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Friday, May 09, 2008

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:43:42 GMT

I tried to find a photo of the matching quilted overalls, but had no luck. I wouldn't be surprised if I had thrown away any photos like that, because thinking about those outfits still makes me uncomfortable (and kind of mad). I did find the yearbook photo with the ill-fitting pants, but I don't know if I can post it, even though I've decided to try to embrace my inner history club geek. The photo is just as bad as I remembered. Plus someone wrote over me.

I'm so glad it's Friday. This has been a long week, and not all that pleasant. My boss's default setting is "this has to be someone's fault, and it's not mine" and then he constructs a narrative that fits the scenario. Not everything that goes wrong is someone's fault, necessarily, and blame for the sake of blame doesn't really help anything. In the case of what happened this week, which I don't want to go into because trust me, it wasn't that big a deal and it would be kind of hard to explain, there were a lot of contributing factors. In the end, it turned out to be a good thing (surprisingly), but it's another thing that my boss will bring up at every opportunity.

I'm thinking of putting in my notice at the end of the summer. We'll have to see how the summer goes, but it seems like things are getting worse. The way things have been the last couple of months, I feel like my boss and I are sort of on a collision course. It's not funny anymore. He's mean. He used to be sort of nice sometimes, but he's pretty much just mean now.

This weekend I'm cleaning the house. It was so clean when the kids were gone, but now that they're back, there are dishes piled in the sink, stuff all over the kitchen counters, etc. etc. etc. Mack is working all weekend (and will be exhausted) and I think Alex is going to the beach with her friend. I really like this friend (they've been friends since about the 3rd grade) and I think a lot of Alex's other friends are not really good for her. So even though I think Alex should probably stay home and help me with the house, I want to encourage friendships that I approve of. She's been sick, though--really sick yesterday--so we'll have to see. She was quite a bit better last night.

Also, the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, I think, and then rainy on Sunday--so I'll take advantage of the dog park tonight and tomorrow. Gizmo loves it there and he comes home exhausted. Plus it gives me a little down time. I like to walk around the park with my earbuds in while Gizmo plays with all his friends. The only problem with this scenario is that so many people want to talk about Gizmo that sometimes it's not very relaxing, not to mention the fact that the dog park is full of crazy people.

My Year of Fashion Crimes

Fri, 02 May 2008 14:04:54 GMT

What was your worst-ever "fashion crime"? Are you willing to share a photo?

Yardenxanthe answered this question and as I often do, I blogged in the comment box on her blog. I thought I'd bring it over here and then maybe comment on another fashion crime. See yardenxanthe's blog for a good definition of a fashion crime.

I went to see This American Life on the big screen last night. It was a live event beamed all over the country (though I imagine it was delayed for the west coast, because otherwise it would have started at 11pm in New York). I've never been to an event like that before. I've kind of wanted to go to one of the Metropolitan Opera ones, but it's never happened. Ditto a concert--I wanted to see Keith Urban because I like him and Garth Brooks because I'll probably never go to an actual Garth Brooks concert and I hear they're unbelievable. And I actually do like like him, too.

I swear this will tie into the fashion crimes discussion. Or at least I think it will.

Anyway, This American Life was just terrific, of course. I was a little apprehensive about it at first, just like I was when I saw the TV show for the first time after being such a devoted listener to the radio show. It was great. They showed bits from the new season of the TV show and things that didn't make it to air, talked about both the TV and radio shows and how they differ, and took audience questions. I think my favorite story of the night was when they had this Iraqi man travel around the USA and set up a little booth that looks much like Lucy's psychologist booth in the Peanuts cartoon. Instead of "Psychologist 5 cents" the booth says "Talk to an Iraqi." It was, as you might guess if you're a This American Life fan, moving and interesting and surprising.

Another really good story they showed was by Jonathan Goldstein about a group of middle schoolers doing standup comedy. The teacher's advice to one kid was (she called it the first rule of comedy), "it's better to be liked than funny."

