The Neutral Zone Trap

The care and feeding of mole holes

2013-06-10T19:46:00.001-04:00

Previously, on The Neutral Zone Trap: E. had a mole removed.

Every day after my shower I'm supposed to put vaseline and a band-aid over the place where my mole was removed, or as I like to call it, my mole hole.

Except I'm too scared to look at it. In my mind it's a huge, gross gaping crater. The Litigation has stepped up to his someday-to-be-husband-ly duties of taking care of the things I'm too squeamish to deal with, viz., caring for the mole hole. So each morning he's pulled off my old band-aid (ouch, since part of it is in my hairline...stupid mole), inspected it, gooped it up, and hidden it away from my view.

He swears it's actually not that bad, that it just looks like a scrape, albeit a deep one. I conferred with a friend who's had several moles removed and was dismayed to find out that the scarring process is actually quite long, and it'll just be kind of semi-gross for like, months.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do since I'm about to leave town for work and be on my own to care for the mole hole. Just me, my tiny jar of vaseline, a bunch of band-aids, and a hand mirror. Eeek.

This blog has officially hit senior status

2013-06-07T16:26:00.001-04:00

So I missed my blog's anniversary (again). We've either grown apart so much that I've forgotten all the important things like anniversaries and posting or we've become so comfortable with each other that those things are no longer important to us. Or I'm becoming senile. Whichever.

The blog turned 9 (nine!!!!) on June 1.

Here are highlights from last June 2012 to now, followed by succinct commentary in case you didn't want to read the post.

We survived a derecho. It was hot.

We survived a squirrel breaking into our home. It was scary.

After 14 months of unemployment, I got a job. It turned out to be a bad idea.

We survived Superstorm Sandy. It was mostly a bust around here.

I start planning my blimp wedding. It didn't happen.

I got in another car accident and had to wear the human equivalent of one of those dog cones. It was embarrassing AND entertaining.

My office moved buildings. It was, and remains to this day, a cluster.

And now we're down to me blogging about having moles removed and stuff. Definitely on the downhill slope, folks. Pretty soon it'll just be me blogging about the staff at the nursing home.

Holy mole-y

2013-06-06T19:14:00.000-04:00

I went to the dermatologist to see about getting an irritating mole (it's right where my glasses sit behind my ear) removed. I thought this would be a "hmm, yes, let's remove it, please go to the front and make an appointment for that" appointment. The dermatologist was like, "I'm pretty sure it's benign. So would you like me to remove it now or immediately?" Yikes! I hadn't been prepared to lose my mole today, but I also didn't want to take any more time off, so I opted for whatever his professional opinion was. He chose "now."

I laid down and he gave me a little numbing injection and then it felt like light sawing. Sorry if that's gross, but I'm pretty sure it was like a miniature saw. Saw saw saw saw saw. Then he was done and apparently cauterized it or something. I felt something hot and it sounded like bees (bzz bzz bzz). I guess I didn't check to see if he was closing the wounds with bees or anything, but I feel safe in assuming it wasn't bees. I sat up and he gave me some care instructions. He also casually mentioned, "So here is your mole" and indicated to the tray. And I was like:

because who wants to see their mole laying around on a tray? Eww, right?!

Friday Cat Blogging: Clean sheets day

2013-05-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

Look who I found under the new sheets.

Why do cats love sheet-changing day so much? If I shake the sheets out too much when I'm just folding them after taking them out of the dryer, Tess comes running in to get under the sheet.

It's sort of like that one day a year where you got to play with the giant parachute in P.E. Um, other people got to do that, right?

Sweatin' the smell stuff

2013-05-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

My standby deodorants have failed me. First, my orange and cranberry deodorant was discontinued. The sea salt deodorant was awful. It was so bad that I routinely wondered if I'd forgotten to put on deodorant (and by deodorant I always mean anti-perspirant) because my underarms would be wet by 10 a.m. Then I'd put on more deodorant and get the same feeling a few hours later.

I went back to Secret Clinical (aka Nuclear), and it was ok but I wondered if I should try another flavor. I picked up Secret Clinical Strength Stress Response Women's Advanced Solid Serene Citrus Scent. Say that one time fast. What drew me to it was "stress response." I didn't get a chance to sniff the "serene citrus scent" but I figured it couldn't be that bad.

Boy howdy.

