John Irving Movies

My brother had written a blog entry about John Irving’s The Cider House Rules a while back and I had intended to comment on it. I didn’t get around to it and the more I thought about it, the more I thought I should give this topic its deserved amount of attention. There are those who would rather see a movie based on a book than read the book itself. There are those who would rather read the book than see the movie. To each their own, I say.

To my knowledge, these are the JI books that were adapted to the big screen. Let me know if I’ve missed any:

The World According to Garp (1982)
The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (as Simon Birch (1998))
The Cider House Rules (1999)
A Widow for One Year (at least the first half – as The Door in the Floor (2004))

I’ve seen them all and read all of the related books. I think I actually own all of them (the books) but Garp…

The World According to Garp
This is perhaps not the best JI book or movie to start with because it’s perhaps the most bizarre. That’s not saying much though, as most of his books are kind of out there. Big screen wise, Robin Williams plays the title character, Garp, with Glenn Close as his mother. Overall the movie was very well done. I’m not sure what else to say about this one. I’ve only read the book once and although it has one of my favorite completely messed up scenes ever (the one in the car in the rain…when she bites off his…you know…) I never really got into it too much.

The Hotel New Hampshire
I actually just finished reading this one for the third or fourth time last week. The movie has a lot of relatively well-known actors (Rob Lowe, Jodie Foster) but it is really just poorly made. It sticks to the general plot points of the book but it just doesn’t give it the pizzazz I think it could have had. Maybe it’s because it was made in the 80’s, but it just has that low budget look. The book itself is one of the stranger ones. There are several themes that keep finding themselves in JI’s books: prostitution, weight-lifting, wrestling, strange sexual situations, strained relationships, death in weird ways. Someone always seems to end up in Amsterdam or somewhere else in a German-speaking European country. This book has it all.

A Prayer for Owen Meany
This is actually the first JI book I got. It was a gift from Evan (although I believe he told me that Jodi is actually the one who picked it out.) It was interesting enough, but it’s really not one of my favorites. Too much overtly political commentary I guess. The movie kind of altered the story a bit and kept Owen (aka Simon) as a child throughout the entire film rather than have him grow up as he does in the book. The overall theme therefore changed quite a bit, but the ultimate “Owen/Simon as a hero” plot point remained. But a lot less politically motivated, with no mention of Vietnam. I found the movie (starring Ashley Judd, who I’m not too fond of) to be a little dippy. A feel-good movie of sorts I suppose, but just not my cup of tea. They had to take out all of the good parts because they altered the story so much from the original.

The Cider House Rules
I read the book before I rented the movie. Therefore I didn’t have that preconceived idea of what the characters should look and act like that my brother mentions. Charlize Theron is a beautiful woman, but I didn’t really like her as Candy. I don’t know. Something about her bothered me. My favorite character in the movie version was the man who played Mr. Rose. While I must say that The Cider House Rules is perhaps the best adaptation of one of JI’s books, I’m afraid there are some problems with it. Most noticeably, the character of Melony doesn’t exist in the movie. She is a rather important person in Homer’s life in the book. I just couldn’t understand why she had been eliminated in the movie version. I saw or read an interview with JI somewhere discussing this point. Apparently he believed that her character was too strong and would ultimately overpower the other more important plot points. I guess he has a valid point – and it’s kind of hard to get a 500+ page novel into a reasonable length movie. There are other changes that were made from the book and, while I thought the movie was pretty good, the book is definitely better.

A Widow for One Year
I must say that I was the most disappointed with this movie adaptation. What I think is most disturbing is that in the extras on the DVD there is an interview with JI and he appears to have been satisfied with the whole thing. *sigh* How can you be satisfied when someone turns your awesome book into some boring hour and a half long melodramatic snore-fest? I was really looking forward to this movie as this book is one of my favorites. Granted, they only tell half of the story in the movie. The cast was decent (Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger) but it just never gathered any momentum. The book is full of great scenes and lots of heartbreak and emotion that the movie never seems to capture. Not to mention that the second half of the book is probably the better half… Eh, I was highly unimpressed with the movie. The book definitely wins in this case.

I guess it must be mentioned that in order to get a decent rating from those parents over at the MPAA, each of the books that has been made into a movie had to lose some of its JI charm. He definitely has a messed up sense of humor and is, at times, quite crude. I mean, the subject matter alone is enough to put some people off: abortion (The Cider House Rules), incest/rape (The Hotel New Hampshire), swinging – the partner-swapping kind (The 158-pound Marriage).

Anyway, I guess my point is some authors write in such a way that it’s difficult to get a decent movie out of the original publication. Most of JI’s books are near or over the 500 page mark. They’re full of wonderful description and dialogue, but it’s just not practical to try and cram all of that into a movie. Of the attempts that have been made, I’d say that CHR was the most successful. He even got an Oscar for that. (Funny about that…in his most recent book, Until I Find You, the main character is a screenwriter of sorts and JI has him fictionally win that Oscar since he didn’t want to take the award away from someone else.)

Wow, I’ve almost written an essay here. Sorry about that. :) That’s just my two cents (or perhaps a dollar or so in this case.)

Thanksgiving Weekend

We did the Thanskgiving Day meal over at Adam's parents' house as planned. We also did the "secret Santa" arrangements as planned. Since I highly doubt anyone involved (except Adam) reads this, I think it's safe to reveal that I picked his mom. I think I'm pretty much done shopping for her already. She was easy :) I'm not really planning on getting too many other people actual gifts, but we'll see how things go. I've got my letter pretty much typed out and I bought cute snowman paper yesterday while we were out shopping. The meal itself was good, as usually. Slightly non-traditional (lasagna), but good. I couldn't find my Lactaid before we left so we stopped at Wal-Mart on the way. Turns out it was hidden way in the back of one of the cupboards so now I have lots of it. I still maintain his older sister was glaring at me throughout the entire meal (she was sitting across from me) but Adam says she's just crabby all the time. Hmmm. I don't know. It was also kind of odd when his mother and younger sister kept asking what the rest of my family was doing for Thanksgiving. I guess they'd find it strange that we don't really talk to each other much, but I just gave them as much information as I had and sat there feeling stupid. *sigh* Oh well.

On Friday we had our own Thanksgiving shindig here at our house. I made cornish hens with cornbread stuffing, broccolini (baby broccoli) with lemon and garlic, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and champagne. Ok, I didn't make the champagne, but you get the idea. Pictures of the scrumptous meal can be found in my photobucket album. After making all of that I posed the idea of having Christmas here instead of at Adam's parents' house. His mom said she'd think about it, but I'm not holding my breath. That's ok though. Less hassle for me.

Saturday was our shopping day since neither of us was insane enough to go out and try and do anything on Friday. We got ornaments for the tree and garland for outside on the balcony. We bought and returned two stars before we found one that wasn't too tall or too stupid looking. Overall I think the tree looks pretty good. I might be biased though because I decorated it... It's a good thing Adam got the garland and lights up outside yesterday because it's been raining all day today. I was going to try and get a picture of them after they went on at dusk (we got a timer...) but I think I'll postpone that until it's less wet out.

Overall it was a relaxing and productive weekend.

Christmas Tree

Just a quick post here to say that we got the tree up on Friday, decorated it last night. Here's a picture:



And here's our special ornament for this year:

Yeah, I know. Cheesy.

TV

I have a lot of free times these days. That of which isn’t spent eating or messing around on the computer is generally spent watching tv. I’ve kind of gotten into a pattern. Most days I get home around 5 and watch re-runs of “7th Heaven” on ABC Family. Then at 6 I switch over to “Good Eats” on the Food Network followed by “Wheel of Fortune” at 6:30. I’m going to win that prize one of these days. I can just feel it. On Mondays I watch the new episode of “7th Heaven” on the WB and then by 8 I’m usually wiped out enough to go lay down in bed. On Tuesday we’re generally at the gym or doing other things. There’s nothing good on Tuesdays anyway. Same goes for Wednesdays. I started the season watching Martha Stewart’s version of “The Apprentice” but I very quickly lost interest. I still check it out every once in a while, but I usually end up watching the Food Network. On Thursday there’s Donald’s “Apprentice” which I watch weekly as a devoted fan. I’m rooting for Alla. :) Friday’s are pretty boring because it seems that the television programmers decided to put every horrible show on Friday. The weekends are up in the air most times. I watch a lot of “In the Kitchen” on, once again, the Food Network. Sometimes there’s a good movie on, but most times I get so bored I go and do something else. Sunday offers football and, later in the evening, “The Simpsons”, “Family Guy”, and “Desperate Housewives.”

I watch way too much tv and should really try to scale it back. It’s not as though my life revolves around it though. I am going to have to tape the special 2 hour long “Apprentice” on Thursday though because we’ll be over at Adam’s parents’ house…

Winter

Well so far winter sucks. And it isn’t even really winter yet. Last week Wednesday it snowed and rained and the temperature was just right so the roads froze over into a sheet of ice. Luckily for me, my body decided to give me a migraine headache that day so I spent my time in bed. There were something like 200 accidents on highway 41 in the couple of counties nearby. People just don’t know how to drive in this kind of weather. I have many pet peeves as I am generally annoyed about something all the time. One of my main ones around this time of year is horrible driving skills and etiquette. Last week I had to drive up to the casino in Green Bay for my IMA meeting. It was raining and dark and generally icky out. I was driving about the speed limit, leaving plenty of space between myself and the car in front of me. I just hate when you’re following a car and their tires kick all kinds of crap up on your windshield. So, a car passes me and then cuts me off, eliminating that cushion I had created. This pissed me off. I wasn’t leaving space there so he could move over. I was leaving space because that’s what you do when it’s crappy outside and you have no desire to end up with your front end smooshed into the back end of someone else. Driving in snow and ice isn’t really that complicated. You just have to be extra cautious and especially aware of the other drivers around you. People always drive too fast and that is what causes most of the accidents on highways during the winter season. I guess these people haven’t heard of “leaving a little early to give yourself some extra time to get places safely.” I am confident in my ability to drive in snow. I just doubt that ability in the other drivers on the road.

