Author Archives: Cindy

the good, the bad, and the stupid

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Good: The moisture-suckers were removed today, so our house is quiet again, and the cats are acting relatively normal. Also, tomorrow is Office Move Day, and since I won’t have anywhere to sit while my belongings are being transported from one building to another (just across the courtyard, it’s not going to change my daily commute or anything), I have permission to work from home. I get to stay in my pajamas all day, whee! And third, Dave’s company Christmas party is tomorrow night. I really like at least two or three of his co-workers’ wives, so I’m very much looking forward to that.

Bad: There is a commercial that I despise, and therefore I see it every time I turn on the television. It’s the new Tampax commercial that features a jingle about how, “it’s just an ordinary, ordinary day”, and it shows women – I swear to God I’m not making this up – operating a jackhammer, climbing off of a firetruck, and pitching a softball. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a feminist, and that I’m all in favor of women working in male-dominated fields. (Hello, I work with computers for a living, I am one of those women myself.) But seriously? I don’t know about y’all, but that would be anything but an ordinary day for me, period or no period. And why is it that in every commercial that has something to do with women’s menstrual cycles, there’s always at least one woman wearing tight-fitting white pants? In this case, it’s the aforementioned softball player. The commercial inspires really hateful thoughts in me, like, “yeah ok, lesbians have periods too, but do I need to be reminded of that while I’m trying to eat breakfast? I just want to know the damn weather forecast!” And that’s no way to start my morning. Also, before anyone goes jumping to any conclusions that I must be having my own period right now to be overreacting about a silly commercial: I’m not. This advertisement just makes me hate the world.

Stupid: I managed to slam my own hair in my car door this morning. I’m still not sure exactly how I managed to do that – I guess I was picking up my laptop bag at the same instant that I threw the door shut. But the door was locked, so I had to fumble with the keys to unlock it, open the door and get my hair out. And can I just say? OUCH. I realized right then that it probably didn’t bode well for the rest of my day. (Cue the jingle: “It’s just an ordinary daaaay…”) I can only hope that the security guys were watching the parking garage monitors at that exact moment, and that I gave them a good chuckle.

and now, the not-so-happy

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As delightful as some news has been lately (like that of Kris moving to town), not everything is sunshine and peaches at our house. The plumbing problems that I wrote about last week? Turns out, those problems are not so much fixed yet. Last Friday, Dave worked from home so he could meet the plumber at our house. We had been told that the most likely problem was a blockage in the line between the house & the septic tank. Fine. The plumber showed up, snaked the whole line, and found no blockages. He did some exploring, and found that our septic tank was not draining like it’s supposed to (it’s supposed to drain something like 2 inches per minute, and instead it was doing 2 inches per hour; translation: hi! You’re screwed). He’s technically not allowed to fix the septic tank himself (big legal licensing issues), but it’s a good thing he showed up when he did, because we were about thisclose to having another flooding disaster in the house. He also found that there was lots of sewage water under the house. Ewww. I’m so glad I was at work while this was going on. I’m sure I would have freaked right out if I had been there when this discovery was made. It was much easier to take the news over the phone when I was 10 miles away.

Dave called 1-800-Water-Damage (who knew such a company existed?), and they were out within the hour. They got rid of all the water under the house (again, I was at work – I don’t want to know how they did it, I was just happy to know that it was gone), but they told us that our hardwood floors in part of the house were damaged because of the water. Which really wasn’t a surprise at all, since I had told Dave a couple of weeks before that I thought the floors in the downstairs bathroom were warping. So, the dude rigged up these huge rubber mat things that suck all the moisture out of the floor. They look totally science-fiction, check it out:
Science fiction bathmats
He also had to hook them up in the hall in front of the bathroom, along with these enormous industrial dehumidifiers.
more moisture-suckers
They’re kind of creepy, aren’t they? And they’re loud, it sounds vaguely like a jet engine is taking off in the kitchen. The cats are terrified and have been camping out in our bedroom since Friday night. The noise combined with the cats fighting in our room makes it interesting to try to sleep at night. Not to mention that the moisture-suckers are giving me nightmares that the yellow hose parts are going to detach themselves from the mats, latch on to me, and suck out my soul, dude. Yeah. Anyway.

