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I dunno. Odd Monday morning. This is my birthday, but it's starting out with the guage pointed dead on "meh." Which stinks, because I love my birthday, usually. For one thing, here I am at work, when I was supposed to be taking the day off. I'm liaison for an evaluation project with an outside consultant, and they have last-minute needs from us to prepare for a training tomorrow. So I'm desk and fax jockeying. Hoping to at least leave early. My SO spent a thrashing night with gastric distress and feels and looks lousy today, so I don't think we'll be cavorting with birthday fun. We're both on the broke side. I have a gift certificate for a restaurant we've been dying to eat at, but they're closed Mondays. So, in the immortal words of Bill th cat, phhbbbbbbtt.
Still and all, it is a beautiful summer day, and my coworkers just busted in to sing the b-day song and give me a card. We're all going to get ice cream later. So yay, and I should get over my blahs!
Personal drama has meant seriously bad insomnia lately, so I'm feeling fairly out of it this morning. Luckily I'm working from home. I do have to leave this afternoon so stupid realtors can show the place for like the 50th time (my building is for sale), but in revenge, probably won't bother cleaning at all before I leave.
Excited! I completed my application for Month at the Museum, am gearing up for a small birthday party tonight, and feeling very loved and happy. I also have a vicious sunburn that won't let me sleep, so I'm tottering around exhausted, but it hasn't slowed me down yet. (The "yet" is ominous but crucial.)
Miko, I'm sorry your day started out so blah, and especially that LT isn't feeling well! But glad to hear your co-workers are revving up your spirits! Here's another enticement to shake off those blues: I'm going to set aside a bottle of sparkling wine from the party tonight and designate it for a belated birthday brunch, if you and LT will come up some late Sunday morning. Sound good?
With that out of the way, I can say that I had a pretty great weekend. Saturday was spent learning welding while I worked on a bus heading to Burning Man in a few weeks. Sunday was spent teaching welding to exogenous while we worked on a garden structure. My daughter started Girls Rock! DC camp this morning, and will be staying with us the whole week, a rare treat; concert is Saturday morning, and it'll rock. Tons of work stuff to do, but that's what pays for the fun, I guess.
Saturday I took the bus to Boston. Came back the same day, so my ticket said "Adult Excursion," which amused me very much. I had a swell time, but not as swell a time as THAT implies, goodness gracious. Got back very late and spent Sunday sleeping it off.
Having no commitments this weekend, I reread Madeleine L'Engle's "The Small Rain" and "A Severed Wasp" straight through, without stopping except for Ice Road Truckers last night. She's just a great writer; I was THERE, in New York City, with her.
Spent the weekend taking care of grandbunny, and elderly parents. Sunday evening I did food shopping and looked for a new rent house. I have Friday off this week, my last day off in a while. I should make plans.
Out until 4 in the morning last night. So, up late today, and not yet productive as of yet this Monday morning! I was feeling a bit blue during the day yesterday (felt friendless or deciding I don't really like my group of friends) but didn't call or contact anyone. In the end, someone offered me an extra ticket to a big event, and all my friends were there, and of course I had a good time.
I don't know why I can't remember that. Y'know, that if I am feeling lonely, I don't have to sit at home watching Mythbusters reruns and continue to be lonely.
I went to the Boston Public Library (book sale and this exhibit), and I went to the ICA. And I walked and walked and walked and ate yummy Venezuelan food (somewhere in South End) and yummy sushi (near Harvard Square).
Busy weekend. Went to see Iron Man II at the cheapie theater Friday. Saturday, went for a LONG (but flat) hike along the lower McKenzie River. Lots of rafts going by, as this is a pretty good stretch of white water.
Saturday night saw The Nature of Existence, which is a movie in which a guy who is part of the TV industry machinery goes around and interviews both religious and academic figures about existential topics. A number of religious ceremonies and rituals were shown, including that of a "Wrestling for Jesus" congregation. The film maker was there for the showing, and answered questions afterwards and invited anyone who wanted to to join him for dinner. We had already eaten.
My wife and I had a fight about the movie. She hated it and I liked it a lot. She felt it attacked spirituality, and the portrayal of her form (Goddess worship) was represented by a less than flattering person. Anyway, it was a strange argument.
Sunday, (we had seen the obit of an old acquaintance on Saturday) we went to someone's memorial service, which was held at a local Nichiren Shōshū temple. The service consisted mostly of a lot of people chanting the familiar Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo along with a leader who did the same, through a microphone.
I watched it all as a scene from the movie I had watched the night before. Last night was a conversation with my wife who is amazed that I am not going through the existential angst that she is right now. I feel shallow, in a way, for not experiencing the emotional upheaval that she's going through right now, but all I can do is sit and listen and tell her what I am, or am not feeling, at any given moment.
I thought that this would be more interesting than it reads.
I finished everything for my RM class and depending on how I did on the final and my participation grade, I currently have an 88% in that class. Pissed off that I can't seem to get my meds on the right schedule so I don't wake up an hour before my alarm goes off. I also think I'm coming down with a cold or else there is something weird going on with my meds. I spent wayyyyyyy more than I should have this weekend just lying in bed like a lump. I'm still waiting for these goddamn meds to do something.
