The Odd, the awkward, the outrageous

My name is....

2011-11-09T16:17:00.001-05:00

While on a webinar recently, the speaker asked for one of the participant’s names. His response:
“Yes my name is aaaaahhh ummmm Paul aaahhhh ummmm Smith and I’m from aaaaahhhummmm United Way of aaahhhh ummm South Carolina.”

Now, it might have just been the accent, but I was pretty sure he needed a moment before he could remember his name.

Doesn’t that seem just a bit sketchy?

Sorry “Ted”

2011-11-07T18:07:00.001-05:00

I have a coworker who is a really nice guy. He’s sweet, he loves his work and is clearly dedicated to the work we do.

But he drives me nuts.

He and I both get in to the office very early in the morning. I do this out of necessity most days—you can get so many emails answered if you don’t have to worry about other ones coming in, not to mention how easy it is to prepare for meetings before anyone else comes in and breaks the printer.

But morning times are me times. The other day Brian woke up an hour before his alarm and needed to use the bathroom. I was pretty pissed that he had so thoughtlessly interrupted my time to get ready in the morning. That’s right, I was so angry, I begrudged someone using the bathroom.

I don’t want to talk in the morning. That’s what 9am is for. Any time before 9, is off limits for chatting.

But Ted wants to chat. What’s more, Ted wants to mumble half the story and/or start the story half way through, as if I pay close attention to all his work projects and his personal life. He says things like “Friday went so well, we had two hundred people turn out and I was there until midnight,” and while he will continue, he will never explain what was happening on Friday, unless you interrupt him to ask, but this generally starts him on a whole new track.

Its sweet, really, that he wants to share the good things that are happening in our work. But I do not want to share until 9am. Today, I realized that I was going to hell when I walked into the kitchen, saw him standing by the coffee maker and then jumped back behind the door so he wouldn’t see me.

Honestly, who hides from sweet coworkers who just want to chat?!

And now I wonder how many coworkers hide when they see me coming.

I would walk 500 miles, just to talk with you

2011-11-07T18:06:00.001-05:00

As I’ve already posted, I’m supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day. To put it in perspective, I can work a 10 hour day and not break 3,000 steps. Getting in 10,000 takes thought and persistence. Which Hansens apparently have in spades.

I went to Chicago this weekend to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with my family (this is what happens when 2/6ths of the family don’t like to travel on holidays and 2/6ths have unpredictable work schedules). When I arrived on Friday, I only had about 4,000 steps. So I asked my dad to go for a walk before dinner. And after dinner. And before bed. And we made it! 10,000 steps, despite almost 6 hours in the car!

The next day, I alternated walks with Mom, walks with Dad and walks with parent + sister. It was really nice. Because you never just walk, you get to walk and talk. We talked about my wedding, mom’s recovery, dad’s retirement, loosing grandpa, getting ready to say goodbye to the dog, children, roller derby, sister's house, my job, mom’s job, Brian’s lactose intolerance. Really, everything.

It was wonderful. I not only achieved a goal I set for myself every day, but I got to spend more quality time with my family than I would have otherwise. I love it when we’re all together, but getting to take these walks for one on one time was a beautiful gift.

Until I got home on Sunday and spent 45 minutes pacing the living room to get my steps in. Then this seemed like bullshit.

First Bout

2011-11-01T15:52:00.001-04:00

I reffed my first roller derby bout on Saturday. I spent the morning pouring over the officials manual and rule book, nearly suffocating myself with nervous energy. What if I missed a call? What if I made a bad call? What if someone called me out for missing a call?!

Unfortunately, this nervous “what if” mindset turned out for the worse. In fear of making a bad call—or of having to chase a girl repeating the call—I made no calls. Well, there was a single call, but it was a technicality the player told us she was about to commit (derby strategy, I’ll explain it to y’all some other time).

After the bout ended, my fellow refs filled me with suggestions and tips. They helped me map out a plan for what to do at the next bout—including muttering minor calls to myself and chasing down whoever needs to be chased.

I wish I could say I walked away exhilarated and accomplished, but it just wasn’t the case. I love skating. I love being a part of derby. I think I can learn to love reffing. But the day didn’t end with joy. I was tired. My feet hurt. I was sad I didn’t have a better showing at my first bout. The closest to success I came was that no one hit me in the face (like what happened to one of the inside pack refs) and I didn’t run into any of the spectators (like one of the outside pack refs).

But I’ll be reffing again in November. It’s not a bout my league is playing in, so the pressure of people you know seeing you screw up is somewhat relieved, and I just might actually make a call.

S-Walked

2011-10-24T09:30:00.003-04:00

On Saturday, Ann Arbor held its first Slut-Walk. For folks who don’t troll the feminist blogs, Slut-Walk is a response to a Toronto police officer advising women to prevent sexual assault by “not dressing like sluts.” Slut-Walk’s goal is to remind everyone that no matter what a woman wears, she is not asking for violence to be perpetrated against her.

I’ve been on the fence about Slut-Walk, if only because of how I know it will be viewed instead of its intention. Most participants in Slut-Walk wear provocative clothing which I know can quickly move from empowerment in the moment to objectification on the internet. I also don’t want an activity that is supposed to be about fighting victim blaming to turn into the reclamation (can you reclaim what was never yours?) of a word that i really don’t like in the first place.

But, I thought Slut-Walk would be a good opportunity to shamelessly self- promote roller derby and show that roller girls care about more than just our sport. And since pretty much everything that we commonly wear to practice would be under that police officer’s definition of “slutty,” I think derby should be there, reminding the world that clothes do not make the woman.

So, teamed up with some roller-friends, I went. I struggled with the chants, like I do at every rally, because I think issues are too complex to be distilled into a bumper sticker. So while the group was yelling “What do we do when we’re under attack? Stand up, fight back!” (ugh), I joked to my friends that we needed to be chanting “Consent is a clear and freely given yes, not the absence of a no!” A reporter walking near us thought that was the best thing she had ever heard so I gave her some quotes about the movement and about violence.

While there were lots of things I didn’t like about the walk (like the complicated issues of cars honking to show support for the rally—or honking because of the way women are dressed at the rally), I liked talking to the three different reporters who interviewed me. It was nice to use my knowledge of issues of sexual violence again. It was nice to be able to talk about this complex issue in a setting other than a nice time with friends made suddenly uncomfortable when work comes up.

It’s been a while since I was active in that work, but it felt really good to be back.

See, look here! They quoted me, although they left the best part of the quote for the second page

Sweet Success

2011-10-21T08:34:00.001-04:00

So since the beginning of March, I’ve been training to ref with the Ann Arbor Derby Dimes. This means that I had to a)learn the rules of roller derby b) learn to spot the fouls and c) learn to roller skate. Unfortunately, I started with the league right after they had their “boot camp” training for the latest batch of new girls, so while some of the other refs and skaters were able to give me pointers and tips, I spent the first five months flailing along, doing the best I could to stay upright and keep my eyes on the girls and not on my own feet.

Then August came and it was time for me to expierence what every new derby girl expierences—Fresh Meat Bootcamp. It’s a 12-week, 4 hours a week training process that teaches girls how to skate, how to hit and how to be awesome. As an aspiring ref, I needed to only take the 6-week course, since I don’t need to learn how to hit other people the way an actual derby girl would.

Every skater, derby girl or ref, needs to pass a minimum skills test—basically to prove that she (or he, most refs are men) is not a danger to others on the rink. While the girls need to show that they can safely hit, get hit and block, refs need to just prove their skating skills. This includes an endurance skate (minimum of 25 laps in 5 minutes), knowing five ways to fall correctly, three ways to stop (quickly and without falling), being able to weave in between cones set six feet apart, skating without lifting your feet, skating backwards, being able to to keep skating even when someone is running their wheels into yours, jumping over an obstacle 1 inch high and 1 foot long without falling down upon landing, and a couple other skills that show you are in control of your wheels, they do not control you.