Meanwhile, the septic tank repair guys came out on Saturday and fixed that part of the problem (the entire pump failed and had to be replaced! Whee! Thank the lord almighty for homeowner’s insurance!). We have since been able to shower and run the dishwasher without the thought of doing so striking fear into our hearts, so that’s been good. But the water damage dude – his name is Jim, I think we’re starting to become friends – has been back to our house twice since Friday, and he says that there’s still too much moisture in the floors, so it’ll probably be tomorrow (Thursday) at the earliest before we can get rid of them. So that’s a week of headache-inducing non-stop noise. Not to mention what those enormous appliances running 24 hours a day are probably doing for next month’s electric bill. Mmmm, good times. I love it when huge expenses come up in mid-December. I think Dave and I just unintentionally bought each other’s Christmas presents: a new septic pump and perfectly dry hardwood floors. Ah, the romance of it all.

happy news all around

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As for the issue of the horrid Jane Austen, I must confess that the movie was not that bad. At least, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. (My expectations were severely low, after all.) But I must say that I am just so tired of the whole “oooh, you’re horrible, I will hate you forever / no wait, I love you but there’s some conflict so we can’t be together / no wait, I love you & you love me and the conflict resolved happily so we’ll get married and have thousands of babies” formula. Yes, I know that Jane Austen probably invented the formula, but let’s face it, it’s been done. to. death. However, getting to spend time with the girls before and after the movie was awesome, so I really can’t complain. And I think we might now have plans with all of them for New Year’s, so that’s very cool.

In totally unrelated news, I’ve been waiting to write about this because I didn’t want to jinx it, but I think I can officially say it now: Kris is moving here next month! I’m so excited, she’s been my best friend since college and I absolutely adore her, and she’s wanted to live in Seattle since long before I ever moved here, so I’m really happy that she’s coming. She’s had a few almost-moves in the past, but something always came up (usually money-related) that kept her from doing it. But she found out that her boss wants to retire, which means she won’t have a job after mid-January, and there’s nothing else to really keep her in Memphis. Her boss is also giving her at least two months’ severance, which is enough to cover moving expenses and the last few repairs she needs to do to her house to put it on the market. She’s going to move in with us for a month or so while she looks for a job and an apartment. (Poor Dave. He has no idea how loud our house is going to be after Kris shows up.) So it really is going to happen this time. And here’s how I know that it’s definitely going to happen: last night, I booked myself a one-way plane ticket to Memphis. Well, actually, I’m flying to Little Rock because it’s several hundred dollars cheaper, and then I’ll rent a car & drive 2 hours to Memphis. Because, you know, it’s just such a long way to drive by herself, so I’m going to drive with her. And her dog, Lucky. It has nothing to do with just wanting an excuse to take a 4-day road trip with my best friend, singing Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco songs at the tops of our lungs and making each other laugh until we have to pull over and find a place to pee. Oh no, nothing like that. But hey, it’s a non-refundable plane ticket, so she’s locked into her end of the deal now. Hah!

Anyway, I’m flying down on January 19th – which, for those of you keeping track, is three days after my 30th birthday – and we’ll set off the next day. I’m hoping that we’ll make the 2400 mile journey in four days, but I’m a little skeptical of how a very tiny Mazda is going to fare on the very big mountains of Wyoming. (In January. In case you missed that the first time.) Dave is being given the responsibility of acting as our road trip meteorologist. We’re going to check in with him once or twice a day for weather updates, to make sure we aren’t going to be driving head-on into any major snowstorms. It should be fun. The dog is going to make it interesting; I’ve driven thousands of miles with Teenie in the car on multiple occasions (and flown with her several times too), but I’ve never traveled with a dog. The only aspect of it that makes me nervous is finding cheap motels on the road that have pet-friendly policies. I’ve snuck my cat into motels before and it was pretty easy. But it’s a bit more challenging to be stealthy with a 50-pound dog who really likes the sound of her own bark. Unless we can put her in a hat and a trenchcoat and teach her to walk on her hind legs. That might work.

