Dark Days

Some days are darker than others.
Today is one of those days.
The monsters I keep carefully locked away in the basement forced their way out.
They know they can't win, but they can make me suffer.
With the kind of week I've had, it was only a matter of time.
I think someone at work might have slipped them the key.
I've been all over the place today.
Sometimes I'm fine, but right now I feel sad and alone.
AND our company Halloween party didn't have any cookies, they brought in doughnuts instead.
WTF?? Doughnuts??
If you are going to go to the trouble of throwing yourself a pity party, there should be chocolate there. (Preferably in bar, cookie, or ice cream form... not necessarily in that order)

Don't worry and good Lord don't call me. I'll get over it soon enough.

ETA: It's possible I was just hungry. I had something to eat and I'm feeling a little better.

Joyful Prelude

I've had a low-grade headache all week that ibuprofen doesn't seem to be able to knock out.

Here's the recipe for our Halloween evening:

Start with the ringing of the bell - [ding-dong]
Add a cacophony of dogs barking
Repeat ad nauseam.

I suppose I could go Grinch on them and shut off the porch light.
We'll see.

Sarah Palin Panties

I bought some new underwear at Victoria's Secret last week.

D and Fern got me a gift certificate a couple of years ago and I was finally using it up.

Below is one of the pairs I picked up.

I've decided to call them my "Sarah Palin Panties"

Notice the stag head, hot cocoa, bunnies, snow flakes and birdies.



So, someday when I come around and tell you that I'm off to shoot a moose, you can think to yourself, "She's got her Sarah Palin Panties on today."

Possibly, I'll just start winking at you and shouting "Maverick" like I have Tourettes Syndrome... and you'll know.

And then someday, I'll decide to go 'rogue' and shout, "Honey, find my 'Sarah Palin Panties', this pitbull's about get herself some lipstick."

Watch out for that.

It means that it's the end of days.

The Hammer

Forget anything negative I have ever said about the Hammer.
I officially love that guy.
It's good to know that although other people may blow, he's got my back.

I've always said loyalty and respect are earned; you don't give them away as party favors.
Well, now the Hammer has both.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

I realized today that we do this a lot at work, use the good cop/bad cop angle. 

I am always the bad cop. 

I'm not sure how I feel about that. 

These Pictures Made My Day

Arrrrgh!!

Quaker Steak and Lube: The Affordable Choice

The husband went golfing last year with the KhakiRepublican, among others, at some tournament. He ended up getting a $100 gift certificate to Quaker Steak and Lube.

Last night, before the Badger hockey game, we went to the QS&L with Sist-A and the KR.

Between the four of us, including an appetizer and entrees we only spent about 1/2 of our gift certificate. 

AND the food was pretty good. Or at least mine was, and it was not unhealthy. 

Hmm... who knew the Quaker Steak and Lube was such an affordable option?

P.S. Thanks to the golfing tournament for a gift certificate that will cover the greater part of two meals for 4

I Hate Pumpkin Carving

A couple of weeks ago I had the great idea to carve some pumpkins for Halloween.
What a terrible idea!
Carving a pumpkin is hard, boring and messy!

Plus, I am terrible at it. 

See my wonky-eyed cat below. 

The vines are all wrong, I stopped following the pattern on them after a while. I tried to carve poor kitty's whiskers, but they were too delicate and I ended knocking them off.  

I guess I can be satisfied that it (kind of) looks like a cat.

The husband said that he could tell it was a cat once he knew it was supposed to be a cat. 

Who could ask for a better endorsement?

Sist-A isn't a much better carver than I am (although the husband might disagree with me on that, as he seemed to love her pumpkin yesterday). She did pretty well on the spider, but ended up breaking the web since she carved from the outside-in. 

The level listed in our pattern books were from 1 to 4 pumpkins of difficulty. 

We chose 2 pumpkin designs. 

Thank goodness!

I'd probably still be carving if we had chosen any of the harder designs. 

