Inane Chatter

I promised more today.  I don’t have a lot, but I have something.  This afternoon we saw a condo for rent about a mile from here, which would be SO convenient in many many ways.  It’s not in the best shape (and it needs a THOROUGH cleaning), but it’s within our price range, it’s available immediately, and it’s practically in our backyard.  It would make moving SO easy.  Our commutes would be the same, it would be no harder to get to either gym, and we could sign a 6-month lease.  Parking would be a pain (no garage, and only one assigned spot), but we could make it work.  Probably.

I’ll feel much better once I’ve seen at least one potential alternative.  And from the looks of things, we have plenty of alternatives.  I’ll be making some calls tomorrow.  We will also start packing tomorrow, although it’s hard to decide where to begin.  It’s a bit overwhelming.  We keep freaking ourselves out.  But if we don’t start, we’ll freak out because we’re running out of time.  So we’re going to freak out either way.  Might as well freak out in a productive way.  Which means I should probably be doing something right now that isn’t on the internet.  Or if I’m going to be on the internet, I should be finding us a storage unit.

Four-day weeks are the LONGEST weeks because you still have to do five days’ worth of work.  I think all I’ve done this week here is complain about work (why? see previous sentence), so maybe I won’t do that right now.

What will I do instead?

Hm.

Well….

Hmph.  I guess I don’t have anything to talk about tonight.  Actually, I do have things to talk about (a thing, anyway), but I want to talk about it tomorrow.  It’s crowding out everything else in my brain, so I’m at a loss right now.

Okay, I’ll tell you.

We have a date!  A closing date!  A moving date!  And holy shit – it’s only five weeks away! !!!!!!!  Life just got very busy.  And stressful, but in a good way.  We made some lists tonight and sent a couple of emails, and now we’re going to beat the stress by having some tea (decaf – I’d like to sleep tonight) and cookies and watching TV.

More soon.

Today has been nuts.  I haven’t focused on one thing for more than ten minutes at a time all day.  Someone just came over to ask me if I ever got an answer to a question I asked in an email I sent no more than 2 hours ago, and I had no idea what he was talking about.  He had to actually show me the email before I remembered it.

Yoga tonight.  Deep breathing.  Mind clearing.

Things to remember that are good right now:

• Our house is under contract.
• I’m going on vacation in a week and a half to someplace warm and sunny.
• …
• um….

I mean, sure, I could start listing things like friends and family who are wonderful, and that John and I are in good health, and we have a roof over our heads and jobs we don’t hate, but that starts to sound treacly and some other word I can’t quite put my finger on.  YES, there are plenty of things to be happy about or grateful for or whatever, but GAH!  I feel stuck sometimes.  Still in the house, still going to the office every day, still living the same life.  Where are my changes?

[Pause for perspective]

That’s a little ridiculous (a lot ridiculous).  I’ve been making changes all along.  I’m exercising more, doing things I like with people I like.  I make more time to read (on weekends, anyway).  John and I have been enjoying more of the geeky things in life (all those games, some of the TV we watch).  My time is more my own (our time is more our own), and I need every minute of it.

Maybe I’ll stop whining.  For now.  Just a little break.

Finally read Redshirts (John Scalzi), and I don’t know what took me so long.  It was hilarious.  I read it in about 18 hours, starting Sunday night – it was helpful to have Monday off work, and also helpful to have it on my Kindle app, so I could read it while charging away on the not-exactly-an-elliptical-machine at the gym for an hour.  I couldn’t put it down (and didn’t have to).  Just as well I wasn’t at work.

Now I face the always difficult task of picking my next book.  Will it be as good?  Should I pick something along the same lines or completely different?  I finished A Discovery of Witches Sunday (which I thoroughly enjoyed).  That’s different (as was going to Redshirts right after it).  Should I start the sequel?  Move on to something else entirely?  I don’t know.

No, I do know.  I have a few books already downloaded to my tablet that I haven’t read it, and I’m going to choose one of them.  Just because.

Now, having made that decision, I’m going to watch some TV.