It snowed again last night and was still snowing this morning as I left for work. This is most snow in November we’ve gotten in 5 years. I’m not too thrilled with it. I had to brush a good inch or two off of my car this morning. It never fails that as I’m brushing a pile off the top of the car a gust of wind blows the whole thing back at me, dousing me in snow. It’s so annoying. The drive in to work wasn’t too bad. The snow was just beginning to get gloppy on the roads. I left about 45 minutes earlier than I usually do. But not because of the snow. I figured the earlier I got here this morning, the sooner I could leave. Traffic wasn’t too bad and there were only about 2 people who were apparently in a great hurry and rudely rushed by, endangering the lives of everyone else in the vicinity. *sigh* It’s going to be a long winter.

Christmas Gift Ideas

So this whole gift exchange thing with Adam’s family… I have to come up with some ideas of what I want for Christmas by Thursday. This is difficult for me. I’ve never been one to ask other people to get me things. I don’t know if it’s my independent streak or if it’s something else. I am just not very comfortable asking other people for things. I even feel bad about eating food in the house that I know Adam bought. I know it’s completely ridiculous. We alternate weeks, taking turns as to who pays when we go grocery shopping. It’s generally pretty equal this way. I still feel weird though, eating stuff on weeks when I know he paid. I guess it’s just something I’ll have to get over. Anyway, back to the gift exchange. Adam tells me to just put down places I could use gift cards for. I don’t know. Gift cards are en vogue these days and all, but I just think it takes the fun both out of choosing the gift and getting the gift. Plus then you know exactly how much the person spent on you. The problem is I don’t know what else to ask for. I don’t need anything and I don’t know what I want. I don’t want to ask for stupid things that I don’t need just because I have to put something down on that piece of paper. Does anyone have any ideas of what I might want to ask for? Leave me a comment if you’ve got suggestions. I’m struggling with this whole thing. Just one of the many reasons I dislike the last two months of each year…

My Problem (ok, one of them...)

There are times when I’ll think of something I really want to write about and post here. The problem is that by the time I get in front of a computer, I’ve completely forgotten what it is I wanted to write. I’ve come up with a solution. I think. I’m trying to write down the subjects I want to touch on in my little notebook and then write about them later on. We’ll see how well this works.

DB vs DC

I hate holidays. If for nothing else, I hate them because it means the few days leading up to them are the longest days at work ever. This is because all of the people who have been here for a few years have earned enough days of vacation to leave about a week and a half before the actual holiday. I think most of my office has off for the entire month of December. Me, being a humble employee with less than one year of service, does not have this luxury. So I sit here, in my cube, in the deafening silence. Today wasn’t so bad. I had stuff to do and also had a meeting about the new profit sharing plan they’re implementing, so that took up some time. Tomorrow also shouldn’t be too horrible. Residual stuff to do from today. It’s Wednesday that is going to be absolutely terrible. My manager is off as is her manager. Actually, her manager is off all week. I am guessing there will be about 5 people here on Wednesday. And by that time I will have pretty much nothing to do. The middle of the month tends to drag because not much is happening in my world. I’m not looking forward to it.

Now about this new profit sharing thing here at work… Formerly they had a defined benefit pension plan. With my vast accounting knowledge, I can tell you that these kinds of plans are a pain in the butt. But actuaries like them a lot because they keep them employed, coming up with complicated formulas and pulling numbers out of the air and all. The company finally decided that it was time to change. This was not particularly a big surprise to me. DB plans are kind of like the original version Nintendo. Or maybe even the Atari. They’re old news. What’s big and hot are the DC, Defined Contribution, plans. Otherwise known as your 401(k). These are much easier to manage and a lot of the responsibility is put on the employee rather than on the employer. Of course, the employer is still responsible for ensuring that the money they say they’re putting aside for the employees is really there (there have been quite a few debacles around that subject lately), but there are no funky formulas and the company isn’t the one putting up all the cash. Pretty nice deal for their side, eh? Understandably, this is causing a bit of a ruckus among employees who have been with the company for a while but not long enough to be grandfathered under the old plan. This doesn’t affect me as I’ve been here less than a year. I am not even vested in the pension plan and will therefore not even be included in the people who will have their service years frozen.

I’ve digressed. My original plan was to talk about the new profit sharing program. Now, when I worked as an intern over at Presto Products, I was very familiar with their profit sharing program. Heck, I did all the payout estimates and booked the accrual each month for three years. I knew what elements were measured and what the payout percent would be for each level attained. I must say, they had a pretty good program. If the company did well, employees could get quite the bonus. This bonus was in the form of a check sent out in February. Cash. Moola. That employees could spend right away on whatever they wanted. Good deal. Now, this new “profit sharing” plan that Bemis has come up with is different. This incentive will come in the form of contributions to the accounts you have elected for your 401(k) to go to. You can’t touch this money until you retire. It’s based on % growth of EPS year to year. At a minimum, everyone will earn 2% (of your wages, that is.) At a maximum, 5%. I don’t know. It’s not smart to complain about “free” money, but it seems like we’re getting a bum deal somehow. I know Americans in general really need to learn how to save and it’s good that the company is trying to help secure comfortable retirements for their employees. I guess it’s not fair to compare one company to another, but it just seems like something is off. Maybe I came into this company with too much knowledge about what kind of benefits other people get…

In any case, I’ve bumped my 401(k) contribution up to 8% to get the maximum company match starting January 1st. That’s another point I could grumble about (they contribute, at max, 2.5%) but I won’t. I can’t complain too much or I might get in trouble. :)

I'm going to asphyxiate myself with my phone cord

It’s amazing that phones with cords still exist. Sometimes I would kill for a cordless phone at my desk at work. Over the past week or so, my phone cord has become a knotted mass of plastic. When I pick up the receiver to answer, the entire base of the phone scoots along my desk after it. I have to lean my neck down in order to talk into the phone at a distance where the person on the other end can hear me. It’s just ridiculous. So today I took action. I took the receiver off the base and dangled it over the edge of the desk. I watched it twist and turn for a few minutes. It didn’t get all the knots out, but it’s a vast improvement. Unfortunately I’m certain this is just a temporary fix. Stupid phones.

Not much has been going on lately. Can you tell? I’ll be up in Green Bay this evening for the joint IMA meeting. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night. If I get too bored, I suppose I could just sneak out and go to the casino that is next door. Heh. Adam is left to his own devices this evening, as he has the night off and I’ll be out. Tomorrow and Thursday I’ll be working up in New London on the fixed asset inventory I think I mentioned before. It should be interesting. The Plant Manager has assured me it will definitely be a painful experience. And he wasn’t joking. Between tonight and two days breathing in ink fumes, I should have one heck of a headache for the remainder of the week. Yay! Good thing nothing of much importance is going on. The monthly executive meeting is this Friday, so I’m looking forward to the free food that generally accompanies it. One of the perks of working at the corporate office I guess.

I bought Christmas cards yesterday while shopping at Shopko. I haven’t started working on a letter at all, but perhaps I’ll get on that this weekend. It’s still relatively early, so I’m not too concerned. I do like to get mine out early though. That way people who forgot I existed still have the chance to reciprocate the card before the time has come and gone. Aren’t I nice? Since my twice in a row computer hard-drive meltdowns, I have been backing my hard-drive up every couple of weeks. This means my address file should be safe. Of course, if anyone reading this knows for a fact that I don’t have your address or the address I’ve got is wrong, let me know. I don’t really plan to send out a “give me your address” e-mail at all. I figure if someone moved and didn’t bother to tell me, they don’t deserve a card. So there.

Now some random blogging about stuff in the news that caught my attention:

* As it has made national headlines, I’m sure most of you have heard about Steven Avery and Teresa Halbach. I just find it kind of fishy that this guy is released from prison in 2003 after it is found that he didn’t really rape someone and then he goes and (most likely) murders this woman, hides her car and possessions, and burns her body. It seems kind of suspicious to me. His previous conviction was overturned due to DNA evidence that proved it wasn’t him. This additional testing only came at the insistence of a group called the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which is associated with the University of Wisconsin Law School. Now, it’s not that I’m doubting the reliability of DNA evidence. It just seems odd that he is almost certainly responsible for this new crime. When he was released from prison 2 years ago, he appeared all over the news saying he had no hard feelings for the DA or the courts for their mistake. He is currently in the process of suing for wrongful imprisonment or something. Then he goes and does something like this? But apparently the whole family is kind of shady. They own an auto yard in Mishicot or thereabouts and even most of the neighbors are wary to talk about them on camera. He has been formally charged of the crime this afternoon after being held for a gun violation. It should be interesting to see how this plays out. His brother is already crying out that he’s been framed by the local police who apparently have it out for the entire family. But it has also been reported that some of the family loyalty is waning with all the evidence that is being released to the pubic.

* Last week an 18-year-old was elected mayor of a small town out in Michigan. He beat out the incumbent by something like 2 votes. And some people say their vote doesn’t count? Granted, this particular town only has 8,200 residents. It should be interesting to see if he shows up in more “important” races down the line or if this first taste of political action kills his desire to lead.

* They’re going to raise postage by 2 cents on January 8, 2006. Oh no! Thank goodness it doesn’t take effect until AFTER Christmas cards are sent. That increase could send some people into bankruptcy.

* The Advance Titan is the newspaper associated with the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I know a few people who are still on staff there and all I can say is that I’m embarrassed for them. The paper has been degraded to such low quality journalism that it isn’t even funny. Add to that the joke that is the comments section on their website and you have a perfect display of how colleges have been forced to admit just about anyone in order to make ends meet. I actually know the EIC, and although I can believe that he is doing some of the things he’s doing, it doesn’t seem like it would be good move, career-wise. He can’t just go and delete everything he wrote here when he decides to finally graduate and get a “real” job. I continue to read the online version every week because, let’s face it, who can resist a train wreck? What I’d really like to know though is where the faculty is in all of this. I know the paper is not associated with the journalism department, but perhaps they should be. It pains me to be associated with this level of moronism. But then again, if you think the AT is bad, you should check out Life and Liberty News, “UW-Oshkosh's #1 Source for Political Commentary,” (aka UWO’s right-winged newspaper wannabe.) It really is quite amusing and possibly worse journalism than the AT.

