Tag Archives: life

I Am the Geek Squad

11 Jun

I’m breaking free of my Internetless chains.

For about a month now, I’ve been without access to the magical Interwebz within the comfort of my own home.  It’s been a lovely obstacle to my post a day adventure.

But I’ve had enough now.

This whole thing started because I got in a fight with Comcast customer service and decided I didn’t need their stinking Internet service.  Something about my rates constantly being hiked without warning, get routed to the wrong service center every time I called, and waiting 30 minutes to talk to a human just really turned me off to the world-at-my-fingertips thing.

Not that it was the Internet’s fault.

And there’s been something quite lovely about having to get out of my house every evening to go write a post, but it really sucks on weekends when all I want to do is sleep in, walk around in pajamas, and eat chocolate.   And since I’m thinking of showing up at the cafe with a bag of chocolate chips and PJs, I think it’s time I give in and get another service provider.   And I’m also really tired of not being able to look things up when I want to know them.   I never realized how many times I Google something in a day until I was suddenly unable to do so.   There are lots of random things I like to look up every day.  Like store hours, phone numbers, how long an entire frozen chicken takes to thaw, whether the mushrooms in the fridge are bad or just look bad, what movies are playing…  I need to know things.  A lot of things.  So yesterday I asked the folks at Verizon to send me some Interwebz.

…But I didn’t want to pay the service fee for installation so they’re sending me a kit.

That’s right – a kit.  In approximately 4 days, I will be buried in a list of instructions, cords, and hopelessness.  I will tell myself the same thing I tell myself when I need to construct furniture or do my taxes: millions of people have accomplished this all over the world.  And at least one of those people has been dumber than me.  And they succeeded.  Logic dictates that I can also succeed.

I don’t really have any data from which I formed this hypothesis.  Even if I could get the stats for how many people attempt those things per year and calculate approximately how many of them have less education or common sense than me, there’s absolutely no way to know how many of those people pieced together furniture that didn’t topple over the next day or do taxes that didn’t get audited.

I could make some really good fake pie graphs to make myself feel better though.

How hard can self installation be? I mean – they offer it as an option.  One would think that there are several people who look at the $100+ fee and look at the self-installation (free) option and think “eh… I’ll do it.”

I have a lot of faith that I can pull this together on my own.  Unfortunately, there will be no way for me to Google for common problems or search for advice while I’m undergoing the process.   And if it takes too long, the cafe will close and I’ll have no way to post for that day.  Note to self: go to cafe, write post, then attempt self-installation.

Giddy up. ♣

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Establishing My Alter Ego

10 Jun

I don’t trust brunettes.

I don’t mean any old brunettes.  I mean cute faced, nice-bodied brunettes.  The ones that can swipe on a little blush, run their fingers through their hair, and make men melt.

I used to think it was redheads I had to worry about.  I spent all my time wanting to be one.  I’m a pathetic shade of strawberry blonde and have always wished it were more strawberry than blonde.  So I’d occasionally turn to the bottle, only to have it fade or grow out and be stuck with my same, bland self.

But you know what? A knockout redhead is hard to find.  An all-natural redheaded sex vixen is a difficult thing to pull out of a general pool of genes that typically includes pasty skin, invisible eyebrows, and enough freckles to draw your own skin constellations.

Don’t get me wrong – if you find yourself a redheaded sex pot, she’s dangerous as hell. 

Sweet smile from a pretty girl

Photo by "tibcris" Click to check out his Flickr PhotoStream

I can’t help but wonder what it might be like to be a pocket-sized dark haired yowza.  I feel like I could rule the world.  I mean, I know the difference in how I’m treated when I put on makeup and when I don’t.  Imagine if I actually had something to work with before I put on the makeup.  I could rule entire nations.

I’m pretty sure that’s what Beyonce’s trying to get at.

