Lunchies

Our local library keeps some pretty strange hours:

Sunday:	Closed
Monday:	1 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Tuesday:	1 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Wednesday:	11 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Thursday:	11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Friday:	11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Saturday:	10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

I really need to commit these hours to memory so I quit wasting trips to the library. I'm hoping that writing down the hours here will help. But maybe I should find a blackboard and do lines à la Bart Simpson. Essentially what I need to remember is that unless I want to browse with the hordes on Saturdays, I must time my trips for Mon.–Wed. evenings after work.

I turned in my last set of library books on Thursday after work, and of course they were closed so I couldn't check out more books. And of course I am going through serious reading withdrawals now. On top of that I received a notice from the library around 6 last night (after they closed) that a book I have on hold is available for pick-up. And they're closed today, so I must wait.

Sure, I could re-read my favorite blogs. But like me, most of my favorite bloggers haven't been posting as often as they used to, and let's face it, it typically takes 5–10 minutes to read a blog post and I want a book. A cohesive story that I can read for an hour or more at a time.

Anyhow.

I experimented for lunch today and I really liked it—sweet potato oven fries and an open faced idunnowhattocallit sandwich.




It's a seeded sourdough bread with a homemade hummus spread, sliced orange bell peppers, sliced avocado, and provolone cheese that I tossed under the broiler. MMMmmm

Trying New Things

So I tried a new hair stylist on my way home from work last night. I'd actually been to her once before about 3 years ago and remembered that she had done a good job then. So I didn't really have anything in mind when I made the appointment other than I desperately needed a haircut (it's been about 9 months since the last cut). So we talked about what I was looking for and I told her I was willing to try something new as long as I could still pull it back for exercising and could keep it out of my face during the day at work.

When I looked at the floor as I was leaving it looked like a whole other head of hair was laying there.




It looked cute when she styled it, but the ends were doing this funky flippy thing by the time I got home. Oh, and the horror I woke up to this morning when I spotted my bedhead in the mirror.

After the cut I wandered to Target for cotton swabs and moisturizer and then to Trader Joe's where I found these:



Gee, those would have been handy to have the other day. I love pomegranates and I love dark chocolate, so these should be pretty darned good when I get around to opening them.

Okay, I need to go try to do something with this hair. Here's what the stylist had done:

Where Is My Chocolate!

So the weather forecast for last weekend was one day of sun and one day of rain. Scoob and I thought we would go for a walk at Coyote Hills Parks near our house, but the sunny day never came. And we never left the house. I do want to get out and take some pictures while the cherry and plum trees are still blooming and the fields are filled with mustard.

Our sun finally arrived on Monday but of course I couldn't tell from my windowless corner cubicle. Today was a soft spring-like rain as I was leaving for the office this morning followed by buckets for the evening commute. It took nearly 2 hours to get home tonight. Blech. Though I did stop and pick up Scoob's birthday present on the way home tonight. (His birthday is on Thursday.)

Still selling books and still going to the post office nearly every day. I did get to skip it this morning though. I finally finished Traveling with Pomegranates last night. I've only been at it for what, 6 weeks? Sheesh. And I loved it. Unfortunately I only finished 2 of the 4 books I checked out and now I can't renew them any more. boo hoo

Today was cramptastic. Can someone please tell me how it can possibly be that time again. It didn't exactly catch me unaware, but seriously, didn't we just do this? And of course my work day was filled with little annoyances to really test my self control and make the day complete. Though I don't really think it will be complete until I find some friggin' chocolate!

You know I'm sitting here doing a mental inventory of the entire house—I think there's one square of a Trader Joe's dark chocolate bar in the fridge, a tin with a couple pieces of Christmas fudge, and a packet of hot cocoa mix. It's a pisser that I don't really like fudge all that much. But I guess it'll do. Now if there were some brownies in the house, then we'd be talking. Of course if there were brownies in the the house we wouldn't be talking because I'd be too busy stuffing one in my face to even type.