PCD

Ok, a couple different things I want to touch on in this post.

First of all, I broke down and bought an actual CD this past week. Normally I'd do the "borrowing from other people illegally" thing, but I decided to do the right thing on this one. It's the Pussycat Dolls. I'm not sure exactly what possessed me to go ahead and purchase this CD, but I'm kind of glad that I did. Now, the Pussycat Dolls appear to be the lead singer and then four or five backup ladies who dance around in their underwear, thrusting their hips, acting like hookers, asking whether you want your girlfriend to be a freak like they are. Surprisingly, very few of the songs on their CD are anything like their "Don'tcha" hit. There are a few tracks that even have a blues kind of mood. The lead singer, Michelle, actually has quite a powerful and amazing voice. Sometimes she sounds like Natalie Cole, sometimes like Christina Aguilera. If you can ignore one or two of the songs, the CD itself is pretty decent.

Secondly, we went and got a Christmas tree this past Thursday. It is sitting in the box in the second bedroom and will probably stay there until after Thanksgiving. It's a 7 foot Alleghany Pine or Fir or something. Fake of course. (I think the "it's in a box" thing should have given that away.) It's a cute tree. Hopefully it will fluff appropriately after being de-boxed.

As of now, it looks like we'll be going over to Adam's parents' house on Thanksgiving evening, after Adam is done at work. They're not quite sure what they'll be doing yet. It all depends on how his mother feels - she had shoulder surgery this past week and is hopped up on drugs. Adam works again the day after Thanksgiving, but not until 5pm, so we plan to have a quasi-Thanksgiving thing here in the morning or early afternoon. We saw this good looking recipe on Food Network yesterday morning for cornish hens with cornbread stuffing, so we're going to give that a try.

I admit it, I'm totally addicted to the Food Network. I recently got one of Rachel Ray (i.e. the lady who does 30 minute meals)'s cook books and made her pretzel coated chicken this afternoon. Yum-O! LoL.

Anyway, for Christmas, apparently it's a tradition to do a "secret Santa" deal with his family, so I'm included this year. It should be interesting. I'm not real big into the Christmas/holiday thing, so we'll see how well I handle this.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to go to the gym (or do Tae Bo here at home) everyday. I went alone on Friday and we went together on Saturday morning. Including Tuesday, I figure I did about 5.5 or 6 miles this week. *sigh* I need to be more motivated.

Anyway, I've spent the day cooking and cleaning up after myself interspersed with episodes of "Sex and the City" and some football. I can't believe the Vikings pulled another field goal out of nowhere to win. So awesome...

Blogging about a blog

As I was perusing some other blogs on the blogspot domain, I came across a blog from an 8th grade teacher in Ohio. She posts questions and her students respond in the comments section. One of the questions posted asked whether you’d rather be a jock or a nerd. I found most of the responses laughable and filled with pathetic grammatical and spelling mistakes. 8th graders are typing these answers? What is the world coming to? Perhaps I was just an extraordinarily articulate 13-year-old.

One of the responses that made me laugh out loud was this one (with some liberties taken to correct spelling):

“I would rather be a jock because jocks play sports. Nerds read and do home work all the time and don't have fun. Jocks can become a famous athlete someday. Nerds could become the president. And for some reason everybody hates the president.”

Everybody doesn’t hate the president because he’s a nerd. Everybody hates the president because he’s an IDIOT with seemingly little or no knowledge of how to run the country. And there are absolutely no famous athletes that everybody hates…no…course not… And what about Arnold? He’s more of a jock than a nerd. And that guy from Minnesota…the wrestler who was governor for awhile. Politicians aren’t always the ones with the brains. ‘Tis a shame.

It just amazed me how alike most of the answers were. The kids who wanted to be a jock stated that by being the jock one could: 1) be popular, 2) play sports and thereby get a hot body, 3) get the chicks, 4) be famous. They didn’t want to be a nerd because nerds: 1) are losers, 2) get picked on, 3) have no life and sit at home doing homework all day and all night. The kids who went the other way and opted for the nerdish way of life said that nerds: 1) get better grades and therefore can get into college more easily, 2) are nicer than jocks. They didn’t want to be jocks because jocks: 1) are jerks, and 2) are stupid. Now, it looks like the jocks have a better argument going on here, which I find disheartening since the jocks are the ones who are supposed to be stupid…

I’m am, without a doubt, a nerd. I really don’t remember sitting at home doing homework all night. Then again, I never did homework at any time. I got picked on, but not necessarily because of my nerd status. I think it was more my fat status that prompted that. But I think there’s something to be said for the attractiveness of intelligence. There are plenty of people out there perfectly willing to look past a hideous outside in order to extort the smarts underneath. It’s amazing what people will do to get someone else to do their homework. In any case, I found this particular posting especially interesting. Full of stereotypes and generally bad for society, but interesting nonetheless.

These children are our future (jocks and nerds.)

The Blue Screen of Death

I’ve been slacking on this blogging thing. Sometimes it’s like days go by and I don’t even notice. Last week was pretty uneventful. Adam worked every night so I was left alone to my own devices most of the time. I went to the gym alone on Thursday, which was ok. It was kind of busy, but I did about 40 minutes on the treadmill, liking the incline feature. Adam had Saturday off so we went out to a bar for the first time in a long time. We slept in on Saturday morning, something else that hadn’t happened for quite some time. We took some time to go shopping, but didn’t really end up buying too much. He watched the Badger game (or at least as much of that as he could – apparently they got their butts kicked) and some Ultimate Fight thing later on in the evening while I took a nap and tried to alleviate my headache. He worked again on Sunday so that left me to watch the Vikings win and the Packers lose. All is right with the world. When he got home we went bowling (which had been the original intention on Friday.) I was able to prove that I do, indeed, really suck at the game. I bowled 60 or 70 something, 91, 47. Just pathetic. I did beat Adam on the second game though. Not quite sure how that happened. In any case, we stopped at Taco Bell on the way home and called it a night after watching (most of) Desperate Housewives.

Today has been a long day. And it’s not even over yet. I planned to take the trash down to the dumpsters this morning on my way to work. On the way down the stairs, the handle on the paper bag in which I had stashed the old newspapers and cardboard boxes decided to rip off and the whole thing went tumbling down the stairs, spewing newspaper et al all down the stairs. I should have taken that as a sign… When I got to work, I turned on my computer and surveyed the mess that is my desk. As soon as I logged in and the startup scripts started running, I got the “blue screen of death.” Now, this had also happened last Friday, at which point I called the IT helpdesk and someone came down and looked at it. Apparently they forgot the part where they’re supposed to FIX it. *sigh* So, right away at 7:30 I called the helpdesk again. Got a different person and told him the lowdown. He said he’d inform the person I’d worked with on Friday what was going on when she came in (around 8:30.) Ok. Fine. I putzed around for a bit trying to find something to do that didn’t involve a computer. Hard to do these days. I decided to finally get rid of a bunch of file folders from 2004 that have been sitting on my desk since…well…2004. That done, I sat and waited. And waited some more. As 9:00 rolled around, I gave the consultant from Friday a call to her direct line. I got her voicemail (shocking, I know) and left her a message. Time ticked by with no response. Around 9:30, I called the helpdesk again and got a third person. I told her what was going on and she said she’d ask the other two how things were going and they’d get back to me. Sure. As I grew more bored, I decided to go offer my assistance to anyone who might need some (non-computerized) help. The first person I asked was Sue, the receptionist. Rather than give me any work, she decided to call the head honcho up in the IT department and get to the bottom of this whole thing. HH tells Sue that first IT person (from Friday) will call me. So I head back to my desk and wait for the phone to ring. And wait some more. Finally my manager is just as frustrated as I am so SHE calls the helpdesk. Surprisingly (or perhaps coincidentally) she gets the person I had worked with on Friday. Said IT person claims she didn’t know that no one had come down yet. Uhm, yeah. Ok then. I think the helpdesk needs to work on their communication skills. So, at about 10:45 I finally get someone to come down and look at my computer. It progressed throughout the morning to bluescreening as the login scripts started to bluescreening before I even logged on, to bluescreening about a minute after startup. I actually got a read an email once! Anyway, when the IT person got down here, it let me log in and gave her no problems while she read error logs, did diagnosis crap, downloaded and installed drivers. Pfft, I don’t know. I’m no IT person. I regained possession of my computer a little after 11. It appears to be working for now, but I’m not holding my breath that I’ve seen the last of the evil blue screen. I’m just hoping it doesn’t take 3 ½ hours to get it working the next time. You’d think the fact that I wasted that much time waiting around would have made the day go faster. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to work that way.

Not quite sure what the plans are for tonight. Adam has off, so we’ll be going to the gym for awhile. After that things are pretty much up in the air.

The coming weeks don’t look too exciting either. Next week I have the IMA meeting up in Green Bay. It’s a joint meeting with another chapter so I’m hoping the meal collections aren’t too messed up. The meal choices leave a bit to be desired: shrimp scampi or filet mignon. I’m probably going to go with the filet mignon in the hopes that it comes with side dishes that are more appetizing than the shrimp. Adam tells me to eat at McDonalds on the way there and then bring the filet mignon home for him. We’ll see. I’ll be up in New London two or three times this month since I have to do a fixed asset inventory. I’m pretty sure 95% of the stuff on the current list is nonexistent, but I still have to wander the plant looking for it. *sigh* Other than that, not a lot is going on. It looks like Adam will be working both Thanksgiving and the day after. I’ll most likely be cooking a chicken on one of those days since I dislike turkey and I’ll have a lot of spare time.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got. I plan to start working on an “end of the year” letter at some point. That should be fun, given the reactions I got to the one I sent last year. Heh.