But who cares? Best friend is moving to town!!! Yay! Happy dance! Lots of exclamation points! Whee!!!

crashing

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This is going to be short because I’m exhausted after my 10-hour workday and not enough sleep. Forgive me if I’m a bit rambly and nonsensical. Work is good, it’s just very different from my last job. During my last contract, no one really knew I existed and I just sat in my office and did my thing all day. “My thing” consisted either of writing, or goofing off when I had nothing to write. Here’s the difference: today was my first day on my own, because the guy I’m replacing is now gone (yesterday was his last day), so I finally got a computer that I could log into and check my work email. I had literally 59 emails from people either asking me questions or inviting me to meetings that I “need” to attend. I don’t think I had that many emails in the entire 5 months I worked at the previous job, so obviously this is a bit of a shock to my system. I think I’m going to enjoy it, I’m just going through an adjustment period. I was very panicky/anxious/edge-of-tears all day today because I was freaked out that I wasn’t going to be able to respond to everyone adequately or quickly enough. I’ll be fine, I just need more sleep.

Unrelated: Last night, in the middle of taking a shower, Dave banged on the door. We generally have an unspoken “thou shalt not disturb each other’s bathroom time” rule in our marriage, so I figured something bad had happened. I couldn’t really understand him through the door, I just heard, “Turn off the water!” Good thing I was just finishing up. It turned out that while I was in the shower, he was downstairs in his office, and he heard a vaguely familiar glub-glub-glub sound from the downstairs bathroom. The septic tank overflowed into the house again. It’s so gross. We’re getting a plumber this time. Don’t get me wrong, Dave is still a gem among men, because when this happened and I was running around the house in a towel, freaking out over sewage on the freshly-cleaned floor for the second time in less than a week, he told me to go to bed and he’d clean it up. And he did, too. But we still need a professional to look at it, because seriously, that just ain’t right.

And on that note, it’s my bedtime. Tomorrow after work, I’m going to see a movie that I have no desire to see (Pride & Prejudice – I know someone is going to revoke my Girl Membership for saying this, but I really loathe Jane Austen), just to have an excuse for a girls’ evening. I don’t even have the energy to ask the other ladies to change the movie selection for my sake. I just need a night out.

employment! whee!

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I started the new job yesterday. It was a bit sudden – the HR lady called at 10 a.m. and announced that they had gotten my background check back (and apparently my record is still clean, whew!), and they wanted me to start. As in right then. Considering that I was still in my PJ’s, hadn’t even had my first diet coke of the day, and our septic system had just backed up, leaving all kinds of you-don’t-even-wanna-know-what all over the downstairs bathroom and garage, I would say that I was not exactly in an ideal state of mind to go start a new job. Oh yeah, and I had just taken 2 Sudafed, so I was on my way to being well and truly stoned. Yee-haw! I asked the HR lady if I could get start at 1:00. She said that was fine.

I had to leave Dave to deal with the septic tank issues – and god love him, he fixed the whole thing all by himself, despite my constant, “honey, are you sure you don’t want me to call the plumber?” I did have to do a bit of mopping up when I got home, and man, that was truly horrifying. The entire downstairs smelled like the elephant pen at the zoo. I showered for a good 30 minutes trying to get rid of the odor, then finally realized that the smell was just in my nose, not on me. It burned a memory into my olfactory, apparently. You know, I love our house, I really do, but what I wouldn’t give to be on a sewer line instead of the damn septic tank. Sigh.