We thought pumpkin carving wouldn't be so bad that we could handle a little more complexity.

We were wrong!

We are not level 2 pumpkin carvers.

Back to the remedial class for us. 

Oh well, I don't actually plan on doing this again. 

I can't believe I've actually done this before and thought this would be fun.

Pumpkin carving does suck, but the whole day wasn't a loss. 

The eating samples at Brennan's and taking home fancy salsa and chips part of the day was fun. (Next time, I'll skip the pumpkin carving and go straight to the chips and salsa part of the day) 

If I ever mention that I'm planning to carve pumpkins in the future, can someone please remind me of this? And if (and only if) I persist, could you possibly slap some sense into me?

Oh Playmate, come out and play with me

I was watching the Addams Family at the gym yesterday when I heard a song that my mom used to sing to us when my sister and I were little. 

It's kind of creepy in the context of that particular movie, but it made me all nostalgic. 

I had forgotten that song even existed. 

It's a bizarre form of delight to discover, somewhere buried in the cobwebs of my mind, memories of things I used to love. 

Here are the lyrics:

Oh playmate, come out and play with me

And bring your dollies three,

Climb up my apple tree.

Slide down my rain barrel,

Climb up my cellar door,

And we'll be jolly friends 

Forever more, more, more.

Oh playmate, I cannot play with you,

My dollie's got the flu,

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo

Ain't got no rain barrel,

Ain't got no cellar door,

But, we'll be jolly friends,

Forever more, more, more.

Sucks to be you, Canada

I got an email from aerie.com advertising a sweepstakes they have going on. On a whim, a.k.a. thinking who doesn't want a trip to NY?!, I clicked on it and decided to read over the official rules.

Sweepstakes always make me nervous.

A small part of me is always suspicious that they are going to sneak something into the rules.

For example, by entering you have agreed to share any and all personal and financial information with any interested party from now until eternity.

OR by entering, you have agreed to forfeit your soul to aerie.

Stuff like that.

People NEVER read the fine print, so who knows what they could get away with.
Except me, I guess.

Anyway! I was reading the official rules and came across this little tidbit, "If a prospective winner is Canadian he or she will be required to correctly answer without assistance of any kind, a mathematical skill-testing question administered by telephone, email or other delivery method selected at the sole discretion of Sponsor"

What the fuck?!
You can't win sweepstakes in Canada unless you know some math?
That is so fucked up.
(Don't think too hard about the why. It will make your head hurt.)

Let's just hope they don't ask you to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, because that shit has never been solved.

For those of you interested, I declined to enter the sweepstakes. I don't really like aerie enough for $500 worth of goods, plus they called it a "spa and sparkle." That makes the snarky bitch inside of me want to hurt somebody. It's really best for everyone if I back away... slowly.

Boys are Dumb.

I wore a blazer to work today.

It's purple and velvety (not actual velvet, velvet-like cotton).

It's darker than in the picture. Much darker.

It's more like a dark plum, than magenta.

The hammer saw it and told me it was very "Hugh Hefner-esque."

Shut the fuck up, hammer.

A month or so ago, I wore a shirt with flowers on it to work. This is the conversation I had with one of my programmers, StubbornAss, about it.

SA: You look different today.

Me: Thank you.

Me: Um, wait a minute. You meant that in a nice way right.

SA: [laughs]

Shut the fuck up, StubbornAss.

What the hell is wrong with the boys in this office?

Let me explain the office rules to you since you don't seem to be getting it.

(Disclaimer: These rules may not apply to every girl)

Rule #1: Don't comment on my appearance.

We're not friends like that. We work together. I don't want to hear what you think about what I'm wearing or how I look.

Rule #2: If you really feel the need to comment on my appearance, it better damn well be a compliment.

Again, we're not friends like that. We work together. I don't want to hear what you think about what I'm wearing or how I look, but if you insist on telling me, it had better be a fucking compliment. Neither "interesting" nor "Hugh Hefner-esque" falls under this category.

