House of Swank

Moving On...

2006-03-19T15:37:00.000-08:00

This blog has moved. I'm over here now.

That is all.

Putting My Skills to Good Use

2006-02-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

In many instances my mind is a sieve... the other morning it took me ten minutes to find my keys. A co-worker can make a simple request of me, and as soon as they step away from my desk I will forget it if I haven't written it down. I have known my best friend for over 10 years and I know her birthday is in August, but I don't know the exact date. (17th? 18th? I think it's the middle of the month sometime).

But I know my pop culture trivia. Particularly of the 1980's variety. Some of the stuff I know embarrasses me. Sometimes facts will spill off my tongue surprising even myself, as I have no idea where I picked the information up. But it is there, and it will not be budged with such minutiae as to remember to pick up milk on the way home from work.

Which brings me to this morning. The radio station that Sweetie and I listen to most often has a feature every morning called "Mental Aerobics." They ask a trivia question, and if you are the first person to call in with the correct answer you win a prize. Before I came along Sweetie would frequently play it on his own. The way the schedules work now, it's on about the time I need to be waking up in the morning, so Sweetie wakes me up so we can play it together and then he heads off to work and I start my day.

We've had pretty good success thus far. You can win once every thirty days, and we have already won tickets to see Handel's Messiah (which we ended up skipping), and an NFC Champion Seahawk t-shirt. That t-shirt was won on January 23, so our re-eligibility was established this morning.

Now usually when we play Sweetie is the one who comes up with the answer. Even if I know the answer, he comes up with it first, as if you know me you know I am NOT a morning person, and the gears are just getting started at 6:10 am.

But this morning was my opportunity to rise to the occasion. The question was, "On this date in 1985 a sitcom was broadcast live. What was it?" OK, I'm not THAT big of a freak. But they KNEW it was an impossible question, so they played the first few bars of the theme song. It took me a few seconds, but I knew the answer. And we got connected.

While Sweetie was chatting with the hosts (he's responsible for calling in, as I'm really only capable of mumbling at this point in the morning) I even made the comment that the show totally jumped the shark when they added the little kid. Later I realized that I could have made that comment about almost any sitcom ever played. It's always either adding a little kid or hooking up the two leads. But that's a tangent.

We won tickets see Cosi Fan Tutte. Something kinda' cool about winning tickets to the opera because you can identify TV theme songs from 20 years ago.

When they replayed Sweetie on the radio, the DJs then commented that we seemed like cool people and they'd like to hang out with us. We'd like to hang out with you, too, John and Mike. Wanna' go get cocktails sometime?

I can serenade you with the theme to Charles in Charge while we're out.

I Am Not Making This Up

2006-02-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

Samson (the cat) likes pita bread.

Which gets added to the current list of:
Angel Food Cake
Oreo Cookie Filling
Lean Cuisine Sauce

No tuna, no canned food, but bring on the carbs.

Yin/Yang

2006-02-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

Yin:

- I am sad that the Seahawks lost the Superbowl.
- I am sad that the commercials for the Superbowl generally sucked, and not one single advertiser could be bothered to incorporate the fact that this was Superbowl XL into their schtick.

Yang:

- My three year old niece made me several valentines today, which included my name. My name is eight letters long.... which is double her previous name-length record. That makes it a bitch to fit on a valentine heart when you are printing. And even stamping is difficult, as letters are repeated, so Mom can't just lay the letters out for you in advance. Just tugs at the heart strings.
- Before heading off to the game we discovered "Puppy Bowl" on Animal Planet. Three straight hours of puppies playing on a psuedo football field. The "Bowl Cam" (a camera placed in the bottom of the water dish) was the best. I'm just sad that I didn't learn of the kitty half-time show before now, as that would have been much better than Mick Jagger singing off key.

Blogger-to-Be

2006-01-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

Last night while speaking with my parents my dad mentioned that he was thinking of starting a blog. I know he's completely full of it, but I think it would be entertaining nonetheless. He'd definitely fill a niche that I haven't seen... retired, ex-Marine, Republicans unite! I know my Mom reads this blog, and even if my Dad doesn't, I'm sure she passes along all the good bits to him (HI, MOM!) so I think the internet needs to lobby Homer to start a blog!

My parents will be visiting the first weekend of March, and I'd even be willing to help Dad set up his blogger account at that time if he were interested.

You Say It's Your Birthday

2006-01-27T21:58:00.000-08:00

So, apparently, my brother shares his Birthday with Wolfgang Amadaeus Mozart. Well, 213 years later. If the movie Amadaeus is at ALL accurate, it seems oddly fitting.

Superbowl Predictions

2006-01-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

I didn't post it, but my predictions for this week's playoff games both came true. My two quareterbacks were playing for the winning teams, I have no Broncos and only the Carolina kicker, so it's easy to see that I'm not making that up.

I also went back and made first round predictions based on my interest in teams, and it ends up I would have been 7-3 had I made predictions all the way through.

Next week I'm predicting Seattle will win. As much as I love Big, Bad Ben, he is but one Steeler, and I ended up with BOTH Matt Hasselback AND the Seahawks defense at the end of my fantasy football season. Oh yeah, and home team and all that jazz.

Now excuse me, I have to avoid all local media for the next two weeks, because although I may agree with them in how I want the game to turn out I don't want to listen to it all.

The Scarlet Letter

2006-01-22T21:15:00.000-08:00

Sweetie is watching the 1926 silent film version of The Scarlet Letter right now. I can't look at the costumes or sets without being transported to that episode of The Brady Bunch where Greg makes a movie about the first Thanksgiving.

How Not To Sleep

2006-01-16T01:17:00.000-08:00

Normally when I'm up late and can't sleep I end up tuned into the infomercial du jour and my problems are solved. Ron Popeil is way more effective than counting sheep.

But 30 minutes of old guys speaking double entendre about a vaccuum pump that will give them an erection so they can have sex. I may never sleep again.

Fearless NFL Playoff Predictions

2006-01-14T15:39:00.000-08:00

I received the helmet of champions yesterday (part of my reward for winning at fantasy football this year), so I'm in a football frame of mind. That, and procrastinating the housework I have to do to prepare the house for dinner guests tonight.

For the record, we're TiVoing the games, although I know the results of the first half of the Seahawks/Redskins game.

Seahawks Redskins: aka Matt Hasselbeck vs. Santana Moss. Gotta' go Seattle here, since I've got good players in both games so have to go with the home field advantage. And Shaun Alexander WITH a concussion can still kick major ass.

Broncos vs. Patriots: I have no players on either team, so no rooting interest there. But I find Tom Brady's butt chin very disturbing. Especially since the chin strap appears like the back of a pair of tighty-whities. Everytime they show him on camera I imagine these little legs sticking out of the legholes of the underpants and it just disgusts me. That, and I'm sick of the Patriots winning the Superbowl. So we're going Broncos here.

Colts vs. Steelers: aka Dallas Clark vs. Big Bad Ben Roethlisberger. Dallas Clark is not a quality football player, and was the last member of my team picked up, so I could care less about him. Big Bad Ben is one of my stars. That, and I find Peyton Manning's audibles annoying to watch. So we're going Steelers here.

Carolina vs. Chicago: aka John Kasay vs. Thomas Jones. A running back is more valuable than a kicker, so I've got to go Chicago.

Sweetie has Superbowl bets on both the Colts and Carolina, so if my predictions play out that means those bets were a waste of money. But I'm just trying to position my players to be as valuable as possible, so I have some good keepers for next season and can maybe make some preseason trades with the other guys.

Knit One, Purl Two

2006-01-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

Last night was my first knitting class, and I may already be an addict.

As class was starting I was near terrified. I had bought a reference book recommended by the knit shop a week earlier, and flipping through it I figured there was no way I could ever learn this stuff. I just had to keep reminding myself that I'm a very tactile learner, which is why I wanted to take a class in the first place.

The class I'm taking is a beginners class, claiming that you need never have picked up a needle before to succeed. Hey, that's me! But the other four members of the class all had more experience than me. Three had brought projects they were working one. One finished her project, a lovely hat, during the class.

But it was a fabulous class, and the teacher heaped mounds of praise on me, so I'm feeling good about things.

For now I'm just practicing knitting and purling, but next week I'm going to start my first project. I think I'm going to do a scarf... a hat seems to complex to me at the moment. One thing at a time and all. This weekend I'll go in search of a pattern and perhaps some yarn.

So be prepared come the holidays, all gifts may soon be of the knit variety.

Bearing Witness

2006-01-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

There is no sound I know of that is quite as terrifying as that of two cars colliding when at least one is traveling a moderate speed. Even if you are not in the drivers seat (which, today, I was not, thankfully) it just grabs at your very soul and squeezes it like a dirty dishrag.

I've been on the victim side of that noise three times in my life. The first was a case of two teenage drivers, both of whom probably still had a lot to learn about things like reaction time and gauging the speed of other cars and such, on a rainy Friday during rush hour.

The other two were thanks to idiots running red lights. In both of those cases I had a witness to attest to the facts.

The first was very early on a November morning. I was sitting alongside another car on a side street, waiting to cross a major arterial (on 33rd headed northbound across Sandy, for you Portlanders out there). The light turned green for us, so I went. Right into the side of a truck that was flying down Sandy. The person sitting next to me pulled over to call the police and give me her info as a witness. As we were waiting for the cops to arrive she mentioned that she had previously been victim to an idiot running a red light, so was always a little extra cautious when lights changed. I've been equally cautious ever since.

The second incident was less than a year later. On a major arterial crossing over an Interstate during rush hour in early fall, when it was still bright out at that time. (heading west on Glisan across I-205). I had started my way through the intersection, when the idiot coming off the freeway decided he didn't need to stop at the red light as he was turning left onto Glisan, and nailed my front passenger side tire. A LOT of people witnessed that accident. At least one person rolled down his window as he was driving past and called out that he had called the police. Lots of other people weren't driving anywhere, as my car was blocking traffic, and with the front wheel caved in it wasn't going anywhere until the tow truck arrived. One pedestrian, who happened to be crossing the interstate at that moment, stopped and gave me her name, address and phone number. No one else, just her.

She got flowers from me a few weeks later, as I was going through the grand inquisition with both his and my insurance companies, and it looked like we were headed to court. The phone calls were constant and annoying as all hell, with everyone in the world wanting to hear my story of what had happened that day. Then one day my insurance agent called me up, "Repairs have been authorized, his insurance company is handling it all." I questioned them as to why things had been so ugly just a day earlier, and now everything was smooth sailing. His insurance company had just gotten around to calling the witness, and realized they didn't have a pot to piss in.

Today I was on my way to the local strip mall during my lunch hour. The light at the entry to the mall was red, but the car in front me of me was also turning into the mall, so I likely wasn't going to have to wait long. Then I noticed the car in the left lane wasn't slowing down. It's been rainy lately, and I didn't get much sleep last night... did I register the color of the light wrong? Nope, it's red alright. And about that moment the truck pulling out of the mall slammed into the car that was probably traveling at least 30 mph.

That noise just chilled me.

And the driver in front of me almost gave me road rage. Because rather than pulling into the mall and parking his car he decided to stop on the side of the road, halfway pulled into the mall parking lot, on his cell phone. Presumably calling the police. Which left me sitting out on the street with my rear end hanging out, begging for another accident to happen. Perhaps he thought that since the police and paramedics would be there shortly we might as well make things worth there while.

I made my way around that idiot, jotted down all my vital information on a sheet of paper, then stepped up to the accident to give my information to the victim. People were streaming out of nearby offices at this point and no one seemed to be in imminent danger, so I opted to continue on with my lunch rather than hang around and rubberneck.

The police officer called me later this afternoon to hear my story. I told him, to the best of my memory, what happened, and it appears that my story corroborated with the other reports he had heard.

I'm just paying it backwards.

The Diva of Data

2006-01-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

Currently at my job I'm working on the following projects:

Entering 900 names into our database over a period of 8 days.
Cleaning said database while doing the data entry
Creating year-end reports from data that was entered into the database by someone other than me, and didn't organize it in a very user-friendly format best I can tell
Contemplated how we could improve the database so I could easily pull the reports next year. (At one point today a co-worker thought my head was about to spin around a la The Exorcist)
Creating a spreadsheet that contains 120 months worth of data over a period of 3 days

So then I come home and try to figure out our summer vacation plans. Which involves traveling to baseball games in as many states as possible over a short period of time.

Pardon me while my head explodes.

Sisters of the Road

2006-01-02T18:53:00.000-08:00

A request to the charitable sorts out there who've got some money to give in the month of January:

Sisters of the Road Cafe in Portland, Oregon, will receive a $15,000 grant from The Collins Foundation IF they can raise $15,000 from people who have not donated before in the month of January. Sweetie and I donated for our wedding, so we are ineligible.

Sisters' mission is to build authentic relationships and alleviate the hunger of isolation in an atmosphere of non-violence and gentle personalism that nurtures the whole individual toward changes that will reach the root of his or her homelessness and poverty and end it forever.

They provide jobs and inexpensive meals ($1.25 for a meal or .25 for a drink) to anyone who might need one, but mainly focused on those who are homeless or suffer from poverty. They've been a saviour for my brother in the past - when he first was diagnosed as mentally ill and living on the streets my parents were able to set up an account for him, so he was always guaranteed a hot meal. I believe he's also worked there in the past.

I strongly encourage any of you who might have the means to do so to donate to Sisters. Also, if you're in the Portland area and want a way to help panhandlers, you can purchase meal coupons to hand out that will provide them with a meal at Sisters, and may help them get in contact with other services they need.

The holidays are often full of opportunity for those who are less fortunate than ourselves, but often the charity dries up come the new year. Help others have a happy 2006 as well.

OK, I'm climbing off my soapbox now...

Home

2006-01-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

Today, while at Whole Foods, I was checking out with one of my B/C list checkers*, and as he started scanning my items he greeted me with, "It's so nice to see a familiar face." Made me get all warm and fuzzy inside and feel like I've actually put some roots down in Seattle.

* A list checkers are my preferred checkers, that I have psuedo-relationships with, and carry an ongoing conversation with through frequent trips through their line. There are two of them.

B list checkers are those I'll go to if the A listers aren't there, or their lines are too long, and we've got face recognition, but no real relationship (or, in the case of one, her English isn't strong enough to have the insta-conversation while my 5 items are being scanned).

C list checkers are those I recognize, but don't have face recognition with (or, in the case of one guy, don't WANT face recognition with).

D list checkers are those I've never seen before and couldn't pick out of a line-up if I had to.

Resolutely

2006-01-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

I'm not one for making New Year's Resolutions. The only resolution I can even REMEMBER making, and definitely the most recent one I made, was in 2000.

The resolution: "I will not get in a car accident this year."

This resolution was spawned out of idiots running red lights in both 1998 and 1999 that resulted in major car accidents. Accident #1 totaled my 1995 Subaru Imprezza and accident #2 did about $5,000 damage to my 1996 Nissan Sentra. I am happy to say I kept that resolution.

This year I don't have resolutions, but I do have projects for 2006.

1. Learn to knit. Thanks to my in-laws I have a gift certificate to a local knitting shop, and will be signing up for classes soon. I can't even tell you WHY I want to learn to knit, but I'm looking forward to it.

2. Transfer my tapes and albums onto my computer. Thanks to my parents I have the hardware and software necessary to do this task. Now I just need to move the desktop computer out to the living room and connect it to the stereo and start in on it. I have a LOT of tapes and albums (not counting those I threw out before I knew such hardware existed for this little project), so I'm HOPING I can get this project done this year.

