Veg!

As many of you know, Michael and I joined a CSA farm this year and are finally reaping the benefits of our fee and bi-weekly toil on the farm itself. Behold! Chard (apparently we're going to get a ton of this), green beans, tomatoes, banana peppers, corn, lettuce, jalapeno peppers and the very beginning of the carrot crop. This week's distribution is far more....plentiful...from our first distribution which consisted of 5 pea pods, a fistful of lettuce and 1 tiny radish. But then we didn't have rain for ages in the early spring so our veg was a bit stunted.

Anyway, I've already made fresh salsa and tonight I'm making a potato and chard gratin. We had some corn last night but until these braces come off I still have to cut the corn off the cob before I can eat it. Did you ever see the C@lvin & H0bbes strip where Calvin says "It's not summer unless you have corn smooshed in your teeth and butter dripping down your chin?" I'd say he's right on the money.

One time at band camp...

So, WSU has a bunch of kiddies here for sleep away band camp and while that's not how we did band camp, it brings back the memories nonetheless. It's kind of fun to walk from building to building and hear the drum line or see the color guard and it reminds me of those few short summers where we (you know who you are) spent tons of time together laughing and carrying on all the live long day.

And this isn't the first time I've been thinking back to those days. When Michael and I were in Lankytown 2 weekends ago we went to HHS to play some tennis and the new courts are located on top of the old stadium parking lot where we learned our coordinates. It was kind of weird to be there, but not in a bad way, and "Yesterday" has been running through my head ever since. I think I've pretty much blocked most of the crummy memories from that time so all that remains are the funny, amazing, loud and crazy times we had. Sometimes, when I'm feeling homesick, that's what I'm homesick for. Band camp. Go figure.

Been a while....

Well, the last 3 weeks of freedom between summer sessions are now behind me and I'm back at school (a new school this time) for more punishment, I mean, chemistry. It was a very busy 3 weeks where I spackled, sanded, spackled and sanded our kitchen and it still isn't ready to be painted. Not ready. Durr. There's some hand sanding left and then the cleaning bit before I can put up a coat of primer. Not to mention the spackle dust that got inside all of my cabinets and drawers and all over my dishes and utensils.

I did some fun stuff in there, too, but talking about it makes me homesick for my friends so I'll just leave it at that.

And now I'm back in Ohio and back to the grind. Can't complain tho (that's not entirely true: my computer screen died so I had to send the whole thing to HP to be repaired and I officially hate all airports and TSA with such a passion that I'm going to put myself on some FBI watch list because I'm going to send them all hate email) b/c Michael and I are going to have a date night on Thursday and are going to see HP5. And? HP 7 is out on Friday night at midnight so you can find me at the local B&N waiting in line for my copy. Can't wait!

Hoping to Ogg...

That I do well on my chem final (and isn't that Terry Pratchett just so witty?) 16 hours from now. Rarely have I felt as incompetent and stupid as I have while taking this class and the fact that a summer session of organic chem awaits in July makes me cringe. I've just got to keep telling myself that it'll be okay. It will. Right?

It's a crazy day in the neighborhood...

A crazy day in the neighborhood...
Won't you be my,
Please, won't you be my,
Won't you be my (probably) crack-addled homeless neighbor who's shilling for drug and/or booze money....?

First, I'd like to point out that Michael and I really like our neighborhood despite the occasional petty theft and weird homeless people scamming for money. But Tuesday night really takes the cake re: neighborhood issues.

Around 9 pm the doorbell rings and I assume it's my next door neighbor. Instead I find this skanky-looking lady standing on my porch with one of those weird grape vine angels. This picture doesn't quite do it justice but this lady was holding one that was 5 feet tall and strung with little white lights (puke). Anyway, she launches into some really long story about how she got this from her sister to sell so she can make ends meet while she tries to get on disability, blah blah blah. She tells me it's only $20 and it's real pretty.

My response? I tell her that I just quit my job and we don't have the money to buy it from her as lovely as it may be. I can't believe I offer these people explanations when I tell them no. How stupid is that?

