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[wombat]

Today I had someone come by for tea that I used to work with, also for the first time in I can't remember how long.  We spent most of the time discussing the fact that her dog has heartworm, a very serious disease, difficult to treat, and very easily preventable except a vet gave her terrible advice. Also her mother just died. It was nice to see her again but not exactly something that left me feeling "hey I should have more people over just to socialize."

Anyway, I think you are going to have more fun with your visitors than I did.

[jay-ell]

We did have fun. The guys (who happen to be brothers) had never seen The Princess Bride, so my BFF/Co-worker (with whom they are also acquainted) brought her 12-year-old and my kids watched it with us too. The 12-year-old had seen the movie before but my kids hadn't. They seemed to really enjoy it, and the brothers definitely did. Then BFF took her daughter home and the rest of us hung out and played some board games after my kids went to bed. It was fun.

One of the guys commented how much more relaxed I seem at home vs. work, which made me laugh because being around people at work is much, much easier, because I can rely on the customer-shopkeeper dynamic. At home, there's all this, like, social nuance and stuff.

[theinevitable]

I really enjoyed Logicomix. I read it some before work, then thought about it all day, and then finished it instead of eating dinner. I like days like that. I had a mild emergency at work (you know, the kind of thing that absolutely doesn't matter but I have to pretend it matters so I don't get in trouble for not doing it) and while I was playing catch-up I just thought about Logic all day. I got in a fight with a coworker, and I had one of those dumb revelations. A thing people had tried to explain to me a million times but it never got through. On some level, I need to do a good job at this job for myself. I need to work hard so I can feel good about the work I'm doing-- not out of some sense of responsibility to coworkers/customers. Because they're never going to give as much of a shit about me as I do about them. And frankly, what they do or think has nothing to do with what I do. I hope I can hold onto this idea, because it is not how I generally look at the world.

Sometimes I feel like I've learned and grown more since I finished college than I did when I was in it. I always have a few topics bopping around my mind at any given time.

Warmth of Other Suns is blowing my mind in a major way. Logicomix was a nice little interlude, now I'm ready to get back to the crushing, heartbreaking reality of Jim Crow. Yikes. Immigrant stories always make me feel overwhelmed, and what was the Great Migration if not the escape of millions of people to their own America? Maybe I'll get a tattoo of the Statue of Liberty.

Also listening to a lot of Bob Dylan. Lately everything feels Big.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Today I'm going to be relieved that the other driver's insurance is taking care of this bullshit right here.

[CortJstr]

Today I'm going to be relieved that the other driver's insurance is taking care of this bullshit right here.

Let me guess: 66?

[Carlos del Vaca]

Let me guess: 66?

Route 50 in Fairfax, at Waples Mill Road, Saturday morning. I was stopped at a light, and they just didn't stop in time.
Nobody hurt, at least.

[side_show]

TIG go to a gourmet burger place and pay $20 for a burger, small salad and diet coke (in a glass bottle naturally).  It was very good, but I know about a half dozen blue collar greasy spoon places that do it just as well (or better) for a quarter of the price.  I'm thinking the extra $15 was to cover the rent in the hip location the place was in.  I was actually relieved the young lady I was supposed to be meeting stood me up, cause $40 for a couple of burgers and sides is wrong. 

Day off equals spa day: mani, pedi, facial, the aforementioned over priced yummies, a pit stop at home to plug in the slow cooker lamb leg, then out again to buy an over priced diaper bag, then back here to prep the endive sauces and chill out.

Also we are getting that storm that I guess is headed to wombat next.  We had a small taste of spring here for a week or so, and now it's blizzard time again.  I'm gonna foolishly head out into it again.  It's stupid how Manitobans llose their shit when it comes to driving in this weather.  Come on people, we get winter for 6 months of the year, every year.  Why have you not figured out how to deal?

[Carlos del Vaca]

TIG go to a gourmet burger place and pay $20 for a burger, small salad and diet coke (in a glass bottle naturally).  It was very good, but I know about a half dozen blue collar greasy spoon places that do it just as well (or better) for a quarter of the price.  I'm thinking the extra $15 was to cover the rent in the hip location the place was in.  I was actually relieved the young lady I was supposed to be meeting stood me up, cause $40 for a couple of burgers and sides is wrong. 

7, 8 years ago, this would have been the spot for a joke about how Canadian money isn't worth that much so no big deal. But that doesn't really work anymore.

[Carlos del Vaca]

ALSO: where is the car parked in that picture with all 6" tile and carpet?

That's at the dealership, where you pull up for service. I drove straight there after the accident. They sent me to their body shop, which isn't nearly as nice. But I figured, with the Volt's fancy high-power battery an' shit, someone who knows a thing or two about it had better fix it. I'd hate for some guy working at a mom 'n' pop body shop to electrocute himself because he didn't know how to disable the battery.

[Carlos del Vaca]

"New car paranoia," is what I call it. Parking in the remote parts of the lot, convinced that everyone is going to hit me. Two months in, yeah, it happened.

[jay-ell]

Yikes, sorry about your car, Carlos. That is the suck.

TIG run the same training mission I used last time I went running back in early December, and learn 2 things:

1) Not running for three months = having to start over from scratch

2) I must've made some improvement last fall, because the first time I ran the mission I thought it was way too easy, and today it made me want to die.

So, we're back on that hoss I guess.

I also got some squirrel repellant for my garden because those suckers have been just digging the hell out of my container garden and there isn't even anything in it yet. And I got a little packet of chives because when I use eggs I've been cracking them at the small end an leaving them mostly intact so that I can have my kids draw faces on them and we can fill them with dirt and grow them some "hair."

Like this, but sillier and less elegant.



Hm. Today I also did some other stuff, but it's probably even more boring than running and gardening.

[side_show]

JL, I think I posted it here in summer, but I once had an argument with a squirrel that was munching in my garden.  He just looked at me with his dull squirrel eyes, all "are you going to come over?  No, then I will keep eating?  Oh you are coming over? I will keep munching until you get close enough for me to worry, then it's up a phone poll and across the wires sucker!"  Fucker.

[jay-ell]

I have trained my kids to open the sliding glass door and yell "Ay! O! Ay! Ay O! O Ay!" into the backyard every time they see a squirrel digging in my plants. It's fairly effective, but with the kids back in school all day I need a backup plan.

[wombat]

Today I'm gonna finally have a pitch accepted by Cracked. Too late to make any difference in selling my book, which Amazon no longer sells new copies of. But still.

Of course now I'm terrified I can't pull it off and feel like I need to go lie down.

[jaydub]

You'll be happy to know, JL, that conditioning comes 90% of the way back in two weeks of regular daily work.  A bit longer if you're only doing it 3-4 days a week.  You haven't lost it, you just need to knock the rust off.