2a. Create myself a database of all the cover tunes I own. Maybe post it online. Because it amazes me what cool stuff I've got in my collection, and it keeps expanding. This is inspired by two things: The local radio station I generally tune into when not listening to NPR has started a new feature of playing a cover tune every night right in the middle of my drive home. Also, look at the cool covers that have been added to my collection over the last month:

A complete cover album of The Beatles' "Rubber Soul." Norweigan Wood blows, but the rest of the covers are pretty good.
Johnny Cash covering, among others: Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, and The Eagles.
Dar Williams and Ani DiFranco covering Comfortably Numb, and
A Bluegrass version of Sweet Emotion

My prediction is that #1 will be completed, #2 in progress and #2a begun and abandoned in 365 days, but check back and I'll let you know. And when you remind me of #2a I'll probably resurrect the project, as this is not the first time I've had this pipe dream.

Happy 2006!

What Not To Eat

2005-12-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

One of the most disgusting food combinations ever may well be a black olive and pineapple pizza on Pizza Hut's thin crust. The only thing I can think of that would be worse would be if there were green peppers on it (as green peppers on pizza really don't agree with me).

But when you end up with a free pizza as a result of a lost pizza delivery guy and a spouse who just woke up from a nap (as you are starting to wake up from a nap), well, you at least give it a try.

Thank Goodness It's Not Catching

2005-12-29T23:06:00.000-08:00

This evening we were at a party that featured a 7-month old baby, two one-month old babies, and a couple currently going through IVF. I felt like I should have a nametag that read,

"Hello, we're not currently pregnant, and aren't having kids in the immediate future. In our condo we would have to store the infant on a bookshelf, and from what I hear about pregnant ladies' bladders we REALLY need to be in a place with two bathrooms before I get knocked up. Nope, house first, baby later, but thanks for asking."

Spam Spam Spam Spam

2005-12-29T16:35:00.000-08:00

I have yet to officially confirm my theory, but it appears that my place of employment will flag (but not delete) a message as spam if the first word in the message is slang.

Twice in the past two days messages have been tagged as spam that:

Are from people who have e-mailed me before (Sweetie and a vendor I'm working with)
May have been responses to an e-mail I had previously sent them (at least one was), and
Began with a slang word -- "baby" in one case and "groovy" in the other.

Apparently, there shall only be proper language used in the workplace.

The Password Is...

2005-12-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

What do all of these dishes I have prepared/will prepare this week have in common:

Stuffed mushrooms
Green Beans with Mushrooms
Chicken and Mushrooms
Wild Mushroom Potato Gratin

Now I feel like I can't divert or the fungi police will come and get me.

Password Protected

2005-12-27T18:40:00.000-08:00

I just told my computer to save my login and password for the Consumer Reports website. Which means that if a thief were to break into our house he or she would have TOTAL, UNLIMITED access to the consumer reports website. And realize that none of our crap is worth taking.

Warning: Dead People Ahead

2005-12-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Today, the local NPR program The Conversation was all about strip clubs, due to the fact that there is going to be a ballot measure in 2006 that will change the rules of the game.

One of the guests on the show was the mayor (former mayor? city council member? I wasn't paying THAT close of attention) of a small suburb of Seattle who had previously protested and picketed a strip club being built in his community. When asked why he had organized said protest his first comment was that it was not reflective of that community's values, and his second comment was that said strip club was located across the street from a cemetary.

Now, I'm sure I'm jaded on such topics because I come from the city with the highest number of strip clubs per capita. I used to live about 20 blocks (in said city) from a strip club which is renowned for it's $4 steak. Because combining charred meat and nekkid girls is the epitome of manliness (and kind of nasty and unhygenic sounding if you ask me). But who the heck cares if you've got a strip club across the street from a cemetary?

I can understand the school argument. Let's try to keep the nekkid ladies directly out of the line of sight of the little ones who aren't under parental supervision. But what's the problem with the dead people?

Best as I can figure it, they've got two potential fears:

The dead people will be offended by the nekkid ladies, and haunt the politicians who allowed this to happen.
Horny dead guys will come back from the grave to go see some of the nekkid ladies for themselves.

Argument #2 is moot, because there are a lot of good reference manuals out there on how to survive zombie attacks... I bought my brother-in-law this one for Christmas.

So the politicians are scared they're going to get haunted. Probably saw Poltergeist one too many times. Or read the book late at night when they were all alone. I read that book when I was around 11 or 12 and it scared the shit out of me.

Or they want to make sure they have to travel to see their nekkid ladies, so their wives and girlfriends won't catch them.

Tradition

2005-12-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

Sweetie and I have officially started our family Christmas tradition this year.

His family always does their en masse celebration on Christmas Eve. And Christmas Dinner is generally spent at his sister's house with part of his family, and part of her husband's family. We go down to Portland the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with my parents and get in on the Carbfest action, but we had no tradition to specifically call our own.

Then an opportunity presented itself, and we capitalized on that opportunity. Due to various circumstances, the dinner at his sister's house was moved to Monday this year. Which left us a great big day full of Christmas with nothing in particular to do. Once this fact became apparent I asked Sweetie what he wanted for dinner that day, and he commented that he wanted to figure out a Christmas Dinner tradition from another culture that we could follow.

I looked at him skeptically, "There are only two of us. I am NOT making a roast." But he said leave it to him.

Apparently in New Zealand it is Christmas tradition for people to have a picnic on the beach. At least that's what Sweetie told me he discovered on the internet. He could have just made it up, but a picnic is easy, so I agreed to the deal. There was sausage and cheese and fruit and olives and some leftovers from Christmas Eve festivities, a big blanket spread out on the floor, and football playing on the TV. And it was absolutely, positively wonderful.

We've already decided that when the Babies of Swank enter the picture, it will be a wonderful tradition to carry on with them as well. We can wake up in the morning, open all the presents, then as the kids are playing with the loot set up the blanket and food in front of the tree. What kid wouldn't want to have a picnic Christmas morning, especially when so many holiday meals involve dressing up nice and Mom's fine china and having to watch your manners?

In my youth the mealtime rule was that no television was allowed. Ever. Except Thanksgiving morning. We would set up a card table in the living room, and get to eat breakfast while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Somehow I equate our new tradition with this activity of my youth.

But Sweetie and I have already taken this one step further. Around 2035 - when we've had our kids and raise them and they're out of college and off living their own lives and won't be able to make it home for Christmas - we'll have our Christmas picnic on the beach in New Zealand. Of course, as a teacher and a non-profit employee we have to start saving now in order to make that happen, but we're already looking forward to it.

Sometimes newlyweds are so darn cute it makes you sick, don't you think?

I Am the Champion My Friends....

2005-12-26T00:10:00.000-08:00

A Belated Merry December 25th, however you chose to celebrate it.

Our holidays this year have had their downside, with my father-in-law ending up in the hospital (Sweetie tells the whole story here), but he's looking good and they haven't found anything really wrong with him as of yet, although there are still more tests to be done. It's events like this that make me truly thankful for what I have, and so glad that I got myself not only a fabulous husband, but a wonderful family-in-law as well. Coming from a small family - with a father who hasn't associated with his family for who knows how long, and a mother that was an only child whose cousins live 2,000 miles away - it's taken some getting used to being part of such a large family.

But that is not why I am up late blogging this evening. Apparently I must have been an extra-good girl this year, because Santa not only blessed me with wonderful family all around, and some fabulous presents this year from said family, but on Christmas Day I officially became the World Champion of my fantasy football league in my inaugural season.

Sweetie has played fantasy football for a very long time - something like 15 years. I've rooted for his team the last few years, but he asked if I'd be interested in joining the league if a spot became available for this season. I'm not a HUGE football fan, but everyone I knew who is in the league is lots of fun, and I figured even if I lost I could get some laughs out of the deal, so agreed to do it.

The league expanded from 8-10 teams this year to accomodate myself and some other folks that wanted to join (there were three new team owners interested in joining, and one owner retiring, so the math wasn't going to work out otherwsie). Due to the circumstances, I was one of the "expansion" teams. As an expansion team owner who knows nil about fantasy football my goal this year was to "not make a fool of myself." And after winning my first game, I figured that I'd met that goal. Seriously, I was afraid I would not win a single game this season.

But then I kept winning. And winning. And winning some more. I had a couple of stumbles along the way (three losses and one tie), but every week I somehow managed to sneak by. A lot of it was dumb luck, as much of my team managed to get injured at the same time, but I had good matchups most of those weeks and squeaked by.

The other expansion team has done well this year as well. He went eight straight weeks without a loss and one of my losses was to him. But as of last week the situation was such that if I were to win a game or he were to lose a game I would clinch the title. Last week I lost and he won, but this week I won and it looks like he will lose (barring Tom Brady throwing nothing but interceptions tomorrow), and any way you slice it I am the winner.

Next week I will play him in the final match-up of the year. If I win that game I will be 13-3-1, which would put me in the record book (tied for third under the season record category). And even if I lose I will have the helmet of champions, and get to write my name on it.

So I guess I didn't make a fool of it.

So thank you to the guys who made this possible -- not an exhaustive list, but the big guns of the 2005 World Champion The New Kid -- Big Bad Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Hasselbeck, Trent Green, Santana Moss, Tiki Barber, Thomas Jones, Lamont Jordan, and the New York Giants Defense.

However, now I'm fear I've set the bar too high for next season. Only time will tell.

Play That Funky Music

2005-12-20T22:46:00.000-08:00

I now have a car stereo that is actually installed in my car. I have to get a $20 reimbursement from the insurance company for the part I had to purchase, and I still have to fully clean out my car, but I think I can claim that the aftermath of the break-in is now over.

So, are you curious how many different companies you have to deal with when some dickweed breaks your car window and steals your stereo? Well, let's take a look, shall we:

Insurance Company - to process claim

Police - to process police report

Glass Shop - to replace the broken window. They also vaccuumed all the broken glass out of the back seat and the trunk, which was much appreciated.

Body Shop - to replace the trim piece that was ripped off by the crooks, and the window molding that was cracked when they broke the windshield. I think it may be the smallest repair this body shop has ever had to do, as the customer service rep actually started laughing when he was explaining that I had a lifetime guarantee on all the paint work they did. (There is no paint work done when they replace trim work and molding).

Car Rental Agency - to provide transportation so you can both go to work AND get the body work done on your car.

Stereo Replacement Company - not sure if all insurance companies do this, but mine has one agency that gets you the replacement stereo and provides you a voucher to pay for its replacement.

Stereo Installtion Shop #1 - who can't actually do the installation, as there are dealer parts necessary that were not provided for from the stereo replacement company.

Car Dealer - to get said necessary parts

Stereo Installation Shop #2 - when you have a car stereo to be installed, take it to a place that just does car stereos for a living, rather than a place that sells appliances and DVD players as well. Then it will only take 2 tries over 2-1/2 hours to get the job done when they have to manufacture some of the parts themselves, because the stereo replacement company provided the wrong things.

Cell Phone Provider - for the replacement car charger that was stolen. Note: If you're suffering from low blood sugar and limited patience due to a car stereo installation that took 2-1/2 hours and make a scene in the store loud enough for everyone else to hear that includes the line, "So you're saying that new customers are more important to you than existing customers?" you can get a free headphone out of the deal.

CD Store - to replace the CD that was in the CD player when the crooks took it. (I went for a close facsimile to the missing CD)

Les Schwab - to replace the tire chains that were stolen by the crooks (which I haven't actually done, but at some point I'm sure I'll have to.)

My final thought on the subject: Too bad insurance companies won't let you bill them back for your time spent dealing with crap related to your claim. Even at minimum wage I may have made a killing. I left work at 4:00 tonight to get the stereo installed and purchase the new cell phone charger, and did not get home until 9:30 pm.

Biggest regret: Josh Brown, kicker for the Seattle Seahawks, was doing an in-store appearance at the car stereo store this evening. I didn't bother standing in line for his autograph, because I really could care less, but now I'm kinda wishing I had and had asked him to purchase naming rights for my fantasy football team for next season. I overheard him talking with the employees of the store, and he seemed like a nice guy with a healthy sense of humor, so I'm thinking he might have gone for it. Alas, I'll never know.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging....

The Saga Continues

2005-12-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

I hope to return you to your regularly scheduled blog posts soon, but the saga of the crooks and the car stereo continues to consume my life, so it shall continue to consume my blog's life as well.

Tonight was supposed to be the final curtain call. The stereo had come in on Friday, I had found a shop that could install it tonight. The shop was right across the street from a "mall" that I could waste some time in. Of course it was too good to be true.

I arrived at the shop, filled out the paperwork, gave Vince my cell number and went on my merry way. I was done trawling the mall in five minutes, but I got "dinner" at Subway, which took another 15 minutes, and then spent the rest of my time camped out at Borders. It was supposed to take around an hour. After two hours, I returned to the store to see what the heck had happened.

Vince had tried to call me, but got a wrong number. He had read the "5" in my cell phone number as a "3." Did he try a different number when he realized that was the wrong number? No, that would make sense. Especially since the only other number it really could have been was a 5. He just waited for me to return.

Had I waited that extra time to return to a car with music and NPR and a place to charge my cell phone I would have forgiven Vince all his transgressions. But no, I do not have an installed car stereo now. I've still just got a great big hole where the stereo is supposed to go.

Apparently there are metal brackets that come from the dealer that are missing, and without them they cannot install the stereo. I stopped at another car stereo dealer on my way home (the place I actually bought the stereo), hoping they could help me out. I'm ready enough to be done with this whole saga that I probably would have paid them if it meant I had a car stereo at the end of the night. But no, they confirmed the need for the brackets from the dealer.

Had my dealership's parts department still been open tonight I probably would have driven down there to pick up the metal bracket I need. But no, it was past their closing time. So I could just leave a message with the stereo provider and insurance company to see what to do next.

The thing that amazes me more than everything else is that everyone: car stereo installers, after-hours insurance claims workers, strangers on the street, they all seem to think that I should KNOW that this is missing.

When I look where my car stereo used to be I see a big hole with some wires sticking out. I know a stereo is supposed to go there, but I don't know all the behind-the-scenes components that are required for the stereo to appear there. When I look in the box that was shipped to me I see a box with a stereo in it, and a few bags with brackets and screws and stuff inside of them. I don't know if they are all that is required or not.

My car came with a stereo. When the stereo broke, I went to the car stereo store and said, "I'd like that one." I then gave them a bunch of money, and walked across the street to the mall to go Christmas shopping. I returned a couple of hours later loaded down with gifts, and listened to beautiful music all the way home. I THOUGHT it should be that easy this time around.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

Depending on whether or not the part is in stock, the expense of the part, and the hassle of getting it through the insurance company, I may just go buy the darn thing tomorrow so we an officially call this saga DONE.

But maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Blizzard 2005

2005-12-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

Portland saw a mix of snow and freezing rain today. Last night the forecasters were suggesting it would hit Portland between 5-8 pm, which would have been time for us to leave had we not already been on the road.

However, it actually hit around 1:30 pm, which forced us to leave Carbfest '05 much earlier than planned. We might have been in the middle of conversations, in fact. (If we were, and it was with you, we humbly apologize). One of the guests showed up with the announcement that there was snow outside. That grabbed the attention of Sweetie and myself, as well as BDMama, since we both had drives ahead of us. When the host of the party suggested they needed salt for the front walk and the snow was sticking on the road, it was time for us to hit the road. Before nearly enough carbs were consumed.

The roads were slick, but travelable. I was driving, as I had no desire to try to give directions to Sweetie while he was dealing with the weather and such. Especially since I was planning our best route as we went.... no WAY was I going anywhere NEAR the Hawthorne bridge with snow and ice on the road.

The second phone call from Mom came right before we made it to Jantzen Beach. The first had come while we were carbo-loading, while the phone was in the trunk, to alert us that there had been a special announcement on the television about the weather, and we should skip town as soon as we could.

