Becky v. DW

Oh boy oh boy! (Whenever I say oh boy oh boy, I am mentally bouncing in my seat much as you'd imagine Tigger would do.)

I am getting all bloggery now. I put in new and spiffy things--look at me!! What's great is there are some really smart and generous people out there who write code, tell you exactly how to put it into your webpage, and then let you have it for free! Awesome.

For the record, we are still in a general bad place with the dishwasher. I never got a call back from the landlord--I think they're hoping I'll just go away. Last night I decided, okay, I'll be a good little girl and try my very very hardest to rinse and load the thing carefully and see if things will come out clean, and I'll also test it out to make sure it's not broken. That way, I figured, if I do have to go back to them and complain, I'll know for sure whether it's broken, just plain crappy quality, or whether I can forever rinse well and have it work okay.

So last night I got home, looked at my sprawling counterful of dirty dishes, and decided that that was not the night I was going to take all the dishes out of the dishwasher, scrub the crusted bits off by hand, and put new, super-duper-prerinsed ones in there.

I figured I'd run the dishwasher with just water instead to see if it really heats up and sprays and what not. After all, if it's really broken, I can make them come and fix it and maybe never have to do my dishes by hand at all! Appetizing plan.

This is one of those times my plan didn't go so well.

First I ran it for a few minutes and then tested the water in the bottom to see if it was getting hot enough. Warmish, but not hot--like too cold to take a shower in. What would that be--90 degrees? Well, anyway. That didn't necessarily prove it was broken. What I really needed to do was see whether the water was washing everything like it should. I didn't know how I was going to see what it did inside when the door is closed, though... You know, back at the fancy testing kitchen or like how they have on TV commercials, the people with the white lab coats and the gloves and the clipboards.... They have clear doors on those dishwashers. Me, not so lucky. How to keep it from turning off the second I unlocked it and opened the door? Then I remembered how on refrigerators what we used to think was a magic light as kids was just a little white button hidden on the side. (What a day when I found that out. On par with Santa and the Easter Bunny.) All I had to do was find the dishwasher's little white button. After a short investigation, I discovered it was a two-step combo deal at the top where it latched. Aw HAW, my little Soviet prize package (sorry, Cutting Edge reference).... I cracked its devious little code.

With much eagerness (I love to mess with stuff and do experiments on things--remind me to write about the cheese experiment), I grabbed a butter knife, examined the lock, and pushed in the little doohickey with the knife handle so the dishwasher would only think it was closed (dishwashers are so dumb, me so smart, Becky win against dishwasher in battle of wits. Or so it seemed....). I saw the little swirly thing in the bottom start to go around and spit some water out so I could see that it worked somewhat, but not a whole lot was coming out and I thought, "AHA! It IS broken! Vindicated!" But then a few seconds later, it started to pick up speed, spinning faster and faster until the middle section, the taller tube that gets up to the top rack, leaped up in the air and suddenly started just uncontrollably spurting out buckets of water, lambasting me in the face. I try to close the door, which gets the knife stuck in the latch somehow, and the streams of water just keep coming, escaping from around the dishwasher door to douse the floor, the drawers, my clothes, and let's not forget my face much the same way as if I was waterskiing headfirst.... at this point I'm barely able to see, making spittle noises, going, BPPT, BPPT, BPPT!! and frantically trying to wriggle the knife out of the latch, while my kitchen is rapidly turning into a flood zone. "Stop! Stop! I believe you! I believe you!!" I shriek, and I finally manage to get the door shut. Dishwasher obviously taking offense to me calling it broken and coming out swinging. Score: Dishwasher 1, Becky 0. Ho ho... I will never underestimate you again, my treacherous opponent.

Thankfully, no detergent, so no muss no fuss. Paper towel here, paper towel there.. and there... and 12 more over there, done. Had a good laugh, actually. Felt like I was in an I Love Lucy episode and that any minute Ricky was going to come home and tell me to 'splain. Good times.

A little scene of domestic bliss for ya.

Waiter Rant

Damn.

(And I don't swear much so that's saying a lot.) This guy's blog is so good it makes me want to quit even trying here. A person could waste hours reading his real-life tidbits and stories of alternating outrage and warm-fuzzies (I know I already have). And the nice thing is that all the people who comment are really nice, too. Reading the blog and comments is like going to a warm, accepting, personality-filled happy place that never closes. Where mean people get called assholes and nice people get their just rewards. Ahhh. (Sorry to post twice in one day, but you don't mind, do you? Okay, going to do work now.)

Handbasket

As I was getting off the el last night, I happened to catch part of someone's conversation right as they were saying, "The honeymoon is over." Now I'm not sure what exactly they were talking about, but I felt myself inwardly saying, "You've got that right."

You know this whole age of cell phones and e-mails and websites and myspace and all that? Well, the honeymoon's over.

No longer do we get to play for free.

Last night I got that call from a telemarketer, and apparently Garrett has gotten a call from them, too; this morning on my blog was a spam comment, something to the effect of, "Very nice! Hey, come check out a way to make some extra money!" and then a link. (I removed it so you can't see it now.)