Maybe I should turn to the bottle and try a dose of brunette.  I mean, nothing can be done for the pasty skin but perhaps the fact that I have bright blue eyes will help counterbalance my obvious disdain toward tanning.  Yeah – maybe I’ll do the cute brunette long bob thing.  You know – that thing where they walk around with their bouncy, short, brown hair and giggle and look like their entire lives are effortless and gorgeous?  I’ll get some kind of cutesy summer dress and work myself up an alter ego.  You know – try her out for a while.

Maybe I’ll name her Myra.

Then again, if I thought growing out slight shades of red was difficult, I’m sure trying to work through the blonde-roots-brown-ends thing will really pose a challenge.   Especially when paired with a too-long-bob. 

This has some serious backfire potential. ♣

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The Joy of Parenting (My Parents)

9 Jun
Nuclear parents

These are not my parents. But this is what you might expect of them. Photo by David Chartier. Click the image to check out his Flickr PhotoStream.

I think my favorite part of growing up so far  is watching my parents grow up.

You know, watching them morph from parents into people.  Real people.  People who occasionally cuss, share with me their ridiculous dreams and hopes, and frivolously spend on silly things, not just food and clothes and education for their kids.   It’s a grand old time.

I was the last of three kids and so I was the last to work through the trenches of their tyrannical parenting.  And when I passed the finish line, they let loose.

I knew I’d get to reverse roles with them someday, but I didn’t know it’d happen like this.  I thought I’d be changing diapers and trying to stop my dad from eating nothing but Pepsi and chips and driving his nurse to suicide.  And I’m sure that someday I’ll live out that dream. But I’m kind of surprised that there’s a sort of pre-old people stage, where I have  to tell my mom to put on some clothes and tell my dad to stop staying up all night and playing video games.  I didn’t see that comin’.

One of my favorite recollections of their middle-aged hilarity is when I asked my mom if she had a pair of shoes I could borrow and all she could offer that matched my dress were her … um…her…*cough*-me pumps.

I immediately declined.  She thought it was hysterical.

But there really is something pretty awesome about the transition of my parents from folks to friends.  I find my mother absolutely hilarious and often ridiculous.  All the time, I’m seeing more and more clearly that I’m basically her, but with a big fat dose of crazy on top.  And I find my father incredibly charming.  He’s such a kooky little hermit of a man and the ways he goes about things never cease to amuse me.  I remember one night when I was growing up, he had decided for some reason or another that a tree branch in our backyard needed to be removed.  He promptly went to the kitchen, grabbed my mother’s biggest, best steak knife, and hacked the branch to little tiny bits until 4 in the morning. It’s memories like this that I look back and treasure, realizing that they were really this crazy all along and I was just blinded by my youth.

When I think about how I pieces of both these people in my genetic makeup, I’m genuinely frightened.  And honored.

Sometimes when I go home to visit and I’m out with them for an evening, I listen in on their front-seats-of-the-car conversations and am genuinely amused that they raised me.  It’s a wonder I have any wits about me at all.

Then again, I’m still a relatively young lass.  I’ve got all sorts of years over which to pace my steady decline. ♣

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My Slow Transition Into Old Fartedness

8 Jun
Old Lady (cropped)

Pic by "Greencolander" Click it to check out their Flickr PhotoStream.

Last night I set up a Twitter account.

You can check it out in all its glory on the right hand side of the page.  There should be some sort of “Tweet Tweet” nonsense I wrote and then some tweets posted and then a little place to follow me.

It took me an hour and a half.

An hour and a half.  No joke.  I’m in my 20’s.  There’s absolutely no excuse for that.

I remember back in elementary school when I got to go to the computer lab and play Oregon Trail.  That was some awesome stuff.  It was cutting edge – right at the tip of the tech-savvy iceburg.  Along with perforated printer paper, making celebration banners, and going to chat rooms.

That was back before they were all dirty.

I remember learning all the different territories in Canada and meeting someone from Canada in a chat room and being SO STOKED that I could tell them I knew all about their country.  I had an early hotmail account and then one of the early gmail accounts when hotmail wasn’t cool anymore.  MySpace, Blogger, blah blah blah. I remember when my college finally got Facebook (back when my parents couldn’t join) and explaining it to other people on campus so that they’d get on and see how awesome it was.   If it was on the magical Interwebz and it was trendy, I mastered it.