I'm quite sure my mother was biting her fingernails from the time of that first call, until we called her from north of Vancouver to announce we were past the weather. We hit another patch of weather, but once we hit Kelso it was smooth sailing, and the temperature was never lower than 35. I was very glad to have Sweetie by my side through it, if for no other reason than he could take over driving in Kelso, since driving in snowy, windy weather can be quite tiring.

And so we have survived Blizzard 2005! It was a balmy 42 degrees out when we got back to Seattle.

Speed Trap

2005-12-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

A 15-20 mile stretch of I-5 through Chehalis and Centralia (halfway between Seattle and Portland) is now a 60 mph zone. It's always been a cop trap, since the state highway has an office there, but now they have officially become the interstate version of small country towns on state highways that set their speed limits at 25-35 mph just to catch outsiders on their way through town.

Friday night was quite foggy, where you could barely seen the signs, and since I've driven the road often enough I don't NEED the signs, I wasn't really looking at them much. It was just dumb luck, and me wanting to make sure I got into the right lane in time to pull off for some Diet Coke, that I saw the sign in the first place. Although it didn't look like the cops were out at 12:30 am, so I might have been OK.

Traffic was already regularly snarly through the area, so now I'm sure it's going to significantly add to the Seattle to Portland trip. But I'm sure the cops will snag their share of people.

I just hope I'm not one of them. I got pulled over in that stretch once before. In my early 20's, when it was still a 65 mph zone. I was going about 72 or 73 at 1 or 2 am, and it was only me and the truckers on the road. I got off with a warning, the cop wasn't even really interested in giving me at ticket.

A friend got pulled over when he broke the Portland to Seattle time record and got off with a warning as well. He actually had to talk his way out of that ticket, but the cop had grown up in Springfield, Oregon, and my friend had gotten his master's degree in Eugene, so he got off with a warning (they are neighboring towns). Which, when you think about it, is a bit surprising, as people from Springfield (conservative loggers living near the timber) and Eugene (liberal college students and professors who will protest anything) tend not to get along very well. But, my friend made the 175 mile trip in 2-1/2 hours, even with the delay, so he owns that record among my circle.

And I'll own my bitterness every time I'm forced to slow down as I drive through town.

If the Shoe Fits

2005-12-15T20:02:00.000-08:00

The co-workers have already discovered I have a shoe fetish, so I've been trying to do a parade of shoes for them lately, so they can see all the collection has to offer. But I've set the expectations too high, so they were disappointed when I came in wearing a pair of basic black heels today. Apparently I'm only supposed to wear outrageous shoes from now on.

So I was pondering all my shoes in the car today, and since I did it with my glassware, I am now compelled to inventory my shoes on my blog. After all, the first step it to admit that you've got a problem:

(in no particular order)
1. Red Patent Leather Donald J. Pliner loafers
2. Black Clarks clogs
3. Brown loafers
4. Purple Doc Marten combat boots (8 hole)
5. Lime green Old Navy flip flops (with a hot pink pattern on them)
6. Mint Green Converse Chuck Taylor low-tops
7. Tan Suede Converse Jack Purcells
8. Patchwork (blue, green, and maroon) Converse Chuck Taylor high tops
9. Black Payless Shoe Source black heels (there's some lycra in there, they're actually very comfortable)
10. Purple Suede Hush Puppy Mules
11. Olive Green Corduroy Old Navy ballet flats
12. Olive green with black cowprint, fuzzy ankle boots (I THINK Franco Sarto, but I could be wrong)
13. Pink Suede Anne Klein Loafers
14. Maroon Suede low-heel loafers
15. Black leather low-heel loafers
16. Maroon leather, with a floral stitched design, Franco Sarto high-heel mules
17. Tan leather Franco Sarto high-heel mules
18. Silver suede strappy sandals
19. Black Dansko sandals
20. Brown Stephen Madden high-heel sandals
21. Olive Green Nike hiking boots
22. Blue Tevas
23. Maroon Birkenstocks
24. Tan Saltwater Sandals
25. Black Nine West heels, with a funky, curvy heel
26. Nude suede Nine West heels
27. Brown high-heel ankle boots
28. Rope sandals (where all the strappy parts are made of rope, or something that looks like rope)
29. Primary Color (Blue, Red and Yellow) elastic, super-strappy, flat sandals
30. New Balance cross-trainers
31. Really old cross trainers for mucking about
32. Asian velour ballet slippers, with a floral pattern on the toes
33. Red Old Navy slippers
34. White Doc Marten Brogues (aka the Mafia Golf Shoes) (that desperately need to be polished)
35. Turquoise flip-flops
36. Blue beaded flip-flops
37. Ugly brown loafers, that I could probably give to Goodwill and never miss

I was able to name the first 34 pairs without getting up from the couch. The final three pairs I basically never wear. The loafers were cute and comfortable once upon a time, but not so much anymore. And there was one summer I had a flip-flop fetish, as I had convinced myself that eventually I would find a pair that was both comfortable AND cute, but that never panned out.

The one pair of shoes I miss most are the pair that officially began the fetish. They were maroon (apparently I have a thing for maroon shoes), velvet sneakers by Tommy Hilfiger, but looked very similar to a Chuck Taylor with the white toe. They got worn out, so I had to get rid of them. I still miss them.

I just drown my sorrows with more shoes.

Pepto-Bismol By the Pound!

2005-12-14T21:24:00.000-08:00

One of the new benefits being offered by my employer is a Flexible Spending Account. Basically, if you're not familiar with an FSA, you can pull money out of your paycheck before taxes to spend on healthcare expenses. The kicker is, if you don't use it in the calendar year, you lose it, so if you're not going to incur the expense it's best not to sign up for it.

I've had FSAs available to me in the past, but it wasn't worth it to me. The FSA at work has a minimum contribution of a few hundred dollars a year. I was completely discounting it, until our insurance provider mentioned that you could use the money for over the counter medicines, such as aspirin, tyelnol, or antacids. Antacids? You've got my attention now. ANTACIDS!

We are SO signing up for the FSA now.

If you're a regular reader of this blog or Sweetie's blog, you are probably aware of the fact that he suffers from some gastro-intestinal issues. Issues that can often be managed through appropriate usage of Pepto-Bismol. As in, if we are eating in an environment where we are not 100% certain of every ingredient going into the dish, and it's acceptability in Sweetie's diet, he'll take a "preventative Pepto" just to make sure there are no future issues.

And now we can get our Pepto-Bismol with money we didn't have to pay payroll taxes on. The savings are astronomical!

Heck, if we don't incur the necessary medical expenses in 2006, I'll just go buy Sweetie a few cases of Pepto for Christmas next year. And leave a little out for Santa, because all those milk and cookies are bound to give a guy some indigestion.

The Downside of Marriage

2005-12-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

Four and a half months in, and I've discovered a disadvantage to being married.

Health insurance.

As a single girl it was easy: take the health insurance offered to me by my employer. Done! If the employer offered multiple health insurance plans to choose from: pick the best coverage that cost the least amount of money (I'm not a big user of health insurance at this stage of my life, so the specific benefits were never an issue for me). Done!

But now options need to be weighed.

Originally, it wasn't difficult. Both of our companies were with the same insurance provider, so we could simply compare deductibles and co-pays and such and call it good. And due to different premium amounts, and different ways our employers paid for our insurance, it ended up costing me less money for more coverage to switch over to his plan.

The new job came with free medical, dental and vision for employees. It was with a totally different network of doctors (a network I wouldn't want to use), but it was free and offered out-of-network coverage, so I signed up fully not expecting to use it. But you never know when the dismemberment will occur, so it's always good to have more coverage.

But now it is open enrollment time at work. And the insurance options have changed. Some interesting facts that I have learned about insurance over the past couple of weeks:
- Older people use insurance more than younger people
- Women use insurance more than men
- Non-profit workers use insurance more than capitalists
- Social Service workers use more insurance than other non-profit types
- A company's insurance premiums are based on the likelihood that their employees will use the insurance.

This is why Microsoft can offer really good benefits to their employees: They've got a lot of young men working for them, who never go to the doctor. My agency gets dinged about every single way you can get dinged, while working on a non-profit budget, which makes covering healtcare for its employees a challenge indeed.

So now we've got options. Some of which come free to me, others of which may cause me to kick in some of my paycheck. If I didn't have coverage through Sweetie's work I'd just take the free option, even though it's in the netword I'd rather not use, and be happy. But that coverage may not cover any doctor I might go to, unless it's in an emergency room. And would it be better for me to eschew all medical coverage, so I can get the premium dental coverage, knowing that I've got a periodontal referral and gum grafts to look forward to in the new year? Or should I take the 2nd insurance option, who may have doctors that overlap with the current plan, so might actually be of use to me, but then I have to pay for dental coverage, or just go with the coverage I've got through Sweetie.

TOO MANY OPTIONS!

Oh yeah, and the forms are due on Tuesday. Blech.

In Favor of Public Transportation

2005-12-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

So, tonight Sweetie was going to help me deliver my car to the body shop, so that they could do their work tomorrow. Sweetie would carpool to work, and I'd use his car.

Except on his way home from a reffing assignment, his seatbelt broke. Combined with some other stuff that requires a trip to the shop for his car, that was going to wait until my car was all better, and that idea doesn't work so well anymore.

My damage is trim work and a bit of weatherstripping. In other words, it would be nice to have done now, but the world won't end if it waits a day. His is a bum seatbelt, and potential electrical problems. He had similar electrical problems a month or so ago, and they could not return the car to us after diagnosis because the problem was such that it could short out at any moment and cause the car to catch on fire.

So now I've got myself set up with a rental car to fix my car problems, and we'll take advantage of his carpooling to get his car issues taken care of.

We just have to pray that his car problems get done before this weekend, or we may be forced to take my car to Portland. And the new stereo probably won't make it to me until Monday, and then needs to be installed.

THIS is why I want to live in the city, where I can walk or take the bus everywhere.

Oh, So Pretty!

2005-12-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

I do believe that the Seattle metropolitan area has the best views available to the masses of any large metropolitan area in the United States.

I first moved to Seattle in 1996. I paid less than $500/month for a small 1 bedroom apartment, 2nd floor walk-up, on a major arterial. I was about 5 blocks from the street the hookers hang out on, and ambulances would regularly pass under my window.

But, from my living roon and dining room windows I could see the North Cascades, from the street outside my apartment I could turn the other way and view the Olympic Mountains, and on a clear day I could sit at my desk at work and just stare at Mt. Rainier.

On the drive into the new job I can still see the Olympics. When I take my daily drive to the post office I overlook the Puget Sound and Whidbey Island. The drive home starts with Mt. Baker, and ends with Mt. Rainier again.

And as bad as the traffic may be, and as annoying as your day at work may have been, and as bitter as you may be about taxes and government and whatever else things may upset you on a given day in a given place, it all just falls away when you're staring up at a big, beautiful mountain.

Portland has Mt. Hood. When relatives would come to visit, we'd point to where the mountain was, but it was always just a big blob of grey. They used to tease us that they didn't think a mountain really existed there. Same thing happens in Seattle. It can appear to be a perfectly clear day, but due to haze and other factors the mountains are in hiding.

I suppose the phrase, "The Mountain is out today" is Northwest vernacular. And those are the days you know you can't live anywhere else on the planet.

Welcome to 1999

2005-12-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

I put it off as long as I could, but I have now placed my first eBay auction.

I suppose eBay is a fabulous website that offers wonderful products to people, but to me it's the ultimate white trash repository on the internet. It's my half-brother's fault. Our family has infrequent contact with him, but every time he surfaces it seems he has some new get-rich-quick scheme he's playing around with. Last time I remember him being around his latest endeavour was eBay auctioneer. He'd go to yard sales and buy crap, then post it on eBay at a markup. Or he'd shop the local clearance sales for brand name merchandise, and sell that to other suckers.

So yeah, I guess you can get good stuff on eBay, but so much of it is crap that others are just trying to unload for a profit. And while I'm all about scoring some cheezy something I'll never want or need for a quarter at a garage sale, I am NOT paying $8 shipping and handling for my detritus.

But one of the nephews wants the Star Wars version of Stratego this Christmas. They haven't made the Star Wars version since 2002. Now it's all about the Chronicles of Narnia. And on eBay there are people who are selling copies of the game, still in their original packaging. There are several copies available, but it seems to be a bit of a hot commodity at the moment. At least within my budget. I'm on my second auction right now - I got outbid on the first one. If I can't get it within my price range the nephew will get something else for Christmas.

And soon I may be able to say that I bought it on eBay.

Small World

2005-12-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

Sweetie and I went to see Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure tonight. It was fabulous, as I knew it would be, because a) Dave Gorman is freaking hilarious and b) I like how the exclamation point comes in the middle of the title. I'll leave further discussion of this topic to the Sweetie.

What I want to mention is that Dave Gorman (at least, the Dave Gorman of Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure fame, not sure about any of the others) is exactly one year, one month and one day older than me. I think that's really darn cool.

Almost as cool as the friend I met in junior high who was born EXACTLY a month ahead of me to the hour. (We were both born between 7 and 8 am, her on March 3, 1972 and me on April 3, 1972). We decided that made us cosmic sisters. She was a tiny little ballet dancer with long red hair and pale white skin, even before she added the pancake white. We used to tell people we were "sisses" and they believed us. When we mentioned that she was the big sister they would take pause for a moment, but never bat an eyelash. I miss her. Need to try to track her down somehow. Last time she left my life she randomly re-entered it after almost running over a friend as he was walking to school one day while we were still in college.

See, it really is a small world. And that's what Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure is all about. But I'm not allowed to tell you more, so you should see the show for yourself.

Where I Get It From...

2005-12-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

If you know me you know I get a little nuts about Christmas. But if you've met my Mom you know where I got it from. If you'e been to my Mom's house at Christmas you know I'm downright sane next to her.

My Mom is a Christmas FREAK. Not only is there the tree, and the lights, and the standard decorations, but every little knick-knack she owns gets replaced by a Christmas version during the holidays. Her dishes, flatware and glasses get swapped out for Christmas china. Seriously, it's a disease.

For years she's been claiming she's going to break the habit. "Oh, I'm not going to decorate much this year." But every year it's the same. She starts out with just the basics. But then, slowly, it overcomes her, and the house oozes Christmas from her every pore.

My parents bought an artificial tree this year. It's a battle they've been fighting for a while now. Mom considers it the first step in her twelve-step program, but really it's just another form of co-dependency. The fake tree is because they will be heading out of town for five days, so it would be dangerous to put a real tree up now, and when they return they will not have time to put one up. So rather than just not having a tree, they have to buy a fake tree so as to fully Christmas-ize the house.

Want proof of how over the top she is? I asked my Mom what she wanted for Christmas this evening. Her answer: a water pitcher that will coordinate with the Christmas glasses.

The scariest part: One day, it will all be mine. At least Sweetie and I can retire off the money the ornaments will bring in.

Investment Opportunity

2005-12-07T21:40:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a good place to sock some money and get a good return on your investment, I've got a tip for you and that tip is: TIRE CHAINS.

It may sound silly, but it's not.

Two years ago I bought some tire chains for around $50-60 from our good friends at Les Schwab because I was planning a trip to Portland one weekend, and my mother was concerned there would be a blizzard, so it was the easiest option given that I could return the chains in April and get my money back.

Then I got my new car, and another blizzard was predicted, so I had to go swap out the chains.

And when April rolled around I figured it was cheaper to just leave the chains in the back of the car, rather than having to go out every time they forecast a blizzard to buy new chains.

I got the quote back today on what I'm being credited for the chains the crooks stole. $80. In two years. Now, I don't follow the stock market all that closely, but I'd call that a pretty good return on my investment.