I wanted to drop them some spam back and just say, "Hello!? Rude." So I went to their website. But in true shady fashion, no way to contact them without first providing my e-mail address and password. OOOOOOOH, squinty-eyes now. So then I spent an hour looking them up on Better Business Bureau, etc. to find out what their deal was. (Incidentally, I had to look up how to spell bureau. That has got to be the hardest word to spell in English. I was thinking it was bereuax.) In the end, I realized there wasn't a whole lot I could do, unfortunately, unless I draft a letter and mail it the old-fashioned way. I may or may not get up the energy to do that, but until I do, here's a warning: it's the Retail Report Card/Consumer Research Corporation, Inc. They do secret shoppers (where they pay you to go in and shop at a place/eat at a place and take notes on how your experience went) for lots of well-known businesses. I'm thinking these businesses aren't aware of their shady advertising practices.

But let's not talk about that now. I just went across the street for lunch and it is beeeeeeaaaauuuutiful outside. Aw man. I was afraid it wasn't going to be as warm as they said, but for once the weather forecasters were right--this morning I turned on the news and saw the little ticker tape across the bottom say partly cloudy, mid-60s. MID-60S!!!!!!!???? Oh baby. Warm for us has been 40 for the past month now. I broke out the fleece jacket and everything. I'm thinking I may even shave my legs. (Whoa, Becky--That's crazy talk. Besides, I still say it's going to snow at least one more time.)

I had an amusing thought this morning. Hold on, let me think of it.... Oh yeah. It was my way to deal with annoying telemarketers for when they call my cell phone.

You know how on TV, someone will call, and the other person will pick up, but instead of saying "Hello?" into the receiver, they say, "Yes, I would like to order a large pizza"? I love that. Anyway, I think I'm going to do something similar to the telemarketers. Such as, if they're calling to give me a poll, I'll interrupt them and say, "Oh, I'm so glad you called! I am conducting a poll about dairy consumption. Would you say you consume less than a half cup or milk per day, 1 cup per day, or 2 or more cups per day?" And I would continue to ask them questions until they gave up and went away. Or if they called to sell me something, I would tell them about how I have some old socks I'm willing to sell at a low low price of 4 dollars a pound, 3 dollars a pound for mismatched ones. HWAH hahahaha.... HWAAAAAH HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

I am drunk with power.

P.S. I just found this website where a waiter tells true stories daily about the crazy customers he deals with... it's like reality tv with a funny commentator. I'm putting it in my links.

Not So Good

RRRRRR!

1. Apparently they're selling our cell phone numbers now. I just got a phone call from a "consumer advocacy group" wanting to, I don't know, fund movies that support family values or something. I'm at work; you're asking me condescending questions and so obviously turning my answers around to match what you want the public opinion to be in order to further your cause.... Finally I just said, "This is what I feel, sorry-I-can't-help-but-I'm-at-work-now-bye." I think I was pretty nice, considering. Do I have to start screening my cell phone calls now???

2. It's on now. It appears there is about to be a major war over my dishwasher. OOOOOHHHHH. There was some rage this morning, I won't deny. But the worst part is, so last night I wrote this mean letter which, after about an hour, I managed to pare down into a relatively reasonable, calm letter saying how I felt and what I would like to happen. The head maintenance guy called me back this morning on my cell phone (which gets terrible reception from my cube) and right in the middle, when I was starting to feel upset, the cell phone dropped the call!! So now he probably thinks I hung up on him. I tried calling right back, but it was one of those outgoing-calls-only numbers, I guess. Anyways, I called around a bunch of extensions for him and finally left a message in the general mailbox explaining. So now I am both righteously angry about the dishwasher and anxious that I'm on this guy's bad side now because he thinks I hung up on him. I'm sure there'll be more to write on the dishwasher story later, but I'm not so sure you'll want the day-by-day saga... we'll see what happens.

3. That's all. I have work. Write me comments telling me bad landlord stories, bad dishwasher stories, or bad household appliance stories. Or bad cell phone stories or bad hang-up stories or .... I don't know.

4. Oh, I finally met the custodian lady who cleans our floor yesterday. Her name is Eva and she is nice.

A Morning in the Life

I was late today and had to buy some milk and cereal for breakfast at the convenience store downstairs. That got me thinking about convenience stores, and I thought it would be neat to have a picture of one. Obviously, my first thought was of the KWIK-E-MART, but when I searched it, this article came up. It took me 'til halfway through it to realize this was a serious article about the way convenience stores are portrayed in The Simpsons. But I was even more tickled when I looked to the top bar and saw the article was posted on a website for the National Association of Convenience Stores, proving, once again, that there is an association for everything. I didn't figure convenience store clerks for the band-together type. They seem more of a everyone-out-for-yourselves type of profession.

Well, anyway, the point is, I was thinking. Say you had to do all your grocery shopping at a convenience store. (Don't ask me why--maybe all you had was a Mobil credit card and no money.) Would you be able to survive? Could you get all your food groups? All your vitamins?

Let's see.... Vegetables, you've got various tomato-based options: ketchup, salsa, maybe, if you're lucky, spaghetti sauce. But no other vegetables, really, except for potatoes in the form of chips, and that doesn't count. Grains, you've got crackers, maybe some noodles, maybe maybe a rice mix if it's a big store. Meat (if you're buying your meat at a convenience store, well, you're a brave brave person)-- about the only meat I would trust is the beef jerky or maaaaybe the spaghetti sauce with meat already added, but that sounds gross to me. Fruit, there's jelly, maybe some apples or bananas (again, only for the brave). For dairy, you're good--you've got milk, maybe even ice cream or cheese. If they've got butter and bread, you can make grilled cheese, plus a can of tomato soup--it could be a healthy meal. Hmm. But I don't like tomatoes.

