Not My Finest Moment

I screamed at a telemarketer yesterday.

Having worked as the faceless person on the other end of the phone for a year or two, I know how badly the job sucks.  I know it's easier to be mean to a person you don't have to make eye contact with, and I'm certainly not bragging about screaming at a stranger.  But he deserved it.  Here's my best reconstruction of the conversation:

Him: Hello I'm with customer service from [unintelligible], calling about your computer
Me: Where did you say you are calling from?
Him: I can make your computer 80% faster.
Me: You're calling a cell phone and I'm on the 'do not call list.'
Him: I don't care.
Me: Excuse me?
Him: I don't care if you're on a cell...
Note: The guy had a thick Indian accent, and at first I wasn't sure whether he said "I don't care" or "I don't carry your cell phone," and I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt that we were having some sort of language barrier and maybe thought I was saying I thought he was calling about my cell service.  Nope!
Me: Well I'm on the 'do not call list.' I'm asking you to take me off of your list and not call me again.
Him (cutting me off): I can make your computer faster.
Me: OH MY GOD SHUT UP, YOU JERK!

After I hung up, I laughed and laughed.  Seriously, I just don't DO things like that.  Had I lost my marbles?  Should I feel guilty?  Should I figure out how to file some kind of official complaint?

Well, as it turns out I have nothing to feel guilty about.  It looks like my Indian friend, calling from 219-545-8769, has quite a track record for being kind of a jerk.  And a scammer.  I find that fascinating.  If you're going to hack my computer or take my credit card number on a spending spree, shouldn't you at least be polite about it?

I doubt he'll call me back, but if he does I think I just won't answer.  I don't even really think he's a scammer.  I think he's just some kind of psychopath who likes to push people's buttons, like one of those trolls on internet message boards.  I let him get the best of me yesterday.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

But it really did feel good to scream at him!!

This is Why I Have a Blog

I have a tiny bandage on my forehead, right at my hairline near my temple.  Under that bandage is a small but mighty head wound.  It's one of those random ouchies I occasionally get that starts out as a bug bite or a pimple, gets scratched, and bleeds like a gunshot wound.

I'm not the only one who gets these, right?

Anyway, after my seven-mile run* this morning, I took a long bath, dried off, put pajamas on, and wrapped my hair up in the towel.  And then I climbed into bed and passed out for 45 minutes.  When I woke up, I pulled off the towel, intending to roll over and fall back to sleep, when **rip**!

Apparently my shower popped the scab, which then healed over into the towel.  Eventually I got it to stop bleeding long enough to bandage it up, but by then my nap was ruined.  I've been awake and groggy ever since.

Good thing it's just about time for bed!

*yep, I did just casually drop a longer-than-10k run into a story about something else.  I'm pretty badass like that!

Closing the Book on 2012

It's weird to say, but I'm hesitant to leave 2012 behind.  It's been such an amazing year for me. How can next year possibly match it?

You've all been along with me for the ride, and I'm not going to re-hash everything that happened.  You can read the archives if you want.  There were only 45 posts this year...shouldn't take too long.  Anyway, here is my traditional year-end non-sequitor overly-hyphenated wrap-up: (the first word in each sentence links back to the first blog post of each month)

I'm not making resolutions.  First of all, I would like to point out that I'm actually following through on the arbitrary goals I put on myself.  On my 30th birthday, my co-worker Donna bought me a big ol' mylar "30" balloon. I wish I had a picture...I think you'd be impressed. This is officially the highest GPA I've had in my collegiate life (previous part-time summer semesters were both in the 3.6 area), and I freaking earned it!

Just a quick update for posterity: Yesterday, I ran my first mile in 13.58 minutes. 

I called Sirius-XM this afternoon because my most recent promotional rate was about to expire.  I thought I'd preserve for posterity a section of the last paper I had to write for my Industrial/Organizational Psychology class this semester.  This kid started kindergarten today.  The duct tape on my feet held perfectly.  When I get the cooking bug, it's pretty inconvenient with the working and the studying and the exercise... ok, mostly the working and the studying, but I digress.  I had a long training run this morning - 8 miles - and during that time, I found myself doing a little reflection.
Hardly seems to cover everything, but I guess it touches on the highlights.  I can't even imagine what's in store for the next 12 months. 

Bring on 2013!

0% Normal, 100% Jamie

This morning I took a jog around the neighborhood, rather than run on the treadmill at the gym. This allows me to sleep for an extra 45 minutes and be a little less self-conscious about whatever random workout clothes I put on (dark bra + light shirt is much less of a problem outdoors before sunrise). Scott was nice enough to come out with me today, riding his bike (on the sidewalk… tsk tsk) behind me. That meant I could go down dark and shady paths because his bike has a headlight and I’m less likely to be abducted/raped/murdered when he’s with me.