Anyway, these kids were so great. They all talked about having no friends and being tormented and how they viewed being funny as a gift. This one kid called it "God's handicap," meaning, you have a miserable life, you have no friends and everyone hates you, but you're funny, "and that will get you somewhere." Goldstein talked about how weird it was that these kids wanted to go onstage, since most kids that age (and I would think especially the friendless) would want to attract as little attention as possible.

In junior high and high school (jr. high especially), I definitely wanted to blend in. I wanted to get through the day without being noticed at all, which wasn't easy because my Spanish teacher called on me constantly and had us do all kinds of weird things--I understand that she might have enjoyed donning a poncho and sombrero and dancing around the room, but 7th graders generally take a dim view of that sort of thing.

When I started 7th grade, I had done all my back-to-school shopping at my grandmother's in Tennessee, where the fashion was decidedly different than in California. While the other kids were wearing Dittos (in retrospect, not that great a look, either) and jeans, I had a bunch of these kind of weird sort of polyester pants that didn't really fit--I had several colors (all pastels, as I recall) and then a bunch of tops that would basically match any of the pants. Kind of like Garanimals. And then the wavy-soled shoes (I think they were called Famolares). It's totally cringe-worthy and I knew I looked bad and I felt bad and well, you know. It was 7th grade. Not a lot of good things were happening in my life.

I think there was a picture of me in one of these getups in the yearbook, because I was a member of the (yes) history club. It's hard to believe I wasn't popular, huh. If there is any other photographic evidence, I don't know where it would be.

I've been rocking the jeans & sweatshirt look pretty much ever since. I think I liked sweaters a lot in the 80s but I don't own a sweater now.

I'll see if I can find the yearbook as it's probably in my garage--I wonder why I would keep such a thing, though, come to think of it...and possibly scan and post.

I was thinking last night after the show that the adults who saw the stand-up comedy kids generally liked them so much, and it was so easy to see that the kids awkward and full of self-loathing. I felt a real tenderness toward them, especially the "God's handicap" kid. But I know I don't feel any tenderness toward the history club kid with the awful ill-fitting pants and the wavy shoes, and I wish I did. I wish I could look at the yearbook and not hate that kid.

Now, the other fashion crime was really awful and not my idea. My parents used to throw a Christmas party every year for my dad's co-workers. I hated these parties with a passion, mainly because my mother was more insane than usual when she got ready for one. One time, she had me vacuum our living room carpet, and the room was like 20' x 30'. I vacuumed it, but she didn't like the fact that the room looked freshly vacuumed, so she made me do it again, this time pushing the vaccum the length of the room, and then carrying it back to the other end, and repeating this process until I'd covered the entire floor.

Anyway, one year when my sister was 2 or 3 and I was 11 or 12 (I think I was in 7th grade for this one too), my mother decided we would have matching outfits for the party. I want to die just recounting this incident. We had done the dress-alike thing one other time, when we had family pictures taken. As you might imagine, what looks adorable on a 2-year-old looks stupid on an 11-year-old. In this case, my mother sewed us both overalls. Yes, overalls. QUILTED overalls. Dark blue, with red and white flowers. Instead of the traditional overall snap thing, they fastened with velcro. And we wore matching red turtlenecks underneath. I don't look good in red. I don't look good in a turtleneck. I don't look good in overalls, quilted or otherwise. I'm surprised my mother didn't try to find me some oversize baby shoes so we could match exactly.

I know I've seen pictures of this abomination, but I wouldn't have a clue where to find one. It would be interesting to see how accurately I remember the outfits. The photo I remember is of my sister sitting in my lap. She looks over-the-top cute, and I look like a 12-year-old in baby clothes.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:56:48 GMT

Thank you, got my premium question answered.

I'm still trying to finish up my entry essay for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. I was feeling kind of blah about it and I had so much drama going on in my life that I kind of put it aside, but I read it again last night and I think it's pretty good so far, funnier than I thought it would be. I just hope I can finish it in time.

