I'm not who I am

Many years ago I had a dream that came true.

 

In it, I saw the woman that would replace me in the relationship I was in at the time. She was, at the time, living in Rhode Island and I had never met her. The first time I saw her in the office two months after the dream, I knew who she was. I sent an email to a friend that I had told about the dream and said that the woman in the dream was here, and in 6 months I would be dumped. And it happened.

 

The dream started out with me, legless, in a tiny rowboat. I was drifting through heavy fog along a shoreline with a concrete seawall, about four feet high. I drifted to the shore and stepped out, legs intact. I walked up a steep slope, switchbacking through deep forest until I reached the top. There was a restaurant there, all natural wood and brass lamps and mirrors. I walked in and saw the man with whom I was "involved" and sat with him. He didn't want to be seen with me, and he got up and sat with one of his friends from work and this woman that I didn't recognize. I looked to my left, where there was a mirror. My hair was longer, and I was wearing a dark blue turtleneck. I said to my doppelganger, "I'm not who I am." Then I woke up.

 

The part about being legless and drifting through fog certainly speaks volumes about my state of mind at the time (and even now, for that matter). Knowing that the man in question didn't want to be seen with me and my outward willingness to accept that also speaks volumes. The comment I made to myself in the mirror is interesting. I still feel that way. I'm meandering through my life with no real purpose, pretending to be someone that I'm not and knowing full well that I'm doing it.

 

Right now, I'm pretending to be an upwardly mobile, ambitious, motivated staff accountant when I actually want nothing more than to just hike and take pictures. I don't want to work for a living, I don't want to spend all of my daylight hours commuting to my office or sitting in my office, regardless of how pleasant the office. I want to sit around and watch movies and eat junk food and harass my cat. On the other hand, I am a practical person by nature, and I know that reality dictates that I work for a living and I have to work at something that will pay the bills. All I know how to do that will cover the mortgage is accounting work. And I am good at it. Unfortunately, this leads my superiors to think that I want to do more than I do, and they want me to get involved more so that I can further my career. How do you tell your boss that you don't want to further your career, that you want to be just a cog in the machine and stay at one level because you don't want more work or more responsibilities or, gods forbid, more hours in the office? Well, you don't. That is career suicide, and though I don't necessarily want a career, I need one, so I need to protect it. So I go along with it and hope that I don't end up being in the office more, with more work, more responsibilities, heading for a middle-management position.

 

I am also, as of late, pretending to be a much nicer, emotionally balanced person than I really am in an effort to get along with my more irritating co-workers and not get wound up to the point where I have a stroke from frustration and stress. I don't like pretending to be someone I'm not, but it seems to help me get through my life.

 

Such a dichotomy.

 

Sold or taken over?

My company is in flux. Granted, most companies these days have their challenges, but many are not under threat as mine is. First of all, the stockholders are pissed off because of continuing losses. Granted, the losses get smaller and the revenues get bigger each year, but all they see is that they cannot make a million if they sell their shares. We've lost three executives in the last month, and there's another one on the way out shortly. There's also word that the board of directors is actively searching for a new CEO. This may not bode well for the company. On the other hand, it could be a great thing. We could get bought out, we could go private, we could be taken over, we could end up with a great CEO who creates a successful business plan and rescues all of us from our thousands of underwater shares. Whatever happens, I'm sure that I'll come out of it OK. It may be rough and scary, but I've always landed on my feet before, financially speaking. (Emotionally, not so much. T hat is why I gave up dating for Lent about 5 years ago and never got back into it. But I digress...)  I have a friend who knows a recruiter who is always looking for accounting people, so I may actually come out way ahead. I stand, currently, to get about five months severance if I lose my job, and if I'm employed elsewhere nearly immediately, all will be well. That five months could pay off my student loans! That would just about rock. Not that I want to lose my job, or even to get a new one, but that would leave me in a very good position. I just hope that in my next job, I still get a window and my iPod.

The love affair continues

I still love my new office. I'm totally enamored. The light, the warmth, the seagulls running into the windows, the clouds, the sun, the airplanes. All of it. Sharing an office with a deaf co-worker is great, too. I hate to make light of her lack of hearing, but it works very nicely for me. I don't have to listen to phone calls, she doesn't complain about my iPod, there's no idle chitchat while I'm trying to work. It is lovely. I'm very happy. My plants are happy, too. I can see the courtyard in front of Starbucks reflected in the windows of the building across from me, so I can peoplewatch when I get bored or just need to focus on something other than my computer screen. Normally, I just stare at the sky. Its very pretty. So blue! And very distracting.

 

A group of my strange friends and I might be going bowling soon. More later, if it happens. It should be amusing for all.

 

School has taken a nasty turn. I no longer have the nice, convinient drive to Tukwila on Saturdays for class. I now have to deal with the helltraffic around Bellevue. For some reason, they've moved three of the programs at Tukwila to Bellevue. Well, I suppose it is a good reason. They don't need a Renton branch and a Tukwila branch, so they consolidated the Tukwila programs into Renton and Bellevue. I am unfortunate enough to be in the new Bellevue group. Argh. Now any time I need to do any shopping on Saturdays after school, I will have to either shop in Bellevue (not an option), Issaquah (not the worst option), or drive all the way to Tukwila, where I know where everything is. That, or I'll have to drive to Tukwila to catch the train and go shopping after work, also not the best option. Argh again. I'll have to work something out eventually. Or just never go shopping again. I think I like that idea a lot. That is what the internet is for anyway, right?

Room with a view

Today is my first day in my new office, and I love it already. But then, I knew I would! I get to spy on the people in the building across from me. I get to watch the birds and the weather. I have more space. I can turn my iPod up because my officemate is deaf. It is nice and bright even though it is overcast, so it is better on my eyes. I may actually go back to wearing contacts now that I'll be able to see all of the time.

