  I usually keep a close eye on the forecast, but for some reason this week, I just haven’t.  John’ll tell you I prefer to trust weather.com than my own arm stuck out the front door.  I didn’t do either of those things today.  I just left the house to go to the store in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops.  It was 60 degrees out, overcast, and breezy.  I was a little chilly.  In my defense, it was 80 yesterday and it isn’t fall yet…  But a guy at Wegmans still totally made fun of me.

My other moment was last weekend, and it was more of the “oh, that really DOES make a difference” kind.  I was helping John unload the IKEA boxes from the car on Saturday, and I usually have a really hard time wrestling with the bookshelf boxes.  Those things are heavy, and in the past, I’ve nearly dropped them on the way into the house because I just couldn’t hold my end up anymore.  Not this time, though.  I wouldn’t say it was easy or that the shelves were light (I certainly can’t carry them on my own), but it was no big deal.  I find it very unlikely that they’ve gotten lighter since my birthday (the last time we bought some), so the only conclusion I can come to is, hey!  Those strength classes I’ve been going to twice a week for the last seven months?  They work!  Amazing, mixed with a little of course they do, ya idiot.

I didn’t think it through.  Tuesday afternoon – dentist appointment that leaves me with a temporary crown on the left side.  A little tender.  Can’t bite down hard.  No problem, I think, I’ll just do most of my chewing on the right side of my mouth.  But wait!  This morning, I had an appointment with my oral surgeon. Time to expose the post that was implanted so my dentist can screw on a fake tooth in a few weeks.  But doesn’t that mean I’ll have stitches and be sore and tender?  On the right side?  Yes!  It does.  Mushy food it is.

I could have scheduled this better.

“Now relax” should be banned from all dentists’ vocabularies.  They should get fined every time they’re caught saying it.  Sure, I’ll relax now that you’ve poked me in the cheek with a giant needle, shoved a giant rubbery tray thingy between my teeth to hold my mouth open, shined a light in my eyes, and started up the drill.  Totally relaxed, no problem, taking a nap.  (I wish I could have napped.)  It was awful.  All three hours of it.  (Would’ve been a FANTASTIC nap.)  My dentist is great and all, very nice, friendly staff, but that doesn’t mean I look forward to going.   (I know, I know – who does?)  And yesterday is why.

This morning I found Roxy in the bathroom with the door closed.  No idea how she got there.  I worked from home today, and around mid-morning, she had a seizure.  (She’s fine now.)  I usually keep a pretty close eye on her during her recovery phase (she rambles around the first floor, slobbering on everything, bumping into the walls, the furniture, getting stuck under the table – she tried to take a chair with her, legs first – and I try to keep her out of the water bowl, keep her from knocking things over, from slobbering on the books on the bottom shelves…the important stuff), but as she gets closer to normal, I start going back to other things.  I checked my email, realized I hadn’t heard her stumble into anything for a minute, and went looking.  Not in the dining room, not in the kitchen, not in the hall, not in the family room…but I could hear her breathing.  The kind of breathing she does when she’s head first into a wall and her nose is getting smushed.  (Happens a lot – I know that noise.  To her, people.  Happens to her. During recovery.  Geez.)  Followed the sound of her breathing, found her in the bathroom.  Behind the closed door, under the pedestal sink.  Maybe she needed some alone time, but I don’t understand how the door closed behind her.  She’s not that clever.  Certainly not in that state.  Wish she could tell me.

This particular Tuesday has a weird vibe.  It’s just after 10:30am.  I’ve been to the gym and joined two conference calls (a daily occurrence now – who the hell wants to start every day with two conference calls?).  Neither of those things are out of the ordinary.  I had some coffee.  Haven’t eaten anything yet, which may be contributing to the feeling (I can hear a croissant whispering my name), but what else?

Part 1: The windows are open.  It’s August.  It’s supposed to be hot and sticky and grossly muggy.  I’m not complaining – I’m thrilled to hear the breeze in the trees and the summer insects buzzing or droning or cricketing or whatever is they do, thrilled to have turned the A/C off for the first time in months.  It’s just weird.  Makes it feel like early fall and I’m not quite ready for early fall.

Part 2: I’ve already talked to Mom and Dad.  Before breakfast!  It’s throwing my whole schedule off.

Part 3: I have gotten things DONE already.  Left messages, rescheduled appointments, refilled prescriptions…I’m on a roll.