But then Twitter showed up.

I didn’t really get Twitter.  It’s really just a bastardized version of the Facebook news feed and I didn’t see the appeal.  I logged on back when it was blowing up the world and I remember creating my account and immediately dismissing it.  What was the point of just reading 140 characters or less about all of these people when I could just go to Facebook and do the same thing but also have access to pics, links, notes, info, and social groups?

But alas, my blog is growing (hallelujah, amen for people who like to read dribble) and apparently I need to Twitterize myself to be more accessible.  So last night I moseyed on over to greet it again.  I sheepishly apologized for dismissing it the first time around and pretended to not still carry disdain as I set myself up with a few modest accounts to follow, a pic, a bio, and my first Tweet.

It took me a hell of a long time.

What if this is just the beginning? What if I start to lose touch with all the new, trendy, young kid things? I don’t mean Bieber and Gaga, I mean actual catalysts for change in society.  I can’t tell you how many articles I had to read in order to understand what a meme is.  Now I know and I feel like an idiot.  I had to read articles to understand what a meme is?!  And when I first decided to fire up a WordPress blog, I can’t even tell you how much I had to read and click and search to put together something half decent.  I’m still pretty annoyed that I’m using a cookie cutter theme, but I’m just too old and dumb to figure out a snazzier alternative right now.  Could this be the beginning of me closing myself off to new experiences in technology and rattling off about the good old days when music wasn’t invisible and we actually had to buy cassettes?  

Yes, I am aware that readers of this blog can go back further than that.  Kudos to you, my friends, for being able to remember albums and managing to follow a blog.

I can only hope I’m as successful as you. ♣

Hey, while we’re on the subject of old farts, check out my favorite well-spoken old fart blogger at http://crabbyoldfart.wordpress.com. You won’t regret it.

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Some Kinda Voodoo Magic

7 Jun

It’s Lollipop Tuesday.  Awwww Yeah.

I’ve gotta say: I’ve always been put off by fortune tellers, tarot card readers, and gypsies of all kinds.  I question their methods, I often label them hacks, and may forever wonder what mysteries are within their curious tents, shacks, and homes.

But hey, I’ve got a blog to keep.  So when I passed by one of the aforementioned gypsies at a local arts fest this past weekend, I moseyed on over for a Tarot Card Reading.

The Fortune Teller

Photo by "aussiegal". Things I like about her: 1) She's on WordPress 2) She's done a 365 Project. Click the image to check out her blog.

I have to admit – the fact that she was positioned directly beside a hunched over old man who asked for donations as he enthusiastically mumbled along to his karaoke machine slightly affected her credibility.  But let’s face it: I didn’t give her much to start with.  What did she have to lose?

I expect tarot card readers to have a big scarf wrapped around their hair and to reek of incense, but this particular fortune-teller was a rather attractive brunette with a strong New York accent.  And she didn’t ask for anything but tips. So basically, I could have her do a reading and pay her 50 cents.  I was pretty down with that.

For the record, I did not pay her 50 cents.  In fact, I paid her well.  Especially considering she played cards for money.

When I sat down, I let her know that I had no idea how any of this worked and she could feel free to treat me like a kindergartener.   She told me to shuffle the cards but to not think of anything negative while I did.  So I shuffled, trying to fill my mind with thoughts of puppies and sprinkles.  

The first card she drew was a dead body with knives in its back.

Apparently I’m not so fantastic at sending good vibes into cards, but hey – she said I’d live a long and prosperous life so I’m all right.   I never really buy in to psychic business or astrology columns in the newspaper.  Of course everyone kind find truth in ambiguous generalisms and that’s usually all they amount to.  But in my “keep an open mind, try new things” mentality, I must admit that this woman was rather strikingly accurate in her relay of information.