As for the job, I think it’s going to be good. The guy who I’m replacing is another contractor whose one-year mark is coming up, so he has to take his 100 days off. He seems nice enough, and I’m trying to learn as much as I can from him because his last day is Monday. As far as first days go, it was fine. I liked that it was only a half-day, so I wasn’t completely exhausted when it was all done. (First days tend to kick my butt.) Today was a full day and I’m a bit more drained now that I’m home. But it’s looking like this is something that I could potentially enjoy. Now if I could just stop coughing…

Oh yeah, and it snowed today! A lot! I guess that means it’s officially December. I was going to take a picture of it because it’s so pretty at our house, but it was dusk by the time I got home, so the photo wouldn’t have turned out. But take my word for it, it’s lovely. It feels all winter-y and cozy, I just wish we had a working fireplace. Instead, I think I’ll curl up on the couch and watch “The Daily Show” with my mug of herbal tea and a rice krispies treat. That’ll do just fine.

tuesday news

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I’m still sick, but I went to the doctor yesterday and got some antibiotics, so that should hopefully kick this sinus infection out of my system quickly. Normally I would try to ride it out because I know it’s not good to take antibiotics every time you get sick, but this has been going on for over two weeks, and I’m about to start a new job, so I need it to hurry up and go away already.

Speaking of which, I had orientation for my new job yesterday. It’s another contract at the Giant Software Company, so it’s nothing that I’m not used to – the orientation was all pretty routine stuff (fill out tax forms, watch a video on sexual harassment in the workplace, try not to snicker at said video, etc.). I’m not sure exactly what my start date is, because they’re still waiting for the results of a background check on me. You’d think they’d already have one from the last contract I did, but apparently not. So I guess I may not have the job after they find out about that one time that I was a crack whore. (Ha!) Seriously, I’m trying to imagine what they could possibly find out about me, other than the fact that I was irresponsible with credit cards in college, and that I’ve had a few speeding tickets. I’m afraid that other than that, I’ve led a terribly boring life. Or maybe I’m just good at not getting caught. You’ll never know, will you?

Oh, one thing during orientation that I wasn’t expecting: at some point, the HR lady was speaking about confidentiality and proper use of the company’s network systems, etc., and she specifically said, “So if you have a blog, you need to do that on your own time and not mention anything about work.” I could actually feel myself blushing, and I could’ve sworn that everyone in the room was staring at me. (They weren’t.) So um, yeah. I’ve been warned, and I will proceed with caution. At the very least, I’ll try to remember to change the timestamps on my posts so they don’t appear to have been written during work hours. Heh heh.

Other stuff: Since we got home from our NYC trip, we’ve tried sleeping with our bedroom door open at nights. In the past, we’ve always kept it closed so Teenie can have our bedroom all to herself, and we don’t have to worry about hearing her fight with the other cats at 3 a.m. (I don’t know if you’ve ever woken up to a cat fight, but trust me, it’s not a pleasant way to start your day.) They were all in the house together with no closed doors while we were gone, and I think they’ve started to negotiate their territory pretty well. Beaumont is the only one who’s come to sleep with us for the past few nights. It’s been pretty uneventful. At some point during the night, he’ll accidentally make eye contact with Teenie and she’ll growl and hiss for a couple of minutes, but then they settle down and go back to sleep. Yay for progress!

As for Cleo and Greta, they’ve kind of turned into clique-y high school girls, and they sleep on the couch together because they can’t possibly deign to get in our bed with the other cats. They’ve both turned on Beaumont, too, which is sad. He’ll roll over on his back with his paws in the air (totally submissive pose), and they still swat and hiss at him. I think it’s mostly Cleo (who, oddly, is Beaumont’s litter-mate); she hisses at him whenever he comes anywhere near her. Greta doesn’t seem to mind him too much when Cleo isn’t around, but apparently Greta has turned into Gretchen Wieners to Cleo’s Regina George. Or perhaps Greta is Heather McNamara and Cleo is Heather Chandler, take your pick. And since Teenie hates all of the cats equally, that basically means that Beaumont has no feline friends in our house at all. Dave and I have been giving him lots of extra love to make up for all of the rejection he’s suffered lately. It must be tough being the only neutered boy kitty in a house full of girl kitties. Poor little guy.

