I got fired today. Or "let go" or "laid off" or whatever pretty name people may want to assign to it. But there is nothing pretty about this. And I can't even believe that it's really happening. This is a joke, right? April Fools, a day late?

In my head, I know that it's just another story of all the people who are being completely FUCKED by this economy... but I never thought it would happen to me.

In my heart, I don't know if I can take this. I don't know what to do and I am so scared. And hurt. And sad. And angry. And absolutely, positively terrified and depressed.


Somebody pinch me. I need to wake up from this nightmare.

I blame Glow

For my recent addiction to LifeSavers. She sent me one of those storybook boxes of them (remember those?) for Christmas and ever since then I've been a LifeSaver eating fool. I plowed through 2 storybooks (5 rolls in each) and then I bought 2 bags of the individually wrapped ones. I still have some left of those, but I think I'll need to restock next time I hit the grocery store. I hope they have butter rum. I've only been eating the original flavors (cherry, orange, pineapple, raspberry, watermelon [I know. You're thinking "what happened to lime?" I'm happy to report that watermelon is the new green. Hurrah! Lime=ick.]) and the Tropical flavors (fruit punch, pina colada, tangerine, banana, mango melon) but I do love me some butter rum.

In order, my favorites list would be as follows:
1. Watermelon! Suck that, Lime!
2. Mango melon
3. Banana
4. Pineapple
5. Raspberry (not a big fan of raspberry in general, but I like the LifeSavers flavor)
6. Cherry
7. Fruit punch
8. Pina colada
9. Orange
10. Tangerine

If I had butter rum, it would probably land in spot #3.

So. There you have it. Yes, I really am this boring. A month without posting, and this is all I have to say. Awesome.

Bizarro Week

Edit to add #6 below

Here is a recap of the strange events that transpired over the past week.

1. My mom and I were heading out to my sister's house for NYE and we took the toll road to get there. I had the 75 cents in my hand, ready to hand to my mom as we pulled up to the booth. I went to hand it to her and my hand got caught in my coat sleeve and I dropped the money, so I quickly got my wallet and got out a dollar bill to give to her, which she handed the booth worker, but she didn't have the ticket. I had seen her put it up in her visor, as we both do every time we take the toll road, and now it was gone. We looked around for a little bit and it was still nowhere to be found. The guy told us we could pull over to the side and look for it so we weren't holding up all the people in line behind us. I swear, we spent what felt like 10 minutes over on the side of the road looking for this stupid ticket. I was ready to just say fuck it and pay the entire fee, but my mom was adamant that we find it. It had to be there! With the help of a flashlight, we finally found the stupid thing under her seat in the back. How it ended up there is a mystery. Best guess is that when I dropped the money down my sleeve, she dropped the ticket to look for the money. Or something. It was frustrating, but we got a good laugh out of it.

2. The activities of NYE were also rather strange. My sister belongs to a message board for local moms and they were having a contest to win $1000 worth of groceries. She had a list of 17 letters and they needed to be unscrambled to form a phrase. The first person to guess correctly after midnight would win. This is what we worked on almost all night long. My mom figured it out first and we were pretty confident with our answer (Cleveland Moms Rock). At 12:00 we weren't watching the ball drop and drinking champagne, we were huddled around the computer screaming "Post it! Did you do it? Are we the first?!" Heh. I don't think they've received official word yet, but we were definitely the first post at midnight, so it looks like we won. My sister said she would give my mom and me $100 each. Yay!

3. I went out with my mom on Saturday because she needed to look for a new car. She wanted to get a car wash, so we stopped off there first. This is one of those car washes attached to a gas station, but she didn't need gas, so she was just going to pay at the wash instead of getting a code from the pump. Well of course it wouldn't accept any bills, even though they were perfectly crisp and straight. It was kind of sunny out and impossible to see the screen because of the glare. She tried a credit card, but that wasn't working either. The stupid machine kept saying to input your code or money, or push the button for assistance. Except there was no button to push! One of the things that drives me nuts about my mom is that she will do the same thing over and over and over and over again and expect something different to happen. We sat there for like 5 minutes, making all of the people in line behind us pissed off, and she just kept blindly pushing buttons and trying to insert money. I wanted to strangle her. Eventually, she gave up and pulled through, but of course we couldn't just leave. She wanted to go in and buy a code. *sigh* So she gets that and then pulls back around to the wash, where there is now a huge line because of the moron who held up the line for so long. After about 1/2 hour fiasco, the car was finally clean and we were on our way.

