Other things

I have a bunch of thoughts that can not justify their own blog posts, but collectively I could cobble something together. I can not promise it will be interesting.

Twitter: I have an account. I don't do much with it and have not checked it in weeks. So many have ditched Facebook for Twitter and I guess I'm just not catching on. And I have also received a Google+ invitation. I don't even know what that is (and have not Googled--heh, heh--to investigate the details). I can not keep up.

Office microwave etiquette: My husband heated fish in his office microwave and told me it stunk up the place. What did he expect? After 8 years on the road as a sales rep, he does not know certain unspoken rules of the office. The big one is not to heat fish in the microwave. And not a rule, but more of a law of nature: If you pop popcorn, in the office microwave it will burn.

Words with friends vs. Scrabble on iPhone. Sure, they look the same and operate on the same concepts, but I am good at Words with Friends and I suck at Scrabble.

In the past two weeks I have removed a sizable hair clog from the guest tub and two from two sinks. It's not an exercise for the weak-stomached. Drano has nothing on my hair, so I try to pull out what I can before resorting to chemicals. I had to finish off the second sink with the tiny sink plunger, but it drains now. I keep thinking if I had short hair, this wouldn't keep happening.

"...I can feel it"

I know it's random. I watched this clip the other day and the lyrics to "Daisy Bell" are in my head.

Also, I love the line: "I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

Thoughts (deep and not)

I signed my offer letter and returned it yesterday. Oddly enough, I did this using the fax machine provided by the job search assistance people, which was a service paid for by my last company. I guess that's something. Of course now that I have an end to my free time, it feels like the walls are closing in. I don't hate working, especially if it means I am getting paid. I just hate starting at a new place, even if I know some of the people there. I hate new situations and feeling like I have to learn everything all over again. I've done it so many times you'd think being new would be old to me, but I just can't get used to it. I think once I am settled into my routine, it will be better.

Just before I accepted the offer, someone from another company spoke with me. He basically asked that I speak to him before I accept the offer. We had a great conversation over the phone. It turns out he works very closely with the people I will be working with. He laughed and said "Hm, I've never done an interview quite like this." He pretty much acknowledged that I would be accepting my offer. Could you imagine if I listened to the whole pitch and got an offer with this guy? I would be stepping into an office and sitting around the corner from the people I rejected. How bad would that be? He threw in "If things change and you're looking again, please consider us..." which is great. It's always a compliment when someone asks you to contact them if you need a job. It's a lifeline.

Yesterday I had to pick up some packages from the post office. Evidently, the postal person could not deliver them to the house. Never mind that I have been here for most of the day for the past month. I don't think the guy wanted to walk down to the house and ring the doorbell. i don't believe he even tried. I can't prove it, of course. So I went to get my packages from the post office. I had two messages from Amazon telling me to go, which meant there were two packages.

I walked up to the counter, and because I didn't have the slip, I just turned over my driver's license. The post-lady returned with one box and I said "Oh, I have two, actually." Why did she try to tell me this was the only one she saw (No, what happened was, she stopped when she found one box with my name because she didn't think there were more.) I said "Well, I got two messages..." (unsaid: and I'll be damned if I have to come back in a separate trip because you only found one)

"Give me that again," she said before disappearing to the back. What do you know, she found the other box. From her annoyed look, it appears she is well on her way to a lifelong career of postal disgruntled-ness.

I know that's a stereotype. I have found some happy postal people, but some are really miserable. It seems as if there is no in between. Either they are jovial or cranky. I don't get it.

In one of the boxes was a toy accordion for my daughter. She loves music and I want to expose her to some instruments. Even if she's not inclined to play anything, at least it's there and it can be fun. I know, it's a toy accordion and I'm probably going to regret buying that, but at least it's not a drum set. I tried my hand at it yesterday, and it seemed like fun.

So as my time comes to a close, I have all sorts of thoughts on ways to not be dependent on "the man" for pay. I could live off of the land in a yurt, farming what I need and being a vagabond in the colder months. It sounds sort of appealing, and some people have done this. Then one word comes to mind: Outhouse. Or, in my friend Mick's words, "Outhouse... If you're lucky, otherwise (four words): Hole-in-the-ground."

I like indoor plumbing. I like a lot of things that require some amount of money. I don't like roughing it. We had porta-potties at my work site in Korea (Army days) and there were many times I held it because I couldn't deal with the lack of flushing. How in the world would I do with a hole in the ground? So it's a trade off--I go to work and in return, I get toilets.