And just for the record, this jacket is not "Hugh Hefner-esque." It fucking rocks. I don't care if you like it, you don't have to wear it.

Besides, if it's anything it's more "Joker-esque" if the Joker wore cute, fitted jackets. So there.

Slow

Sometimes I am so slow.
I wore my glasses to work today.
In part because the husband got me up at the crack of dawn to pick up his car from the auto shop, and in part because of the raging bitch of a headache I had yesterday. I find I recover more quickly in glasses.

I never wear my glasses out in public. It's weird.
So, when things were a little blurry, I just sort of assumed there was something on the lens or there was some gunk in my eye.

I didn't really consider until this afternoon that my glasses are a couple of prescriptions out of date.
Niiice.

Sometimes it really ticks me off how I can miss the completely fucking obvious.

Oh well, now at least my optometrist will get the pleasure o'my company in the very near future.

Trooper

The gym has been kicking my ass lately. 

I was finally able to do my entire run at 7 m.p.h. again today. 

For the last week or so, I've had to take it down to 6 m.p.h. at about the 21 minute mark whenever I run. 

I don't know what was wrong with me. 

It sure as hell wasn't easy to tough it out today. 

I had to convince myself to keep running in 5 second increments. 

Only 6:55 left... 6:45... 6:40... 

You can make it. You can make it.

I am not weak!

Damn Caffeine!

Dammit! I think there was caffeine in all that fucking tea I was drinking last week.
The tea, plus the two diet Pepsis I had over the weekend = 5 days in a row with caffeine.
Which in turn explains the raging headache I've had all day.
THIS is why I avoid the stuff... too painful!!

Why would you do that?

The husband talked to our friend Fatty the other day and delivered this bit of news to me, they got rid of one of their dogs Tanner and are looking to get rid of their other dog Shag. Both golden-doodles.

I have never been so annoyed with Fats.
Are you kidding me?

Let's be clear upfront. I have three dogs.
I'm pretty soft on anything soft and fuzzy.
I'm pretty soft on animals in general.

This is the second time Fatty and his wife have gotten rid of dogs they've owned.
This really pisses me off and here's why.

1. Dog are not DVDs.
You don't pick them up and play with them every once in awhile and then trade them away when you get bored with them. They are a responsibility. In return for agreeing to feed, water, take them out and put up with some degree of naughtiness, you get complete and total devotion. It's a pretty damn good trade.

My 3 are not angels to be sure, but they are all so sweet in their own ways. It takes so little to make them happy. Hell, half the time all I have to do is walk in the room.

2. Dogs are not children.
They do not grow up. They do not develop higher reasoning skills. They do not leave the nest.
If you leave them alone in a room with stuff they can chew up, they might chew it up. They are fucking dogs. They aren't going to "learn not to do stuff like that". They don't know. Some dogs are smarter than others, but at their core they are still animals. They are going to do what dogs do.

If they do something bad, most likely it is your fault, not theirs. If they chewed up your book, then next time, keep your book where they can't reach it. You have logic and reasoning skills; use them.

Dogs don't understand you are in a bad mood today. They don't understand why you are yelling at them. They don't remember stuff that happened more than a few minutes ago.

They got rid of their first dog because Fatty thought he was annoying.
This time I guess the dogs chewed up some stuff, so they wanted to get rid of them.

Here's a promise for you, if Fatty gets another dog, I'm going to have to hurt him.
I rarely ever threaten that, and carry it out even less.
But, he gets another dog and you can bank on it.

Tea Time

I've been keeping warm this afternoon by drinking massive amounts of tea.
By massive amounts I mean this is my third cup since noon.
So, now I'm hyped up on flavanoids (sp?)... Lipton iced tea is full of them. It says so right on the package.