I have to go get my picture taken for my new work ID today. It is, of course, the last day to do it. (It would be against my principals to do anything like this on anything but the last day. Hello!? My name is Becky, and procrastination is my game.) So of course I tried to dress nice for it, but that never works. In fact, that will probably mean I'll get an especially awful picture. We'll see.

...Oh my God. I just discovered a new torture method. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. (Not the office ID picture--that went fine.) I had to call to cancel my old insurance and wait on hold. They had this awful awful electronically-generated smooth jazz music on. I mean, WNUA Smooth Jazz makes my skin crawl anyway and is directly related to why I have an aversion to jazz music, even good jazz music. But this was like stuff they wouldn't even play on WNUA. And I had to sit there and listen to this... horrible--vile--piercing--mind-numbing... noise in order to get what I wanted. Couldn't hang up, because then all that time waiting would have been for naught. Plus I wouldn't have had the chance to tell the person, "Hello. Change your music. Now. For the love of God." And so I pressed on, holding the phone as far away from my ear as I could manage without missing hearing a person pick up if they ever did, waving the receiver around, making grimacey faces and whispering fiercely to myself to drown out the sound....finally, the price was too high. I couldn't take it. They broke me. Broke me like a cheap pencil or a plastic CD case you accidentally left on the floor. ARRRRGH! RRR! This is all part of diabolical plan, I'm telling you. Obviously they don't want people to call them on the phone. This is quite an effective people deterrent. I don't know how I'm going to solve my problem! I can't call them! Maybe I can fax.

Also, I had the best lunch ever. Tostadas (been waiting months to eat those!!) and free food left over from an office meeting that they left in the pantry: fresh pineapple and granola.

Okay, I have actual work now.

La. Di. Da.

The good thing about not leaving the house (or, for that matter, the couch) all weekend is that when you go to work on Monday, it's almost exciting. Fresh air, open spaces, a place to go... it's sort of like a field trip. "Yippee! Work!" (Of course, this is followed shortly after by, "...Oh. Work." But it's fun while it lasts.)

My dishwasher is broken and it's causing my life to be in upheaval. The maintanence guy was supposed to come by on Friday and didn't, and now today, but I have a feeling he still hasn't been there, because I called the office today and no one called me back. So now my kitchen is full of dirty dishes, which, even though I'm a messy person, bothers me a lot because the kitchen and bathroom are two places I don't like to leave dirty. I only have 4 spoons, 1 knife, 2 little plates and a plastic cup left. Soon I will have no utensils or dishes with which to cook or eat! And obviously, this is a problem, because I love to both cook and eat. Yes, I know I could break down and wash things by hand, and I have done that with a few things, but it's the principal of the thing. I got this apartment because it had a dishwasher! And now it doesn't work!! I rebel against that turn of events.

Speaking of cook, I made the most awesome meal Friday night. (Skip this paragraph if you don't care about cooking or if you are really hungry for some Mexican food.) I started with arrachera meat (it's like Mexican sirloin, but fattier and thus yummier) with a sauce of tomato, onion, garlic, ancho chile powder, On the Border Salsa (the secret ingredient), salt, crushed tortilla chips (to stretch the sauce because I was a little overexcited and put in too much salt), and little bit of chichuahua cheese (again to try to undo the salt). And then there was fresh guacamole, rice, beans, tortillas and queso fresco.... oh baby, it was a Mexican triumph. A work of glory and rapture, let me tell you. And also I was so proud I picked a ripe avocado this time. I'm not good at that--they're either not ripe at all or going bad. It's a skill, a fine skill to have, the picking of produce.

What else....

Oh yeah, I tried making jewelry last night. When I saw my parents last week, my mom gave me these tubs and tubs of little metallic beads we used to have at our house when my sisters and I went through our late elementary/junior high bead-jewelry phase. (Who would ever need this many tiny tiny beads? Jeez. You could outfit an entire Brownie legion in friendship bracelets with this many.) So I spent most of last night sitting in front of the flicker of Buffy, Season 4, squinting and digging through bags of beads for hours on end, disassembling old jewelry I didn't like, threading it with beads, and reshaping it with pliers (unfortunately, not needle-nose, so the work wasn't pretty). Anyway, after a few minutes I noticed a nasty smell. Turns out the beads, and now my hands, reeked in the manner of gym mats in the basement of our high school gym. I decided the beads must be harboring the stench of years-old finger sweat. Yummmmmmy. You know, people don't think too much about hand sweat. You've got armpit sweat--we know that smells, and foot sweat--that can get pretty nasty over time, but hand sweat, no one ever thinks about it. Well, I'm here to set the record straight, that yes, hand sweat smells, too. Maybe it just takes longer to ferment.

Write me comments! Here are some topics for discussion:

1. What flavor Kool-Aid is your favorite? Mine is tropical punch. After that I like the blue one--what was it called? And then grape (which tasted nothing like real grape, obviously), Purplesaurus Rex (by far one of the greatest product namings in history), and strawberry kiwi.

