Category Archives: Blah-blah-blah

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.

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.

whine sneeze cough whine repeat

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Our Halloween plans (see freak parade, below) didn’t happen because Dave and I both got sick. I have a full-on sinus infection (whee! Thank the baby Jesus for Puffs plus with lotion so my poor widdle nose doesn’t shrivel up and fall off), and I’m not sure what’s up with Dave, but I think he’s caught it from me. Right now he’s just complaining about feeling sort of headache-y and fuzzy. If what I currently have is any indication of what he’s in for, let me just say now: sweetie, I am so sorry. Love, your germy wife.

In other news, this morning I had to delete something like 20 spam comments that had been left on old posts, and they all came from the past 2 days. Very weird. So in light of that, I decided it was time to check up on my web stats. Which means it’s time for another round of, “what search terms are bringing people to this website?”

  • “fat kid” – Now, that’s just not nice. We won’t have any of that here.

  • “cougar vs rottweiler” – I might be stupid, but I’ll put my money on the cougar.

  • “movies shot in duvall wa” – Seriously? Someone filmed a movie here? Who are they, and for the love of God, why? Was it a documentary about goats and alpacas? The mind boggles.

  • “kris osborn crystal meth” – I don’t know who this Kris Osborn person is, but dude, if people are googling you and your addiction in the same search phrase, it might be time for rehab.

  • “nouveau duo vegas” – I had no idea that these folks had such a following. I don’t know anything about them or their music, I just thought the sign was hilarious. And I wasn’t even drunk at the time. (Promise. That wasn’t until much later that day.)

  • “what does raccoon poop look like” – Beats me. But if you want to come investigate my yard, you can probably find plenty of it.

  • “I never break out with pimples could it be stress related” – I have all kinds of weird symptom-y things that bring people here, which I suppose is normal since I talk about things like zits and whatnot. This one struck me as odd because it’s phrased like the person is asking their search engine a question. Like google is going to come back to them with a sympathetic hand pat and a prescription. Has no one ever heard of a dermatologist? Come on, people!

  • My personal favorite: “people go poop”. Yes, yes they do. And here we have the exact reason why 7 year-old boys should not be allowed to use computers.

    • And now, back to our regularly scheduled sniffling and whining.

    Is this a good thing?

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    Either this is a sign that I have completely lost my mind, or it means that unemployment may have gotten to me: I have now left the house, multiple times, without eye make-up. That’s right. I have done nothing more than slap on some powder and a little lip balm before setting foot out my front door, no mascara or eyeliner or anything. I haven’t been doing my hair either, I’ve just been sticking it in a ponytail or a clip and calling it good. What the hell is wrong with me? This is not me, I’m a southern girl who was raised in a good home, and the “au naturel” look is not who I am. I haven’t left the house without make-up since I was 13 years old.* This has now happened three times, when I was going to such glamorous locales as the supermarket, the video store, and our local teriyaki place (mmm… take-out). So I suppose it’s not a sign of my impending senility yet, since I do still make an effort for things like dinner with friends, or job interviews. Maybe, in a way, it’s a positive thing because it means that I’m less self-conscious about my looks. And I haven’t felt “naked” without my make-up, like I expected I would. So it might not be that terrible.

    But also? Lately I’ve only been washing my hair every other day instead of every day. Help me Jesus, I fear I have lost it.

    * Ok, that’s not actually true. When I was in college, I caught pink eye from some little brat that I baby-sat for, and I couldn’t wear eye make-up for a week while I took antibiotics. Also, when I lived in Wisconsin, a couple of times I made late-night supermarket runs with no make-up, because hello, it was Wisconsin. Even with no make-up, I’m still pretty hot by their standards. **

    ** I do have friends from Wisconsin who are absolutely beautiful. The buck-toothed, stringy-haired midwestern girl is a very negative stereotype and I apologize if I offended any potential readers from those states. Unless, you know, you are a buck-toothed, stringy-haired midwestern girl. In which case, go get yourself some good salon-quality shampoo and a decent makeover, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

    helpful tip

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    When you have a total childhood regression and buy halloween candy a good two or three weeks before halloween, and you tip your head back to pour the entire contents of a pixy stix straw onto your tongue, remember to breathe through your nose and not your mouth. Ow.

    random bits

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    Job news: Even though I’ve pretty much stopped looking while I focus on studying for the next few weeks, I heard about a possibility today that could be really good. But I don’t want to jinx myself by talking too much about it (or wanting it too much, which doesn’t seem to work well for me either), so we’ll file it away in the back of our minds and just wait to see what happens. It certainly won’t be the end of the world if I don’t get it, it’s just the first good job possibility that I’ve heard about lately. Oh, and I finally heard (only almost two weeks after the fact) that I didn’t get that other job that I wasn’t sure about. Which I pretty much knew, but come on, is it really necessary to take that long to make a decision?

    Studying progress: I’m now on chapter 7. Which means I’m over 25% of the way through this book, and that’s in less than a week. So I can deal with that. Maybe this means I could actually lighten up on myself a bit and break up my day by, oh I don’t know, occasionally doing dishes or paying bills or doing something else useful since I’m home all freakin’ day long. But that’s doubtful. I enjoy feeling like I have some momentum, so I think I just want to hammer this exam out as fast as possible, and then I’ll worry about the state of the house. (And it’s bad, y’all. Really. You have no idea the amount of clutter that two people can generate in a week.)

    The doctor update: I really like my new doctor. She has the same last name as one of the doctors on “ER”, and I got a kick out of that. No other news. Yet.

    Linky-links: I’m doing some blog-cleaning on my link sidebar. I’ve removed several for various reasons. Some I just don’t read anymore (Tattoodles – sorry, and Adam & Sarah I love you guys, but the minute you demand my credit card number to read your very funny message boards is the minute you lose me). Some don’t exist anymore (like Catoptric & Chez Miscarriage). And some of you (Scott and Carl, I’m looking at you) just never write anything in your damn blogs and I’m tired of always clicking over there with false hope. So, it’s tidying time! Whee!

    last day of gainful employment

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    Thanks, everyone, for all of the kind comments and concerns. I really am ok. I already have a few options that could turn out to be promising, so we’ll have to wait and see where those go. And I’m really not sad at all about leaving this job, because I haven’t been enjoying it for a while now. As far as things like health insurance, I never signed up for benefits of any kind with this employer, so I haven’t lost anything. Um, except that paycheck thingy… boy, I sure will miss that. But I’ve been covered on Dave’s insurance since we got married, so that’s all fine. In fact, when I told my father about this yesterday and told him that I don’t want him to worry about me, he said, “I’m not worried, you’re Dave’s problem now.” Nice.

    Today feels sort of strange, it’s almost like the last day of school before summer vacation. I don’t really have anything to do, and it’s not like I’m going to start on anything new on my last day. So I’m reading blogs, checking out all the online job boards, all of that fun stuff. What are they going to do, fire me? HA! I think my lackadaisical (ooh, big word!) attitude can best be summed up by my hair: I stuck it in a clippie, which is in & of itself pretty darn lazy, but I’m not even sure that I brushed it beforehand. (In my defense, it was early, I can’t really remember most of my morning routine. Maybe I brushed it. But probably not.) Making an effort? Today? I think not.

    I’m actually sort of excited that it looks like I’m going to have at least a week off. And it’s fortuitous (ooh, another big word!) timing, because Dave was already planning on taking off next week, so we’ll both be at home, which means we’ll have time to do all of the dozen or so little home improvement projects that we’ve started and haven’t finished yet. I’m kind of excited about that. And tonight, we’re going to see Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds in concert, which I think is just about the perfect way to kick off my unemployment.