 

I can't explain the contact thing very well. According to my optometrist, I have really flat corneas. (And I quote: "Your corneas are really flat!") They make contact lenses only in a certain range of curvatures, so even contacts with the flattest of curves don't quite fit my eyes unless I'm in bright enough light that my eyes change shape to deal with the light. In low light, I get a pocket between my eyes and the lenses, and it hurts and I can't see. I think the light in here will be just fine for me.

 

I just hope I can take my eyes off of the sky more often to do my job!

Monochromatic Oink

I finally get to move into my new window office tomorrow! I can't wait! It is south-facing, so it will be nice and bright in there. It is going to be as close to heaven as an office life can be.

I spoke with my new officemate about the furniture arrangement. She's currently crowded into one corner of the office, so as soon as the other two people are out of the way we're going to rearrange her furniture so that she has half of the office and I have half. That's only fair, right? There is one minor problem though. At some points during the day, the sun really glares on her monitor, so they've rigged up a sun screen of sorts using - of all things - orange "out" cards that you use to indicate that a file is missing from a drawer. It is truly ugly. I went over to Uwajima to see if they had anything that would work better and/or look better. I found one or two solutions , but I have others in mind, for which I'll have to hit a few department stores.

On the other hand, I found things that I totally did not go over there for but I medically needed them. One is a midnight blue tea pot. I like to buy loose tea, brew it by the pot, and get all hyped up on it. There's a tea shop nearby to feed this new addiction. Another thing I found is a Japanese tea cup with The Great Wave on it. The third thing is... harder to explain.

My company buys office supplies by the crate. I don't need to buy my own. But why would I want to use yellow squares to write notes when I can write on white squares with pairs of black and white piggies that are saying "Boo" on them? I wouldn't want to, of course! And that is why I blew five bucks on white squares with pairs of black and white piggies that are saying "Boo" on them. Apparently these pigs are quite big in Japan (incidentally, that's a song by Alphaville) from a company called San-X, apparently responsible for Hello Kitty and other well-known icons of cuteness. They're called MonokuRo Boo. MonokuRo means monochromatic, and Boo is really Buu in Japanese, the "oink" sound a pig makes. They're adorable and stupid and useless, since they don't actually stick to anything, but they're cute and they make me smirk (sometimes smiling is just too much work), so they're going to live in my line of sight until I get bored of them and use them to make tiny paper airplanes to throw at my co-workers.

And speaking of spending too much money on crap. Uwajimaya currently has about a thousand really cool things that I really like, but have nowhere to put them or money with which to acquire them. For example, paper lanterns with a water colored cherry blossom design. Night lights with Japanese artwork on them. Kimonos. (Well, maybe I do need one of those... someday.) A Samurai helmet. All kinds of food I've never tried. Chopsticks. Sake sets. I could go on and on, but you should probably just pay them a visit. You've got to see the stuff to truly covet it.

Fun with tofu

I've gotten in the habit lately of bringing curried tofu and vegetables to work for lunch. It is good, healthy, easy to fix, and easy to heat up in the microwave - I don't like high-maintenance work lunches. Today, I brought in a particularly curried meal. I seriously loaded it up with the curry powder and ginger. I was working while eating, minding my own business, when I managed to lose my grip on my Ziploc lunch container, and I got curry

 

all

over

everything.

 

My desk. My keyboard. My wrist rest. My pants. My floor.

 

Now I get to walk around all day smelling like curry. There are worse things, but I can imagine what innocent bystanders are going to think when they get a whiff of me.

Sweet dreams are made of cheese

http://www.cheeseboard.co.uk/news.cfm?page_id=240

You might find this interesting. This study came to my attention as a sidebar in the current “Eating Well” magazine. After reading what type of dreams each type of cheese causes, I had to eat some Stilton before bed last night. I dreamt of 19^th century Chicago sewer barons fighting over how to cure a rabies epidemic.

If you have trouble sleeping, Cheshire is apparently the way to go.

Careful what you ask for...

It never ceases to amaze me how things work out unintentionally. It also never ceases to amaze me how they don't work out, but that's another topic entirely.

Work kinda drives me a little crazy. I'm not a people person. I don't like being surrounded all day long with people who want to chat about things that I really don't care about, and I'm not good at hiding it. There are some people who irritate me endlessly, so I work with them as well as I can and try to ignore their garbage and move on. On the other hand, if I irritate someone, they go crying to my boss. If I went crying to my boss every time one of them wrecked my day with their crap, none of us would ever get anything done. (That's what blogs are for, anyway.) I don't understand why I am expected to change who I am to make them happy, but they won't do the same for me, and I'm a shade resentful about it.

For example, my latest replacement threatened to quit. She blamed me. She has talked to me about one thing in the last month, and it was a month ago, so it seems like scapegoating to me. Our boss talked her out of it, but they expect me to baby her through yet another month-end close to keep her happy. Read these instructions and see if they make sense: copy this, paste it here; copy that, paste it there; change that month to this month; save the file. Clear, correct? I doubt it can be easier. Yet, I have to stand over her and pat her on the head and encourage her. I think that is a bit ludicrous. She has 15 years of age and experience on me, so why can't she act like a competent adult?

Additionally, she has been going on and on about how miserable her work conditions are. She has a window office and half the workload that I had in that position when I had no window office, yet she feels overworked and that it is unfair that I only work 9 hours a day when she has to work 11 hours. When I was in that position, I worked four 10-hour days, and I had twice the work. Do I sound sympathetic to her plight? No. Why? Because I am not.