2. Do you like hats with ears? Either the kind that flop down or the kind that look like little bear cub ears sitting on top? I kind of like the second kind, but mostly on kids.

3. Do you have a special outfit you wear on Mondays? Around here most people wear black pants on Mondays, maybe because they're easy to match with things and people don't want to go to a lot of effort to get dressed on Mondays. And I always wear one of my 57 (actually, I have 9) Old Navy turtleneck sweaters because they're easy and don't need ironing, or even to have the shirt underneath be of the same color.

Notice I'm trying to undo the deep boringness of Friday's post.

Meaty Post (Hmm. Interesting Visual.)

Do you ever see or read something that affects you so much you feel like you've been punched in the gut? I was surfing random blogs yesterday (it's lots of fun--just click the button on the top right of the screen) and I came across this guy's blog. Mostly his stuff's funny, but then, unexpectedly, I read another entry and I'm all weepy. I think funny people have a better than average ability to make people cry. Why is that? Is there a sense of pain, like there is a sense of humor? Do funny people get it naturally? My new theory is that reading an average person's attempt at "deep" writing, it's too easy to blow off what they say as cheesy. But when you know the person recognizes the potential cheesiness of it and they go there anyway, it makes it all the more striking. Read this, and then read this, and you'll see what I mean.

Okay, but I do have other things to say today! It's rocky territory --gonna try to not be boring--you be the judge if I've succeeded....

I was watching documentaries last night (If I got cable I know I would spend all my time watching Comedy Central, Friends reruns, and movies, and sometimes I think for my own good I shouldn't get it).... and the first one was about searching for life on other planets; the second a GlobeTrekker episode (I love that show! And may I also say I am so jealous of the people whose job it is to host that show--just look at how adventurey they look!) about Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. So many things! So many many things I learned! I will try to condense into the most interesting, non-boring items.

First, Belize. It goes Mexico, Guatemala, then Belize. So it's in Central America. They speak English there! I didn't know that. And also, in what I thought was the coolest part of the story, there is this whole segment of the population made up of the descendants of 2,000 would-be slaves whose slave ships crashed in the Caribbean in the 1600s. Imagine, you've been captured by the Spanish and are being shipped off to a future of misery and despair, you're wracked with grief from the knowledge of what's going to happen to you, your family, your children, and your children's children for generations to come, and then, BAM! You're shipwrecked on an island instead! ROCK ON!!!!! Aw, they must've been so excited. That would be the best time to get shipwrecked, I think. (There's obviously more to the story, so click on this link if you want to know more.)

Second, the quest for life on other planets. The first half of the show was about whether there is or ever was life on other planets. The second half was about creating habitable places for humans on other planets by terraforming them. The scientists they interviewed were all for terraforming Mars so humans could live there. And they spoke of it as if it was something we were going to do eventually--it was just a matter of time.

Whoaaa, back the truck up.

To me, terraforming is only something they do in science fiction novels. Mess with the atmosphere and makeup of the planet so hard core, for such a long time, that you change the entire climate of the planet, change it from cold barren rocks, dust, no atmosphere/die from sun's radiation... change that into a lush green paradise with oyxygen to breathe? Uhhhh..... does no one else think this has a major disastrous potential? Considering that our government can't even work out social security, is it really wise to let it (or anyone else's government, for that matter--I wouldn't trust them either) mess with a whole planet? Do we feel confident that this won't go horribly, horribly wrong?

What if the planet superheats and explodes? What if we accidentally alter its orbit and it crashes into Earth? What if, in our quest to nurture fledgling life forms, a super race of organisms develops that flies across the subspace and eats us ALL!?!?!?!

Calamity. Death. Dooooooooom.

And two things related to that. I'll be quick!

First, money. That would cost a lot lot of money. Should we really spend it doing that instead of fixing our own planet first? Ending war, poverty, etc.?

Second, Detroit. (Or pick your personal favorite run-down city. I pick Detroit, because I've asked people from there and they've said, "Believe the hype--Detroit really is a %*&!hole.") If we set up Mars (or any other planet) as a new place for humans to live--and if we did it well (a big if)--eventually Earth would be one big Detroit, as in the only people that live there are the people who can't afford to get out. It's like outside of Chicago, they're constantly turning farmland into houses, because everyone wants to live in a brand new place that doesn't have any problems yet. But the old problems don't just go away just because you're not there. You leave them alone, they get bigger. So instead of having mass white flight of cities, you'll be abandoning an entire planet to poverty and ruin. All the people who can afford to leave will go, and the place they left behind will get crappier and crappier, and the people who are left there will be stuck with no way out.

But I'm not down on cities as a whole--just yesterday I decided I love living in Chicago. They were filming a TV show pilot under the el tracks yesterday. I went over to the little catering tent and was chatting with an assistant to the producer. Gave me the scoop, says it's called "Enemies" and stars Peter Faccinelli. There's always something cool like that going on. If I didn't already live in the city, I would be jealous of myself.

It's late. I'm gonna go eat me some cake and dinner now. (Yes, first cake. I'm a big girl now and that's what I wanna do, so I'm gonna.)

Oh yeah--leave me comments! I have given you many many trinkets of knowledge in a (hopefully) non-boring fashion. Now entertain me!

