If You Really Feel the Need to Anger Me...

...Just call me a liar.

I had no idea, either.

 

So part of my job is all about putting up online advertising of the open positions.  HTML and I are good buddies by this point.  So are online credit card transactions.  Having played on the Accounting team, I know all about turning in my receipts promptly and not making anyone have to wait for back-up information, that is just plain rude and frustrating for the A/P person.

 

Low and behold I get a copy of the statement and on it is a charge no one can reconcile.  It's for an ad.  One I never placed, costing over $1,000 for a position we'd already advertised with a certain company.  Hoo boy.

 

So I call the company and speak with their support personnel, I'll call him D, and I wanted to wring his neck.  He never raised his voice, go D!  But I too can easily use a perfectly cordial tone to tell you what a piece-of-crap, poor excuse for a human being I think you are.  I'm rather good at it, so is D.

 

He did not believe me when I said I had not placed that ad.  He did not believe that someone else at this company had not placed that ad.  Someone here had to have done it, and his finger kept pointing in my direction.  He said it was highly unlikely that the ad generated itself.  One big problem, D.  At the time this ad went up?  I was at my Periodontist's office.  If we're talking east coast time?  I was in the middle of setting someone up in the testing room, where they would have been at my computer testing, not maliciously posting ads for a job they weren't even testing for!  And hi, I have been the ONLY PERSON placing ads for the last three months.  But I said I'd look into it.

 

It would have been fine if he'd left it at that.  All I'd have to do is go track down everyone's whereabouts at the day and time the ad was posted.  No biggie, we're not that big.  What made me lose it was the fact that he said I had to have done it.  Who else would have the credit card information?  Who else would have a vested interest in posting the job?  How many different ways could I say I did not do it for you to believe me?  I understand that it seems highly unlikely that an ad would spontaneously generate on their site.  I mean, how would it get paid for?  Oh, I come to find out, actually the credit card information is already saved in our account?  So someone simply had to log in? Hmm, interesting, ass wipe, give me to your bloody manager!  I mean, that's nice, D.  Can I speak with someone who can help me?

 

All he had to do was pass me on.  Really.  But before he did, he had to open his mouth again, saying, "you know this looks bad for you.  You guys asked for this job to be updated and didn't do anything with this other job that is the exact same posting, but really short."  Short, you see, because they charge us by the word.  So ALL of our ads are short.  THIS ONE?  $1,000+ worth of words.  And as I'd posted the short one?  And as it was the only active ad, so I thought?  When I was told something had to be updated, yup, I updated the last job posted on my job list...the one I didn't put up.  So I definitely could have caught it then, but I didn't.  The wonder of their site is that you can update all sorts of information without ever looking at the text of the ad.  Which is what happened.  For a reason I couldn't fathom at the time, the candidates were sending things to an incorrect email address.

 

But I digress.  Basically D said it looked rather suspicious that we were only concerned about the $1,000 posting.  I agreed, but as it was supposed to be the ONLY ad that was up on their site, why would I be concerned about any of the other ones?  Maybe he was just thinking out loud?  I dunno, but I blew up at him.  What?  Me lose my cool?  You're kidding!

 

I told him that if he kept accusing me of lying and saying I didn't have a chance in the world with his manager, we'd have a bigger problem here than he realized.  I never swore, and for that I was oh so happy.  But if I wasn't yelling, I wouldn't be me.  I pulled out some 50 cent words...and that's when he got all ghetto on me.  Really.  He totally pulled the race card on my messican ass.  But I kept the rabid latina in check.  Like I said, he never raised his voice, and I never swore, but if there wasn't a whole slew of hate going back and forth on that phone line, I dunno what I'd call it.

 

---

 

I've since spoken to the manager.  And M?  He's the manager for a reason.  He may not cancel the charge, but people, never once did he say he did not believe it possible for an ad to be placed without my permission or knowledge. (Callin' me dumb there, D?)  Never once did he say that it had to be me.  Never once did he say, "how would it look that you are calling us now, after the post has expired." (Hi, we just got the bill, D.)  Never once did he say we were playing them.  Sure, he could be thinking it all, but thinking and saying are two very different things. 