Anyway, she wanders down the steps and back to the sidewalk and asks if there's anyone else she could ask aaaaannnd I told her I didn't know anyone for her to ask. Then I go outside to go water my crispy-looking bushes (we need some rain here big time. It looks like it does in the middle of August) and I see her drag this stupid angel over to my neighbor's house on the right. Poor Nick, I felt so bad that she went over to his house.

So, before she can come back and ask me again to buy the stupid angel, I go back in the house and figure I'll just water the bushes another time. Unbeknownst to me, Michael goes outside to water the bushes and also encounters the lady with the angel and she tells him a different story as to why she's selling it (can you say crack addict?) which, btw, is different than the story she gave my next door neighbor about needing to buy diapers. Anyway, Michael tells her no and she wanders off down the street. Then he sees her in the yard of the house 4 houses down and she's holding birdfeeders in her hand. She didn't have birdfeeders in the beginning of this ridiculous scenario because she STOLE THEM from the lady whose yard she was in. So, Michael confronts her and asks if those are her birdfeeders and she tells him that they belong to her. So, he tells her that he knows they belong to our neighbor and to put them back and then comes back to our house and calls the cops.

Michael: I think someone is stealing something from my neighbor's yard.
Police dispatcher: What is the woman taking?
Michael: Birdfeeders.
Police dispatcher: Can you describe the woman?
Michael: She's about 5' tall, brown hair and carrying a 5' grape vine angel

You know, my friend Carrie used to be a dispatcher and she said they got calls like this all the time. Anyway, the cops show up, 2 cruisers in fact, and they put the woman in the back of one cruiser and the big stupid angel thing in the trunk of the other cruiser only it's so tall and wide that they can't shut the trunk and half the angel is hanging out the back of the cruiser.

Shortly after the crazy lady is taken away by the cops we take the dog out for her last peepee for the night and we see the police cruiser driving thru the neighborhood with that angel hanging out the back. He sees us and pulls over to ask us if we know anything about it. Michael tells him that he's the one who called to report her and the cop tells us that she stole it from someone and he was trying to find the owner. We told him that neither one of us have ever seen that thing before but someone else in the neighborhood told him it belongs to someone on our block....seriously, if I had seen that on anyone's porch I would have been making fun of it every time I passed by.

Anyway, the next morning we take the dog out for her walk and we see one of our neighbor's birdfeeders didn't make it back and was lying in the grass next to someone else's house. I've been hoping to run into the lady that owns them to tell her that she might want to put them in her backyard but I haven't seen her yet.

But, wait! There's more. The thing about this neighborhood is that if your stuff isn't nailed down someone WILL steal it. We've had flower pots stolen a few times, theft of power tools from our garage (during broad daylight when Michael was home) and our rain barrel has been emptied not once but twice. And about 6 weeks ago someone stole the bungee cord we use on our trashcan to keep the raccoons out of it. So, Tuesday night is trash night and it was also a recycling week so we put out our recycling bin. Around lunch time on Wednesday afternoon I came home from school and my trashcan and recycling bin were out front but I decided to I'd get them later. Well, I go outside to walk the dog later in the afternoon and my fucking recycling bin is gone. WHO THE HELL STEALS A RECYCLING BIN?

I'm pissed so I call the cops and report that it's been stolen (seems petty but it's my only recourse). And later I find out that one of our neighbors saw some homeless guy who not only stole our recycling bin but had stolen other things like aluminum siding. Yes, folks, I said aluminum siding and it presumably was stolen off of someone's house. (Not the first time that's happened in this neighborhood). So, she called the cops and they arrested the guy and took all of the stolen goods....somewhere.

My bin is gone for good but the county department in charge of the recycling program here in Dayton is having a new one delivered on Thursday. We don't know if anyone claimed their stolen angel yet but I'll be sure to keep the internets posted.

Oh, the bureacracy!

I smell a rant coming on...

I want to preface this by saying that I'm very grateful for the tuition remission benefit Michael gets at the university. But. The process of registering for and the taking of classes at said university has been nothing short of a pain in the arse. WTF?!?

