Winter Wonderland
First off, I'm bad in bed. Ask Shanshu.
And, while it's not quite a winter wonderland (it's not even winter yet), snow lovers such as myself are welcoming our first few flakes. Our second snow was Monday night, and unlike our first, it stuck. Granted, it was nothing more than a light dusting, but it was still beautiful to watch fall. We're lucky, because 150 miles west of us the same system was a blizzard that caused some pretty awful conditions. Tonight we are slated to get our third snow, and since the temperature has been hovering just above the freezing mark today and is currently falling, I'm hoping for another little dusting and some more pretty flakes. Now, what I would like is for it to give us a few inches of accumulation and for it to remain snowy and wintery through New Year's. I'm pretty sure, however, that we'll have our usual brown and ucky December, and I'll have to wait another month for my sledding.
By the way, have any of you ever been to Topeka High? I was there this morning. It is GORGEOUS. It reminded me of the little private English boarding schools I saw when I was there. The outside is designed like a Tudor mansion, and the inside looks like Hogwarts. Beautiful. The entrance hall with it's formality, the cafeteria with it's warmth...I know it sounds crazy to be gushing over a
high school, but I was so seriously impressed I can't believe myself.
Later this morning, I was driving along the I-70 turnpike between Topeka and Lawrence, following behind a utility truck with a ladder attached to it's top rack. The ladder fell off the truck and landed on it's side, open, in between the two lanes of highway. I slammed on brakes, as did the truck passing me in the other lane. We both slowly went around the ladder on our respective shoulders. The van that had dropped the ladder did not stop. I happened to be exiting at the same exit as the van, which was a few yards away from where the ladder fell. When we stopped in line to pay the toll, I got out of my car and ran up to the van. They rolled down their window, and said that they knew the ladder fell off and were going back for it. I got back into my car, but I should have berated them for not stopping when the ladder fell off and retrieving it. After all, a ladder blocking both lanes of a 70 mph highway certainly poses a traffic risk. When I pulled up to the toll booth, I told the toll booth lady about the ladder. The guys in the utility truck hadn't even told her about it! (For those of you who don't know, the toll lady works for the state department of transportation, which is responsible for maintaining the turnpike and therefore would be the ones to remove the ladder if the owners failed to). Then, I watched as said utility truck drove on it's happy way into Lawrence, and realized that these guys were definitly not going back to pick up their ladder. Sigh.
Very Happy for Thanksgiving Time!
First off, I am over the moon about the fact that after today I have 6 days off. 6 days off! I'm looking forward to sitting around the house in my pajamas on Wednesday, drinking coffee and watching girly movies until noon. Then I'm going to bake pies (my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner). Sound boring to you, but sounds like heaven to me!
I'm also excited about having lots of plans with my friends this coming season. Because of wedding planning/school/new jobs/new babies, I've felt pretty out of touch with them lately. We went out to dinner last night, and now have 4 get togethers on our calendars between now and January. Oh, and one includes shopping on Friday,
the best day to go shopping ever! I wouldn't agree to meeting them at 6am, so they're going to hit a couple of stores, go have breakfast, then come over at 9, which I think is a much more civilized time.
I just looked at the puffy nipples on Shanshu's site and got a little grossed out.
I'm hungry and I don't know when I get to eat lunch.
Happy Turkey Day! As we all celebrate the harvest, I think it's important to keep in mind that there are more reasons than this to celebrate. Like, it's the one day of the year that you can eat and gorge and be very gluttonous, and it is highly encouraged by society. Mmmm...turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and sweet potatoes and green bean casserole and rolls and pumpkin pie and apple pie and pecan pie. I am a lucky girl who gets dinner twice on Thanksgiving, thanks to the lovely couple ritual of attending two families worth of Thanksgiving celebrations. I plan to be wheeled from our second engagement in a barrow and plopped onto my bed in order to enjoy my lovely Tryptophan induced kip.
