The Perfect Storm

New Years day I receive a call and a text and a voicemail from my father (yes, I know Dad... thank you for your vigilance). I was getting dressed to spend the first morning of 2010 (ok afternoon) on the golden gate bridge in obnoxious/exhilirating? mist. Anyhoos - Turns out someone has been using my debit card in Valencia CA. Their first stop - McDonalds. I mean, they need sustenance before they head out on a spending spree. And where better to fuel yourself than at the local MickeyD's? I don't fault them for that one. Smart move stealers of my debit card, the debit card sitting to this day in my wallet on the floor of my room.

The troubling bit is their next move: Straight to the CVS pharmacy where they managed to spend over a hundred dollars. I'm bitching about a cancer patient who lost their insurance and needs to swipe my card info in order to pay for prescriptions aren't I? I am such a bitch. But then! They did it again. Really? Do you not know the wonderful art of theivery? Don't stay in one place possible cancer patient! Move around, do your thing, but it looks shady spending almost $300 dollars at a walgreens wannbe. I mean, Pullease. Don't make me do your job for you.

Well, by the third transaction, the bank got wise and was all, no you didn't... and denied the card. And put a stop on any further transaction. Hooray! Here is the shady bit. I verified with the bank that I have never been to Valencia, also haven't been to a Mcdonalds or a CVS in years. Yet! Before I can even make a claim to get my moneys back, the payments have to go through. So instead of simply preventing me from losing money, I have to have it disappear from my bank account and then file paperwork to have it reimbursed. No biggy if I had an extra 300 dollars lying around. Right after the holidays too, so not exactly the case. Also - rent was due post haste, and i had a paycheck to deposit. All of this landing on New Years Day, a friday, a day the banks are closed. On saturday they are open for a short period of time. So before running around doing errands I head to a Chase downtown. That said chase is CLOSED on weekends altogether. So no money deposited, no temp debit card, the next day is sunday and I have 15 dollars in cash. LAME. Indeed the perfect storm of financial crisis. I am a walking recession.

So then on monday at work everything is going along swimmingly, except when a coworker chops off the tip of his finger. Owe. Gross. Insert shivers here. And then when I go to the bathroom, pull down my jeans, and my phone flies out of the pocket landing right in the toilet. I did not even HESITATE to spin around, thrust my hand in the toilet water and yank out that phone. Not even a moment for "ew". I was mostly swearing loudly until my nubbin coworker knocked on the door and asked if everything was alright. It so was NOT alright. The phone was still on which was promising and after I undid everything, dried it off over and over again as water was still leaking everywhere, and stuck it in a tupperware full of rice, the phone was still acting possessed; flipping between applications, locking and unlocking and locking and unlocking and basically giving me a full blown seizure with all the flashing between screens. So reluctantly I decided to get a new phone.

To my benefit I had just received an email from verizon saying my 1 year discounted new phone whatsit was due and yay! come in and get a new phone on discount! Well, I was worried verizon would close by 6. So at 530 I close up shop at work and run over to the store. Where they tell me I don't get full discount, but actually a discount off the retail price of phones which means they are all motherfucking expensive. Plus my beloved phone has been discontinued. Because it's just TOO awesome. That's why. I finally settle on one that's similar and comes with a 100 dollar mail in rebate so I'm sold.

In the past verizon has billed me whatever the cost is and I pay for it on my next phone bill. Shazaam. And since I have no money because I have no debit card, etc etc, this is my only option. But oops! The lady tells me Verizon changed their policy over the summer and all purchases have to be made upfront.

BAH! Broken phone, I say. Fraud, I say. NO MONEY, I say. She says nothing. I leave, I go back and finish working at the store minus 15 min on my time sheet because I am a good employee and watch the clock. Grumble grumble.

I take the phone home, I plug it in. Maybe it will hold a charge? The texting works if I can ignore the spazz outs, and the only other real problem is I can't hear anything through the ruined speakers when I call out. Turns out - it holds a charge. Hooray! I think I will be alright for a day or so until I can get this all sorted out, surviving by text alone. Sigh.