I think I figured out my weird achy arm thing.  I mean, I think John figured out my weird achy arm thing.  I first noticed it Friday morning when I woke up, so I assumed I slept on it funny.  John remembered that in Doug’s class Thursday morning, we did assisted pull-ups (there’s a cool machine for that) during our warm-up.  I’ve done that before and it was fine, but I remember thinking it felt really awkward and weird that morning, so I probably hurt myself then and I just didn’t feel it until the next morning.  Four or five days later, it finally doesn’t hurt anymore.  Well, it doesn’t hurt right now.  Maybe it’s better?

I went to the eye doctor Friday afternoon, got my new prescriptions (glasses and contacts), and spent a few minutes trying on a ton of frames.  I narrowed it down to three, but it was the end of the week and I didn’t want to make any more decisions that day and besides, I wanted John’s opinion since he has to look at me, so I asked them to save the three I liked so I could come back this weekend.  I had the same conversation with TWO people who work there.  I said I would come back Saturday or Sunday.  I definitely listed BOTH days as possibilities.  NEITHER of them thought to say, “But we’re closed Sunday.”  Since they didn’t say it, I assumed they’d be open.  Silly me, assuming things.  I didn’t bother checking online to see if they’d be open on Sunday because I had TWO conversations with employees about how I might come back on Sunday to buy frames and THEY DIDN’T TELL ME THE PLACE WOULD BE CLOSED.  (I’m mildly annoyed.)

John and I got in the car, drove over to the place, found it locked.  Yup, the hours listed clearly say it’s closed on Sundays.  Tomorrow, I’ll call first.  I had a conversation with the guy showing me frames on Friday about how I have Monday off, and he specifically said he doesn’t, that he’d be working, so I’m pretty sure they’re open tomorrow, but I have learned my lesson.  You can’t trust anybody these days.

I’m an idiot.  My only consolation is that I’m not alone. Thursday, I had lunch with my friend and coworker, Chastity (previously seen here).  We had a lovely lunch, and the service was really really good.  Our server was great, very attentive, and the manager came by to check on us at least once.  I think they read the same Washington Post article I read this week (about restaurant service).  Anyway, we got back to the office, and as I sat back down at my desk, I was thinking how good the service was, and maybe I should call the restaurant and let them know, and our server certainly deserved a big tip, and huh – I don’t remember leaving a tip.  Surely I left a tip?  Did I pay the bill?  Shit, do I have my credit card?  Scramble for my wallet – no, I do not have my credit card.  Mad dash to Chastity’s desk.  “Chastity, do you have your credit card?”  “Oh my god, no.  Let’s go.”

Yeah, we got the bill, handed over our credit cards, chatted for a few minutes, put on our coats, and headed back to the office.  Idiots.

We sped back to the restaurant (maybe a half-mile away) and headed to the host station.  “Welcome back!”  We hung our heads, paid our bill (I tipped well), and left sheepishly.  It could have been worse – they had our credit cards, so at least they would have gotten paid.  They knew we didn’t dine and dash.  Still, we both felt REALLY stupid.  Feel really stupid.

My back doesn’t hurt as much anymore, and there are times it doesn’t hurt at all.  I mentioned it to my yoga instructor Tuesday night, and she added some stretches to our routine for me (and I remember them, so I can do them on my own).  Then I mentioned it to Nick in class Wednesday morning (he wanted us to do leg lifts with our arms stretched out over our heads instead of hands tucked under our tailbones and WOW does that make my lower back twinge), and he gave me an exercise that should strengthen my lower back muscles.  Maybe this is an ache that would have gone away on its own, or maybe it’s a result of something I did over the weekend, or maybe the fact that our mattress is almost 15 years old is catching up to me (or maybe the fact that I’m almost 36 years old is catching up to me), but at least I have stretches and exercises I can do that may help keep it away.

My back may be feeling better, but I woke up this morning with a weirdly achy right forearm.  I think I must have slept on it funny because I can’t remember doing anything to it, and it definitely didn’t hurt last night.  Maybe I pinched a nerve or something.  I keep trying to stretch and twist it to see if I can shake it loose.

Am I falling apart?