First of all, signing up in the first place for classes was a big mess b/c Michael had to do the work of having me enrolled. He went to HR, who sent him to the bursar, who sent him back to HR, etc. until finally, he got me enrolled. This is only the first of many hoops thru which my beloved had to jump, although for the sake of brevity, I will only list the highlights below.

Then there was the fun and exciting part of acting as my academic advisor and getting me registered for classes. The first one, stats, had to be a class that was offered at night since I was still working full time. There was a class offered at 5:50 pm and it was full. So, because Michael knows the dept. chair, he contacts him to get me into the class and is successful (yay!). And, as you all know, I got a B in that class and all was right with the world.

So, then there's the registration bit for the winter semester. Because I am low woman on the student totem pole (I have the status of an undeclared freshman, apparently) I got wait-listed for a few classes and then there was this big pain in the butt over the classes that were offered that I needed to take all being taught at the same times on the same days of the week so what is a student to do!?!? Ultimately, I got into Abnormal Psych and Anatomy and Micro and Physiology, but then I had to drop Micro and Phys for reasons I won't bore you with here. But here's where the story takes an interesting turn:

Somehow, when I was dropping Micro and Phys, I got dropped from Anatomy (this occurred after the first week of class during the add/drop window of opportunity) and I DID NOT KNOW THIS HAD HAPPENED!

So, on May 10th, when grades are posted online, all I see is my Psych grade (got an A, btw) but no Anatomy grade. So, I call the registrar's office and am told that that means my prof never turned in the grades so I would have to contact her directly. Okay....so I email her and never get a response. So, finally, after 2 weeks of waiting, I call the department secretary who tells me that the roster shows that I dropped the class back in January!!!!! What the hell!!!!! I tell her that I dropped Phys 307 not Anatomy 305 so, she refers me back to the registrar. The registrar explains that somehow Michael dropped me from Anatomy via the online advisor webpage thingy (which he did NOT do, incidentally--the university uses this lame ass web crap for it's registration stuff. What ever happened to doing your schedule on paper, having your advisor sign it and walking it over to the registrar's office?) but notes that this problem can be corrected. (big sigh of relief here)

Alas, the dept. secretary comes to my aid and fills out the forms to have me retroactively added back to the class and submits my grade. I want to give a shout out to Laura who saved the day and is my new favorite person. As for my grade...I got an A.

In case I forgot to mention this...

Asia's final heartworm test came back negative. Our baby is all better now!

And now it's only a matter of time before we have to drop another couple hundred bucks at the vet's office. It always seems to work out that way...but you know what? She's totally worth it.

Just look at that face!

Day 1 of Freedom (Unemployment)...

• Got up at 6 am to walk the dog and get ready for class
• called my dad before going into class
• 8 am chemistry class...woo...can hardly contain the excitement
• 9:15 go to library to do homework
• go to Michael's office to scrounge up change for a snack (this is the last time I leave the house without any money or snack in hand)
• have lunch in the dining hall
• go to the post office
• go to the grocery store
• put on a load of laundry
• walk the dog
• take a cat nap on the couch
• do more homework
• cook dinner
• do more homework
• rotate laundry
• do more homework
• blog

Sounds pretty exciting, huh?

The Universe Speaketh, part II

Universe: Well...?

Me: I quit. My last day is Saturday.

Universe: It's about time.

Me: Yep.

The Universe Speaketh...

Universe: Seriously? You need to quit. NOW.

Me: But what about my replacement? I haven't told her enough about the job...

Universe: She'll be fine. You need to quit.

Me: But what about the volunteers?

Universe: ...sigh... They'll be fine. They'll help train the new person just like they trained you.

Me: But what about...?

Universe: GET ON WITH IT! (to be spoken a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Me: ...sigh...

So inappropriate...

