riding the tides.

holiday

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:59:00 +0000

My head has been in the clouds for the past week.

BF and I took a spur of the moment fly fishing trip to the Lower Owens River this past weekend, so I spent the entirety of last week with my head down, plugging through my work so I could free up my Friday in order to get a jump start on our drive. It wasn't until we were loaded up, merging onto the 710 N when BF looked over at me and said, "You know, we really needed this trip." He was right. We have been so caught up with the practical details of our lives, that we haven't really had time to enjoy each other. Other than the fact that BF's son borrowed BF's debit card from his wallet and forgot to put it back, a minor detail that we didn't discover until we were three hours north of Long Beach, we had a fabulous weekend. Also, thank you Baby Jesus for my American Express.

I haven't been fly fishing in over a year, so I was not surprised by the fact that I got skunked, nor was I surprised that even in spite of my far superior casting skills, I got my fly caught in a tree branch. I was standing there, splashing around thigh-deep in the water, trying in vain to free myself, rod bent way past ninety degrees as I was pulling on the line, all while trying to shield my face from the hook that was about to come whipping at me at 891264 mph as the dog ran up and down the bank barking his head off at me. It was safe to say that if there were any fish in the river, I scared them off with all the racket I was making. I stopped to re-examine my predicament when I heard a string of cursing float toward me from down river. BF yelled, "That's the third fly I've lost in ten minutes!" Kindly, I offered back, "Well, if you didn't suck so bad at tying, that wouldn't have happened!" As soon as the words left my mouth, I remembered that my fly was caught in the tree and that I would almost certainly suffer the same fate. So I just started yanking on my rod, using as much force as necessary to break the line. When the line came free, I was pleasantly surprised to see my fly still intact and I was reassured in the knowledge that not only is my casting superior, so are my tying skills. It made my weekend.

On the drive home, we got to talking about BF's up coming birthday, and started making plans for where we would take our vacation this year in honor of his 50th year. A few months ago we loosely agreed on a fly fishing excursion to Montana, but inspiration struck and we have now settled on three weeks in a beach-front bungalow in Playa del Carmen. The more we talked, the more excited we got: fly fishing, scuba diving, snorkeling, the Mayan ruins, and all the piña coladas we could ever hope for. Of course, being a chick, I started thinking about what I would wear and that's when it hit me. I don't have to pack a hair dryer! We haven't even booked the flights yet and this is already the best vacation ever.

paycuts

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:24:00 +0000

First, some background: I work for a Canadian company who spent the last few years grabbing up little American companies in an effort to grow the practically non-existent manufacturing division of their pharmaceutical and medical device "think tank" of a corporation. Essentially, they used to sell their proprietary and intellectual property to other companies for production, but now they are opting to build their devices themselves. In 2007, the number of American Employees jumped from 100 (including myself) to 1500. Changes were made to our benefits package and as a result, all 100 of us "legacy" employees got the shaft. Our brand new Vice President of Human Resources made his first visit to us here in California to both introduce himself and then give us the fantastic news. He sat in our breakroom showing us his little presentation slides, truly believing that these changes would please everyone.

Here is an actual slide from his presentation. I fall within the group called "Legacy" on the left and all of the other 1400 employees fall in the group called "New" in the middle. To the right are the details of the new plan for everyone. Without even reading the numbers, you can tell that all kinds of Bad Stuff is happening to the Legacy employees as indicated by the amount of red. All the Good Stuff is happening to the New employees as shown by all the green.

Everyone sat stone-faced through the presentation and when the lights were raised after his little speech, he finally saw that he was wearing the only smile in the room. I raised my hand: "Will these paycuts be taken into consideration when it's time for our performance reviews?" Mr. VP of HR assured me that these were not paycuts, and that the changes benefited 1400 other American Employees. I reminded him that these 1400 other employees chose to work for a company with crap benefits. The other 100 of us chose to accept lesser salaries in favor of the outstanding benefits we USED to receive.

Before he could answer, the Plant Manager for my facility - who is based in Vancouver and therefore unaffected by these changes - said that nothing had been decided in terms of "reimbursing" us 100 employees. Mr. VP of HR looked displeased by this admission but said nothing.

The news was revealed in November and once I worked it out, it would turn out to be a 10% paycut. We had been hearing about the benefits changes all year long, but we were repeatedly told that nothing would change for us. In the months after, it was like pulling teeth to get any information out of our "new and improved" HR department. In December we were told that our performance reviews, and therefore our raises and bonuses, would be pushed back a couple months. Two weeks ago, we received news that our bonuses would be paid out on Good Friday and that our raises would go into effect as of today. Since our raises are capped at 7%, if we were to receive any type of compensation for our paycuts, it would have to come in the form of a bonus. On Good Friday, I checked my bank account and saw that my bonus was 1/3 what it was last year. Things were not looking good. This morning, I was called into my boss' office for my review.