I just had a work conversation with a friend of mine that nearly turned into a fight.  Verbal, of course.  I’d never hit her.  (Hard.  I mean, at all.)  We were discussing an issue, and I told her people were looking into it, and then she started going on about how we were really going to have to tell our customers something because if we were going to do it this way, they need to know.  I agree with her, except that in this case, we’re most likely NOT going to keep doing that thing.  It’s not correct, and I’m sure the people who are looking into it are coming to that conclusion.  So we don’t NEED to tell our customers every time we do it because we’re going to STOP doing it.  I started to say we don’t need to warn our customers every time, but she interrupted me before I could say “because it’s a bug and we’re going to fix it” and got very heated about how it’s not okay NOT to tell them, and I couldn’t get her to stop long enough for me to finish my sentence.  Then she stopped to breathe, I was able to get a word in, and we’re fine.

Yeah, okay, it wasn’t anything close to a fight.  But it was annoying and unnecessary, and it’s a good thing she’s far away and this was a phone call.  Or maybe that made it harder…

I don’t like to fight with people I know.  I don’t really like to fight with anybody, but if you’re on my doorstep (or on the phone) and not listening when I tell you I’m not interested in what you’re selling, I will be direct and I will tell you to go away.  Are you supposed to be providing me a service and you’re doing it badly?  I will not roll over and let you (I am my father’s daughter).  It’s situational, of course.  How annoying is the problem?  How seriously does it affect me?  I usually don’t go all confrontational in restaurants out of worry that someone will do something to my food, and I don’t do it while driving out of fear that the nutjob tailgating me has a gun or something.  Just about anything else is fair game.  I work in customer service, so I try to be fair when I’m talking to someone else in customer service, but that also means that I know how it SHOULD work.  I will switch companies based on that alone (and I have – I’m looking at you, Bank), but I will also let supervisors know when I get really GOOD service.  I emailed United about the super-helpful ticket agent after their fiasco with the canceled flight to Orlando a few years ago, and Navy Federal and USAA provide consistently wonderful service.  Why can’t everyone?  I love ThinkGeek’s customer service, and I’ve heard wonderful things about Zappos (but I’ve never needed to deal with them).  It’s really not hard, people.  Is it telling that I started talking about fighting and moved on to customer service?  Calling customer service shouldn’t have to be a fight!

I’m sorry.  A small annoyance with a work friend turned into a mini-rant about customer service.  It’s IMPORTANT, damn it!

There were 10 glorious minutes this morning when I thought I was going to be able to sleep in.  Right after our alarm went off this morning (for the early early boxing class), I got a text from Doug saying his key wasn’t working and he couldn’t get into the gym, so class was off.  Oh, look!  Sleep is beckoning!  I reset the alarm (for almost TWO HOURS later) and then texted our friend Erica so she wouldn’t show up to the class unnecessarily and be stuck out in the cold.  So maybe I only got nine minutes.  Well, I spent probably another minute considering getting up and going to the other gym or going for a run.  Considered it.  Decided against it.  So maybe I only got eight minutes before the next text came in.  I almost didn’t check it – thought it was going to a reply from Erica.  I think it’s a good thing that I checked it.  Pretty sure.  I was awake already, I’d planned to get up and work out, and I didn’t actually go back to sleep in those eight minutes.  So I checked the text – it was Doug saying he got in, and he’ll be there training if we want to show up.  There was really no question after that.  We went.  There was some speculation about how he got in (back door?  picked the locks?  in through a rooftop vent?), but the answer was much more mundane.  (There are two sets of doors facing the front.  He wasn’t using his keys on the right set.)  I prefer the version where Doug is a cat burglar, able to get in to any locked building without being caught.

I think I hurt myself.  I don’t know how, but the pain (an ache that’s occasionally sharp) in the lower right corner of my back started yesterday morning.  I can move around like normal, but I don’t like this pain.  I thought it might go away overnight (nope) or after I got some exercise this morning (no, but it might have gotten a little better), and then I completely forgot to take any pain medication during the day (maybe an indication that it wasn’t bothering me at work?).  Now that I’m at home, I can feel it again.  Maybe I was just busy enough at work not to notice.

I keep thinking that if I can stretch it out, it’ll go away.  It’s just hard to figure out how to stretch.  Right this minute, my laptop is on the dining room table, and I’m on my feet, bending at a 90-degree angle to type, with my hips shifted slightly to the right.  I think I’m stretching the right spot.  I’m certainly very aware of it.

This is ridiculous.  I’m going to take some ibuprofen right now.