 

Nothing's been settled, but aaaauuuuummmm, the way to placate me after you've called me a liar?  Tell me you at least can see my side of the story, and mean it.  Benefit of the doubt, it's a magical thing.

It's Nice Feeling Wanted

So I was feeling rather poor on about Tuesday.
No, not poorly, just poor.
As in: not enough money for groceries, poor.
See, I finally tallied up the financial catastrophe that is my mouth.

urgh.

Simply put, I could no longer afford to temp at my current gig. See, I have an emergency medical fund. I have always kept one, but never really needed it as I was either still the responsibility of my parents, or actually insured. The first time I dipped into it I was living in Mexico, and well, $10 doctor visits, $80 cavity fillings...not a big dent.

Hello the United States of America.

I'm pretty much cleaning out the account after today, my second to last (finally) visit to the dentist. This would be stage 1 of the "Crown Fitting." I'm going in all calm and collected though. Which was not me on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I went into the office of my "boss" (technically boss, she signs my time-sheet, but my agency pays me) and asked how long they really needed me. It's not that I want to leave, but I really really need something that will help me fill up my medical coffer once again. With or without insurance, this is a necessity for me. This gig? Not doing it for me. Every cent is pretty well accounted for at the end of the month.

Well, they need me. She wants me there at least until the end of the year. So she asked what the bottom dollar amount that I needed so I would stay, and I told her. Just a couple of dollars more an hour and I could start not living paycheck to paycheck (or mortgage payment to mortgage payment on my doctors' vacation condos...), and start actually saving again. She said she'd get back to me by the end of the day.

An hour later she had word, and the word was good. Actually the word was awesome! My raise is much more than expected. I'm still the least paid person in the place, but now there is hope!

Then yesterday....and now I'll jinx it, so please good thoughts my way...then yesterday I got some awesome news from one of the recruiters...who was actually not too happy to give it to me. I've scored an interview. But the recruiter doesn't want me to leave my current department. I really don't want to leave either, but the position I've been asked to interview in, is not in their department. A real job prospect.

We spent most of the time with him telling me why I should stay in my current spot. I swear it almost got down to, "They won't love you as much as we do!" So very sweet.

And so, on this Thursday morning of an overwhelming week, I share this with you.

Wish me luck that there are no more unpleasant surprises at ye olde' tooth pullers, cuz I can't afford them anymore.

A Testament to My Accuracy

So, I just found out that there is a "POWER" button on my keyboard here at work.

To clarify, no, my keyboard does not have a power switch, this is an actual "kill power" to the computer.  You know, you press it and BAM, no juice.  "Monitor will power down in 5 seconds."  It does not ask if you want to shut down the system or anything, it just makes everything go dark.  It's right next to the SLEEP and WAKE buttons.

 

I've been here almost three months and my fingers never found their way to that part of the keyboard, until today.  Today when I was in the middle of a rather long email.  A work related email!  Even better, a work related email that was being written on Outlook which, I come to fine, has NO AUTO SAVE function.

 

As I stated above, it must be a testament to my accuracy that it took almost three months for me to accidentally find that button, just above the silly "Print Screen" button that I'd been aiming for. 

 

URGH.

 

 

 

URGH! - or - Don't You Hate It When?

I've been working with peoples in the east coast all day; racing against their time to get everything in on time/before "closing."

 

So I didn't take a lunch break until just a little bit ago, safe in the knowledge I'd finally gotten to a good stopping point, happy I'd gotten everything done before closing...ahhhh.  Completely swallowed up in the thought that the day is just about over...Then I look at the clock...Is it really only just after 3 p.m.?!?  Do I really have another hour+ to go?!? (Thanks to my busting ass earlier in the week I get to leave early today, woo to the hoo!)