Flavanoids and sugar. I've put on average six cubes of sugar in each cup.
Flavanoids, sugar and possibly caffeine.
All they have are the tea bags, not the boxes, so I don't know if there is caffeine in my tea or not.
It's not green tea. It's just regular tea.
But they love to put that junk in EVERYTHING.
It makes living caffeine free kind of difficult.
Bastards.

God help the husband if I get all hyped up on sugar, caffeine AND flavanoids this afternoon.
I don't think I'm bouncing off the walls though.
The walls be bouncing off of me.

Honesty

For future reference, salmon chowder does NOT taste like clam chowder.
The use of the term "chowder", in addition to them both being seafood based, might lead you to believe they are similar, but they are not.
I'm in class today, so I get a free lunch.
I wanted something hot (because it's fucking freezing in this building) and they only had two soup options at work, a potato soup and a salmon chowder.
Not a fan of potato soups, so I tried the salmon.
Eh, I'm not sure whether I liked (eventually) it or if I was just won over by the warmth it provided.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was unreasonably naughty and had two fudge cookies with white chocolate chips for dessert to console myself for the crappy soup.

I know you don't care, but I have to hold myself accountable somehow, so suck it.

Lookie-Loo

Stupid gym.

They've added tables in both the fitness rooms for schmoozing  potential new members. 

It's fucking annoying. 

Go somewhere else. 

Don't watch me run, Jackass. 

Mind your own business. I'm trying to lift here!

No seriously, quit watching me run and lift. 

(I'm not being vain or paranoid, they sit at the stupid table and stare at everyone working out. Sometimes me, sometimes someone else. Better someone else than me.)

I can kick your ass. 

I run and lift... while you clearly do not. 

Sigh.

Fine. 

I'll see you around for the next week, while you attempt to be the kind of person who "goes to the gym."

Hope you enjoy those gym fees for the next year. 

Stay off my treadmill. 

I really wish they had put these damn tables somewhere else. 

Do they really need to be in the fitness center? 

Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy.

That's not an apology, it's a warning. 

Reunited and it feels so good!

I was catching up on my Heroes last night by watching the season premiere.

Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) and Weevil (Francis Capra IV) in the same television show again.

That may be too awesome for my brain to comprehend.

Yay!

It's like rainbow, puppies and peanut butter all got together and made a wonderful, gooey baby of happiness that is full of sunshine and all things good.

Butt Out!!

Our Dog Walker Lady won't stop harassing us about Milo's food dishes. 

She has explained (and drawn diagrams -- see below) several times about dishes that won't turn over. 

She is very concerned that Milo turns his food dish over on a regular basis and then eats his food off the floor. 

I would be very concerned about this if Milo was our child and not our dog. 

Since he is a dog, I really would find it difficult to care less about whether he eats his food out of his dish or off the floor. 

Plus, he doesn't just dump it on the floor in a little pile and eat it. He scatters it everywhere before he eats it. Sometimes I find a couple of pieces on my pillow... maybe he wants to save them for later? I like to think he revels in it when we're not around. That he tosses it up in the air and rolls around in it. So, why should I stand in the way of his fun? 

Is there a polite way to tell the DWL to fuck off and stop harassing me about my dog's food dish?

Will They Care?

Today, the report on Sarah Palin's unethical behavior as governor of Alaska came out.

So, I hold my breath. Will the American people care?

"The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation or an organization to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions."
- Andrew Hacker

I felt so hopelessly deflated the first time I read this quote. I think it is my fundamental problem. I feel like if people understand, then they couldn't possibly...

But, it isn't true.

A friend of mine from high school recently wrote a blog where she said, "I will have to admit to my kids that this was the first election where I could not give two shits about the little guy, as I was far more concerned with building a nest egg for the family I would eventually start..."

So, she gets it, but is fundamentally more concerned with herself than the welfare of the nation?

Sist-A's boyfriend, KhakiRepublican, tried to justify women having to pay for rape kits in Wasilla by saying "they probably got a lot of false reporting."

While I adamantly disagree with KR's politics, in general, he's not a complete dumbass. He's capable of intelligent conversation, but is he blind or just willing to justify any sort of behavior as long as it's a Republican who does it?