I recently got a promotion, recently had my trust betrayed, and have always struggled getting to sleep at night thanks to a thought-burdened mind.  That was all in there, and it was pretty darn specific.  She even got the timeline right.

A friend (and blog reader) was with me and decided to dive in right after.   She was told there was a big move in her future and she just happens to be moving to The Big Apple in a few months.  Had she given me my friend’s reading and my reading to my friend, she would have been wildly inaccurate.

Interesting.

I’m  not saying I’m on board necessarily, but I actually thought it was pretty cool.  I didn’t have anything to lose considering she wasn’t charging me a specific fee.  And though her advice to stop carrying such a burden on my shoulders was probably more due to my terrible posture than a strong intuition, I have to admit that the experience was pretty groovy.   And eerily specific.

She did tell me I ‘needed my aura cleansed’, which she didn’t say to my friend.  I’m not sure what that means but I’m sure I can take care of it with a shower and a decent aromatic body wash.

There was one thing she said that I’ll be interested to keep an eye out for.  Something about a jealous woman in my life, an upcoming dispute with her, and her advice to walk away.  Since everything she said about my past was accurate, I’m curious to see whether she’s any good at the future.

I’ve got my eye on you, ladies. ♣

 

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The Answer to All My Problems

6 Jun

 

 

 

Question mark

Photo by "konradfoerstner". Click the image to check out their Flickr Photostream.

I need to be struck with a serious case of get-it-together.

My apartment is a horror.  I haven’t vacuumed in weeks, my dishes are stacked so high I have nothing to eat off, and there are things living on common surfaces that should have been tucked away in their hiding places long, long ago. 

In the meantime, my nails have disappeared.  I am talon-less.  My victory only one week ago is now null and void, as my nerves slowly scraped off the manicure, then slowly worked at the length, and finally destroyed my cuticles.   And yesterday I went for a long bike ride intended to work off some of the fatty fatness that has accumulated on me and clung like a barnacle to my sides and thighs, but I forgot that it’s Summer in the Springtime this year and came home tomato-red from head to toe.

No amount of aloe can help this.

I need some kind of clean-up crew for my life right now. I want to hire a power team of folks to whirl through my apartment and make it shiny and new.  A steam clean for the carpets wouldn’t hurt either.  And I could sit back on my couch, fanning myself and weaving an aloe-infused cocoon to help the healing process on my poor, crispy skin.

While the dream team is at it, they could work on setting up my checking account for automatic transfer into my savings and 401K.  They could find me a decent credit card offer so I can build my credit.  They could instruct me each day on what to eat and how to exercise so that I can be as hot as possible as fast as possible.  They could weed out my wardrobe of offending pieces and replace them with beautiful, flattering garments that distract people from aforementioned fat barnacles.  They could draft letters and thank you’s and hey-how-ya-doin’s to folks I need to connect with more often and maintain friendships that are dwindling now in my more-adult days.  They could also attend events on my behalf that conflict with events I’ve already committed to.  …And the ones that I just don’t want to go to.

Maybe  I could also get them to whip up a 5-year plan for me.

That seems to cover all the areas I need right now.  I’m sure I’ll think of more and I can just pile them on when the folks get here.  They can write it in on the bottom of the invoice.  Right under “General life clean-up and consultation to include (but not be limited to): Apartment cleaning, construction of aloe cocoon, financial consultation and account setup, nutrition and training advice, personal shopping and wardrobe consultation, letter drafting, relationship sustaining, event attendance, networking, and formulation of effective 5-year plan.” 

It will be the best money I’ve ever spent. ♣

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Drugs, She Wrote

5 Jun
detective

Super groovy pic by Ollie Olarte. Click the image to check out their Flickr PhotoStream.

Let’s do a little investigative work.

Now I know that I’ve used my blog as a forum to discuss my crazy theories more times than one.  There was the one about the cleaning lady at work using tissue boxes to run drugs.  And then the one about my dad being a drug dealer.  And well, now this.  But listen – these things come to me.  I don’t just walk around looking for evidence of an underground drug ring.  I’m telling you: I’m on to something.  