 

URGH!  Or maybe Meep.  I am so very tired.  I've expended all the energy I can!  It's nap time, damnit!

 

~~~

 

In other news?  Andy and I watched The Fifth Element last night.  It made me smile so very often, pointing out too many "borrowed" things from other sci-fi/fantasy movies: Obi-wan's robe, Princess Leia's hair, Devo hats, Stargate-esque uniforms, a replicant..."Leon" was one of the main army guys, fan-tastic!  And Baron Muchausen was the general guy that tries to blow up the "pure concentrated evil!"

 

I told Andy that this is what the future would have looked like if the 80s had won.  After reading the "wiki" entry it seems I should amend that to say it's what the future WILL look like if the French win.  I totally thought it was an American "shoot em up" film, but it's not!  Just like those saucy frenchies to cast a guy 20 years older than his leading lady!  Big ba-da-boom!

 

Okay, this whole stay awake by typing and trying to keep working isn't working...must go try something else...

Happy Friday!

A Case of Video Killing the Radio Star?

Do you all remember when PBS first came out with that Civil War program where like it was all letters from soldiers and stuff?Remember the first time we were given a peak at the handwriting? The length, breath, and depth of the content? Did you think, my god, why don't people write that way anymore?

Well, I do,

and did,

and by gum, it really made me feel like we'd lost something.

I mean, I guess we were still writing letters, though, not really Corresponding anymore. That, as my high school history teacher once said, really was an art form. There were topics you could and should write about, and those that were to be avoided like the plague. Kinda like writing school papers, or having work conversations, maybe? How is the weather and all that noise?

Besides, we had "evolved," we were TELEPHONE people.

Who needed to sit at a writing desk and write and rewrite and edit and begin again and maybe one more time, with feeling! That's what the phone was for. Hours and hours blabbing to friends and confidants, or crank calling our enemies. No "Dear John" letters, instead, you could break up with your beau "live" if not in person. No more "angry" letters to your folks or complaint letters to companies, just get on the phone and torment them during business hours! Or something.

It was like having them right next door! And best of all, they could tell how you were feeling just by the sound of your voice.

Then came the internet. Why call when you can shoot off an email? Who needs grammar? Just write how you talk! What a concept! "Chat" live if you want to relay a message right now. Only, and therein lays a sleeping dragon that's been waking up recently, words on paper, written stylistically, grammatically correct or incorrect, if not done perfectly, or at least the way the "professionals" do it and geared toward a very specific audience? They will leave the reader lacking.

Just like you never know just how you look through other peoples' eyes, you really won't know just how you "sound" or "read" to others until after the reactions come in.


The thing about a written work is that it's a two way street. The writer really really really wants to convey particular information, a specific message, and maybe a certain feeling. It's the reader's job to take in the symbols on the page (written or electronic) and transform them into meaning. What that meaning ends up being depends a whole bloody lot on how your reader is doing that day: hungry? depressed? elated? tired? caffeinated? angry? You name it, it alters what you, the writer, have written.


So, say when reading a blog or an email or anything, if you are not the intended victim---I mean reader? You are going to take it in a way very different from the original intention. At the same time, if you, the writer, are so in your "moment" in your "groove" in your "in it" that you are not taking the uninitiated reader into consideration? It will be like gobbledy-gook.


Why or why is this all swirling in my brain?

Couple reasons.


There is the personal one that keeps scratching at me deep down. The one that says it's all my fault that I can't keep in touch with the people who I thought were close to me because we just can't/don't/won't communicate well anymore. Because something that was written in a card, an email, a letter, a text message, etc., was taken so far in the "wrong" way that ties were severed. How many people have come and gone from others' lives because of a mis-written word? The mind boggles.