I accept that people have different beliefs than I do. I'm not one of those people who feel like I need to surround myself with people who only believe as I do in order to validate my own opinions.

But, at my core is the belief that you have to care about other human beings. If we care about the lowest common denominator, then the collective welfare of the people improves. I believe that compassion and helping one another out is a good thing.

There are people who don't believe that. They look at the situation and really only care about themselves. It is not only an accepted notion, but an encouraged one in our capitalistic society.

So, back to my original point... will anyone care that Sarah Palin has been called out by her home state for being unethical? The Republican pundits will push their talking points "Obama is a terrorist" and fan-wank for Sarah. To be fair, if the situation were reversed, Democratic pundits would probably do the same thing.

I guess I have to hope Heather is wrong and "hockey moms" and "Joe Six-Packs" do care about crazy things like facts... or at the very minimum factual sound bites that are easily digestible.

I'd apologize for the long, rambling nature of this post, but nobody's forcing you to read it, jackass.

When in Doubt?

I was reading some news on MSN.com this morning, and came across this news item:
Palin pre-empts state report, clears self

She is attempting to preempt the ethics report that is going to be released by Alaska on Friday, by issuing a report of her own, where she is cleared of all wrong doing.
While clearly evil, you have to admire her moxy.

Cause, she couldn't possibly be guilty of an ethics violation if in fact people who support her write up a report saying so...

... wait, isn't that a little unethical?

She must be pretty worried about it, if they are already attempting spin control when they don't know what will be in the report.

I guess the real question is whether "hockey moms" and "Joe Six-Pack" care about ethics?

Tears of Joy

I was tooling around on the Internet when I came across this website (failblog.org)
I have not laughed that hard in a long time.
You might want to check it out for yourself, but here are some of my favorites:




Well, he followed the letter, if not the spirit of the problem.



Same difference?



No, Janine, I couldn't tell it was a wig. At all.



Um....?

Bah!

I was at work today at 7AM for a conference call with the Netherlands.
Bah!
Sounds fancy, but it really just means I was up at the crack of fucking dawn to be here.
I am hungry and cranky.
Ha! That doesn't bode well for the poor saps who signed up for the class I'm off to teach... Suckers!!

Will Power

I read somewhere that the more you use your will power the weaker it is. It's not like a muscle. If you use it, the more likely you are to break when it's tested again.

Today I went to DSW and did not buy any new shoes.
(If you think that this is because I didn't find any I wanted, you are either dumb or a boy)
Then I came home and made home made pizza for dinner and cut it into smaller portion sizes than I had originally intended to make the calorie count more reasonable.
(If you think that this wasn't difficult, then you are seriously underestimating how much I love to eat)

This worries me.
I have had two strong tests of my will power this afternoon alone.

Do you think knocking on wood covers stuff like this?

Ah... So That's How You Communicate

Today, I attended a seminar designed to teach me "How to Communicate Effectively"
Bah! Shut the fuck up, seminar.

I hate the whole "self help" atmosphere of these seminars.
I should probably mention I hate all the bull shittery of the self help genre in general.
The whole "realize the you that you've always had the potential to be" crap kind of makes me ill.
I shouldn't hate the whole self help thing as much as I do, since I've never read a self help book.
But, the whole premise behind self help seems disingenuous to me.

People rarely change.
The details change. But, in my experience, at their core people stay the same.
If they do change, it's not because some stupid book told them how.
Sorry if I just dashed your dream of reading a self help book to make all your problems go away, make yourself rich, popular and loved.

People change when they make up their minds to change and then actually stick with it. They ram it down their own fucking throats until it becomes the natural response.

In spite of the whole self help atmosphere, I'm usually able to pull at least one thing away from these seminars to take back to work.
(The Women's Conference = Quit Taking It Personally aka Q-Tip which helped my relationship with the Hammer who is often unintentionally offensive.
How to Get Organized = The beginning of my love affair with Outlook's To do list)
This time?
Nothing.