Of course, they're already predicting a blizzard for our trip to Portland in a week and a half, so I may be reinvesting that money really darn soon.

For the Cook That Has Everything

2005-12-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

I had the Food Network on earlier as background noise. There was some sort of story about pepper grinders, and they were talking about designers that worked for the company. One of the guys works with a lathe, another works with computers, and someone else does something completely different.

I thought they were talking about designing what the pepper looks like after it's ground. Like you could grind it out onto your salad and it would come out at little stars or hearts or flowers or something.

It wasn't until they showed line drawings of actual pepper grinders I realized they were discussing the design of the grinder and not the grind.

But how cool would it be to have little fancy-shaped pepper?

"It's Run By a Big Eastern Syndicate, You Know"

2005-12-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

I'm 33 years old. I have seen "A Charlie Brown Christmas" at least that many times. I've owned the video for at least five years. And this is the first time I realized that Charles Schulz included a mob reference in the show. I think Lucy's delivery was particularly poignant this year. There's not even a commercial break between that and Linus' Bible recitation. Kind of makes you think....

Like Clockwork

2005-12-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

The back is recovering nicely. I'm not at 100% yet, but I am able to sleep in my bed rather than on the couch, and am able to make it through a full day of work without any pain or difficulty. Today I was even able to wear 1" heels (the green, fuzzy, cowprint boots) without issue.

However, for the past two nights, at 5:30 my back officially says, "OK, we've had enough now. Let's take a break." Last night it happened while standing in line at Target, tonight while buying groceries. So I go home, camp on the La-Z-Boy for a couple of hours to eat dinner and read blogs, and then am allowed to get up for small spurts to throw some laundry in the wash machine, or answer the telephone.

Saturday could be interesting, as I am judging at a forensics meet, and high school desks aren't know for their back support.

A Major Award

2005-12-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

If it weren't for the fact that my dad doesn't have a space that's exclusively his in their home, and the fact that I love my mom, I'd totally be buying Homer this for Christmas.

So tempting. Must. Not. Buy.

Perplexing Search of the Day

2005-12-05T22:08:00.000-08:00

"really-short-hair november-2005 haircut blog"

Currently I'm the #24 site on Google, but I'm really perplexed as to what this person was searching for.

At least, on a sick and twisted level, Muppet Porn made sense.

All Swankette Wants for Christmas...

2005-12-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa:

Sorry for the delay in getting my list out to you, but between the car break-in and the bad back, presents have been the farthest thing from my mind the last week. And while I'm thinking about it, you may want to find a method of entering the House of Swank other than the chimney this year. I do not know if it has EVER been swept, and have not gotten around to calling anyone about it yet (seemed a low priority during the spell of unemployment), so you could really do a nasty number on your back if you try sliding down there.

So, here's what I'd like, in no particular order:

Soundblaster MP3+, to transfer my cassettes and albums to digital format. I've been told by a reputable source that you can get them at Fry's, but I bet they're available elsewhere as well. This would pair nicely with a bunch of blank CD's with cases, so that once the music is digitized I can actually play it on my CD player.

Knitting lessons. I think I'd like to take them from the eastside location of Hilltop Yarn, but am not adamant on that. However, I do want to take a class with a real live person and not just try out of a book. This would pair nicely with some knitting supplies, since I've got nothing. Hilltop Yarn has a supply list available. I trust them to know what they're talking about.

A really nice, professional detail job on my car. The kind where they spend a long time and vaccuum or Armor-All every square inch of the car. If I don't get it for Christmas, I'm splurging on it for myself, to eliminate all final traces of the crooks. Sweetie had a really good job done on his car immediately prior to the wedding, so can probably recommend some good locations.

Registration in a Break Into Voice-Overs class through Discover U. I've been told by folks in acting and radio that I've got a good voice for voice-over work, and it would be interesting to pursue this. I've wanted to take this class for a while now, but have never actually gotten around to signing up for it.

Of course, if you wanted to buy Sweetie and I a two-bathroom home we'd graciously accept the gift, and you would be exempt from any gift-giving requirements for many years to come. :)

I've been ogling some shoes over on Dansko's site recently (I'm a size 39):
These in cherry
These in probably plum, or maybe green. Yes, they are outrageous and will probably rarely be worn, but I thought the same thing about the patent red leather shoes when I bought them, and they're a wardrobe staple now. And I'm leaning towards the plum over the green because of the fuzzy green cow-print boots I have -- how many outrageous pairs of shoes in one color family can a girl own?
These in red crocprint. Because I own no crocodile print shoes. And that's a pity.

And then there are the old standards - gift certificates for CDs, spa services, or clothes. I specifically am not mentioning books, because Sweetie and I still have some gift certificates to spend from the wedding, so I think I'm good there.

Man, I'm looking like a big consumerist right now, aren't I? But several people have specifically asked me what I want for Christmas this year, and now they know the answer and have a wide array of items to choose from. Of course, anything they might choose for me I'm sure I'll adore. Except my mother MUST buy me a Pez dispenser or I will cry. I haven't received a Pez dispenser since last Christmas, so it's as if no holidays have happened.

Love,

Swankette

Couch Surfing

2005-12-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

When selecting a couch for my home I have only one mandatory requirement; I must be able to lie down and comfortably take a nap on the couch.

I first came to this conclusion the summer between high school and college. I was working I was working 6 am - 2:30 pm at Target, and would come home and take a nap on the family room couch before squandering the night away with friends. Naps are better on couches, as your body then knows that it's a temporary sleep, and reacts appropriately.

This couch followed me to my college apartments, and served me well. Kaphine once spent a night on the couch before she and I were officially friends. The couch was abandoned upon graduation, as when my parents allowed me to move it out of the childhood home they forbid it's ever returning (it was a brown, patterned, 1970's couch that had really seen better days).

From there it was couches brought to the housing unit by the roommate, or the futon that was no longer needed as a bed. Even when I lived in Seattle in an apartment that couldn't have been any more than 500 square feet I managed to fit the futon couch into the equation.

The current couch was a Christmas present from my parents in 1999. I knew I was getting a couch for Christmas that year, but hadn't started shopping for it yet. Then I got a call from my Mom one day at work:

Mom: "What are you doing for lunch today?"
Me: "I don't know, why?"
Mom: "You need to go to Meier and Frank and pick out a couch."

Mom had found a coupon, and it was the one day of the month that seniors got an automatic discount, which meant that if I selected a couch on that day I got WAY more couch for the money.

It's truly a wonderful couch. It's comfortable to nap on in normal couch mode, but the back cushions are removable and when you take them off it feels like a twin bed it's so darn wide. I was very thankful when the delivery men brought it into my apartment, as they had to cantilever it over a balcony to get it into the apartment. When I moved from the Tri-Cities we had to lower it over the deck, rather than carrying it down the stairs.

I became more thankful for the couch after living with Sweetie for a spell, while the couch sat in storage. He only had a love seat. I had a hard enough time with the love seat, I don't know how he managed it with his 6'3" frame. But when I moved into my home I was reunited with the couch.

And over the past year the couch has vaulted to epic status. When one of us is sick we can sleep on the couch, so as not to pass the flu to the other while we sleep. And after spending 10 minutes yesterday morning climbing out of bed due to my back being tweaded out of shape, a night on the couch (which is much firmer than the bed, and does not allow one to thrash about while sleeping), and I'm improving by leaps and bounds.

Oh, I love my couch. Although I did enter the sweepstakes to win the old couch from The Daily Show. If we win that, this couch is totally history.

The Saga Continues

2005-11-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

The crooks were smokers. So now my car smells like a used ashtray. Driving to work this morning with a garbage back for a window helped air things out a bit, but it's going to take some work to get the odor to dissapear.

So I'm condemned to a silent, stinky car for the time being. I think I'll be paying to have my car professionally detailed once I get done clearing everything off the floor and back into the glove box, side pockets, etc.

I believe one of my gloves was stolen, or is hiding from me. In exchange, the crooks left some body powder in the back seat of my car. Not sure what it's for or why they left it, but there it is. I'll be passing this information along to the officer when I call him with my stereo information tomorrow, and perhaps he can illuminate me.

The broken window has been replaced. And the window repair guy also vaccuumed up all the broken glass from the back seat and trunk. So my procrastination in that regard paid off. He also pointed out that the molding to the window is cracked, which does not immediately matter but should be replaced. So there's another call to the insurance company. Hopefully the place that is fixing the trim can also fix this.

This is turning into an huge headache. At least when you get into an accident you just need to get the car to the repair shop and pay the deductible. The professionals take care of the rest. But this is more an ongoing process.

And I promise to start blogging about other things soon. The back pain is starting to subside a bit. For now, that's just overwhelming the brain.

Diapers and Chains and CDs, OH MY!

2005-11-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's almost 12 hours later and the break-in is still annoying as hell.

The crooks didn't take the CD's I accused them of stealing, they were simply piled under a bunch of other crap. They did, however, take my chains. According to the officer I filed my police report with, chains never get stolen. So I'm special like that. It may actually save us $50 on the deductible -- I had bought the chains right after I got the car and never used them, but was too lazy to return them to Les Schwab. It sounds like the insurance company will just credit the cost of the chains towards my deductible, so if I don't replace them, we'll just pocket that cash for now.

But here's the really wacky part. I mentioned in my earlier post that it appeared there might be things in my car that did not belong to me. When the officer was out filing my report, he was digging through the crap in my car, and discovered that my gut reaction was correct. There were three adult diapers, unused, sitting on top of the crap that had been unloaded onto the passenger seat floor. The officer had never seen anything like this before, either. The only thing he could think was they used them to somehow assist in the breaking of the windows. I don't know, but I'm just thankful they aren't used.

In other good news, Sweetie carpooled to work today, so I was able to use his car to get to work and back. I'd really rather not drive a car with one window missing in freezing weather (although I get the honor tomorrow, since the glass replacement people will be coming to my office to get it done). In not-so-good news, somewhere in all of the drama and stress of this morning I tweaked my back, so I've been limping around all day and can barely stand to move.

I Don't Like Mondays

2005-11-28T07:49:00.000-08:00

I'm batting two for two right now when it comes to work and Monday mornings. Last week I was sick, and this week my car got broken into, so I sit at home and wait for the police officer to arrive to file a report (He's at a neighbors right now, so I guess it's just a matter of waiting for him to be done with that police report).

The far back window was broken, a piece of trim on the opposite side of the car was ripped off, the stereo was stolen, as were two CD's, and much crap was strewn about the car. It looks like there may be crap that doesn't belong to me strewn about the car, but I haven't really dug into it. I'll let the police officer do that. I just looked superficially enough to report to the insurance company.

Interestingly, the leather gloves, the 17 other CD's in my car, and the $50 in Starbuck's cards were not stolen. Guess the crooks don't like coffee.

So now, for a few hundred dollars worth of damage and a $500 deductible I will get an endless array of crap. First, we've got the time consumed with calling insurance companies and police officers and all that fun stuff. There will be time taken to clean out the car, I am sure. And then there are three, yes count them, THREE, different organizations that I will need to coordinate with to fully process my insurance claim. One agency will replace my auto glass (tomorrow at work, so unless the police officer tells me something different it looks like I'll get to be white trash for a day and drive around with a garbage bag for a window), one just to take care of the piece of trim that was removed, and a third to replace the stereo and CD's. Brand-freaking-new CD's that I had just bought on Saturday.

Worst of all is, since it happened at home, now I feel sort of invaded. Like, how am I going to feel safe leaving my car out at night? I don't want to have to go through this crap again. I want a house with a garage. Or maybe a limo with a driver, so I'm not responsible for the automobile at all.

Man, this sucks.

The Pie Crust Manifesto of 2005

2005-11-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make - pie crust has always been one of those things that kinda scared me and I've never really done well. I chalk it up to the fact that the first pie crust I made was for the gargantuan pie plate, and at the time I didn't realize it was a gargantuan pie plate. So I made a standard recipie and made it fit.

Now, for those of you at home who aren't bakers, or who don't know about gargantuan pie plates, let's take a mathematical tangent. Your standard pie plate is 9" in diameter and 1" deep. So you need an 11" round circle of pie crust to fit the plate (9+1+1). The area of a circle is pie times the radius squared, so 5.5^2 * 3.14. Let's estimate and say 36 * 3 = 108 square inches of pie crust. Gargantuan pie plate is 12" in diameter and 2" deep. So a 16" round circle of pie crust. 8^2 * 3.14, so 65*3 = 195 square inches of pie crust. Or approximately 90 MORE square inches of pie crust are needed.

You can imagine my pain, and the thinness of the crust, that first time out making pie. Once I realized that it's about twice as much crust, I just made a double crust recipie and carried on fine. It was always merely adequate, but I figured that if I just made a spectacular filling no one would ever notice whether or not the crust was flaky.

Today I had the task ahead of me to make 4 pie crusts - two for the gargantuan pie, and two for the standard apple pie (top and bottom). Your standard pie crust recipie makes 2 crusts, but I wasn't sure if you could just double the recipie and call it good. Pie crust toes a very fine line between dry flour that won't stick together and a big lump of play doh. Finding that exact spot is the secret to a good pie crust.

My DESIRE was to just double the recipie, as I've got enough on my plate tonight that I'd rather not have to go through the process twice. So I did what any good cook does in this situation and called my Mommy. Her concern was that with that much flour it would be very easy to make a big mess of things. In other words, "I don't want play doh for pie crust, girl." That was my concern, too. Damn, this wasn't going to be easy.

But I'm stubborn, and pressed for time, and decided to just plow ahead with it and make them all in one big bowl. And darn if it wasn't the easiest pie crust ever to make. It's chilling in the fridge right now awaiting filling, so I may come back and change my tune later, but I think I found that perfect balance this time around. With all that extra flour to work with I think it actually gave me a larger margin of error when adding the water, and thus the secret was discovered.

A couple of other notes from the kitchen front:

1. A pumpkin the size of Charlie Brown's head will provide EXACTLY enough pumpkin for a gargantuan pie. No soup or muffins or ravioli for us unless I want to go through the roasting process again.

2. In response to Shannin's comment regarding my going shopping this afternoon for supplies: It wasn't so much BRAVE as it was GOT SICK FOR TWO DAYS AND DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO DO IT SOONER. However, I made it through the store without incident, and almost came away entirely unscathed. Then one of the free valets the store was providing to help allieviate traffic (which I didn't have to take advantage of) made me take a VERY slow route through the parking lot under the guise that it would be faster.

Gobble, Gobble

2005-11-23T01:03:00.000-08:00

Let's take a look at the House of Swank schedule for the next few days:

Wednesday - work until 4 pm (after about 6 hours sleep due to the insomnia). Grocery shop on the way home. Bake 2-3 pies. (2 pies, but since one is double standard size it takes almost double standard cooking time). Clean house and prepare "guest room." Do laundry and pack for long weekend in Portland. Prepare necessary rations for cat to survive a long weekend home alone. Pick up Kaphine and Realsupergirl up at the airport at midnight.

Thursday - drive to Portland (3 hours). Gorge on stuffing. And turkey and mashed potatoes and all that other stuff, but Thanksgiving at my mom's house is just a large production to justify me getting lots and lots and lots of stuffing. Seriously, if I could talk my mom into buying a 50 lb. turkey I'd totally do it and not eat any of the turkey, but be living off of stuffing for DAYS.

Friday - Thanksgiving was all about the eating, so Leftover Day shall be all about the drinking. Going on a wine tour with a good friend and his family. Which I think means anyone they've ever met, or the friends and family of those people. (My parents are coming, and although they've met my friend, they have not met anyone else in his family, unless you include his wife). The first winery we are visiting that day is located next door to his parents' house and is opening special just for us. When the day gets started on that kind of note, you know it's going to be a good one.