And then there is the funnier work-related stuff that makes me want to bang my head against the wall until it makes more sense. This one I can go on about a little more as the previous reason still kinda smarts. I think I'm running into brick walls about the written word with certain folks because they honestly aren't used to using this "email" technology stuff and only have an email address because it's expected to be on their resume...or something.

I've completely given up using electronic means to communicate with many people to save both the head and heartache involved with the complexity of simply turning on a computer. Others I don't even pick up the telephone for, they need to be face to face, or still things will go terribly. Horrifically funny, yes, but terribly.


Then of course there is that aspect that, having been an English teacher makes me cringe...some people can't string more than a couple letters together to begin with. Let us not torture them or ourselves with anything written, because god almighty made people to be accountants and scientists and techies and NOT English teachers for a reason! These people are wonderful at what they do! It just might not have anything at all to do with the English Language. And if they read your email and are boggled because you use such things as humor or sarcasm, lord help us all.

Questions? Comments? I'd love to read them.

Hit With the Stupid Stick

How is it that water falling out of the sky causes people to do the most asinine things?

Call me silly, but, the rules of the universe do not cease when drops of water fall on your head, or your car, or, by golly, the pavement.

So sweatshirt man, crossing AGAINST the lights at morning rush hour? Not the most Einsteinian of manuevers there, genius boy. That would be why everyone, including the HUGE bus bearing down on your ass, was honking at you.

It is not the time for you either, raincoat man, with hood up and all, to run blindly across the street because you cannot walk to the crosswalk like everyone else!

I used to love to ride the wooden roller-coaster at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk in weather like this. The tracks would be super wet and the coaster would go much faster. Sometimes the momentum was so much that we would slam into the cars in front of us as the braking mechanism would be sopping and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

I keep that in mind as I'm driving on the sloppy wet roads and find myself in the live version of a frogger-esque video game where the frogs have all gone deaf and blind and pretty suicidal to get out of the eeek, rain.

"But I'm getting wet!"

Right, sugar melts and all.

I'm an equal opportunity disser, so I'm including the dumb ass in the blue pickup truck that decided I was going too slow and tailgating me wasn't enough; slamming his hand on the horn as he passed me made it so much better. Cuz, you know huge non-draining puddles on the road are not cause for him or anyone to drive more carefully, or even slowly (we've already discussed my gramma driving abilities). His zigging and zagging, and ultimately sliding into a car as I crept by at my snail's pace, that made me feel sooooo much better, really.

And I'd have honked, but well, I own a Toyota, and hearing the little meep meep from me wasn't going to alleviate anything.

I really really really miss riding the bus on days like this.

There Be Knitting!

ETA: Of Course, as soon as I put up some knitting content "Bloglines" considers me invisible...hmmm coincidence? Technology is so fun...What do you all use to keep track of posted blogs?

Remember when I said I was working on a gift for mom's day? Like back before I went to Italy and stuff? Wow, four months ago?!?

Then I came back from Italy and I mentioned I'd worked steadfastly on at least one of the two pairs of socks I'd cast on (one for bus work, one for "just before bed") and had even finished ONE sock of the pair?

Then life happened, I guess. And I got a temp gig where I don't commute on good ol' #304 and actually have to drive there as it takes five times as long if did walk/bus/walk/bus it. Add to that the fact that I don't take hour-long lunches so I can come home at a reasonable hour...and my knitting time has all but disappeared. So it shocked me when I actually finished these:
Horcrux Socks
Whose link I am trying to find, but #1 I found the original "sport weight" pattern eons ago and #2 the fingering weight version, which I used, is protected behind a yahoo sock group that I actually joined JUST to get THIS ONE pattern. Okay, here (left hand side, last one under her "Free Patterns") is the one for the bigger weight yarn, at least.