4. We got to the dealership and sat down to talk about her options (either buy the car she has now, or look at a new lease) when the salesman says "Hey, if you guys want to get crazy today, we just got this Sebring convertible on a trade-in. Wanna check it out?" Umm, ok. Funny thing is the Sebring convertible has always been my mom's dream car. This one was an '02, but it only had 21,000 miles on it. It belonged to an old lady who only drove it in the summer to run errands and stuff. It was in really good shape, and the salesman guy kept gushing about it. He must've said "Mint!" about 20 times. We took it out for a test drive (see #5) and I could tell that my mom was probably going to buy this car. She was really excited about it. Now, I should also say that earlier she had told me under no circumstances was I to let her make a final decision on anything that day. And I did my best to remind her of this, but she was under the car's spell. So after about 10 bazillion hours in the dealership (it was a really long day) my mother bought a convertible in the dead of winter. *shakes head*

5. Now, about that test drive. We tooled around a little bit, took it for a drive on the highway, and everything seemed good. We were returning to the dealership when all of a sudden, there are 2 deer running across the road. Oh wait, now one of them is FLYING through the air. It did like 3 somersaults and was at the height of the power lines. My eyes were bugging out and my mom's screaming. At that moment it occurred to me to look at the car that had hit it (it wasn't us, thank god) and this van was demolished. The entire front windshield was cracked to shit and there was a huge dent on the hood. We pulled over into a parking lot and another deer came and ran across the road. We were scrambling for our cell phones to call 911, and my mom is yelling at me to put the hazards on, but this isn't my damn car and I don't know where they are and I can't find them! Then I got out of the car and saw that the driver was out of his car and he had a phone in his hand so I called over to ask if he was ok and he said yes. Phew! That was freaking scary. I also looked back to see what had happened to the deer, and it was gone! We couldn't believe that it had survived that hit! Insane. Another 2 seconds, and we might've been the ones to hit the deer.

6. On Friday, I decided I needed to get some cleaning done. I loaded up the dishwasher and started it and then went back to clean my bathroom. I scrubbed out the tub and toilet, and then I went to get a step stool so I could get something from the top shelf in my closet. My entire living room and dining room smelled like burnt candle wax and it was a little smokey. I was freaking out! I ran around the house looking for anything that could be on fire. I thought maybe it was coming from one of the other apartments, but it was so strong, I was sure that my apartment was on fire and I just couldn't find it! Eventually I noticed a line of smoke coming from the dishwasher. I opened it up and discovered that one of my plastic lids had fallen through the bottom and was laying on the heating coil. I grabbed a pair of tongs and fished it out and all was well... Ya know, except for the horrendous smell and the fact that I almost had a fucking heart attack! Sheesh!

I'm ready for a nice normal week now, and I think I'll try to avoid doing anything with my mom for a while. LOL. Except I have to go with her to pick up the car tomorrow night. Uh oh.

Table for one

I used to think it was kind of pathetic when I had to eat meals at my coffee table in front of the tv. But ever since I got a dining room table, I find that I enjoy eating at my coffee table much more. The empty dining room chair sitting across from me makes me sad. And I don't have a good view of the tv from the dining room, so it's doubly lonely. I sometimes feel bad for my table, or rather, I feel bad that I spent money on something that I don't use, so I'll force myself to eat a meal there every once in awhile, but I don't enjoy it. I should just put out my fancy placemats and cloth napkins and have it be something pretty to look at, instead of a functional piece of furniture.

Do you eat at a table, or do you eat in front of the tv?

Swami wants a new post

but I don't have much to say, so I offer you this half-assed update. :)

I spent about 4 hours on Saturday morning doing online Xmas shopping. I'm usually a big time procrastinator and I wait until the week before Xmas to even think about presents, but this year I figured if I could do everything online it would be much less stress for me, so I made sure to order early enough that the stuff should be here in plenty of time. I got pretty much everyone covered, except for my mom. I don't know what to get her. I was going to buy her a purse, but then she said she'd rather pick it out herself. The other idea I had was a weather station, but the ones that are in my price range aren't that impressive. I should probably pick up something else for my sister, too. Hmmmm.

Since I'm somewhat on top of things this year, I wonder if I should attempt to send cards. Eh. That doesn't sound too tempting to me right now. I have to do our Xmas cards for work, so that's enough for me. I'm lazy. :)

The Bog of Eternal Stench

Somewhere in the bowels of this office lies a dead critter. Judging by the smell, I'd say it's a rather large dead critter. Mango air freshener is no match for it's fumes.

I hate this place.

This 'n' That

* I'm sick of winter already. We've had snow like 4 days out of the past 7. I don't like cleaning off my car. I don't like my feet always being cold. I don't like ice; either for walking on or driving on. I don't like it being pitch black when I leave work at 5:30. I don't mind the cold so much, I just don't want the snow. Make it go away! It's too early for this shizz. *sigh* Such a depressing time of year.

* Related to above, I need some boots. I've been saying that I'm going to get some winter boots for like 5 years now, but I hate shopping so much that I never get them. I also need some warmer clothes. Looks like it's time for the 2nd of my bi-annual shopping trips. Blah.

* Also related to above, I'm wearing slippers at work today. Once I walk through snow, my feet never warm up. I have a heater under my desk, but even that doesn't help. So today I decided to wear my Happy Bunny slippers that Glow bought for me. My feet are nice and toasty.