I’ve noticed pretty much since I started running that I have an affliction of sorts caused by years of show choir and marching band: It is incredibly difficult for me to run or walk to music without matching my footsteps to the beat. It’s even harder to ignore the beat if it’s a song I’ve ever performed… and boy howdy that covers a lot of music! If the song is too fast, I find myself taking shorter steps. Too slow? I lengthen my stride and keep to the beat. Also, I have some smallish quirks relating to certain songs. For example, when “Barbie Girl” comes on, I tend to swing my ponytail more and bob my head left and right.

About 20 minutes into this morning’s run, “Greased Lightning” came bopping in through my headphones, and the music... moved me. That’s right, I did the arm motions to the song’s chorus every time through the song. Now, we were on a stretch of road where there were no dog walkers or drivers. It’s unlikely that I would have done the same thing if I was aware of anyone else. During the 10-miler when the song came on, I did the hand motions to “greased lightnin’…go greased lightnin’” but not the full-blown hand-arm combo. (those particular hand motions, by the way, are good for relieving dehydration-related sausage fingers)

(the chorus starts at 0:31)

It’s also unlikely I would have done the same thing if Scott hadn’t been with me. Occasionally during my longer training runs in the summer, I would take an extended walk break and start belting out a few lines of “Rainbow Connection,” as interpreted by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Those little performance breaks have become my way of saying “I know you’re there…thanks for not ditching me!”

So there you have it. If you’re ever in my neighborhood before dawn and see me jogging, just hang back a few yards and wait for the show. You never know what you might get!

it's a small world

I sent one of my trainers out today to do high reach training for a guy from another department, and it was sort of a cluster**** getting things organized and getting these two guys to the same place at the same time.  When the trainer got back, he stopped in my office and told me that this training was like a "call from God," which was good...I thought he was going to give me a hard time because of the lousy communication.

He went on to tell me that his dad had passed away 10 years ago, and even before that they weren't close.  Divorce, etc. etc.  But the guy that I sent him out to train works in the department his dad used to work in, and had worked with his dad for many years.  My trainer got to hear some old war stories about his dad, and got the other guy's phone number. He hopes they can get together for a beer so he can hear more.

Even people with great relationships with their parents rarely get to see them outside of the parent role.  For him to have the chance to get to know his dad from a completely different perspective, it's really a gift.  And he knows how lucky he was to have that chance meeting today, which makes it even more special.

Odd Ends

Here are a few things floating through my head today that are too long for Twitter and too short for their own blog posts.

* When I was in the fourth grade, my family took a vacation to England.  I distinctly remember being disappointed when we returned to the US and not only did we not get to disembark the plane via staircase to the tarmac, but there was no marching band.  Apparently my only exposure to international travel had been the evening news and seeing the President and/or US Military members returning to much fanfare.  I thought of that today because this morning my friend Margaret floated into Port Canaveral aboard the Disney Fantasy, to a throng of well-wishers waving at the ship, plus media coverage and fireworks!  My inner fourth grader is very jealous indeed!  (the rest of me is jealous of the transatlantic voyage and the stop in NYC)

* Experiences (most) men don't understand:  Forgetting that you're wearing high heels, until the toilet seat is 3" lower than you're expecting it to be.  That might not sound like a great distance, but when you're falling bare-assed through space wondering who moved the toilet and bracing for impact with the ground, it's just enough for a mini adrenaline rush!

* We learned this morning that Robert Sherman died.  Even if you don't know the name, you know his music.  He and his brother Richard worked directly with Walt Disney to create music for movies from Mary Poppins to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, plus the ol' theme park classics "It's a Small World" and the theme to the Tiki Room.  The Disney Parks Blog had a lovely write-up that started with a Mary Poppins reference that made me tear up: "Today, the wind has changed and Disney Legend Robert B. Sherman has had to leave us. But the immeasurable gifts of song he has given — in that magical partnership with his surviving brother, Disney Legend Richard M. Sherman — will stay forever."  It's true - their legacy will outlive all of ours!

2011 in Non-Sequitor

How did it get to be December 31st already?  Did I miss Thanksgiving and Christmas?  I really let the past few months fly past and barely looked around.  Maybe that's because I've got so much change coming up next year.  School? At my age? Bwahahaha!  Anyway, before I leap into a new year, pardon me while I indulge myself in my annual look back...

Take the first sentence of the first post of every month this year on your blog and put them all together.


Milo took the opportunity to nap in the laundry room, which is generally off-limits, while I was packing up Christmas. I set out to take a picture of the birds on the light poles that I see every morning. Driving home feeling sleep-deprived after an overnight shift? 
 
We painted the garage yesterday - a beautiful solid coat of white. The oven timer has about 45 minutes left on it, though dinner certainly isn't going to be before 5, since that's when Scott gets home from work.  I just noticed that all of the pictures in the gallery at the top of the blog currently contain Scott. 
 
