just a little thing i do

Or, I Shaved My Legs For This?

( Career Fair, now with extra scam. )
( How LJ broke my hairstick. )

Turquoise cervidae: My day sucked, which was magnified by most of the suck being my own damn fault.

This time tomorrow, I will be a much happier person. Either that, or ready to skin Tim Kring alive. Kelson was asking earlier if, seeing as there were 24 hours to go, I wanted to be sedated. Considering the Ramones tie-in to Heroes, an appropriate question. But I think if I don't have the energy to poing around work during the training tomorrow, I'll be the one skinned alive. Always a problem when you're among the in-charge.

Pillage, Drive, and Heroes. Monday should be worth living through again.

So I've been reading a lot lately, which used not to be news. One day at work I opened my backpack to look for something, don't remember what, and found the books andrea_wot had loaned me: His Majesty's Dragon and Throne of Jade, by Naomi Novik. Me being bored and it being lunchtime, I picked up HMD, the firstish chapter of which I'd read online the weekend before. My entire week after that was filled with dragon. Even over the breakfast table. I may have to buy these, both to boost sales and to feel less like an idiot for picking up Black Powder War when it comes out because I won't want to wait for someone else to get through it first.

This past weekend, I attended a two-day seminar (Friday and Saturday, ugh) in the interest of passing a very nasty test for the advancement of my career prospects. (Not the GRE, the self-insurance administrator exam.) It was in Buena Park, and as we had no idea how long it would take to get there in morning traffic, we left earlier than the norm. At the last minute, I decided to bring a book, and tossed a too-long-borrowed one, Sunshine by Robin McKinley, in my crochet bag. I don't remember when I started it, but it must not have been on Friday or I'd have been reading it in the car on Saturday morning, which I wasn't. It turned out to be another put-the-book-DOWN-Katherine situation, which I should have remembered from every other experience I've had with the fabulous Ms McKinley, but it's been way too long. I finished the book last night and am now determined to bake cinnamon rolls this weekend. Not as big as my head though.

Tonight, we watched X-Men, the first one. Neither Blockbuster in town had the second; we're contemplating buying both just to be able to see them before the weekend and not look like idiots for only owning one of the three. And damned if I didn't sit there with a goofy gobsmacked look on my face during the last sequence. ( Read Sunshine, see the movie, then click here. Preferably in that order, if you're starting from scratch. ) Not what anyone would consider cut-and-dried, but my flashes of thematic connection rarely are. Suffice it to say I'm very happy I never got around to returning sekl's book, and probably won't be getting a chance to anytime soonish, so that K can read it too.

Things I need to do before Wednesday:
*Bake and decorate yet more gingerbread and sugar cookies
*Make wassail and figure out how to heat it at work
*Modify a Frappuccino bottle to look like a milk bottle
*Construct a cardboard chimney/fireplace and cover it with brick-printed paper, with an optional fake fire inside
*Transport all of the above to work, in pieces if necessary
*Come up with presents, both obligatory and voluntary, for people at work
*Convince co-worker not to add a reindeer to the scene we're attempting to construct
*Bake something (probably sweet-potato pie) for grazing buffet scheduled for Wednesday

Things I need to do before Sunday (and possibly before Saturday):
*Bake multiple kinds of cookies for gift purposes
*Compound multiple kinds of candies for same
*Pack all of above, attractively if possible
*Come up with non-carb, non-gift-card gift for parents
*Wrap all presents
*Arrange for present transfer to friends
*Make dinner rolls and possibly dessert, all of which will be maligned whether my father eats any or not, and none of which will be judged comparable to 1) Marie Callender's no-sugar apple pie and/or 2) my sister's inevitable box-mix fancy-pan bundt cake

Things I did tonight:
*Made gingerbread, sugar, and vanilla ravioli cookie doughs
*Made soda bread so K won't starve tomorrow morning
*Got my reg keys for Avernum 3 & 4, and played 1 1/2 hours of A3 (saying things like, "Dude, leave us alone, our mage can kick your ass"--archery is the bomb in that one.)

Tomorrow should be interesting. With a capital frell.

1. Came down with evilnastybad sore throat on the 10th-11th. Broke out in rash like the one from the July 4 epizudic on Sunday night (11th) and treated same as previously directed. Rash spread to areas previously unaffected and sore throat continued unabated through the 13th. Visited doctor on the 14th at which time sore throat magically resolved into mild cough and tooth-aching left-sided sinus pressure. Diagnosed with This Season's Virus and sent home.

2. Coughing fits began the night of the 14th. The kind that wake you up from NyQuil sleep and make it impossible to catch a breath. Abs began to hurt inside 24 hours. Throat muscles followed the day after.

3. Left eye began to water and redden on the 15th. Woke up with eye glued shut on the 16th and visited doctor. Vitals taken by same nurse from 14th. Diagnosed with backup of congestion and viral spread into left eye and ear, prescribed OTC nasal spray. Hate nasal spray. Took DayQuil. K and I are now competing for meds. My pillow is now toxic. Hands not yet chapped from excessive washing.

