Eschew obfuscation!

On the train ride home yesterday, I was sitting with the usual suspects. They are the loudest group in that car and they annoy the hell out of everyone, so I find them amusing and I sit with them when I don't have studying that I want to do on the way home.

When I have to study, I sit in the quiet car. People bitch at you if you so much as whisper in the quiet car. I have gotten dirty looks from people for turning the pages of my homework too loudly. Fun folks, as I'm sure you can guess. These are the same people, mind you, who will not wake up a snoring passenger or otherwise make the chainsaw sinus noises stop, but who will stare nastily at you if you get on the train and whisper, "May I sit here?"

So anyway, we were watching through the car windows this woman trying to find a seat in the quiet car, which was full. One of the guys made a comment about the responses of the people in the seats (glares, etc.) and I responded that the people in the quiet car could be a little bit surly. He said to me that I was a master of understatement, and asked if I was an English major in college. Bwah! No, but I was a journalism major the first time I went to school.

Wanna guess why I gave it up? (Well, part of why I gave it up, anyway.) Because I started to see that the facts of news stories very seldom related to the printed stories about them. I found it rather disillusioning to see how much of what we read is spun into whatever will advance the views of the writer or publisher. Kinda like all of those priests who become atheists or agnostic after leaving the seminary. (Which, I might add, never ceases to tickle my funnybone.) If you learn enough about a topic, you run the risk of losing interest because you might realize that it isn't what you thought it was or that you couldn't get out of it what you thought you would. The mystique is gone, you know?

For some reason, this topic keeps coming around to me. I know so many people who started out on a path that they completely diverged from, never to return, disillusioned. Some of them are happy where they ended up, some are still looking. I'm exactly where I planned to be when I was in high school. Bizarrely, I took entirely the wrong path to get here, but I still got here. In fact, I ended up here more or less against my will because of circumstances beyond my control. I wanted to do other things, but none were practical or could make a living or I just wasn't good enough, so I knew that accounting would be the way to go for me because I'm good at it, I like it, and it pays the mortgage. I would rather have been a marine biologist. Or a dolphin trainer. Or a National Geographic photographer. Or a dressage rider. Or a dog trainer. Or a chef. Or an artist. I find it really ironic that I ended up doing exactly what I intended to do before the Big Divergence of 1989. This is when I came to the conclusion that I couldn't afford to go to a "real" college after my community college years, and I ended up entering the work force.

That was a huge mistake. Even worse was getting married. I had the factory job in which I got carpal tunnel syndrome, had to have my hands operated on, and then couldn't return to that job. While I was on light duty, I worked in the accounting department, where they placed me permanently when I was taken off of light duty. (There is a lot more to it than that, but I won't go into it.) That is also when I ended the whole marriage mistake and set out on my own, as nature intended for me. Ultimately, I ended up in accounting by getting injured on the job in a factory. How often does that kind of thing happen? My guess is that it is pretty rare. But it did put me back on track, and now I have pretty surgery scars that itch if I touch them wrong. I finally got back into school, which is currently torturing me, but it is for the best and I don't regret it. When I start paying the loans, my attitude about that might change.

Looking back, I really wish that I had gone on to a university accounting program after my two years at OCC, but it worked out nicely nonetheless. I often wonder what would have been different, and in particular how I would have been different, if I had gotten on this path earlier and stayed on it. Would I have been better or worse than I am now? Would I still live in Washington? Would I have stuck with accounting if, at university, I had realized how many other options were at my disposal? Am I missing out on something better, more interesting, more fun, more exciting? Or would I have ended up majoring in something more interesting, fun, and exciting but working at McDonalds, chain smoking, 50 pounds overweight yet insisting on wearing fishnet stockings and denim mini skirts with tank tops that showed my gut, bleaching my hair, drinking MGD, living in a trailer park in Kansas, and having black eyeliner tattooed on because the DTs in the morning kept me from getting the lines even?

Sigh... I'm probably better off in my middle-class suburb and conservative Eddie Bauer attire.

And now I'm off to the inventory product launch update meeting. I get to sit for an hour and listen to marketing, product managment, and manufacturing argue about when the new lines will be launched, how much of the old product we will sell before then, and how much of the new product we can produce in the interim. It can be amusing when their veins start popping out on their foreheads. They get so worked up. Silly executives. Better go to Starbucks first for this one.