The following happened between 7:00 and 8:00 this morning: Scott and I have an event to attend in New Jersey this fall. I spent August 24-27 in a whirlwind of family fun. We're in a bit of a money crunch right now.  It's been a rough week for the Penn State faithful, myself included. Can you believe Scott had never made gingerbread (or graham cracker) houses before we decorated these beauties in 2008?

Fresh? Not So...

After last summer's near-death experience with a car air-freshener, it should come as no surprise to you that I'm not really fond of scented anything.  Even before that, I've always found most fragrances overwhelming. 

Cinnamon brooms at Publix? Sorry Scott, you'll have to do that corner of the store yourself.

Powdered carpet cleaner? I'll just avoid that room for a few days.

I even remember trying to hold my breath in the "stinky aisle" of cleaning products as a kid. (of course, I also remember freezing to death in the freezer aisles. it's possible the only part of the store I did like was the free cookie part!)

For the Birds

Here's a bit of randomness for you on a Sunday morning:
(and if the video doesn't embed, which the preview suggests it won't, here's the link)

2010 in Non-Sequitor

It's my favorite post of the year!

Take the first sentence of the first post of every month this year on your blog and put them all together.

If you love the Muppets as much as I do, I bet you'll enjoy spending time on the website for Disney's new volunteer-and-we'll-give-you-a-park-ticket campaign.  I'm pretty bad at peer pressure. I was going for a clever play on 'Pride and Prejudice' but I think I failed.

Once again, I find myself the victim(?) of peer pressure in the form of NaBloPoMo.  I made sticky buns for breakfast.  Rationally, I understand that boycotting BP doesn't hurt BP as much as it hurts local station owners and workers and that's it's a pretty ineffective emotional response. 

After dinner Thursday, Scott and I stopped in to Bath & Body Works because I needed some pretty-smelling hand sanitizer for my work desk. The problem with blog posts that write themselves is that they don't publish themselves. I woke up this morning an hour early to bake a loaf of banana bread to take to work. 

I read today on Twitter that October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to present you with my new computer desktop image.  Scott pulled out the Christmas tree this afternoon and put it up. 

Happy New Year everyone.  Best wishes for health and wisdom in 2011!

Killing Myself for a Bargain

I had a coupon from Snapfish - buy one calendar get two free - and decided I couldn't pass it up. I didn't read that there was a specific size calendar included, so my first three hours of work (on three separate calendars) was pretty much wasted.

Round two of calendars took me a little less than two hours, and they actually came out better than round one. I guess I can't complain. Except about my aching click & drag fingers! My hands HURT!

Anyway, now Scott and I each have calendars for our offices, and I made one for home that's mostly pictures of us. It's my favorite!

My creativity has been sapped for the day, so please excuse me while I go dig into leftover Halloween candy and then head to bed.

Label Fail

This is an actual tab on an actual hanging file in my desk. I spent a few hours over the past week cleaning out the desk, mostly recycling a half-ton of various papers (hello? isn't that what computer archives are for?) and moving folders around.

Despite all of the unsentimental brush clearing I did, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the "Scap Paper" file, because every time I see it I chuckle.

I have approximately 100 hanging files in three drawers in my desk, and personally use five. There are another ten with stuff I haven't yet decided it's ok to toss. And of course, 2" of scrap paper that's been memorialized in an otherwise unused drawer (note: the folder in front of the tab is full of half-used notebooks. WTF?).

I'll leave you with two other pictures, for S&G's. These are the other file drawers. The first is the one I actually use (the first five files, at least). The second has 62 files - two sets labeled 1-31. Obviously I didn't do that zig-zag with the tabs. It pings my OCD every time I see it!

Do You Know What Time It Is?

It's BEDTIME!

It's been a long day, but now it's the weekend, I finally got my contact lens prescription filled, and tomorrow is the Rally to Restore Sanity.

If you can make sense out of that last sentence, you're probably as tired as I am.

Good night!

October

I read today on Twitter that October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month . There's got to be a joke in there somewhere. (a one-armed man, a wife-beater, and a boob walk into a bar...) According to Wikipedia, it's also the awareness month for infertility, Down Syndrome, blindness, SIDS, and dental hygiene. So in short, we should spend the next 31 days being aware of the world around us.

October 1 is also the anniversary of the opening of the Magic Kingdom and Epcot (a few years apart, of course). And since the summer tourists are gone and the heat index is below 100, it's time to head out to the theme parks as well. Perhaps I'll finally hit 10,000 steps on my pedometer in one day.

What are you doing or observing this month?

2009: The Year of the Parkhopper

Here we are on December 31. It must be time for my traditional year-end mash-up post...

Take the first sentence of the first post of every month this year on your blog and put them all together.