My mom tells me she got her package, yes I finally got her gift together: socks, holy water from the Vatican, a rosary, chocolates (for the grandkids more than for her...I just know it), body lotion, and...the hardest part of the whole gift conglomeration, really, some "box" bras. Really.

I don't know how we got into this conversation, I'm still a bit mesmerized by the whole thing...but one thing led to the other and she mentioned that now that she doesn't get out at much as she used to, certain "non-essential"/not available at costco items have gone by the wayside. Including her favorite "come-in-a-box" bras. So silly me, I said, "I'll get you some."

Did you all know most department stores in the Seattle area no longer carry such "boxed" items? They have gone the way of the Dodo bird, apparently. After walking for miles and miles from one department store to another, I finally found them at good old reliable "Ya Si Pennies" as my mom calls it. 1/2 off, as they were culling their store supply as well. I bought them out of her size. Best not to take chances, I've learned.

See, they've already "retired" my favorite body lotion at Bath & Body Works, they keep changing the ingredients to my favorite shampoos, let's not even talk about what all they've done to my favorite toilet paper...TMI, I know, but it all boils down to the fact that sometimes it is a good thing to horde, cuz the next time you go to find the product of your dreams it will be NEW! and IMPROVED! Now with Flavor! Or, more likely, just plain NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

Have I really lived so long that I'm noticing such things...there I go channeling again, "Back in my day..."

What was I saying? Knitheimers, I swear.

So the sock details:
Needles: US2 to begin, 4 US1s and 1 US 0. Yes, you did not read that incorrectly. Somewhere in Sicily I noticed one of the needles seemed awfully skinny...I was way past the gusset by that point and it was a "What the hell" moment, so I soldiered on and made #2 the same way.

My ADD was appeased when I found the exact matching spot to have identical socks. The sock yarn...Sockotta, color 618 lot 901. The biggest laugh? The yarn is made in Italy, but bought on clearance in the US...such is life.

I still actually need to find out if they fit my mom. What with the special needle configuration and the cottony aspect (45%) I wasn't all that sure. The colors did not bleed much and for that I was so very thankful.

Okay, bedtime.

“Safe” Roads - Or - Why I am Such a Paranoid Driver

Or

Another post sans pictures and also not about knitting

 

I am probably one of the few people that are not 250 years old in their profile.  Why lie?   I was six years old at the start of the 80s.  As with the ten thousand other innovations that came about in that decade, the onslaught of syndication and "re-run hell" changed my world.   How else could we see every single episode of the Love Boat?  How about Gilligan's Island, anyone?   Well, one that I just loved to watch, more for the opening credits than anything else?  CHiPs No really.

 

No, I did not have a crush on Ponch, (hee hee, paunch?) or John.  I thought one was too sleazy and the other?   Well, too white, actually (hi, I am a Mexican-American born and raised in East Los Angeles and blond-blue-eyed John was such the anomaly before I hit high school that he kinda looked, well, alien.)   Where was I? Right, the opening credits.  They actually showed a stretch of freeway that every single member of my nuclear family had come to know far too well.   It was mostly THE 10 (SoCal upbringing) as it meets up with yet not quite touches THE110 and maybe THE 101…it's been a while since I've driven those roads.

 

So in my "World According to CHiPs" eyes: THERE IS DANGER EVERYWHERE!  I learned many things as I'm sure many of us did:

• Do not distract the driver by having kids climbing back and forth among the front and back bench seats.
• Do not carry jugs of gasoline in station wagons as the fumes will escape and make you sleepy.
• Wheels will fall off your car at the drop of a hat! (Which did happen to a friend of mine.)
• The people around you do not know how to drive! (Hi, look around you.)
• Or are "manipulating heavy machinery" under prescription medication that is keeping them from driving safely.
• Or are high.
• Or have stolen the car and are trying to get away, FAST.
• Or are angry and ready to lash out at you (which actually did become reality, now didn't it???!!!???)
• Airplanes/helicopters will land on the freeway at least once a season.
• Brakes fail, ALL THE TIME (this actually did happen to me in a parking lot while in college…eep.)