Diet and exercise

Have you ever gotten suddenly, inexplicably obsessed with your health? I don't know what the heck is going on in the back of my mind lately, but I am rather focused on my current condition. I have a lot of reasons for it that I can think of, such as that I graduate in 6 months and I want to get back into good enough condition to leave my last class and head straight for the mountains. But I think there are also subconcious reasons for it. Am I getting old? Probably. I think I don't look older - I still get carded (HA!) at 36, and I definitely feel far less stressed out than I did 10 years ago so I don't feel older. I certainly haven't matured... Oh, maybe I have a little. I keep the house clean, I have a nice yard, I wash my car when it needs it, and I don't eat graham crackers with a can of sour-cream fudge frosting for dinner anymore. But I do exercise, and I eat healthier food now than I ever have, and I feel really good. It is amazing what a difference a good diet can make in how you wake up in the morning, how you get out of the house, how you work, how you sleep. I kinda like it. Maybe I'll stick with this health thing for a while.

However, it stresses me out.

Did I just totally contradict everything I just said?

But here's why. I have to go to the warehouse for inventory tonight. They always order pizzas. Don't know if you realize this, but pizza isn't exactly on my diet, you know? But I love pizza. LOVE it. L. O. V. E. It is one of my favorite things.

And then there's the people I take the train home with in the afternoon. They keep asking me out for beers with them. I don't really want to drink right now - maybe after I get to the point at which I feel I can risk wrecking my diet breifly - so I give lame-assed excuses like that I have homework to do (which is always true anyway) or that I have other stuff going on, which as we know is a bald-faced lie. I don't want to admit that it is because I don't want the extra carbs/calories of beer right now.

And here's the big one. I have a four day business trip for software training coming up at the end of April. I don't know how I'm going to stick to eating healthy when I have to eat what they feed me. I'll be staying with my parents instead of at a hotel, so dinner and breakfast will be easy-ish, but I have to eat every three hours (gotta have those healthy snacks, you know?). Whatever I eat for lunch and eating in class are going to be issues. And when the hell will I get to exercise? It is a month away, and I'm already concerned. Argh. I don't wanna be concerned! I wanna be impetuous and carefree and mindless and vapid!

Oh, to be young and foolish with a raging metabolism again...

Evil bunnies.

Is it just me, or is it a little disturbing when bunnies have an evil giggle?

Too many of a lot of things.

I logged in to Comcast.net today to check my email. The home page is all fancy, and there's a group of pictures next to a title line followed by a number of news stories. The pictures and headlines change every 30 seconds or so. There was one group of headlines titled "Surprising Science" followed by a news article titled "Egyptian Two-Headed Child Dies." Looks like the kid was two years old, and died of an infection picked up after surgery to remove an extra head.

Ehm.

And this is surprising... because? Because normally, Egyptian two-headed children live through surgery to remove their extra heads? Why is this a surprise? I challenge you to name one two-headed child, let alone one that survived a semi-decapitation. And you can't pick that one girl, because she still has both of her heads, and she says that she isn't two heads with one body, that she is two people with one body, and I figure she can have it her way if she is capable of making that distinction.

And then there's that 6-legged lamb. In the article I read, it says that after the lamb is strong enough, they're going to do surgery. "The front two legs have to go, this one is a good one," Peeters said. Again, ehm. Why not the middle two legs? You know, the ones that come out of its navel region? Why remove the ones that actually come out of the shoulders?

Either I'm on the 'Net more than I used to be and I'm seeing more of this weird crap, or things are getting stranger. Next thing you know, some guy is going to see the image of Jesus in a plate of manicotti. Oh, sorry, that's already happened too. Frankly, I can't see it. Maybe that's because I'm an atheist. HAW!

I need a day off.

I really, really need a day off. I mean a real day off, not just a day where I don't have to go to work. I need a day to slump on the couch with a remote control and a day's worth of non-perishable food and drink strewn about me and the cat perched on my lap. I don't want any deliverables. I don't want to work. I don't want to do homework. I don't want to do housework. I don't want to do yard work. I don't want to fill up the car with gas, or go grocery shopping, or go to the post office, or drop stuff off or pick stuff up, or abandon my jammies for real clothes or work out or anything. I want to veg out completely. And take a nap. Maybe watch some DVDs. Or play video games. Or read for pleasure. Ah, the good old days. I remember leisure time. I wonder how PS2, XBox, and Gameboy are doing these days. We haven't hung out in a while...