It's a good thing I didn't make a New Year's Resolution to do a blog post every day, huh? Wii have been playiing wiith our new viideo game system a lot.

There's a link on the AOL main page today that I certainly won't be clicking:

Our purchase of a Wii was conditional. I've been peer-pressured into doing the May NaBloPoMo (theme: "sweet"), so Happy May! What to do with a mostly-full bag of mini marshmallows?

It sucks to have your 15 minutes of fame entangled with a tragedy.

I've once again been peer pressured into participating in NaBloPoMo. We're going to be hiring another full-time person into my office.

We're out of salt here at Apartamente de ParkHopper (as opposed to Casa ParkHopper, which is not where we currently live). I'm meeting up today with Laura and Richard for lunch. Scott and I pulled out of the garage on Sunday afternoon only to discover that someone had let their dog crap - twice - on our driveway and made no attempt to clean it up.

Happy New Year!! Stay off the roads tonight if you can. See you next year/decade!

Dedication

I'd like to dedicate this Lovely Listing to Janette. See if you can figure out why!

Nope, it's not the tiger climbing the walls.

Nope, it's not the themed bathroom. (Actually if I were dedicating the listing to Scott, it would be for the bathroom. He likes turtles!)

Don't see it? OK, fourth picture down (has gravity-defying vines on the ceiling). See it now? All the way on the right? Dude! There's a ukulele right there!

Yep...that was the whole point of this entry. And now, 6 dozen unborn sugar cookies and two unborn apple pies are crying out for creation. Oh yeah, and Scott's gifts need to be wrapped. I think I'll start with the presents...

Poop

(literally)

Scott and I pulled out of the garage on Sunday afternoon only to discover that someone had let their dog crap - twice - on our driveway and made no attempt to clean it up. We were both annoyed, but decided to leave it until it dried a little so that we could sweep it out of the driveway.

Imagine my surprise the next day when Scott told me that he swept the poop out of the driveway, and whatever animal it came from, it was most definitely not a domestic canine! The poop had chunks of fur and sections of intestine in it. He showed me this morning. I would've touched it, if not for the fact that a) it's dead animal, and b) it's poop. Still, you can't help but laugh about it!

The following photos have nothing to do with poop. But they were taken on Sunday. That makes them relevant to the post, right?

Assorted Nuts

Today's post is really more like a handful of Tweets. Enjoy the odds & ends!

* Why is it ok to talk about puking your guts up or having a splitting headache, but not ok to tell the world about the extent of your diarrhea? It bugs me. Sickness is sickness. Poop is so misunderstood.

* Speaking of sickness, I went home sick halfway through my shift last night. My stomach still hurts, though I'm being careful to feed it a steady diet of bland foods and a distinct lack of dairy. Scott was having stomach problems last weekend (manifesting differently from my own), and we thought it was the fault of the pork nachos. But given my stunning digestive pyrotechnics yesterday (hat tip to "10 Things I Hate About You" for my favorite euphemism), I'm starting to think perhaps it was viral. I'm back to work today. I'd rather take the day off, but if I do that I'll lose my holiday pay.

* Scott and I had a miscommunication regarding our late-November feast. It seems I didn't tell him the ingredients I needed for my cheesecake. And so the poor guy went out in the rain today to buy me a graham cracker crust, caramel topping, and 2 bricks of cream cheese. I was going to make the pie this morning, but I'll try again tonight. I just wanted to get it done and out of the way so I don't have to jockey for oven space at a later time.

* As I mentioned, it is currently POURING! I won't be complaining though. Yes, it's so uncharacteristic of me. I won't complain about this one day of rain because it is a cold front. Tonight we'll have the windows open and in the morning, I might actually be using a blanket. I guess I should find a jacket and umbrella...

Blow Dryer

I just got out of the shower and put clean pajamas on. Nope, not skipping work, just taking my time getting ready. And since it's a little warm here in the office (windows closed due to the rain, thermostat set to 80), I have a fan pointed at me. And since I have the fan pointed at me anyway, I flipped my hair over the top of the chair in hopes that it will be mostly dry by the time I get ready for work.

This post has been brought to you by NaBloPoMo, where it doesn't matter what you write, but that you write it!

Morning? I'll Take Your Word For It!

I think we can all agree by now that I'm not so much a morning person. I work nights for a reason - mostly so that I can have three hours between the alarm and walking out the door to gradually wake up. My mom was the same way when I was a kid. I could still tell you her morning routine, but I'm sure she'd prefer that I not!

Anyway, I'm in at 9 today. My alarm was set for 7 and I have to leave at 8:15. Not enough wake up time! Also not enough time for a juicy blog post. But really, nothing has happened since last night except Kilo crying at the bedroom door at 5 am. And since I haven't killed or maimed him, I guess it's not really news.