Scoob just reminded me that it's Tuesday and Lost is coming on and ohmygod I have to go. Bye.

Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's here at the Wayward house and I stayed up late last night getting Scoob's surprise ready. And I do mean late. Scoob didn't go to bed until 2 am (next year I need to remember to slip him a benedryl). It's not like it was a huge production but still, starting at 2 am is not good.

I had checked Scoob's wish list to see what he wanted and all he had marked were more movies and video games. We've got enough of those in the house already thankyouverymuch, and besides, they're soooo impersonal. So I decided to go the sappy sentimental route this year and find some quasi-creative homemade way to let him know how much he means to me.

The first thing he saw this morning when he got up was a card on the floor just outside the bedroom door followed by a trail of hearts with dark chocolate goodies on each one.





The trail led him to his bathroom where he found this:






Not much, I know, but it's how I feel about him and believe me, it actually took some planning and sneaking to put together—I had been cutting out paper hearts for several nights after he went to bed.

Yesterday Scoob and I spent the day in Santa Clara and treated ourselves to lunch and dinner, went to see Avatar in 3D (finally—so awesome) and Scoob got me a shiny new iPhone.

Somebody clearly made out like a bandit in this scenario—he gives me cool technology, and in return I give him paper hearts and chocolate. Though in trade, I'll be taking over the paying of the cell phone bill since the iPhone requires the addition of unlimited data to our calling plan—an extra $30/mo.





I spent some time hemming and hawing about whether or not to do this. I mean seriously, that's $360 a year that could be spent on something else. In the end I decided it was worth it and that I really would use the smart phone features. I had the iTouch before this and I liked what I was able to do with it, unfortunately much of it's extra functionality was dependent on an open wi-fi connection that I could piggyback on. The iPhone will first look for an open wi-fi, but if none is available will hop on the AT&T network.

And considering the fact that I've been working on the iPhone app development team at work, it really does behoove me to actually use one. Now excuse me, I've got to find some cool time wasting apps…

Do You Want Fries with That?

So Scoob was puttering away in the garage last weekend and when I went down to see how he was doing, I noticed another box of books at the bottom of a stack of boxes. He said he'd dig it out so I could go through it later.

Turns out there were three more boxes of books down there. Three! Plus the two I'd already pulled up from the garage. Plus all the books out on shelves. I had no idea I had been hanging on to so many books. So I spent a good chunk of time last weekend getting those books up for sale at Amazon.

With all the books I have listed, I've been selling one or more a day for the past few weeks and I've become something a regular at the post office—media mail with confirmation, please. I'm like that customer who came through the McDonald's drive-thru every weekday morning and ordered a sausage biscuit and small coffee, one cream, two sugars.

Oh, but that's not where the similarity ends, no sir. First let me say this, the folks that work at the local post office are friendly, courteous, efficient (as much as any government employee can be, anyhow), and I'm usually in and out in 10 minutes or so. Okay, that said, they're driving me batty!

I've been in there everyday for the last 2½ weeks for the same thing each time. And yet it never fails, if a package is light enough to ship first class, they always ask if I want to send it first class. Of course I want to send it first class… that would be exactly why I stood in line and asked to send it by media mail.

Makes perfect sense to me—yes, won't you please let me give you more money for something I don't need or want, and didn't ask for. And it totally reminds of trying to upsell at McDonald's—if the customer ordered a value meal, you always asked if they wanted to super size it.

Then, when we're about to finish the transaction, the teller always asks me if I want to buy some stamps. It doesn't matter which teller I get, it's always the same—do you want any stamps?

I guess I was learning some real-world life skills during all those years at McDonald's. Good enough for government work, anyhow.

Can’t You Smell that Smell?

No, I'm not talking about the barking spiders from the other day. I finally got all the books I want to get rid of listed on Amazon last night.