Weekend Past

So his parents came to dinner on Saturday. We stuck with the original fondue idea, using white and wheat french bread, apples, broccoli, and carrots as dippers. No pictures though. I didn't even think to take any. They got here pretty much right on time. Adam was still finishing up cutting the apples, so they kind of wandered around in a self-tour type thing and then ended up back in the living room. We ate dinner (which they seemed to enjoy) and then Adam and his dad retreated over by the computer to discuss televisions and cars while I sat on the futon with his mom and talked about a variety of things. They departed after 7 sometime. They seemed to approve of the house. His dad is a lot more softspoken about everything and doesn't tend to say much, so I don't really know what he was thinking. One thing that kind of miffed me (wow, retro word) was that his mom kept saying, "very nice, Adam" or "It looks good, Adam." I mean, I know she wasn't too hyped about the whole situation, but it's not like he's doing this alone. For Pete's sake, 75% of the stuff here is mine. *sigh* I know it's not something I should take personally, he is her son and all, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't hate me, but it was just something that bothered me. She could have said, "very nice, guys" or something else that would have included me. I'm pretty sure I'm making a big deal of out something that isn't a big deal, but I had it get it out there.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. We did some shopping, but generally spent most of the weekend doing nothing. This was the first weekend that Adam had off from Wal-Mart since he started working there. This caused a bit of tension since I'm not used to him being around all day. Every time there's a change in what's become "normal" it takes some adjustment. Every adjustment seems to lead to some flare up of someone's nerves. Usually mine. Meh. It's ok. We survive.

There's nothing of much excitement for the rest of the year at this point. I have a few more vacation days to use up, but I don't forsee any traveling worth mentioning since Adam will most likely be working on the days he'd otherwise have off (ie, Thanksgiving...) It's ok with me. I'm not big into holidays anyway, having worked in retail for 5 years. He still plans on getting a Christmas tree at some point. I guess I can deal with that but he knows it is his responsibility to decorate it.

And now for a comment out of the blue: Sometimes I wish I had more female friends or actually more close friends regardless of their gender. I don't really have anyone to talk to about, well, anything, and I'm not sure that's a good situation. *sigh*

Oh, Celine...

I must admit I was quite amused by this headline on Yahoo! news this afternoon – “Celine's Spawn Will Go On” – a story about how Ms. “I married a guy twice my age who I should have been able to trust because he was my manager” wants another child. Since she’s almost 40 *GASP* she’s decided that she’d better “bring the frozen embryo to life pretty soon.” That’s not the weirdest thing she said in this article. She apparently wants to become an actress (because, let’s face it, what “singer” doesn’t) because she wants to win an Oscar. For the love of… Ok, so she’s won a few Grammys (one for the awful, awful Titanic abomination) but this does not mean she can act. Especially not to Oscar levels. Stick to Vegas, Celine. The smoke and mirrors can mask the fact that you can’t sing.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m feeling particularly crabby today. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and in general, my whole body hurts. After work tonight I get to go and pick up the next wave of Seasonale which means I get to drop $120 in a matter of about 30 seconds. Thanks a lot Express Scripts, for covering a whopping $5.99. Stupid insurance plan… I suppose it’s cheaper than a baby though. *sigh*

I really don’t have too much to say. Haven’t been doing much these days. I’ve started watching Sex in the City again. Third time through now. It’s just such a good show. I recently got the first two issues of my Games! magazine subscription so that might keep me entertained for a while. Perhaps it will stave off Alzheimer’s disease as well since I think that’s the one that can be avoided by doing crossword puzzles. I really need to find a hobby, something to do on nights when I end up at home, alone and bored.

I feel like such a boring person sometimes. I used to be interesting. What happened?

What is my problem?

There’s something about myself I can’t explain. My boss has been gone at the doctor all day today. Pretty much everyone else on my side of the building is out of town at sales meetings or on vacation. In fact the only people anywhere near me are my boss’ boss and the president’s secretary. Everyone else is gone. My back began hurting yesterday morning and continued to do so this morning. I’ve also been sneezing a lot and my nose is running like a faucet. I’m still tired from about a week of sleeping poorly. So why am I still here, sitting at my desk at work? Adam tells me repeatedly, “Just go home and sleep.” I have plenty of vacation left and in all reality, I could probably just pick up and leave (without taking vacation) and no one would care.

So, once again, why am I here? It’s not like there’s any pressing need for me to be here right now. I accomplished the important A/R stuff this morning and what I’ve been doing since then is stuff that is relatively flexible when it comes to completion dates. It’s like the bank thing. Why do I find it so hard to switch banks? There’s no logical explanation. Back to the work thing though – sure, in the past I would have come to work unless I was dying just because if I didn’t show up, I didn’t get paid. That’s not the case here. I would get paid whether I am here or not. It’s a strange situation that I haven’t quite gotten used to. In the 9 months that I’ve been here, I’ve called in sick once. That was due partially to having stayed up late into the night crying and having important conversations with Adam and partially due to the fact that I had a killer migraine (probably caused by the other factor.) I’m not sure it’s a work ethic and since it’s no longer motivated by money, I’m not sure what the problem is. It’s not like if I leave, the whole place will fall apart. There’s no way I make myself out to be that important. It’s not that I fear being fired if I leave every once in a while. The people here are incredibly nice and understanding and appear to bend over backwards to help people out whenever possible.

So, I ask again, what is my problem? I even have problems when I’m requesting vacation days. These are days that are included in my compensation package. If I don’t take them, they vanish at the end of the year and I’m technically working more hours than I need to. Being a salaried employee, the whole idea of a 40 hour work week is kind of a non-issue and I suppose that causes problems too. I work 8 hours each day. Usually I don’t really need to be here for all 8, but I stick around in case something comes up. I guess the whole thing just confuses me. Why do I have such a problem with not going to work for a day or two? After I’ve decided to do it and actually leave or don’t go to work, I seem to be ok with it. It’s just the initial “I’m going home and there’s nothing you can do about it” thing that I can’t seem to get over most of the time. *sigh* It’s annoying.

Because then I end up like I am right now. Sitting here on a Friday afternoon, mostly alone, bored out of my mind, cursing myself for not leaving at noon. And my streaming radio doesn’t work so I’m sitting here in silence, which is even worse.

Wow, I really went off on that, didn’t I? On to more pleasant things…

This weekend should be pretty low-key. There’s nothing much planned. I, of course, have a list of things I’d like to accomplish, but as is always true, that doesn’t mean those things will get done. I’ll be stopping at Shopko on the way home tonight to check out getting a second set of sheets. It never occurred to us that we might want to wash the ones we have sometime…ha ha… I also need to stop at the grocery store to get some more sweet & sour sauce. Sweet & sour chicken just isn’t the same without sweet & sour sauce. It’s kind of just, well, chicken chicken. We slacked off on the gym thing yesterday because of my back so we’re going to definitely go tomorrow morning. Hopefully for longer than a half hour like last week. I got off the treadmill I was on to go talk to Adam who was on a bike behind me and the crazy bitch who had been running next to me hopped off of her treadmill, got on mine, and continued the program I was on. WTF? Perhaps we’ll go late enough that I can try out the step class. We were there too early last week because we wanted to go grocery shopping before Adam had to go to work. Meh. Always so much of that to worry about.

I was informed this afternoon that his parents will be coming for dinner next Saturday. Now that we got a decent looking (i.e. not a cheap Kmart card table) dining room table, it’s ok to have them over to tour our fantabulous apartment. This means I have to do some cleaning. Adam insinuates that his mother is very good at noticing things that any normal person would just skip over. This means I’ll also have to do some hiding of things. Tee hee. As things go now, we’re planning on doing a fondue thing. I’m not completely sure it’s how I would have chosen to spend one of the only Saturdays that Adam has had off since starting at Wal-Mart, but what can you do? It should be interesting.

Adventures in furniture shopping

Did you know that today is “Credit Union Members Appreciation Day?” Yeah, well, neither did I until I went to the bank at lunch today to cash my security deposit reimbursement (we’ll get to that subject in a bit) and was told to take some free food from their ample spread. Apparently not many members had stopped in to be appreciated during the morning. Good cookies though… Now if only they’d appreciate me enough to be open past 4pm or on Saturdays. And maybe even update their online banking site more than once a day. Although just the fact that they have online banking is a huge improvement since that just came into existence about a year ago. UWO CU sucks. I think I mentioned that before…

Anyway, back to this security deposit thing. I got the letter from my former landlord yesterday. It said (and I paraphrase,) “Oh we just LOVED having you as a tenant. You rocked! Here’s a list of things wrong with the way you left your apartment…” wherein it continued on listing stupid things like the carpet was dirty and I didn’t defrost the freezer. Bah! Thing is, they didn’t deduct anything from my security deposit for these “discrepancies.” I’m not going to make a big deal about them libeling me or anything since they didn’t charge me for any of it. But why bother listing that stuff if you didn’t take money from me? *sigh* I just don’t get it.

Continuing on with the stupidity that was my Wednesday, I got a bill from Time Warner (my favorite people these days it seems) forwarded to my PO Box from my old apartment. It was a bill for road runner service from 10/16 to 11/15. Hmmm. Seems to me I moved in September. I also got another bill at the new place for the cable/internet package deal thing we’ve got going on there. Funny thing is the credit I was supposed to get for a partial month showed up on the bill for the new place and they still went and charged me for the next month at the old place. Idiots. So I got to go to TWC at lunch today. I managed to sneak in right before the big lunch rush. There was only one teller there (kind of reminded me of the DMV) and she was pretty rude. They really need to work on their customer service. And their tech support. All in all, Time Warner really sucks. But there’s not really any other option for cable around here, so we’re stuck. Anywho, it all got taken care of. Who wants to take bets on whether I get another bill from the old place next month?

