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A Dash of Salt
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Friday, November 24, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
I got paid on Friday, so on Saturday I went and spent it all. First I went and bought a car. Yeah, so it's actually an SUV. Go ahead and flame me until I'm no longer pink in the center. There's a small part of me that hates myself for getting one, too. However: I take the bus to work every day, and Dave drives his little fuel-efficient car. We use his car to run all of our errands. The bigger car is just going to be for projects around the house, like if we need to pick up something big from Home Depot or take leaves to the compost site, and for longer drives, like to the cabin, because it's safer and more comfortable for the dog and can hold her kennel. And it's got four-wheel drive, good for the Minnesota winters. It will likely be used once a week at most. Not that I have to justify my car purchases to you or anything. Who do you think you are? Dave and I have both have been experiencing some knee and ankle tenderness recently. This will not do, because right after Thanksgiving we are going on vacation to San Francisco for five days, and we both need better shoes for all the walking we'll be doing. I bought my first pair of Danskos and a crapload of Smartwool socks. Then it was onto REI where Dave got some shoes and I got a thick sweater and more Smartwool socks and a fitted black Smartwool long underwear shirt because I am a total whore for everything Smartwool, cost be damned. I'm going to be flat-ass broke this winter, but at least I'll be cozy warm while being broke. I spent most of yesterday at the gym. Pilates first, then we went out for breakfast and went back to the gym for some treadmill time and the first-ever yoga class for both of us. I hated it at first. Full of yoga gurus and the instructor just whipped through the first half hour of cobras and monkeys and dogs and whatnot. I didn't have time to figure out all the moves and their names, let alone focus on breathing or centering or whatever it is. It got better, though, once we moved into the balancing and stretching. I'd go again, though I definitely like Pilates better. And I had a ridiculous breakthrough on the treadmill where I realized that if I dropped the speed slightly while raising the incline, it's still a decent workout without all the freaking pounding that's been killing my ankles lately. Duh. And now it's another Monday, another load of crap to do. Off I go. Thursday, November 09, 2006
First order of business: A really good recipe. I actually clipped it out of the Trader Joe’s insert that got stuck in our grocery bag on our first and mostly likely last visit there. I just don't...get Trader Joe’s. Plus I have not the wherewithal to trek out to St. Louis Park regularly. Anyway. Their version was all organic and shiz, and ours was not, but it was awesome regardless. Italian Sausage & Spinach Soup 1 package sweet Italian sausage 2-3 containers of chicken broth (we ended up using 1 can and 1 box of Swanson’s) ½ medium onion, chopped 1 large can diced tomatoes 1 cup rice 1 package frozen spinach Remove the sausage from case and sauté with onion over medium high heat until cooked through. Break apart the sausage as it cooks. Add the chicken broth and heat until boiling. Add the tomatoes and rice. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until simmer until the rice is cooked (about 20 minutes; longer if using brown rice). Add spinach and cook until heated through. Serve immediately. Garnish with shredded Italian cheese (this isn't really necessary) and enjoy with a loaf of crusty bread (this is essential). Second: The DFL victory party. Smashing success, very fun, great night for the Dems. The place was PACKED, eventually shutting down the streets all around the hotel. It had about four thousand attendees over the course of the night. That's four thousand people using three small elevators, one of which was broken. Good times, especially when I had to take the stairs to my fifteen-story room. Really, though, it was great. Most people started arriving around eight, but I got there at seven-thirty, early enough to see the ballroom all set up. Stage in front, TV cameras in the middle, radio press off to one side, bloggers on the other, five big screens set up around the room broadcasting results on various stations. I like the Crowne Plaza ballroom, mostly for the antiquey-looking light fixtures and the huge floor to ceiling windows that span two sides, and the small rotunda-like area in one corner that the band was set up in. Originally David and I had thought that we would be able to spend more time together even though technically he was working, but there were a lot more trains to make run on time than expected, so he was busy the entire time. I spent a lot of time at the bar, did a lot of people-watching, and popped back and forth between the ballroom and our room during the night. Once the candidates started showing up to say a few words, things got really crazy, as more and more results came in, and things really didn’t wind down until almost two in the morning. We had a gorgeous corner room with an enormous bed and huge windows and were more than ready to retire there for some alone time. We didn't get to bed until after three a.m. so we didn’t get to the hot tub or the champagne (the pool and hot tub were in too public an area anyway, so that was fine, and we took the champagne with us to enjoy this weekend), but we had a really wonderful night and next day. Wednesday turned out to be over 70 degrees, so we wound up with a PERFECT day for taking