Saturday - Re-discover what I look like with really short hair. I won't know until the haircut actually starts what the final haircut will look like (since my hair is pulled back in a ponytail when measuring the requisite 10" to go, I'm having a tough time visualizing what will be left and what will become of it.) It has the potential to be the shortest it's been since my senior year of college. When I almost gave a friend a heart attack for getting gobs cut off over Christmas vacation without warning anyone. Thankfully, a friend who knew me longer got him into shape. "Dude, that's Swankette, that's what she does." After the haircutting will be the partying in honor of Kaphine and Realsupergirl. Given that many Portland friends will be in attendance at the formal event, I would not be surprised if partying continued on of an informal variety after the fact.

Sunday - Sales-tax free shopping. Stealth detective missions. And getting home at a reasonable hour so Sweetie and I can make it to work on Monday without feeling the pain.

I know I owe an Amazing Race post, and I'm sure there will be much to blog about over the weekend, but there may not be the time to do so.

So enjoy your holidays, however you choose to celebrate them (both Thanksgiving and Leftover Day.) Get lots of triptophan in your system, and just snooze through the weekend. I'm sure I'll be back next week with scads of stories to tell.

The Go (Almost) Anywhere Snack

2005-11-21T20:36:00.000-08:00

Sweetie bought me some pudding cups to help me through the illness yesterday. This evening I noticed that on the lid it says, "refrigerate when at home."

So, apparently I can take them to the office, or camping, or anywhere else without worry of spoilage, as long a I don't bring them home. And it's even a bit unclear as to if I only need to refrigerate them at my OWN home, or if they also need to be refrigerated when at ANY home.

Who knew a dairy product could be so versatile? And I wonder what it is about home that requires refrigeration.

Taunting My Mother

2005-11-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

The pumpkin that will become the gargantuan pie is currently in the oven roasting it's little heart out.

De-gutting pumpkins for Halloween is fun, part of the experience. The guts are ooky, icky, Halloweeny type things. De-gutting pumpkins for Thanksgiving pie has to be one of the ickier kitchen actvities out there. At least there's a gargantuan pie and roasted seeds to be won out of the deal.

The taunting my mother bit is the fact that I'm roasting the pumpkin to make the pie. Mom's pies always came straight out of the can. And her whipped cream was of the aerosol variety. Mom tried to make whipped cream once, but it turned into butter. She shares this story every year when I'm whipping the cream for the pie on Thanksgiving.

But as much as I tease and taunt my Mom about her cooking, I think it was, in part, my family that gave me my love of cooking. My teen years were tumultuous ones, and the family was more spread apart than brought together. But we pretty much always had dinner together, with no TV. It may not have been a fancy dinner, but it was nutritious and, with the exception of the one time she made liver and served it under dim lights to fool us that it might be tasty, was tasty, too. Sometimes it was very quiet, brooding, and tense, but at least we had that time together.

And Thursday so it shall be again. The brother has been going through a tough time lately, so it might be of the tense variety, but we'll be sitting there eating, and for at least a short while everything will be good in my world as I'm shoveling Mom's stuffing into my face as fast as I can.

98.6

2005-11-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

I spent all day yesterday and a chunk of this morning being sick. I'm not running a fever right now, which might be partly due to the Tylenol, but yesterday even with Tylenol I was running a slight temperature, so I'm considering this a victory.

It's making me feel really good I didn't spend too much time fawning over the newborn at the shower we were at Saturday night... I'd feel really guilty if I got a 6 day old sick.

And, of course it has to kick in before I've got sick leave at work. Oh well, such is life. If anything, it will kick me in the butt and make me go get a flu shot for this year. I'm not looking forward to re-living last February's week of misery.

Shopgirl

2005-11-19T15:30:00.000-08:00

Sweetie and I went to see the movie Shopgirl last night. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

Normally, I avoid movies based on books that I have enjoyed. I'm still in denial that I spent two hours of my life watching Simon Birch, but I really didn't realize that a movie based on my favorite book could be so horribly, horribly bad.

In fact, prior to last night, the ONLY time the movie equalled the book was High Fidelity, and if that movie had sucked I would have just spent two hours drooling over John Cusack, so that being an enjoyable movie was really just a nice bonus.

But enough about that, back to Shopgirl. I loved the book, so was very wary when I heard it was being made into a movie. Especially with Steve Martin playing the part of Ray Porter. (I had always pictured Porter as more a Ray Liotta type.), but the central character of the movie, and the make-it or break-it casting is the character of Mirabelle. She's simultaneously very simple and very complex, and her physical presence is a very important part of her character. An impossible part to cast, but it was cast brilliantly with Claire Danes fitting the bill, and she did not dissapoint.

From the opening credits, I knew this movie would be a winner. In fact, there were a few moments in the movie that really help enhance the story for me, and brought out things I hadn't noticed about the story before. Especially fun was one scene in which Ray Porter and Jeremy are simultaneously eating dinner. I don't want to tell you any more, because it will give it away.

The other thing I wish to commend this story on is it's dealing with depression. Mirabelle is on anti-depressants, but at one point in the movie, feeling happy and life seemingly in-check, she stops them. Results are not good. Which is very common for those who suffer from mental illnes. Those who suffer from depression will stop taking their meds because they are feeling so happy, and then falling into a deep pit of despair. But their guilt that they aren't just happy prevents them from getting back on the meds. I liked seeing this in a movie, because so many people seem to think that mentally illness can magically be cured just by taking a pill, but it's much more complicated than that.

So go see the movie. You won't be dissapointed.

Capitalism Cures Education

2005-11-19T15:01:00.000-08:00

My Sweetie has been spending a lot of time lately fuming about the state of education in America today, and plotting a revolution to fix it. Don't believe me? Just look here or here. (Although it could be worse, he could be blathering on about beaming technology.)

Last night I came up with the solution, and here it is:

1) All education funds need to be collected and dispersed at the state level. This will help provide resources to the poorer areas that need the funds. It will also help communities with people who are unwilling to support school levies because they don't have school children. (Not sure if this still applies, but at one point my father refused to vote for any ballot measure that necessitated an increase in taxes. His kids were well out of school, he didn't care what it did for education.)

It will still behoove those who care about a good school in their neighborhood to vote in increased funding, as some of the funds will make it to their neighborhood.

2) One person will be ultimately in charge of dispersing these funds to the schools around the state. Outside of their standard wage they will have two items that can earn them bonuses: If all students within the state are performing equally on the standardized test du jour (I'm not in favor of standardized tests, but we can only do so much change at once, so we'll try to use them for good instead of evil right now) they will get big bonuses. The bigger the disparity between the highest and lowest scores, the smaller the bonus. Now they are incentivized to get all students on an equal level. Also, they will be bonused based on the highest scores of students in the states - the higher the scores, the bigger the bonus. This will incentivize them to have all students to extraordinarily well, rather than just bring the top students down to the lowest common denominator.

3) You won't be able to switch schools without moving to that schools neighborhood. There may be small (like 2-3 high schools) areas that are consolidated and allow movement, but not large districts. Also, under no scenario shall vouchers be provided for private/charter/whatever you want to call them non-public schools. You can send your kid to a private school, but you're still paying into the public school fund.

Here's how I imagine this working:

Let's use two different high schools for our scenario: Yuppie High, the well-funded, well-performing suburban high school full of whites that everyone wants their kid to attend, and Slum High, the under-funded, under-performing inner-city high school full of minorities that no one wants to set foot near.

initially, a disproportionately large amount of resources will need to be funded to Slum High to bring those students up to speed. They'll bribe the best teachers there, get good equipment, current textbooks, let's bring those kids up to speed. Now, some of those parents of Yuppie High students may want their kids to attend Slum High, so their kid can get in on all the action. Now we're starting to force some economic diversity on the place. The Yuppie high families that are moving into the area to get in on that good education, and the Slum high families that don't have the ability to move out.

Now Slum High starts moving up in the rankings, so the funds have to get sent off to Smith High, then Jones High, then whatever else high. Most parents aren't going to be able to move every year to get in on the local best-available school, so they'll accept what they have locally and get on with their lives.

Sweetie posed the following scenario to me after I told him my plan: All the parents at Yuppie High band together and, instead of moving to Slum High start their own private school to buy the best education money can buy. I say more power to them! The amount of money available for education won't change, but now we've got fewer students to deal with, which means we've got more money per student. Now the public schools can have smaller class sizes, and afford to pay teachers more, which means that the private school is going to have to pay EVEN MORE, and now it's becoming AWFULLY expensive for these students to attend their private school. The more students that withdraw from the system, the better off it leaves those students left in the system.

So it won't solve all our problems, and it will take a while to see the big changes, but I think it just might work.

Joke Time

2005-11-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

Today my boss shared the following joke with our department:

Q: What does Bush think of Roe vs. Wade?

A: He doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans

OK, I've heard the joke before, perhaps more than once, and it's one that gets less funny every time you hear it, but dang if I didn't want to jump up and hug her and celebrate the fact that I am no longer the office communist for having left-leaning tendencies.

HOW did I ever survive in my last job for three years? Oh yeah, the money was good. But just take a look:

At the previous job stilettos were common, cars in the parking lot were Lexuses (Lexi?), and your worth was judged by how many e-mails you received a minute... a blackberry was the ultimate accessory.

At the new job Clarks are more the norm, people drive Subarus, and I've received 10 e-mails in my two days there. Nine of those were all staff e-mails.

Oh yeah, life is good.

14 years, 364 days to go

2005-11-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

I've successfully completed my first day of "work." I say "work" because most of my day consisted of being introduced to people whose names I wouldn't remember if you paid me and learning where all the important places are - Starbucks, Walgreens, Ivars, place that sells good fish tacos...

In meeting all the random people and learning lots of things, it was discovered that 15 years seems to be the shelf-life at my agency, so the clock has now started ticking.

I did a few random clerical things today, and wrote some bad headlines for the newspaper we publish, one of which I believe is going to be used in the upcoming paper. I kept being asked what questions I've got, because apparently "What's my job?" isn't enough.

I also learned that there are more ways than I ever could have imagined to mis-pronounce my new last name, and I think I heard all of them today.

18 Hours and Counting

2005-11-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

As of 7:30 am tomorrow morning I will, once again, be a working woman and I AM SO READY!!!

I need stress and deadlines to motivate me. For the past two weeks I've had nothing but time spreading ahead of me. I've gotten some productive stuff done in that time - car was in for service yesterday, got some needed gifts bought and some work done around the house - but if I'd used my time wisely I could have done so much more. With it being two weeks I didn't even feel I really had time to get involved with volunteer work or anything like that.

It's kind of odd to be starting work on a Thursday, but I'm thinking it will work out really well. Tomorrow is orientation and Friday is training. Next week is a three day week, so it gives me some time to ease myself back into a full work week.

The schedule will start out being 7:30 to 4:00. The morning I had an 8 am interview I was able to wake up right around the time Sweetie was leaving the house and get their around 7:30, so that will put Sweetie and I in a more closely matching schedule than when I was doing the 8:30 - 5:30 thing. I already have a routine worked out in my head - on my way home from work I'll make a loop stopping at the grocery store, then at the gym, and should still be able to make it home by 6:00 or shortly thereafter, which means I might actually have some time in the evenings to do stuff after dinner. We'll see how it plays out.

Next week will be insanity, so I know I'll get lots of stuff done. Monday I need to cook down the pumpkin, Tuesday we're having a games night with Sweetie's family since his little sister will be in town, and Wednesday I'll be baking my heart out awaiting picking up Kaphine and Realsupergirl at the airport at midnight so that the four of us can road-trip it to Portland Thanksgiving morning. Unless, of course, they never send me their travel itinerary. I'm not going to stalk them at the airport like I did in preparation for the wedding. (HINT, HINT, HINT!)

Oh, so exciting to enter the real world once again.

And So It Begins...

2005-11-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the fine upbringing of my mother, I am genetically incapable of beginning the holiday celebrations prior to Thanksgiving. But once we're past turkey day, watch out!

However, the holidays don't really start with the most fabulous feast of the year. They start when you buy the food for the most fabulous feast of the year. And today I purchased a beautiful pumpkin that will sacrifice itself for a wonderful pie. Sugar pie pumpkins were on sale through today, and I didn't want to miss out on that.

But I think my eyes have been a bit larger than even my ginourmous pie plate. The pumpkin weighs in at 7 pounds. So if anyone has any suggestions on what to do with cooked down pumpkin, I'd appreciate it.

One Man's Trash

2005-11-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

The last few days I've been particulary negligent in trying to keep the car clean, with the knowledge that I would be taking the car in for service today and they would vaccuum up all the cough drop wrappers, pumpkin seeds and other detritus that had made it's way to the floor.

Well, the car got vaccuumed but the cough drop wrappers got picked up and placed on the passenger seat, as if they were something valuable you wouldn't dare want vaccuumed up. The pumpkin seeds got shoved under the passenger seat. And they didn't even fish out the car stereo remote that always seems to get hidden away in a nook or cranny somehwere. I mean, they ALWAYS find the remote! It's part of what keeps me going in for service on a regular basis - at least I'll find the remote again.

But I was adquately inspired once I got home, and got the crap cleaned out of the car and found the remote. May even break out the Armor-All later today.

Stranded

2005-11-14T22:08:00.000-08:00

I have discovered a new television program that, if you have the Travel Channel, you really must check out. I seem to tune in every week once Monday Night Football is over, and it's slowly becoming an addiction. It's also vaguely educational, so I don't even have to consider it a guilty pleasure. The show: Stranded With Cash Peters.

Disclaimer: I was first introduced to Cash as a contributor to The Savvy Traveler on NPR and his voice is one I fell instantly in love with. He is one of those radio broadcasters (along with Sarah Vowell and Kristian Foden-Vencil) that, when I hear his voice, I will stop and listen to the story and be interested in it regardless of the topic. That makes me a total sucker for this show, but I till love it.

Anyhow, the basic premise of the show is that Cash gets dropped somewhere for 24 hours with just the clothes on his back. Frequently he is dropped outside of the town, so actually needs to find the place to start his journey. He then spends the episode meeting locals and participating in local culture. It is also helpful to know that he is a self-proclaimed sissy.

The local culture often seems to involve extreme-type sports. In part because I'm sure the folks who are into extreme sports are the types who would befriend a stranger with no money and a camera man. ALL the episodes I've seen have involved copious drinking.

His discovery, and mix of joy, trepidation, and mockery of the local culture is just so much fun to watch! I'm pretty sure that his stumbling into people is at least partly staged, but it's staged so well that you can allow yourself to believe that it's 100% off the cuff. If it ISN'T staged at all, then I'm going to give Sweetie a camera and we're going to start traveling the globe in the name of television, as the generosity of the strangers Cash encounters really is extraordinary.

Check out an episode, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

This Is So Sweet It May Give You Cavities

2005-11-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

This morning Sweetie had to undergo a procedure that required him to be sedated at the local medical clinic (all is well, so no worries there). When I went back to meet him in recovery he immediately asked for his glasses, which were in his shoes. The nurse said, "Oh, you don't need to read anything now, so that can wait until you get dressed." His reponse,

"No, I want to be able to see my wife."

Totally makes up for the fact that we had one conversation about 20 times today, due to a lack of short-term memory as a result of the sedation,

Decisions, Decisions

2005-11-14T20:12:00.000-08:00

The world's most boring commute begins on Thursday --20 miles, and I only have to turn my steering wheel 5 times.

To while the time away I shall, at the onset, listen to radio dramas featuring a friend of the family that have been sitting on the shelf waiting for me to listen to them. From there I will go onto the books on CD that have been passed along to me that are not worthy of a 3 hour drive to Portland, but likely are worthy for a 30 minute stretch. From there, who knows...