Adam got a call from his manager and was told he didn’t have to work at Wal-Mart so we decided to run up to GB and take a look at what the Furniture Seconds outlet had to offer in terms of a dining room table. After missing the exit, driving all the way through De Pere, and being caught by a very slow moving train, we arrived at the store. At 6:05. They close at 6. Luckily Adam had called them while we were waiting for the train to get out of the way and the guy there agreed to stay open a few minutes longer. We actually had to go in through the back door. Fortunately we found exactly the table we were looking for at a great price. I would have felt kind of bad if we had made the guy wait around for us and then left without buying anything. In any case, we bought it last night and Adam went and picked it up this afternoon. He should actually be putting it together as I type this. It was very similar to the one we had liked at Ashley except it was a lighter color, it had a formica heat-resistant top, came with 6 chairs rather than 4, and cost about $150 less. It is still a 42” round table that becomes a 42” X 60” oval when the leaf is in. I’m sure I’ll take a picture of it later.

Steve...and other musings

So I ran into Steve today. Well, sort of. I don’t think he saw me. In case any of you are wondering who Steve is, refer to “making out in the Polk library elevator” entry of October 3, 2004 (oh, I’m sure there are other entries that refer to him, but that was the most recent one…) I was on my way to Hardee’s for lunch and as I pulled into the parking lot, a blue car pulled in after me and parked right in front of the door. I thought to myself, “Hmm, that car looks familiar…” When the guy driving got out, I only saw him from the back but I thought to myself, “Hmm, that back looks familiar…” When I got inside, I caught a glimpse of his face and thought to myself, “Oh shit.” Now, my “relationship” with Steve was sordid to say the least. We met in a questionable fashion and things just continued on from there. (Steve is the guy who had a girlfriend who he neglected to tell me about. I only found out about her existence when she started threatening me.) For one reason or another, we kept in touch (muahahaha) on and off for 4 or so years, most recently during my last semester at UWO. He was the bad influence who kept convincing me to skip my History 102 class. In any case, it was interesting to see him this afternoon, although not entirely a desired meeting. I don’t think I really had any reason to freak out. He always had a bad habit of not acknowledging my existence in public. *sigh* Anyway, that was my exciting moment of the day.

Tomorrow is the first IMA meeting of this year that I’m actually going to be at. If you recall, I accidentally scheduled my vacation during the week of the first one back in September. I went to the bank to get some change for the cash box (that’s one of my jobs: collecting money for dinner tickets.) Someone had the brilliant idea of changing the meal price from $15 to $18, so now I’m sure everyone will just give me a $20 so I had to get some $1s. When I asked the bank teller for $50 in singles, she gave me a weird look. Was it really such a strange request? It’s not like I asked for $50 in pennies… I really, really, really, really, really don’t like my bank. Oh wait, sorry, Credit Union. It sucks for many reasons. What can you expect though? It’s part of the UW System, which inherently sucks.

Speaking of that, I got a window cling that announces that I’m an alumnus of the UWO College of Business. Adam asked me if I wanted him to hang it up in my car. I was like, “Pfft, hell no!”

I know I should switch banks. I don’t really have any valid reasons not to. My current excuses are that I want to use up my checks and that I don’t want to go through the hassle of changing my direct deposit stuff. Ok, so checks cost, what, $12? *sigh* And I can change my bank distributions myself through the intranet now. So I have no excuse. Grrr.

Random Comments

All I can say to this is "WHY!?!!?!?!?" It's not a freakin' clown car lady! And she wants more! *shakes head* I can barely imagine having one or two. I guess I could just say "to each their own" but this seems to have gotten out of hand. If they were all born naturally (and I'm assuming there were) they must just be sliding out by now. Eww.

And then of course there's the TomKitten (blech) fiasco. *sigh* I'm not even going to comment further on that one. What is it about having children out of wedlock that has become so popular and even acceptable lately? I mean even BRITNEY SPEARS got married before SHE got knocked up. Once again, is birth control not in 90% of the countrys' vocabulary? Geesh.

On a completely unrelated topic, we went to see Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit on Tuesday. It was better than I had expected it to be with plenty of sight gags. My favorite had to be near the end of the movie where (for reasons I can't explain without giving too much away) Wallace is naked and Grommit throws a box over his private parts and the box has a label that says "May Contain Nuts." I just cracked up over that one. That and the band-aids on Lady Tottington's hair after it gets pinned to something in her garden with a pitchfork.



Tee hee. Anyway, It's a movie I'd suggest if for nothing else but for the short featuring the penguins from Madagascar that preceds the actual film. Hilarious.

Anniversary

So we celebrated our 6 month “official” anniversary yesterday by taking the day off from work and getting a room at an expensive hotel in downtown Appleton. Of course, we couldn’t check into the room until 3 pm, so that gave us a good chunk of the day to do other things. We started by sleeping in. Until 8. Hey, it’s better than nothing. Then Adam finished building the bar stools. We took the boxes down to the trash area and were accosted by an old man who asked Adam if we were the neighborhood “alarm clock.” We were both confused until we realized he was accusing Adam of being too loud in opening and closing the dumpster lids. By this time it was after 9:30, so I really didn’t see the problem with making a little noise while depositing trash in the dumpster. Apparently we got the “crabby sleep-in-late old person” neighborhood.

After snickering a bit about the stupidity, we headed off to Club West to sign up for a real membership. Turns out the person we needed to talk to was busy when we got there so the lady at the front desk told us to go do our workout stuff first and stop by on our way out. I hit the treadmill again and did only a mile before Adam got bored and took me into the weight room. We did various things in there, mostly working the arms since the treadmill takes care of the leg portion. My shoulders are so sore today. Eh. We’ll be going back tomorrow and I’ll be checking out the step class. No really. We will. Now that we’re paying for it, we might as well go and use the equipment. It’s scary…I have a gym membership. It’s like we’ve entered a new dimension or something. (Twilight Zone music)

After going home and showering we headed up to Appleton to do some shopping. Adam was looking for a costume for his Halloween parties at both his jobs. We also stopped a few places to check out what was available for a dining room table. So far it appears that a round (made oval by a leaf) table out at Ashley Furniture Homestore is in the lead spot. We hope to hit up a few other stores before the final decision is made, but the salesperson told us it takes 2 or 3 weeks to get the table in after it’s ordered and Adam wants it by Thanksgiving so that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time.

By this time it was after 3 so we headed over to The Copperleaf to check in and relax a little. I took pictures of the hotel room, so check them out over on photobucket. Adam was enthralled by the alarm clock in the room – a HoMedics sound spa. It projected the time on the ceiling and awoke us to the roar of a waterfall. He decided he wanted one so I decided to get him one for Sweetest Day (tomorrow). But shhhh. Don’t tell him. We watched some tv and Adam sat in the whirlpool tub for a while before we went to dinner. We ate at Sal’s Pizza, a smallish restaurant right across the street from the hotel. They serve pizza by the slice. The slices are equivalent in size to a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I had chicken parmesan. Their breadsticks are wonderful as well. Just the right hint of garlic. After dinner we hit up the liquor store down the street for some (cheap) champagne and then headed back to the hotel. We watched The Apprentice and then kind of fell asleep. We’re so sad.

We woke up at 5:15 this morning to get ready for work and grab some breakfast at the hotel. We totally weren’t thinking when we took Thursday off but not Friday. *sigh* I was slightly dismayed to discover that the shampoo and soaps in fancy hotels suck just as much as the ones in your el cheapo Excel Inn types. My skin is so dry today it’s not even funny.

Then we went downstairs and got into a discussion with the guy behind the front desk about the payment for the room. Originally the reservation was made under Adam’s name using his debit card. When we checked in, the machine wouldn’t read his card. It kept coming back with some kind of read error. The front desk called us in the room three or four times. We eventually gave them MY card number and apparently it worked. When they slipped the express checkout slip under our door this morning it had my card number with his name. So we went down to the desk to change it. We learned that it couldn’t be changed. I informed the man that theoretically I could refuse to pay the bill when it came through on my account. They had no proof that my card had ever been in their hotel and they had no proof that I authorized any kind of charge. He went and double checked the number about 3 times (yet never asked to see the card!) I told him that really made no difference because they had gotten that number over the phone. I could have just made it up (funny enough, he STILL didn’t ask to see the card.) It didn’t seem to get through to him and we never got it resolved. I’m still torn over whether I want to make a big deal out of it or not.

The same thing happened with the U-Haul truck when we moved. Adam signed the paperwork since it was under his name and he was driving, but it was my card number – and I signed NOTHING. It really concerns me that both U-Haul and a rather respectable hotel are so lax about this kind of thing. I mean people could be using anyone’s credit card if they wanted to. They never saw the card that they charged this morning. They never saw any kind of identification from me or Adam. I could be someone completely different from who I say I am. It worries me, this complete disregard for all the security measures that could be in place. This is also why I watch my accounts like a hawk. Who knows who could have gotten access to my accounts and important information? It’s crazy.

Anyway, we sat and ate breakfast, meeting the owner of the hotel (on his day off – he said he couldn’t stay away) in the process. Then we went our separate ways to work. I stopped at the apartment on the way to drop off the bags and take my pills. We’ve both been very tired today. Every time he calls me he’s yawning. I’m going to go home and take a nap. I’ll need my energy for tomorrow morning.

A Virtual Tour...

So, I finally got my act together and took pictures of the apartment. They should be posted on my Photobucket page. I think most of them are self explanatory. It's an apartment, not an abstract work of art... So, yeah, that's the new place.

Not much else to say besides that. My weekend is to be filled with many naps and perhaps some baking. When the weather goes from 85 one day to 48 the next, some baking is in order.

Well, since I'm already sitting here...