off. We walked up the street to the Science Museum in the early afternoon for the Body Worlds exhibit and movie. Dave had never seen an Omnitheater film, and I was really excited for it, but it was pretty disappointing. It didn't have very much of the 3D-like motion that typically plays best on those massive screens, and the whole thing was a very romanticized miracle-of-birth-centered extravaganza. But the exhibit was wholly, utterly fascinating. I hated to sound like a valley girl, or a character from Clueless, but after observing and reading each exhibit, I could not stop myself from stepping away, bug-eyed, saying things like "OH MY GOD" or "SHUT UP" And the thing is, the things they were able to do with these bodies was really only the tip of the iceberg compared to what an incredible machine the human body is. I read every line of every sign obsessively and I could not take my eyes off the bodies, who, despite being very real, did not look very real after plastination process, although every now and again, you would see the remnants of a tattoo or six, or an eyebrow. You are not allowed to touch them, for obvious reasons, but neither were they roped off to keep guests at a distance. Rather they were simply standing around at various locations throughout the exhibit, mingling like guests at a cocktail party. Then we left and picked up the dog (from her reaction, you'd think we'd been gone for a month, not twenty-four hours) and some Applebee's and went home. I had the serious Sunday Sads that night, because it felt so much like the end of a really fun weekend that Dave kept trying to look up football scores. But thankfully it wasn't Sunday, and there were only two more days left of work in the week, not five, and now that the election is over, there is lots of clutter to pick up at home and new cars to be bought and sleep to be caught up on, so I'm going to go work on some of that now. Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Last night I dreamed that it was Election Day and that instead of being open for just one day, the polls stayed open for an entire month. When I told David about my dream, he paled visibly and told me never to speak of such things again. We walked to the neighborhood church this morning before work, registered me, cast our votes, and received our I Voted stickers. Oddly, I've never gotten a sticker before, since the last time I voted was absentee. Tonight we're going to the DFL victory party in downtown St. Paul, the culmination of the past two years of David's work. He'll be working part of the night while I hang out at the bar with his credentials. The party is free to enter and open to all, so any Twin Cities folk should come. All the staff are being given hotel rooms, so we're crashing at the hotel after the party, drinking a bottle of purloined champagne, sleeping in gloriously late, using the hot tub, ordering room service, and playing hooky from work tomorrow. Once we wake up, we're going to see this. It's a mini-vacation from everything, including the dog. We dropped Kylee off at my dad's house last night so they can watch her since we won't be home. I called my dad this morning to ask if she was behaving herself, since last time we were over there she ate my stepmom's NINE HUNDRED DOLLAR retainer. Yeah, that was awesome. Anyway, she was doing fine, although the house was way too quiet last night. My car was impounded today, and my insurance agent came by my work to collect the title and give me a check, so now I have to go car shopping. Buying my house was less stressful for me than car shopping. I've been playing with the idea of trying to become a one-car family, because I would love nothing more than to sock this money into the house or honeymoon funds, but in the end, I don't think it's going to work. I could probably swing it on a non-election year, when David's home a lot more, but the following year I'd be right back where I am now. Miriam showed me Zipcar last night, a car sharing service where you pay either hourly or daily for the use of a car as you need it, gas and insurance included. My bus home from work goes right past the pickup locations which would make it feasible because I generally know in advance when I'm going to need a car (errands on weekends, Thursday night walks with my stepmom, etc.), but then again, it makes spontaneous outings too difficult and I really don't want to depend on others to have to pick me up all the time. So, never mind. Car shopping it is! Sunday, November 05, 2006
It's only Day 5 of NaBlopoMo and I have already missed a day. I meant to update last night, really, but I was (getting) busy. Ahem. Anyway. I hate cars. I spent about two hours yesterday on the phone yesterday with my insurance company, filing a claim and figuring out what the next step is. The car was towed to a garage where they will assess the damage and send it to whatever shop is deemed appropriate to repair the damage. As if this whole thing didn't suck enough already, everyone I talk to seems to think that the cost of repairs will exceed the car's value, in which case the car will be totaled. Fortunately, I never got rid of my comprehensive and collision coverage (uh, mostly because I didn't know any better), so I will be able to get another car, but the whole thing is MADDENING because it's such a WASTE. I take damn good care of my car, and it's only at 60k miles. It could easily last another ten years. On the other hand, Toyotas tend to hold their value really well, so I'm trying not to get too wound up about it yet until the shop calls me tomorrow. What I really, really do not want is for the citation I got to end up on my record. I'm willing to pay it, go to traffic school, whatever. Just please no record. My dad and stepmother graciously loaned me one of their cars for the time being, so I wasn't housebound after all. But after I picked the car up from their house on Saturday afternoon, I still got anxious and weepy trying to make a left turn toward my house, so I stayed home after that. This morning I went to brunch and took a long walk with my stempmom and ran some errands and did much better, but I'd be lying if I said that left turn doesn't make me tremble a little (okay, a lot) now, even at non-busy hours. Maybe I need to find a new route home. Friday, November 03, 2006
