I apologize for the void of meaningful blogging around here lately. I’ve just lacked the motivation to do much more than make a list of movies or post pictures of cats. It’s been busy at work – January is always the busiest month of the year with month-, quarter-, and year-end all hitting at the same time. With the arrival of snow I also stopped going home for lunch which has resulted in me working through it most days, intentionally or not. The days seem to go quickly because I keep my mind working, but when I get home I just want to lay in bed and read a book.
Also hindering my creative posting-ness is that there really hasn’t been much going on. Holidays are over, weather sucks, pretty much your typical mid-winter slump. I’m pretty sure everyone would get totally bored if I just posted “I went to work, I came home, I fed the cats, I made dinner, I read a book, I watched some TV, I went to bed” every day. There are, of course, some deviations from that normality. I have IMA, I have bells, we occasionally go out to dinner. But really, nothing mind-blowing going on here lately.
As previously mentioned, I passed my five-year mark with Bemis a few weeks ago. In addition to a certificate (that has yet to be hung up on the “Wall of Martha”) I also got a flyer with various gifts that I could choose from. Since I ended up with Adam’s five-year gift (the iPod dock/clock/radio I have at work) he took my five-year gift. I think he chose some wind-breaker jacket thing. Fine with me – I didn’t need another jacket I wouldn’t wear or a clock. Why are the gifts always a clock? Anywho, in addition to all that, I also got a third week of vacation and a slight raise. Less than last year, but more than nothing. I can’t complain. Ok, I could, but I doubt it would do me much good.
IMA in January was a mixed bag – attendance was down, we continue to struggle with our venues, but the ethics workshop was a good time and the food didn’t suck. I have high hopes for February – we’ve got a “Sports Accounting” night planned with reps from the Timber Rattlers and a former Packer player speaking. If that doesn’t appeal to students, I don’t know what would.
I find myself being pestered about VP Admin again although I think they’ve relented to let me stay where I am for another year. If, for no other reason, then because no one else wants to do what I do. Since we’ll be out of town in May I’ve already had to arrange for someone to cover that meeting so perhaps that will open a door. I don’t know that I want it to be opened though. I really enjoy my positions. It makes me talk with everyone who attends meetings, it’s organizationally motivated, it keeps me in the know about pretty much everything the chapter is doing, and it apparently makes me the go-to person for questions. It’s likely I can find an answer so I suppose I’m the logical contact. That and my name and email are plastered all over our newsletter and website. No hiding, that’s for sure. Just not sure I want to give up what I’ve arranged to be the face of the chapter.
We had yet another week off from bells because our fearless leader had a conflict. We don’t have a schedule for the spring yet, but we already started in on Easter music two weeks ago. I’m torn because the ladies I stand by up at the top octave are in agreement that things get stale and we’d like to try new music, maybe play with the choir. They tried to elect me to talk to Nancy and suggest things, but I don’t really want to put myself in front of the line of fire since I already seem to have a bad reputation, what with that “bell police” comment and all. But sometimes I almost can’t stand the stupid things that go on. Last week someone suggested we should have a metronome around to make sure we don’t rush. Any guesses as to who suggested it? Yeah, that’d be the person who rushes the most. Gargh! I do my best to keep my comments and annoyances to myself. I remind myself that I’m the youngest member (by my calculations, by at least 15 years), I’m not a member of the church, or even a member of the religion. I guess I could use my experience as a selling point, but I still don’t want to be the one to rock the boat. With all the weirdness that the year began with, I’m thinking we should all just be happy that Nancy didn’t throw herself over the choir loft railing at some point.
I mentioned that I’d been reading a lot lately. Still trying to keep away from too much TV. It helps, that whole Conan/Leno debacle. I had just made the decision to quite DVR-ing Conan every night because it was so hard to keep up with them. Then this whole mess came about so I turned it back on for the last two weeks. I never liked Leno much but Conan was usually too late for me and my old person bedtime. I’m saddened that they couldn’t work something out, but I’m hopeful that Conan will come back ten times better. My one concern is that NBC owns the characters he created on both Late Night and Tonight, so if he can’t take Conando with him, I don’t know what I’m going to do. That, and the Central Time New Years celebration, were two of my favorite parts of his show. We’ll see what happens I guess. I didn’t watch Jay Leno’s bomb and I won’t watch the regressed Tonight Show either.