My skills test was scheduled for 6 weeks after fresh-meat began. I was hella nervous. While I wouldn’t have to skills test with 30 other girls there, I did have to skills test with a bunch of other refs. I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself. Worse, I didn’t want to fail and know that after weeks of hard work I still wasn’t able to pass a minimum skills requirement.

We started skills testing at 10pm on Wednesday, after a 4 hour practice that involved 2 scrimmages and 3 skaters running smack into me (1 on purpose as part of a drill, 2 on accident). At 11:30, over a late dinner of baked spaghetti and cold beer, it was announced that all the refs had passed.

I did it. I went from barely being able to skate around the track once without falling to being able to skate 27.5 laps in 5 minutes and plow stopping within 10 feet to finish it off. I can skate!

Now it’s time to concentrate on reffing.

Parents are the best medicine

2011-10-17T22:05:00.005-04:00

I had a bad day at work today. Nothing special or particularly interesting, but not a good day. I'm feeling pretty out of control with my workload and just overwhelmed. After I picked up Brian, I told him that I no longer would say "yes" if someone asked me if I thought I was good at my job. Talking to him about it helped me move from feeling like all I wanted was to sit on the couch and cry to being willing to talk things over more with someone else.

So I called my mom and we talked about all sorts of things. My work, my life, her life, her work, her goals in life. It made me feel a lot better. So much so that I was willing to carve one of the pumpkins I bought at the store over the weekend but haven't yet had the energy to carve.

As soon as I cut it open and could smell that wonderful pumpkin smell again, I felt good. I felt like I was 10 years old again, sitting on the cold basement floor with Dad and Maria, carving pumpkins and sorting out the seeds to roast later. It's such a good feeling--to be surrounded by family and know nothing is wrong in the world and there's only the anticipation of Halloween and perfectly (or imperfectly) carved jack o'lanterns to come.

Lesson learned: Parents are the best medicine.

Dairy Queen-That blizzard makes you look fat.

2011-10-16T20:26:00.002-04:00

I loves me some Dairy Queen. And I don’t want a blizzard or something complicated, all I ever want when I go to DQ is a vanilla cone. Not a cone dipped in chocolate or covered in red goo, just a nice little cone.

Brian and I enjoyed a little trip to DQ last week, squeezing in at 9:30—just ½ hour before they closed at 10pm (as advertised on their website).
Saturday night, I was ready for a repeat performance, and we pulled in to the parking lot at 9:05 to see a closed down building with clearly marked hours informing us that they close at 9pm now.

Okay, that’s understandable. I was bummed that we hadn’t left the restaurant 7min earlier (yes, I went from a nice restaurant for some soft-serve, don’t judge), but I could live. Because I knew that Sunday night, DQ would be mine.

It wasn’t. After debating whether we would walk or drive, we decided it was too cold to walk and get ice cream and arrived in their parking lot at 8:17. They were closed. The clearly marked signs that had read Sunday: 1pm-9pm now read Sunday 1pm-8pm.

What the hell! You could have updated your signs yesterday to warn me! All I wanted is some soft-serve! I know you have it! AAAAHHHH

Now all I want is some soft-serve. And to throw a rock through their window.

Uniqueness

2011-10-07T16:08:00.001-04:00

As another part of the mentoring group, we are also being asked to reach out to a small handful of people (4-8) to ask them to help us identify what our “unique abilities” are. Once I develop mine fully, I’ll post it to the blog. But right now, I think my unique ability is all about the amazing people who love me.

For example, I asked Heather to fill it out. She’s in school, working and commuting an awful lot. And when she is in school, she’s really in school. As in actually does ALL the reading assignments (whoa). So I know she’s incredibly busy. When I asked her to write me up a bit about my unique ability, I expected her to give me maybe 4 or 5 lines after a week or two or possibly just say she was too busy to help out. I had actually even felt bad for asking because I know she is so busy, but I also know that if I was going to do something like this and hadn’t asked her, there was a good chance she’d punch me.

The next day, I get a page and a half typed response. She apologized that it wasn’t longer or more cohesive but she had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep. ! What a wonderful person. As I was at work reading this, I started to tear up. And then the next response came in. A mentor from grad school praising my passion and telling me I can make positive change wherever I go. My mentor is also an incredibly busy woman, so to have her respond so quickly with such wonderful thing is such a joy.

I don’t know what else will come of this or how it will change my life, but right now, I am just so thankful for the wonderful people in it.

A tiger in a cage can never see the sun

2011-10-06T12:56:00.000-04:00

As a part of my mentoring group, we are all being asked to walk 10,000 steps a day.

10,000 steps a day is hard!

The days when I work out or have practice I can make double that. But the days when I’m at work all day and go home to make dinner and go to bed (or play computer games and watch TV), mean that I’ll only get in 4 or 5,000 steps. The purpose of the steps isn’t just to be healthy, it’s to set a goal for yourself and feel accomplished by meeting it EVERY DAY. Which makes it frustrating when you don’t.

We had a big event on Monday, filled with important people and congress people and such. Since I was on my feet all day, I skipped spin class that night in order to pass out on the couch while watching Jem and the Holograms. When Brian came home, I was only at 7,500 steps. I got a few more in by making dinner and picking up the apartment, but I was still off by 2,000. What to do? I had promised that we would watch one of our shows before bed, but I also really wanted to get my steps in.

So I did what seemed perfectly logical. I paced back and forth across our living room while watching TV with Brian (don’t worry, I paced next to the TV, not in front of it—what do you think I am, crazy?). And I didn’t pace leisurely, I walked rapidly in an oval over and over. Brian has learned to tune out my odd activities and continued to watch the show till it ended. With 10,000 steps on my pedometer, I went to sleep mightily accomplished for the day.

The next evening, I was at about 4,000 steps. Tuesday is not the day I go to the gym so there was little hope of bringing the number up. Brian asked if I was going to walk around the apartment again. While asking, he suddenly hit on a perfect visual to accompany my behavior. With both the excitement of a perfect simile and the sadness of speaking to a crazy person he said “Do we need to make a little path for you, like they do for the bears in the zoo?”

What you leave behind

2011-09-28T08:12:00.002-04:00

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve gotten involved with a mentoring group here at work. Our CEO is leading it, and he started off by explaining that this group, this process, is not something that you just add on to your day. It means that for you, some things will have to go. So I started thinking about what has to go
-Watching the monologue and sketches for Conan O’Brian. Really, I only like his interviews.
-Playing computer games for more than an hour at a time
-Watching TV shows that I’ve already seen before (sorry, Fraggle Rock)
-I’d like to rearrange my schedule to give me more “work from home” days to save me the hour and a half commute time. That’s definitely something I can give up.

But while these are good starting places (and may make you shake your head that these are things I do now), I don’t know what else will go. I love doing roller derby. I love gardening. I love spending time with my partner and my friends. I like joining interesting committees at work that have little to do with my job description. I like watching sitcoms. But these might just be the things I have to let go.

I’m excited about where this growth process will take me, but I’m scared of what I may leave behind.

Leggings and a tennis skirt

2011-09-27T09:24:00.002-04:00

For our internal campaign to raise fund for United Way this year, a friend and I bought a kayaking tour of beautiful Belle Isle in downtown Detroit, guided by another coworker. The three of us compared schedules and found that there was only one day in September that worked for all of us, a Sunday afternoon, which for me meant going straight from derby to kayaking. This seemed fine to me. I’d get a good workout in for my legs and then a good workout for my arms. Fantastic.