* Our new office building is finally being built. We've been in this "temporary" office for almost exactly a year now. I'm excited to see the new place once it's all done. It's amazing how fast they get stuff done. Well, sometimes. It took weeks and weeks of moving dirt and leveling the ground. Seemed like they did the same thing every day. Move dirt, level it out. Make new piles, level them out. Drive back and forth endlessly. But once that was done, they put up all the framework in like a week. Now there's a roof and they've started putting up that white board stuff. I don't know what it is. But it's fun watching it all come together. I don't envy those poor men working out in the cold though. That's gotta suck a big one. :(

* Do any of you play computer games? I've been doing that a lot lately. I even bought one, which I said I would never do. $20 seemed way to much to spend on a game download, but I found a site that was having a 50% off sale so I bought Cake Mania 3. I looooove Cake Mania. It's highly addicting. I seem to really love games in the restaurant industry, because I also got hooked on playing a game called Delicious, which is basically the same thing. You have customers who order food (or cakes) and you have to make it and then deliver it to them and collect their money. I don't know why, but it's extremely fun.

* Pushing Daisies is on tonight, and if you don't already watch it, I'm begging you to do so tonight. I love this show so much. It's by far one of the most original and creative shows in a long time and it's in danger of being canceled. *sob* Not only will I miss the show terribly, but I can't imagine not having Lee Pace on my tv every week. I've always had a crush on him (and his character Ned) but ever since I heard that the show might be cut short, I've been obsessing over him. He's so amazing. *sigh*

And he makes one damn fine woman.

Ever see the movie Soldier's Girl? If not, I demand that you rent it. (Warning: tragic love story that will make you cry with anger and sadness.) Anyway, I had seen this movie years ago and I remember being shocked when I learned that the role of Calpernia Adams, a transgendered woman, was not really played by a transsexual. It was played by a man named Lee Pace. At the time, Soldier's Girl had been his only major role, so I didn't know who he was and I never thought about it again. Until I was reading some articles about him recently and it mentioned this role. What?! I didn't even realize it was Lee. He was so brilliant in that role, it just shocks me that I never put 2 and 2 together. So of course I had to rent it again, and wow. It's absolutely amazing. Rent it. And watch Pushing Daisies! Tonight! PLEAAAAAAASE!!

Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, could you also sign this petition? It only takes a second. Thank you! *smooches* http://www.petitiononline.com/daisies/petition.html

Uppercase Living

My sister recently became a demonstrator for a company called Uppercase Living. Yeah, it's one of those annoying companies that have people hold home parties where you feel like you're obligated to buy stuff. LOL. So I had to buy something, especially since it's my sister. But I actually really like what I got. Oh, I guess I should explain (since I don't think it's a well known company) they sell vinyl decals to decorate your home. They stick to walls, glass, wood... pretty much anything and they come in all sorts of different phrases, designs and colors.

So this is what I put in my dining room. It's probably hard to tell with my crappy cell phone pics, but the background decal is silver and the writing is purple. Of course. I had get something in my favorite colors! And I like that it looks sort of Asian-y since I have a lot of that type of stuff in my place.



I had been looking for something to put in the middle of these mirrors, so it worked out well.

(Yes, I know that one mirror is crooked. I fixed it. See below. *grin*)

Ignore the messy filing cabinet and the fact that the table isn't centered under the mirrors. You can't see it, but the door to my kitchen is right by the filing cabinet, so the table has to be pushed back so there is room to walk. :)

Anyhoo... I don't want this to feel like some sales pitch, but I thought some of you crafty types might be interested in this, so if you would like my sister's website where you can see the stuff they offer, just let me know and I'll PM or email it to you. I don't want to put the link here because the site has all her personal contact info on it.

Marathons

Oh, how I love a marathon. A marathon of television, that is. I spent most of yesterday watching episodes of 30 Rock on Netflix. I had heard that it was supposed to be really funny, but I had never thought of checking it out before. I was browsing Netflix's selection of stuff available to watch online and I saw that they had seasons 1 and 2 available so I decided to give it a try. I think I might love the ease of online watching even more than I love marathons. But I love my DVR most of all. Technology is awesome. :)

Anyway, I watched all of season 1 except the last 2 episodes. Does anyone else watch this show? Some of it was downright hilarious, but I found most of the later episodes kind of boring. They still had some good moments though, so I plan on finishing season 1 and starting season 2. Hopefully I'll be able to finish in time for the season 3 premiere next week. I really needed a new comedy to watch as it seems most of the new shows that I'm watching are weird sci-fi stuff (Fringe, My Own Worst Enemy) or cop shows (The Mentalist, Life on Mars) and neither of those are genres I usually enjoy, even though I like these shows.

I think my favorite of the new stuff is The Ex List. Romantic comedy is much more my style and this show is cute and funny.

What new shows are you guys watching? Anything you watched and hated?

Catching up

It's a lot of reading catching up on 6 months worth of bloggy postings, but I did my best. I had no idea all the stuff I was missing while I was gone. New babies, new jobs, peep meets, etc.
I can't promise that I'll be around much, but I'm going to try. I've just become more and more introverted lately and I find it hard to hold conversations or think of things to say. But I do miss the good old days where we would goof off on blogs or OT all day. I miss feeling connected to people. I miss my invisible friends. For the most part I am a loner and I like to be alone, but I don't like being lonely and that's how I've been feeling lately. So I'm going to try and be more social, starting now.

We'll see how long that lasts. ;-)