I have lots of stuff from Blockbuster that I need to watch and no time to do it. I'm hoping to watch an episode of The Wire during lunch today. I'm now caught up on Dexter and Weeds and ready for new episodes of both.

The rain is starting to get to me. It's almost May and I'm ready for some decent weather.

I know this entry doesn't say very much, but I don't have much to talk about. I've been reading a lot and watching a lot of movies and hanging out with the dog. I do really recommend this movie, though.

May be offensive to Booksellers and Oscar fans

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:54:06 GMT

This week has kind of flown by, which is weird because it’s been tough dealing with Mr. S and that usually makes for a long week.

Today he’s mad at me for not having his car payment checks taped to his chair, because he might have wanted to rush in and sign them and he wouldn’t have been able to find them because they were on my desk.

The reason they were on my desk? I’m afraid to put anything on or near his desk for fear it will never be seen again. There’s no way to describe how cluttered it is. This is because every time we receive a fax, he wants me to put three copies on his desk, and then he never looks at them, and then when we do our once-every-five-years cleaning, he throws them away. Really, it’s a great system.

Plus, he can’t rush in and sign them. There are several checks and they have to be put in the right envelopes, and even though I try to make this easy for him, I know he would have a hard time getting it right. And then it would be my fault.

This morning he lamented the clutter in this place (seriously, it’s hard to walk around in here now—it’s becoming like my great uncle Delma’s (known simply as “Unk” in my family) house before he died: every square inch piled with completely useless crap, except for little pathways carved out). This is hard for me to deal with because I’m the anti-packrat. I throw away things I probably should keep. But honestly, there are only a few things I’ve thrown away that I now really regret and I’m glad I don’t have a house full of stuff!

What I do have is a house full of books. I almost never buy books new except as gifts, because I can’t afford it and I usually don’t keep them after I’ve read them anyway. I either sell them online, donate them to the library bookstore thing (where I also buy a fair number of books), or pass them on to a friend. Sorry to you bookstores out there, but that’s how I roll. Also, I use the library a lot. I’ve been using the library so much lately, and the books on my shelf at home have gone unread. I have a shelf of the books I want to read first, then a closet full of books I want to read after that, and then lots of books in the garage that will go into the closet when the ones in the closet move to the shelf. My goal for this year is to read all the books on the shelf (it’s actually three shelves). I don’t think I’ll actually be able to read them all, but I’d like to see how far I can get.

I bring this up, anyway, because I pulled one of the books from my shelf the other day: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (I’m sure you all know he also wrote Into the Wild, but I think that’s sort of an obligatory statement at this point), about the Everest disaster when 8 people died in one day. I’ve had it for years and for some reason it just never made it to the top of my reading list, even though I’d heard from several people I know and trust that it was a real page-turner. “Page-tuner” is actually putting it mildly—I’ve been staying up late, late, late reading this book. I should finish today. I don’t know anything, really, about mountain climbing, and I know a little about Everest from reading and seeing things on TV. This book so far makes me simultaneously want to climb Everest and not climb Everest. Not that it matters, since I’m not actually going to climb Everest.

I always type "Into Thin Air" as "Into Think Air." Just like I cannot type the word "apple" (it comes out as "applie") correctly on the first try unless I really think about it. Another problem word: "lake" (lkake). Maybe I'm just a poor typist. Actually, there's no "maybe" about it.

An aside about mountain climbing—when I was a little kid, like 5 or 6, I had decided that my profession would be “mountain climber,” having changed it from “mail lady” and before that, “bread truck driver.” Anyway, I remember thinking that to be a good mountain climber, I’d have to climb every mountain (possibly influenced by The Sound of Music). One time driving home from a family camping trip, my dad pointed out a mountain off the highway and asked if I knew the name of the mountain. I didn’t, and he told me it was Rattlesnake Mountain (I assume now that this is the Rattlesnake Mountain in Placer County, CA, or my dad might have just been making it up). Anyway, I remember thinking that Rattlesnake Mountain sounded pretty scary, but I said to my dad, “Well, I guess I’ll have to climb it.” I’m sure my dad remembers nothing of this, but I remember what I was wearing, even.