Bear with me.

So I’ve been frequenting this cafe lately that features wireless Internet because of a long complicated story that involves me losing my Internet.  Which has, in turn, made daily blogging even more of a challenge.  Super awesome.

The other night I was there until closing (around 10pm) trying to finish up a post and take care of every Internet need I could possibly have until the next moment I could get in touch with the magical Interwebz.  And just before 10pm, the worker put a black trash bag out on the sidewalk.  No big deal, right? Probably trash.  Let it go, Jackie.

But at 10:10, I was still there, mooching off the Internet from just outside the cafe because I had to finish a few things real quick-like. And at 10:11, a man pulled up in a dinky little car, got out, grabbed the black trash bag, threw it in his trunk, and drove away.

What?

Okay, what was it? What’s in there? I need to know.  It wasn’t just recyclables.  Recycling is free in the city – they would just put it out on recycling day.  Even if it were recyclables, there are far better business to pick them up from.  Because I don’t see one glass or plastic container in this place.  And if it were trash, it would go out on trash day.  And why would someone want either of those things anyway?

It’s drugs.  

It’s probably an enormous bag of drugs.  Or something.  I don’t know, but it’s fishy.

So here’s what I’m thinking:  I’ll continue to frequent the cafe right before closing hour.  And I’ll keep an eye on this to see if it’s a trend or anomaly.  If it happens once more, then when I come back the third time, I will grab the trash bag and replace it with a similar bag full of stuffed animals and a note saying “I’m on to you.”

Then I can take the bag I’ve recovered and see what’s inside and what all the fuss is about.  Best case scenario: it’s full of gold.  Worst case scenario: it’s poo.  If it’s somewhere in between (drugs), I can report it to the police and be the coolest drug sleuth in all the land. And then I can bust the cleaning lady and my dad with my new street cred. 

Cases closed. ♣

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Let’s Lay Down Some Ground Rules

4 Jun

Last night I sat in the cafe, casually writing this post while drinking a hot chocolate the size of my face.

The size of my face!  Literally! This thing was enormous.  I probably could have dunked both my hands in the cup and given myself a decent handwash with a little soap and water.  It was a basin of chocolatey goodness and mild regret.  

It was my fault.  I ordered a large without asking what size a large is.  Because after all, we’ve managed to suck all possible meaning from the word by making it relative.   Very relative.  A large is not to McDonalds what a large is to your favorite cafe, which has a large that is not as big as the large at the Piggly Wiggly.

That’s right: the Piggly Wiggly.

Apparently a large at my favorite cafe is a basin.  You know, relatively small for a basin and relatively large for a typical serving size.

File:Big gulp6480.JPG

And this is a 7 Eleven Super Big Gulp. I've actually seen people with these. Walking around like 44 ounces closer to a killer case of diabetes is not big deal. (Image from Wikipedia - Click to go).

This has all gotten very confusing.  What if we just all agreed on keeping things around the same size as other things by the same name?  Maybe I could order a medium coffee and have it be always be within the same few ounces of play room, regardless of where I order it? Or better yet: what if all businesses in America just sold smalls.  Just small.  Can you imagine the implications!? 

I had a musician friend of mine (let’s call him Zulu, because he could pull it off) who went to Switzerland to play music and be a hippie.  While there, he Skyped with Dave and I and told us how he asked for the biggest milkshake they had.  They handed him the equivalent of an American ‘small’.  He thought they got the order wrong so he inquired and they assured him that it was indeed the largest size they carried. He asked if they could find something bigger, make two, and put them in the something bigger together.

They said no so he bought two and had them back to back.

Can you imagine the implications should America choose to not be a bunch of fatty fats?  That would be awesome.  For me, especially.  Because it’s super easy to be a fatty fat when everything I ever order is enormous.  Then again, it would take a revolution to handle restaurant portion control in America.

And if I’m going to start a revolution, I’m going for the 3-day weekend first. ♣

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The Fan Theory

3 Jun
Fan

Photo from ryk_neethling. Click the image to check out his Flickr PhotoStream.