But the question now is WHICH radio drama to listen to first. Here are the choices:

Billy the Kid
Pro: He plays Billy the Kid, giving me LOTS of opportunity to go "Hey, I know him"
Con: I'm not really a western fan.

Little Women
Pro: I'm a big fan of Louisa May Alcott, and Little Women in particular
Con: He plays the part of Laurie, which is really a supporting-actor type part, so less "Hey, I know him" opportunity.

If it matters, Billy the Kid is 1 CD, and Little Women is 4. I presume all CDs are of approximately equal length, but I could be completely wrong on that.

On the Soccer Mom Fast Track

2005-11-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

I'm discovering the toughest thing about being maried is the major shift it has caused to my life's priorities.

Once upon a time I was a city girl, a northwest, turn-of-the-millenium Mary Tyler Moore. I had an OK job, a swank apartment, a little red sportscar that would get me from here to there. I would spend weekends hanging out with friends, or doing my own thing, always living large. If I wanted to eat nothing but cheetos for a day I could. I could go out for drinks after work without having to call home first. And when the work party broke up it was OK to continue the party elsewhere with friends. And when that bar shut down we could continue elsewhere, until last call of the night. No desire to go home early, because the cat could really care less if I made it or not. The biggest concern was the amount of time it would take to retrieve the car the next day, since after 6 hours at the bars I was probably not in the best shape to drive.

It was sad when and idiot running a red-light resulted in the destruction of the sports car, especially since the time and money available to find a replacement resulted in the purchase of a Nissan Sentra. When I named him "Yoshi the Yuppiemobile" it was in mockery. And even in my four-door sedan I could live the wild and crazy single girl lifestyle that had suited me just fine.

But now that there's another person in my life, my priorities have changed. I live in a condo in the suburbs, opting to drive into the city for fun rather than sacrifice my life and my Sweetie's life commuting. I am more likely to eat at a Red Robin or Outback Steakhouse at a strip mall than some cute little bistro in the funky neighborhood in-town. I drive a Subaru Forester now.

Add a kid and I'm your standard issue 2005 soccer mom.

And the scary thing is - I'm loving every minute of it! Because I've got my Sweetie by my side. I still find myself thinking single-girl thoughts sometimes. The fall air kicks it into overdrive. There was something about being a single girl in Portland in the fall that was especially magical. The chill in the air would necessitate coats and hats and gloves, but it would still occassionally be clear enough that you could spend an evening wandering down Hawthorne or Trendy-Third or some other local area to grab drinks, dinner, dessert, coffee, just poke your nose into store windows, that was exquisite.

But then I find myself snapped back to reality, and discover I don't miss that anymore. I'm perfectly happy to start making vacation plans based on the future possibility of children (current vacations plans are things we would like to do that are not infant-friendly, and those that do accomodate a little one well will wait a few years so that we can continue to vacate once there is a little one in tow). We're starting to plan where we will live next, from the city to the school district to the numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms available, based on the emergency of a child or children into our lives, and our desire to have one parent stay at home until the kids are in school.

NEVER in my single-girl days did such ideas cross my mind. Sure, I wanted a man in my life, and desired to get married someday on some level, but I never actively worked that into the "future" I had laid out in front of me. I'd sooner have lost a limb than considered living in suburbia.

But here I am, and I'm loving it. I've been playing housewife for the past couple of weeks (without even a job search to occupy my days), and if it were economically feasible I'd totally stay at home and cater to my family all day long.

It's as if that small band of gold around my finger has sparked a genetic change in me. I'm still an independent woman, and it's not like I'm tied into historically subservient gender roles - not only am I cooking and cleaning, but doing the home maintenance as well, but I truly do enjoy this. =

If Martha hadn'at already claimed the throne, I'd wish I could turn this into a paying gig. Or maybe I can - Post-modern Martha anyone?

Clarification

2005-11-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

In my previous entry I indicated what I would do if I won $100 million in the lottery. I neglected to mention that I have a deal with my parents where they get 10% of any lottery winnings I have over $1,000 (and I get 10% of their winnings), so I would have a mere $90 million to spend.

My mother actually e-mailed me about it. I knew that was part of the deal, but that's not so much money being "spent" as it is a split of the money available to me.

That's What Friends Are For

2005-11-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

I'm tired from hanging with the niece and nephew all morning, and Kaphine's been having a rough time lately and mentioned the House of Swank in her answers, so how can I resist being tagged with this meme:

Five songs I know all the words to:
1. Kiss Off (Violent Femmes)
2. Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes)
3. Add it Up (Violent Femmes)
4. In My Life (The Beatles)
5. Stickshifts and Safetybelts (Cake)

Five snacks:
1. Satsuma Oranges
2. Pretzels
3. Nachos
4. Hummus
5. Spinach Dip

Five things I woud do with $100 million:
(which I plan on winning this evening with my Mega Millions ticket)
1. Buy a house
2. Buy a convertible
3. Spend a baseball season going to all the major league teams, and as many minor league teams as we can manage with #2
4. Buy a Northwest League baseball team (preferably Eugene Emeralds, but perhaps Everett Aquasox)
5. Start a foundation to help improve education in America.

Five places I would run away to:
1. Mom and Dad's house
2. The beach just south of the bridge in Newport, Oregon.
3. Powell's Books
4. My car, at night
5. Waimea, Kauai

Five things I would never wear:
1. Stilettos
2. String Bikini
3. Ugg Boots
4. Fake Nails
5. Piercings somewhere other than my ears

Five favorite TV shows
1. The Amazing Race
2. Survivor
3. The Daily Show
4. The Colbert Report
5. West Wing

Five greatest joys:
1. Getting to spend my life with TRP
2. Making a wonderful meal for people I love
3. Feeling intelligent
4. Christmas Season
5. Climbing between clean sheets

Five favorite toys:
1. Samson
2. Sweetie
3. Cuisinart Food Processor (since I haven't used the Kitchen Aid or Ice Cream Maker yet)
4. Psychic Baseball
5. Paul the Giraffe

People who's answers I'd like to read:
Anyone who chooses to answer.

Gossip Girl

2005-11-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

Am I the only person who needs to budget extra time when she goes to the dentist so she has adequate time to chat with the hygenists? It's going to be even worse over the next year, as one of them just got engaged to a former co-worker of mine.

I Think He Does Preposterous Things Just So I'll Blog About Them

2005-11-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

I was in the kitchen preparing lunch, and the cat came in and DEMANDED that I leave so that he could have something to eat. And yes, I could tell from the way he was yelling at me what it was he wanted.

I suppose even a cat deserves his fifteen minutes of fame.

In Which I Admit I Should Have Listened

2005-11-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

While in high school I became enamored with the social sciences. I'm sure that was, in large part, due to my school's social science department, who were all these aging hippie types. One was teaching in Watts during the riots, another spent his summers living in a tent on another's property. A third was so scatterbrained we would never be able to read the overhead projector because it was pointing on the ceiling and sometimes he would stop talking mid-thought and just sit and ponder for a few minutes - it had to be from all the LSD he dropped in the 60's. They were also all incredibly intelligent. Even the younger ones fit into the culture of the department.

My friends and I, we were the educated rebels. Most of us didn't drink, we weren't rampantly screwing, we wouldn't break the rules, but would just push them to their breaking point. We explored impeaching our student body president (but gave up when we realized he would have a 2/3 vote in whether or not he was impeached), tried to get a dog elected to the homecoming court, and our most splendid accomplishment was when we ran Wil Wheaton for student body president. According to a friend on student council who helped count the votes he probably would have won had they been allowed to count those votes. (That stunt was a statement about the stupidity of the system that allowed outgoing seniors to have a vote on who would be student body president for the following year)

Is it any surprise that come graduation my goal was to be a high school social sciences teacher and debate coach?

Not to say there weren't other teachers who earned our love. Our pre-calculus teacher, Mr. McQueen, was the one who was bestowed with the April Fool's Day prank (in which we moved his ENTIRE classroom out onto the track).

Science teachers, in general, were outside of our radar. Might have something to do with the fact that the head Chemistry teacher at our school was more interested in jokes and analogies than actually teaching chemistry and our AP Biology teacher was a complete moron. (Here is a complete list of what I learned in AP Biology: Depeche Mode was playing a second concert in Portland and tickets were still available).

So when I got to my senior year Physics class with Ms. Clement, odds were strongly against her. As science classes went I enjoyed it. I was good at it. But I was a social sciences kind of girl.

One week I was going to be gone to a debate tournament during Physics, and we were having a lab in class that day. Because Ms. Clement's free period coincided with the period I was a TA (for a social science teacher, of course), it was arranged that she would do the lab privately for me so I wouldn't miss it. The 45 minute lab took about 15 minutes since I didn't have to ask lots of stupid questions along the way and have her repeat things multiple times. So she spent a good chunk of time after that trying to convince me that I should study Physics in college. Or if not Physics, one of the hard sciences.

But I would have nothing to do with that. I was a social scientist! History was my thing! No hard sciences for me!

Life moved on. My freshman year of college most of my friends were physics or engineering majors, and I realized that it wasn't such a bad path to take after all. And after my freshman year of college I was a social scientist no more. Had Ms. Clement informed me of the fact that hard scientists could get PAID to go to school I might have listened a little more closely to her.

Now, it's not that I regret my decisions in life, but I often wonder what if? And if I were forced to go back in life and change one decision I'd made, it would be that day with Ms. Clement, sitting at the lab table, I may have listened to what she had to say a little more closely and considered it a little more seriously. Because just because it isn't what you have in mind right now, doesn't mean it's not a very good thing indeed.

This story has a connection to modern day events, but I'm going to let you just chew on this for a bit and post the rest later.

Now I've Seen Everything

2005-11-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

My cat just stuck is tongue out at me.

And I wasn't even doing anything to piss him off.

I Almost Made Her Head Explode

2005-11-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

I don't think that I'm a difficult customer. I generally allow people a lot of slack. And when they are being idiots, I don't rip them a new one there on the spot. I come on my blog and tell the world about it, instead.

But yesterday, while shopping at Target, I think I pushed one of their employees to the edge.

It was a simple enough task - I was purchasing a baby gift for some friends. The shower isn't for a couple of weeks, but while I've got all this time to fill it seems a good thing to get checked off the to-do list. On the registry list was a coupon for money off a card if you purchased something off the registry, which seemed a good thing to take advantage of.

When I unloaded my items on the conveyor belt, I also included a copy of the registry. In the international language of consumer this means, "I have purchased something off of a registry. You should remove the item from the registry and provide me with a gift receipt. If you are a store that boxes up packages, that would be nice as well. But this it Target, you don't do that, so no worries there." I KNOW this is what that means, because I have gone through this same exchange many, many times previously in my life. Earlier that day I was purchasing a different registry item and me and the cashier went through the exchange without a single difficulty.

So it comes to the end and she announces the total. But she hasn't scanned the coupon.

"There was a coupon on the registry for the card."

The cashier stands there for a second, just looking confused. "Oh, you mean this?" Indicating the registry I had put in front of her.

"Yes. It was on one of the pages."

She's just staring at the papers, as if willing the coupon to appear, so I pick them up and flip through the four pages to find the coupon and provide it to the cashier. She tries to scan it a few times.

"It won't scan." What did people ever do before scanners?

So I ask her, "What's the problem?"

She eventuall decides that she will just give me a discount off the couponed item through the register. But taking 50 cents off the $2.79 price was a bit too challenging, so she gave me 59 cents off the price.

Transaction complete, she hands me my receipt. No gift receipt. I thought at Target it was standard issue to give people a gift receipt. I've bought nothing other than a Diet Coke in the store before, because they didn't have what I was looking for, and they gave me a gift receipt. But when you're actually buying a gift, nope, no gift receipt here. So I dared to ask her for a gift receipt.

That's the moment I think her head almost exploded. It seemed a rather basic request to me.

But I got the gifts, including money off and gift receipt. I just hope the next person in line didn't ask her for a rain check. That would have totally thrown her over the edge.

The Amazing Race 8: Episode 7

2005-11-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

This was a two hour episode, with two pit-stops along the way (one non-elimination) and yet I am finding it hard to write two sentences about what transpired. They're back in the states, which means boring challenges, and I hate all the teams left, so it's more a question of who I'm rooting against rather than who I'm voting for.

And the team I was rooting against the hardest, the Paolos, were eliminated this week. Next week I'm rooting against the Weavers. They're two-faced and mean. They bad-mouth other teams, throw garbage at them when passing them out on the highway, then don't understand why the other teams don't like them. Yet supposedly no one likes them because they're such good Christians and they don't cuss. I'll be glad when they're out of the race.

As boring as this episode was, there are a couple of style points to be awarded:

1) At the first pit-stop the Paolos intercepted the Bransens before they made it onto the mat, and told them to go put all their clothes on, as they were definitely the last team to arrive and it may be a non-elimination leg (which it was).

2) One of the road-blocks was at a go-kart track which was, understandably, difficult for the Weavers. Mom played leader of the family and did the challenge, and the Godlewskis said encouraging things to the kids while mom was out there doing her laps.

Teams are positioned well to go to Vegas, which could lead to some very interesting challenges indeed. But given that 3/4 of the teams remaining have a player under the age of 21 it seems unlikely that they will go that way. How about a detour at the Bunny Ranch? That could be very entertaining.

Probably more entertaining than what we'll see next week. Yet here I'll be, blogging all about it.

President Obama

2005-11-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not the first person to say this, but I could totally get behind Barack Obama for President. Dude's smart, eloquent, and the light that glints of his ENORMOUS smile will hypnotize anyone who disagrees with him into submission.

Just Call Me Martha

2005-11-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

As I do every day I stopped at Whole Foods this afternoon to pick up supplies for dinner. Specifically, pork chops and mushrooms. The checker made a comment about pork chops and sauteed mushrooms for dinner tonight and I said, "Actually, mushroom risotto."

Her response, "Oh, you must be a really good cook!"

I mean, I like to THINK I'm a good cook, and folks have commented that I'm a good cook, but I never knew that the ability to make mushroom risotto is what qualified one as a good cook. In fact, I don't think I've ever made mushroom risotto before. It just seemed like it would go well with the pork chops and green beans that were on the menu.

Stone Me, Now

2005-11-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

Today I had a hot stone massage. It was a gift I had received last Christmas that I had never gotten around to using. The certificate expires in under a month, and I figured it would be easiest to take advantage of while I didn't have to work around a 7:30 - 4:00 schedule.

90 minutes of heaven.

This was not my first massage, but it was my first hot stone massage. I'm not sure if it was the type of massage, the masseuese, the fact that it was 90 minutes long, or the fact that I didn't think I had a lot of stress going into the thing, but it really was divine.

There are hot stones just sitting on you, or you're holding, during the whole thing and they just seem to draw all the ickiness out of you. And although I THOUGHT I was stress-free going in, there was definitely some stuff going on the masseuse had to work out of me, and she definitely had the skill to push me to the edge when working something out, then moving on to something else rather than just pounding on one spot until it killed me.

I got so relaxed I almost fell asleep. I was in that half sleep/half awake state where you're almost dreaming but are still kind of aware of everything that's going on around you.

And I will definitely be sleeping well tonight.

Why Do They Call It A Help Line???

2005-11-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

For the most part my interactions with employees of my bank are positive ones. People are friendly, nice and helpful. Except for the moron I caught on their phone help line this morning.

I was wishing to re-establish online banking. I don't recall my old login or password, and the e-mail address tied to the account was well out of date, so I called last night and they obliterated my old login and informed me that I could probably re-establish the account at that time, but it may be today before the old account was fully obliterated and the new account could start.