I'm very busy. I know this does not make me unique. I know there are people worse off than me. I expect no sympathy. I'm just saying, I'm very busy. Every day is a mad rush to get everything done. I go to work, I go home, I eat, I work out, I do homework, I do housework, and then I go to bed. I don't even really get to wind down before going to bed. At home, I sit down only to eat and do homework. (I just finished.) Once I leave work every day, I have no downtime whatsoever. It kinda sucks. I rebel by doing this instead of doing something important.

However! I have a day off coming up! Well, sorta. I have a day in which I do not have to get up or take the train or go to work or do homework. I am taking the 29th off. Woo! Yay me! I'm going to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast, watch TV, do a little reading, go to the dentist and have an old filling removed and replaced, and maybe mow my lawn if it isn't raining. That's as close as I get to a "real" day off, apparently. That will all change after I graduate, when I get to have real days off again. It'll be great. I'll dream of the day.

Oddly, all of this has had an interesting effect on me. I'm far more disciplined than I used to be. I'm actually doing the daily workouts, the daily chores, not waiting until the last minute to study and get my assignments done, eating healthy food, not blowing my money. I guess hardship really does build character. Curses! My parents were right again!

They pay me for this?

It has been a painfully slow day at work. You can tell by the number of posts. My mantra for the day: Good god, a thought got through! I must post it! Because of the distinct lack of work to do, I indulged in the Girl Scout cookies someone tossed to us wolves. If I had been preoccupied with, say, the quarter-end inventory package or something on that par, I would never have noticed they were there. Tomorrow there will be pastries. And not just any pastries, mind you, but Top Pot pastries. Tuesdays are bad days for those of us who are paying attention to our health. I always grab an apple fritter. They have fruit in them - that's healthy, right?

I misjudged.

That test I took a couple of weeks ago in Accounting 440 that I said I failed? I was wrong. I got 80%. I still came out of the class with an A-. Wooo!

The Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area is calling my name.

I am hoping to do a nice weekend hike for Memorial Day. This is where I intend to go.

Look how pretty... Not just a pretty lake with pretty mountains, but pretty whistling marmots!

I'm just hoping for decent weather. If I can't do this for Memorial Day due to remaining snowpack, I may have to wait until the Fourth of July. I'm going to keep a sharp eye on the hiking boards to watch the conditions. Wish me luck.

Bang head here.

You know how people say that hindsight is 20/20? I think they're full of crap. The things that cause us to make our mistakes in the first place are the same things that influence our examination of and reactions to them. If hindsight was 20/20, we wouldn't keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Oi vey. Just get along, can't we all?

I just went down to Starbucks. I make a couple of visits each day to them. I like them. They know my name, they know what I want, and they treat me like they like me. And they give me coffee! It also gives me an excuse to run up the 5 flights of stairs to get back to the office. I need the exercise. I chatted with Cathy briefly about her impending final days with us - she's going to a new store. Anyway, I wandered in and went to the end of the line just in time to hear the end of a conversation between two men that went something like this: "They were all just a bunch of filthy fucking Jews." Then he turned around and looked at me. I look a little Jewish. I just smiled down at him. Waaay down. I think he came up to my chin. I wanted to say something along the lines of, "That's funny, coming from a short, fat, greasy, balding guy that smells like he hasn't showered in a week." And then maybe wobble his dewlaps to emphasize the point. But I refrained. What can I say, I'm a coward.

Hey, buddy, can you spare a teaspoon of tumeric?

I got up early to go to the grocery store. I like to go when there is nobody there but me and the nice people that stock the shelves and ask me if I'm finding everything OK. It is a beautiful, sunny day. There was frost on the ground this morning, and a light ground fog that the sun shone through, making everything sparkly and calm. I got out to the main road and almost to the store before even seeing another car. As I neared the intersection, I realized that the traffic signal was off. I went through the intersection and headed for the gas station next to the grocery store, but it was taped off with yellow warning tape. It was then that I realized that the entire city block had no power. I, however, had a desperate need for tumeric and ground cloves (you can't make chicken vindaloo without them), so I drove all the way down to the other grocery store. I prefer my grocery store. It is bigger, has a far better variety, I know the layout, and I get excellent discounts because I have one of those cards that tells them everything I buy and then informs the mother ship, or whatever it is that those cards do. Most importantly, they give me a hefty discount on gasoline. Anyway, at the other store, I managed to find everything that I needed, but I was shocked at the prices of spices. $11 for ground cloves? GAH! And the cardamom was just as bad. Even the tumeric was outrageous. Luckily, that store has a bulk spices section, so I bought teeny tiny little bags of spices that cost me only $.18 each.