• If you drop something as you are driving it will inevitably end up propped underneath the break pedal and you will not be able to slow down or stop, thus causing a huge accident.

 

Does all this explain why I drive like a grandma?  I am pretty much the first to admit it.   Let's face it, the premise of that show had me seeing everything that could possibly go wrong with your vehicle/other people's vehicles and how horrible it could all become.  So does it shock you to know that I don't exactly like being behind the wheel?

 

Right.  Well, this morning I was thinking about "Smart" ROADS as opposed to smart cars (oxymoron waiting to happen) and how they would do wonders for keeping all those aforementioned "scary things" from mostly happening.

 

Since I was about 8 or so I had this, "wouldn't it be great" thought of having cars fit into "slots" in the "roads" or main highways that would be moving instead of the cars.   People wouldn't be weaving into and out of your lane like the fellow who tried to "become one" with my car this morning.  No accident, remember, I'm already thinking everyone around me is on drugs, suffering from fumes, or simply cannot drive while watching for planes and their need to land on my street, so I was able to slow down to let him practice his um, stunt driving or whatnot.

 

It had been my thought, um 25 years ago, that the little roads leading up to the main arteries could be your usual "free for all" and let the drivers actually, well, drive.   The older I get though, the more I think that maybe roads should be more like a Disney/roller-coaster/tracked things that don't let the drivers do anything but only kinda steer.  

 

I've gone from becoming my mom to channeling my grandfather, I think.  "Those dang auto-mobiles!   What's wrong with your own two feet!  Or a horse!  Back in my day…"

 

Knitting soon, promise.

Filed Under: Reasons I Should Own a Working Camera

This morning's commute:

• The older guy dressed in a three-piece suit, leading his wee little doggie with a VERY LARGE bag of dog poo.
• The well-dressed young woman carrying a caulking gun, caulk in place and ready to go.
• "Fanatic for exercise" gal that looks like she was hit with the "logo" gun who jogged around and around and around the light post while waiting for the light to change--she was making me dizzy.
• TOO MANY PEOPLE trying their hardest to break the World Record for how many people can fit on a # 26 bus.
• The fellow so intent on dialing a number on his cell phone that he walked right into the bus stop.

Did I mention my commute is only 2.5 miles long?

 

Happy Tuesday

Alergic to a Cat I've Never Even Met

So Tim has a new cat. Well, actually Tim has 2 new cats. I have met one of them and he and I actually seem to be okay in the same room. Nary a sniffle nor an itch, nor a break-out of anything hive-like on my hand where he batted at it while we were playing with a car key in the wee bit of time we've spent together. I have yet to actually pet him, though, so he really still is mostly an unknown quantity, really.

Tim's newest cat though, the one I have not met yet? He (or she, I don't even know) and I might have some issues.

Andy was hanging out over at Tim's yesterday, and came home with the new cat's "proteins" on him (or so one of the recruiters tells me) and said "proteins," which I'd like to call "essence of new cat," got on my right arm and I started braking out in hives! Evil, nasty, hives! Hives that ended up on my left hand that was examining the arm, then my chin when I was contemplating the arm, and pretty much anywhere that I touched before the "essence of new cat" dissolved into the ether and/or I went, "OH SHIT you were playing with the cats!" And realized the horror of it all.

What's truly terrible in this instance is that Andy actually washed his hands and showered before he got near me. Really! It was his picking up his "essence" covered clothes to throw them in the hamper that must have done it. That's all I can deduce at any rate, and the repercussions are frightening, to say the least.

This Getting Older Stuff, Sucks

I've never been the most graceful, just ask my mom. I think I may have gotten my first bump or bruise in the crib at the hospital. I know I got my first scar-maker at 3 months.

It never phased me, really. You live, you live with the bumps, right?

I know many of you are shaking your heads wondering how I've survived this long without accidentally beheading myself or something. Shear luck, I guess. Speed in healing as well. In these, um, middle years (or if it were cave-man times we could say "gramma years" people only lived until like 35 right?), I am losing both the luck and the speed...and that is just sucking so very hard.