All I needed to do was bring a change of clothes for Kayaking and I’d be good to go straight from practice out on to the water.

All I needed to do was bring a change of clothes.

That’s all I needed to do.

And I failed.

So I ended up kayaking in by derby clothes—and old tank top with my sports bra hanging out of it, black leggings with bedazzled stars and a tennis skirt.

It gets better. After we finished kayaking, we went for dinner at the Detroit Yacht Club. And to be classy, I threw on a smelly sweatshirt.

This is why I can’t have nice things.

Zombiepocalypse

2011-09-26T08:54:00.000-04:00

As referenced in a really old blog post—walk with the scientists—Brian’s department holds a retreat at the beginning of each year. It’s a time to get to know the new students and have some fun away from campus. The retreat used to be held all the way out at the biostation, several hours north, where most of the department does their field research. Bri’s professor (Trisha) had long lobbied that as an evolutionary biologist, she would not attend such a thing because a) non ecologists do not want to give up their whole weekend to tramps around in the woods with ecologists and b)she doesn’t do field work, and thus has no desire to go to the biostation. To appease her (and appear as if they had a unified department), the Ecologists compromised and will be holding the retreat near Ann Arbor every other year.

This means that when the retreat is in town, Trisha and Brian are obligated to go. Which makes me obligated to go. So we went. And it sucked. We joined a group touring a “fen”, which, as we learned after we were at the site and had no way to leave, was just another word for swamp. At one point, our tour guide decided to take the group into the swamp. Brian and I did not bring our waders, and so said we’d wait behind. The department chair assured us they’d be back in 5 minutes, and disappeared for an hour as we swatted at mosquitoes and talked about how much we hate ecologists. And texted the absent Trisha things like “your baby better have pink eye.”

Turns out, she had an even better reason for not attending. The night before, she was sitting around the house when she heard what sounded like fireworks outside. She ignored it until her husband called and instructed her to get the baby and get away from the windows. Her husband was a few blocks away at a police roadblock, being kept out of the neighborhood because one of their neighbors, who just so happens to be a big game hunter (he has a taxidermied elephant in his house!), had some sort of a mental breakdown and informed his neighbor (also a big game hunter with a taxidermied giraffe in his house) that they needed to prepare for the Zombies. Yes, the Zombiepocalypse was happening in Michigan. He then proceeded to shoot at what one can only assume were zombies and accidentally blow up his fuel tank during the process.

Trisha said they were up until 3am dealing with the police and such, and we all agreed it was a good reason to miss a boring retreat.

Promotion!

2011-09-23T07:43:00.001-04:00

“Do you have a minute?” “Not really—“ “This will just be a second” *scary ushering into conference room, close door* “I’m promoting you.”

Awesome. Pinnacle of awesome. I want to make working for United Ways my career and apparently United Way loves me back and wants to be my career too. Great. Love it.

One catch to the awesomeness—she has to do some paperwork and send out an email to the whole org before I can tell anyone.
No worries, I’m a patient woman. I can wait all day. Or all month. Or a month and a half. Or two months and six days (not that I’m counting).

One way or another, this is now the blog of a United Way Basic Needs Specialist.

Soup, anyone?

2011-09-22T17:20:00.002-04:00

The other day, Brian and I were at the co-op to buy some mulling spices. That unfortunately was an epic fail, as the co-op staff looked at me like mulling spices must be some sort of evil creation previously unknown to man and certainly never stocked on their shelves. Meh.

But, I did pause to look at the food that was on sale for super cheap because it was at the point of no return for expiration dates. There was a yummy looking red substance in a salsa jar that was only $1. $1 for presumably gourmet salsa. Delicious, no?

I came home the next day and decided it was salsa time. Brian had already eaten the salsa and claimed it to be “weak.” Since I like my salsa weak, this sounded good.
It tasted bad. Like marinara sauce.

I tried chopping up some cilantro to give it more of a salsa taste, but then it just tasted like marinara and cilantro.

After the two of us had consumed nearly half the container, I realized that despite being in a glass jar with a screw on metal top…this was tomato basil soup.

The Confrontation

2011-09-21T17:32:00.003-04:00

I’m quite a bit behind on my blogs, so I’m writing out a bunch now and will hopefully post them over the course of several days, instead of all at once and creating blog overload.

So here’s the first one: The Confrontation

I’m not really good with confrontation (despite it being my favorite Les Mis song). I would 100% rather have someone say things about me behind my back than to my face. Confronting someone directly makes me nauseous to enact. I can daydream about all the eloquent ways I would tell them what their problems are, but actually doing it just aint gonna happen. I’ll water it down and make it friendly by the end when all I really want to do is tell someone I don’t like them, don’t like their work ethic and would rather not interact with them anymore.

But a thousand times worse is when someone confronts me. I don’t think there’s a way to confront someone that doesn’t come across as mean and puts people’s backs up against a wall. And since one of my strengths is about reducing conflict, I hate it when it crops up for me.

The other day, I had a coworker confront me via email first thing in the morning. There was some miscommunication over tone (which is common in emails), some heated emotions because of external stressors, and some very angry seeming emails sent to me. I tried to be polite, explain the miscommunications and misinterpretations and generally be pleasant back. Things were resolved, a halfhearted apology was given. But now, I’m really not sure how I can continue to work well with this person.

I feel frustrated that they assumed the worst of my emails. I feel angry that they responded to me in what I feel was a disrespecting manner. I resent that that this person ruined a perfectly good day of mine because they were flustered and decided to take it out on me. And I worry that they are going to do it again. This person isn’t a confrontation avoider, or even one that will be gentle in their confrontations. They will throw it at you head on, in all the ways I dislike. I’m having a hard time getting past these feelings and envision any good future working relationship.

The part of me that talks big visualizes a whole confrontation of my own, where I remind the coworker that I’ve created several useful documents that highlight our team strengths and show that conflict is not a good way to work with me. I explain that I was upset too by their tone and wish that they would just assume the best of me in the future, rather than the worst.

But, I’ll most likely never mention it or laugh it off if they do and act like it’s not a big deal, while silently composing blog posts about how frustrating it all is to myself.

No senior discount for you

2011-09-01T14:11:00.003-04:00

I might be wrong, but I'm starting to get the feeling that part of the struggle folks are facing in Detroit is rooted in a mentality about what your time in the workforce is like. Today someone told me, very earnestly, that people aren't able to retire at 62 anymore (long pause for dramatic effect). I had another coworker refer to herself as a senior because she's over 50.

Maybe its because I'm so much younger, and have grown up expecting to live to my 80s. Maybe its because most people I've known worked white collar jobs that don't hurt your body so badly that by the time you hit 50 you can feel it in every joint and bone--but I've always expected to be working until at least 65. My parents anticipated doing that. Momma is talking about going down to part time after she turns 65 this year. Grandpa went into retirement and came out a few times until he was truly bored with working. Maybe its just that my generation keeps being told that there's no way social security will let us retire at 65.

I'm aware that there are real issues at hand. Reduction in benefits, rising costs of living, and lack of community support are just the starting point. But after this morning, I can't help wonder if part of the reason that Detroit's mature workers feel they are in such a crisis, and so put-upon is because they expected to retire in their mid-50s? Hearing that you need to work until your 70s when you expected to have spent 15 years of relaxation can't be easy.

Its got me thinking that maybe we need to begin the change process here by redefining a "senior".

Self improvement is hard

2011-08-30T15:33:00.000-04:00

For realz.
A few months ago, I got an email from our HR director inviting me to a two hour lunch meeting (food will be provided). What I love most in the world is free food, so I was pretty stoked. But also cautious. Interactions with HR at UWSEM do not always go well. There’s been a 90% staff turnover since our CEO took over (and it’s not all because people leave for other opportunities), so there’s a scary element to HR. None the less, I braved Scary HR for the promise of free sandwich.