Ironically, I decided to make Lebanese Chicken instead of Chicken Vindaloo because I don't have a food processor for the onions. I believe that I know what my next kitchen toy purchase will be...

The ghost of jobs past

You know how I got a promotion six months ago? Yeah? And you know how I keep ending up doing large pieces of my old job because the new person feels too overwhelmed to take on the rest of the portion of my old job that they are giving to her? Uh huh? OK, so guess what I get to do next month (and for the next several months) and she won't be involved in, though she is going to the the primary person untimately involved. Guess! No? OK, I'll tell you. I get to be involved with the implementation of the new expense reporting software. She's supposed to be the superuser and administrator, I'm not in accounts payable anymore, she has so many years of experience and so on, and yet I have to do her project for her because she's whining that she can't handle the current expense report system. Good god. They should just fire her and give me my old job back. I'm never going to get to leave it anyway, I might as well have the title and the overtime pay for it.

Work: Can't live with it, can't pay the mortgage without it.

There are many things in life that never cease to amaze me.

• People who complain that they are fat and out of shape but eat three 1,200-calorie meals every day and won't exercise.
• People who complain that they are broke but spend $10 or $15 on lunch every day.
• People who complain that their department doesn't perform as a team but won't cross-train so that they can perform as a team.
• People who brag about what a great attitude they have but who demand rewards for doing what they are paid to do and who heave great sighs and roll their eyes heavenward with each new piece of paper or task handed to them.
• People who complain about how much work they have to do but can't get it done, and yet they have time to complain about it to everyone who will listen, all day long.
• People who complain about the noise level in the office by talking it over with the person over the 6-foot cubicle wall from them.

I see many examples of hypocrisy around me, daily, in my office. Mind you, I'm not exempt, but generally I know when I'm being ridiculous and hypocritical and acknowledge that I am just venting, while others don't seem to realize that the term can apply to them. I often wonder what it is like to live in that kind of a bubble. It must be nice to be so lacking in self-awareness.

But anyway...

One of the three people that they hired to do a portion of my job came on in January and then she was out sick for three weeks. She just got back on Monday. I had to do several of the company's monthly state sales tax returns to be sure we didn't end up paying penalties and interest on sales tax payments. I didn't want to do them because I've always felt a bit insecure about them, unsure that I was doing them correctly and feeling like I was just winging it. I finished them yesterday, and the tax director came to me and told me that they were excellent and he wished that I was still doing them. I found this to be quite an ego boost. The person who took these over from me is a CPA. That also gives me a bit of confidence with regards to taking the CPA exam. I'm still not fully convinced that I need to go through that, since I intend to stick with corporate accounting, and I doubt that I would be willing to continually undergo the training and testing to maintain a license, but I'm happy that people are happy with the work that I do. It is a comfort. Oddly, he also told me that if I decide to quit working here, I can use him as a reference. Why would you indirectly encourage someone to leave if they are good at their jobs? Hmmm...

On a more cheerful note, Kittenwars!

Cats in sinks and stuff

Don't get me wrong - I got a big laugh out of these. But if I ever start dressing up my cat, someone please kill me.

Stuff on my cat
Cats in sinks

Selective amnesia?