We came home a day early from DC, but we had packed so much into the weekend already that I don't feel like we missed out on anything.
We had taken the dog with and stayed in a hotel chain that is super dog friendly. That was great, but we had to arrange for daycare/dogsitting, which got to be expensive and ultimately really traumatic on the dog. We decided to come home yesterday afternoon after museum-hopping in the morning and lunch with a friend in Georgetown because we didn't have the wherewithal to spend more money on leaving our dog with a stranger in a strange land. I'm glad we came home, I am definitely happy that we slept in our own bed last night and puppy was thrilled to be taken on an off-leash walk. She doesn't realize it, but I think it is rather fancy-pants of her to be taken to the Sunday Dupont Circle Farmers Market, and be fed exotic cheeses by smitten vendors. I didn't even take her, her dogsitter did. It's all so perfectly bourgeois.
I had an eventful and unpleasant weekend. Raccoons killed one of my chickens late Friday night/early Saturday morning. So, I spent 2:30-3:30 a.m. in the backyard with my neighbor, into whose yard the raccoons took the chicken. We were trying to console and protect the remaining chicken, and trying to fix the 6" gap in the gate through which the raccoon babies had entered. Couldn't do it by flashlight, so chicken went into a cardboard box and spent the night in the neighbor's garage, since the five raccoons (mama + four hoodlum babies) were watching us the whole time.
Saturday was spent burying white chicken and raccoon-proofing the chicken coop.
Now I have a lonely, depressed chicken. It's so sad! She just kind of sits in one place all day and isn't nearly as active as she was a few days ago. Last night she was sitting on the arm of the patio chair and she let me pet her, which she's never done. She was kind of talking to herself the whole time. It's hard to watch a chicken mourn.
I'm going to get her a friend this week. I'm hoping it goes better than it did last time.
And THEN, on Sunday morning I came home from the garden with 16 pounds of cucumbers. I was already exhausted, but I felt obligated to do something with them, so I made 15 pints of pickles. (Which only used up half. I put the other half in a box on the sidewalk, hoping passersby would take them away.) I've lost count, but I think I'm up to around 50 pints so far this year. I think I'm going to pull the cucumber plants out just so I don't have that responsibility anymore.
Today at work our network drive is having issues. IT is working on it, but that means the one project I really need to get done is the one thing I cannot work on, as it's all stored on the network. I'm all caught up on non-network drive things, so today is a filing day. It's pretty mindless and boring.
On the bright side, I think I might have a meatball sandwich for lunch.
Sorry to hear about the chicken. I hope she gets her mojo back soon.
I've been tired today. I haven't slept well for a week, but I'll be in bed just after 10 tonight, after I've watched Britain's Next Top Model. Yay for idiotic reality contestant shows!
And I have some carrot cake for after dinner. So dinner will be salad of some kind.
It was a nice weekend. We loved Inception, one of the best movies I've seen in years, and yesterday my husband, an amazing cook, decided his mission was to feed me. For breakfast he made me a Dutch Baby with nectarines and blueberries (and it was even better than it sounds) and for dinner he made Indian food, just like what we'd watched made the day before on The Cooking Channel. And it was splendid.
Last night I secretly played a current video game (Uncharted 2) at which I suck quite a lot, so I'm well stuck trying to survive the current gun/grenade/RPG battle. I am not quite as rested as I could be. Ironically, my husband is the one with the day off! But work today is fine, spooling out as planned.
Best Bday wishes again to Elsa and Miko, and hoping the chicken feels better soon.
Me, I finally caved and created a Facebook account, because the only organized online community for my school program is a group there. I'm not exactly regretting it, but I totally totally understand why people hate it.
Crosbie inhaled a foxtail last Thursday, which entailed some exciting and expensive veterinary experiences. Otherwise things are generally good.
My on site Zumba class was cancelled for this afternoon. I thought about volunteering to lead an improptu aerobics class for an hour, but I work for an insurance company, liability concerns would be raised! So I'll have to listen to the awesome music youngergirl44 sent me (thank you!) over the weekend at the gym.
One of my morning meds has decided to make me nauseous throughout the day and well into the evening. I have been on all of them for quite a long while, and changing any one of them could upset the entire regimen.
I have a good job and a bad boss. She wrote me up last week. Now I have a month to do everything perfectly and look for a new job. If I succeed at both I will either keep this job or have another one. I don't feel like thinking about it. Yesterday my dad told me he has cancer.
So sorry to hear about your dad, HJ. Cancer can mean so many things (my dad had four bouts with cancer before he died of heart failure at the age of 85). It's a serious and scary word, regardless, though. I hope your dad will be okay.
That sucks about the job, too. There's no pleasing some people. I've had my share of crazy bosses. All you can do is your best. (Check the rules for unemployment, too, just in case. Hopefully it won't come to that, but you may qualify for a new claim if they let you go.)
Oh, Hugh, how hard for you and for him. I'm so sorry! We'll wait for an update when you're ready, and in the meantime I'm sending good thoughts your way. Take good care of yourself.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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