Wednesday, March 31, 2004

my almost lost wallet

Alex and I returned from our vacation last week. I'm still trying to catch up with my daily life. Why it's taking me so long to do that? I may never know.

I have to admit that a 6 day road trip isn't my ideal get away, but it was inexpensive and it had it's moments. We made it all the way out to the Grand Canyon, stayed there for a couple days and then headed back. We thought that we could go home through Yosemite, but snow had the roads closed. Without using deductive reasoning we decided to head to Tahoe instead, where it was snowing. I guess we get less bright when we spend 5 or more hours in a car each day. We zoned out a lot while on the road, but the Matrix kicks the Saturn's ass when it comes to comfort, and if we hadn't bought that new car we probably wouldn't have even taken the trip in the first place.

We started our journey on Saturday the 20th. No vacation is complete without at least an hour of me freaking out either right before departure or directly afterwards. This year's freak out was brought to you by the stupidity of me washing my wallet which I had left in a pair of pants. Before I realized the actual fate of my wallet I thought I had lost it. Better yet, I jumped to the conclusion someone had picked my pocket the night before and I would never see my wallet again. Alex tried to help, but there's just no reasoning with me when I'm convinced that I was more than just a victim of my own carelessness. I had it all pictured in my mind; how some dude just reached into my back pocket without me even noticing. And now he was buying all sorts of electronics and pricey gas with my credit cards. At least he didn't get any cash. But my tap dance card... there were still 2 classes on that thing, I was certain that he had just thrown it out. I was so mad at that guy for about 40 minutes. Until I went to remove my clothes from the washer. Then all my angst was transferred to a poor 8 year old boy who was tired of waiting for a washer and was promptly removing all my clothes from the washer and trying to put them in a dryer. I say trying because most of my clothes were on the floor. The filthy, filthy floor in between the washer and the dryer. It really bugs me when I see my wet skivies on that floor. I think I might have been a little harsh with the boy, but no one likes muddy undies. I told him to stop what he was doing, because he was making all my clean laundry dirty again and he would just have to wait until I finished moving my own clothes. And as I reached into the washer there it was... the wallet. Sitting ever so neatly on a pile of wet clothes. Credit cards, license and even the tap dance card were all in their correct places. That's when my fear and anger for imaginary pick-pocketer (and all of society in general) subsided and I started to feel regret about how I had approached the young lad. I finished loading the dryer and said "okay, all set, it's all yours, sorry I took so long." What made me feel especially bad was when I looked over to address the boy I noticed that he had retreated to the corner to look at his shoes until I was done with the washer.

I would like to take some time to publicly apologize to the following people:

The boy who would have rather been watching cartoons on Saturday morning instead of getting scolded by crazy wallet-washing woman while trying to do laundry for his family.

My Mom, for calling you just to tell you that I lost my wallet. For some reason I still think you should be able to fix these sort of things.

Alex, because I yelled at you for not looking hard enough for MY lost wallet. I know that's not your job, and I have no business yelling at you. ever.

And last, but not least, the imaginary pick-pocketer. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions.


more stories of our actual road trip to follow.....

Thursday, March 18, 2004

the invented demise of Zachary

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the death of my cat. Which is pretty pathetic, because he hasn't died yet, nor does he show signs of doing so anytime soon. For some reason I just wander to an ugly place in my mind about 4 to 5 times a day and think about how sad it will be when my cat does actually die. I know that he can't live forever, and he's getting kind of old, so I'm just trying to be realistic about it, because it will happen...someday. Sure he's healthy and acting normal, but I have to pick something to worry about on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and this is my new senseless anxiety for the month. I think the main reason I needlessly obsess about this future event is because I never had a pet as a child and I am somehow trying to prepare myself for the mental blow of losing a cat that I've grown so fond of. Somehow I feel that if I picture in my mind's eye what it's like to come home and find an ailing or dead cat I'll be able to deal with it better. When deep down inside I know that there is no preparation for dealing with death; it's just one of those things you can't practice for, but that hasn't changed my behavior.

Rational me, I'd like you to meet crazy me, hope you two can live together.

I give it another week and then I'll find something as equally as unintelligent to worry about.