It never ceases to amaze me what my brain hangs onto and what it rejects out of hand, spits on, calls names, and stomps on to keep it from coming back. For example, my mailing address when I was 9 was 3149 A Arizona Avenue, Great Lakes, IL, 60088. My phone number was 689-8798. That was 27 years ago. I know my current address if I think carefully about it, and sometimes I can remember my current phone number (though I did have to call my mother in an emergency to ask her what it was), but I can't remember the address or phone number of the last few places that I lived or worked beyond the city names. I have recently accidentally given out the fax number for a company I worked for in the 90s. And just recently, I learned a new Spanish phrase: "El caballo es saltando." How did I pick this up? I saw it once - ONCE - on a commercial advertising some new language learning program for which, ironically, I cannot recall the name. So why can't I remember things I need to remember, like school stuff? I'm reading a chapter on consolidated business statements, do you think that will come back to me on the test? I think not. I do alright with work from sheer repetition and familiarity, and song lyrics stick to me like white on rice, but I cannot for my life recall the name of the cross street which has a sign in front of my house. I live at the intersection of... uh, I dunno. See? Is it early onset Alzheimer's? It is stress? Am I not eating enough fish? (Actually, that's a given, in that I don't eat fish at all.) Am I just crazy? Depression? (That would not surprise me at all - I have all of the symptoms, and I have for years.) Hormonal fluctuations? Age? Low blood sugar? Inadequate diet? Chronic fatigue? Fibromyalgia? Stroke? (That wouldn't shock me either - that migraine I had in June made a part of my face go numb, and it still tingles...) What else affects short term memory loss? Why, I can't remember! There's a shock. I think it is most likely a combination of stress, depression, nutrition and lack of exercise, but the nutrition and exercise problems are nearly out the door with my footprint in their asses, so that just leaves the other two.

Oh, and the migraines. I forgot about those. They are pretty horrifying. They go through a very specific pattern on the same time schedule. The first thing is the blind spots. Then the pain and nausea come in about half an hour. I have to lay in a dark, quiet, cold room with no smells. Smells make me puke. Light makes me vomit. Noise makes me hurl. Warmth makes me blow chunks. Eating or drinking or swallowing pills (Excedrin Migraine leaps to mind) makes me have a friendly but animated chat with the porcelain god. All in all, I lay in misery (usually in my bathtub since that is the darkest, coldest, quietest place in the house) for about 8 or 10 hours, praying for death and hallucinating. Wondering how they will find my body. How long it will take them to figure out that I'm dead in my bathtub. Who will take care of my cat. What people will think of my stuff when they start to clean out my house. How the paramedics will turn off the alarm system when they have to break down the door. If the paramedics will be as good looking as King County paramedics are reputed to be. Ultimately, the upshot of all of this crap is that every time I have a migraine, my short term memory seems to get worse. They leave me baffled for a few days (Who am I again? And where are my keys?) and once I feel some vague clarity again, it seems only partial. I can't imagine that this is a good thing, but since I've never been able to work out my triggers, I can't imagine that I'll ever find a way to avoid them.

Well, that's cheery, ain't it?

Pigeon. The other white meat.

I went to my company's fourth quarter earnings call today and made a few mental notes.

1. It is discouraging when your CEO, CFO, and Investor Relations guy don't bother to do an earnings call in person. They totally phoned it in. What's worse is that they kept fading in and out and I didn't get to hear everything.
2. Union Station is missing several roof tiles on the South side.
3. Union Station has a large population of carnivorous seagulls that stalk mercilessly along the eaves of the roof. They keep a rotating lookout, vigilant for the things that seagulls are vigilant for. A pigeon ventured up onto the eaves to have a chat, maybe bum a smoke and talk about chicks, and it got attacked. I never saw the pigeon leave, but I did see a number of the gulls in what looked distinctly like a feeding frenzy.
4. The coffee on the fourth floor sucks.
5. Blackberries have an unconscionable number of seeds.

I'm sure that you didn't fail to notice how little of that had anything to do with the earnings call.

So, maybe I jumped the gun a bit...

Looks like the Erasure concert sold out faster than a new shipment of hot-pink feather boas at the Vintage store on Capitol Hill on the day before Gay Pride. I may not be going unless there are eBay tickets or scalpers. Ah, well. I haven't seen my friends since December. I can wait for next Christmas to see them again if nothing comes up between now and then.

My cat snores loud enough to wake me up. Is that weird?

Oh, and that final that I was worried about? I failed it. Totally. I think I got like a 50 or something. (You would think that at my age I would have better grammar than "I got like a 50 or something", but maybe that is why I failed the exam.) On the upside, I still get a B out of the class, so I don't really care. I just want my degree and my raise. And speaking of which, I am probably not going to go to my own graduation because I can't afford the cap and gown. How ironic is that? I'm going to school to make more money, but it is costing me so much that I can't even afford to make it to the after-party. I guess that is what life with student loans is all about.

Mr. Flibble is very cross...