Anyway, if you haven’t read Into Thin Air, read this book! It was a bestseller for a couple of years, I think, so there should be plenty of copies at garage sales and used bookstores. I already pledged my copy to someone, but if that doesn’t happen for some reason, I’ll send it to someone out there. It’s kind of puppy-chewed (bad dog!) but not in a way that affects the reading.

Oh, and speaking of Into the Wild, it’s on DVD now and I highly recommend it. I also recommend the book in the strongest possible terms. That’s a book that has stayed with me for years (unfortunately, I didn’t keep my copy, but bought another one last year because Mack wanted to read it and there were like 500 holds on it at the library after the movie came out). RE the movie, I think overall that the Oscars and all that are just a bunch of self-congratulatory nitwits, but I did think that Sean Penn as writer and director (and definitely Emile Hirsch in the leading role) really got shafted by not even getting nominated. Hooray for Hal Holbrook, though.

I had a Viso today and I feel like I've had about 70 cups of coffee.

Nothing else for now. I have a couple of small, weird things about Mr. S, but later. Have to go home for lunch and walk the bad puppy. A tired dog is a good dog, I always say.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:22:21 GMT

Last night I worked late (until about 7) and then had to drop some things off to Mr. S at his house. I carried this box full of binders, which were full of the project I've been working on lately (and keep thinking I've finished, and then...no), and I set it down on the ground so I could unlock the gate. One of the binders fell out and hundreds of pages went everywhere, and I almost cried. I have so had it with this dumb project, which no one is going to ever read or care about.

Mr. S keeps his gate locked with a padlock and chain. I haven't been over there in a while and he told me the combination (note: this is not the real combination) was 8000.

I tried and tried to get the lock open. I tried everything I could think of and it would not open. Mr. S was inside the house, but was "busy" and didn't want to come open the gate.

I finally called him and said, "I must not be remembering the combination right. What is is again?"

"It's 8-0-0-0," he said, and not in a nice way.

"That's what I'm using and it won't open."

"Push it down after you put in the combination," he said. As if i don't know how to open a lock.

"I did."

"Try shaking it."

I shook the lock, careful to make a lot of noise with the chain so he could hear it. "It won't open," I said.

"I'll come out there," he said.

I waited about 10 minutes and he finally came to the gate. I had scrambled the numbers on the lock and he asked me to put it back at 8000. I did. This was a test to see if I knew how to enter 8-0-0-0 on the lock.

I passed the lock through the little hole in the gate, and Mr. S said, "It's not on 8000."

"Uh, yes it is," I said.

He looked closer. "No, that's 0-0-0-8."

"No."

"You read this left to right!" I was taken aback by how upset he was. I'd worked two hours late and just wanted to go home, and he wanted to argue about how to read the lock.

"I know that."

"But you have the combination right to left!"

"No."

"Look, I'm reading left to right and it says 0-0-0-8."

"You have the lock upside down."

"When you read a piece of paper, you read this way." He swept his arm dramatically from left to right.

"Yes, I know that. You have the lock upside down."

"I do not have the lock upside down."

"Well, I'm pretty sure you do," I said.

"That doesn't even make sense. If the lock was upside down, the numbers would be upside down."

"They are. Roll that 8 to 7 and you'll see that the 7 is upside down."

He took this as a challenge. He rolled the number and squinted at the lock. "Well, I don't have my glasses on, and I usually do this by touch (ed: which makes no sense, really)."

I could clearly see that the 7 was right side up for me. "Mr. S," I said, "I think your combination is actually 0-0-0-8, not 8-0-0-0."

He dialed in that combination and the lock popped open. "I'll have to look at this later with my glasses on."

I picked up the lock. "No, I want to know now." I locked the lock and then opened it with 0-0-0-8. I had to do it right then, because otherwise he would change the combination and say I was wrong all along.