That's me. I'm at the philharmonic with my husband and in-laws and the composer du jour was Holst. So the arrangement was, you guessed it, The Planets. And I was looking at the program and saw "Uranus, the Magician" and, because I'm immature and crass, began to giggle silently during the performance. I giggled at least halfway through the movement and they were the kind of silent giggles where your body shakes because you're trying so hard not to laugh out loud. And because I'm trying hard not to giggle because it would be inappropriate to giggle like that while at the philharmonic, I only giggle harder and nearly choke on a Halls. I can't tell you why that was funny...it's such a Beavis & Butthead thing to laugh at but there's something about being somewhere where you have to behave yourself that makes you want to be bad. Yep, that's me, all class.

My New Hero...

On a more positive note, Michael and I had the opportunity to attend a lecture on Wednesday featuring Dr. Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders. His stories helped me put a little perspective on my own personal issues (I'm still feeling very anti-nonprofit but that soon will pass) and my general feelings about this ugly world in which we live. It's nice to know that there are still people out there who are committed to helping others and doing right by humanity. And maybe, after I'm done with nursing school, I might have the privilege to be a part of this very important work.

Crossroads, continued...

Well, I really am leaving my job (finally--I'm such a sucker) and this time I'm really ready to go and I am not even going to miss that place. The people (some of them), yes but not the company and not the work. I have worked in the non-profit field for the past 5 years and here I am already burned out on it. And the tough part is that the job I have now was supposed to be my dream job. And it wasn't. At all.

So, it's time to move on and I'll be spending my summer up to my eyeballs in chemistry and microbiology and any other courses I can get into. I'm applying for a part time receptionist job at doctor's office so that I can still bring in a little bit of money while working in a place that will look better on my application to nursing school. And will be the kind of job that is done at the end of the day. No more taking work home to do at night or on weekends and no more going in on my day off.

I think I've decided that it's much better to work at a job that pays more money and therefore you have more money to give to charity than it is to work for a non-profit. Not that it's always about the money--if it was I would have never gone into non-profit in the first place. But, there's something about this sector that really turns you off. I don't know if it's the fact that office politics are the same as in the corporate world...or there are too many people who get promoted to positions for which they're not qualified b/c it would cost more money to bring in an outside person who will demand a higher salary...or if it's that you work your ass off and there's never a bonus, you don't get more days off and you get a minuscule raise (if you get a raise at all). Non-profit sucks the life out of you and for what?

I'm tired of this "for the good of the community" bullshit. I'm at a point in my life where I want to do something I love instead of taking a job b/c I'm desperate for work. I want to make what I'm worth. I want a job that when the day is done, I don't take it home with me. I might think about it after I leave but I don't take actual, physical work home. I want a job that makes a difference in the lives of others but I want to be the direct service provider instead of the one who helps raise money so the provider can serve the agency's clients. I want a job where the upper-level management doesn't talk out of both sides of their mouths (like that one is going to happen) telling you how wonderful you are one minute and trashing you the second you've left the room.

I'm going to look for that job when I'm out of nursing school and I hope I find it. And on June 1st? I'm going to leave all this shit behind me.

At a crossroads....again.

Hmm...I think I may be too tired to write this post so instead I leave you with this. Happy Taxes!

Meme-ariffic!

If Michael had a blog I would have tapped him for a meme but he doesn't so, like the meme he did on me, I'm going to do one on him. So, here are 6 weird things about my husband, the Tall Man:

• His total willingness to talk to strangers in public/make faces at children who are in line ahead of us at the grocery store. I really don't understand this one.

• Male Pattern Blindess. Need I say more?
  

• He almost never puts salt on his food or uses it when cooking. In fact, when we first met, he didn't have a salt and pepper shaker. If he needed salt or pepper, he'd go get the big Morton's salt canister or the McCormick's pepper tin out of the pantry. Nothing like salting your food with the pour spout in a canister of salt.

• Total lack of understanding about why you can't wear a brown belt with black shoes. Or wearing a tan shirt with tan pants (desert fatigues anyone?). Or pleated pants. I hate pleated pants. In fact, our very first fight was about pleated pants.
  

• Even when he's cold, he won't put on a long sleeve shirt. He'll just be cold.
  