Asterisk Abuse

The other night I went out to my parents' house and my dad took me to Menards to help me look for shelving and stuff. I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to find that we actually had fun. Laughed, even. Wowo. (Hee hee--I meant to type Wow but I think I like Wowo better.) Several hours of time together with no fighting! Apparently, moving out has helped bring the parental annoyance threshold back within parameters*.

*I'd like to have a job where I got to say things like parameters, "Roger, Roger," and "Make it so". With a communication device and lackeys to do my bidding. I'm thinking a Captain Picard/Jack Sparrow hybrid. Integrity and mishievousness, all rolled into one. And of course, I'd be very British.

Pirate/pilot...

Pirot?**

**Also, speaking of pirates, I was on IMDB today and saw that they've got a poster up for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Yay, but also not yay. There is no way the sequel can live up to the awesomeness of the original. It is bound to be disappointing, and I am disappointed in advance. Only if all my friends go to see it and they all come out of the theater saying, "It was way better than the original!" will I want to see it.

Big night tonight. First on the way home I'm going to stop at the Kwik-E-Mart to get some milk, brown sugar, and ....something else. Hmm, I feel like there was a third thing. Well, anyways (I know anyways isn't word, but I just like it. Sorry if it offends)... after that I'm going to have a big night of putting my newly purchased, economical and surprisingly heavy (after carrying it up 3 flights of stairs) Menards shelving together at my apartment. WEEEEEE! I love putting things together. It makes me feel all capable and industrious.

THEN I'll finally be able to put all my kitchen stuff away, and all my clothes (or most of them). After that I have to clean, have Comcast come out and install cable internet at a price of two appendages, order a dining room table, plan a dinner party, and have everyone over to play! Excellent. Done and done.

Today I want to know from you:

1. What kind of cupcake do you like?
Chocolate cake/chocolate frosting?
Chocolate cake/white frosting?
White cake/white frosting?
White cake/chocolate frosting?
Shannon from work brought some in today (very yummy) and we got to choose. I chose white on white.

2. Do you think Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is going to
a) suck horribly,
b) do okay, but barely be worth the $8 you paid to see it, or
c) be a box office smash that they will show over and over again on HBO?

Leave me comments!

While you can be entertained talking to yourself for a while (and I can do it longer than most), eventually, it gets boring. That's when the other person is supposed to say something. You are the other person. Say something! I said lots of things already. Okay, bye.

Everybody Says I Think Too Much...They're Not Wrong

I burned my finger the other night on the toaster oven. Burns are no fun. I think, bang for your buck, they hurt more than most injuries. Most injuries, if you leave them alone, don't move, etc., don't hurt as bad. A burn, if possible, hurts more. Every time I stopped icing it, it burned like the flames of Hades. And the more I told myself not to think about it, the more I wanted to claw my hand off. But today's blog is more about cold things than about burning things, and definitely not about clawing things. But it is sort of morbid in the same way.

See, sitting at the table, trapped with a finger in a mug of icewater, the mind wanders. I noticed how the cold water stings after a while, and thought about how much worse it would be to have your whole body plunged into ice water instead of just a finger. My ice water was about the same temperature as every pond, river, and lake gets in the winter, and it illustrated for me quite clearly that there'd be a big difference between getting pushed in the swimming pool and falling in a frozen lake. It began to make sense to me that people could be paralyzed from the cold and unable to swim to shore. I always figured I'd be okay if I fell in really cold water, but would I?

I like to figure my worst case scenarios*, and normally, on this subject, it'd end well. Walking across a bridge, eyeing someone coming at me from the other direction, I might think, "If he were to suddenly push me off this bridge, I'd be okay. ...True, the backpack might weigh me down a bit, and for sure my cell phone would be ruined forever ...but I guess I have most of my friends' e-mail addresses or I can get their info from friends or relatives....", and I'd feel fine.

But now, well, can't be so cavalier about it, now can we?

*Playing worst case scenarios is fun. Usually because it makes you feel pretty good that it's not happening to you at that moment.

---What if the bus I'm on tips over? Could I climb out the window? If it starts to fall, should I hold on to something, or start climbing upwards?
---What if the guy at the next teller is about to rob the bank at gunpoint? Should I be brave and take him down, call for help, or cower in the corner?
---What if a chip of the skyscraper above were to suddenly fall off and come hurtling to the ground where I'm standing? Would I hear it first and have time to get away, or would it be too late? Or would it have started falling before I got there and so I wouldn't hear it break off?

I makes everyday life much more interesting, believe me.

Write me comments. I would like to know three things:

1. Has anyone actually fallen in near-freezing water and what it was like? Any tips? John is the only person I know who could answer this, but he was incomprehensibly drunk at the time so I'm thinking his recollection will be sketchy at best.

2. Random worst case scenarios you've considered at one point or another, or

3. Links to other sites that claim to tell you how to survive completely random and unlikely situations, like being trapped in a net, suspended from a tree (as many cartoons and cheesy sitcoms would have us believe happens every time you go camping).