I put it on and it smelled pretty fruity. Like a fruit salad with lots and lots of oranges or tangerines or something. I guess that's okay if you want people to think you're constantly eating an invisible orange. Or if you want people to think you're on your way to a poker tournament a la Johnny Chan.

The true test would be how it held up at work, given I am at a high level of stress pretty much at all time and OH YEAH, (STILL) NO A/C*. Good news first - so far, it seems to work at stopping me from being too sweaty. Bad news - the scent is so strong I can smell it emanating from myself hours later (I can't even imagine how strong it must be to my coworkers and/or what they're thinking about the smell).

I mean, the only thing keeping me from feeling like a horrible person for scenting the whole office is that it does kind of smell like Fruit Stripe. There's a lot of things worse than Fruit Stripe, so I don't feel too bad.

* To be fair-ish, they're "working" on it. Last week we were told they were installing some crucial part over the weekend. And by "weekend" they meant "on Monday, on ladders around everybody's desks as they tried to work." By yesterday afternoon, there was some air blowing...in the parts of the "office" (it's honestly one giant room - kitchen, a dozen employee desks, semi-hallway to the bathroom, open conference room) that no one sits in because they hadn't finished building that part before we moved in. Since the ductwork only points in one direction, we can't really get any of that air to circulate in the populated areas. I wouldn't be surprised if they hold off on the remainder of the project until this weekend, meaning I'll spend another few days sweating and sticking to my desk.

Trekkery

2013-05-11T13:07:00.003-04:00

Please indulge me in my Trekishness for a few moments.

The Litigation and I decided to make Furlough Friday a fun thing - we went to Costco (and spent less than $100!), then to see The Great Gatsby, then dinner. While looking up theaters, he pointed out that some theater nearby was doing a Star Trek doubleheader next week - the reboot from a couple years ago and then at 12:01 a.m., the new movie. Obviously we're not going to that one since I'm usually asleep by 10, although I could just nap through the first one and awake refreshed for the second...

Since The Litigation hasn't seen the reboot (hey, it was before we were together, so I don't accept responsibility for things that happened back then), he bought it for me on DVD (I had it but gave it to the first Mr. McPan at the divorce) and we're going to stay in tonight and order pizza and watch it. Is this guy the best or what?!

Anyway, I saw this video on Neatorama and had to share.

How did no one never notice this before?! I'm going to start doing this. Sure, I'm not tall, but I'm really flexible and I can kick really high, so if I'm smooth enough about the whole deal, it might go unnoticed for years.

Furlough Friday Cat Blogging

2013-05-10T10:51:00.004-04:00

Twitter readers may remember that The Litigation is affected by sequestration, so he's being furloughed periodically, one of those days being today. I decided to take today off (albeit a paid vacation day for me) and have a furlough Friday with him.

So far, Tess likes it too. She's gotten mid-morning open door time and some excellent window gazing. We stacked up some storage boxes to build her this little perch so she can look out the window while laying down. For extra comfort, we put down one of those kitchen chair pads. We think she likes it. Because, obviously, our job is to make her life even more ridiculously comfortable than it already is.

Reports of my blogging death have been mostly exaggerated

2013-04-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

My office was scheduled to move to a new building a while back. Just a few days before we were to move, it got canceled because our new building wasn't finished. Okay, fine.

Then, a few weeks later, the worker bees get the call that we're moving, but apparently nobody (including and/or especially the bosses) knows what's happening - we'd get an email from one supervisor saying X, then an email from another supervisor saying Y. I honestly didn't believe we would be moving until we were moved in, since the Friday night before the Sunday morning move, I got an email saying "check your email on Sunday to see whether we'll be in the new office or if you should report to the old one."

The move happened. And let me tell you, it was something else. Here's a partial list of things that are missing or not set up in the new office, which, may I remind you, we are currently occupying:

A floor. No floor? NBD for my company. Okay, so most of it's complete but there's a section where I guess they just ran out of pieces of wood, so there's a drop off, demarcated with blue painter's tape.

A thermostat. It can be broiling one day and chilly the next day, depending on our use of fans, propped-open doors, etc. Apparently the duct work was also not really done yet, which explains why there's no thermostat. When I heard the builder's estimate of "two weeks!" I literally laughed out loud.