My boss gave me a glowing review, and she admitted to just copying and pasting last year's review into this year's form and changing some words here and there. Then she handed me a sheet of paper detailing my raise. Before I could look at it, she said that the the caps were raised from 7% to 7.5%; she even used the word "generous" and alluded to the paycuts as the reason for said generosity. For a moment I was optimistic, but it all faded when I saw the figures. I had qualified for the full raise amount but once the "corporate multiplier" was applied, I would only receive 3.5%. Factor in the COLA for 2008, and it turned out to be a 1.2% raise.

Yeah.

It was like déjà vu. In December 2006, I was informed that I had qualified for the full raise of 7% but once the "corporate multiplier" was factored in, I would only receive 3%. I asked what a corporate multiplier was, and my boss explained that since corporate failed to meet their goals for the year, everyone's bonuses and raises raises would be modified to reflect those shortcomings. I had no clue about these mysterious goals until after my pay was affected by them. This year, I was at least informed of the margin by which the 2007 corporate goals were missed: 50%.

Awesome. Can't wait for next year.

next to godliness

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:03:00 +0000

A couple weeks before Christmas, I got sick. I had to cancel some dentist appointments, I'm sure over-exposure to germs is one of a dentist's occupational hazards, but I never got around to rescheduling them because I thought I was still sick. After a month and a half, I stopped taking all that cold medicine and apparently that was enough to jump start my brain because it finally dawned on me that maybe I wasn't sick anymore, maybe my allergies kicked in for the year. This was good news and bad news because it meant that YAY I wasn't sick! But also: BOO my allergies kicked in earlier and with more severity than ever before.

There was a time when I refused to take any medication whatsoever. I have several conditions that are supposed to be treated with daily medication for the rest of my life, depression for starters, but since my medication seemed to be doing more harm than good, I have long since opted to treat myself with various herbal supplements. With that in mind, I also refused to take other non-prescription pharmaceuticals, such as Advil or Claritin. Most over-the-counter medications express themselves via the liver, and dammit, I need my liver so I can process all that vino. But then I started making exceptions. I have had severe heartburn since childhood - TMI Warning - but when I started waking up in the middle of the night because I was literally choking on my own stomach acid, I decided that Tums and Rolaids would be allowed. But it's when I developed migraines for the first time ever, all of my rules went out the window; if you've ever had a migraine, you understand why. I have friends who swear they can feel themselves ovulating and I thought that surely, they were imagining things. I have never really been in tune with my body and I think it has something to do with the fact that I have a pretty high pain threshold. I can block out a lot, but when it comes to the day to day stuff, that only means that by time I notice that something is wrong, it's usually too late for a single dose of Tylenol to be of much help. After the migraines I started listening to my body. I noticed that if I really paid attention, I could stave off the onset of a migraine with some espresso and a good sleep. I know, it seems contradictory, but if I can sleep after a triple latte, then I know I was correct in diagnosing myself. And if I was wrong, hey, I'm no stranger to insomnia, and I've got a DVR full of cooking shows I can catch up on.

These days, medication is the last option on the list. It takes some time for me to figure this stuff out, but once I do I'm set for life. Right now I am working on my allergies. I've already conceded that if I go hiking or fishing, I'll just have to pop a Claritin and be done with it, but since I spend the majority of my days in controlled environments, I'll have to figure out a way to treat my allergies by manipulating those environments. I am in the process of pricing and comparing air purifiers for my home, office and even my car (what, this is Southern California, that means I live in my car), but I also noticed that my housekeeping habits might share some of the blame. I generally keep my place clean, but I don't keep to a regular routine. If something's dirty, I clean it. The End. But what I didn't count on was just how fast dust collects. I have relatively high open beamed ceilings and if I take a close look, DUST! All over the place! I walked through my apartment last week and cleaned every last surface in this place; I was even up on a ladder washing down the walls and the ceilings. I felt better about myself. And my sneezing was dramatically reduced. But then I looked around this evening and I was horrified to see that everything is dirty again! I saw a life of OCD-like cleaning flash before my eyes.

I came to the computer to ask Google if there was an easier way. And while I was there I checked my bank account. And that's when it hit me. I am getting a raise next week and I just figured out a way to spend it. I have been trying to justify doing this for years now, but I never could do it. But now, my health is being affected! This is my life we're talking about here! And surely, this is the preferable alternative to poisoning my liver with drugs, right? So it's settled. I'm hiring a housekeeper.

housekeeping

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:03:00 +0000

A while ago, I decided to check out what my blog looked like in another browser since you people insist on using the likes of Internet Explorer, and of course, it looked like crap. On top of that, I checked my blog code with those handy online Markup and CSS Validation Services that I had linked at the bottom of my page, and it came back and told me ERROR ALERT ERROR YOU HAVE 87453845187 ERRORS! I tried to troubleshoot, but I just couldn't get my little bits of code to check out. I didn't want to go through the horror of trying to switch to Blogger Beta again, so I just left it and promised myself that I'd get to it later.