For those that don't know, I majored in Native American Studies and minored in Political Science and I've found that several of these books have a decent resale value. As I was flipping through the pages so I could accurately describe the condition of the books the smells buffeting my face took me back.

One thing I rediscovered through all this is how glad I am that I no longer smoke. At first the the smell of clove cigarette smoke coming off the pages was okay, now I just want it out of my house. The other scent that took me back had to do with the particular bookshop where I purchased several of my Native Studies books—Rising Arrow in Sunnyvale, CA. They went out of business years ago, but the smells of tanned leather and sage still cling to the pages of these books despite the cigarette smoke.

And of course underlying it all is the simple smell of a book, which made me remember this article about book preservation.

I decided to reread The Tortilla Curtain before getting rid of it. And I decided to keep A History of Far Eastern Art. Even though I could probably sell the art book for $40, I really got a lot from the class and the book, not to mention it's just a beautiful book.

When we were at the Art Institute of Chicago last October I was amazed that I could still tell a jue from a jia from a ding and whether it was made in the Zhou, Shang, or Han dynasty. I was actually surprised by the number of items I could at least partially identify.

Like this head of Bhairava from Nepal.

Or this Chinese-style (?) Guanyin (Avalokiteshvara).

I'm reasonably certain this is Vishnu depicted on this stele.

And this Karttikeya on a peacock from India.

It's more than a little disappointing that I'm still paying off my student loans for a B.A. that is less than relevant to my career and daily life. As for boosting my pay—now that I'm and editor, I make slightly more than I did at McDonald's in 1997—so naturally, I found this comic painfully true. In fact, the classes that have stuck with me (Far Eastern Asian Art History, American Indian Art History, and Geology to name a few) were classes I took in junior college (and therefore owe no money on). And while these classes also have no bearing on my career or daily life, I do feel enriched for having taken them.

Cramptastic

Oh, Dudes. I hate today. But I think the worst thing about today is that I get to relive it every blessed 28 days or so. Oh, the details of the day may be different—it might rain, I may have meetings at work, one (or both) of the cats may puke and leave it for me to clean up—but believe me, it's the same damn day every time.

All I really care about is keeping Midol in my system and figuring out where the next piece of chocolate is coming from. Many kudos to my boss for choosing today to bring brownies to the editorial meeting. You have no idea how many lives you saved today.

Surprisingly though, my mood was rather mellow. I might even say it was serene. Might. But no one's life was in danger and no co-workers were harmed in the making of today's cramptastic post.

Okay, so there's one other thing I care about on days like today—keeping certain unstoppable forces of nature as quiet and undetectable as possible. And you know, sometimes that just ain't possible.

The first thing Scoob says to me this morning isn't "Good Morning" or "Hey, Sunshine" but "My god you've been making some fierce whale noises all morning." Thanks, hon. (Usually he's sensitive enough to blame it on the cats.) Because "whale noise" is Scoob's ever-not-so-delicate way of referring to this unstoppable force of nature. And it's no whale song.

Okay, are we clear, here? That's right. Toot. Gas. Fart. Break wind. Cut the cheese. Rip one. (Am I leave out your favorite?) Dudes, this day always comes with mad gas. Thankfully, period farts don't stink. It's the one time when silent but deadly doesn't apply. Usually. Ladies, you can can back me up on this, right?

Ladies?

*crickets chirping*

Fine. Anyhow, most of my day was spent on the first 2 things while trying not to seriously embarrass myself with the 3rd. And that's when I read this headline—"Fastest Wind" record broken on the Yahoo home page.

Well clearly they haven't been standing behind me.

Anyhow, it made me laugh. Which made me really rip one. At the office. Did I mention I've had beans the last few days? Musical fruit, beans. Thankfully this cramptastic day is almost over.

***I don't know which is more disturbing, that I looked for fart euphemisms… or that I found them… or that I'm telling you about this at all. BTW, for my money, barking spiders was the best one I saw,best being entirely subjective.