On a different note, I had a "fuck you, I'm sorry!" experience today. A girl ran a stop sign that I was stopped at, cutting me off. I honked at her, and she flipped me off...repeatedly...for like, three blocks. Then I was behind her at a red light, and when it turned green she just sat there. Didn't move. Played with her hair in the rearview mirror. So, I went around her in the empty oncoming traffic lane. This caused her to tailgate me for half a mile. People can be so weird! She must have decided that today was her day to act like a bozo on the first driver she ran into.
Homemade Eggnog is NOT Very Good
So I made homemade eggnog Monday night. You know, whipped up the egg whites and folded in the cream and everything else. It was not good. The nog was frothy and the texture was perfect, but ALL I could taste was the alcohol. I guess I'm so used to the eggnog that comes in the cartons at the store, with the wicked strong artificial flavor...but I tasted
nothing but liquor. It was gross, and I couldn't get myself through one cup full. I have two theories on this: 1. homemade eggnog is not as yummy as artificial storebought eggnog and/or 2. the recipe I used called for twice as much liquor as should have gone into it. I am, however, unwilling to waste the effort and ingredients on a second round using less liquor. Well, maybe I'll try again, but doubtful. Darn myself and my crazy obsessions, I guess I have to or else I'll never know and that'll drive me bonkers.
On a different note, I am sick and tired of people not taking responsibility for their mistakes. I hate people that blame everyone under the sun for something they've done wrong. I admit that, like everyone, I sometimes don't think I'm wrong when I am. That's natural, but it's usually over things that could be easily mistaken, like being rude when I think I'm just being assertive. A lot of my parents at work are the same way...everyone has a reason about why the state was wrong to take their kids, and they were done an injustice. Just like everyone in prison was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the kid at traffic court last night who was arrested for failing to appear and said his ride didn't show up. Blah, blah, blah. I want to scream at them: Oh yeah? Well how is it that this stuff doesn't happen to smart people? Because you're stupid, and that's why this happens to you! You make stupid decisions and then try and reason your way out of the consequences!
The news article that triggered my tirade goes like this: A woman drove to her boyfriend's house, went inside for a while, then looked outside to see her Jeep being driven away by some stranger. She chased it for a while, then called the police. It turns out that her car had been repossesed. It also turns out that she had a sleeping toddler in the car, who was hidden under a blanket in the backseat. Now she's mad at the repo company, stating that they should have known her kid was back there and they're so awful and blah, blah, blah.
I have a few things to say to this woman, and since I'll never have the chance to I'll do it here. First, this is why it is illegal to leave you children in your car unattended. Your car could roll, or it could be stolen, or your kids could lock you out on a 95 degree day then pass out rendering you unable to save them, or someone could open the door and kidnap them, or whatever else could happen. It was a stupid move, and she needs to be brought up on charges for it because it is child endangerment. Second, the repo man stated that he looked in the car and saw only a blanket in the back seat. That is not his fault, and while it is not the mother's fault either, she needs to stop putting the blame on him, like he drove off with her kid on purpose. Third, she is the one who didn't pay her bills and caused her car to be repossesed. Repo companies don't take cars because they like to. It is dangerous work, and they do it because the car's owner is a loser who doesn't pay his/her bills. It is no one's fault but hers that the car was in the position of being taken away. I have a feeling, however, that no one will say this to her and she will continue to live her life thinking that she was wronged. Stupid idiot.
OSW
Well, there you go. It's Wednesday...