But then this morning - a new years miracle!! Everything works. Everything. No more twitches, and the speaker works fantastically. Like normal. I have been granted an appeal. YAY! My phone is fine, I won't be out an extra 100 plus dollars, I'm still broke and the theives will probably get away with it but what if they were actually cancer patient thieves and then I can feel a little less annoyed about the whole thing. AND what if my new debit card is pretty? I never really liked the whole mustardy gold bit anyways.

New Years!

Everyone! Gather round! Behold.... the FUTURE! It's 2010 - where are my meals in pill form and my flying cars? Where is my colony on the moon and clothing made out of shiny shiny fabrics equipped with pointy shoulders? Where are our mobile chatting devices that take and send videos and pictures and text INSTANTLY?! Oh yeah... check on the mobiles.

Anyways ... New Years Eve!! WAHOOOO! PARTAY!!!

Well, sort of. When I told an elderly-ish customer at work that my new years consisted of pizza and movie watching he replied "Looks like you need a CAT!". Excuse me, sir? Excuse me? Do you want to repeat that one more time? Because I am a DOG person and will not hear another word to the contrary!!

But no, really, I was with Kamel, and there was pizza and movies, I was wearing black tights and a sweatshirt, and I was very excited. See?


On the movie menu for the evening was District 9, Drag Me To Hell, and the first episode of the first season of Battlestar Galactica (which happens to be a 3 hour mini series... wait, let me adjust my nerd glasses, ah that's better). We only got through one movie and then we tried to watch fireworks on the local news but no local news was to be had. None. I was disappointed. I blame Kamel's bunny ears attached to his TV. He's going to leave a comment that the TV was working just fine and to blame the news people, but they are untouchable and it's so much more fun to blame him.

We also participated in my 4th christmas celebration of the season. Yay! MORE PRESENTS.


I got him a few DVD sets and a darth vader alarm clock. (Oh my god, I almost spelled vader with an "or"... that would have been grounds for immediate break up. Thank god I double checked on the google.)


I am now queen of the nerds, behold my glory and be careful to shade your eyes so as not to blind yourselves by the brightness of my magnificence. Oh yes.

My boyfriend is better than your boyfriend because he totally surprised me with a kindle. This is me showing off my gift:


And then I immediately called maris to tell her we are now kindle buddies.


What you can't hear in the background is Kamel asking "Wait... what? Who are you calling? What are you doing?" And me: "Shh! I'm calling Maris! She needs to know! We have kindles now!!" And Kamel: "Seriously? Right now?"

For serious.

Overall new years was great! I am a sucker for new beginnings. The only thing I'm worried about now are the massive resolution people who may or may not be flooding my gym as I type. They won't last the month.

Flashback

Last night I had a drink with Maris and her law school friend Tina who reads this blog and has a fantastic twitter (tinakarenina) and we were talking about the first blog she ever read of mine. A post from my former blog which, turns out, looks a lot like this one, except much more inappropriate. Ah, memories. Apparently it was really funny. So funny, she said, she had to stealthily close her office door and cover her mouth so as not to draw attention. Maybe this is giving it a little too much build up, but I thought we would revisit it regardless.

Word Play: Penis
Gchat conversation with maris.....

me: hey when you say cock on eyebrow is that how you spell caulk?

Maris: ...cock. on. eyebrow. ?

me: an AN AN

Maris: when you say COCK ON EYEBROW?

me: ANNNNNN. i cocked an eyebrow. is that the way you spell COCK? is that the correct COCK maris??

Maris: hahahaha yes i think so. i personally prefer it when people say dick an eyebrow though.

The Happiest Time Of The Year

Hello all my pre christmas people. WE SURVIVED IT. Well, most of you. Still hungover? Still have a room filled with boxes, tissue paper, and bags? Still sensitive about that one thing that one family member said? Rude, I know. I understand.

Mine was busy and stressful but nice and full of tradition (TRADITION!) which is about 3/4 the fun anyways. The other 1/4 is of course - FREE STUFF. I know, it's about the spirit of the holidays and not the gifts... yeah right... everyone loves free stuff and everyone loves giving those angsted over gifts to everyone on their to buy for list. It's fun! It's once a year! It's usually accompanied by lots of bad for you food and sedentary time. It's the American Way. Oh the holidays.