Three months later, I finally sat down and worked through my code. I finally republished my blog yesterday but when I went to check it, the Markup Validator said I still had errors. I attribute most of them to Blogger rather than my code, but I still had some spots here and there that I just couldn't fix without making design sacrifices. Like the dropdown menus. I love my drop down menus, whacked out code or not. In the end, I went for the easy fix and removed the validation links from the bottom of the page. This blog looks best in Firefox, and it's passable in IE, but that's all I know. If you have a different browser and this site looks weird, please shoot me an e-mail and let me know.

four days and four nights

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:17:00 +0000

Every once in a while, my boss will come into my office to inform me that everyone on the manufacturing line and half of the back office has decided to take a three day weekend and what do I think about this confounding situation? We could come in to the office and be the only lonely souls in the place because that would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn't it? And every time, I slowly turn away from my computer monitor to face her and I give the same response: It's up to you. Then she has a seat in one of the chairs across from my desk and I lean back in my executive chair and she goes through the motions of listing why it would be a waste of time to come in. It's the same song and dance and in the end, we always decide that it would actually benefit all parties involved, including the company, the environment and possibly Homeland Security if we didn't come in.

Since I work for a Canadian company, we have a handful of extra holidays including Good Friday. (Even though they rescinded the Canadian holidays once the American division was large enough to become it's own entity, it seems like every manager in this facility, conveniently, never received any communiques regarding the new holiday schedule so we just take off whatever holidays seem appropriate.) As it turns out, the entire manufacturing line requested Good Thursday off as well, so my boss came in this morning and we performed a particularly rousing version of our standard dance performance and it was decided that we would take a four day weekend in honour of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ Amen. As for me, I'll be spending these Holy Days in Las Vegas.

relationship notes

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:50:00 +0000

On Sunday evening, when BF started packing up his things to go home for the week, I did something that surprised the both of us: I started crying. I guess it's safe to say that I'm at that point in my life where I just want to settle down already and spending the weekend together just isn't enough anymore. (And it's not even every weekend these days. So far this year, we are averaging two weekends a month together.) I am tired of the transient nature of our relationship and crave something more permanent. When left to my own devices, my thoughts wander more and more often to the living arrangement we have - living apart indefinitely because he has children and I don't want to live with them - and I find that I bargain with myself. Maybe it won't be so bad. Oh, who are you kidding, living with kids is going to suck. Maybe we can find apartments within the same apartment complex? What is that going to solve, his youngest has no clue who you really are. Well, if that changed, maybe living in a big house won't make me feel so crowded. On and on and on.

My problem is two-fold: I can't just fly through life by the seat of my pants and I'm a lonely kook who cherishes her privacy. Ever since BF told me in September that his second wife, J, told BF that she was probably going to sign up their son, S, for his senior year abroad here in the States, I started to worry. That would mean his youngest child would be moving here several years earlier than expected. Then January rolled around and his middle child, E, who currently lives with BF, hit a roadblock with his education. The original plan was for E to stay with BF for four years, but now it's looking more like six and even then, BF will not kick him out at the end of that period if E isn't ready. So right now, if I was determined not to live with BF if his kids are in the picture, that will put us on track for the big move in ten to fifteen years. I will be 40, BF will be 63.

Suffice it to say, I am unhappy with that projection. And the only way things are going to change is if I bend. Again. I know I signed up for this when we started dating, and at twenty I was already well on my way to being set in my ways. Because of our age difference and the fact that we worked together, we had to have a lot of heavy conversations that first week. Everything had to be aired out and every possibility had to be considered before we could safely embark on a relationship. He brought it up. He said that if we Played House, his kids would be in the picture. At the time, I could not imagine living with anyone. For reasons that are too long to discuss here, my family moved in with me, delaying my independence for what turned out to be another four years. I told him, "I want to live alone, I love to be alone, and the last thing I want is to regret not living alone for long enough. Solitude is a priority for me." And we left it at that. At the time, we kept my age in mind; at twenty, it more likely than not that I would completely change my mind about everything and we figured that the only course of action was to cross that road when we came to it. I don't know what it says about my character, but for the most part, I am the same person I was at twenty. I have the same values, albeit more polished, and my morality has a finer point to it, honed by experience. On the whole, I am just a matured version of who I was, not a radically different person. But of course, the one thing that changed was my attitudes toward cohabitation. Of course.

balance the beauty with the bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:21:00 +0000

It really irritates me when I visit someone's website and it's littered with one "inspirational" quote after another. I understand the power of words and how sometimes something just jumps out at you, but when you really think about it, is it wise to define your persona entirely with someone else's words? I suppose it's the need to associate ourselves with those who inspire us, and the easiest way for people to accomplish this is to parrot and dogmatize their famous words. But I have to be honest with you: the title of this post is a direct quote from Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I pulled it from an article I read in the latest issue of Newsweek entitled Stop Your Sobbing — Now.