I need to figure out my dad’s fan theory.

Growing up, we had a few rules.  One was no light of any kind allowed.  Two was no people over ever.  And three was obey the fan theory.

I never really understood the intricacies of the fan theory but it had something to do with the careful balance of the number of fans in each window, the choice of windows that were open, and the location of the sun in the sky.  The algorithm is complicated somewhat with the addition of 2-way window fans, which featured both an ‘in’ and an ‘out’ switch.  One could have the fan blowing in four different combinations and I was never quite sure which was appropriate for the time of day and depending on which windows were open on the 2nd floor. 

But now that I’m all grown up and grumpy myself, I am attempting to endure the summer of 2011 without my AC again.  Given that this summer is significantly hotter than the last (as chronicled in my sweaty, complaining post yesterday), I’m going to need some kind of old-school game plan to battle the heat and I’m thinking perhaps it’s time to return to my roots.  I don’t know if dad’s fan theory ever made any of us cooler.  There’s a big chance that it was just a way for him to amuse himself and bark for us to run up and down the stairs, making fine adjustments to the angles of upright fans and closing windows with the urgency one musters in the face of a monsoon.

But I’m willing to try it anyway.

Because by golly I’m warm and I don’t want to lug that money-sucking, rattling, dripping, 100-pound air conditioner up and secure it in the window.  The fan theory will have to do.

I don’t think I have enough fans for the algorithm to properly function and since I live in an apartment complex, I don’t really have any control over which windows are open on which floors.  I’m pretty sure the fact that we’re all closed off in our little hutches within, the state of the higher floors would have nothing to do with the status of mine.

But then again, it’s a complicated and mysterious art.

I’ll do my best to work it out on my own with my 2-way window fan, a Vornado, and a Wind Machine, but if some kind of cool breeze magic doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to have to start knocking on neighbors’ doors and asking them if they know anything about dad’s fan theory and if they’d like to help. Maybe I’ll have a cat, some cookies, and an umbrella in tow so they don’t have to ask themselves if I’m crazy.

They’ll just know. ♣

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2011: The Summer of Raging Hellflames

2 Jun
It's so hot.......

Delicious fried sidewalk egg by Kate Ter Haar. Click the egg to check out her Flickr PhotoStream.

This is not spring; this is summer.

 This is all-out, balls-to-the-wall sweatylicious summertime and I am completely unprepared.   It came out of nowhere.  One day I was complaining about the constant rain and the next, Mother Nature was using the sun to pound down hellfire heat on my fragile, pasty skin.

I’m not ready for this.  Already, I am overwhelmed with the constant dew on my cheeks and the greasy, grimy feeling of my SPF moisturizer.  I’m so hot that my legs are sweating.  Every so often I have to take a moment to air out the backside of my knees – the armpits of the lower body.

This is my first summer with leather furniture.  It was a hand-me –down from a classy broad who gets tired of nice things quickly and I happily hauled it away to my home.  But now that my apartment is dripping in sweat and stench, I’ve begun to stick to the couch.

Quite literally – stick to it.

If I’m not paying attention or try to get up out of urgency, I have to do a double-take to make sure my skin isn’t still attached to the chair I’m getting up from.   It’s matched with a distinct ripping sound  – not unlike peeling the casing off a tightly wrapped sausage.

In this scenario, I am the sausage.

It’s just now the beginning of June and I’m starting to really dread what July may have in store.  I made it all last summer without air conditioning of any kind.  Dave and I happily hauled the AC out of the window and used a fan, embracing the heat and naturalism.  The car doesn’t have air conditioning either, so there was no need to worry about adjustment throughout the day.   A trip to the local grocery store, however, required a sweater. 

I don’t know if I can do that again this year.  2011 is apparently the year of the flaming, enraged, summer fire dragon and I don’t know that I can compete.    I’m too poor and stubborn to kick the AC on, too fat and flabby to frequent the pool, and too modest to walk around nearly naked.

One of those is going to have to give. ♣

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