[Several hours later]

I was on a roll.  A few hours ago, the sunlight was mid-morning fresh, the birds were chirping, and the breeze was breezing.  Since then, I’ve gotten bogged down in the things I’m supposed to be doing (I was doing them before, but everything was light! and cheerful! and oh, what a beautiful morning!), the cool fresh air that was tickling my elbows turned hot, and the sunlight turned stale.

I can still turn this around.  There’s time.  The solution?  Lunch!  A turkey sandwich with cucumber slices on toast.  Seriously.  I don’t think I’m asking too much of one sandwich.  I get cranky when I’m hungry.  Lunch will save the day.

At some point in your life, you or your parents have stuck toothpicks into an avocado pit and suspended it over the edge of a glassful of water.  I know you have.  You’re expecting it to germinate.  (That’s what it’s called when it grows roots, right?  Or something.)  Well, I think it’s a myth.  A myth!  (“Yeth?”)  We have two sad-looking avocado pits being tortured on our kitchen windowsill which are never going to put out little rooty tendrils.  Honestly, it looks cruel and unusual.  This shouldn’t be legal.  Rescue the avocado pits!  But what’s the alternative?  For avocado pits in my house (and in most, I imagine), it’s either suffer being half-drowned and poked with sticks or go out with the trash.  If I were an avocado pit, I’m not sure which I’d choose.  Maybe the trash.  Then I could hope to find a friendly landfill.  I suppose we could plant them, but isn’t the whole point of the torture?  Start the roots and then plant them?  You know, they’d probably start to grow if I left them in the pantry long enough.  That’s what happens to my potatoes and onions.  I’m a regular farmer, I am.

It’s been a busy weekend.  Kind of.  Busy in a good way since I was able to do a bunch of things I wanted to do while still getting most of the things I had to do done also.  Except for the store.  Didn’t make it to the store.  But I did lots of other things, and I got up early (too early – I’m a little tired) both days.

Yesterday, I went into DC to meet a family from France (you’re welcome, Mom) at Eastern Market.  We met at nine, chatted for a while (I’m afraid I babbled at them), wandered the market a little, and then I sent them off to the Capitol, the Archives, a couple of museums, and Kramerbooks.  Nice people.  It was only a little awkward. I wandered the market by myself for a few minutes after they left (bought some cute jewelry, peaches, and sausages) and then I poured myself into the car to go home.  It was only maybe 10:30 or close to 11, but it was crazy hot.  I was melting.

I went back out shortly after I got home, though not into the sun.  It was time, once again, to make the trek (less than a mile – great trek) to my new favorite nail salon (the one I went to in May that’s all crisply white and peaceful and wonderful).  I got the spa pedicure, just because.  They slathered my legs in a purple mud mask that had a chilling effect from the knees down and then wrapped both legs in hot towels.  What a totally weird feeling.  Chilling cold on the inside, but wrapped in steamy hot towels.  Kinda neat.  My legs feel super smooth.  While my nails were drying, I got distracted by the display of nail polishes on the wall.

I’m itching to organize them by color.  Is that weird?  When I ‘m deciding what color to use, I always grab a handful in the same color family and then choose the exact shade I want.  It’d be much easier if they were already on the shelves that way.

After nearly two hours in the salon (feet and hands – it was wonderful), I came home only to turn right around again and head to Target and Borders with John.  Oh!  So Borders is closing.  I’m sure you’ve heard.  That’s depressing.  It was packed yesterday afternoon, too.  All those depressed people taking advantage of the liquidation sale.  I picked up the new George R.R. Martin book, even though I’m super annoyed with him.  It’s been six years since the last book in the series came out, and at the time, he was saying that he’d basically already written this one.  SIX YEARS.  I’ve already had one author die on me before finishing a series.  I see no reason to encourage him to take six years between books, with no end to the series in sight, no matter how good I think the series is.  You may not believe me, but I really wasn’t going to buy this one until it turned into a bargain book or until the next next one came out.  But it was 40% off, and I have the others in hardcover (I cared more WAY back then, and he hadn’t jerked his fans around as much yet), so I caved.  I feel slightly ashamed of myself.

Anyway, today I got up early to run (attempting (and failing) to beat the heat, although today was nothing like yesterday), helped John with the lawn, saw the last Harry Potter movie (more on that later, I think – it was both really cool and not what I’d hoped for), and now I would like a nap.