Unpaid labor

On my lay off letter, it's mentioned that I was supposed to get severance through the 3rd of May. Well, I checked my account on the 3rd of May and there was nothing extra in there. It was the same low balance I've been gliding on for the past few days. I let it go. Then I had a dream that I did get my severance and it was roughly half of what it should have been. Don't you hate when this happens? It's like you don't want to worry but then the subconscious interferes and you can't help but worry. I emailed my former HR person who got back with me right away to say it will be direct deposited on Friday. Duh. Friday was when I would have been paid if I still worked there. I don't know why I expected the money to be there on Monday. It's not as if they are going to adjust their payroll timing just for me. I replied thanking her and neglecting to admit that I was being impatient and ruled by a bad dream.

The time off from work is flying by. I am getting small things done. I am working through a basket of work clothes that either need to be hand washed or mended. They have been sitting in that basket for months. I have been effectively ignoring them because I didn't have the time to bother with them and my last job didn't require "work" clothes. I could wear jeans. So I would glance at the basket and think, I'll get to it...eventually. Well eventually is now.

Things discovered while mending clothes:
-I have no idea where I put my big spool of black thread. I've improvised with navy thread.
-A Q-tip dipped in diluted bleach is the poor/cheap/lazy person's bleach pen.
-I have a lot of little buttons in little plastic bags and I should probably sort them. I'll bet half of these are extra buttons for clothes I don't own anymore.

Things discovered while applying caulk:
-If you're caulking a tub, make sure you have waterproof caulk before you snip the end of the tube (oops)
-They sell caulk that doesn't need a gun and it's my new friend
-Even if the caulk looks right when you're done, it shrinks when it dries and you get little holes.
-This stuff is nice in concept but it doesn't work

I have also been filling out employment applications. I filed for unemployment too. Because I worked in Virginia, I had to file on Virginia's website. I'm sorry to admit that their site looked a lot better than Maryland's site.

Potty Humor

My daughter (who turned 4 in October) was using the bathroom and I thought I heard her say "Sometimes the toilet gets dessert." So when I was putting her to bed, I asked if that was what she said and she said yes. Then I said "What kind of dessert?" She said "Chocolate" and started laughing hysterically.

On my mind

As the title pretty much tells you with the subtlety of being hit on the head a thousand times with a mallet, his post covers several items that have been on my mind recently:

1) "Quote unquote"
why don’t we use this like the actual quotation marks in writing? Here’s what I mean—“He said everything in the speech was a quote unquote joke.”
Why not “everything in the speech was a quote joke unquote." Ignoring that any use of the term “quote unquote” makes one sound like a tool, doesn’t that make more sense? (Aside from that, when writing "quote unquote" do you need additional quotation marks? Somehow it seems wrong not to have them there)

2) “Don’t let the car fool you, my treasure is in heaven” bumper stickers
After the initial impression that the driver believes he or she is somehow entitled to this so-called treasure (apparently it’s not enough that the driver thinks he or she is going to heaven, upon arrival, there must be treasure too), why is it that these are most likely to be found on a POS car? When I think “treasure” I think Ferrari…Porsche…maybe even a Mercedes. Oh, right, because it's really unlikely that cars like that will have $3 bumper stickers slapped onto on them. And what else is just as unlikely? That a bumper sticker is going to fool me into thinking that the 1982 Honda Civic hatchback with rust eating away the wheel wells is a treasure.

3) Vehicular sandwiches
If you see one sort of car (let’s say a Ford Explorer) parked between two other cars of the same make and model (let’s say VW beetle) what do you think? That’s right—sammich! But what kind of sandwich would you say it was? If you answered “VW Beetle” I’d have to disagree. On what planet do you name a sandwich after the bread? Think about it. In this case, the VWs are the bread, and the Ford Explorer is the filler--make that order a Ford Explorer on VW beetle, please.

4) A trivial question
Q: How do you know when a band’s fanbase is aging? A: When they sell fanny packs

5) Spell and speak
There is no “h” at the end of the word “height.” I really wish people would stop adding one.

6) Not-so-original thoughts
Have you ever thought up an invention only to learn that someone else had that same original thought before you? Here’s my invention: glow in the dark gloves for the hearing impaired. How else would you talk in the dark? My husband’s invention? Scrolling message board for cars. Yup, that’s been done too, and there’s even a license plate frame version. When he learned about it, he was just as pissed as I was about the gloves. Well, here’s an invention I’ll bet you never envisioned: Handerpants. If you're thinking, "I know, glow in the dark handerpants!" you can stop right there; I've already applied for the patent.