Back to the reading though. (Geesh, you’d think I had ADD or something.) For Christmas my mom sent me a stack of books – mostly mysteries with cheesy titles about cooking and cats (Crepes of Wrath? Bwahahaha.)
Cheesy titles aside, they’re TOTALLY ADDICTIVE! I’m especially enjoying the books by Diane Mott Davidson about Goldy, the caterer who solves murders with her cop husband on the side, and those by Tamar Myers, about a Menonnite B&B owner who assists her incompetent brother-in-law with his job as sheriff. The books include recipes and enough WTF moments to keep you on your toes. The plots are completely ridiculous, but they pull you in. I’ve already burned through the ones from my mom and I’m 6.25 books into a 7 book stack from the library. Who needs deep, classic literary works when you have kitschy murder mysteries?
In cat news, we’ve gotten into a groove I think. Carly is a pain, JC is a pain, Ted is a pain, Connor is somewhat less of a pain. Most of the time. Unless he’s climbing the furniture, then he’s a big pain.
Thankfully we’ve moved on from the “let’s scratch Martha as much as possible” game with Carly and she’s figured out how to jump onto my shoulders without tearing my back up. She still has regular “Carly Ferry” trips to and from the cat room both during the day and at night. One of these days I’m going to “forget” to bring her to bed and see what happens. Almost every day I’m reminded that she definitely prefers Adam and just kind of puts up with my presence.
Ted is obsessed with being petted. After lurking under beds and chairs for so long, he’s suddenly decided he wants attention and he wants it NOW. He yowls, he whines, he’s generally obnoxious. I try and make a point of petting him every night before bed, but I’m usually done before he wants me to be. My excuse? He drools and that’s totally gross. He’s also started jumping up on the bed on top of Adam. This in and of itself is pretty impressive, but then he creeps toward me, sneaking a glance at Adam every once in a while to make sure he’s not looking at him. It’s pretty funny.
Connor is still stand-offish, even with me. Adam’s gotten pretty good at sneaking up behind him and catching some petting time before Connor realizes what’s going on. He likes to cuddle, that’s for sure, but generally behind my knees where I can’t touch him. He’s been eating better lately too. I usually open his door first and he wanders for a little bit, but then goes back and eats some more. He’s a strange one.
JC… well he’s just crazy. His favorite pastimes these days are staring at himself in the plasma TV, sitting in the kitchen sink, and watching bubbles in the humidifier, water dish, and soda bottles. I swear a few days ago he was watching ice cubes melt. Oh, and trying to kill me by tripping me. Evil, evil cat. He’s got a lot of energy and has random stampede parties with Ted each evening. He still sleeps part of the night next to me most nights. He’s not very cuddly under normal circumstances. He struggles when I pick him up to hug him but eventually relents to being cuddled with.
We kind of struck out in the “cuddly cat” lottery. None of them like to sit on our laps or cuddle much. Carly will sometimes sit in the crack of the couch between us, but she much prefers curling up on the back of the couch.
Coming up:
Month-end is upon us again. Seems like just yesterday I was working on year-end. Apparently everyone (but me, of course) is going to be out of the office for SAP for like three weeks in February. Fun!
We’ll be going to try a newer Norwegian restaurant (Oslo’s) on the 5th with Dad and Cheryl. Kind of an early birthday celebration.
Another unofficial birthday thing at The Monkey Bar on the 6th.
We plan to use a great coupon at The Melting Pot on the 11th, an early Valentine’s Day night out since we generally try to avoid restaurants on Valentine’s Day. I still need to figure out what I’ll be making at home the 14th though. Ideas?