Needless to say, I am giddy and all atwitter at the news that Season VIII of Red Dwarf is coming to DVD soon. I will spring for it because I medically need it (the VHS tapes are disintegrating), but I will skip the Mr. Flibble hand puppet. If they ever come out with one that has hex vision, I will break down and make the purchase for that as well. Right now, it is available for order only on formats 2 and 4, and American DVD formats are neither. I can wait. For a while.

So, time for a confession. I'm fat. Well, I'm not fat, really, I'm just tremendously out of shape. I am absolutely at the outside of what is considered a healthy weight for my age and height. Before I started school in August of 2004, I went hiking nearly every day after work and then all weekend, every weekend. When I did the Enchantments for my birthday I barely broke a sweat. I could carry a 35 pound pack 7 miles, set up camp, and explore for a few hours. I could run up the five flights of stairs to work without getting winded. I was eating more than 3000 calories a day, and I was a size 8. At 5'10" and 36 years old, that's quite nice. (Insert big grin here.) Now? I shudder to confess, so I won't. Anyway, at some point in the very recent past, I realized that I was having some rather major issues. My clothes were... shrinking. I was skipping breakfast and lunch because of time issues, but I would go home after work and eat until I went to bed. Things were... jiggling. I saw a woman on TV who was about 5 months pregnant and I realized that we had a lot in common in the physique department. Ew. EW! Ugh. So I'm now on the Glycemic Impact diet, which is basically the Zone diet with slightly different reasoning. I'm rather amazed at the quick results. I have to eat all day long just to get it all down, but it is all healthy and it is all things that I like. (I have sneaked a few Girl Scout cookies and an apple fritter, but that's just between you and me. Shh!) Literally, for the first time in my life, I'm drinking enough water. I'm sure the daily aerobic/resistance training isn't hurting anything either.

I graduate in October, just in time to catch one or two good North Cascades hikes before the snow comes, and I intend to be back in good enough shape to tackle them right away. I have a long Memorial Day weekend, so I'm planning to do a hike then, and another over the Fourth of July weekend. I think there will probably still be snow in late May - there sure was last year, which did not prevent sunburn or high temperatures at Gem Lake, which was still frozen - so it won't be an overnighter because I'm just enough of a wuss to not want to camp in full-on snow. Not yet. Maybe next year. The July 4th trip will be an overnighter, snow or no snow, because if there is any it will be sparse. I know which hike I'm going to do (look out, mountain goats, the camera happy freak is coming back), and I know that even without a full pack it is a killer, so I definitely need to work to get myself into shape before I hit that trail. Even just as a day hike the trail is a nightmare. I broke all of my fingernails on that trail! You have to use your hands pretty liberally on that one. Bits of it are essentially a scramble. I also intend to be in good enough shape to do some snowboarding and snowshoeing next winter. Best to get started now, don't you think?

Never get angry at the stupid people...

But do get all wound up that Erasure is coming to the Showbox on May 13th! Ken and Brad and Max and some guy named Jon and I are going to go. We're going to have a barbecue at Ken's before the show, and I know his cooking, so that alone will be worth the trip. Last time I went to the Showbox was to see the Psychedelic Furs in April of (I think) 2001, and the last concert I went to was Keane at the Paramount with Ken last May. I really don't get out much, do I? That day is good because it won't interfere with school or work. I'll probably stay in the guest room if offered. Driving home after the show might be contraindicated...

Wow. I have a day off at the end of this month to have a filling replaced. I have three days off next month for training in Tigard, Oregon, on the software that I use at work for tracking fixed asset software, which happens to coincide with my mother's birthday and is a mere 17 miles from her house. Now I have something social to do in May. I feel overwhelmed! I don't know if I can continue with this hectic social schedule!

Things for which to be thankful.

Found money. Today, while searching for a final nickel (I was a nickel off. Get it? Its a pun! Oh, nothing...) to buy a bottle of water to take on the train with me, I found a Starbucks card with a $3.55 balance on it. I promptly went downstairs and acquired not only a triple tall Americano (to which I added a bit of half-and-half and some cinnamon) but a heavenly slice of one of their new chocolate cupcakes, which they were sampling today. They have chocolate shavings on top, perched like a heavenly head of Cupid's curly locks on a bed of shockingly rich chocolate frosting. Nutrition is for losers.