Custodial services. You know, the people who refill your paper towels in the bathroom, or give you soap, or take out your trash. Yep. First day, one bottle of soap that we were trying to share between multiple restrooms. I bought two bottles and donated them to the office. Still waiting on them to hire someone to take out the trash. Our trash cans are full. There's food involved. This should get interesting, if you define interesting as smelly.

Phone service. And internet service that works. For everyone. For a while, we had no phones, then we had some phones, but the voice mechanism on our end didn't work on the phones that did ring. So you could call us but we couldn't talk to you. Some of these things are resolved but not entirely.

Parking. Everything I was told about parking has pretty much not really panned out I've been having to scrounge parking every day since the place across the street doesn't do monthly parking for non-tenants (you know, the garage I was repeatedly assured we could use, no need to call ahead or anything) and the other nearby garages have a wait list or they're prohibitively expensive.

The building is probably like 95% done. There's still some construction to be done (oh, you know, built-in bookcases that haven't yet been started)... oh, and did I tell you it's an "open office" so there are no doors or partitions and I spend all day eyeball to eyeball with people? So I guess I will just have to live with people using electric drills or hammers or whatever because I can't use earphones or earplugs or play music or anything like that because my job is very phone-intensive.

So, uh, yeah. That's what I've been doing lately.

In other news, the wedding is mostly planned. Got an officiant and a place. Just need a photographer and I think we'll pretty much be done. I suppose I could wear something nice, but I've got time to shop for that. I still think that renting an over-the-top princess gown at the year-round costume store is really the way to go.

Venue: where a case may be heard or a wedding held

2013-03-16T12:38:00.000-04:00

Ugh, I hate talking about finding a "venue" for a wedding because all I can think about is procedure. It's sort of like statues after you start law school - you automatically start typing "statute" because that's all you think about. Um, that happens to everyone, right?

It turns out pretty much all of northern Virginia is a forum non conveniens for us - too expensive, too large for 4 guests, too booked up anyway. So we're looking at getting married in the country. Given our lack of time (or willingness) to plan a fancy wedding, we've been looking at B&Bs that pretty much do it all for you.

There was one called the Funny Farm (it's a farm), that I wanted to get married at out of principle. I mean, how funny is saying we had a "commitment" ceremony at a funny farm? It's HILARIOUS.

There's a place that does both murder mysteries and weddings. I wanted to just tell them to surprise us and we'd find out that weekend whether we were married or one of us was a murderer (ahem). I mean, we've got to learn sooner or later.

My excel spreadsheet of ~~venues~~ locations includes a Pros and Cons section that I think The Litigation doesn't find helpful because half the time the same thing is listed in both columns.

Pros	Cons
Murder mystery wedding!	Murder mystery wedding
Chickens!	Roosters
Horseback riding the next day!	Horse poop
“The Funny Farm”	Parents might think we’re not taking this seriously

I'm just saying sometimes the same thing can be both a pro and a con.

Lady Bachelor "Baking"

2013-03-14T22:49:00.001-04:00

The Litigation is out of town, so I've been left to fend for myself. This means my go-to noodle dish (except I add everything under the sun to it - mushrooms, wilted spinach, red peppers, whatever else is in the fridge), some red wine, and peanut butter rice krispies with a chocolate topping and a ton of sprinkles (hey, they were buy 1 get one free, so I have a LOT of sprinkles to get rid of). Kinda reminds me of birthday cake.

Feedly - First impressions

2013-03-14T21:19:00.002-04:00

So far, Feedly is pretty easy to use. It takes some getting used to, of course, but I think it'll be a decent substitute for Google Reader.

Unfortunately, this post is going to be mostly about the major problems I have with Feedly.

It appears that you have to install Feedly onto your browser (as opposed to Reader, which is just anywhere you can use the web) which means that you couldn't just read it at your parents' house while you're there at Christmas, at least not without installing something. This is a huge drawback because not only do I use multiple browsers at home, I use a desktop and a laptop, which means I'll be installing it probably on 4 browsers, just for home use (Firefox and Chrome on both). I also don't want to install it on my computer at work.

Feedly does have a nice little "getting started" post here that explains how you can transition. It's really, really easy. Just log into your google account, start up Feedly, and bam. Done. The post also assures you that when Reader dies, your feeds and stuff will still be there. I'm not sure how it's going to work for other readers that use Google Reader.