Here are some "tips" for communication, in case you are a total fucking moron:
1. Don't be offensive... people don't listen when you make them angry
2. Good communicators listen (and according to one of the exercises they forced us to do in class, notice minute changes in one another's wardrobe)
3. Everybody's different. Deal with it. Quit expecting them to hear everything the way you do.

I guess that's all. I tried for about 5 minutes to come up with a number 4, but I couldn't come up with anything else they tried to teach us today (that's useful).

FreshMeat

I met my sister's boyfriend this weekend.
He was unfailingly polite, charming and funny the entire time I spent with him.
Of course, in the end, it doesn't matter what I think of him. My policy regarding sibling relationships remains the same.

As long as they are good to my sibs, then I don't care if they are assholes (or let's say Republicans :)) I'm still going to make the effort to get along with them and be nice (enough... as much as I'm able to be "nice" to anyone I guess). If you aren't good to them, you will only be around in spite of my best efforts, so good luck with that.
Oh yeah, and I may like you and get along with you, but that doesn't mean you are good enough for my sibs. Ever.

That being said, Sis-C's boy did manage to impress me. (Not that easy to do)

We were talking about going to the gym and manly muscles.

Me: You've seen what these guns can do in the Middle East. Now you're going to see what they can do in the ring.
FreshMeat: The Best of Chris Farley Saturday Night Live is one of those DVDs everybody should own.
Me: Wha?? Exactly!!

That's right. He is familiar enough with Chris Farley to identify it out of nowhere.
Maybe that shouldn't impress me, but somehow it does.
I'm pretty jazzed that there is a chance I might actually like this one, unlike DoucheBag, the last dude Sis-C dated.

No, Regis, that's not my final answer, but it's my best guess thus far.

Headline

I was tooling around on MSN, and I saw this headline:
Rumors: Ocho Cinco says Crazy Things

Um, dude wanted to change his name legally to Ocho Cinco.
I don't think it's a "rumor" that he says crazy things.
Dude might just be crazy.

Tired

So far, this is not a promising start to the day.
I'm currently at work... check the timestamp, people... it's just not right.
Darkness is for sleeping, not driving to work.

Well, well

Things have been looking up since lunch.

I was on track to have a crappy day.
My slap in the face raise, which was almost worse than nothing at all.
I got a paper cut... because my company insists on giving me a fake pay slip telling me to seek out my real pay slip. Stupid fucking waste of paper that cut my finger.
We have a deadline at work, that I am recently not that motivated to meet.
One of the projects I am working on is not going as well as I might like and it's making me uneasy.
My new eyeshadow which is specifically not supposed to crease, was creased by 9AM... that's fucking ridiculous.
Etc... there have been other things, but (perhaps contrary to popular belief) I don't take note of every crappy little thing that happens to me in a day.

Then after lunch one of my favorite coworker, FancyTalker came into talk to me about some questions they had. It was a relief to talk about problems that weren't mine and FT generally always makes me laugh. It's hard to hold onto grimness and anger when you laugh.

My load is lightened, if not relieved.

It's amazing how the smallest things can have an impact on your outlook and just turn your day around.

Deeply Disappointing

It has been a deeply disappointing morning.

October 1st is the day I get my raise at work.
It was a horrible raise. 5%
In our current economic state, that's not even a cost of living raise.

I work hard.
I work hard so that I am one of the top ranked in my division and this is the thanks I get?
I can look forward to a future of shitty raises no matter how hard I work?
Where is the motivation in that?
Why should I work so hard when I could work 1/2 as hard and get the same raise?

It's like a slap in the face.
Thanks, but no thanks for all your hard work.
Here's a less than the cost of living increase.

To think, I had actually begun to care about my job a little bit over the past year.
Well that's done now.

Fuck you job.

I have to stop thinking about this.
It's embarrassing to cry at work.