And for the record, I don't want to be a liar. Technically, I did have pets as a kid... My sister and I had two goldfish that we kept in a giant brandy snifter. Their names were Tom and Miles (named after friends of our mother, one was heavy and the other thin, just like the real Tom and Miles) and they lived a long, and perhaps meaningful, life on the dining room table. I don't remember exactly how long we had them, but I do remember that we came home from school one day and there was the snifter, still in the middle of the dining room table, but empty. No water. Not even a note. I know that my sister and I each owned one of the fish, and to this day I wonder if only one of them died, but not wanting anyone to feel slighted, my mom flushed both. I also remember being a complete drama queen about not having the chance to say goodbye and give my fine finned friends a proper burial, even though we lived in an apartment and had no yard.
We also had gerbils. I don't remember too much about them, I don't even remember their names. I do however recall that they had a pretty kick ass habitral (though nothing compared to these)and that they ate their babies, or maybe they ate each other, it's a little blurry when it comes to who was eating who. And they escaped right before we left for Disneyland, raising some questions of if we would find them before we had to be at the airport. We sometimes would let them run around in the bathtub... lots of fun to watch them try to escape to freedom by attempting to scale the tub walls with those scratchy little claws. I don't even remember how or when we got rid of them. Maybe they just fought each other to the death.
During undergrad I went into my "I'm cool and alternative" phase which led to ownership of a pet snake, who I promptly gave away to a grade school when she got big enough to eat rats. And lets not forget the impulse purchase of fish and a 12 gallon tank. I moved 3 times with that damn tank, those fish just wouldn't give up. Eventually they all died within 3 days when two new diseased fish were introduced to the pristine tank.

I don't remember being too devastated while saying goodbye to any of the pets listed above. Except maybe No-Legs-McGraw, who was a cutie little orange fish who I had for about 5 years. I liked him a lot, but he was hard to hug or cuddle with on the couch, I can't say we ever bonded. When I think of how downhearted I got while flushing my old friend No-Legs I can't help but think how devistating this whole cat death thing is going to be.

So I suppose instead of wasting more of my time writing about how much I'll miss him one day I'll go squish that big-eyed cat and enjoy him while he's around. if only he would come out from underneath the bed.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

back to the grind of the day to day work. The big ol' project is over and I can finally sit at my desk without grinding my teeth every time I hear the phone ring or the bing of an email alert. I actually opened my sunroof on the drive in today and enjoyed the smell as I drove past the bread factory.

Last week was all about four days in San Diego, one starting at 3am. We only saw the sun on the last day. Which we didn't much care about anyways because we were all working on about 4 hours of sleep. for the entire weekend.

Since the past two weeks were so consumed by work I can honestly say I didn't enjoy my birthday as much as I wanted to, but Alex had a small dinner party for me the Friday before my birthday and I had dinner at my favorite restaurant with other friends on my actual birthday. Even though thoughts of the work project kept gnawing in the back of my head I had a nice time at both events, I got to spend time with almost all my friends and eat some pretty great food. It was, however, a little frightening when I realized that the older I get the role of food on my birthday becomes more and more prominent and inevitable. Come to think of it, my coworkers took me out to lunch for my b-day as well, and while there we having lunch we discussed what food I would be partaking of that evening. I am having trouble buttoning some of my pants this week.

I also had a life changing experience; I received TiVo as a gift. TV will never be the same for me. Alex knew exactly what I wanted (because I told him everyday for about a month) and now he is officially an enabler to my addiction. I could go on and on about my new pal TiVo and all the fun we're having, but I think I can sum it up like this: pair my brazen love for TV with my enthusiasm for efficiency. Words cannot describe the bliss. Coaxed by TiVo and it's ability to CHOOSE SHOWS FOR ME I may confront some bad decisions as far as reality TV is concerned, but I somehow feel justified in my zeal because I can skip over commercials.

please don't judge us. TiVo and I think we can make this thing last.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

my confession

oh no. now where am I going to get 7oz. of fries?

I've been working on the project from Hell for the past 3 weeks, which turned into the micro-managed project from Hell yesterday. So when I get home at night I don't really feel like doing anything constructive because I'm spending most of my time in a fetal position in the corner rocking myself back to a calm state. This project will be over in just 2 more excruciating weeks and I will be able to continue with my life, return phone calls, enjoy a meal, frolic through fields...

I have, however, managed to squeeze some reality TV in there though. Isn't there always time for that? And now here's the part where I confess.

Please forgive me. I watched the first episode of Forever Eden. A reality show without an end. 11 people who I would never want to meet. 11 idiots hanging out on a beach, at a pool, in a private resort... never without a drink on hand. I should have been tipped off by the bad logo they use of the snake with gigantic fangs twisting around the apple. Even the theme song that opens the show is terrible. There is no reason for anyone to watch this show, ever. If you feel compelled to read about it, this is pretty good.

So to save anyone else the pain of watching this show - Forever Eden is boring, slow, poorly edited and the cast is so dumb that when bad things start a-brewin' someone actually said "...and that's just the tip of the cherry." yeah.