Her complaining finally paid off for me in some respect. They are taking the two accounts payable people out of the big window office and putting them in cubes, and they are moving me into the big window office with our other staff accountant. The funny thing is that this arrangement will not solve her complaints. She goes on about how people come in to talk to the other AP person and it is too distracting. When she moves back into the cube farm, she will be able to hear about a dozen or more people talking all day long, not to mention that a few of them are unbelievably loud and like to shout at each other over the cube walls. There are people walking past all day long, so rather than seeing only the people who come into the office, she will see everyone. She complains about how bright and hot it is in there, but it is cold and dark in the cube farm. I doubt that anything will ever make her happy, but if I get a window office out of t he deal, I am happy.

Junk food versus working out

I found a benefit to "Take your child to work day"! They bought a ton of snacks for the kiddies that the kiddies did not eat. I've been bingeing on the new Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers in bright, candy-like colors! They came in a case of individual serving sizes, little milk cartons full of crackers. I've been hoarding them. Every time I walk into the kitchen I grab one or two of them and stash them in my desk for snacking emergencies. I also copped a pen with a head on a spring and troll doll hair. I don't know why I felt compelled to take that, but hey, free pens are always a good thing in the office.

I decided before my trip to Oregon that my weight training routine had gotten too easy. I took the week off from working out, and when I started up again I started with 5 pound weights instead of 3 pound weights. I can still get all the way through the workout even after nearly doubling the weights, but boy, do my arms shake by the end. Not to mention that I'm pretty stiff from it. That will go away in another day or two. I am committed (nay, obsessed!) to getting back in the shape I was in a few years ago, so I'm going to keep it up until I have to add another pound or two of weights. I don't want to get all bulky though. I'm nearly 6 feet tall in my shoes, so the last thing I need is to start looking like a bodybuilder, which on me translates to looking like a guy who doesn't know how to feminize himself when he's in drag. Sure, I have long hair and such, but I also have broader shoulders than most women because of the Norwegian side of the family, and it can translate as masculine to the less observant among us. I really don't need that kind of mystique surrounding me.

So disturbing...

When I first moved here in 1984, I noticed that there seemed to be a really high number of people with multiple sclerosis. First I thought that maybe it was because we have better-than-average medical care here, especially for MS patients. Then I thought that maybe I was just so dense that I just didn't notice anyone with multiple sclerosis until I moved here. I never noticed Volvos until I moved here, so I'm sure there are more things that escaped my attention for whatever reason until I had a reason to notice them here. For a while I forgot about it, but every time I saw someone with MS, I would wonder why they are so common here.

Apparently there's an actual reason for it. From the train, I saw a billboard suggesting that one of the triggers for MS is the climate. I Googled it, as I am wont to do, and yes, climate is a trigger for MS.

Score one for me. I'm not as dense as I thought I might be.

ASS out of U and ME

I have a funny way of making certain assumptions in spite of the evidence that making assumptions is a pointless waste of energy. For example, I tend to assume that the people I work with are all sensible, responsible adults. I maintain assumptions such as this right up until I am given a reason to make a new assumption. It simplifies life to pigeonhole everyone, you know? A number of office events have taken place that have forced me to reassess my assumptions about my coworkers.

• Though we have community kitchens, there are those who feel that they are not required to participate in the communal responsibilities, such as rinsing out the sink and the sponge after use, replacing empty paper towel rolls, making a new pot of coffee when they empty the old one, wiping up their microwave oven messes, and opening a new box of plastic silverware after taking the last one. I'm sure that every office has these people in one incarnation or another.
• Even worse, we had a charming female employee who developed a habit of wiping boogers on the bathroom wall.
• I've seen gum on the ceiling, which made me wonder just how hard you have to throw a wad of gum to make it stick to acoustic tiling 10 feet over your head.
• And to top them all off, our men's and women's locker rooms were vandalized a few months ago, probably by the same person. Now we have to sign up to use them and have our card key coded for access to them.

I work in an expensive new building in downtown Seattle in a reasonably high-tech company, and yet we hire people of this caliber. It is disheartening. I like to believe that we, as American adults making between $40,000 and $500,000 a year, are a bit better than that, but obviously I should not labor under that impression any longer.

My new assumption? From Profe Noteboom of North Kitsap High School, I learned in 1986 the following saying in Spanish: Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda. Though the monkey is dressed in silk, she is still a monkey. I think it applies nicely, and it is always fun to invoke the power of monkeys.

ACHOO!

This morning started out totally normal. Woke up, ate, got dressed, did hair, left home, swore at other drivers, sat in the parking garage listening to Adam Carolla until it was time to walk out to the train platform, stood on the plat form for a whopping 4 minutes. No news there. Nothing different. I stepped onto the train, walked three steps to the stairs, turned the corner and BAM! Allergy attack. It has been going since 6:20 this morning with no end in sight. Sneezing, sniffling, runny nose, itchy eyes. I can't take allergy medicines because they all either don't work or they knock me on my ass, so I have to suffer through it until it gives up. Eating chocolate shortbread cookies not only does not help my allergies, but I'm reasonably certain that eating that much fat and sugar in one sitting isn't healthy in any way, shape or form.

Sniffle.

I assumed that missing four days of the last work week would leave me with a pile of work to do when I got back. Wrongo bongo. I've already gotten through it all. I'm bored already. Maybe more cookies will help the boredom go away.

"Training"

I got back from my trip to Oregon yesterday afternoon at around 1:00. The training I went for was useless. I knew everything already with the exception of a number of things that didn't apply to me. I took the classes thinking that I could be doing more with the software, and it turns out that the software is really so simple that there isn't more that I can be doing. What a waste.