I might as well post a little something here. I had to log in to change my "location" to Neenah anyways. The apartment is pretty much unpacked and in order. In fact, I think it's just as unpacked and in order as the last time I wrote... Heh... I need to get my act together and finish going through the stuff I brought back with from my mom's house as well as taking care of all the extra cordage from the computer. I'm debating about whether it's worthwhile to hook up the ol' webcam and mic or not. It's not like I ever use them. Hmm. Decisions... I guess the point of this entire rambling paragraph is that I don't have any pictures yet. I don't want to post pictures of a messy house. :)

Well, we started our one week trial period at a cute little gym here in Neenah. Adam gets some kind of corporate discount rate and since I live with him, I'm considered his spouse (what, huh!?!) so I get a membership for like $10. I went on one of those elliptical trainer things and lastest for a whole 10 minutes. Those things are hard on your knees! Then I stuck to the good old treadmill for 45 minutes. I was at 3.3 mph for the majority of the time. (Go me! LoL) I was unaware that you're not supposed to just hit "stop" when you're done, but you're supposed to slow to a stop, so I stopped abruptly and my body kind of kept going. It was a weird feeling. Then we hung out in the swimming pool and then the hot tub for a bit. We're going to be going back again on Thursday (Adam's other night off.) It seems like a nice place - not too crowded and most of the people are older...and not in fantactular shape... so I don't feel like such a huge blob.

Hmm. What else can I type here? Really, I've got nothing. My evening tonight will involve getting a pair of shoes that don't hurt my feet so much and perhaps cleaning (unless the tv demands my attention...which it might...I joined the "Wheel Watcher's Club" last week and I just KNOW they're going to pick my SpinID one of these days on Wheel of Fortune...)

Yeah. I know. Loser.

Hidey Ho!

Alrighty! Are we all picturing Mr. Hanky sitting on the edge of the toilet bowl? Woo!

Anywho, the photo situation has been resolved and all the photos from the trip are up there. They are not in order at all so it might be a bit confusing, but all the animals are cute and interesting and all that jazz so enjoy them.

Second order of business is our new apartment. I got everything out of my old one last Thursday. Finished cleaning and turned in the keys right as the ladies were walking out the door on Thursday evening. Things here at the new place are pretty well unpacked and organized. There are a few disaster areas, but those will be fixed up soon enough. Hopefully. We've got three flies who have decided to make our apartment their home. Oddly enough, they totally disappear every time we get the fly swatters out. The bastards... The cable and internet was installed with only a few minor blips yesterday morning and our queen size bed was delivered yesterday afternoon. Who knew there was such a difference between a full and a queen? I no longer fear being elbowed in the face. As much. This morning, Adam had wrapped himself up in the comforter instead of getting under it and I called him an "Adam taco." I still find that hilarious and I am snickering as I type that. I wish I had taken a picture of that. Too cute!

I'll get pictures of the apartment up soon.

On Friday night Adam made me stay awake until after 10 when he came home from work. He told me he had a surprise for me. When he gets home he makes me sit up on the futon and close my eyes. He places a Jared jewelry store bag on my lap. Inside is a box. Inside the box is a ring. Now don't go thinking what you're thinking. That's not how it is. It's not that kind of ring. Was not accompanied by any type of question. Anyway, I can't for the life of me get a decent picture of it. It keeps turning out fuzzy.


Oh well, you get the idea.

So, things are going well. The neighbors I've met so far seem to be nice (and quiet, and non-smoking) enough. Hopefully we can manage to keep it down enough as to not annoy them. Heh. The drive to work isn't too bad, but we'll see how things go when it starts snowing. The Butte des Morts bridge always sucks when it's snowy. Sadly enough, it only takes about 4 or 5 minutes longer to get here than it took to get to my other apartment. It's all highway driving here while before it was all start and stop frontage road driving. Weird.

Argh

Looks like I've gone over my storage space limit over on photobucket. I have to decide what I want to do, so right now only part of the pictures are up.

New York

Here's an upfront warning: This is going to be one doozy of a post so you might want to go to the bathroom and get something to drink before you start reading :)

We left at around 5:45 on Sunday the 18th, stopped for gas at the Kwik Trip right off the highway and then headed south. Throughout the entire trip we had fabulous driving weather and fabulous weather all around. Sunday was pretty much just a driving day. A few missed exits in Chicago made things a little interesting, but all in all it was an uneventful drive. We got to Jamestown around 6:30. Set up camp there, had some dinner, and called it a night pretty early.

Monday morning Adam forgot to save the new alarm time so we were rudely awakened at 5:45 by the incredibly loud alarm on his cell phone. Since there was no way we were going to go back to sleep after that we got up, showered, and went for a walk around the neighborhood. My mom was downstairs when we returned so we headed off to Chatauqua for the morning, stopping at various little places along the way. We toured Chautauqua for awhile and I think my mom was pretty much oblivious to the fact that Adam and I were bored out of our minds. Good exercise though. We then headed out to Panama to check out the rock formations there. Adam had fun climbing all over the rocks and we all got a workout on the uneven rocks and tricky tree roots. We stopped at a cute restuarant place called "Julie's" in Panama. We headed back up toward Chautauqua to go to Webbs to get some goat milk fudge. Then we headed south of Jamestown to a cider place. I got a funky looking gourd, Adam got some New York maple syrup, and we all got to feed the goats they keep on site for goat milk fudge (if we had known they had that we could have saved some time and gotten it there instead of at Webbs. Oh well.) After all of this we headed back to my mom's house and spent the evening there.

Tuesday morning we headed into Canada to Niagara Falls. Adam was originally pumped to be able to say he was going 100 km/hr until he realized that this translated into just over 60 mph. Luckily it turns out that Canadians don't follow their speed limits any more than Americans do. We spent perhaps an hour at the Falls after we figured out the whole parking thing. It was a great day and the mist was really in full swing. But really, how long can you stand there and watch water go over a rock? We headed back to Marineland, a zoo/aquarium/amusement park we had passed on the way up to the Falls. We spent the rest of the morning and the better part of the afternoon there. Adam got a lot of really cool pictures so be sure to check out the photobucket album. It's a really cute park. It has a medieval theme so the buildings are castles and renaissance music is piped out from unknown sources throughout the park (think the singing rocks at Great America.) It's currently undergoing a whole bunch of construction and it was an awful lot of walking, but it was a fun time. We headed back to Jamestown and got back pretty much around the time my mom's students were done for the day.

Wednesday was the long day. We left Jamestown and headed up to Buffalo for the day. The first stop was the Original Kazoo Factory in Eden. We checked out the museum and factory and Adam even made his own kazoo. After arriving in Buffalo we headed to the zoo. Apparently Buffalo has this budget crisis thing going on and all the good animals got shipped off to parts unknown or something. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with the whole thing. Parts of it were under construction and the rest of it was kind of shoddy. Once again Adam got some great pictures of the animals that WERE there so check them out. After standing in line for damn near 15 minutes to get lunch at Wendy's we headed to the Museum of Science. Once again, I was completely unimpressed. There was a pretty interesting exhibit about pulleys, but other than that it was not worth writing home about. Since we still had time before we had to meet Catherine we drove out to East Aurora to find Fowler's Chocolate. Picked up some good (but bad for you) stuff there and headed back to the SUNY campus to pick Catherine up for dinner. We ate at some Chinese restaurant (pretty good food), had a itsy bitsy birthday hurrah for my mom and then went back to Jamestown.

My sister wrote about this on her website and I think what she wrote merits a response. Since she doesn't blog, I can't link, so I'll paste the text here:

"My sister and her 6'7" "boy toy" Adam came out to NY to spend a few days with my mother. They managed to spend about an hour and a half with me, nearly all of which was at a restaurant eating dinner. Martha didn't speak to me, and though Adam tried, a Wisconsin native who works at Wal-Mart and whose main claim to fame is that he's shacking up with my apparently estranged sister is not likely to win me over in an hour and a half. Why is our family so pathetically ridiculous? Anyhow, it was weird. I did get some good Chinese leftovers out of it, though."

Now, let's go through this one issue at a time.

1. Adam is not my "boy toy." He is my "boyfriend", and if things go according to plan, will someday be my husband. I dislike the connotation that "boy toy" carries.

2. We only spent an hour and a half with her because of her busy schedule. If she had had the time we would have been willing to do other things with her, but as it happened, a birthday dinner for our mom seemed to be the only option.

3. She's right - I barely spoke to her. This is because she was generally pretty caught up in talking to our mother about things that I was not interested in. Why be rude an interrupt their conversation when I really have nothing to say to her anyway?

4. True, Adam works at Wal-Mart but this is not his real job. He works there part time in the photo lab to make some extra money. His real job is at Cisco Systems in sales. He recently won a whole ton of awards during their fiscal year-end banquet. While there is nothing wrong with working at Wal-Mart, I think it's unfair to mention it in a way that is obviously meant as a put-down. Saying he works at Wal-Mart would be like saying that (when I still worked there) I work at K-mart. Both my K-Mart and his Wal-Mart jobs were/are secondary and shouldn't be put ahead of our real careers.

5. We are not "shacking up." At the time of this dinner we weren't even living together.

6. He had no intention of trying to win her over. Why would he? I'm the one he should be concerned about getting to like him. And if he had no way to do it in the alloted time (as she states) why should he even try? I'm not quite sure what she was looking for here.

7. I don't know why our family is "pathetically ridiculous," but I sure enjoy being around Adam's family a whole lot more than around my family. At least they don't criticize my life choices and act incredibly pretentious when, in reality, their shit stinks just as much as mine does. Being around most members of my family just reminds me how much I like the fact that most of them live far, far away from me. I was so glad that he was there. That way I didn't feel so completely excluded when my mother and sister proceeded to have conversations that were of no interest to me. I think I fell more in love with him every day of this trip.

I was really ready to go ahead and give my sister a "not as bad as I'd expected" marking for this trip. This journal entry ruined that though. I can't wait until May!

Anywho, we left on Thursday morning to head to Canton and the Pro Footbal Hall of Fame. I was kind of bored, but Adam appeared to enjoy it and I got a Vikings shirt out of the deal. We headed back across Ohio and got about halfway through Indiana before calling it a night. After looking for some Notre Dame merchandise unsuccessfully, we had some dinner at the bar and restaurant attached to the hotel we were staying at. After dinner we had a few beers and played some darts. I think I won once. :) Our hotel room kind of reminded me of home: the toilet ran constantly because the stupid plunger thing was retarded. After fighting with the narrow shower in the morning, we had breakfast at Perkins and headed back to Wisconsin.