My fun weekend plans (art show, meeting a bunch of new online friends for brunch, long walk with my stepmom) were shot to hell tonight when I was in a car accident on my way home from work. Two lousy blocks away from my house. The three-block stretch that it happened on is one of the most dangerous and accident-prone spots in the metro area. In 2005, there were 225 accidents - that's an accident every day and a half. We witnessed four other near-collisions during the hour we stood there (in the cold! in the dark!) waiting for the for the police to arrive. Both of our faults, but the damage to my car is worse, and then I got a citation on top of everything else. Awesome. No injuries, thank goodness, but what's infuriating me way more than the damage is that my insurance premiums, which are incredibly high for a car that only gets driven about twice a month, were about to FINALLY go down in the spring and I've been looking forward to that for the past three years. Yeah, so much for that plan. Oh, and small world: the guy that hit me and I went to high school together. The car's being towed to the shop tomorrow, so I'm thinking I'm pretty much housebound for the rest of the weekend. Thursday, November 02, 2006
I spent the afternoon at a bowling alley for a work event, against my will, but it didn't suck as much as I thought it would. I bowled a 134 and the taco bar was pretty decent. It snowed lightly this morning and I am so longing for skiing. My dad and stepmom are possibly renting a house in Vail for ten days or so in February, and I'm hoping they might make room for me for a few days. Vail was the first real mountain skiing I ever did, when my dad took me out west for a week when I was about thirteen. Good memories. Wednesday, November 01, 2006
 A sharp nail in my baby toe sliced a gash in the toe next to it, so I limped to work and pulled off my sock and shoe to find half my foot covered in blood. Good times. Wound is superficial, though, that's good.So, Halloween last night. To be honest, Halloween barely registers on my register. I got an e-mail from a coworker the other day asking if anyone was dressing up on Tuesday, and I was immediately like, oh crap what important meeting did I forget, assuming some VIPs were coming to visit our department or something, never once thinking OH YEAH HALLOWEEN. I really enjoy watching others participate, but I am that person who makes sure they aren't home that night. Not like it matters, because we don't get trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood (it's too commercial). But I had some weird hangups about it even as a kid. I've never really been into costumes, for one thing. I don't know why! Costumes are fun! But I could never figure out what I wanted to dress up as until the day of, which caused some stress, and then it had to be as close to regular everyday clothing as possible. And no face paint or wigs or masks. Examples: an elf, a cowgirl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pippi Longstocking, a fifties girl. One year when I was about seven and my brother five, my mom sewed us bear costumes. I think she ran out of fabric, though, because I didn't get a bear head but my brother did, and my mom painted little bear noses and whiskers on both of us. In the picture, I am covering up my painted nose with my bear-paw mittened hand. Candy doesn't really appeal to me, and I haven't carved a pumpkin in over ten years since I cut myself badly while doing it (I am notoriously clumsy with sharp objects). But I was driving around last night doing errands, and smiling at all the carved pumpkins out on stoops and cracking the "everyone's dying to get in" joke to myself whenever I passed a cemetary, and The Erlking came on the classical station, which seemed appropriate. I checked out this book from the library and picked up my favorite Cambodian soup, which is bright orange, and ate it while watching the only semi-scary movie I own. Does that count for anything? I had a wedding dream last night, and for once it was actually a good wedding dream. Our wedding was a raging party! Not like everyone-brings-a-kegger raging party, but there was so much good food and tons beautifully decorated miniature chocolate cakes for everyone and everything was being passed by handsome white-jacketed waiters and somehow it was massively elegant without being stuffy at all. It was our schmancy venue, but I had a very plain tea-length white dress on with my black Mary Janes, and my hair in a really simple bun. I remember thinking that I should have gotten more decoration on my dress and that I'd meant to pick up a cool retro hairpiece, but you know what, I just didn't care! Big deal! We were married! Having a great time! Then the band opened up the dance floor and it was PACKED within seconds, and I was so excited because having the dance floor sit empty is one of my secret wedding fears. Then things started to go south, as wedding dreams are wont to do, because I wanted to dance with David but he had disappeared, and I couldn't find him anywhere and was getting a little annoyed. I walked around stuffing Twinkies (?) in my mouth, absently noticed that a belly dance class had started in a gymnasium next door that several of our guests had decided to join in on, and finally found David hiding in the bathroom, really upset because the band had played a song that reminded him of getting blackballed* in college when he first tried to pledge his fraternity. * Do any Greek systems still do this? I remember that in an early edition of Sweet Valley High, the female students had a sorority (what the fuck, seriously) and Jessica Wakefield blackballed Robin Wilson for being too chubby or something like that. If you haven't already figured it out, it's Day 1 of NaBloPoMo. You should do it, too, so we can all have more reading material. Tuesday, July 25, 2006