On the other hand, I got to spend my mom's birthday with her, and we went to see Silent Hill. Very, very strange movie. I won't offer anything but a shallow opinion of it, becuase I am still mulling it over. So here's my opinion - it has some disturbing nightmare-quality visuals. Very cool!

Also on the upside of the trip, I got to miss "Take Your Child To Work Day," which is one of my least favorite days of the year. I find it nearly impossible to be productive with herds of them rampaging about the hallways, squealing and whining the way they do.

And again on the upside of the trip, I got to mess around with my mom's dog for a while. This dog will not sit still for a camera, so this is the best picture I managed to get of her in the entire stay down there. Well, I did want to get one of her interesting facial expressions. I wasn't aiming for this one, but it will do.

I'm prettier than a door stopper! Uh, wait a minute...

Someday I will learn how to take a compliment.

I was walking out to the lobby and there was a kitchen resupply guy with two cartloads of crap trying to get through a door. I held the door open for him while he was dragging the carts through, and I commented that it was too bad we couldn't block the doors open. He said something to the effect that this works better, because I'm prettier than a door stopper.

Hrmph. OK. Now, see, I know that is a compliment, a clumsy one at best, and I'm reasonably certain that he didn't mean it like it could be taken. And yet, after I got over my girlish giggles, I began wondering if he would have said that if we had some really cool door stoppers. If he had said that it was good that we couldn't block open the doors because this way a pretty girl (hee hee!) gets to hold the door open for him, I wouldn't even question it.

Can you see what is wrong with me?

Public nuisances

Have you ever heard anyone say that they just love to get on a plane or train or bus and chat with whomever they are sitting next to, even if that person is trying to read a book or sleep or something? No? Neither have I. Everyone complains about people who want to talk to them when they don't want to talk. And that is why I wonder how it is that no matter where you go on public transportation you end up sitting with someone who wants to chat. I use my commute to do my school reading. I'm sitting there, head down, highlighter and pen in one hand, papers in another, and someone says, "Looks like someone's going to school." I look up at the person sitting at a diagonal from me and reply, "Yep." Then the head goes back down. "What class are you taking?" I flash the title of the chapter at the person. "Oh, yeah, interest rates, I hated that." The chapter was, in fact, not about interest rates at all, but about investment interest in subsidiary companies. "I don't envy you." I looked up from my chapter once again, marking the paragraph with my thumb so as to get back to it easily, and said, "Neither do I. And unfortunately, the only time I have to study is on the train." Head went back down. Do you think that worked? No. Too subtle, apparently. "When do you graduate?" "October." After about another three minutes, they gave up. Finally. And you know what sucks? I don't remember a damn thing I read this morning.

Camera-happy summerlike day

The last two days have been great.

At work: The controller told me I did a great job on the quarter-end packages, and this is not a man to hand out "atta-girl"s on a regular basis. I got all of my "prepared by client" materials together for the first quarter audit. I scheduled a meeting to work out why our SRA list does not tie to our inventory list for evaluation units. I get to run a meeting! Woo hoo for me!

At home: The weather has been fantastic. It is 76 in my house right now, and it is only April! The apple trees are blooming (at left). My creeping myrtle (below) and rosemary are also blooming, and the back yard smells fantastic. I mowed my lawn again, and it is now at a decent depth of 2", but I'll have to mow it next week because I know it will grow two inches over the week. I re-barked the landscaping on the east end of the house. I actually did some landscaping on the west end of the house (that's the picture above), which used to have nothing but grass, moss and the fence, and I'm feeling rather proud of myself for doing something original rather than just perpetuating what previous owners of my house had done. I ripped up all of the turf in a swoopy, curvy line from the property line where the fences meet over to the side of the house, and all of the way up the side of the house to the corner. I planted some cute, colorful shrubberies, and barked the bejesus out of it. It looks pretty good (considering a total amateur did it), particularly when the sun shines on it. Tearing up the turf wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was mostly moss, which came up after just running my hand over it. Underneath was nothing but worm castings, apparently. I've never seen so many earthworms in one place that were not for sale as bait. Digging the holes for the shrubs was as difficult as I thought it would be. The ground here is nothing but rocks with dirt filling in the gaps between them. See the rocks in that picture? Those are just some of the rocks I dug up to make room for the shrubs. I took the rest of the rocks elsewhere to use as a drain spout for my rain gutters. My yard is gonna be so nice when all of my little trees and shrubs grow up! I'm amazed at how fast the back yard shrubs are growing. I should have blooming lilacs next year, and my blue holly and variegated holly already get berries each winter. If I ever have to sell, the landscaping alone should help me get a decent price.

I decided that since (1) the weather was perfect and (2) my car is black but looked grey that today would be a good day to wash the car. I whipped the garden hose out of my Mexican hose pot and was startled by a very large, fast-moving spider. I was expecting a much smaller crop of spiders, but certainly nothing this large. I threw a quarter into the pot to give a vague idea of the size of the thing. I have no idea what kind of spider this is, but I see them outside pretty frequently. This isn't even the biggest one I've seen. I'm going to send the picture to this guy who runs a website from the UW to see if he can identify it, or at least give me an idea of what it might be.

I also baked chocolate chip cookies and ate about six of them for dinner. How much better can a day actually get without winning a lottery?

Yes, Chewing!