Work Nightmares

On the bus this morning, I passed a highrise apartment building. They had scaffolds hanging off the second floor, and I could see a frame built into the side of the building to hold the platform all the way to the top story. I got to thinking about the guys whose job it is to clean the windows, or fix them, or whatever things need doing that require them to work from a scaffold on the outside of a building. Besides the obvious idea that they must have very good mind control and be able to say, "Don't look down" and then actually not look down, or if they do look down, sort of stay in denial about the imminent danger they're in at every possible moment, thus avoiding fear and insanity.... well, they must have worse work dreams than the rest of us.

We all dream about our jobs and how they can go wrong--being hours late for a meeting, showing up in our underwear (I've actually never had that one--is that weird?). When I was a teacher, I dreamt about my kids (teachers call them our kids--yes, we know they're not "our" kids, but we do it all the same....I used to forget and use this terminology when I was out and about with friends, and people thought I had actual children, i.e. sons and daughters). Well, anyways, I used to dream I was late for work and the kids were running around the classroom unsupervised and terrorizing each other, or a disapproving parent saw the chaos and started a campaign against me, or little so-and-so still couldn't read by the end of the year, or little Miss whosit just would not respect my authoritay. It's whatever your worst fears are of your job that you have nightmares about.

So getting back to my point (thank God), if you work on highrises, your work dreams must always end with that that awful sinking falling feeling in your stomach as you realize you're falling to your death. That would suck.

Random Tidbits

You know how when you're trying to puzzle something out, remember someone's name, make a decision, the answer always comes to you when you're not looking for it, like when you're driving, or in the shower? Well, apparently scientists found proof of what everyone's been saying--that your problem-solving skills actually work better when you're relaxed. Call your managers and tell them! Maybe they'll allow drinking on the job now....

St. Patrick's Day. One of those holidays you have to make an effort to enjoy. Like you gotta make a plan. You have to work that day, so the only fun you'll have is if you go out with friends. Not for me though--Tonight my big activities will be doing laundry and baking a cake for a bachelorette party this weekend. ...A special cake. Oh, the sketches I had to draw last night to figure out how I was going to assemble a... body part... out of cake. I felt like a 12-year-old boy in the back of study hall. (Or do their drawings consist of female body parts?)

You know, now that you mention it, it is kind of weird how much I like bacon. Do you know that after I ate my dinner last night I got a taste for some and so I cooked up a couple of slices? Yep. Hmm. But I'm like that. I go through phases where I just eat a certain thing all the time and then, eventually, I get sick of it. In junior high I ate Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast seriously every day for 3 years, and then one day, I was just like, "Huh. I guess I've had enough Cheerios." and I didn't have any interest in them again for 5 years. So maybe this is just my bacon stage.

I also like toast again. For a long time I didn't like toast. So really, the whole Saturday-morning breakfast gang is getting back together.

Gosh, you must be bored to think my random eating habits are entertaining. But I do what I can to fend off boredom. It's what I do. It is my gift to you.

Annoyance Pt. III: Drug Commercials

I know I'm not the first to mention this, but commercials for pharmaceutical (I rule because I spelled that right on the first try) products annoy me. Last night I had the pleasure of witnessing a number of serious, non-threatening and masculine guys earnestly convey their angst about their "E.D.". Of course they would shorten "erectile dysfunction" to "E.D."--it makes it sound less embarrassing. Fine, fine. But is this going to keep on going forever, this making everything an acronym? Every time they do that, they use up another perfectly good set of initials, and some other kid gets teased on the playground. Picture little Eddie Davis surrounded by pointing fingers while kids taunt, "Ha ha! You have erectile dysfunction!"

Oh, the humanity. A whole generation of children is running out of initials. Parents out there must spend weeks brainstorming baby names and tossing them out because they stand for a syndrome, disease, or pharmaceutical product.

If you're thinking of naming your child, the latest list of no-nos (besides the obvious dirty words) now includes:

ED,
VD,
PMS,
ADD,
BD (behavior disorder--that's me, by the way),
LD (learning disorder--my sister),
K-Y,
HIV,
HPV (human papillomavirus--causes genital warts),
HSV (herpes simplex virus),
STD,
OCD,
IBS (irritable bowel syndrome),
BO,
UTI (urinary tract infection), and
IUD.

No one will be able to have these initials peacefully again! Stop the insanity!

And hey, since you're here, I'll share this, too. While researching the above list (that either makes me really nerdy or admirably dedicated to bringing you high-quality blogging) from my cubicle (Work? What work?) I came across a medical dictionary. The following two entries caught my attention, the first because I find it morbidly fascinating, and the second because I wonder if Renee knows about it:

FLESH EATING DISEASE: Common strep bacteria causes an infection of the skin which is often life threatening. Tissues below the skin swell up ... the skin turns dark red and blisters form. This painful process causes dead tissue and advances very quickly. Antibiotics can stop the infection when caught early providing dead tissue has been removed. An amputation of body parts often is required.

ZELLWEGER SYNDROME: A rare disorder with the following symptoms ... renal cysts, increase in the size of the liver, brain dysfunctions, defects in the sheath of fat which protects nerve cell cables (axons) of the brain and spine, skull and facial abnormalities.

And also, I'm pretty sure Christy has stopped reading by now--she is my anti-boring detector. Sorry. Okay, that's all for this installment of Beckyness.