I tried to start up the account and hit a snag in one of the final steps in the process. I presumed it was the potential issue they had tried to warn me of, so left it at that. Tried again today, and got the same snag. It wasn't letting me past the disclaimer that you have to accept to log-in to your account. So I called the help line. They were helpful last night, so hopefully they will be helpful again this morning. Here's a synopsis of the phone call:

Her: Can I confirm your name and address please.

Me: Swankette, House of Swank.

Her: What can I do for you today?

Me: -- explain problem to her--

Her: OK, let me get some additional information from you to confirm your identity, if you don't mind?

Me: Not at all. (Last night they asked for a recent transaction I had made on one of the accounts. Easy enough)

Her: What is the month and year you opened one of your accounts?

Me: uh........................ what was that you just said?

Her: Month and year you opened one of your accounts?

You're kidding me, right? You think I have this stuff on record, or on top of my brain. I'm lucky that one of those accounts originated as the account with which to pay for the wedding, and we started it shortly after the engagement.

Me: The month or two after the engagement.

Her: Oh no, it looks like the website is down right now. If you try again in an hour it should work.

Me: Has the website been down since last night?

Her: No. It was working for the last caller I had.

Me: Then this problem is not a result of the website being down. Remember, I told you, it started last night.

Her: But the website is down right now.

Me: OK. Can we fix this anyhow, as I'd prefer to not have to call in again.

Her: The website is down, but you've got a login (tells me my login). I can create a password and e-mail it to you if you give me your e-mail address.

Me: Actually, I've got a login AND a password, since I've been telling you I've been logging into the site and it's just not letting me get to my information. I simply need to figure out why it won't let me past this screen.

Her: But the website is down right now.

Eventually, after more of the same, I convinced her to transfer me to someone with more technical knowledge than her (in other words, a rock). Turns out that there's a glitch with Firefox, so I had to login through Explorer to get past that screen, and now things are working just groovy now.

I don't like idiots. I don't like timewasters. And I REALLY don't like idiots who waste my time, especially when I'm trying to give them an out to get me to someone who knows what they're doing. But if they were smart enough to do that they wouldn't be idiots now, would they?

Following Directions

2005-11-07T07:20:00.000-08:00

This morning, while in the shower, I happened to read the directions on the back of my Herbal Essences shamoo:

Massage your hair under a waterfall and get lost in the sensuous lather. Linger in the lush fragrance and exotic pleasure. Rinse when ready.

Granted, a bit more exciting than "later, rinse, repeat," but I really don't want to have to drive to Snoqualmie Falls every morning just to take a shower. And in the winter I'm really not going to want to linger.

Maybe it's time to find a new shampo

License to Drive

2005-11-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

When I am Supreme Ruler of the Universe you will be required to have a special license in order to operate a grocery cart whilst doing your shopping. Here are the rules of the road:

When stopped to peruse an item on the shelf, park the cart as far to the side of the aisle as you can.
You shall never park your butt next to the cart in the aisle, thereby blocking all traffic from going through.
NO double parking allowed.
You are allowed, however, to step away from the cart. It can even be out of your site, and everything in it will remain safe (although I would recommend carrying your purse with you.)
That means it is NOT necessary to bring your cart into cramped aisles in the bread section, or all the way down the spice aisle that everyone is shopping on at this moment.
We're in the United States, so you must stay to the right of the aisle.
You are allowed into the left lane to pass, but ONLY to pass. If something catches your eye while in the midst of passing, you may park your cart further down the aisle, then walk back for perusing.
It is not bad manners for me to move your cart so as to reach a bottle of something on the shelf.
When lanes are merging it is first come first served, you do NOT get precedence because you have a basket rather than a cart.
You are not allowed to park your cart at a sampling station. You may grab while walking past, or park your cart on either side to go back and do the sampling.
You are not allowed to stop your cart, much less park your cart, at the intersection of aisles where much traffic moves through quickly. You must keep these area clear for moving carts.

Why is it that so many people have so much difficulty managing basic niceties of everyday life? If I'd had a brain in my head I would have done most of my grocery shopping yesterday, and just run into Whole Foods today to buy the lobster for Sweetie's lobster dinner (which was delayed due to illness, so tonight is the night). But NO, I want FRESH ingredients, and am doing a rather big production dinner including French onion soup and arugula salad, so I find myself surrounded by people who never go shopping and can't manage the basic mechanics of how to push a grocery cart.

At least I was able to buy a box of satsumas so SOME good came out of the trip.

Anyone Know A Good Therapist?

2005-11-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

Not for me, for the cat.

My cat has always been an interesting character. Several people (well, at least two that I can name, one of whom is Sweetie) who "don't like cats" like Samson. In some ways he's very un-catlike. In others he is about as feline as they come.

For the past ten years he's been psychic and suffered from an Oedipal complex. I think he fully came out of the closet as a homosexual around that time as well. We've learned to work around those things, and the Oedipal issues seem to have waned in the past year, as TRP and Samson really have a lovely little relationship.

But now I fear my cat is developing an eating disorder. He's always had weird issues with food:
- Prefers to eat cat food out of the bag rather than his bowl
- WILL NOT eat canned food, only dry food
- Is so manic over catnip he will eat the seeds out of soil
- Eats plants. Living or plastic. Except the kind that will kill him.
- Human foods he enjoys: angel food cake, Oreo cookie filling, and the sauces from Lean Cuisine meals (although only in miniscule quantities)

But now the cat won't eat if there's the potential that someone will see him. Which is a bit problematic when the floor plan is rather open, and you like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen where his food dishes are. He'll be happily eating away, and if he notices you will stop immediately. He will be heading into the kitchen to eat and if you start heading that direction he will turn the other way.

Now, I'm sure part of it is that he wants to keep his trim figure (several people have commented on his ability to stay slender lately), but a boy's got to eat!

Bland Betty

2005-11-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

So, next time I'm at the deli counter to purchase some lunch meat for myself, and I'm paying more attention to the price rather than the cut of meat, can someone please remind me not to purchase the spicy capacolla because it's too spicy for a sandwich? It's just so darn pretty! I can never resist!

He LITERALLY wrote the book.

2005-11-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

One of Sweetie's big pet-peeves is how people "mis-use" the word literally. But, according to the editor of the OED, this has been common usage for over 200 years. And, what we would take to be the "correct" usage is figurative as well.

If there were more demand for etymologists in the world I would totally pursue that as a career. In the meantime, can someone please tell me how the "flea-flicker" got its name? I posed this question to Sweetie a while ago, and not only didn't HE know the answer, but google didn't know the answer, either. We were able to discover about three different guys being credited inventing the play, but no information on why it's called that. And watching the play doesn't in any way remind me of flicking a flea, so I am totally stumped.

First Thursday at the House of Swank

2005-11-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

Sweetie and I are going to need to move soon, as we are surely outgrowing our condo. We managed to fit our clothes into the closet somehow, a wall-full of bookshelves has contained the den, prudent use of space in the living room contains the CDs, videos and DVDs, and thanks to a front entry closet I've managed to find homes for all of our kitchen stuff. But, there are not nearly enough walls for all of our artwork.

Friday I was commenting to Sweetie how wonderful our artwork is. Everything hanging in our home is a unique piece, created by someone we know and love or commissioned for us. So what happens? Saturday, we receive another piece. Monday, another one. And a third is on the way. We do not have enough wall space, people, so unless you're planning something to be hung from the ceiling (and keep in mind, the ceilings aren't that high) we've got to call and end to it! I THINK we've got spots for all of the newest pieces, so hopefully it will play out.

If not, next person to provide us with artwork has to provide a house to go along with it. (Don't worry, Tommyspoon, the photo your lovely wife took was Monday's surprise. It will likely be going in the hallway between the foyer and the living room, although I'm toying with some other ideas as well.)

The Sound of One Hand Typing

2005-11-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

I suffered an injury this morning due, in large part, to my own laziness, which leaves me unable to dfo much worth doing without annoyance and inconvenience to myself. I've already made about 200 typographical errors since starting this post. (Actually, I meant to type 100 errors, but decided to let that error stand. If you're going to exaggerate for effect you might as well REALLY exaggerate!)

This morning I was hungry and decided to make myself a tasty sandwich with the leftovers from Saturday's pork roast. YUM! The roast was sliced a bit thicker than I desired, so I was going to cut it into thinner slices for my eating ease and pleasure. The knife I would normally use for such a task was dirty, and rather than taking the 30 seconds necessary to clean and dry it I opted to grab a different knife off the rack.

I'd say I've got A-list through C-list knives in the kitchen. The A-list are the Henckels and Wusthofs. The C-list are mostly in the knife block Mom gave to me 10 years ago when she was done with it (and even at their best they were B-list knives). The B-list are the Cutco, Henckels made for Target - they're fine knives if you don't know any better, but they sure as heck aren't A-list knives.

So instead of my A-list knife I decided to go to the B-list. I figured a B-list knive actually manufactured to slice meat would be better than a serrated edge or paring knife. And I managed to knick the top of my left index finger on the first slice through. It's not a deep cut, but I think it was right on the blood vessel, because it's definitely a bleeder.

And due to the way the cut goes up to the tip of the finger, and the fact that I've got fingernails, it's not the easiest cut to bandage. I started the day with three Band-Aids on it: One to wrap around the finger and cover the bulk of the cut, one to wrap over the top of the finger, to get the little bit of the cut that wasn't covered, and prevent blood from dripping out of the other Band-Aid, and a third to wrap around the base of the second, so that it would actually stay stuck. I have since made my way to Target and back to buy some Band-Aids specifically designed for fingers AND replenish the standard Band-Aid supply, as I went through a LOT of Band-Aids this morning (between having a couple I couldn't get stuck right and having to redress the wound, when I managed a two Band-Aid procedure). We're down to one Band-Aid now, but given that it's on the left index finger it's still tough as hell to type, and given that the Band-Aid doesn't allow my first knuckle to bend I'm going around eternally pointing or proclaiming that I'm #1.

I'm #1 doofus today, that's for sure.

But, ever the optimist, I did learn something as a result of my adventures. If I need to raise my hand above my heart to stop bleeding (or if there were some other reason I'd want to do it, but I can't think of another reason right now), the back of the couch is a perfect height to rest my upper arm on, to make the process a bit less troublesome. And if you're wise enough to injure your left hand, you've got a perfect view of the television at the same time.

The Amazing Race 8: Episode 6

2005-11-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

Holy Moly! Hardest. Challenge. Ever. And it ended up costing a team the race.

Now frequently there is a needle in the haystack type challenge. Usually it is of the variety: There are 20 filled chocolates among these 500 chocolates. There are 10 clues in these 50 hay bales. A bit of dumb luck and a bit of perseverance will get you there. Today's challenge was to find the one, single, only red coffee bean in 800 pounds of coffee beans designated for your team. Uno. Teeny tiny coffee bean. 800 POUNDS of coffee.

I am amazed at how quickly most of the teams made it through the challenge all things considered. But the Gaghans hit the wall hard on this one, and they ended up being eliminated as a result of it.

This is also the leg of the race on which all teams officially began to gang up against the Weaver family. I believe every single team indicated that they would be yielding the Weavers, but the Paolos got the honor because they got to the yield first. This is also the episode in which I began to hate the Weavers as well. They've been kooky, annoying, overtly religious, but there was a spark of something that kept me believing in them just a wee bit. No more.

This is the family that claims to be Christians. That prays to Jesus for guidance on finding clues and choosing which task to complete. So they get yielded, and how do they spend their time waiting for the yield to expire? Making fun of other teams photos. And not teasing as in how dare they be ahead of us, but mean stuff like I wonder how much the fake boobs cost for those girls, and yet still they sag. That's not very Christian. In my variety of Christianity you don't get to pick and chose the bits of Leviticus you like best (I personally discount the thing in modern times), and you don't get to use God only when it suits you. The Weavers sit in last place right now, the stress has already cracked one of the daughters, and it hit the mom tonight. They're not long for the lasting now, and are the next to be eliminated barring a minor miracle or a major screw-up by another team.

Next week is a two-hour episode. I suspect that's two pit-stops, one non-elimination leg and then we'll be down to the final four.

The End. Or, at least today's version.

2005-10-31T11:48:00.000-08:00

The dream job ended up being not so dreamy at the interview. Although it would be challenging and pay well my schedule would be such that I would basically never be able to take a vacation with TRP, and I didn't see it leading down paths that were exciting to me once this job had played itself out. Add that to the issues of not being 100% behind the beliefs of the school and such, and it just wasn't a good fit.

I have officially accepted the job which I was offered. Pay is adequate, although not exciting, although as a non-profit it does come with such things as fully paid benefits for myself, an automatic contribution to a 401(k) plan and a raise after 3 months.

The start date is November 17, so I will not apply for anything new, but I may be willing to interview for opportunities in the meantime, but will be very picky on such invitations.

Thank goodness I was lazy and didn't get around to withdrawing from the temp agencies over the weekend, as I had originally planned on doing. Barring any temp gigs I think it may be time to clean out the closets, scour the condo head to toe, perhaps make some curtains. Any suggestions on how to fill my time?

Fall Back

2005-10-30T19:33:00.000-08:00

Happy return to standard time, everyone! Hopefully you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep this morning (I, most certainly, did)!

Today is the day that many people will replace the batteries in their smoke detectors. I plan on doing that tomorrow, as I didn't think of it until I was out and about today and I'm not quite sure what size batteries our detectors require.

I did, however, use the semi-annual nature of the clock-changing event to do something else today. I bought a new tube of mascara. You're supposed to replace mascara every 6 months, which I never think to do. Usually I just wait until the Clinique bonus includes mascara and swap it out then. Or wait until mine gets particularly clumpy and nasty and I can't handle it anymore. Not wearing mascara much that tends to happen.

However, I decided recently that I need to keep current with the mascara in the makeup cabinet. I'm not sure what prompted it. Perhaps the fact that I've been putting on makeup a lot more often recently with the job interviews and all.

I'm supposed to get the engagement and wedding rings cleaned and checked every 6 months as well. Valentine's day is just over 6 months after the anniversary, so I figure I'll use those events as the benchmarks.

The Developmental Swankette

2005-10-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

-- that's what Sweetie referred to me as over dinner this evening. Sounds kind of like I'm an infant learning to walk and hit all those developmental milestones that lay ahead of me.

And, in a way, he's right. At the tender age of 33 I've hit the milestone of "starting on a career path that I can reasonably remain for the remainder of my professional life" and that career is in development (which is what the non-profit type call the sales and marketing department, so it's a bit easier to get donations out of people.)

I got offered a job today. Via voicemail, as I was temping all day, but I've already left messages for both my new boss and the head of HR, who both had left messages, indicating that I will call them back Monday afternoon.

Of course, I'm keeping Monday morning's interview. Because the position I've been offered is mots definitely entry-level in salary and duty, and Monday's interview is for a more mid-level position, with a 67% raise over what I've been offered with a better location (in the city versus a different 'burb, commute time would be about equal.)

And now that I'm typing this out, it's making me even more hopeful about this other job. I have a history of getting offered the "dream job" immediately after accepting the "it's not the dream job, but close enough." From the summer after high school, when I quit the telemarketing gig the same day I accepted it because Target finally called me back (yes, at the age of 17 Target was my dream job), to others that I can't remember at the moment, but I know they've happened, because they always make me think back to the job at Target. The one place I am FORBIDDEN from ever working again, because I didn't give two weeks notice. Funny that.

But stay tuned for many more developmental milestones to come.