(Dr. Laura is one of my personal heroes. I don't always agree with her, especially when it comes to issues pertaining to morality within the parameters of Christian faith - which is probably a surprise to no one since I am not Christian - but I admire her candidness and her ability to be completely honest with someone and forthcoming with her opinions without coming across as rude or judgmental or preachy.)

The article profiles Rev. Will Bowen, minister of the Christ Church Unity congregation in Kansas City, Mo. and author of the book A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted. I highly suggest you read the article, but to paraphrase it, Rev. Bowen's message is simple: Stop complaining, for today could be your last. Simple, truthful, wise. I too subscribe to this particular philosophy; I often find myself on the brink of a bitch-fest and when I do, I stop and take a moment and tell myself It could always be worse.

...The interesting thing about this blog entry is that I started it last week but was forced to save it and postpone publishing when I saw something shiny and flitted off to chase some butterflies or some such thing. And guess what happened over the weekend? Sure as shit, I bent BF's ear with a diatribe about my mother and how she irritates the hell out of me. Oh woe, I have a mother who is alive and well and, gasp, calls me and asks me questions about my day. Life is so hard. It was like I was watching myself in slow motion, but at the same time the momentum of my tirade was so great, that I just couldn't stop it. When I was finished I instantly regretted it. In the back of my head I started to blame BF for being so considerate and observant as to notice something was bothering me and then follow up with a sincere expression of concern. And just like that, I did it again.

It took a couple hours, but I apologized to him for being such a brat. Some people don't even have mothers - BF included - and there I was bitching about mine. Sure, there's a long and involved history with my mother that I suppose one could use to justify it all, but I like to think I'm a better person than that.

I don't know if I will ever be at the point where I can stop myself from thinking these things, but I know I have the will to stop myself from voicing them. I just need to work harder at it.

i'm a horrible mother

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:30:00 +0000

It's bad enough that I only get to see my baby on the weekends since he lives with BF... but did you know that you aren't supposed to feed dogs grapes? I just found out. Just now. Now all I can think about is all the wine I gave my dog (he especially enjoys a good fruity Syrah). Oops.

age

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:54:00 +0000

I grow infinitely more patient with every year that passes. I am not as accepting, I will concede on that point, but I am tremendously more tolerant of that which I do not accept. I am better at picking my battles and I choose wisely what I let myself get worked up over. But every once in a while something small slips past my mental filters, and when it does, I flare up and become more irritated and annoyed than I ever thought possible.

And I'm just going to leave it at that.

procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:07:00 +0000

BF caught a break from work and was able to reschedule his Louisiana trip from this past weekend to this coming week, so we were able to squeeze in a weekend together. I was planning on posting pictures of my fabulously re-fitted bathroom today (as well as mailing my tax returns), but since we hadn't seen each other in over a month (35 days to be exact), and since BF's "order" was delivered and he was informed that it was "medical grade," we rearranged our "priorities." We had a blast.

misconception

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:21:00 +0000

My Starbucks order is very simple. Large coffee, room for cream, followed by grumblings at the creamer counter when I open the lid and see that they've left me one whole centimeter of room for said cream. When I feel like something fancy, I order a café au lait, or rather, a latté SANS foam (even though lattés aren't supposed to have foam in the first place; if I wanted foam, I'd have ordered a cappuccino). And then they go ahead and put the foam on anyway because apparently they can't help themselves. And then I grumble. What can I say, I'm not a morning person.

For those who don't know, café au lait is French. Lattés and cappuccinos are Italian.

Google reader linked this article this morning, which brought me to this menu (link is a PDF). Right there on the menu, they offer a café au lait.

The problem is, they don't have café au laits in France. Not in Paris, not in Toulouse, not along the Mediterranean, not anywhere. For the first four days in France, every time I ordered a café au lait, they just blinked at me. Turns out, they call it a café crème. If you are in the south, it's also called a café crème, but they mix in five extra vowels just to fuck with you. Like they do with every word in the French language. Just a heads up.

a discussion re: my uterus (you have been warned)

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:02:00 +0000

About eight or nine months ago, I ditched my depo-provera shots for a Mirena IUD. My only reason for switching was because of bone density complications after two years of depo injections, and while it is reported that women get their injections for years after that benchmark without any ill effects, I decided that the IUD provided the lowest risk (in light of the fact that estrogen-based birth control is out of the question for me). So, I switched and everything was great.