Once I imported the feeds, it took some clicking around to figure out what was going on. I probably should have started with this post that explained how to make Feedly less Feedly and more Google Reader-y. I changed all of my settings (okay, except for the folder for cat blogs [don't mock me!]) to "Titles," which is more Reader-y. I left the cat ones on "Magazine," I think. I'm still not entirely sure what each of the Views categories are, but since I'm not illiterate, I chose non-pictures for most of them.

Something nice that happened was that all of my "Saved" posts (which are the old "Starred" ones) were also imported as Saved. So I didn't lose anything there.

Feedly also seems to have the "read" posts, so I'll be able to see old posts, but I'm not sure how far back.

One huge drawback (and really, the most important thing I was looking for in a substitute) is the Search function. It's definitely not as comprehensive as Reader's. It doesn't go back as far, and I can't seem to force it to go back farther than however many results I get. Also, it gives them to me in the magazine or card or whatever it's called layout, which I don't want. I want them to be all titles.

Below, I ran a search for Alabama v. Miller and this is the first page of screen. Pretty sure none of those suggested YouTube videos deal with juvenile life without parole.

(You can see the Feedly icon that's now part of my browser that I circled in the top corner)

In Feedly, I only get 27 results. How it determines which ones are "Featured" is beyond me. When I run the same search in Reader, it shows me all 168 times that's shown up in my feeds. This has been invaluable to me in the past when I'm trying to remember someone's write-up of a case or a topic, or even just as dumb as like a review of which mascara didn't flake into your eyes.

Even worse, at the bottom of the "In Your Sources [feeds]," Feedly suggests news stories. I guess this just feels too "ad"-like for me. Too "here, let me suggest things you don't want and I know you don't want because you selected search only within my feedly and also you could have just used google to look for news stories."

I didn't get suggested "Top Sites" for Alabama v. Miller but look what happens when I try to find some old mascara reviews. It starts suggesting feeds I don't subscribe to.

I mean, it's not AWFUL, but I don't really want suggested sites. Sure, you could ask Google to suggest sites for you in Reader but I don't want to be bugged about it every time I'm searching for something in my archives.

I'll put Feedly on my iPod touch and my Android phone and see how I like it on the mobile interface.

More updates to come!

Mourning the end of Google Reader

2013-03-13T21:14:00.003-04:00

I used to use Bloglines as my RSS reader back in the day. Then it said it was ending, so I moved over to Google Reader and I was blown away. I can't tell you how much I loved Google Reader. Sometimes I think I loved it more than my cat, and as a crazy cat lady, that's saying something. Sure, there were things I disliked, mostly the 2,000 post limit (they only keep the top 2,000 unread posts...yes, I know I have way too much stuff). But I liked the ability to star, keep unread, apply labels, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to search into the past. Basically, if you imported a feed and kept it, even after the blog stopped updating, you could search for some old post. This has saved my bacon many times when I accidentally pushed "mark all as read" or wanted to see a bunch of posts on Topic A.

I've tried some other aggregators like Newsblur, and I just never liked them as well. They didn't seem to have all the same capabilities. I try not to bleg too much, but if you have any suggestions for an awesome replacement to Reader, please let me know. I'll give you...some kind of reward? Or you could do it out of the goodness of your heart.

The short, short version

2013-03-10T12:07:00.006-04:00

We're plowing ahead with our wedding plans, sequester or no. Right now we're still considering a small B&B out in the country (which drops the price considerably from the DC places), and we've moved on to picking an officiant.

Since this is a very small wedding, we pretty much just want the basics. You know:

Neither of us are religious and we're not interesting in pretending that we're religious just for the wedding, so we were looking for someone who would just have some nice things to say and then do the legal part. Local clerks here don't marry people (which I find interesting), so it looked like we'd have to pay someone.

Then we remembered that Virginia has a weird little quirk that allows for a layperson (such as a friend or family member) to officiate a wedding after doing an application to the court and paying a bond. We were pretty excited about that until we realized that we didn't have any local friends that would feel not-weird about officiating our wedding. We finally settled on one of my co-workers and we were very excited because we knew they would love it, and then we read the statute. The person has to be a Virginia resident. Co-worker is a DC resident. We brainstormed for Virginia residents. That mostly left other coworkers, none of whom we felt wouldn't think it was kind of weird.

We both know lots of judges, but none of them local or that we really knew well enough to ask to do something like this. Friday night, The Litigation realized that he did know someone who became a judge, and so we're thinking about asking that person to do it.