When push comes to shove, I fall down, hard. I tripped over my own two feet, and maybe one of those concrete parking space dividers, just the other day. I guess the throbbing in my legs and hand were to distract me from my silly backache, or something. (Something like, say, my body trying to kill itself and missed, again, or something.)

And that backache! Hello! I am 33 years old. Why is my back spasming out? I think it's all connected to my hip. Thanks, Andy, for putting the silly Them Bones song in my head after I mentioned it to you...grrr. Seriously though, I feel like my luck ran out hard when I was run off the road that day so long ago when I was on my bicycle heading to my lawyer's office to sign some silly papers. I fell HARD and damaged my hip and wrist. It's been two and a half years. The wrist is weak but doing fine, the hip? She doesn't work all that great, especially lately.

Lately the Hip has made herself known. I am not the most svelte of heavenly creatures, but the um "junk" in my "trunk" never really bothered me. Thanks to my lack of mobility immediately after the accident, I quickly gained too much weight...at least 20 lbs.--scary thought/post for another day. Along with the weight, I have gained an extra "hand-hold" around that damaged hip area. It looks and feels just wrong. It always has. Lately, my theory at any rate, is that it's messing with my muscles in every which way possible. It affects the way I walk, climb stairs, sleep...what a bitch. I want to believe it's still healing, but at a geriatric snail's pace.

I can't but think of how it would have been different if I were in my early 20s and such a thing had ALMOST happened--that luck thing. See, I rode my bike all over Santa Cruz and left many dents in car doors with my Dock Martins when they tried to force me off the road. It was, as scary as it seems now, second nature to jump onto and off of sidewalks and bounce off cars as I made my way to Capitola, CA to get home from UCSC or home from the bookstore in years following. There were a couple of tumbles, but I was invincible! Clumsy, yes, always, but invincible!

I really miss those days. Especially when I'm sitting here on what seems like the "Group W" bench wondering how many Advil I can take and not kill my liver so I can still function at work today...urgh.

These Dreams....

So I've dreamt of loose teeth, stray dogs, and having to put together a sailboat.

I think they are stemming from my tweaked back. Oh yes, I am an old woman. I tweaked my back on Saturday while sorting laundry, I think. I'm not really sure when or how it happened, only that damn, it hurts! It's like having cramps just up above my right kidney. Not a happy camper.

And it's Monday and I need to get going and I just have so little motivation. I think I need a vacation.

Ah well.

Feliz Cumplea~nos, Mami!

Present? Right. Nope, not as such...but I did call and let her know there was one and it will arrive shortly. Just have to get on the ball about it. Why is that so very hard to do?

Just Can't Focus

My mom's birthday is about to sneak up on me. Yes, even though I know exactly what day it is and have known for months!

I have to get my act together and send off the gift I've been fixing up since April. Will it happen? Quien sabe.

I'm having a horrible morning. It's nothing anyone is doing to me, I think it's all inside. A combination "too many things in my head" + friends visiting + working all day + not enough sleep, is giving me a pounding headache and an upset stomach. That last bit I just noticed a couple minutes ago as I sat down at my desk for the first time this morning. I feel all woozy/bad coffee stomach. Sour stomach? I'm not all that good at describing it.

The only positive thing I've found out thus far is that if I can find someone else to monitor them, I won't have to work a 10-hour day today! See, I scheduled candidate for an early testing appointment, so I was in far too early this morning. Well, sometime yesterday after I'd left, someone (not me) scheduled a late late late-almost-early-evening candidate for me today! Happily, somebody, though I don' t know who, else can monitor the LAST test of the day.

I swear, I saw it on my calendar and I just about cried. I'm sinking down a hole today. It's a slippery slope. I'm tired, cranky, and just want to go home and go to bed. I don't get this way very often at all and it's bothering me. The worst part is that unless everyone is out of the house doing whatever touristy thing they've planned today, I still wouldn't get any peace and quiet even if I was home.

I'm dwelling very deeply and darkly in the negative right now...