Until, last month, that is. I still don't, ahem, bleed, which is awesome because I haven't had a regular period in over seven years. I know I have a box of tampons somewhere in my home, but I wouldn't be confident using them because surely, even tampons must have expiration dates. But what has become a recent plague to my reproductive system are cramps and PMS in the form of what I call my ghost period. I got my first period at eleven and that was pretty much the only time I got cramps. And since my periods were highly irregular in my teens, the arrival of my period was always a surprise. I have some friends who, to put it mildly, are less fortunate in regards to their monthly visitor, and I'm sure they're all rolling their eyes at the news that I am, at 27, experiencing real cramps for the first time in my adult life, but DAMN, this sucks. The thing of it is, I just had my ghost period three weeks ago. And it's starting again. This must be nature's way of making up for all those missed PMS episodes. And it sucks.

trek

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:11:00 +0000

This isn't news to most of you, but I'm a big Star Trek fan. I started watching TNG when it was still in it's initial run, mostly so I could swoon over Patrick Stewart and watch LeVar Burton in something other than Reading Rainbow. I know, the appearance Star Trek, swoon, Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow in the same sentence is confusing and possibly disturbing. I was a weird kid.

Anyway, BF and I had one conversation about our mutual Star Trek watching back when we first started dating, and that was it. It wasn't until this past year when I found out that SciFi and Spike were airing TNG and Voyager every weekday and I started DVRing it, that BF found out just exactly how geeked out I really was. "I had no idea, Ang. I mean, you know exactly what's going on in Star Trek." Ahem, it's called "canon," but I didn't admit to that at the time.

For Christmas, BF bought me The Star Trek Encyclopedia, Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, and Star Trek Voyager Companion, and he apologized for the fact that he was unable to find a Companion book for The Original Series. I couldn't have been more pleased. As a general rule, I typically don't throw lots of money at my hobbies and interests, Star Trek especially (which is probably why BF had no clue about it), so I never would have bought those books for myself, but I was glad to have them in my possession.

Last night I was trying to catch up with my DVR and something in the Voyager episode I was watching prompted me to drag out my books. I was thumbing through, reading bits and pieces when I found an error regarding one of the characters. I was about to get up to ask the internet if there were any known errors in the Voyager companion book, when I realized just how geeky I was getting. So I closed the book, deleted the episode, and immediately watched the latest episode of Project Runway. But now that I think about it, I don't know if that's better or worse.

simf: french edition

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:26:00 +0000

SiMF: French Edition

Stock of the fridge on Day Three of our vacation in the Midi-Pyrénées.

I belong to a group on Flickr called "Shit in my Fridge," and this is one of the photos I posted to said group.

I did most of the cooking while we were at the country house in France on our vacation, and reading labels in the grocery aisles with a travel French-to-English dictionary in hand (one I pilfered from the general merchandise section of the market) occupied most of my time those first few days. I loved every minute of it.

westminster

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Miniature Schnauzer Breed Judging at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

I just want to pluck all of those pups off the screen and pop them into my mouth like truffles. Very serious truffles. Obviously, Chips looks nothing like them, but just once, maybe in a couple years, I'd like to get him traditional grooming by a professional. As opposed to, say, me chopping off clumps of hair from around his butt with kitchen shears because it's grown so long that his poopie got stuck to it.

Ahem.

insomnia

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:47:00 +0000

9:00 - Alright, time for bed and some reading!

9:05 - Brush teeth. Hmmm, maybe my benzoyl peroxide mask and a Biore strip are in order.

9:09 - Watch an episode of Hidden Potential, decide the show is crap, vow never to watch it again.

9:40 - Remove nose strip, spot treat my face, and moisturize. Wonder if this new moisture serum really is better for my skin than a regular moisturizer. Pluck eyebrows.

9:53 - Notice the time, get into bed and decide only to read for an hour. Re-read parts of The Omnivore's Dilemma pertaining to organic growing in California.

10:17 - Hmm, speaking of food, should I go and check on that tilapia I put in the fridge to thaw?

10:19 - Ponder the flaws of American farming policy; wonder if it will ever be possible for the industrialized nations of the world to pull their heads out of their asses, and I'm not just referring to organic growing either.

10:24 - Naw, the tilapia should be fine, I'll just bake it in some olive oil for dinner tomorrow.

10:25 - Continue reading.

12:03 - Oh shit, I need to get to sleep. Lights out.

12:06 - Think about work and all the crap I need to get done.

12:39 - Right at that point where I'm about to transition from awake into unconsciousness, there is a loud noise. Is it the building settling, or does this have to do with all those automated e-mails I've been getting from the USGS in the past couple of days pertaining to multiple earthquakes in Baja?

12:40 - Think about earthquakes.

12:46 - Feel claustrophobic because the room is so stuffy; get up to turn on the fan.