New York state of mind, or something

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Here’s the recap of the rest of our NYC trip, and be warned, this is going to be long. But first, a funny story. After that last post, our plan for the day started like this: Go to T’s apartment. Have breakfast with family. Everyone gets on the subway and heads down to the ferry, which will then take us to Ellis Island. Great!

Here’s what actually happened. We took 3 steps out of our hotel, and a giant inflatable Scooby-Doo floated by several stories above us. As it turns out, the route that would take Dave and I from our hotel to my sister’s apartment required us to pass through Times Square, which was sort of a main artery of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. And guess what? You can’t cross a parade route. I got out my cell and called my sister.

Me (yelling over the crowd noise): We can’t get to your place because the parade is coming down Broadway.
Her: The what?
Me: The parade? That happens every Thanksgiving?
Her: Seriously?
Me: Um, yeah. In fact, Big Bird is passing in front of us as I speak.

She tried to give me a different route, but basically it just wasn’t happening. So the revised plan became: Dave and I would find breakfast on our own, catch the subway ourselves to the ferry point, and meet up with my family there. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Right. Here’s how that played out. We got on the subway (quick aside: before we got on, Dave stopped to have a smoke in Bryant Park. I just realized today watching Project Runway reruns that that is the place where their Fashion Week show was. Love it!). And because Dave stupidly let me be in charge of reading the subway map, I got us on the correct train, but going the wrong direction. We were in Queens before we realized our error. Oops. So we got off, walked across the platform, got back on the train going the right direction, and rode it to our stop. We had to change trains then, and I was starving to the point of crankiness, so we thought we’d get out and look around for food there. Guess what? Most restaurants are closed on Thanksgiving. So we had breakfast at McDonald’s, which is the first time I’ve eaten there since seeing “Super-Size Me,” and it was just as revolting as I thought it would be. Blecch. Then we finally found our second train, met up with the family, and did the whole tourist thing for the rest of the day.

Friday, we all split up. My folks left, Dave went off in search of boy things (video games and such), my brother used my sister’s guest pass to work out at her gym, and my sister and I went shopping. Ah, Macy’s, how do I love thee? The Macy’s in New York is nothing like it is here. It’s 8 stories tall and takes up 2 buildings. It is truly an awesome sight to behold. And I did well in the self-control department, I only bought one pair of pants (black corduroy, and yes, they were on sale) and one pair of really adorable shoes (only I got them in black, not champagne).

That night, Dave crashed early, so my siblings and I went to this karaoke place where you can rent a room by the hour and sing all the karaoke you want in a soundproof room, just you and your friends. That turned out to be pretty hilarious. I couldn’t even begin to tell you all of the songs that we sang, but a few of the artists include Britney Spears, ABBA, Captain & Tenille, Reba McEntire, Elton John, Barenaked Ladies, Van Halen, Weezer, Billy Joel, Electric Light Orchestra, and at least a couple dozen more that I’m forgetting. We were there for well over 3 hours. It was great.

Saturday, my brother left early in the morning, and we had some time to kill before our flight, so my sister took us to see the World Trade Center site. It’s a weird place to go as a tourist – there’s just a general sadness in the air, and you notice that everyone on the street is a lot quieter. It’s almost like going to a cemetary to pay your respects, or visiting one of the concentration camps in Europe – only in this case, there isn’t really anything left to see except a huge hole in the ground. We didn’t stay there too long, it’s a bit overwhelming. On our way back, we passed through Grand Central Station so Dave could see it from the inside. It’s really beautiful there, and the bustling of noise and activity was quite a contrast to the place we had just left.

The flight home was pretty miserable. I’m still sick – the severely cold weather in NYC didn’t help me at all – if anything, I think I might be worse, and I’m going to try to get in to see my doctor tomorrow. So, from a sinus standpoint, I was in hell for 5 1/2 hours. Also, the in-flight movie was “Must Love Dogs”, which I watched out of boredom, and god, that was a piece of crap film. Good actors, bad movie.

That about sums it up. We had a great time, I’m just happy to be home and sleeping in my own bed now. I missed the cats, too. And hey, I start a new job this week! Woo!