• Total aversion to body products that aren't toothpaste, deoderant, Pert Plus and Irish Spring. God forbid he have to use a bar of Olay soap in the shower. Or (gasp) use conditioner. Conditioner! Perish the thought!
  

Six weird things about, my wife, the Fummer.
(Guest blogged by The Tall Man)

1) Her freakish sense of smell. (Accompanied by many conversations like "Do you smell that?" "Smell what?" "I can't believe you can't smell that!"

2) The oft repeated dance of "Something's touching me!" followed by an intense search for the culpable wisp of dog fur, her hair or a loose thread. The compulsion is so strong that it could not even be contained on our first date.

3) Any joke containing the magic words "poo", "ass" or "fart" in the punch line is implicitly hilarious. Bonus points if it includes all three.

4) A breathtaking ability to swing from a great mood to full wrath and back in five seconds.

5) Her desire to rush over to any dog and befriend it, compared to her complete ambivalence to children.

6) Despite needing to hold my hand and repeat "Orcs eating doughnuts... orcs eating doughnuts" when we actively watch the movies, she will turn on the Lord of Rings movies for background noise while studying.

Detox Diet - Day 1, or why the hell am I doing this to myself?

So, my anatomy professor has mentioned detoxifying diets a few times in class and so...well, I decided I'd like to do a little experiment and try one out. Except there's way too many diets from which to choose so I put together something that's a little bit of a couple of different diets. And because I'm the one who cooks (and grocery shops) in our house, my wonderful husband gets to try this fun experiment with me (love you, honey).

So, basically we're doing 7 days of all veg, no dairy, no processed foods (except canned tomatoes and beans), no sugar and no caffeine. Really, I just want to see if I feel any different after this is over. I'm not sure I'm really detoxifying anything since I'm not doing any of the weird shit the books tell you to do like drinking room-temperature water with half a lemon squeezed into it. Not that lemon water is all that weird but I HATE lemon water with a passion. Nasty stuff. And room temperature? What's with that? But, one of the books recommends having a clinician inject you with pregnancy hormones. WTF? Anyway, I'm not drinking any weird concoctions or juicing my own veg...I'm just taking a break from processed foods, dairy and caffeine. The caffeine headache has been the worst part but there's only 6 more days to go!

Procrastination...

Back when I was in undergrad my procrastination activities included the following: watching syndicated reruns of Fr@sier and the Simps0n's, playing Sn00d, reading H@rry P0tter books, calling BANG! long-distance in London and/or taking a nap. Now, it looks more like this: reading blogs, maybe updating my own blog, cooking dinner, cleaning house, walking the dog, taking a nap (this really only happens when I'm sick, like today), doing laundry and/or running errands. Seriously, procrastination was much more fun when I was in undergrad.

Not that I should complain. My fabulous husband makes it possible for me to work part time while taking classes (alas paid for by the very tricksy tuition remission benefit) but procrastination when I need to be studying or writing a paper just isn't as enjoyable as it used to be. Especially when I'm an adult now with a house to look after. And, seriously? How do women with kids do this? How do they raise a family, look after a household and work? And what about the ones who do all that AND go to school? I am so in awe of the women who do that. Because you know what? I don't think I have that in me.

That being said, I guess I better get back to my schoolwork.

Happy Anniversary!

March 7, 2006 was the day we brought Asia home from the Humane Society and into our lives. And now one year (plus a few days...I swear I meant to post this on the 7th) later here we are. It's been a long year of contractors tramping thru the house and making lots of racket while she tried to sleep, monthly visits to the vet for cortisone injections, a very expensive visit to the doggy dermatologist for allergy testing and thrice-weekly allergy injections, her first X-mas with us, trips to Lankytown and a very scary bout with heartworms (still not in the clear yet but she's almost there!) but it has been a wonderful year of her sweet doggy self in our lives. And I just wanted to share our joy with the internets because nothing is as wonderful as coming home to find her waiting at the door.

Holding my breath and crossing my fingers...

But no jinxes.