Favorites: Sleeping and Waking

Actually, now that I think about it--there is a worse way to wake up. My sisters know what it is. It's waking up to the tune of our mom or dad whistling and singing, "GIII-IIRLS!! Tiiiime to get uu-up! Do dee, dee doo!" and then followed (usually on a Saturday) by "It's a beautiful day outside! Are you just going to sleep the day away?"

Rrrr. Just thinking about it gives me fist-clenchy, nose-scrinkly feelings. ...Ahh, but no danger of that one now, not until I go home for Christmas. . .

Also, I would have to say one of my favorite ways to wake up is to the sound and smells of breakfast cooking (and specifically, bacon) drifting into my room from the kitchen where family and/or friends are talking and laughing, as in a family get-together. I like falling asleep that way, too--on the couch listening to family and friends in the background. It's very comforting.

Thoughts anyone? Write a comment--It will make me feel special. = )

Shock and Fright

I had big plans to go to IKEA this weekend and buy furniture. Shelves for the pantry, shelves for my bedroom and closet for my clothes, maybe some curtains. . . and after that, put away the rest of my stuff so I’m out of boxes finally, take out the garbage, mop the floor, go to the grocery store, call Comcast and get cable internet set up, buy a new bus card. . . .

You'll notice I said these were my plans. My actual weekend consisted of staying home and watching 1½ seasons of Buffy (so many Buffy episodes! My downstairs neighbor must be tired of hearing all the screaming and fight noises), cooking a beef dish that didn't turn out very well, and eating junk food until I felt sick. Not one instance of productivity. (Well, I did charge my phone. Can you count charging your phone as a productive activity? Also, I took a shower. 10 points for showering on a Sunday.)

But hey, big plans for today.

Two blasts from the pasts for you. First, there is a former college friend of mine whose name I had forgotten. A few months ago it was really bugging me that I couldn’t remember her name, because we had class together and hung out a lot. I could picture her face but not remember her name. After mentally going through the alphabet letter by letter numerous times (which usually works), I eventually gave up trying to think of it. Well today, I randomly happened to see someone who looked like her, and BAM! Instantly I remembered her name. Isn’t that weird? It’s happened before. Somehow actually seeing that person (or someone who reminds you of them) makes all the difference. It somehow gets your brain synapses firing. (Do synapses fire? Or is it the nerve endings that fire across the synapses? I wish I knew this stuff.)

And secondly and more interestingly, Friday. We got out of work early (Yay) and I decided to go shopping (clothes, not furniture). I was at H & M (love that store) and this guy looks at me and says, “Becky? That’s gotta be you. You look just the same.” I was completely at a loss for who the guy was. (He obviously didn’t look “just the same.”) He was tall, white, wearing glasses. . . . After an almost inexcusably long period of time (I hate being put on the spot like that—people should just tell you, if you’re having trouble, instead of making you squirm like that), it finally dawned on me. It was Paul Hannah from high school! The one I went to the Valentine’s dance with sophomore year and then dated. He introduced me to the woman next to him, his wife (of course he had a wife) and told me he was an engineer now (of course he was an engineer). I guess I was kind of rude the way I talked to him—I was happy to hear he was doing well, and his wife seemed really cool and nice, so go Paul—but I probably shouldn’t have said, “Of course” so many times to him. Woops. I just was feeling a little. . . . I dunno. Irritated. It was good to know, though, that since he was way big into airplanes even back in high school, that’s what he ended up doing. It’s nice that he got what he wanted.

Do you think, if you ran into someone you know 10 years ago, and they found out what your life is now, would they say “Of course,” or would they say, “Wow. That’s definitely not what I thought you’d do”? And which is better?

So anyways, Paul also tells me that his best friend Aaron (my high school boyfriend) is getting married, too. Of course he is.

My high school reunion is going to suck. I keep telling everyone how they have to go, why wouldn’t they go, it’s a travesty (I like the word travesty) not to go, but now I’m thinking of not going. Okay, I’ll probably go, but it’s going to involve a lot of lying.

Sorry for the rant. Woops-—slipped out.

So I woke up this morning in my least favorite way--having the bejeezus scared out of me.

See, the headboard of my bed is a shelf thingy, and inside the shelf there is a Claire's bag--a small white plastic bag with holes for handles--that had some of my jewelry in it (yes, we are high class--we use plastic bags instead of jewelry boxes). And above that, on the next shelf, is my alarm clock. So when I heard my alarm clock go off this morning, I turned and half sat up to hit the snooze. But when I did, I thought I saw this big white face with eyes looking at me, 4 inches from my face! I'm sure I was still mostly asleep, tired because I always go to bed late on Sunday nights, and let's not forget the insane amounts of Buffy-watching I was doing--so I obviously thought it was this sinister thing instead of a little plastic bag. I gasped/screamed (Now I'm glad I don't have a roommate, to avoid further embarrassment) and sat straight up, heart pounding. You know, I never really had nightmares when I was a kid. Hmm.