12:51 - Consider turning the lights on for another 30 minutes of reading to get my mind off earthquakes.

12:52 - Speaking of American food policy, I forgot to order The Jungle from Amazon. Get up to check if I can add it on to my existing order. Nope, I can't, damn you Amazon!

12:57 - Wander over to the Wikipedia entry on The Jungle; briefly consider the implications of logging on to Wikipedia at 1AM.

1:09 - Wikipedia: Socialism

1:14 - Wikipedia: Karl Marx

1:16 - Wikipedia: Feudalism

1:19 - Wikipedia: Communism

1:22 - Wikipedia: Fascism

1:23 - Wikipedia: Forms of government

1:25 - Wikipedia: Capitalist Republic, Socialist Republic, Democracy, Direct Democracy, Representative Democracy; freak out when I realize I don't know what kind of government the U.S. has.

1:41 - Wikipedia: USA; feel like a tool.

1:42 - Duh, Constitutional Republic, I totally knew that.

1:45 - Turn off computer, turn on heater, get into bed.

1:51 - Realize that I have both the heater and the fan on.

1:59 - Get up and turn off the fan, go to the bathroom.

2:19 - Get up and turn the fan back on.

2:21 - If I go to sleep within the next nine minutes, I'll sleep for three and a half hours before the first (6AM) alarm goes off.

2:32 - If I snooze the first alarm and get up with the second (6:30AM) alarm, I will still manage at least three and a half hours of sleep.

2:35 - Peek at clock, decide to turn onto my left side so I won't be tempted to peek at the clock.

2:37 - Think about how I've been sleeping on my right side since I was eight when I started getting a grasp on human anatomy; I didn't want to sleep in my left side because I feared I would squish my heart.

2:39 - Panic about squishing hearts.

2:40 - Turn back to the right side.

2:42 - I cannot believe only two minutes have passed. It seemed like at least ten.

2:52 - If I can't fall asleep by 3:00AM, I'll just get up and start getting ready. Maybe treat myself to breakfast?

2:59 - OH SHIT I'M NOT ASLEEP YET. Clear my head; force myself not to open my eyes again.

??? - I know I have been laying here for at least fifteen minutes but I'm afraid to check... I really need to sleep... Hopefully... I'll fall asleep... soon...

??? - zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

6:00 - Alarm goes off. Hmmm. I actually feel like I slept enough. Perhaps I don't need to hit snooze after all. In fact, I think I'll get up right now while I...

6:01 - zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

6:30 - Alarm goes off.

6:31 - zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

7:00? - Alarm goes off but I sleep right through it.

9:15 - OH FUCK.

classic rock

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:05:00 +0000

I was recently reminded that this year marks the 10-year anniversary of my high school graduation and it reminded me of this story...

BF and I were driving up to Bishop a couple years ago for a weekend fly fishing trip. I got off work early that Friday and we set out for the drive, but it was dark by time we made it to Sierra Highway 395, so we had to rely on the radio for entertainment.

(I love taking long driving trips with BF. We are both content to sit in silence for hours at a time, just watching the scenery pass us by. I can't read when I'm in a car - or a plane or a train for that matter, it gives me a splitting headache - and I don't like to isolate myself in a bubble by putting on some earphones to listen to music, so more often than not we just enjoy the quiet and let our thoughts wander, occaisionally sparking bits of conversation here and there.)

We were only about 30 to 40 minutes outside of Bishop when we lost the majority of the FM radio signals. I was searching the band channel by channel when I came upon a station playing Creep by Stone Temple Pilots. BF teased me a little about my taste in music, and we were bantering back and forth when the song ended and the disc jockey came on.

That was Creep by the Stone Temple Pilots here on your local Classic Rock station for the Sierra Nevadas.

My jaw dropped. Classic rock? I squealed. No way. No WAY! I remember when that album came out! I had to have been in high school by then. There is just no way that is considered classic rock!

BF, of course, found this to be hilarious.

I remember me and Jennifer and Natalee used to pine for Scott Weiland! We used to play this album over and over! No way. This is not classic rock. I'm only twenty-five for fuck's sake!

BF looked at me and said with a smirk, Welcome to my life.

adult perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:13:00 +0000

I have been sick all year. Literally. I stayed home on Wednesday and Thursday so I could hack up my spleen in private, and while the primary symptoms (dry cough) subsided enough for me to roll into the office today, my achy abs and splitting headache - burst vessels or an impending aneurysm in my brain is my guess - are making me second guess the wisdom of coming in.

I did get some chores done while I was at home and I think I discovered why my allergies get worse every year and why this cold has lasted so damed long: The inch-think layer of dust all over my apartment. I have relatively high ceilings and they've probably been cleaned only once in the three-plus years I have lived there. I got up on the ladder and started cleaning all the crevices in my open-beamed ceiling and I can already feel the difference.