I got some good stuff this year. And thank you notes will be finished once I get my christmas cards out. I know. Christmas was a few days ago and still no cards. They are more like "new year" cards anyway, don't you think? It all works out in the end.

Anyways, so I was opening up presents on christmas, la di da, and one of the things I asked for was a new saute pan. My current gem has non stick surface flaking and scratching off. It's been this way for about a year and since

A chemical in Teflon and other cookware serves up more than just food. The US Environmental Protection Agency announced that they have asked the 8 largest manufacturers that use chemicals known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, to reduce production by 95 per cent by 2010 and to stop using it completely by 2015 because they have been shown to cause cancer and reproductive problems.

Thanks Internet

I'm pretty sure any lumps, mutated cells, or third arms on my children are a direct cause and effect of cooking and eating scrambled eggs.

So I got a new pan for christmas. YAY!! It has a cushy handle for all your air-flipping-secured-grip needs. And it had this friendly suggestion on the packaging:


It's a great idea really - if consumers could cook whole meals before taking their cookware home, just to make sure it made that pot roast JUST RIGHT. Now that would make their guarantee really mean something. But seriously - how does that work? Try me. What exactly are we trying out? How it feels in my hand? The heft? Is there a button somewhere I should push that sings me a christmas jingle? Or maybe it's just saying "Try me! er... I mean Buy Me! Cuz that way you'll really experience the glory that is Belgique!" In that case don't mind if I do. Thanks Mom and Dad.

This Life

Remember when I useda post easily once a day? I did. Sometimes twice a day. I filled the internet with my voice. And I was so busy! I worked full time and went to school full time and still had motivation to write and thoughts to share. Now I'm just tired.

It's frustrating. I love my blog. I love my writing. But what is there to say?

The holidays are stressful. Buying gifts and making plans and suddenly my calendar is completely filled up. Plus I'm still working. And all I want to do is sleep. Maybe I'm just biased because it is before 7am. I need to finish my christmas cards. I need to finish a story. I need to finish wrapping. I need to finish a thousand emails that loom in my inbox getting crabbier and crabbier at me.

Last year I had all my christmas cards written by the first week of Dec. Wasn't that nice. Had all my gifts handled by that time too. I miss getting up everyday and getting dressed for the office and singing with traci while I stared at excel for 3 hours filling in budgets. I miss the seagrass carpet.

I am fickle and the grass is always greener.

Last weekend I played jetsetter heading back down to SF for a Lucas holiday party with Kamel. I felt important and looked beautiful. I did for reals. See?


Kamel looked pretty too. When I show people pictures of him they first exclaim "nice teeth!" The other day at work someone told him he had pretty eyes. It's all true. Dressing up is important. It reminds you who you could be if looking like this all the time was required. And then you walk 1/2 a mile in peep-toe-tee-strap three inch heels and remember why tennis shoes and rented movies are the usual.

Winter Guide To Seattle

It's been awfully chilly here and yet claire and I have not been bold enough to turn the heat on. Reason number one: cash moneymoney. Reason number two: Scary floor board coils. Thank god for multiple comforters, sweats, and down. That clarifies that it is, indeed, winter in Seattle. I know the post confused you as it is December and all (it didn't confuse you at all, did it? You were really on top of things, weren't you?), now to my thinking about Seattle guides...

Over thanksgiving I took a nice, brisk stroll all around Seattle one afternoon and documented it on the twitter. Here are some of the goodies:




So i was wandering around taking pictures of things I saw and no matter how effing cold and rainy it gets i do kind of love this city. But I can understand if you're new here why you wouldn't. The thing about seattle - it has a lot of stuff going on, but it's quiet about it. There's interesting, unique bars and coffee shops to go to (like oddfellows , a nice little nook that's both cafe and bar with a nice menu and quiet, relaxed, yet still hip(ster?) ambience), great museums, even better parks, cute neighborhoods, etc. But if you weren't in the know it would be easy to get lost and feel like tehre is NOTHING , NOTHING i say, to do here. So here are five things to look forward to during a seattle winter.

1.) Coffee shops. This city is THE place for them. There are tons and tons and tons of coffee roasters here, with amazingly inviting coffee shops equipped with wooden tables, comfy chairs, and free wifi. If you want Starbucks, they are everywhere, but if you want something different, my personal favorite reading + tea spot is Victrola. The baristas can be snooty, but it's a great place to disappear amongst the other coffee-shoppers and hide behind a laptop or book and people watch the hell out of it.