In the meantime, if you're a Virginia resident who'd like to officiate our wedding, we're taking applications!

A dream (wedding) deferred

2013-03-08T10:13:00.000-05:00

The dirigible wedding is definitely out. It's pretty hard to find one of those, much less one that I can rent for like, $10. I had resigned myself to having a land-based wedding, which was okay, until the sequester (should that be sequestration? hmm) began.

The Litigation is a federal employee, and we were prepared to take a pay cut/some furlough days. But yesterday he learned that the cut/furlough will be basically twice as much, which is a lot more than we'd resigned ourselves to. There's already been one layoff and one early retirement at his office, so they're pretty serious. Even if Congress gets its act together to stop some of the bleeding by funding stuff, he'll still take nearly a month's hit. The boss sent an email asking about people taking leave without pay, abbreviating it LWOP, which was the only funny part to me, since LWOP to this former criminal defense attorney can only mean Life Without Parole.

For a few days back in February we'd considered having a family plus a handful of close friends wedding (which grew the guest list from 4 to around 90...hey, I have a very large family with lots of nieces and nephews. It's not likely everyone would come but the final count would be higher than 4, that's for sure). The sequester put the kibosh on that, which maybe was just as well since I don't have time to really plan something like that because work travel is picking up.

So we're back to parents only. Until yesterday we'd been looking at having it at a bed and breakfast about an hour or so away, using one of their "elopement" packages (they provide the setup, etc and a space for about 4 people), but even that is starting to feel extravagant. And by extravagant, I mean less than one month's rent.

Sure, we could have it at city hall, but that would be kind of drab. It'd be one thing if it was pretty but it's not. Actually, I don't know if they do weddings at our city hall since they had a list of people who could perform weddings in our jurisdiction and that list didn't include the clerk down the hall.

The Litigation mentioned some dream wedding contest he'd read about in a local magazine, which is totally not our style, but I just couldn't get past the taxes we'd have to pay for the value of the prizes. Leave it to a couple of lawyers to decide not to get married because of prize taxes.

I'm sure everything will work out somehow. But I'm going to blame politics on my lack of a blimp wedding, even though I'm fully aware that I wasn't going to have one anyway, sequester or not.

Friday Cat Blogging

2013-03-08T09:45:00.001-05:00

Tess survived Snowquester. She was happy to have The Litigation at home all day.

The so-secret-it's-everywhere registry

2013-02-28T22:07:00.002-05:00

I know you all are dying to buy us (you know, people who most of you have never met) a wedding present. Good news - you already know where we're registered.

You may be asking yourself, "Um, really?"

Do you have a tv? Then, the answer to your question is yes.

Because we'd like to get registered at the As Seen On TV Store. Why not? Everything else about this fake wedding is ridiculous, so our fake registry might as well be ridiculous too.

I mean, how many times have you seen something on tv and thought "I wonder if that works?" but were too embarrassed to buy it for yourself? This way, someone else can buy it for you. *cough*WaxVac*cough* Think of all the hilarious stuff you could get if you registered there - Pet Snuggies, an endless supply of OxiClean and Shamwows, the RoboStir so I can finally stop stirring soup for hours, those slippers that clean your floor as you walk around...the possibilities are endless. I guess we shouldn't rule out infomercials too. I mean, who knows, the Ninja cooking system (no real ninjas involved) might work. Or maybe I'll start cooking multiple rotisserie chickens a week.

This idea is totally failproof, unlike most of my other wedding ideas.

The housing market is perfect right now...for weddings

2013-02-19T22:05:00.000-05:00

The other day I passed a sign for an open house in the neighborhood, and that gave me a great idea for my fake wedding. An open house wedding!

I had wanted to do a surprise wedding, sort of like the way celebrities do, except surprise-y-er. Rather than inviting friends over for "a party" and then surprising them with a wedding when they show up, I thought I'd invite the friends for a wedding but we'd surprise the groom. Like, one day he shows up at work and we're all in his office yelling "Surprise!" When I told this to The Litigation, he actually thought this was not a bad idea seeing as how he would have to do no wedding planning, but I wasn't sure I could pull it off, so I pretty much gave up hope on that idea.

The open house wedding would combine more of the "surprise the friends" element, but also be sort of flash mob-y. We'd invite people for the wedding but not disclose the location until the day of because it'd be at an open house!