And Scary HR turned out to be less scary. A group of about 15 of us were informed that we had been identified as “up-and-comers.” We were in the top categories of high performers/high potential employees (high per-high pos) and were being targeted for additional professional development opportunities as well as likely to receive promotions in the next 1-3 years. Excellent.
“But,” said the dark cloud of HR. “You are not guaranteed a spot in this group. You could slow down or suck and then you will be like the normal people again.” And again we feel the terror that comes from HR.

A month later, I was on my way to a fancy important meeting when my boss asked if we could talk for a few minutes. I reminded her about the fancy meeting, and she said that it would only take a few minutes. The familiar feeling of excitement and fear that comes from talking with one’s boss came over me as I sat down in a conference room and she CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND US. Closed door conversations—either go amazingly well or horribly awry. This was an amazingly well situation. I was being promoted. And while I won’t be able to order my new business cards that read “Jenny Hansen- Basic Needs Specialist” until she finishes the paperwork, I could expect to see the change in my pay and workload immediately.

Hurrah!

And here comes the hard part. With promotion, there’s more work to do. And with the status as a high per-high po, there’s even more work. I now have weekly homework assignments, as well as am working on developing a plan for the year to help me increase my own awareness of my abilities and skills and am about to enter a mentoring program that will require me to exercise more (apparently part of being good at my job means walking a lot) and do an additional 2-5 hours of homework a week.

But I’m an over achiever, and really want to do this and do it right.
So now, I’m committing to blogging twice a week. I’ve got people at work to who are keeping me on my toes to get this homework done, so let’s see where it takes me!

2011-08-04T22:35:00.002-04:00

Just about everyone who reads this blog knows that my grandpa passed away earlier this year. He was a wonderful and loving and funny man who would do anything for his family.

The night I found out that he died, Brian and I were staying with my sister in Chicago. Maria and I had stayed up late talking about our Uncle. Uncle G. had been diagnosed with cancer and during the prep for his treatment the doctors had discovered an aortic aneurysm. This was all very scary to me. Cancer-scary. Holes in parts of you where there should be no holes-scary. The combination-very scary.

I went to bed worried about my uncle, and hoping that things would be alright. A few minutes later, my sister came into her guest room to tell me that we had lost Grandpa. We hugged, and cried. The first thing she said was "He loved us so much." Which is true in the most profound way.

Maybe it is just a coincidence in my brain--we were just talking about George when we got the news about Grandpa--but I keep thinking that the Universe gave Keith Hansen a choice. His son was sick, and it was time for someone to go. But Grandpa got to decide who it would be--one of them would go and the other one would be okay. And for Grandpa, that would have been a silly question. Part of me will always believe that he died so that George would be okay.

Uncle George had surgery for his aneurysm last week and it all went well. I just got my first email from him to say that he’s recovering just fine and that he’s feeling restless already. I think that some part of my grandparents are out there somewhere--and they are smiling.

It's Snow Darling!

2011-07-10T22:32:00.004-04:00

Every year at Christmas time, I watch "A Muppet Family Christmas." It was made in 1989 and growing up we had a video of it on VHS that we would watch. There were musical numbers and appearances from all the Muppets--the traditional Muppet crew, the gang from Sesame Street and the Fraggles. How wonderful.

When I was feeling lonely and homesick one winter, I bought myself a copy on DVD. It was pirated from Europe and lacked a couple of the musical numbers and a few of my favorite scenes, but I still watch it every Christmas. One of the missing scenes, which I have gleefully reenacted for Brian's somewhat amusement is a series of jokes told by Fozzie and a Snowman.

Fozzie: "I can't wait for Santa and his eight dancing reinbear"
Snowman: "That's Reindeer"
Fozzie: "No, that's snow, darling!"

Get it, Reindeer/Rain, Dear. Ha!

Tonight at dinner, I was talking about someone's reindeer farm (yes, such things exist). Brian interrupted me to say, "Its not Reindeer, its snow darling!".

My eyes welled up. I started crying in the middle of my meal. He's never even seen the joke, but he remembers it because it makes me so happy to tell it. What a wonderful person.

I told him its the nicest thing he's ever said to me. Then we both agreed that his proposal was a bit nicer.

But only a little bit.

Evil Knight Rider

2011-02-20T20:16:00.004-05:00

The cycles we ride in spin class are like snowflakes. Each are unique. A "10", the highest resistance at which you can still make the pedals move is a different turn of the hand dial for each cycle. Sometimes a "10" is when the crank is at twelve O'clock. Sometimes its closer to 2:30. But its usually somewhere in between the two.

Today I got to spin class late, and had to take a cycle I was unfamiliar with. I spent my warm up attempting to find "10" versus "5" (the feeling of a flat road). I was a bit puzzled. Usually "5" is somewhere near 6 o'clock. Today, 5 was at 4 o'clock and 10 seemed to be near 8 o'clock. This is a smaller range than I'm used to, but i figured it wouldn't be a problem.

Then the class started, and my difficulties increased. I'd dial in to what i thought was a "7" and find my self struggling against what felt like a "9". I'd try to turn it back down only to find myself at "2" (problematic, because at anything less than 5, you feel like you're about to fall off the bike). I kept turning the dial, thinking I'd found the right resistance only to feel it increasing within moments. I'd try to dial it back, but what had been a lazy "4" earlier was at least a "7" now. What was happening?

I stared down at my black cycle, with its red dials and silver wheels. I could hear the voice of K.I.T.T. (the car from Knight Rider). "You call this a workout?" I tried to mentally convince KITT-Cycle that we would work our way up to a "10" eventually, but we didn't need to start there. KITT-Cycle did not believe me.

Instead of helping me to fight crime like KITT the Car, KITT-Cycle was pure evil.

Wouldn't it be nice

2011-02-03T22:18:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you think about what the world would be like if things were a little different. What if we lived forever? What there were no more wars? What if people could fly.

Today on the drive home, I decided the world would be a much better place if we could hear it when other people told us "F You."

Driving in Michigan, I often find myself using some form of the F word about my fellow drivers. Sometimes its a verb, sometimes a noun, sometimes a gerund. But it all boils down to--you are doing something stupid, potentially dangerous, and I'm perceiving it as harmful to me. Please stop.

Imagine it, you're driving in the left lane going 10 under the limit, with your right blinker on for the last 15 miles, a little spaced out as you weave within the lane. Suddenly, you hear a chorus of other drivers, using colorful language to alert you to you mistake. You'd get over a few lanes, turn off the blinker, drive the speed limit and pay attention to the world around you.

Wouldn't it be nice?

In Spin Class....

2011-02-01T21:13:00.003-05:00

"Really push now! Its the end of the Race. Imagine yourself fighting for the lead!" Yells the instructor.

I have a vision of Lance Armstrong hovering on the cycle next to me, with the biker shorts, yellow jersey, helmet and all. We're both covered in sweat, neck and neck.

"And I only have one testicle" faux-Armstrong says.

"Oh yeah? Well I've got a pair of steel ovaries," I pant as I cross the finish line and win by a nose.

And almost fell off my cycle when it was time to stretch.

Goals in life

2010-09-21T09:22:00.001-04:00

Today at a meeting, everyone was asked to introduce themselves and share something from their "bucket list" as an ice breaker. Lots of people wanted to travel somewhere beautiful before they died or take a cruise. Lots wanted to go skydiving. All I could think of was wanting to get married, have kids, get to be an aunt, buy a house with one of those "mother in law" apartments attached to it that my parents could live in...all nice and boring stuff. So I decided to share something from a list Heather and I made a long time ago.