I seriously wanted to grab joggers and dog walkers off the street and have them try to open it.

This is the kind of thing that, if I did it, he would come unglued and never, ever, ever let me forget it. Ever. But he will never mention it again.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:10:15 GMT

I bought a data recovery program (after trying a couple of free ones that weren't really user-friendly enough). It's still recovering files but I think it's going to get them all. It found 12,000+ music files (some of those were deleted podcasts, sounds, etc.) I've been just charging my iPod on my work computer (it doesn't have iTunes). I won't sync any of our iPods again until I know we've got everything, or as much as we're going to get. I may still use one of those utilities to move music off the iPod to a computer (I'll probably use one of the computers at work and just load iTunes on it).

Mack wants a car and is obsessed with the idea, even though she doesn't have a job and has no way to pay for a car or insurance, or even gas. Her dad and I told her we would talk about all that with her when she has a JOB. I'm concerned about Alex and the friends she's hanging out with. I'm not sure what to do about it, exactly, but I think she's headed in the wrong direction.

In other news, I lost a tennis match on Sunday that I should have won and I'm kind of bummed about it. I was playing someone who beat me in a tournament a year or so ago, and she beat me so badly and so completely that I honestly went home and wondered if I should be playing tennis at all. Sunday's match was much better, 5-7, 7-6, 10-8. But really, I had the second set in the bag and couldn't close the door. Also, I have a bastard of a blister on my left foot now.

iTunes Disaster

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:15:38 GMT

OK, so someone in my house accidentally deleted my entire 11,000 song iTunes library. It's not in the recycle bin; it's gone.

Should I get some undeleting software (I know about the utilities that can recover deleted files, but can someone recommend one? I'd like something that's really easy to use as I'm not a genius when it comes to files/file structure/etc.), or some software that allows you to pull songs off your iPod and back into iTunes, or is there a better way? I used something another time that moved songs from my iPod into iTunes, because I wanted to have a copy of my iTunes here at work. What it did, mostly, was create a lot of duplicate songs and it didn't work that well. But it was a free download (I think it was called X-Pod or something; its logo was an alien sort of face). Is there a way to make the computer see your iPod as a hard drive? I'm sure those options exist in iTunes, but I'm worried about connecting my iPod and then having it sync, and then the music really is gone.

How about if I connect the iPod to a computer without iTunes, and then copy everything onto a USB hard drive, then connect the hard drive to my computer? Will that work?

I don't have the whole library on my iPod. The whole library (or almost all of it) is spread out over three different iPods (via playlists).

I'm not so worried that I can't get the music back--I'm worried that iTunes will never work right again or that I'll end up with a bunch of duplicates, etc.

Anybody have any experience with this or any bright ideas?

This, That & the Other Thing

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:50:51 GMT

Mr. S is really interested in the election. I don't think he's been this interested before. Every morning he wants to have these conversations about it. It's not that I'm not interested, but I don't have new observations every day and I don't like talking about it (or anything) with HIM.

Anyway, Mr. S is a McCain supporter, because (I swear) Lyndon Johnson really knew how to get things done. I guess his point is that it's beneficial to be an insider (I tend to think of them all as insiders to some degree) because you know how things work and therefore you can get things done. He thinks Obama would be an absolute disaster. Unlike the success story we have in the White House now, I guess.

Mr. S is a Republican, although he likes to say that he votes for the person, not the party. I used to say that, too, but then I realized that I had never voted for a Republican for anything in my life, and I still haven't. Maybe it's true that Mr. S really looks hard at each candidate before deciding which one to back, but I think this time it was pretty easy for him, since he has racist and sexist (ahem) tendencies. Also, he hates Clintons.

I realize that whole thing didn't turn out as funny as I thought it would. They can't all be funny, I guess!

I'm still working on the mind-numbing project.

This has been a busy week. I usually try to be at home on weeknights to make sure everyone is doing their homework, doing chores, bathing regularly, etc. I play tennis late on Monday nights, but otherwise, I'm usually home. This week has been a little different as I think I've been out doing something every night. I'm glad it's Friday because I intend to sleep in tomorrow.