Lately, I've become rather enamored of chewing gum. It is a little weird to suddenly decide I like gum at my advanced age, because it makes my jaw hurt to chew it. On the other hand, it eliminates the perpetual coffee breath and makes me less hungry. Every now and then, I wander over to Uwajimaya to buy their Japanese gum. They've got some great flavors. Today, I'm working on Cool Mint.
It is very strong mint, and it lasts forever. More importantly, the package has penguins on it, and you can't go far wrong with penguins. Even better, it has cryptic English translations of something from Japanese on it. Some of the wrappers on the sticks say "Yes, Chewing!", and others say "Cool Mint, Enjoy the Delight Only From Lotte" (which you can almost see in the picture). That little red blurb in the picture says "Long Live!" Still, they translate better from Japanese to English than I ever will from English to Japanese, so I won't pretend to feel superior about my mad skillz in English.

So much for originality...

I registered yesterday for online access to my phone account. I hate trying to think up user IDs so I generally use the same one for everything, but I decided to take a stab at improvisational thinking and decided to try a user ID of "jenhatesphones". Someone else already has it.

I got home from work yesterday and my cat was not acting normally. She wasn't standing at the door yelling at me when I unlocked it, and she looked like she had just woken up. I fed her, and she didn't eat all of her food, which is very rare indeed. After she ate, she went into my office and went to sleep on the chair I sit in to read. Normally, she hovers around under my feet and yells at me for attention while I'm trying to cook dinner. There was none of that. She did come out of the office to sit with me while I ate my dinner and watched "Scrubs" and "Teachers," taped from the night before. This morning, after eating and napping while I got ready for work, she seemed to come back to herself. She is 14, and changes in behavior worry me. I may haul her off to the vet if she isn't back to normal when I get home.

If my calendar, computer, and cell phone are all correct, today is Thursday. I have only two more work days, a day of school, a day of yard work, and another work day before I bugger off to Oregon for three days. I was originally taking three days of software training down there with a day off in the middle to spend with my mom, but one of the classes was cancelled and I'm coming back earlier than expected. In light of the fact that I have five very hungry fish and a possibly sick cat, that is probably for the best. Even better, payday is next week right after I get back, and everybody loves payday.

Accountability: Look it up!

I got to spend three and a half hours yesterday in a meeting reviewing the capabilities of a new software that I will never, ever use. I was there solely because I used to use the old version of the software, and my replacement in that position is not learning the job or showing any interest in learning more or upgrading the software.

As I learn more about this particular co-worker, I have less appreciation for her. I have to teach her certain aspects of the job, and the converstations usually follow the same pattern.

Me: "To find this information, you have to look it up in the customer
listing in SmartList."
Her: No response. No acknowledgement, no nod, no eye
contact, no breathing.
Me: "Do you know how to look up the customer listing
in SmartList?"
Her: "No."
Me: Pause for five beats, then, "Would you like
me to show you how to do it?"

She will not say that she doesn't understand something, she will not ask questions. She doesn't want to learn anything new, she resists change automatically. She is crippling herself with her attitude. They pulled me into the meeting (while I'm working on quarter-end inventory accounting reports that the freakin' SEC is waiting on) to guide the software vendors regarding her upcoming software implementation because she won't step up and deal with it. She has a very "I don't know how to do this so I don't want to do it" way about her. For what they're paying her, she should be able to be involved in the implementation of her software. As much as she whines about how the current version doesn't work (which is odd, because it always worked fine for me), she should at least be able to describe what she'd like to see work differently in the new system, but she had nothing to say.

If you haven't worked it out yet, I am NOT the hand-holding type.

Is it just me?

I went down to Starbucks for my second cup of coffee just a short while ago and ran into one of the local... uh, I don't know what to call him. But there are a lot of them here.

I work in Seattle in a building near Pioneer Square, Union Station, and the stadiums. I know this area is known for its drug and prostitution traffic, but what draws the mentally unstable people? In the mornings, Starbucks has its share of the methadone clinic regulars, loading up on sugar with coffee in it until they get kicked out. They generally aren't a problem, but they can get a little raucous. The ones that worry me are the ones that walk around talking or shouting at people who aren't there. Sometimes the bystanders will just look at them and look away, other times they watch them until they're out of sight. Today, the guy in Starbucks was walking back and forth, going on and on, mumbling things I couldn't for my life make out except for the dates. It was as though he was reciting a time line, but I couldn't understand anything but the dates he was throwing out. The weird thing was that nobody seemed to notice he was doing it, or maybe we were all just automatically pretending not to notice it. La la la, this is me getting my coffee and ignoring the elephant in the room. He seemed harmless enough, but I generally tend to assume that if they are unbalanced enough to talk to people who aren't there, they may also be unbalanced enough to stab me in the neck and not know they're doing it. Seattle is generally a fairly polite city, and it isn't polite to stab people in the neck while they're just trying to get a cup of coffee.

Incidentally, I usually order a triple tall Americano. Today I ordered a drip coffee because I wanted to get out of the store faster than normal because I was vaguely uncomfortable with the crazy orator there. Just as one person handed me the drip, the other brought me the Americano that she assumed I would order. So I had to pay only for the drip! Woo hoo! Two fisted drinking! Luckily, I switched to decaf a couple of months ago. Otherwise, this would have done me in.

And yes, I know it is mean to call people crazy. It isn't politically correct. Well, I call people retarded and fat too, and I know they aren't PC either. The fact is, they are catch-all terms that everyone understands and can spell. When I know a more specific term, I use it. The dishwasher at the sandwich shop, for example, is not retarded. He has Downs Syndrome. The guy who shouts obscenities nonstop and kicks over the trash cans is schizophrenic, not crazy. The guy who spits big gobs of mucous into the fountain and throws his garbage on the ground near the trash can is an asshole, not a man. You get the gist. I calls 'em like I sees 'em.