"When I was younger I had a list of life goals. So I want to marry a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle." As the rest of the room laughed, I added "I'm still hoping Leonardo calls."

When I told Brian that story he made a face. "You can't leave me for Leonardo," he said. "Donatello was way cooler."

Roadkill

2010-09-20T21:17:00.002-04:00

Oh poor puppy,I thought. Then I looked over my shoulder as I drove past. God I hope that was a dog. How big do rats get?

"She was saying..."

2010-09-17T08:22:00.002-04:00

Last night, Brian and I went to bed early. We had gotten up at 5 on Thursday and were going to do so again today. Brian's working on some crazy experiment that needs to be interacted with every 4 hours. He's broken it up with a lab mate, so one person stays until 2 and the other person starts at 6. Brian selected the early shift.

So we were bedding down around 9:30. And my cell phone started ringing. I'm generally wary of phone calls after 9pm. I've never actually gotten bad news after 9, but its just a cultural assumption that late night phone calls are either drunk calls, booty calls(and I don't get those), or bad news calls.

I got up and answered it. It was mom.

Mom: "You have a minute? I need a favor."
Me: "Sure, what's up?"
Mom: "I'm trying to figure out some slang"

Now this part would seem strange, but Mom's been an English as a Second Language teacher my whole life. Her students her slang terms, then they ask Mom what it means. If she doesn't know, she asks me and Maria.

Mom: "What does 'she ways saying' mean?"
Me: "What?"
Mom: "'She was saying' as like an sexual innuendo"
Me: "'That's what she said'?"
Mom: "Yeah."

I then had to explain to my mom the origin and use of "that's what she said"

Mom: "But I watched The Office! I never picked up on those jokes."

not really a problem

2010-09-16T21:05:00.002-04:00

Well, I've already used up my mulligan over Labor day, so not posting last night got me out of the blog challenge. But I'm going to keep trying to blog daily. Or maybe every other day. Often enough that I blog, but dispersed enough that I blog well.

Tonight's blog comes after much thought while driving.

I've run across a problem that's the best kind of problem. The best kind of problems are problems, but not really. Problems like "My apartment is so big, I can't keep it clean," or "I have so many friends, its hard to call them all frequently," or "there was so much chocolate cake, I couldn't finish it." These are problems. But they're the kind of problems that stem from something awesome.

So my best problem right now is my windshield. I always wash my car windows every time I get gas. Once I started working for United Way, this meant washing my windows at least twice a week. But now with my nice fuel efficient hybrid, it means about once a week. Which means that my windows are dirty and gross looking. Its a problem.

But not really.

No Hair!

2010-09-14T10:15:00.002-04:00

Maria just did a post about hair and this is a bit of a response. That's the fun dynamic of a blog challenge.

I cut my hair when i was 18. Well really, I did the big ponytail cut off when I was 17, leaving me with a bob that should have been cute but mostly looked like a mushroom. So when I was 18, I finally went for the big drastic cut I had always dreamed of. I understood the Kate Gosselin hair long before she was Kate plus 8. And I loved it. I liked how it framed my face, I liked running my fingers through the short part in the back, I liked spiking it up, I liked getting away with out doing much to it, I liked being able to shower and just go (couldn't put the bob in a ponytail so I had already forgotten the convenience). After the cut my friend Tall Kelly said "I wish your hair had always looked like this. Now you look like you."

I loved having short hair.

When I was in high school and had the big long hair, I never actually wore it down. It was always in a ponytail. It was too voluminous to wear down, since it would balloon out around me and attack those who got too near.

Once when I was in grad school, I pulled my hair back as if I was going to put it in a ponytail. How your hair lays really does change the shape of your face. I looked at the girl with the high forehead and round cheeks staring at me in the mirror and said "Hi High School Jenny." And I also thought, "I don't miss you."

Then I got engaged. I had decided YEARS earlier that when I got married, I wanted to have long hair for the wedding so I would have lots of options for what to do with it. Brian likes this idea. He didn't hate the short hair, but he didn't like it either. Me growing out my hair is the best part of our engagement for him (until we go and taste test cakes). Its also why we need a long engagement. This hair has inches to grow!

But it feels weird. I mean really weird. When it was short, It felt very much a part of me. Like my fingernails or tongue. Now it feels like this separate thing attached to my body. Almost like a tick. Its there, but I have no feeling in it. Its just this strange growth that is unlike any other part of my body.

I do love the convenience of blowing off straightening my hair for 20 minutes and being able to grab a ponytail holder and some pins and just go. Brian thinks I look great with the ponytail. But I think I look 17 years old again, and while I had a good time, I'm over it.

I can't tell yet if I'll keep it long after the wedding or follow in my sister's footsteps. I just know that I'm envious of her freedom to cut it all off, grow it out and cut it again anytime she wants. So here we are, two sisters growing out their hair and jealous of each other.

You are how you eat:: Stubborn.

2010-09-13T22:24:00.002-04:00

When i was a kid, there was food I did not like because it tasted bad, and there was food I did not like because other people liked it. My sister liked tacos. Therefore, I did not like tacos. My sister liked S'mores. I did not. I was pretty miffed when she started liking brussel sprouts. I thought i had pretty much covered the market on vegetables not commonly accepted as delicious. But then I decided that I only liked raw vegetables (and corn, you can't not like corn).

It wasn't just what Maria liked though, it was everyone. Everyone liked hot chocolate, so I did not. In fact chocolate was so popular, that i stopped eating it all together. I would even tell people I was allergic to it.

But then there were other foods that I just decided I didn't like. I'm not sure why, I just said "I don't like it" with out even trying it. Like chili. I think I really didn't like to have my food touch. Beans belong on one side of the plate (although i didn't like beans then) and meat on the other side. They should have no interactions. Even carrots in a salad interacted too much for me.

But now I like chili. A whole lot. Its one of my favorite cold-weather foods. And since I make it often enough, I now feel adventurous enough to eat other people's chili. This new interest came into play on Friday when we had a Chili Cookoff at work. I didn't enter a dish, but I happily took a spoonful of each entry to test. Once you've tasted a bit of all of them you could decide which one you wanted a whole bowl of. Several were tasty, but one had a nice kick to it. The label said "caution: hot hot hot" but it didn't taste so bad to me. I got a bowlful, a dollop of sour cream and sat down with my coworkers. And nearly died. Apparently my spoonful was the only non spicy part because this baby had 4 kinds of peppers as well as chili powder and other spiciness. It was hot alright.

I made it through the meal, but had chili-related digestive concerns the rest of the day. I'm thinking it might be time to go back to my less adventuresome ways.

Drink up Me Harties!

2010-09-12T13:31:00.003-04:00

Today Brian and I went out to gather veggies from our garden. We got a tomato the size of two softballs fused together, a couple of zucchinis and a ton of carrots. Delicious evenings are ahead of us.

On the way out of the park we walked past an older man (early 60s) with headphones on going for a run. His music was turned up so high we could clearly hear what he was listening to. It was the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean. And I don't mean the inspiring orchestral soundtrack to the movie, I mean the lyrical soundtrack to the the ride at Disney.

"We're rascals, scoundrels, villains, and knaves, Drink up, me hearties, yo ho. We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs, Drink up, me hearties, yo ho. Yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me"

The Dress Part 2: Return of gorgeous

2010-09-11T22:17:00.002-04:00

This one is a follow up to the post about the dress. Sometimes the universe is on your side and things happen just the best way possible. That's how this story ends, but for a few minutes, i was ready to implode, black out and throw up.