Pros

The house would be clean. No setup or cleanup!
It'd be empty - room for plenty of guests!
Open house signs always have balloons on them (festive)
There's always a million open house signs, so everyone will be able to find it with ease
Sometimes open houses have cookies = a catered reception

Cons

We'd have to trickle in in small groups so as not to alert the realtor, and then when we had a critical mass (bride and groom, parents, officiant, a few friends), we could get down to business
Could possibly get chased off mid-wedding
Not sure who all the guests would be, although isn't that true of every wedding?

Here it definitely looks like the pros outweigh the cons. Open house wedding is going to the top of my list for venues!

(On a more serious note, we really are looking for small venues in the Northern Virginia/DC area, so if you have any suggestions, we welcome them. Everyplace we've looked at is for a big wedding, or at least, bigger than the one we're planning,)

A literal pain in the neck

2013-02-13T23:38:00.000-05:00

So...I was hit by a hit-and-run driver on Monday night. I thought I'd just tough it out, be sore for a few days, whatever. Some prompting from my internet friends (thanks @devinemissk!) made me decide to go to the urgent care clinic this morning. It helped that the close by clinic was also in my insurance.

I had a really cool doctor and she determined that it was all muscle pain (so that's good) but we had x-rays done anyway. I was surprised to learn that I had bone calcification between two of my vertebrae, perhaps as a result from my last car accident. To make a long story short, I'm now wearing a soft cervical collar, which is kind of embarrassing.

Doctor: I want you to wear a collar for a few days, okay?

Me: A collar? Like...a dog? [insert hangdog face]

Doctor: Hey, at least it's not a cone.

Me: Good point.

I've decided I should skip over the feeling that wearing the collar is "kind of embarrassing" straight to "MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT WOMAN?" by adding a huge Elizabethan ruffle to the collar and pretending like it's a fashion statement, not a medical issue. Unfortunately, I don't have any real materials to accomplish this with at the moment, other than tons of tissue paper. I have to use the phone a lot in my job, and I imagine that crinkling tissue paper would be distracting, so I'm not going with that plan, at least not for now.

My feelings about this collar have been very up and down.

Good: keeps neck warm, no need for a scarf. Hides double chin. Is a real attention-getter.

Bad: Is a real attention-getter. Gives me "muffin face." So while it hides the double chin, it pushes up all my excess face fat (isn't all face fat excess?) and makes it spill over the top. Who would have thought that one of my life's concerns would be muffin face? Also, the velcro strap sometimes catches in my hair.

See?! Muffin face.

A coworker suggested I get a bedazzler and bedazzle the bejeebus out of it and act like it's a statement necklace. Well, Valentine's is coming up...

It's surprising how much I look down every day. I had no idea I actually watched my feet go down stairs but now that I can't bend my neck, I find it sort of difficult to navigate stairs. Also, it's hard to read twitter on my ipod while I'm eating.

I'm also having a hard time eating with this thing on because it's very high and there's not a lot of room for me to open my mouth or chew. It's what I'm calling the Accident Chic Diet™. I doubt I'll lose any appreciable amount of weight by the weekend but if I do, I'm wearing my skinny work pants. Damn straight.

The terrible threes

2013-02-11T23:26:00.000-05:00

I hope this isn't the beginning of another three-car-accidents-in-a-year cycle.

I had to work the late shift tonight, then I had to stay even later for some stupid reason. I was in such a hurry to get home, I decided to skip the pre-commute visit to the restroom. Traffic was light, so I figured I'd be home soon, so no big deal. I was stopped at a red light less than two blocks from work and BLAM! I got hit from behind.

The guy definitely hadn't slowed down or anything since just seconds before, no one had been behind me. I signaled I was moving over and as soon as the light turned and I started to pull to the right, the guy moved around me and took off. Like definitely was like "I'm getting the hell outta here." I was shocked. I just couldn't believe it. Apparently neither could any of the pedestrians - I had several come up to me and ask me if I was ok or if they could call the police for me.

I ended up calling the police and waiting for them to show up. Which meant I really wished I'd made my pre-commute bathroom visit. I was embarrassed when I finally got out of the car and could only see a tiny bit of damage to my car. It seemed really disproportionate to how hard I was hit, and also disproportionate to my headache and stiffness I'm feeling now. Anyway, I basically expect nothing to come out of it.