Our trip to the mall yesterday was prompted by our need to get to a Barnes & Noble because, as I mentioned a week or so ago, John’s family knows us so well that we ended up with two copies of Geek Out.  One of them came from Barnes & Noble, so we headed there, receipt in hand, to exchange it.  Our plan was to get Lords of Waterdeep, but they didn’t have it, so we got D&D: Wrath of Ashardalon instead.  We played it last night, just the two of us, and it was actually really fun (it comes with a big dragon!).  We classed it up a bit with dinner (wine, baguette, cheese, apple, honey).  Right now I can’t remember if we won (too much wine?)…I think we did.  Today, we finally tried Elder Sign.  Also fun, but much more complicated to get going, and we lost – the Ancient One devoured us.

To end our nerdy weekend, we are probably going to watch the first couple of episodes of Agent Carter (or possibly watch Star Wars, which I have borrowed from a coworker and will have to give back soon).  For now, John is trying to solve an email server problem, and I am going to read my book, I think.  I just started A Discovery of Witches, and I think I want to be this character.  She went to Oxford for grad school, and the book starts with her in the Bodleian Library, doing research.  I’ve been there!  Took the tour!  And she runs AND she does yoga.  She’s also a witch who I think is going to end up in love with a vampire, so maybe I don’t want to be her exactly, but the framework for what I want is there.

Really.  Hate is not the emotion I feel about Taylor Swift.  I think it’s mostly indifference, really.  Some of her songs are catchy, others are instantly forgettable (if I ever heard them in the first place, which would be difficult to figure out if I forgot them right away).  I don’t care enough about her to know who she’s dating or which song is about which boyfriend.  (I think I’d have to be living under a rock or someplace that doesn’t have internet access (there might be wi-fi under my rock) not to know that she writes songs about current or ex-boyfriends.)  Some of her outfits, when she shows up on TLo’s blog, are cute.  Some aren’t.  So I’m mostly just eh about her.  But I cannot escape “Shake It Off”.  I hear it everywhere I go.  It’s always on the radio.  I heard it in two different stores in the mall today.  I hear it at the gym.  (This morning I was listening to a podcast while working out, and the damn song was bleeding through in the background.)  I don’t like it.  I don’t want to sing along to it.  How can I get away from it?  Do I have to become one of those people who walks around all day with earbuds in, listening to who knows what and ignoring the rest of the world?  I don’t want to be one of those people.  I could avoid listening to the radio in the car.  I could never leave my house and maintain complete control over the music that comes on.  But I like to leave the house sometimes.  And I like to listen to music in the car.  I guess I’m doomed.  I’ve tried nothing, and I’m out of options.

My yoga class was PACKED last night.  It seems the beginning of the year gym rush has begun.  Of course, since I haven’t been going to yoga lately, I suppose I could admit that I’m part of that rush.  I guess.  But I have different reasons!  I’m not there because of a resolution.  I’m not going to quit in three weeks because I’ve failed to reach my unrealistic goals!  I have realistic goals!  And I missed yoga.  I was just having a hard time finding the time to fit it in.  It’s just a coincidence that it’s also early January, right after New Year’s.  So I’m different, right?  Anybody?

No?

Oh, well.  Just call me Bessie.  I’m one of the herd.

As we pulled into the parking lot of the gym this morning, we realized two things.  First, Doug’s car wasn’t there, and second, the lights were off inside.  Not a good sign.  We pull through our normal parking spot and saw Doug’s car across from us.  He came running over to the driver’s side window to tell us that the gym was closed.  “Closed closed?  Like, forever closed?”  “Yeah.”  “Well, that sucks.”  We’re not at all annoyed with Doug – it wasn’t his call.  But the owner, who has everyone’s email addresses, could have let us know.  That’s kind of obnoxious.  John and I could have gotten an extra hour and a half (or more!) of sleep this morning, if only we’d known.  It was nice of Doug to show up to tell us.  The other location (our M/W/F class location) is still open, so Doug gave us the owner’s number so we could petition to have Doug teach there Tuesdays and Thursdays instead.  Which I promptly did.  Well, not promptly, but same day.  I called early afternoon and talked to him.  He said he’d work on it.  I’m hopeful.