More on the joys of homeownership

Rather than wasting my time this weekend on, say, housework or homework, I decided to work on my yard. After breakfast, I went to the gas station to get gas for the lawn mower. At that point, it was a little foggy, but you could see the sun breaking through. I got home with the gas can and filled up the mower and tried to start it. No go. I think last time I mowed was in August, so the mower was a little stiff. I wandered around the yard picking up branches from the last windstorm. Tried again. Still no go. Picked up more branches, weeded a little, tried the mower again. Still no go. Three more times, I picked up branches and weeded, then tried the mower, but it wouldn't start. Then it started to rain. I put the mower away.

A smart person would have given up right there.

I have a little island in the middle of my front yard. It has trees, rhodies, Oregon grapes, salal, heather, and a number of other autochthonous flora. When I bought the house, the spaces between the shrubs was beauty-barked. I hate beauty bark, but I totally see the practicality of it. I can't get much else to grow in there. Believe me, I've tried. The bark had deteriorated into moldy mulch, and weeds were growing freely out of it. While I was weeding the island, I basically removed the entire top layer of decaying bark. I knew that the weeds would just come back, so I broke down and bought more bark. I spent a fair portion of the day, in the pouring rain, spreading new bark. I finally gave up on yardwork at about 1:00.

Sunday, I went out to the garage to try the mower again. It started right up. Whew! I was hoping not to have a repeat of last year's brush-cutter-rental episode. I got the front yard mowed without any drama, but the back yard was quite a chore. I set the wheels at the highest setting and still bogged down the mower in the deepest spots. Then, just to show the neighborhood what a masochist I am, I lowered the wheels to the half-way point and I mowed the entire back yard again to get it down to a reasonable depth. Even after mowing it once, the second time was still a bit too much for my mower, and it stalled a few times in the heavier, wetter areas. It took me half an hour to do the entire front yard and 3 and 1/2 hours to do the back yard. I have only a quarter acre! Going forward, it shouldn't be as bad if I can keep up with it. I just need to make a point of mowing it regardless of whether it has rained. After all, I would never mow it at all if I wait for it to dry out. They don't call this place the Pacific North Wet for nothing.

The unfortunate bit is that now I have to buy more bark to cover all of the areas that I haven't done already. I have a feeling I know how I'll be spending next weekend.

Holy crap. (No pun intended.)

This is one of the more frightening news items to reach me in recent memory. Iran's president is vowing 'Rotten Israel will be annihilated'. Soon. This, on the heels of their announcement that they have managed to sucessfully enrich uranium, a necessary component of nukes.

My assessment? This is an extreme example of the swinging dick syndrome. In most cases, it is harmless. Body building, Trans Ams, and power tool envy leap to mind. This is common across all species. Male peacocks and their feathers, male gorillas and their chest beating, elks and their racks, and so on. Most men can't compete with each other in any extremely physical way with the exception of things like rugby, boxing, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. What makes this so much worse, in my estimation, is that so many people have so much to lose over what amounts to an argument that simplifies down to "My imaginary friend is bigger than your imaginary friend and we're gonna kick yer ass." This is not an argument that I can respect.

Why can't everyone grow up? I've gone my whole life without killing anyone over religious or philosophical differences (not that I haven't been tempted...), and considering my temperment I don't know why everyone else can't do the same. And believe me, if I was the type to try to kill people off over religious or philosophical differences, about 99.999999999984% (I did the math) of our species would be wiped out. I prefer to take a more relaxed attitude, a "live and let live" attitude, and just try to mind my own business and try not have any adverse affect on anyone. Do you know how much happier we could all be if we just lived our own lives rather than trying to justify our own existence by either forcing everyone to comply with us so that we don't have to question our own beliefs or killing them off if they don't agree with us?

I say we put the Iranian president in the ultimate fighter ring with a challenger from Israel and see how long his god protects him. The winner gets a really big belt buckle and a victory lap around the ring on the arm of a bimbo in a bikini. The loser gets free medical care.

You can find it on eBay

My ISP is Comcast. I've been with Comcast since I switched in desperation in an effort to keep up with my homework, which includes email, newsgroups, and downloadable music and video. Every day that I log into their home page at Comcast.net, they have a bunch of news stories, entertainment, and so on. They have one section called "Fact or Fiction?" Today, one of the questions was, "Babies have more bones than adults?" Ignoring the lack of sentence structure, I clicked on the question to see the answer, which I knew was correct but I couldn't remember exact figures. It took me to a Google search page. What do you suppose was the top search result?



Morbid, no?

Life is an adventure

Doug Savage doesn't know it, but in his daily comic "Savage Chickens," he routinely parodies my life.

<--Vis, exhibit 1.

In other news, I managed to wrangle myself a three-day July 4th weekend. Most of the office will have the standard Saturday-Sunday weekend combo, a day at work, then the 4th off. In case you haven't checked your calendar this year, the 4th is a Tuesday. I, in my uniqueness, have managed to get that Monday off, in exchange for working on the 4th. Sure, I'll be working for no extra pay on a holiday, but there are multiple bonuses to this. I get a three day weekend, which is important enough to me that I feel that I should reiterate it. I also get to work uninterrupted for an entire day at my busiest time (quarter end) without having to sacrifice a weekend day just to be productive. I haven't done anything on the 4th in several years becuase I just don't care enough to bother with the staying up too late, the driving in late-night drunken traffic, and trying to drag myself in to work the next day. Parking is free on holidays, so I can come in at some absolutely ungodly hour (I'm thinking 3:30 or 4 am) and leaving at noon to avoid the traffic problems. It will seriously rock, as far as days in the office can rock.

So what am I going to do with a three-day weekend? I can sum it up in three words. Hiking hiking hiking! I'm thinking the goats at Tuck and Robin have been without me long enough, and by July I'll be in good enough condition to brave the so-called trail to one of my favorite little wonderlands. It is going to be SO HOT up there in July. But hey, that's what alpine lakes are all about!