The car appears to be ok, and I'm sure I'll be okay. I expect I'll be pretty sore tomorrow morning but it's not like anything is broken or anything.

The bride wore fleece tights and cheetah print fuzzy slippers

2013-02-06T20:50:00.002-05:00

If it were up to me, I'd truly have a pajama wedding. I mean, it's "my" day (whatever that means) and I'm certainly not going to wear some dress that I'm never going to wear again (unless it's at someone else's wedding!). I'm all about comfort but I suppose I ought to look vaguely respectable, so I might just buy a nice dress in whatever color appeals to me.

Or maybe I should buy a vintage dress. Some of these are genuinely neat, and some are just hilarious/weird, at least for a wedding dress. Also, wedding coats are a thing?

Have you...the wing?

2013-02-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

We started ring shopping, at least, in person. I've been stalking rings for a couple of months (yes, we sat on the "news" that long) on the internet. I've always been fascinated with Art Deco - it's so pretty yet structural and geometric. The problem with a lot of Art Deco rings are they're all the filigree style, which is pretty much the opposite of what I'm looking for. I've seen some geometric ones online, but they tend to be fairly expensive and I don't see much reason in spending a ton of money on a ring, partially because I'm just cheap at heart. This has complicated my search quite a bit.

I tracked down several stores that sometimes have vintage rings and of course, at the very first one, the second ring I tried on, I really liked. It was surprising to me because it was a little different than I thought I'd like, but it was also unique and had a lot of detail work, both very big pluses for me. It was just a setting (mounting? Not really sure about this terminology), so the saleswoman popped in a stone so we could see what it looked like and wow. I went from "I like like it" to "I'll just wear it out." Until we got the price of the stone. Then it was "I'll just put it back here and back away slowly."

The stone itself was more than I wanted to pay for an entire ring! The setting itself was totally reasonable and a stone that was equal to or even a little more than the setting would have been acceptable. So we put it back and went on. Twitter suggestions tell me I should consider a lab diamond or a non-diamond and just having that set in the ring, both of which I'm totally open to.

I've found an acceptable second choice except for the fact that there are two tiny hearts carved on the sides of it. They're actually very small and almost look like triangles but still...hearts. I'm not really a hearts kinda gal. It's got other great details and workmanship and it's totally within the price range. But... hearts. My work wife says I should wait to try to find one that doesn't have shapes that "offend" me (her words). She asked, "Will you be able to live with knowing that those hearts are there?" Good point, work wife. Do I have good taste in work wives or what?

So we'll see what transpires this weekend - I've got a couple more places to look and then we'll figure out what to do about the one I really like but can't afford a stone for.

Friday Cat Blogging

2013-02-01T07:10:00.002-05:00

Tess enjoys laying on boxes and cushions for her early morning sunbathing.

Oh good, the crazy wedding is a go

2013-01-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

Now would be the time to get a McPan's Good Ideas to actually work

2013-01-28T09:42:00.001-05:00

Longtime readers will know that when I moved, it took me over a year to find a job. In a span of less than a month before I finally got a job, I'd applied to at least 56 jobs and gotten a total of zero interviews. Needless to say, I was thrilled when I finally landed a job, even though it paid about 60% of what my last job paid, and even though I had some serious misgivings about the type of work and what all it would entail.

Fast forward five months to the point where I seriously want a new job.

My right ring finger has been mostly asleep/numb/painful for weeks because I think my work desk setup is pinching my ulnar nerve. As ridiculous as it sounds, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to get rid of me (it's cheaper!) rather than accommodate my needs for a chair, desk, or keyboard that I could use without discomfort. At best, they'd probably tell me to switch chairs or something equally dumb (we all have the same setup) with one of the other three people in my room. Yes, there's three of us sharing one office.

How loathe are they to spend money? I get called in and sat down for a lecture every time I submit a reimbursement claim. Asking to be reimbursed for the flight home after a half-week-long trip to see clients in the middle of the country? Apparently unreasonable. Having to drive to another state several days in a row for client meetings (mind you I didn't even bother asking for mileage since I knew they'd say something like, well, you drive to work every day) and the automated parking garage kept the pre-paid ticket? No ticket (there wasn't an option to keep it or get a receipt for payment, since the receipt was printed on the ticket itself) equaled a long lecture on how they couldn't verify my expenditures (by the way, they saw me there and I assume they had the same parking ticket issue...no, they probably valeted and didn't walk like me) and they would pay me this time but in the future...