Update: I got a text from Doug (because he has our info NOW) – he’s lined up to teach at the other location now, Tuesdays and Thursdays, same time.  Yay!  I’m not taking credit for that.  I have a very high opinion of myself, it’s true, but I’m fairly certain one phone call from me can’t save someone’s job.  If I have that kind of power, I should probably be more careful.

The Bloggess is a wonderful thing (as is love – thank you, Michael Bolton, we’re aware, please wait your turn), and whoever invented her should be given a parade.  So, you know, that would include everyone she’s ever come into any sort of contact with.  No, that makes it sound like she’s only who she is because of other people, and I don’t think that’s right.  She should get some credit for molding herself into who she is (as should everyone, of course, good and bad).  So maybe I just want to give The Bloggess a parade.  Of course, she probably wouldn’t go, or maybe she’d hide in the crowd (either of which would be totally okay).  She can send a stand-in – maybe someone in a red dress.  Oh, EVERYone in the parade could wear a red dress!  If they wanted to.  No pressure.

In a recent post, she used Twitter and the Benedict Cumberpatch Name Generator (which I wish I’d known existed when I posted the thing about him a while back) to name her new fish, and between the suggestions and the picture of the lemur who looks like he’s about to jump out of skin in panic, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.  I am SO naming my first horse Rinkydink Clompyclomp.  (Someday I’ll own a horse, just you wait and see.)

And now it’s Michael Bolton’s turn (warning: language not safe for children):

Sunday, John replaced the side mirror on his car (it was cracked, and he needs to get the car inspected), and then he replaced the door-lock relay in my car.  Remember that?  How I’ve had manual locks for FOREVER because they kept cycling on and off and draining the battery so John unplugged the relay?  Well, he ordered a new one and installed it Sunday, and now our fingers are crossed that it was actually the relay that was bad and not the switch in the door.  We’ll know if my battery dies.  So yesterday morning, in the cold, I half-expected us to have to take John’s car to boxing since surely my battery would be dead.  But no – it started right up.  Hooray!  And then it started up again when we left boxing, and again when I left for work.  Hooray and hooray again!

Then I got to work and heard from John.  His day didn’t go so well.

HIS car wouldn’t start.  I was already gone, so I couldn’t jump it for him.  He tried to pop-start it, but he couldn’t get enough momentum to back out of the driveway and into the street.  (Our driveway has a little bit of an incline towards the street, but not much.)  Then he tried to push it back up the driveway and let it roll back again, but that didn’t work.  After about half an hour, the neighbor we almost NEVER talk to (the one who mows his lawn (when he mows it) in khakis and a button-down shirt) came out to go to work, so John got him to jump it (which I’m sure took a lot of explaining on John’s side).

Side note: I just typed “hump” instead of “jump”, and I had to pause for giggles.  And more giggles, because that really would take a lot of explaining on John’s side.

Okay, I’m back.  So, his day didn’t start off well.  THEN he found out that his window wouldn’t work when he tried to order lunch in the drive-thru.  It just wouldn’t roll down (he assumes he did something when he replaced the mirror on Sunday).  It’s always embarrassing when you have to open your door to place your order.  In the cold.  At lunch time on a weekday when there’s a line of cars behind you.

Poor John.  At least his car has started without assistance every time since then.  Of course, then today arrived, with its two to three inches of snow.  We shoveled the driveway, and I started to head off to work, but I changed my mind when I heard they hadn’t even plowed our parking lot yet (at the office, at ten after eight), and then I fishtailed a bit when I took a turn at the bottom of the street, so I came home just as John was backing out of the driveway.  I gave him my car and stayed home.  It STILL took him 25 minutes to go 3 miles, but at least he was in a car with 4-wheel drive instead of rear-wheel drive.

Cars and winter – these do not a good combination make.

It’s January, and the holidays are over.  The countdown to spring has officially begun.  (It’s a long way off.)  But it’s not all bad.  Our house is under contract, the buyers’ condo is on the market, they haven’t returned our HOA docs in horror, there’s a three-day weekend this month, and my birthday is next month.  I will survive.

January appears to be confused.  Yesterday, the high was 45.  Today, almost 65.  I went for a run.  It was nice.  Tonight’s low is 35, which happens to also be tomorrow’s high, and then it’s going to be in the 20s for a few days.  I suppose that’s closer to normal, but come on!  I didn’t actually ask for winter.