2) The monorail! It's not just for tourists. It's cheap, get's you from the Seattle Center (Pacific science center? Children's theater? Giant Fountains? Carnival Rides? Science Fiction Museum? Space Needle? EMP?) to downtown in 5 minutes, it comes frequently and has amazing views of the city found no where else, from a point of view seen no where else.

3) Lincoln Park. It's so incredibly underrated. It's huge, first of all, with tons of hidden fields for random frisbee or catch with the dog, pick up soccer/football/baseball games, and some kick ass play structures with a sliding swing, wading pools, etc. Then when you walk down to the beach there are unobstructed Pacific Northwest views of tree covered islands, the cascades, kyakers, the ferry, etc etc. Not to mention whale and bald eagle spotting. Even in the winter this place is Seattle outdoors at it's finest and it's only in West Seattle.

4) Chicago and New York are known for their Pizza and these styles can be found all over the country in some bastardized form or another. But, as I was proclaiming last night at Piecora's on Madison, Seattle has a "Type" of pizza. The places I've seen it repeated and no where else: Olympia's, Pegasus, Bill's Off Broadway, and Spiros. If you haven't been there, you should. Relaxed, good food, warm and inviting. Also - the salads are amazing.

5) To escape the rain: IMAX at the Pacific Science Center. They have normal movies but also really interesting documentaries and other films not playing in your everyday Regal Entertainment theater. To see an up to date list click here: http://www.pacsci.org/imax/

Ok, ok... so this wasn't a list of awesome bars to go check out. But Seattle is about thinking outside of the box. There are a lot of nice night time places though. Maybe I'll do a bar roundup - divided by taste and style - next time I'm in the travel agent mood.

Stay warm.

Oh The Public

As my co-worker mentioned today: The holidays are great because, although they bring out all the crazies, there are so many of them they don't have time to really... sink in and stay awhile. Now move along, crazy, we have a whole line of neurotic awkward people demanding their baked goods behind you.

I don't think I've really taken the time to showcase what dealing with the public on a daily basis is like here on the 'ol blog. The problem with it is - most of the time it's a "ya had to be there" scenario and it loses a certain je ne sais quoi in the retelling. But ya know, just in case you were curious, I thought I would share a few.

Today there was a guy hell bent on getting a bran muffin. We don't sell muffins. Or bran.
"Hi, I'm looking for... do you have anything like a bran muffin?"
"Oh, no... we don't have anything with bran but we do have these pumpkin trail cookies" (ahh yes, the customer diversion. We don't have that but we do have this... BUY BUY BUY).
"Hmm... well I was really looking for something with bran... something healthy.... like a bran muffin."
"Yeah..... sorry about that."
I really did think he would leave. He also had a starbucks cup in his hand and I thought - dude - they have bran muffins... what the eff? But he stayed and kept stressing over our lack of bran and muffins. He eventually settled on some oatmeal raisin cookies. Almost bran, so there's that. But then upon paying he's still griping about the bran muffins. Yeah buddy, I wish that we had those too (no, not really, I don't actually care).

Anyways, this is a theme. People get really weird about the things they want, the things they expect to be able to buy. And the things they don't like. If we are selling something that doesn't sound appetizing to a customer - a kind of sandwhich, soup, etc - more often than not they make a face when I give them the options or describe something to them, or they actually make a yuck noise. Like BLECCKK or something. I mean really? This is not your mom's house. You don't have to eat what we make you, I'm not forcing you to buy anything, so what's with the attitude? When was the last time you went into a food service place and actually told a server that something you had yet to have was gross? And why does saying that even matter to anything at all? The amount of rudenss or weirdness I experience daily is mind boggling, but now I hardly notice it. If anything I laugh and give a coworker a look and then I forget about. Everybody's weird. Everybody has bad days. I don't take them personally unless it's a customer that is always a certain way and then I just dread serving them. I can't wait to put some of these characters in my writing. It's funny how growing up you assume the majority of the population is a lot like you - until you actually see them, and realize most of them aren't.