Since we returned so much earlier than we had anticipated (we got back to Oshkosh around 1:30), we decided to pick the keys up Friday afternoon and get the furniture moved into the new place Friday evening. I've spent all of yesterday and today packing up the rest of my apartment and I think I have about one more trip out to Neenah and I'll be done. Needless to say, my body is bruised and sore and I really, really, really hate moving. It doesn't help that Adam has been at work all day yesterday and today. Oh well. I'm almost done. Then I get to clean again before I get rid of this apartment. That should be a blast.

Well, that's all I've got for now.

More

I completely forgot to post about the Cisco/Convergys banquet thingy that Adam brought me to on Wednesday. The end of their fiscal year was August or something so they had a big hoopla to celebrate a great year and hand out awards to their top performers. I think there were 10 or so categories and Adam won awards for probably 6 of them. He won practically everything he was eligible for. It was amazing. I’m very proud of him. It’s wonderful that he has a job that he’s obviously good at that he also seems to enjoy (most of the time.) It was an interesting evening. We sat at a table with his sister and her fiancé (who I already knew) and three other couples. They were all very nice people. Chris cracked everyone up of course. All in all it was an entertaining and enjoyable evening. The whole award thing went kind of long and by the end I was yawning and had a headache. Adam also got picked in the prize drawing and ended up getting an electric griddle and a single serve coffee maker (which he has since returned for cash so we can buy other things since we already have 3 coffee makers. Yes. 3.) It’s so annoying how he wins everything. I never win anything. Grrrr. Oh well. It’s for the common good this time at least. Muahahahaha.

I’m not sure what kind of opportunities there are for him to tag along to business type things with me. I know Milprint has a Christmas party but I’m not sure how that works. IMA has a “bring your SO” night in December, but I’m not sure he’ll be interested in coming to hang with a bunch of accountants. LoL. I just think it’s interesting to see another side of a person. I don’t usually see his “I’m at work” side or meet anyone from that part of his life, so it was neat.

I was thinking last night while boxing up most of the stuff in the living room. I’m going to have to get used to having a roommate again, although this time will be completely different in that I actually know the person and like them (double benefit!) I don’t think it will be too hard to accept the fact that it’s not going to be “my” apartment. It’s going to be “our” apartment and therefore I can’t just boss him around to do things the way I want them done. This might be kind of difficult given that I’m a control freak with a minor case of OCD… I’m sure there are going to be things he does that drive me nuts. In fact, I already know what a few of them are. I’m sure there are going to be things I do that drive him nuts too. And I hope he’ll tell me about them. I don’t want the fact that we’re roommates to cause problems because every roommate relationship I’ve had up to this point has gone to hell eventually. In fact I only keep in touch with one of them (Catherine) and we’re much better friends now that we don’t live together. I think a potential problem may be that both Adam and I have a touch of passive-aggressiveness in ourselves. We’re more likely to avoid talking about something that bothers us and just grumble about it inside. Eventually that causes bigger problems though. I know this from experience. This is why I’m going to try and attack any problems that arise as soon as possible. I really want this to work and I’m pretty sure he does too. He’s been spending more and more time over at my apartment and things have been pretty smooth sailing. I’m not sure how much is going to change once we’re living together all the time. I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.

T-2(ish)

Well we leave for New York on Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning. I’ve got pretty much everything under control at work and I’m ready for a vacation. It should be an interesting experience. Hopefully fun as well, but it’s always nerve-wracking introducing someone to members of my family. We’ll see how it goes. The way I see it, we’re not going to see any of these people more than once a year anyway so if they really don’t like each other, it’s only a temporary inconvenience every once in a while. Heh. How’s that for a bad attitude? I’m sure it will be fine. Adam is a pretty likeable guy and he tends to get along with most people. I’m not asking him to be best friends with my mom or sister. That would be scary. Even I don’t get along the greatest with them. I just want him to know that they exist and be able to put a face and personality with the name. I’ve met many members of his family already. It’s easier to go that way because many of them live in the area. My family, on the other hand, is spread far and wide so it’s harder to get everyone together. Anywho, it will be a fun trip. That was the point of that whole rambling thing there. I’ve had an icky sinus thing going on for the last week so I’m hoping that will go away before we leave.

We have an appointment to pick up the keys to the new apartment on the 24th. This is the day after we return from New York. Given Adam’s work schedule, I’ll be moving a lot of the littler stuff throughout the day on Saturday, he’ll be moving most of his stuff early Sunday morning, and my bigger stuff will be moved Sunday evening. I should have no problem getting everything out of the apartment by Wednesday and perhaps I can get it all cleaned by Thursday so I can drop the keys off early. Depending on how things go during the weekend we’re also considering taking Tuesday afternoon off to finish moving big stuff. A lot of this is up in the air and we’ll just have to see how things go. I am excited though. I’m really looking forward to it. Well, not the moving part. The living in a better apartment with Adam part.

I’m heading to the DMV tonight after work to change my address and get a new driver’s license. I figure it’s worth the $4 to have an address that isn’t in Sheboygan. And to get rid of the horrible red box around my head that screams “UNDER 21 UNTIL 02-09-01.” I wonder if they’re going to make me take a new picture. I’m not looking forward to that, but if they tell me to I guess I don’t have a choice. Other than that all the address changes are taken care of. I went to the bank yesterday and all the others were already taken care of. Woo. I’m so organized.

That’s about all I’ve got. I’ll be taking lots o’ pictures and will be sure to post them when we get back.

Posts from 2003-2004

I just wanted to let everyone know that I added my blog from my other website to this blogging site. I basically copy and pasted from the other webpage to this page so the formatting really kind of sucks. The other site went back to January of 2003 so I figured it made sense to put them all together in one place for some kind of continuity. It's strange to go back and read them and see all the crap that has happened in the last two and half-ish years. *sigh* It's so unfortunate that a great deal of it revolves around what was going on between John and I. I still can't figure out why he was such an important person in my life given the fact that the whole relationship was completely messed up. Oh well. I barely even speak to him at this point. He always tells me he'll call me but I know he won't. And that's ok. I don't get messed up about it at this point. I have Adam who actually calls when he tells me his will. And takes me out in public. And reciprocates feelings. Wow. Who knew a man like that existed?

On a completely different topic - it appears I have begun to get spam comments so I'm going to look into how I can stop them. Yeah, no one is interested in your insurance website. Geesh. For the love of. As I was typing this sentence two more of them showed up. That's just ridiculous. I'll see what I can do about that. That should keep me entertained until Adam gets home from work. *sigh*

Getting Philosophical

Things are progressing in the New York trip category. Not much is “confirmed” thus far, but I think we’re pretty much decided on going with the flow with definite end points for a few of the days. I realized a few days ago that this trip is during the third week of the month. My IMA meetings are always the third Tuesday of the month. Whoops. I get to try and find someone to stand in for me for this meeting. I’m the ever important Collector of the Money and Distributor of the Meal Tickets person. Heh. I just kind of completely forgot about it. I hadn’t put the meetings on my calendar when I looked for a good time for New York. Oh well. It’s not exactly an unsolvable dilemma.

In the apartment arena, things appear to have kind of worked themselves out. This is assuming those ladies at Breezewood really know what they’re talking about and I’m not going to bank on that. They informed us that the current tenants in our apartment are actually leaving at the end of August rather than the end of September so there should be no problem with us moving in a week or so before the end of the month, thus avoiding a “must move in 30 seconds” type situation. They had told us this previously before we signed the lease. When we went there for our appointment, the lady who was there had no idea what we were talking about. It’s precisely this kind of communication problem that makes me nervous. But as Adam says, we were both on the line when they said the people would be out by the end of August. I’m not sure what kind of legal recourse that could give us should they have been full of shit, but I’m hoping it all works out. I put in my Intent to Vacate form last Friday, so I’m moving out at the end of September no matter what.

Now I’m left with the tedious task of changing addresses and otherwise preparing to move. Thankfully I had the great idea of getting my PO box 5 or so years ago so I avoid most of the moving address changes. According to my calculations, the only addresses I need to change are the ones that Bemis has (which I changed this afternoon) and the IMA mailing list one (which I can do online.) All the other (important) ones go to my PO box already or have already been changed to do so. I’m so organized. Tonight we plan to head down to the Time Warner office and put in the switch for cable and the internet. After that, all I have is my electricity. They have an online form I could fill out, but I think I’m going to call their 800 number anyway just to be sure it goes through. When I moved last time they somehow “lost” the request to stop service and I ended up paying for a month that I didn’t live in the apartment because the stupid landlord would never call the electric company to accept the charges. Ok, it was only $20 or something, but still. It was annoying. I’m going to do it right this time.

Those are the two major happenings in my life right now. Other than preparation for these two things I basically sit at home watching movies, bad tv, or playing “text twist” on Yahoo games. My life is boring. I’ve been heading to bed at around 8 lately and I end up accidentally falling asleep before Adam calls me around 10. I usually wake up when the phone rings, but I get the feeling that I don’t make much sense during those conversations. Or I come off as very crabby. He has been spending more and more nights over at my apartment these last few weeks. It’s nice, although he doesn’t ever seem to want to get up in the morning. I’ll have to come up with a more creative way to wake him up than poking him and saying “get up.” We’ll see.

And now we regress back to something that happened a few weeks ago that I forgot to mention previously. When Adam was ref-ing for the 3-on-3 tournament put on by his church, he invited me to attend the Saturday evening mass and then go out to dinner with him and the other organizer people. While he is full-on Catholic, I jokingly refer to myself as “Catholic on Christmas Eve for a few years in high school” because I would play my cello with an ensemble developed by my mom at Holy Name in Sheboygan. We never actually stayed for the service though, as we were just the before mass entertainment. So this was my first “real” Catholic service experience. It’s not like it was a big shock. I mean, I was Lutheran for a few years a while back and they’re really quite similar (no matter how much Lutherans deny that.) Of course I felt like a dork when everyone got up to do the communion thing, but there’s not a lot to be done about that. The lector (or whatever the person who leads the service is called) had a beautiful voice. I could have just sat there and listened to her all evening. The priest was kind of interesting although some of the things he said made me snicker. All in all it wasn’t a bad experience although I’m not sure how much of it I could handle on a regular basis. All that sitting and standing and kneeling stuff gets confusingand annoying. I kept getting my hands crushed by the guy in front of me.