Vindication n ... 2: the justification for some act or belief

Back about a thousand years ago - early July 2005 - the person who occupied my current post at work served up her two weeks' notice. My current boss suggested to the controller that they offer me the position. He rejected it out of hand. He later rethought his position, and here I am. There were doubts about whether I could handle the job and whether they should allow me to leave my previous position in light of the fact that the department would (and did, I might add) fall apart without me there because of the total incompetence of the other half of the personnel over there.

I've now been in the position for 9 months, and I believe that I have more than proven myself. Not only am I doing the work correctly and in some cases better than my predecessors, I have caught the mistakes that others were making - often the same mistakes over and over by different people over the years - and I have taken on more work and done it without the difficulties they professed to have suffered.

That's cuz I'm smart. :)

Ironically, I still can't make my quarter-end deadlines, but it is because marketing and supply chain consistently miss their deadlines to provide information to me that I need to reach my deadlines. That's corporate life for you. They don't need to give me the information, therefore it is my problem if they don't get it to me on time and in turn it isn't their priority. Luckily, upper management doesn't blame me, the person at the bottom of the food chain. When the controller starts in on them, it will become their problem.

My year in this position is almost up. If I get past August, I will be the longest-running employee in this position in 6 years. Most other employees lasted less than a year. I don't know why, exactly, other than that we have to rely on unreliable people at quarter-end to get our information. The tasks that they complained so loudly about are actually my favorite things to do. We have these massive spreadsheets for the inventory reserve analysis and the quarterly inventory report, not to mention the cutoff documentation. It is all like a big puzzle. What can I say, I'm a geek who likes to play with spreadsheets. It has paid off for me so far. Let's see how much more it pays off after I get my degree and the merit raises go out at year end.

Save early and save often!

Yesterday turned out to be another fantastic waste of what little non-office-bound time I have these days. It started out with school, which was the high point of the day. I left there to go to REI in Tukwila to buy a new battery for my altimeter, but they didn't have what I needed. I went next door into Bed, Bath & Beyond to see if they carry teapots, and they don't. I went across the street to Target and they didn't have teapots either. So I gave up on the teapot idea and went to Best Buy to pick up a couple of new CDs (Pink and Depeche Mode) with my gift cards that I've been hauling around for months.

Did I fail to mention that I left home without an umbrella and it was pouring down rain?

I got home and ate lunch, then started on my homework, which was due by midnight yesterday. Right after I started it, I heard a noise outside. I think I also saw a flash, but maybe not. Anyway, it sounded like a car accident. Then the power flashed off and on a few times, and I lost all of my work because I hadn't saved it.

After about 10 minutes (rebooting the computer, getting a snack and a glass of water), I started on my homework again. Half an hour later the power went out again.

And I hadn't saved anything. Again.

And the power did not come back on. That was at about 3:30.

Needless to say, there was a lot of mumbling and stomping around going on after that. I ended up doing all of my homework on paper, then calling my professor to tell him that the power was out and had been out for hours, and I didn't know that I would be able to submit it on time. Luckily, he said I could just submit it this morning instead for full credit.

I don't know what time the power came back on, but it was after I went to bed.

Lessons learned?

1. Save every time you finish a line of data entry or the answer to a question.
2. Do homework before the deadline day instead of waiting until the last minute.
3. The Consolidation Entry *G is for the subsequent year of acquisition, not for the current year.
   
   

Oh, the irony.

There's a church on Kent-Kangley Road that I drive past every morning on my way to the train. It has a readerboard. I don't generally pay attention to what it has to say because church readerboards generally have stupid, meaningless sayings that are meant to be pithy and thought-provoking for the sheep - err, I mean, the flock - that attend services there. They are meant to make the flock nod knowingly and say "praise Jesus," smug in the satisfaction that they are going to heaven when they die, and that the all-powerful creator of the universe loves them and values them above all others, no matter how much porn they surf for on the Internet, no matter how they abuse their children or pets, no matter how they steal from the office and justify it in their belief that they deserve it because they are underpaid and they work so hard.

But I digress.

Today I accidentally noticed the board. It says, "Truth is not relative." (Insert wry grin here.) It seems to me that the truth is nothing but relative where religion is concerned. Truth is what appeals to you. Truth is the agenda set forth by those in charge in order to serve some end. If truth was not relative, there wouldn't be several thousand "official" churches and innumerable smaller churches run out of people's homes.

I think it would be more accurate for the readerboard to say, "Our truth is not relative to us." But I doubt anyone would get it.

Just for the record, this is my truth. I don't expect it to be yours.

No good turn in the kitchen goes unpunished.

I was so excited to have a food processor, and I wanted to make chicken vindaloo so that I could eat leftovers all week and not take the time to cook. The first week of every quarter is a nightmare of sorts at work. Every minute counts, and I have to take the first train in and the last train out every day. I'd rather use my time at home to exercise than to cook, so today I made up enough leftovers to last most of the week. This advance planning was not without its hitches. I went to the grocery store this morning, finding once again that the 24/7 Safeway was closed, and I resorted to QFC. I got home, ate breakfast, puttered around, did some housework, and started cooking. I found that I have not just one, but two food processors. One is a mini Cuisinart, the other is an attachment for my blender. A wealth of food processors, when I thought I had none just a week ago! I was almost done with the vindaloo. I peeled and sliced the potatoes and ran the skins down the garbage disposal.