Every month when I was a kid, my mother had my sister and I clean the walls with a mild water-disinfectant solution and scrub the window screens in the tub with some Ajax. I used to think she was insane and maybe in need of medication for a possible chemical imbalance. Now, I completely understand.

diy

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:46:00 +0000

Over the Winter break, after Christmas but before the New Year, BF started work on "renovating" my bathroom. After the Great Thanksgiving Fire Of 2004, I had some minor smoke damage in the bathroom and he decided that a coat of paint was probably in order since I wasn't planning on moving for at least another year. While he was at it, he was going to replace the U-trap on the sink and do other little bits of superficial maintenance. I guess you could call it the renovation equivalent of Restylane; nothing too invasive but enough to make a noticeable difference.

Everything was toted out and I sorted it all in to Keep and Toss piles, while BF started to remove all the hardware from the walls. Since this was only supposed to be a two-day project, tops, I just left the Keep pile in the hallway and asked BF if he needed any help. Nope? Okay cool, I'll be on the couch watching DVRed episodes of Star Trek.

Four days and six trips to Home Depot later, it still wasn't finished. I'll spare you the details of attempting to use the bathroom during those two days without a door. Before he left my place the night before he started back to work, we took inventory of the bathroom to form a game plan for the following weekend. And that's when I realized that the light fixture I bought wouldn't fit in the alloted space above the medicine cabinet.

We started out with three tasks:

U-trap replacement
Patch and paint
Replace all hardware

At the end of Winter break, we had to:

Fix leaks in the new U-trap
Cut floor moulding to size
Remove and reattach new hardware because it's crooked and not centered
Remove and re-hang door
Paint all metal trims to match new hardware
Exchange new light fixture
Find a new paint color because Blinding White is just too white

Two weekends ago we got a gallon of paint in "Swiss Coffee" and returned the light fixture. We were unable to find an appropriate replacement. Last week I re-spackled (because no one can spackle like I can), taped everything off and started cutting in with the new paint. And that's it. The Keep pile is still in the hall. All of my toiletries are taking up what little surface area is available with all the hardware removed and the medicine cabinet unavailable for use. I have to rely on a drop lamp with a 100 watt bulb because there is no light fixture installed. And I think I finally snapped.

Today I got into a fight with BF via e-mail. What I said was that I was unsure about the future of our relationship. I wanted us to live together sooner rather than later. I hate how we go weeks and months without seeing each other. I didn't want to end up a spinster rotting away in this shitty one-bedroom apartment at the age of 35.

Now that I think about it, what I meant was, I want my bathroom back.

odds & ends

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:17:00 +0000

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday and I have no clue what the propositions are. I officially suck at life. The good news is that I have the pamphlet sitting at home on my coffee table and I actually know where my polling place is this year. Two out of three ain't bad. This is my first time actually affiliated with a political party - I've been registered Non-Partisan until last year - so I'm curious to see how it all plays out.

So, there have been some significant developments at BF's work, most of which I can't talk about for legal reasons (seriously) and nothing has been finalized yet; so even if I could talk about it, I wouldn't, because I fear The Jinx. There are aspects that I'm not legally prohibited from discussing publicly, and once everything is settled, I promise I will clue you in and stop talking in poorly punctuated run-on sentences. Suffice it to say, he's been busy. He's been working non-stop since he returned to work from the Christmas break a little over a month ago; all day, all evening, everyday, including weekends. When I see him next, I won't have seen him for a month. It's tough and while we talk via phone and e-mail every couple days, I can tell he's distracted so I let him go quickly, but not after making him kiss the puppy for me. On the nose.

It's been weird being alone for so long, but it has also reminded me just how much enjoy being a loner. I have several solitary projects lined up for the next couple weeks and I am excited to get started.

seven

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:18:00 +0000

I treat Valentine's Day the same way I do New Year's Eve. It's just another day, but it can be fun to do a little something to get into the spirit of things. On New Year's Eve, the first one we have ever spent together, we stayed up watching DVRed episodes of Star Trek TOS, but we did stop and make it a point to kiss each other at midnite.

Generally speaking, we treat Valentine's Day the same. We make a special meal and maybe exchange small trinkets of affection - usually love letters or the like - but we don't go all out and spend a fortune like a lot of couples do. But for us, Valentine's Day also happens to be a relationship milestone.

As you know, we have broken up a couple times and as a result we have a bunch of different anniversaries; anniversaries that we don't celebrate, but we at least note. The day we met. Our first date. The day we exchanged I Love Yous. The day we got back together. Things like that. And Valentine's Day is one such anniversary. Seven years ago on Valentine's Day, BF and I were sitting in the bar at the LAX Radission Suites, friends talking about everything and nothing. His mother had just died and I gave him a ride to the airport hotel where he was staying until his 6AM flight home the next morning. As we sat there passing time, I realized I was in love with him. When I left, he kissed me on the cheek. I thought it was a product of the emotional roller coaster he was on. Months later, he told me that he realized he was in love with me on that night. The kiss was an act of enormous restraint on his part and he admitted to spending that evening replaying the scene in his head, regretting that act of temperance.