I have a general problem with the format of both Catholic and Lutheran services. They both are very structured and involve statement, response type interactions between the priest/minister and the congregation. I learned from my time with the Lutherans that you can basically memorize your “lines” and go on auto-pilot through the whole service. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose of gathering and worshipping? If everyone is there saying all the right things at the right time while in reality they’re making their shopping list in their head or thinking about what they have to do when they get home, what is the point? You basically have to remain alert enough to hear the dude in front say “the lord be with you” so you can respond “and also with you.” I’m not a fan of organized religion (or actually, any kind of religion) but it seems to me if you’re going to make the effort to go to church for an hour or so every week, you might want to go somewhere that can keep you on your toes. Otherwise you're basically just going for show. That’s just my thought on it though. The most interesting and engaging church I ever went to was the Evangelical Free Church. They had all kinds of music, interesting sermons, and other things to keep the congregation fully participatory during the services. None of this “lord have mercy, Christ have mercy” stuff. There is no way you could tune out an entire service. It’s too bad they replaced their pastor with a complete asshole who had a problem with my mom so we had to leave. It was a fun church to be a part of.

Wow, I kinda went off there for a bit. Enough of that. I do my best not to make a mountain out of a molehill or whatever that saying is. I’m trying not to place too much importance on that kind of thing but it’s difficult given my upbringing and previous doomed-from-the-start relationship. Oh well.

Anyway, after the church thing we went to Victoria's for a dinner thing. Aside from the fact that I was probably still slightly hungover from the previous night and hadn't eaten all day so I was kind of crabby, it was a good time. The folks there did the requisite shit giving about me dating Adam (or AJ, as he is known there... heh.) They were a fun group of people. I didn't interact with them as much as I probably would have if I had been all there, but oh well. Next time. After a few bites of chicken parmigean (I know, I spelled that wrong), we packed up Adam's plate full of the ocean into a box and headed back home.

Well, right now I’m going to go focus on figuring out how I’m going to get all my crap packed up and moved to Neenah. Ugh. I hate moving.

*Applause*

Don't ask me about that title. I'm not very creative so now I've decided to just use random words instead of anything that makes sense... Just go with it...

So, a few interesting things have developed over the last few weeks.

Firstly, during a discussion at work about whether to send me out to Lebanon (PA) for a week, it occurred to me that I have almost two weeks of vacation that I need to use before the end of the year. I decided to see if I could swing a trip to New York since I know my mom has been bugging me to come out there since she moved, uhm, three years ago now? Things seem to be going well in the planning phase. As it stands, I should be spending a week(ish) in upstate New York the third week of September. Adam will be coming with me. We’ll be driving since the whole rental car thing is just a complete rip off if you’re not 25. So far the plans include Niagara Falls, Buffalo (including a dinner out with my sister and mother to celebrate her (my mom’s) birthday), possibly one of the various state parks, and anything else that tickles our fancies. We’ll see how it goes. It should be an interesting time. My mom has already threatened Adam with the old photo albums. I think she was kidding…but I’m not sure. It will be a good opportunity for him to meet my mom and sister before next May when everyone else (I assume) will be there and the dynamic will be much different.

Apartment-wise, we had the meeting with the new landlord people last week and sat down and signed a bunch of paperwork including the lease. The person didn’t seem to know what she was doing which was kind of concerning, but Adam told me she was new so she probably didn’t know exactly how it all worked. Great… I’m also concerned about the timing of this whole deal. Our lease starts October 1st, and unlike Brookside, they don’t have a one month lead time. The people who are in the apartment now could theoretically move out on September 30th. Since my current lease is up on the 30th, this could cause some problems. I was re-reading my lease last night and apparently I have to be out of the apartment and have the keys returned to the office by noon on the 30th. This means I have to have all my stuff out and have the whole place cleaned by that time. Wow. Now if the people in our new apartment don’t leave until the 30th, you can imagine the dilemma. The management is supposed to be checking with the current occupants to see what their plans are, but they haven’t gotten back to us yet. This could be one stressful move…At least it’s a much better apartment though, right? Heh.

Ok, so there were only two interesting things. Other than that, it’s been life as usual. I’ve been cleaning a lot lately, getting rid of all kinds of crap that I don’t need. I figure that way I won’t have to move it with me. I’ve gone through my four+ years of Cosmo magazines, re-reading them all before I throw them out. It’s remarkably repetitive. I mean, how many ways can there be to please a man? I only need one or two and I’m good… LoL. I probably won’t renew it when the subscription ends at the end of this year. I guess that’s just something you grow out of eventually. I was never a diehard Cosmo girl type anyway. I just read it because it amused me. I prefer Maxim any day though.

I also had a great time cleaning out my medicine cabinet. I found some iron tablets that expired in 2002. Oops. Guess I forgot to take them, eh? I’ve been procrastinating on cleaning the closet in the bathroom. There’s all kinds of crap in there I never use. All kinds of hair crap. In my attempt to tame my unmanageable mane (see, I’ve been reading too much Cosmo), I acquired a myriad of frizz-reducing, hair-controlling sprays, balms, and other such products. I used each one once and determined that it didn’t work worth a damn and threw it in the closet, never to see the light of day again. So I get to go through all that crap and throw it all out. Fun. See why I’m putting it off? I did clean out the closet in the dining room though. I’ve got a lot of bedding I no longer need (twin size sheets? I don’t think so.) I’ll be keeping my full size bed (it will be in the second bedroom) and we’ll be getting a queen, so the twin and king size sheets I have are not of any use to me. Away to Goodwill they go. I’ve given so much stuff to that place in the last few months…

I’ve been lying around watching too many bad movies lately also. Wal-Mart had this whole bin of movies that were $5 and I totally over-indulged in them. I must say that Earth Girls are Easy is quite possibly the worst film ever. It’s one of those “it’s so bad, it’s good” deals. It’s got tons of cheesy song and dance numbers (including the ever popular “’Cause I’m a blonde (yeah, yeah, yeah…)”), a really stupid plot, and some pretty bad acting. Jeff Goldblum was a totally hot alien though… It was completely irresistible. As was To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. There really is nothing like Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo in drag. I had the great fortune to find A Simple Twist of Fate, a movie I’d been trying to find for a few years now. I suppose I could have broken down and bought it online, but then I would have missed out on my “Oh my god, I found it!” shriek to which most of Wal-Mart was treated. There were a few others that I bought as well, but they didn’t inspire such glee. I’m a member of the Columbia House DVD club, but I’ve really been slacking in buying my 5 or whatever DVDs I have to buy in order to fulfill my contract. They just don’t have the best selection. Oh well. I’m sure I’ll find something.

The Results...

Ok, so the whole "inflatable" thing was just a ruse to throw me off track. What the surprise was is this:



It's so cute. It makes me laugh. We saw it last week at Sparkadoodles and he decided to go back and get it for me. How sweet. More pictures on the photobucket site. (It says "OINK" inside! Hee hee.)

This morning we went up to Verlo and checked out some mattress sets. We want to get a bigger/longer bed for when we move. I think we found one that's firm/squishy enough for both of us. We'll see. We've still got time of course.

I'm definately going to be glad to get away from here. The noise from the highway is nigh unbearable at night when the windows are open and last night the stupid neighbors to the right sat on their balcony drinking and talking loudly until almost 2 in the morning. *sigh* Inconsiderate bastards.

Anywho, that's about all I've got.

Blah...

Hmm. What to write? In all honesty, my life has gotten pretty boring. I work all day and spend my evenings alone in my apartment watching stupid tv or reading back issues of Cosmo. I occasionally drink too much and fall asleep too early. It's like I'm back where I started but the only thing that's changed is that Adam got a second job. Funny how that one thing seems to have changed so much. It's not just that he's not around as much as he used to be, although that certainly is true. I feel like I just have a bad attitude about the whole thing. I can't seem to get over it.

Anyway. In some ways it's nice to have so much "alone time." Right now, for instance, I'm sitting in front of the computer topless with a pore cleansing mask on. It's very bright green and smells funky. I would never do that if Adam was here (although I'm sure he wouldn't mind the topless part.) It gives me time to do weird cleaning or just lay around doing nothing. Of course I get lonely and bored so it's a tricky thing.

It's been too hot here lately. My electric bill this last month was ridiculous. I've had to leave my bedroom and sleep on the futon directly in the path of the AC a few times. I cannot wait until we have an AC unit in the bedroom. *sigh* Last night was decent and today hasn't been too bad. I've just had the windows open all day. It's still pretty warm but less humid. The weather in Wisconsin generally sucks all the time though so this is to be expected. A few weeks ago it had been practically drought-like conditions it had been so long since it rained. Then all the sudden one night it rained for like six hours. The street flooded (again) and my car practically floated away. (Ok, slight exaggeration.) Ridiculous. Now it's just been freakin' humid as hell and miserable for all those trying to conserve energy. *sigh* again.

Nothing much else has been happening lately. Lots of nothing. We have an appointment to go sign the lease for the apartment in Neenah next week so we'll see how that goes. Other than that my calendar is pathetically bare.

I need some excitement in my life dammit!

Oh yeah. Adam has "a suprise" for me tonight. It's inflatable. I'm slightly wary of it and have no clue what it could be, but he says he's 90% sure I'll like it. We'll see... it apparently takes assembly so I have to banish myself to the bedroom when he gets here so he can set it up. Weird...

I'll keep you posted.

I swear...

The airplanes are trying to drive me completely insane. For the past hour, there has been this pack of maybe 15 or 20 planes flying around in what appears to be a big circle. This means that every 4 or 5 minutes there's this awful roar over my head. My balcony doors actually rattle. This has been going on for AN HOUR. What could they possibly be doing up there for AN HOUR!

For the love of...