Another reason I'm afraid they'd just sack me - there's a lot of "mutual" turnover at the office. The most recent "mutual" departing was last week. The office recently brought in someone new and trained them on The Departed's job, which seemed really weird, since New Person had been hired for my department. Friday night, we learned that The Departed (who, by the way, has a pregnant-with-twins partner) had left under "mutual circumstances." You know, right after the new person had finished training on how to do The Departed's job. The Departed did not tell anyone they were leaving, which seems suspicious, especially if it really was mutual and they had something else lined up.

I rarely sleep through the night because I have stressful dreams about work. Most of them are me trying to do normal non-work activities like going grocery shopping but having to be frantically, constantly on the lookout for phone jacks everywhere so I won't miss a work call on this stupid phone that we have to use. Some of them are about me just worrying that taking 10 minutes to take a shower will result in total disaster because I missed a work call and end with me getting fired or having a complete mental breakdown. (This worry isn't too far off reality since I've had to work 12 hour shifts [yes, I do "shift work" at this job], drive home an hour, get in and immediately log on to see if I've missed anything, then wait around all weekend because I'm "on call." Which I am every weekend. And holiday. And overnight.) In some of my dreams, I absolutely lose it with the clients - I'm screaming at them, berating them, etc., which turns into me screaming in my sleep and waking myself up.

There's no point in dreading Mondays since I'm basically working every day, even days when I'm supposed to be on vacation and someone else is supposed to be covering for me because people keep sending me time-urgent stuff, including my bosses, so every day is a work day. Instead, I dread getting up every day, except now it's even worse because I dread going to sleep since there's no real reprieve.

I'm afraid my job is turning me into a bitter, mean, jaded (okay, more than I already am of all those things) person. The job itself doesn't advance my career in any way whatsoever (there's no room to go up here, no real position doing something similar somewhere else [or at least that I would want]). I don't really see any redeeming value in staying other than for the money. I know I should be grateful that I have a job but this job is so stressful and consuming that it's making it difficult to do actual life-related things like.

So...How do I go about breaking into voice acting? I feel like my tiny real-life voice is really better suited to a cartoon character. I think it'd make some cartoon very happy and I know working for a cartoon couldn't make me any less unhappy.

Wedding ideas 2 and 3: the local edition

2013-01-25T20:49:00.000-05:00

Y'all are probably already tired of my fake wedding ideas but I find them pretty amusing, at least when I'm procrastinating against working.

The Litigation and I both enjoy local events and in our last place, we had a pretty decent local government. Or at least, it was a fairly well-off jurisdiction and had nice resources.

We really enjoyed the county fair the last couple of years, so I was thinking we could have the wedding at the fair. It's fun because it's small enough to do and see everything, including the prize-winning vegetables, but it's not totally rinky-dink. But wait, it gets better - for the reception we'd just give out ride bracelets and like, 50 coupons for food and drink! Best reception ever!

Pros:

Funnel cake wedding cake
Riding the Zipper after saying "I do"
Piglet racing
Carnies
The walk on water ride, which we've now seen there two years in a row and I really want to try

Cons:

There's a lot of dust
There's a lot of cops. Just seems tacky to have a wedding with so many cops
Carnies
Parking - it's terrible.
Weather - likely to be kind of hot and maybe muggy

We also considered doing a proxy wedding. Yes, like military people who are overseas or, um, like people in jail. Obviously, we'd be doing the jail version. They already know me at the local jail (AS AN ATTORNEY, people!), and maybe they'd be really flattered we picked their facility. I have to say, it's definitely one of the nicer jails I've ever been to.

Pros:

Civic pride in our excellent jail
Probably a chaplain on hand, no need to get a minister. If that fails, there are judges just across the street, so pretty convenient overall as far as getting an officiant

Cons:

Orange jumpsuits
Pretty sure there are no conjugal visits
No phones allowed

I think we've mostly given up on the proxy jail wedding, given that the cons are very con (ha, also the jail might be full of con artists...sorry, couldn't resist an awful pun) and the pros aren't really that overwhelming. Right now I'm wavering between the blimp and the carnival. The main problem with the blimp is that I can't find one to rent and the main problem with the carnival is that it's not for months and months.