And the garbage disposal fell off of the bottom of the sink. No joke. See below. What you see is the neck of the disposal, corroded all the way through the metal. You can even see the soap suds inside from my attempt to clean out the sink while the disposal ran. Now, if you look very closely above and to the right of the disposal, you can see a spot of rust under the cabinet. Wanna guess what that is? That is from the cold water intake, which was also rusted through. As a matter of fact, it was so clogged with rust, you could almost not see light through it.

I was drinking water that came through that.

Sigh...

So between the replacement disposal, the labor to install, and the new faucets and labor to install the new pipes that weren't filled with rust, I spent a fortune today, and I didn't even get anything really cool, other than a very pretty new faucet and cleaner water and a disposal that doesn't make a death rattle every time I try to use it.

Well, I suppose that's nice too, but I'd rather just not have that much debt on my credit card. Or for that kind of money, I'd rather have a new wardrobe, which would include that lovely pair of brown suede Italian ankle boots at Nordstrom. Actually, if I had that kind of cash to burn, I would have bought the rest of the lumber that I need to finish building my fence and maybe hired a guy with a pickup truck to haul away some of my yard waste. Where the hell am I going to wear Italian ankle boots? I'm practical, but a girl can occasionally dream of splurging on pretty things. Though I doubt you can reasonably deny how pretty my new shiny things are. Look! A sprayer that actually sprays water, rather than dripping it! How novel! And handles with all of the little shiny arms intact! And they turn the same direction! And no leaks! Mmm... Wolverine Brass...

So, take a guess at what my day at home cost me on my credit card. Let's just call it a whole paycheck. I think that paints a pretty clear picture.

I think plumbers must make a pretty good living.

Its like Christmas every day!

I found something in my kitchen today that I did not know that I had.

When I bought my house, the kitchen cabinets were painted a Kelly green. As you can see in the picture at left, they are no longer green. Now, I like green, but you have to consider something here. The entire front of my house is essentially one room - kitchen, dining room, living room. The dining room and the living room were the color scheme you see above, while the kitchen cabinets were green. It clashed horribly. My first weekend in the house, I stripped and repainted all of the cabinets. I added the molding later.

However, the previous owners had done more than paint the kitchen cabinets green. They also painted over the copper hardware (Criminals! Blasphemers! You never paint copper hardware! That's like carpeting over hardwood!) and put some contact paper inside the kitchen cabinets that was essentially a mixed fruit tapestry print. Every now and then, I get a bee in my bonnet and clean out a cabinet and rip out the contact paper. It isn't easy - I think the stuff was in there for years - so I'm never in a hurry to spend time on that. I can't see it all of the time, so I ignore it.

For some reason, today I decided it was a good day to rip all of the contact paper out of the big cabinet over the stove. I've been in and out of that cabinet a lot lately because I cook so much, and I think I was seeing too much of that crap. I got a chair and got up there and started ripping things out.

And I found...

A food processor! Woo hoo! Now I don't have to buy one!

The question is this: how did I not know I had a food processor? And why did I not see it sooner? I think it was on the top shelf behind some other things. It is amazing what you can find when you go through your cabinets.

Now I just need to find a crock pot and a million dollars.

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.

Holy crap.

Writer-producer George Lucas told MTV.com that writing continues on a proposed fourth Indiana Jones movie and adds: "Hopefully this year we will have a start date, and we will have a script that we all love, and hopefully it will come out next year."

And I thought things were bad...

When? Back in December, last time I updated? Well, things have changed yet again! My replacement was fired for non-performance and general helplessness and complaining. So I ended up once again doing my new job and bits of my old job. They brought in a temp, but that wasn't enough, so they brought in two.

And then the best thing ever happened.

Renee quit!

So then they had me doing my new job and half of my old job, the IT department doing a portion of it, the billing department doing a portion of it, and two temps doing the rest of it. They finally decided on a new replacement for me, but she didn't start until January second, and that was Renee's last day. So now it is me, two temps and a new permanent person. You can probably guess that it isn't easy going right now. I accidentally/on-purpose managed to not be in on the second, so I missed Renee's last day (oh, boo hoo). Granted, the work load has gotten worse, but it is so much happier there now. The new folks can't keep up, but they do good work, and that is great. My replacement is all over things and we get along great. One of the temps is probably going to be hired permanently, and if she is I'm going to have to take a sign language class, because she's deaf. She can read lips as well as most people can hear, but I'm still interested in learning a bit of her language.

The upshot of all of this is that I got another bonus and another raise, and they fund my Starbucks card with an extra $100 each month to keep me caffeined up so that I can work 11 hour days and still come home to do homework. Still, I prefer this situation to the old one. I know that things will get easier, while working with Renee was a guarantee that it never would.

And I have only 7 more classes to go before I get my degree! So in October, I finally get to have some actual, for-real downtime and I can start hiking again. I get all giggly and twirly just thinking about it.

Jen who?

Yeah, so I'm lazy and I don't post often. Cope.

Short version of recent events:
1. Wisdom tooth out. Blood everywhere. Crunching noises. Three days on Percocet. No birthday party afterward, but I discovered a TV show on the Sci-Fi channel called Firefly that was cancelled three years ago by the morons at Fox and has only 14 episodes in the world (go to Amazon for DVDs) and a movie that came out on September 30 called Serenity. I have already ordered them both. I got the TV show, but I have to wait until nearly Christmas for the movie.
2. They finally hired my replacement at work. Things are smooth as razor clam shells over in their department. Smugly, I said, "I told you you'd need two people to replace me." I was wrong - they need three.
3. New Harry Potter movie: The book is better, but the special effects are fantastic.
4. Wine tasting party coming up at Michelle's. Yet another bid to meet Darrin.
5. School is going well. I still have a 3.8 grade point average. Only one more year until I graduate!
6. Going blank. Nothing else. Hunger... overtaking!
Must
eat
cookies!