After I left the dress shop on Thursday, I was still a little worried about what would happen to the dress. What would I do if it was discontinued? The shop girl and I had talked about buying the floor sample they had there, but it was still more expensive than if I bought it new in MN (no sales tax and apparently just $400 cheaper). So I went home, told Brian it was beautiful and made plans to find a shop in MN that I wanted to give my money to.

Today, I woke up, attempted to shower (broken shower--will post about that one later), and got my stuff together to go to the dentist. I had heard my phone beep during my process, but figured it was just a text from someone.

Side bar: I've gotten to a point in life where I assume all text messages at odd times are someone announcing their engagement. So I always wait until I have enough time for a freak out before I read my texts.

It wasn't a text. It was a message from the Ann Arbor bridal shop. The saleswoman had left me a message that she had "good and bad news." I had to be at the dentist in 10 minutes, so I hoped it would be that they had a sale coming up and not that my dress was discontinued. I figured I'd follow up once someone was done poking my mouth with sharp instruments.

But I get by with a little help from my friends. Apparently the saleswoman (Amanda) had remembered how much I loved my gown and when hearing big news about it, attempted to call me. But since I had not given them my number, she found the number for Melissa the Texan and called her instead. She told Melissa the news and then got my number as well. So while I was waiting for the dentist, Melissa called.

"The dress has been discontinued as of yesterday."

Crap.

I sat through my appointment, and rushed home to call the dress shop, Micaela who has connections in the dress community and any other dress shop who could tell me what was going on.

Amanda from the dress shop explained that the dress was discontinued, but that meant that the floor sample was now $700 off. Which was now firmly in my price range. She had hidden it in the backroom and was keeping the other sales people away from it, but she could only manage that for a day. Already she'd had to yell at a few coworkers looking to make an easy sale. I promised to come in and see if it was in good enough condition for me to buy.

For those of you who have not experienced wedding dress shopping--purchasing a floor sample is an exciting gamble. Floor samples get treated poorly. People get make up on them, rip them, and sweat in them. They often have loose beading or seams. But they're often very cheap and the store does what they can to make the dress "like new."

So I called my parents (hoping to get mom, talked to dad instead), my sister, and Heather. Everyone told me to go for the sample dress. If it was in a good condition and so cheap, it was okay to try.

Melissa the Texan and I trekked out to the store and spent an hour with Amanda going over the dress. There were some spots and some loose beads, and two small rips along seams, but otherwise it was in great condition. You'd only notice the problems if you're painstakingly reviewing the dress as we were.

So I put the dress on, walked in circles around the store and made up my mind. This is MY DRESS.

So now I have a dress.

And Amanda is going to get a rave review on google.

Rough drive

2010-09-10T09:00:00.003-04:00

Sometimes you go on auto pilot. You drive the same roads every day, walk the same sidewalks, pass through the same halls, and don't really need to think about where you're going in order to get there.

I apparently have a malfunction in my auto pilot.

Today I got on the highway to go to work. After 10 minutes, I realized I had gotten on the wrong direction and was driving AWAY from work. So instead of getting into the office before traffic gets bad, I added an extra 40 minutes to my commute by backtracking and hitting the bussiest roads at the worst time.

Anyone have an autopilot tuner?

The Dress

2010-09-09T22:49:00.002-04:00

A few months ago, my friend the Texan and I celebrated her new engagement by going to try on wedding dresses. I wasn't really looking for the perfect dress, just doing some bonding and excited giggling about the upcoming nuptials.

But dress love is like true love, it happens when you least expect it.

So I tried on a dress without looking at the price tag, just because it looked fun. Not even that it looked like what I wanted. And it turns out it was exactly perfect for me. It had all the elements I've been looking for in a wedding dress. Its sophisticated and yet has the childhood fantasy about it. My favorite part is that when i crouch on the ground, the dress poofs out around me like in the King and I.

There's a humorous story that I'll post another time about me mixing up the price tags when I told Brian about the dress, but this post is about today's encounter with The Dress.

I had tried to find The Dress to try on while I was in Minneapolis so Momma and other friends/future family could see it. But there wasn't a single store within 50 miles that carried it. They could order it for $50, but no one already had it in stock. So I continued to think about it, but didn't try it on again personally.

I'd been wanting to go try it on again, and had pretty much convinced myself that it wasn't as good as I remembered it. Today I left work at a decent time and went to the dress store with my Texan friend again. The Dress was everything I remembered it to be and so much more. It was beautiful and the longer I wore it, the more I loved it.

Then the salesgirl, in a mixture of helpfulness and desire to sell the gown told me that it was one of the designer's "older" styles and had a good chance of being discontinued some time in October. She explained that the designing company is really tight mouthed about what dress will stay and what will go. After they discontinue the dress, you have about a week to order one. After that, they're gone forever.

I think she thought I would lay some money down on the spot. Instead she has sentenced herself to a daily call from me wondering what dresses were discontinued this year...

Back to school

2010-09-08T22:26:00.002-04:00

Today was the first day of school for my friend Heather. She is going back to grad school for her master's and I'm so proud of her.

My sister once blogged that she didn't know how on earth I could stand to stay in school another two years for a master's degree. I think even worse would be getting a taste of the real world and deciding to go back to school anyway. I don't think I would have done it except for the fact that I didn't know what else to do with a bachelor's degree in Women's Studies.

But here my Heather goes. She's smart, she's a hard worker, she's anxious and she's done all 500 pages of reading before her first class. I know she'll shine.

First Split

2010-09-07T22:39:00.003-04:00

When you read my blog yesterday, you might have thought to yourself "If this is the second split, when was the first?"

Ah gentle reader, that is a good question.

When Brian and I were first getting excited about our move to Paradise, we agreed that we would no longer live like college students. It was fine for Madison and for Purgatory, but in Paradise, we would live like adults. That meant no more futon in the living room. It was time for a couch.

So we moved in, got happily unpacked, and stared sadly at the open part of our living room where a couch belonged. The next weekend--when every single person we knew in Ann Arbor was out of town--we decided to buy a vacuum and look at couches.

It turns out that a vacuum cleaner was too big of an investment for us to do on our own and we decided to wait for Brian's mom to visit before buying one. But a $500 couch we were able to pick out and purchase in 45 minutes. Then came the dilemma. Do we pay $80 for delivery?

No. We pay $20 for a U-Haul and deliver it ourselves. It wasn't too scary getting the couch from the store to the van, but from the van to the apartment was another story. First we tried bringing the couch in the front door--but a staircase right inside the door would have required lifting the couch six feet in the air to get it in the building. So Brian eyeballed the back door of our building and decided we could fit the couch in that way. We hauled the couch out and around...only to find out that the door way was 1/2 an inch too small.

We put the couch down. Debated. And resigned ourselves to having to lift the couch up the stairs to make it to our apartment. We had a plan. It was time to ennact. I bent down to lift the couch with my knees, and suddenly there was a breeze where there was no breeze before. I said "Oh my god." Brian looked at me with an expression of pure joy and asked breathlessly "Did you just rip your pants?"

Six inches. Straight up the middle.

Second Split

2010-09-06T22:56:00.003-04:00

I've started jogging again. I've never really cared for it, although it seems the easiest way to exercise. I know a lot of people love it, but I see it as a horrid necessity. Before my legs feel tired, my lungs are burning and my stomach hurts. There have been a few times when I've felt good as i finish, but I've never gotten a "runner's high" and have rarely felt better after running than I did before.

But today, I got off the couch and went for a short jog. Felt horrible during and after. Was glad it was over.

This evening, I played ultimate Frisbee with some friends from Brian's department. I was running up and down all over the field, barefoot with my jeans rolled up, and I loved it. There were times when I was tired, but it felt good. I felt good.

On the way to the car, I talked with one of the other players about making it a regular occurrence. I could get in shape and maybe enjoy myself a bit.