They Like Me, They Really Like Me

2005-10-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

Things are looking hopeful in the job front. Currently, here's what we've got going on:

Job that's a bit below my skills and qualifications, but offers me entry into a dream career (development), which I've interviewed for twice and they are supposed to be making a decision this week. Haven't heard anything yet, but when they were going to call me within a week to either schedule a second interview or tell me no thanks it took them two weeks.
Job as an insurance salesman, which isn't necessarily what I imagined for myself, but is a lucrative way to perhaps meet my employment goals - interview one on Monday afternoon. (It's a two interview process). This will be one that's as much my learning about them as them learning about me. I consulted with my insurance advisor (aka Dad) yesterday, and he gave the company the thumbs up and gave me some good questions to ask and things to look out for.
Dream job in which my faith may be called into question - interview on Monday. Two and a half hour long interview on Monday, which leads me to believe they're very selective about who they're talking to. Hour one is regarding my "Christian Committment" with one person, and the rest is with the eventual supervisor of the position.

Of course, that makes it really difficult to get the motivation to continue to send out applications and resumes and do other job-seeking activities for the day. But I'll be praying extra hard when I'm at church on Sunday. And my parents are in town on Monday (they don't want to be home for Halloween, because they get lame trick-or-treaters at their house), and given the location of interview #1, interview #2 and where they are staying, I could quite possibly arrange to have lunch with them between the two. Could be a nice release of all the nervous energy I'll be sure to have at the time.

Times Do Change

2005-10-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I was the child of an insurance sales manager (Hi, Dad!). This means that from the time of my first babysitting job my father was pestering me to put money away into a 401 (k), and from the instant I started looking past part-time jobs to keep me out of trouble during school I was brainwashed on the benefits of a career in sales, preferably of the insurance variety. Did you know that insurance is a recession-proof industry?

Me being me, I shunned the brainwashing. I knew I could kick butt in sales (a lifetime being related to my dad will do that to a girl), but didn't want the pressure of a salary based solely on comission. What if I sucked at it? And it's such a 24/7 kind of thing.

In the first great post-college job search I decided I would be willing to work for an insurance company as long as it wasn't in sales. Claims, administration, something like that I could do. Sales, not so much my cup of tea. One insurance company placed a rather vague ad in the paper that I responded to. When they called me I said, in no uncertain terms, "I don't want to do insurance sales. I come from an insurance sales background, so I know from where I speak. If this is for a job in the non-sales realm I would love to come interview for it. This isn't for a sales position, is it?"

Guess what, it was for a sales position. What many insurance companies will do (by many I mean at least two that I have direct experience with) is they will invite you and a bunch of other people in together where the boss-man will give you a 45 minute spiel on how great the insurance industry is and how rewarding your life can be as an insurance agent. From there they interview you.

During that first experience they had the interview immediately after the spiel. Everyone waited in the conference room, and they would work through everyone until they were done. I didn't bother. One the spiel was over I stood up and left. They quizzed me on it, and I informed them that I was not interested in a career in sales, had informed them of that fact, and didn't want to waste anymore of their time. I was REALLY tempted to get up in the middle of the presentation, but felt that was a bit extreme and I could show a wee bit of courtesy.

This morning I went to another spiel. This time I'm actually contemplating it. This time they call you back later to do the interview, so no need to make a spectacle of myself. Of course, the next step in the process is actually to consult with Dad. When you've got a dad who spent 30 years in the insurance industry it is necessary that he approve of the company and position before you proceed with the rest of it all.

And while we're speaking of valuable life lessons taught to me by my father: When it rains for the first time in a long time, it brings the oil to the top of the road and that makes things extra-slick, so you need to drive extra carefully. Consider this a public service announcement as the weather starts to turn.

The Amazing Race 8: Episode 5

2005-10-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

OK, I was wrong last week when I predicted this week would see the teams in the Dominican Republic (they ended up in Panama), but I was right when I suggested that the international aspect is what makes the race compelling television, as I spent this episode actually interested in the race and not hating all of the teams.

Here is what we learned from the race tonight, and why the international race is better:

Pretty blond girls get preferential treatment in Latin American countries. The more pretty blond girls you have, the more preferential the treatment, which is why the Godlewskis (4 girls), Bransons (3 girls) and Weavers (2 girls) passed the Linzs (1 brunette girl) in the water taxis.
Taxi drivers in other countries don't necessarily follow the same rules as drivers here, which is why the water taxi the Gaghans had decided mid-stream (literally) that he was going to go pick someone else up along the way. They put a stop to that.
What has worked in past episodes of the race won't necessarily work now. Teams have often had success finding a local to guide them to a particular locale in a foreign land. Tonight the Bransons tried that trick, the woman directed them to her place of employment. Way to get a free ride! I'm amazed that it's taken eight editions of the race for this to happen.
It doesn't matter how scared you are of heights, you'll bungee jump for the Fast Forward. They'll edit the show to make us wonder. They'll cut to a commercial break immediately before the jump, but you'll jump.
Little League players in Panama can't field a ball for shit. The road block tonight required one team member to get a base hit or home run off a little league team. Several teams had issues making contact with the ball, but once the ball was put in play not a single team had issue making it on base (or at least that's what the editors will have us believe).

And that, my friends, is that. It was a non-elimination leg tonight, so no farewells. The Paolo family snuck their way into first place (by virtue of the fast forward), so I'm praying they make some major mistake next week, which is all but guaranteed to be an elimination leg. I am SO ready to see them gone!

The Cat Is in The Doghouse

2005-10-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

I am very upset at the cat right now. I've told him I'm upset with him, have been giving him the cold shoulder, and he is reading this entry as I type, so he'll really know I mean business.

This morning I awoke to the not-so-glorious site of cat puke on the dining room table. Now, I COULD take the approach that this was a fortunate incident, as the table is currently swathed in a vinyl tablecloth which made clean-up ever so easy.

But I am not taking that approach.

The rules of the cat do not allow him on food-bearing surfaces such as tables and countertops. He is more than welcome on people-bearing surfaces such as the couch, chairs, and bed. I don't even have a problem with him on neutral surfaces such as dressers and desks, as he's always been fairly dainty about not disturbing things. Hell, I couldn't even manage to get mad at him the year he found refuge in the top of our Christmas tree (Not a single antique ornament was out of place). But tables and countertops, NOT ALLOWED!

I'm fairly confident the countertop is out of his reach at the moment. He's starting to show his age (11 years) a wee bit, and I notice he prefers to be lifted onto the couch rather than make the jump, and will daintily clamber down rather than leap off. So I think he's past his jumping and climbing prime and can't make it that high. But, unless we get rid of the chairs, the table is still in his grasp. And he's not allowed up there.

YOU READING THIS, SAMSON? STAY OF THE DAMN TABLE!!!!!

He's leaving his perch right now, I believe in public shame. Hopefully this means we won't have a repeat of this morning's performance.

The Second Interview

2005-10-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Had a second interview for a position I am very interested in this morning. At the end of the interview I was explaining to the interviewers how a fantasy football league works. That's a good sign, right?

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

2005-10-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

Some lessons you learn the hard way.

I'm obsessive when it comes to raw meat and cleanliness in the kitchen. The knives, hands and cutting boards get obsessively washed. I won't even LOOK at the wood cutting board if there is raw meat out and the plastic cutting boards go straight into the dishwasher as soon as the raw meat has left it. I try to get the chopping of veggies and stuff done previously, but if I've forgotten I'll use a new cutting board and knife rather than re-using the contaminated surface.

So it's not an issue of I don't know how to keep things clean.

But I don't cook with peppers often. And when I do they're usually of the bell variety.

So last night I was making quesadillas, and the recipie I was using called for a fresh jalapeno for the marinade for the meat. And since I didn't touch the meat after I had touched the jalapenos, and since I'd be back in the kitchen later after the marinating was done I wasn't so careful about washing my hands once it was all done.

And then I inadvertently rubbed my eyes. Both of them. Simultaneously.

OUCH!

I'm going to wash my hands now, just thinking about it.

It's Not Rocket Science

2005-10-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

I am NOT interested in doing admin work for a full-time job. So when I tell you I'm not interested in doing admin work for a full-time job, well, that means I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DOING ADMIN WORK FOR A FULL-TIME JOB.

And, just in case you were concerned, administrative assistant, executive assistant, office assistant, office manager... these are all ADMIN WORK. So when I tell you that I am NOT interested in dong ADMIN work for a full-time job, well, that means DON'T CALL ME ABOUT THESE THINGS!!!!

If you'd REALLY been listening to what I had to say in our interview, you'd realize that I'm doing OK with the full-time job search on my own, but I'm looking for temp work to hold me over. I can do admin work in a temp position. Give me admin positions left and right if it's for a short-term gig. But full-time? NOT INTERESTED!!!!

(Can you tell I've gotten several calls from employment agencies this morning that are not my cup of tea?)

Gets You Back Where You Belong

2005-10-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

Farmers Insurance disgusts me. The big news on Seattle radio of late has been the story of Ethel Adams. A synopsis: seven months ago an asshole tried to run his girlfriend down. His car hit girlfriend's car, girlfriend's care hit Ethel's car, Ethel goes into a coma for nine days and seven months later can't walk. Yet the insurance company won't pay because it wasn't an "accident."

Now I can understand how the damage to asshole's car isn't an accident. I can MAYBE understand how the damage to the girlfriend's car isn't an accident, and she needs to sue the hell out of the boyfriend to get the repairs done. But I don't think anyone ever had any intent of mowing Ethel down. How can they NOT deem this an accident?

Ethel's lawyers are crafty, though, and they've let all the local media know the story. Several of them have been passing the story along to us and to the Insurance Commissioner's Office. And NOW Farmers' thinking they might pay out after all.

Once upon a time I was insured by Farmers. Went through two accidents with them without issue. Although in both instances it was the other person's insurance that was paying the bill (both were idiots running red lights, in one instance she admitted guilt and in the other I had a witness). Also, the agent was also a good friend of Dad's from his days in the insurance biz, so there was surely some indirect nepotism at play.

If they were still my insurer they might not be for long. At the least, I'd be studying my policies. In fact, I think I should at that to my list of things to do. See how my insurance company defines "accident" so that be prepared for when the unexpected happens. You may want to as well.

So Much For Dreams

2005-10-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I'm a married woman the dream job to end all dream jobs is more of a nightmare. On the road for over a week at a time... no, thanks. In my swinging single days I would have jumped on this, but now things have changed.

I gave myself an hour to mope about it, but now we're back to chugging along. Ever the optimist, and always one to try to read meaning into insignificant events, I am even strangely motivated by recent turn of events:

Turn the first -- there is another position open at the company I may be qualified for doing technical support. The person I spoke with on the phone forwarded my resume along, and the manager in charge of hiring for that position just called me up and I'm interviewing Friday at 10am.

Turn the second - I got an e-mail acknowledging receipt of my application for another one of my dream jobs. I had turned the app in quite some time ago, so I'm not sure if this is a good sign or not, but am taking it as such. (Especially considering I applied for ANOTHER dream job at the same place about a week or two earlier than this position, and have yet to receive acknowledgement on that one. That one wasn't as much of a dream as this one, though, so it's all good).

Someone please just hire me already.

The Amazing Race 8: Episode 4

2005-10-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

Last night Sweetie and I came to the definite conclusion that this is our least favorite series of The Amazing Race. We think it's because of the US/road-trip factor. The joy of the race, usually, is throwing people into these completely foreign situations and seeing how they react. Situations where following US norms and customs will get you nowhere, fast. They're not getting that here. Also, with their dependence on cars this go-round we aren't having the issues with public transportation: Do I take a train, or splurge on the money for a cab? Do I take the milk run bus that leaves now, or the express that leaves in an hour? Sure, someone will occasionally take a wrong turn, or make a bit faster time by taking direct back roads rather than the interstate, but the race is being run in a bubble and it doesn't make it as much fun.

Next week perhaps this shall improve a bit as they "leave the US." One of the challenges involves baseball, so Sweetie and I are guessing they'll make way to the Dominican Republic. Here's the logic: They're going somewhere Caribbean. Baseball is huge in three specific places: Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the DR. I don't see us going into Cuba anytime soon for the race. Puerto Rico isn't outside the US, so that would be deceptive advertising, so must be the DR.

Sweetie's team was eliminated last night. Which makes me happy. I came to realize that the Dad on the team had a mean heart. Originally I just thought he didn't buy into political correctness, but while completing the challenge at the Talladega Racetrack he was getting sick pleasure out of the fact that it would be a challenging experience for the Weavers - the team who lost their Dad in an accident at a NASCAR track just over a year ago. That's unacceptable behavior. There was a bit of joy in watching the Schroeders lose because they got lost on their way to a park that's less than 30 minutes from where they live.

The Weavers did have a tough time at the racetrack last night, they didn't want to do the challenge at first, but they pulled through. Dad's been dead over a year and loved NASCAR, so it seemed appropriate that they make their way onto a track at some point.

This leaves me with the challenge of who to root for. The team I like the most - the Gaghans - are at the end of their game. The little kids are just weighing them down. They've come in second to last the last two weeks, and last night were EXHAUSTED at the end of it all. I suspect they're only in if other teams screw up more to put them in last place (as the Schroeders did last night by getting lost).

Honestly, I think the Bransens are the most likely to succeed at the moment. Sweetie doesn't like them, thinks they're modern princesses, but I think they're fun. Just need to hope it doesn't come down to a footrace at the end or Dad will have a heart attack.

And I'm really getting sick of saying this, teams, but ONCE YOU COMMIT TO A DETOUR, DO NOT CHANGE!!!! Teams are very anxious to jump ship from one challenge to another this year. I wonder how much of this has to do with the US factor as well. With the detours this time around they're all things I can somewhat relate to, so have an idea of what the deal is before going into it. On international challenges there is always that little bit of local flavor added that can change the game IMMENSELY, which might make a team more wary of making a switch.

It's Only Temporary

2005-10-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the job search charges on full-speed ahead, but I've gotten to the point where I'm caught up on outgoing applications, so I'm signing up with some temp agencies to keep me out of trouble while waiting for the next big thing.

As of this afternoon, I am officially registered with three different companies. I've got another one to go to tomorrow afternoon, and that should be plenty to keep me busy. This afternoon's is my favorite at the moment, as they had called me with an assignment before I even made it home from the appointment with them. I shall do reception and admin work for a mental health clinic for one day next week. Should be a piece of cake, as the crazy brother has prepared me well for dealing with others who suffer mental illness.

I'm already sick of going into temp agencies for these interviews. If you haven't been before, in addition to filling out an application and other random paperwork, they generally have you take computerized tests to evaluate you on your skills with software and your typing speed. Generally I'm required to take a test on Word, Excel, and typing. On the Excel test I usually miss one asking about some function I don't know the name to or I hit a key wrong or something, and the folks totally fawn over my Excel skills. Now don't get me wrong, I've got some pretty kick-ass Excel skills -- once upon a time I had a job in which I created a report in Excel that was about 20 pages worth of linked data, charts, formulas, if/then statements... if it was a bell or whistle that Excel offered, it was probably included in this spreadsheet. However, the fact that I know how to add up a column of numbers, or how to merge cells together, does not relegate me to deity status. My head gets any bigger and I may need some of those mental health services next week.

Damn You Homophones!

2005-10-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

When just scanning the dials on the radio while out and about a story on NPR constantly referring to h eroine/heroin can almost make your head explode.

Nostalgia

2005-10-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Gap somehow got their hands on the afghan we used to have on the back of our couch when I was a kid and have turned it into a sweater for children. We had a similar afghatn in various shades of brownl... I don't think they've found that one yet.

What will they think of next?

Diversification

2005-10-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

I got these two pieces two Christmases ago. The bottom piece was just a sketch Greg had done, but I really liked it, especially because it was such a diversification from his previous work. The top piece is painted on a piece of old discarded wood.

So there you have it, the Gallery of Greg.