Anyway, since we're on the subject, I'll tell you about the other time I got woken up to having the bejeezus scared out of me. This was when I was in Ecuador, renting out a room from this young couple and their kids. They were like a lot of upper-class Ecuadorians--wanted to be just like Americans. Anyway, I'm not sure if that was the motivation or not--maybe they didn't even know who Abraham Lincoln was--but they had this awful lamp that had a bronze sculpture of Abraham Lincoln for a base. It was on the nightstand next to my bed. Well, one day I woke up and this statue, through my blurry eyes, was the first thing I saw. And it looked like a random Ecuadorian man (he had brown skin, you know (although about half of the city Ecuadorians are white--generally the upper class)) standing right next to my bed, staring at me! AHH! For me, who was living alone in Ecuador at the time, this very machista (chauvanistic) culture where girls get hissed and hollered at at every turn and boys have to walk you home to protect you (although I'm too stubborn sometimes and I occasionally went off by myself when I had no business doing so, just because I took issue with the fact I should let the same species of man who is hunting me be the one that protects me from same). . . anyway. So for me, to wake up to this Ecuadorian stranger next to my bed was scary. That time, a little scream actually came out. . . . . Uh... cut to me, looking around my room and discovering there was no one there except me and a lamp with a 6-inch high Lincoln statue.

Weighing the two, the white plastic bag wasn't that bad.

I'm out. Bye for now. . .

Oh. Thank. God.

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The many rows of silence you hear are representative of the extreme inner calm and contentment I have from getting out of my parents' house. Ahhhhhh. There. So much better.

I'm proud of myself--by the end of the weekend I had put away or organized everything except my clothes (and I have to wait to buy some shelves anyways). So I was able to spread out some papers I was doing for work on the kitchen table last night and get stuff done. It was nice.

Anyway, right now I am going to Jewel. I looked it up and apparently there's one right off the el line. Oh boy oh boy. I love going to the grocery store. I just do. Gonna get some ve-ge-ta-bles and cheese. Oh so much cheese. I made a shopping list last night and I decided I need at least 6 types of cheese. You got cheddar, parmesan, cream cheese, sour cream (okay that's not really a cheese), and 2 Mexican cheeses. So there you go, right away that's 6, plus provolone makes 7.

Remind me to never move back to my parents again!! What was I thinking.

I know I said it already, but thank you thank you squeeze you until a blood vessel bursts (wow, such imagery) to Christy, John and Mike for helping me move. I wuv you guys. Meu. = )

Breakin' Camp

I found my black pants!!!! YES!!!!!!

I'm sorry, it's 3 in the morning and no one wants me to call them and exclaim over my black pants. But I can put it in my blog.

Wow, I should move more often. All the stuff you find!!! Notable others were my brown purse (which had migraine medicine in it (at $30 a pill) and my passport--woops), the cutlets to my strapless bra (ask Christy to explain this terminology), my sister's Fiona Apple CD (which she made me buy her for Christmas and then left here (Stupidhead Laura)), my cute jean skirt that I forgot I bought, and a total of 52 dollars and change.

If only one of those items were a certain black sweater.... but it is not to be. (O that which was forever lost on the streets of Chicago! Sigh.) ...But I must not get discouraged! Press on, young camper!

Back to the packing.

To Tide You Over

I have a couple of quick things. I am not really back, but soon! I think. Anyways, I am feeling energetic today, so here's the latest thoughts in my brain.

I mentioned the reflections in the shiny floors thing, yes? It works best on polished stone floors/terrazzo (I hope that's spelled right). Today as I was walking into my building I noticed it again. And it's cool. If you look, you can see the reflection of the person and also their shadow--2 different things. And the shadow always is in the direction away from the source of light, obviously, because the light source being blocked is casting the shadow. And the reflection is just for you--it's always coming in your direction, because the image is bouncing off the floor and into your eyes. I like it. It's like a magic eye trick trying to pick that out as you're walking. And no one really knows what you're doing either, staring at the floor so intently like that.

I walked past the AT&T building a few days ago and counted that about the first 20 floors have no windows. Twenty floors!! Do you know how much secret espionage hidden transmitter classified surveillance activity they could be conducting in there? Imagine. Of course, it's probably just clean rooms for research of little itty bitty parts for cell phones that are so small you have to *think* the numbers because there is no room for buttons. But it's fun to think about. (And also, they'll be able to do that one day. Make machines that will read commands you only have to *think.* I saw a special on TV. It was about prosthetic body parts, like a hand you can open and close just by sending a brain signal. If they can do that, then telepathic cell phones only follow.)

I cancelled my debit card today because I lost it. They're sending me a new one. But even though the girl on the phone was really nice and good, I was annoyed because Citibank has this whole new ad campaign about how they're so customer-friendly and we get you talking to a real person right away, blah blah. It's the same old stuff. I had to push "If you have recently been the victim of identity theft" to get to a real person. Whatever. Yeah, identity theft. My pants stole my identity, because that's the last place I remember having my debit card, and then it was gone.

I am moving so so soon and am very excited.

I had bacon for dinner last night. Just bacon. My mom had half a package left so we just cooked it all. ALL. Imagine all the yummy saturated fat and sodium. Glad I'm not an overweight middle-aged man, or I'd have to feel guilty about eating that stuff, and probably get nagged by my wife and/or children. So yeah, dinner was a bunch of bacon, a bowl of broccoli (to counteract--I do actually like vegetables, too. . .I like to say all the letters in that word: ve-ge-ta-bles. Such a cute word.) And a piece of bread with cream cheese. And you know what? That probably still had less calories than your average hamburger, so there you go.

I have a very important and vital meeting with some other hardworking employees in just a few minutes (sense the tone), so gotta go. Have a happy Thursday!