This fun idea seemed more like a necessity as I sat down in the car and felt my pants split open.

Sunday's post

2010-09-05T22:05:00.003-04:00

Brian and I were at a wedding this weekend. It was a lovely outdoor ceremony (my first outdoor wedding). The Bride looked stunning, the Groom looked excited, and the whole ceremony was over in less than 15 minutes. I was glad we weren't stuck in the wind and sun for hours, but I was a little sad that it was over so fast. I have a perverse love of getting all choked up at weddings.

Not just weddings, most things.

Brian has already found that I cry when watching TV or movies, as well as when reading or listening to music. Sometimes things just move me. Sometimes they don't. But when they get me to cry, I end up stuffy nosed, a little nauseous and completely satisfied. I've shared in a human experience with others, and it feels right.

So this weekend, even though the wedding was over in less time than it takes Domino's to deliver, I still shed a tear or two, despite the hurry.

Saturday's belated post

2010-09-05T22:00:00.002-04:00

I had plans for posting on Saturday morning before Brian and I left for a wedding. We had a carpool of friends picking us up at 9am, so we figured we'd have plenty of time to get up at 7, get ready, pack and feed the Bride and Groom's cats. And I would have time to blog.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

When we were packing, I told Brian to grab his khakis and the dark blue dress shirt I had bought him last year. He found the shirt, but not the khakis. Where were they? Were they in the dresser? No. Were they in the closet? No. Were they in my closet? No. Finally we realized that before we moved, we had gone through all of Brian's clothes and gotten rid of the ones we thought were ugly or didn't fit him right. The khakis fell into both categories and were exiled to goodwill.

This led to a 8am run to Target in frantic search for new khakis. Brian found a lovely pair and looked fantastic for the wedding. But I didn't get to blog.

TGFBV

2010-09-03T22:51:00.003-04:00

When I was growing up, I envied christian girls. They had the one thing I didn't--an excuse for awesome jewelry. Beautiful crosses go with any outfit, and while I enjoyed the political button, you can't throw them on with a dress for a fancy party. But then! Life changed. My church put a little book shop in the basement that sold, along with books, bumper stickers and political buttons--Unitarian jewelry. Now I could have a lovely, religiously significant necklace that went with everything. My parents bought me a sweet silver chalice necklace for my 18th birthday. Its in high rotation now that I'm a working professional.

But the first thing that I do when i come home, is take off the necklace and either put it in my jewelry box, or leave it on top of the microwave. This microwave thing works out well, since I usually forget about jewlery until my hand is on the door nob in the morning. Instead of having to run all the way back to my closet, i can just reach over and nab the necklace and go.

But with great convenience comes great pit falls. Today while I was cleaning the apartment, i accidentally sucked the necklace up with the vacuum (yes, i vacuum on top of my microwave, doesn't everyone?). "AAAAHHH!" I said. But then, I remembered the ease and convenience of my bag-less vacuum. I snapped open the dirt container and abracadabra there's my necklace, unharmed but a little dusty.

Thank God For Bag-less Vacuums.

lame blog

2010-09-02T22:01:00.003-04:00

Again, tonight wont be a well crafted blog. I think if I'm going to blog every day, i need to put time aside to blog well. Its not something that I just want to do off the cuff. But, since I entered a blog challenge, today you get a lame blog.

Today when I was driving home, I took advantage of my new car's CD player (good bye old cassette tapes) to listen to some old CDs. Including a mix that a friend had made me back in 03. I was tired. I was grumpy, but listening to that CD made me energetic and happy. You can see the music video to one of the songs here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0aXY2pM2sA

After dancing around in my car for 20 miles, I wondered why anyone was friend with me in 03.

I also decided that my favorite thing Queen ever did, was the soundtrack to Highlander.

Back to blog basics

2010-09-01T22:45:00.002-04:00

If you hadn't noticed, i haven't blogged in a while. I'll probably have to put it on Facebook that I'm blogging again. I didn't mean to stop, but it seems like in the summer time, there's so many other things to do (or to think about doing) instead of blogging. But Sister has challenged me to blog every day, so as long as she does it, I'll do it.

But i am already lazy and wanting to sleep soon. I will say that I signed up for an online health program. I told it about my habits and why I'm having trouble loosing weight. It at one point came back with the response "We're confused. You say you don't have time to exercise, but you spend two hours a night on the computer or watching TV."

Caught in the act.

Bad Mans!

2010-06-28T22:42:00.003-04:00

Brian left last week for a two week trip to Arizona and Portland. I have all sorts of fun things planned with Melissa the Texan for Girls Fortnight, but tonight fun was put on hold. Because the last time i heard from Brian was the 26th. He told me that he probably wouldn't call on Saturday. Fine, I can handle that. But I thought it was odd when he didn't call Sunday. And when he hadn't called or answered my emails by 10:30pm on Monday, I was really worried. I tried calling the friend who he was visiting in Portland, but he didn't answer.

So then I googled "violent crime portland". All I got were stories about Al Gore and a massage therapist.

Then, joy of joys, Brian's friend called back.

Me: "I'm worried. I haven't heard from Brian since he left Arizona. Have you talked to him."
Friend: "Yeah, he's staying at my house. I can definately vouch that he is alive."
Me: "That's good. He might not stay alive when he gets home."

Society Forum

2010-06-26T09:56:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week, my boss offered to send anyone interested to the United States Social Forum. Despite the fact that it was being held less than 8 blocks away, we hadn’t known about the conference until the week it was happening. It sounded like a good chance for me to interact with more community members, so I signed up.

I should have realized from the title “US Social Forum” that not too many Detroiters should be in attendance. After all, the problems of Detroit aren’t replicated anywhere else (or at least that’s how Detroit feels). But I figured it would still be an opportunity to learn and dialogue about social problems.

Walking into the main hall, I felt one hundred percent out of place. I was dressed down for work, just khakis and a white shirt, but I was way too dressed up. I was also probably in the older half of the crowd.

My impression of the crowd got much worse when I went to my first workshop: Community Bike Co-ops as a Resource for Community Empowerment and Innovation. If I had known what the dress code was, I could have worn my cut off corduroys (or cut off dress pants) and paint smeared social justice graphic t-shirts too. And I hadn’t realized before the workshop that both shoes and bras were optional. I could have also worn my Birkenstocks as I knitted with tree branches instead of needles.

The content of the workshop was a bummer, as it was more about making “the most awesomest co-op possible” rather than improving transportation options for low income individuals.

But my favorite part of the workshop was the little old Pakistani man with a dyed orange beard, twelve necklaces and a variety of wooden jingling bracelets named Avatar. He kept complaining that no one was speaking loud enough. I thought it was probably because his bracelets drowned out all other noises.

At the end of the day, on the way home, I was followed by a homeless man who apparently holds degrees from UCLA, UNLV, lives in a penthouse with a pool downtown and is friends with "lots of movie stars." After two blocks i pretended my phone was ringing and answered my quiet cell phone. He asked for my number, but i was too busy talking to my phone to answer....

I should always listen to my mother

2010-06-25T07:18:00.001-04:00

Brian’s coworkers had the idea to have a party in which we eat White Castle sliders and watch the Predator movies. I told my mom. She said that sliders are disgusting. I said I had never tried them and thus would ignore her advice to avoid them.

I should never ignore her advice.

Brian and I ate 10 sliders, then came home to a stinky death. I could feel sliders coming out my pores.

Side note—when I’m not feeling well, I’m like a cat. I want to be away from my usual space. So, instead of sleeping in my bed, I prefer to sleep on the floor near the bathroom. It doesn’t matter if I think I need to throw up or not, it’s just where I prefer to sleep when sick. It might have something to do with feeling like my bed is my only space that I can keep clean (remember freshman year?). But none the less, a sick Jenny is a Jenny near the bathroom. Here in Paradise, my closet is the room next to the bathroom. So I can curl up on clean carpets and still be less than 15 inches from the toilet.