Last night my friend Stephanie and I had dinner at this Mediterranean place called The Blue Tangerine. I hadn't been there before and I wasn't feeling particularly adventurous (I'm not really a fan of Greek food), so I got the steak kabob with rice & grilled tomatoes and it was absolutely delicious. The meat was perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked.

Oh, I saw Atonement the other night and really liked it. I've had the book on my shelf for about 150 years now, but haven't read it yet, so I didn't really know what to expect. Now I want to read the book even though the movie spoiled it at least somewhat. Well, a lot, probably.

Voice Mail Follies

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:00:21 GMT

This will come as a surprise to no one, but Mr. S leaves me these long, long, long-winded voice mails. He usually exceeds the recording time and then has to call back to finish the message. We have considerable difficulties communicating, mainly because he can never get to the point and clearly explain what he's trying to say.

The message I got today is a perfect example. Yesterday I put together some information for him in a 3-ring binder. Since he always has to find fault with everything, I mentioned to him that he might want to change the way it's formatted, or whatever. Apparently, he found fault with the way I punched the holes in the paper:

"...I would like to, if we possibly could, punch the holes in such a way that, rather than have it from the top down, I'd like to go with the bottom up, you might say, so when you have starting on page 1 and as you flip going to page 2 or 3, or if you have them just in turn, all page 1 through, say, 15, stacked there and you haven't turned the pages at all, you can leaf through it and you can pick up and look and see what's on page 3 and then look up and see what's on page 4, by just, you know, partially having the pages folded over, so to speak, where you can't do that the way they're punched and the way they're put together now. That was my main comment..."

I think what he's saying is that he wants the paper to be punched at the bottom instead of the top of the page.

He explains everything this way and then gets frustrated when I ask clarifying questions. When I have a chance to ask him about this message (and what I would say is, "are you just saying that you want the pages punched at the bottom instead of the top?" [which he could answer with a yes or no]), he'll do the heavy sigh, and then say, "OK, you have a piece of paper. You want to put this piece of paper in a three-ring binder, but there are no holes in the paper for the binder rings to fit through..." I call this "First there were the dinosaurs."

When he's done it won't be any clearer at all.

Office on the Run

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:14:48 GMT

Not much time to blog today. My tennis team is in the playoffs tomorrow (#1 seed!) and we have practice tonight after puppy class, which is after I pick up my car from the body shop, which is right after work.

I had the most horrible lunch today at this Mexican place that I already didn't like, but my friend insisted that I try it again because it's allegedly very authentic and delicious. I ordered a cheese enchilada and got chicken, and then when they brought the cheese one, the cheese wasn't melted and they were using a very bad canned enchilada sauce. It's no so hard to make good enchilada sauce, but whatever. I'm never going back there, ever.

I'm really exhausted and need to get some sleep tonight. I'm still working on this hideous project for Mr. S and he's totally pestering me about getting it done, and then says it has to be 100% correct, to take my time and make sure it's right. I'm kind of to the point where I can't look at it anymore. At least not today.

I have a rental car and I can't wait to get my real car back.

I'm not overstating it when I say I desperately need a vacation, or at least a couple of days off when no one bothers me, which is never going to happen. When I ask the kids sometimes to let me sleep or read or whatever on a Saturday, they can usually leave me alone until about 9:30 a.m.

I picked up a John Grisham book at the grocery store the other day. I think it was called The Broker. Anyway, I'm not a huge Grisham fan but I thought it would be a good way to pass the time while I was dealing with all this car stuff I had to do. I read about half the book and I kept thinking, "I just don't know if I've read this before. It sounds familiar, but of course all his books are the same. I don't think I've read it." Well, after I got about halfway through, I decided I was pretty sure I had read it already, and if I hadn't, I'd read something so much like it that it didn't seem necessary to finish it. I'm still not really sure, but I no longer care.

Our puppy has turned into the best dog ever.