And on that note... Finding ways to save money can be a nice thing. I cancelled three subscriber services in addition to dropping my credit card interest rate, which should leave me an extra $100 or so per month. Which is good, because I have to start paying student loans someday. (April 2007, to be exact.) I take the train to work now, so that is already saving me $200 each month for gas and parking, but I still need to pay off the credit card before April of next year. I would have been able to with this year's tax return, except that...

Tax returns. Except that... I screwed up my 2004 tax return. So this year, I got back $2295 for my 2005 return, but then the 2004 audit showed that I owed $2245, so I got to keep exactly $50 of this year's return. That'll teach me to exercise my stock options. My new battle cry as far as that goes is, "No more stock options! EVER!"

Short classes. My Accounting 423 class is over this Saturday. I cannot wait to get out of this one! I spent about an hour last night on a bit of homework that could conceivably be the death of me if I don't get it by the weekend. And I still have the rest of the homework to start on.

Red cashmere/lambswool cableknit sweaters. We need not say more.

Friends who know things about stuff. I was talking to my boss last week, and we were on the topic of finances and income taxes. We both have a few problems for various reasons (I have bad spending habits and mediocre income, she has a husband with bad spending habits and high income). We were talking about interest rates on credit cards, and how it is better to make minimum payments on our mortgages because interest on those is tax deductible, and instead of paying extra on the mortgage we pay extra on the credit cards to pay them off faster. She asked me about my interest rate, and I didn't know what it was. I looked at my statment and ... oh, there are so many things I could say to describe my reaction. Everything got all dark and quiet... So anyway, I called them today and quoted my 759 credit score and their usurious interest rates, and I told them that if they didn't lower it I would cancel my account. It took a whopping 15 seconds or so for them to drop it to 8%. From 27%. I was paying 27% interest. On a card with a limit high enough that I can buy a car on it. Inconceivable! Does that sound right to you? Now that I'll be paying a reasonable amount of interest on that monstrosity, I should be able to get rid of it sooner. Now all I have to do is work on my savings account. If I take all the money I've got saved right now, I could maybe buy a moderately-sized gerbil.

Goodwill. I've got a ton of crap to get rid of. I can't afford to take it to the dump and I'm too lazy to sell it on eBay. And they pick up!

Speaking of picking up... Safeway delivers groceries. I don't know about you guys, but I loathe the grocery store. Too many people, too much noise, too much time wasted.

Scrubs. And not just the TV show. You can get cheap scrubs on Overstock.com. They're great for lounging around in, and if you have to answer the door, it doesn't look like you're in your PJs. (Even if you are! Hee hee!)

PostSecret. I have so many secrets on this website, and I didn't even send them in.

Frogs. Just 'cause they're cute.

Strawberries. Safeway's got 'em on sale two-for-one, and they raise your serotonin levels like chocolate does. Berrylicious...

Fences. I finally rebuilt that last section of fence that I had that blew down back in, uh, December (I think). What's weird is that I feel more secure, even though anyone could get in just by going through the gates.

Spring. I know it isn't quite yet, but the trees and plants don't seem to be aware of that. My trees are blooming, my rosemary is blooming, my grass is growing (drat!), I've got irises and tulips coming up, and my allergies are in full swing. My head is clogged like I'm just getting over the flu. But hey, it is still light when I leave work, and you can already see daylight on the horizon when I'm getting on the train! Yay for longer daylight hours! Woo hoo! I'm just hoping I don't have a repeat of last year's yard fiasco, in which I had a neighbor come to check to see if I was OK because my lawn was about 4 feet deep in the back yard. Everyone around me is so used to me having a nice yard (I've been told that I have one of the nicest yards in my neighborhood) that it gave everyone a bit of a shock that I let it go so long. If it doesn't rain on Saturday, I'm going to mow.

Chanel No. 5. Perfume doesn't stay around for a century unless it smells this good.

iPods. So much better than having to change the CD every 45 minutes.

Private cubes at work. I used to be in the Accounts Payable department, but I got promoted to Staff Accountant. Then they moved the AP department all into one office. I would die. One of them occasionally uses a Betty Boop voice that I would be embarassed to use, listens to KIXI all day, and won't open the blinds or turn on the lights. I would be trapped in an office all day with her if I was still in that department. I like her, she's great, but I just am not a good enough person to tolerate some quirks. My current cube has one very solid wall and two cube walls, and I can see out of the window of the office across from me. I can dig it.

Firefly. Granted, it is no longer around, but it lives on in our hearts.