First things first: Shout out to my sweetie for venturing out in a massive downpour of rain and HAIL yesterday to meet me at the bus stop with an umbrella because I forgot mine. Also, for taking me to see Wicked last week. I ended up taking the job. Benefits are great and all, but it involved a rather serious pay cut, and I was terribly conflicted and massively stressed about it. Especially when my agency got in on the act and countered by offering me a raise and benefits. We went around and around on the salary, but it ultimately went nowhere, so I got to feel like a shitty negotiator on top of everything else. Days later, I'm still wavering on it, and just writing about the money thing is chapping my ass again, so I'm going to stop, but don't get me too wrong: It does have a lot of intangible things going for it. A strong jumping-off point career-wise, a mercifully short commute, good coworkers, increased responsibility, profit sharing, time off for getting married next year...I figured the salary issue can always be revisited later, and given the recent turn of events with regards to David's job, we could use the stability. So get used to me, downtown Minneapolis, as I'll be continuing my gritty (snort) urban existence for some time now. My first official task in my new capacity as permanent employee is to attend an extra-long, all-day, ultra-boring marathon meeting on the future of the department, upcoming projects, and the like. I've seen other employees attend them in the past and they’re generally called "offsites" so when I got the meeting notice and there was nothing about when to meet or where to go, I inquired about the logistics and was resent the notice with a conference room number highlighted. Dude. An all-day meeting and we don’t even get to go anywhere cool? Apparently offsite is the new onsite. Naturally, it's on the thirteenth floor. [Insert the Twilight Zone theme here.] Sunday, July 16, 2006
Strange week. David was out of town on business for the first half of it, and it took me exactly zero time to return to my pre-cohabitation days. I spent almost all of it dicking around on the computer. I ate cake and chips for dinner. I stayed up until two a.m. every night. It really sucked and yet I felt like I couldn't do anything else. I have no internal clock whatsoever; if someone isn't there to remind me to go to bed at a reasonable hour, I HAVE to stay up til the wee hours. I think I feel like I might miss something. When I finally got my own bedroom during my senior year of college, I pulled an all-nighter every single night that year. For no real reason! Just because I could! See! Look what I'm doing right now! It's almost three and I'm typing this here entry and washing a load of laundry and cleaning the cat box and mentally thinking of all the work clothes that need ironing (or rather, a spin through the dryer with a damp towel, since I don't iron) before Monday. I can't decide which has improved the quality of my life more: the new dishwasher, or the biweekly visits from Chelsey, Cleaning Person Extraordinaire. There's still plenty to do in the interim, dusting and sweeping up dog hair/cat litter, wiping down sinks, all that stuff, and of course there is the laundry and lawn care and general pickup, but the point is that I now have a nice chunk of my evenings and weekends back that is no longer devoted to swearing at the floors, and so: what to do with all this free time? I've been mulling over my job a lot lately, particularly how to make the transition from, say, job to career. I've been thinking about classes I can take, software I can learn, professional organizations I can join, yada yada. Or: how about grad school? How about a complete career change? (Insofar as I have developed a "career" by now.) For the past few months, I've been toying with the idea of a masters in library and information science. Why a librarian? I don't exactly know at this point (need to do more research), although I was charmed to learn of several MLS programs that can be completed in a couple evenings a week via distance/online education. And they're cheap enough to pay for out of pocket, and would allow me to keep my day job. As opposed to, for example, a masters in English or technical communication that requires THREE YEARS of full-time schooling. I think not. Anyway, this is all moot, since I am not going to grad school, not now or in the near future. The company I've been contracting for during the past year and a half has offered me a permanent position. This came as a big surprise to me, because my contract is supposed to end in August and thus I had already mentally sort of checked out and starting figuring out what to do next, and now, surprise, looks like I might be staying. The details are still being negotiated, so that's all I can say for now. But yay for your work being valued and all that. 
 
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