I for one, wouldn't change a thing. Our story is long and complicated, with endless ups and downs, but it's our story and it couldn't have happened any other way. As we approach Valentine's Day, I take time to give thanks for the gifts we have found in each other. We beat the odds and we battled the enemy in ourselves, and we managed to turn our unlikely union into the best thing that has ever happened.

living dangerously

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:47:00 +0000

One of the bloggers I read religiously is currently in the last week of her second pregnancy and she proclaimed that she was in "fuck it" mode in terms of her diet and asked what we would eat in her position. My suggestion? Foie gras spread on to crusty French bread with a side of cornichons, that Irish cave aged cheddar I love so much, and spicy English mustard.

Another reader suggested a venti full-fat cafe mocha from Starbucks.

Full fat! Now that is throwing caution to the wind!

Sometimes, I have a real urge to strangle people.

search engine

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:19:00 +0000

I use Stat Counter and Site Meter to monitor my site statistics, but I only check my logs every few months mostly because I keep this blog for myself and for my close friends and I don't publicize it outside of that. This evening I decided to peek in to see how much traffic I was getting, and a couple of my search string statistics made me laugh:

pictures of skin discoloration caused by depo provera
sumatra coffee heartburn
ford focus snapple blinker

Apparently, I'm not the only one amused by my car blinker.

dogstar

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:14:00 +0000

BF bought me a Sirius Satellite Radio subscription for Christmas, and we spent the majority of the day yesterday installing the portable radio unit only to find out that my Sony Xplod radio tuner wasn't compatible with the Sirius Sportster 5 receiver. Which was ironic, because the reason why I chose the Sportster 5 docking unit as opposed to an in-dash unit was because I loved my Sony Xplod so much. So, the bad news is I don't have a proper satellite set-up in my car right now. The good news is that BF bought me a brand new, fully compatible Sony Xplod radio and it should be arriving at Circuit City sometime this week, where they will be doing the installation for us.

As we were installing the antennae and chit chatting about the benefits of having satellite radio, I asked him why he chose Sirius over XM. He kind of blushed a little and said, Because the logo is a dog, and it looks like Chips.

When I bought my car, one of the primary reasons I chose the Ford Focus D.B.A. The Party Focus (outside of pure exasperation from car shopping every other day for five months) was because the blinker sounds cute, kind of like a Snapple bottle top. I made the mistake of telling this to BF and he has never let me forget it. So when he told me how he picked his sattellite radio, all I could do was point and laugh.

Wow. Maybe we can get the dog a job at Sirius tech support. I'll go update his resume right now.

Can I haz ur customer ID numberz?

ron paul, the libertarian

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:18:00 +0000

I am begging you. Read this entry, read the links. At the very least, watch the YouTube videos (there's only two). Some of his views are controversial on the surface, but once you do a little digging, it all makes complete sense. This man knows what this country needs. I am a realist. He has zero chance of winning. But he's not running because he thinks he has a shot, he's running because he wants to shed light on the issues he's passionate about.

And for those of you who think Republican is a dirty word, think again. Ron Paul is an OG Republican, with no resemblance to what passes for a Republican in today's political climate. Today's Democratic "candidates" have more in common with Republicans than Ron Paul does. But more importantly, Ron Paul is a Constitutionalist.

:::

Economy:

Paul, who ran for president as the Libertarian candidate in 1988, says the government has no business regulating the economy. He calls for massive tax cuts and spending reductions and would pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization.

Budget & Economy; Debt & Taxes

Energy:

Paul, who says oil companies should enjoy big profits if they are legitimately earned in a free market, would eliminate the Energy Department. He opposed all federal subsidies for oil companies and voted to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other sensitive areas.

Energy & Oil; Global Warming

Health Care:

Paul endorses free-market health insurance alternatives and abolition of Medicare. He accuses the Food and Drug Administration of endangering Americans by enforcing international regulations on nutrients and health care providers and would limit it's authority.

Health Freedom; Health Care; Health Care from a Physician's Perspective

Immigration:

Paul advocates strict border controls, saying, "We must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country." He opposes welfare benefits for illegal immigrants and would deny their children citizenship if born in the United States.

Border Security & Immigration Reform; Immigration

Iraq War:

Paul was one of only six House Republicans to vote against authorizing the war in Iraq, arguing that it was illegal and unnecessary, and he advocates an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

War & Foreign Policy; War & Peace

(Source.)