4. B5 viewing set for 6 pm Friday 16th.
5:05 - supervisor brings by pile of documents and stays for job-related chat.
5:10 - receive on-the-way call from K.
5:20 - chat finishes and I place order for K's dinner.
5:25 - I complete frantic shutdown of computer systems and start walk to La Salsa.
5:30 - K reaches La Salsa and retrieves dinner.
5:35 - I arrive at Starbucks and place order for green tea and orange tea.
5:40 - we depart Starbucks with two cups of boiling water.
5:45 - we call friends in warning of lateness.
5:50 - we remember why we take side streets to go home, and discover that starting at rice end of burrito while driving = bad.
6:05 - we reach home to find guests on patio.
6:30-10:30 - left eye unpleasantness peaks. This coincides with watching 4 eps of B5.

5. Audit at work beginning the 21st. 21 files in need of attention and no time during work to provide it. B5 in evening on 16th, class enabling me to keep job on 19th, family night and/or pillage and/or prep for Lost party on 20th. Work building open 8 am-1 pm on weekends. Wake up 6 am Saturday, arrive at 8:15 and work until 2:15. 14 files down, 7 to go.

6. Tori concert 7:30 pm on 17th. Preparations taken with DayQuil, etc. do not prevent 10-minute coughing fit lasting through one favorite of mine and one of K's. Cold damp air outdoors at the Greek is not friend to nasopharynx. K does better which really burns me as I am the one with supposedly normal respiratory tract.

7. Wake up 8 am Sunday, arrive at work 10 am, work until 2:30. Files all pretty. Lunch at Finbar's. Oasis of contentment.

8. K's turn to suffer as we hit Container Store, Party City, TJ's, and Stater Brothers for ingredients for Cake of Piratey Goodness. Ears assaulted by Celine Dion song in line at SBros.

9. Had pirate time while softening butter for cake. Got to play stand-in for MIA groom in triple wedding taking place 24th. Stayed on much too long and did not start cake until 8 pm.

10. Cake did not want to assemble nor stay assembled. Attacked cake with toothpicks and skewers to hold it in treasure-chest shape. Refrigerator accepted cake and the gigantic platter it rode in on. And the peasants rejoice.

11. No coughing fits during last 3 hours of cake, nor during 15 minutes of brain-racking in attempt to post benign, coherent piratey blog entry on Ramblings. Therefore, per 2:30 am logic, attempted sleep sans NyQuil. Had 1/2 hour of exhaustion-induced half-dreams, half-hallucinations and woke up coughing. Thereafter woke up every 20-30 min to cough. Marveled, upon getting up at alarm time, that K had allowed me to live through the night.

12. Looked in mirror this morning and both eyes were identical shade of pink. Too exhausted to do anything but stare.

13. Have coughed all day due to not wanting to OD on dextromethorphan. Will have killer 6-pack if I keep this up.

14. Eyes itchy like allergies tonight. Damn flowering Delvians.

Carpet at work was replaced over the weekend and the new pattern is making everyone dizzy. I was more afraid of getting high on the rubber and fiber fumes, especially when combined with the painting they were also supposed to be doing. So far, though, the biggest problems have been the dust and the tape labels the guys put on the cubicle pieces to know where to put them back. Everything is dusty and everyone is going around with 409 and asking me for Goo Gone, which I'm going to have to bring tomorrow and leave a sign-out sheet for.

The combination of the 409 and carpet smelled familiar for some reason, and it took me a while to place it as the scent of my mom's school. Fortunately, due to having been put in charge of random stuff most times I was there, the smell makes me feel very competent, secure, and authoritative. Very different from this weekend, when the English Lavender soap in the bathroom at Outback transported me back to my baby-sitter's house and started me craving a peanut butter and honey sandwich. On Wonder bread. I feel lucky that the school smell didn't make me want cafeteria pizza or something freako like that.

Milton had his red Swingline. I have a black Faber-Castell, the brand of which I only just now discovered, as it's not labeled on top or on the side, but in very light engraving on the trough-like lower part of the metal assembly. It was among the things I scavenged at the outset of my employment here, and has proven to be the most valuable find of all. I can reliably get about fifteen sheets with no deforming of the staple, but other people always try a few times, mangle the corners of their documents, rip up their fingers on mangled staples, and give up. After losing two staple removers (the second one initialed in whiteout after the loss of the first), I added a sticker to the stapler saying "If you can't work it....it ain't yours." I think I would go ballistic if I lost it, but considering it won't work for anyone else, it doesn't seem to be worth worrying about.

What's worthy of worry is that, today, I realized I could tell without looking that it's out of staples. It feels different when it's nailing home with its last one. I suppose it's sort of like knowing exactly what's wrong with a car you've had for years by the frequency of the steering-wheel vibrations, but it's more disconcerting. I mean, it's a freaking office supply. It shouldn't be tapping into intuition. Next thing you know, I'll be moving my desk into the basement......