Jack in September 2020
Jack’s birthday month!
general
We are predictable
We did it again. We got our new library cards before we got our new driver’s licenses. Took us three days this time. It wasn’t more than three days in Eugene, I think, but we’ll never know since Twitter won’t let me look back that far and apparently I didn’t talk about it here. Boo, Twitter. The point is, duh, libraries are important to us.
That was our Saturday. We slept in, exercised, ate lunch, and then walked 5 miles to visit two libraries. When we left the downtown branch, we walked by the convention center, where HasCon was going on. Hasbro is headquartered here, and there were a bunch of kids dressed up as My Little Ponies and GI Joes and other Hasbro stuff. It was cute.
Our Sunday included a visit to the Rhode Island Seafood Festival for lunch and music.
I had the best fried scallop sandwich from a food truck called Plouf Plouf. It was a good first weekend in Providence.
Overkill
John made French toast this morning, but he had trouble getting the cap off of the syrup container (not the plastic ones with the flip tops – the glass jar). Without making a fuss about it, he disappeared into the garage and reappeared in the kitchen a few seconds later with a pipe wrench. I started to laugh. He ignored me, tightened the wrench around the cap, gave it a little twist – et voila! An open syrup container.
Testing, testing, one, two
It’s Christmas morning, and hardly anyone is up yet (a far cry from the days when Molly woke us up at the crack of dawn). I haven’t touched my laptop, and rather than turn it on, I figured I’d give the bluetooth keyboard I got for my tablet a try. The only other time I’ve tried it was in France last May. I called it a failure, but I think that may have been the internet connection (which really and truly sucked).
Well, that was quick. People are up. I’m off. Success for the keyboard, I think.
Plans
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.
But I want to do all these things
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.
Wherein I over-emphasize
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.
How is that helpful?
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 love three-day weekends
I was looking over my list for the weekend and I realized I left off something important.
- Do my homework (I have an assignment due for Data Modeling and Design)
- Finish Faithful Place
- Start The Hunger Games
- Exercise
- Grocery store
- Blah blah other boring things
- Oh, also SLEEP
- GET MY NAILS DONE
Aren’t I forgetting something? Oh, yeah.
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.
I’d rather get my marching orders from a baby panda
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.
My eyes! My eyes!
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.
October is the prettiest month
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.
Too tired for coherence
Oh, peoples, I’m tired. And full. But happy. Good weekend.
Back to normal (eating, exercising, etc) tomorrow.
Double espresso doesn’t hack it
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 hurt in more places that I knew existed
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.
So…..
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.
Be-bop-a-lula baby
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!
Socializing
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.
I swear I’m not a moron…
…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.
You’ve got to THINK about these things
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.