Very, Very Awkward Work Experience
My afternoon has been pretty slow. I have a meeting at 4, but otherwise I’ve been kind of twiddling my thumbs. I was deep into online research about pecan pie recipes when a coworker asked me to be a witness. She was holding a meeting with one of her kid’s mom, and she wanted another worker there to make sure there were no questions about what was discussed. This is pretty common when you’re dealing with something as important as children being taken away from their parents. I followed her into the conference room, and was taken aback to realize that I knew the mom. Her name was Sally* and we had gone to high school together. Sally and I weren’t friends, but we had definitely run into each other. I’m pretty sure that she also used to hang up at the pool with us when I was a lifeguard. I sat down next to her and made no indication that I knew her as I introduced myself, just simply out of professional courtesy. She didn’t say anything to me, either, and I have to be honest that I didn’t blame her. It’s embarrassing enough to go into an office and convince someone that you are a good enough mother to be trusted alone with your children; it would be excruciating to know one of the people you’re explaining it to. I know that a lot of the girls who work in offices in the small towns they grew up in have this problem. All of the sudden they see those kids that used to get suspended all the time drug in front of them in court being accused of beating their kids. Most of the time, those workers are not surprised to see these people’s children in state custody. I think it’s really different when you live in a county of half a million people. You don’t go to the grocery store knowing that you’ll recognize faces, and you don’t go into work thinking that one of your classmates will be there because she hit her child. This happened once before, about three years ago. I had gone for meeting at the county mental health center, and as I was wandering around looking for where I was supposed to be, I ran into a girl who had been my friend freshman year in high school. This was different, though. For one thing, while I was at work when I saw her, I didn’t meet her as a professional. I met her as a person who happened to run into someone they knew in public. Second, she wasn’t there because she had done something horrible like hurt her child. She was there because she had mental health issues. Besides, I was not surprised at all to find out that she had mental health issues; that kind of thing always seemed to lurk behind her eyes. And, of course, I attach no stigma whatsoever to mental illnesses. It would be like if I saw her in a physician’s office where she was being treated for diabetes. Sally had done something wrong and contemptuous. She had hurt her child, and I was one of the “them” that had taken her child away, and to whom she had to prove herself. The whole situation unsettled me, and I certainly hope that I don’t meet anyone else I know personally here again.
*Sally, of course is a pseudonym
I am a little off today, because my sleeping schedule is jacked up. I went to sleep on Sunday morning instead of Saturday night (like, 5am) and it has really messed with me. I slept a little yesterday afternoon, went to bed later than normal last night, and slept through my alarm this morning. I didn't get up until 8:45am today, so while I still got in my shower, I didn't do my hair. I always feel bad if I don't do my hair before work, like even though I've bathed and have make-up on, I stink and look bad. I'm also really hungry and it's not even 11 yet. I'd like to have something interesting for lunch, but I have a feeling that when I get home I will find nothing other than Corn Pops. Not interested in Corn Pops. That's going to suck. Really need to go grocery shopping.
I'm excited about the holiday next week. Between this Friday the 18th and Tuesday the 28th, I'm only working 2 days. That's 8 days off and two days on. Sweet. AND, my best friend will be in town for the second half of my vacation. This means that we can spend time doing the stupid crap that amuses us but bores the toes off of our boyfriends. Like "grocery shopping" and ordering tomato soup at fast food restaurants. Long stories, not worth explaining because you wouldn't get it. :) I did, however, volunteer to be on call on Thanksgiving day. It was stupid because now I have to be on call on my holiday. It was not stupid because if I do end up having to work, I get time and a half.
Oh it's 11, I can go eat now and not feel like it's way to early! Later sucker!
Candy and Hamburger Helper and Dog
Candy and Hamburger Helper make for a great dinner.
I'm a pretty good advocate of healthful foods. I like to cook low-fat, fresh foods. I have sucessfully reduced our red meat to once a week or so, replacing burgers and tacos with chicken and pork. I cook with whole wheat pasta and light sauces and fresh veggies. Sometimes I sneak in turkey meat or TVP instead in our traditionally red meat recipes. Our snacks consist of pretzels and baked chips and carrots and cucumbers. Our desserts (rare as they are) are low-fat puddings and fruit. Our salad dressings are light.
Last night, however, I didn't care. I wanted fatty, nasty, horrible, artery-clogging foods. I bought a pound of ground chuck and chili cheese Hamburger helper. I cooked it with lots of the grease still in it. We ate it all, then we had candy for dessert. LOTS of candy. And I liked it!
P.S. I love Dog Chapman. Dog rocks!