After I woke up on the closet floor the next morning, all I wanted was fruit and vegetables. And only fresh versions of each. So we spent the day eating salad, strawberries and peaches. Brian tried to convince me to have chicken for dinner, but I was thoroughly uninterested.

I should always listen to mom.

Like Fergie, I don't want no drama

2010-06-23T18:58:00.002-04:00

So softball has continued to be interesting. After Roz’s jaw was broken (had to be wired shut, which made her lose her job), we had lots fewer team members.

Brian and I had joined the team because a friend from college asked us to. He and I had met while working together over a summer and had become friends through a mutual appreciation of how awesome I am. We moved to Ann Arbor at about the same time as the friend moved back in with his parents in neighboring Ypsi.

We were unaware that the rest of our team members know each other either through this friend of mine (2 other people) or because they have bought from, sold to or smoked with other team members (rest of the team). So while I was excited to be on the “High Life” softball team, it led to the rude realization that no one else is interested in having a Miller after the games.

This is not the source of the drama.

The drama centers around one little sect of our team. This group was headed by Billy and Chase. Other folks in the group who are also team members included Ken, Taylor and Amanda, Billy’s girlfriend. Since our team had a high attrition rate at the beginning of the season (one injured and one scared off), it’s really important that everyone attend and participate. It is also really important that Amanda be on the team, because without her, we will face games where we lose points for having too few girls. So while these 5 aren’t all great at softball, they all are good and are necessary for our team.

But, Billy and Chase are annoying. Chase slept half way through a game, arrived late and almost got us disqualified by adding himself to the roster after the game started. Chase also is loud. So loud that I can hear him heckling from the dugout while I’m in right field. But he doesn’t usually heckle the other team. He just heckles our own players.

Billy is more subtle. Apparently he and Chase objected to the skill level of one of our team members, Scott. Since Scott comes to practice and shows up on time to games, he gets one of the first picks for what position he plays. And even though he knows he’s not great, he wants to have fun and play second base.

Billy and Chad didn’t think he should. And so they heckled him. And pestered our coach to move him from second base. Constantly. Our coach apparently received 40 texts in a single day on the topic.

Our coach had gotten fed up and planned how to deal with this problem. Unfortunately before that happened, Amanda injured her knee badly while batting and left for the hospital with Billy. Now we are permanently down one girl.

In what may have been a poor political choice, our coach decided to call a team meeting. In the team meeting, he specifically called out Billy (absent due to hospital trip) and Chase for their annoying behavior. He cited their constant whining about the way things were run and noted that Chase had threatened to leave the team and take Billy, Amanda, Ken and Taylor with him. This was about the time that Chase freaked out.

There was screaming, cursing and at one point, almost a fist fight. The meeting ended with Chase taking off his jersey and throwing at our coach before stomping off to the parking lot. I would have taken it more seriously if there wasn’t 2 inches of butt crack showing.

Think on your feet

2010-06-22T21:48:00.001-04:00

Part of my job means that I work directly with 17 agencies that do social justice work in the area. So to further that work, I go and do site visits. I drive my little car out to where the good things happen, get a tour and chat about what’s being done.

I made plans with one of my agencies to come out and see their annual job fair. I’d get the tour, see the speaker and eat a free lunch. This was a good plan.

Plans rarely survive the first engagement.
I got to the agency, walked around a bit and then was ushered into the ballroom for lunch. I was all ready to sit in the back of the room, when the guy in charge informed me I’d be sitting at the head table. In the front of the 200 person room.

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to speak,” quickly became “You can just say hello, how you doing and a few words about United Way.”

Crap! I went from happy anonymity to sitting in the front with the executive directors (one of whom is having a little fight with United Way over a quarter of a million dollars) and needing to speak.

The session began with me quietly freaking out, sipping lemonade and texting a dozen people. I was introduced and tried to get away with just waving my hand. Nope, they gestured to the mic and I was forced to give an awkward 30 second “Hi and happy to be here.” Then I sat down and thought of all the other things I could have said.

It was a 15 on the awkward scale.

Return of the Blog

2010-06-21T22:08:00.001-04:00

So I’ve been told by just about everyone to start blogging again. So I’m ready to start.

Today, there roof of my car was covered with incapacitated flying ants. The whole roof and much of the trunk was just a field of ants with wings, laying on their backs and kicking their little legs impotently.

I bet you were hoping for something more impressive. I’ll try to do better.

Softball Scare

2010-04-27T19:27:00.001-04:00

Last night was my softball team's first game. I had to miss our one and only practice the week before because of work, so i was a little nervous to start playing the game again after 15 years. Brian has joined the team with me, but had to miss the first night because of exams.

I arrived to the field and was greeted with the news that our opponents were not going to come. But since everyone needed the practice, the team playing before us stuck around for a scrimmage. The first inning went well, and we switched to being the team in the field just as it was my turn to bat (SAVED! was my response). I played a mean right field, and showed a great deal of team spirit by running quickly from the dugout to my position, and back again.

The second inning started with me batting. Since it was only a scrimmage, each batter started with one strike and one ball. The first pitch, i swung and missed entirely. At the second pitch, the umpire behind me yelled "illegal pitch" as i swung my bat. Apparently if i hadn't swung it wouldn't have counted against me, but since i did swing, it was a strike. I went back to the dug out to chat with a friendly girl named Roz.

Midway through the inning, Roz was up to bat. She hit the ball right to second base, where the basewoman caught it off the ground and LAUNCHED it to first. The ball, the baseman and Roz were all zeroing in on the same target. THWACK went the ball into the baseman's glove...and Roz's head. In an awful moment of alignment, the glove and ball were right in front of Roz's left jaw, and the huge momentum of the ball sent Roz sliding 3 feet past first base, to lay sobbing and spitting blood.

The other team supplied her with clean wash cloths and water, as the umpires and middle aged mom/softball players assessed the damage. It was decided that she might have a concussion, might have injured a bone in her face and might need stitches for where she bit her lip open. Two of our players drove her to the emergency room.

I figured, once someone needs medical care, the scrimmage ends. Right? Wrong. We kept going. My next run up at bat i thought, "no way am i getting any where near this ball. When it comes at me, i'm moving out of the way." So when my bat connected to the ball and sent it flying towards third base, you can imagine my shock. I stood there for a moment wondering where the ball was going, before i made a mad dash to first. I didn't make it that time, but did later in the game.

My team also saw fit to make me catcher, despite my fear of the ball, the bat and other players running towards me. Since the job mostly consisted of chasing bad pitches after they had bounced off the ground, i did pretty well. At one point, there was a runner on third and first. The batter hit the ball to the infield. The player on third was headed home, but i was ready. I stood with one foot on the base and my glove ready, shouting for the ball. Which i caught. Unfortunately, my knowledge of softball comes from "A League of their Own," which is of course about Baseball. In softball, you can't just stand on home base, you need to tag the runner. Which I did not.

In the final inning, I was catcher again as a runner was headed toward me from third. The one really hard core guy launched the ball towards home base, and it could either be caught by me, or by the pitcher, who was standing 3 feet in front of me. Watching the velocity of the ball as it headed towards my face, I made the decision that i believed in the athletic abilities of my teammate, and stepped out of the way to the right. He caught the ball, then had difficulty keeping it in his glove. The runner was safe at home, and nothing hit me in the face.

We still won the game.

Financial Illiteracy

2010-04-20T22:37:00.000-04:00

Today I went to a meeting on financial education. It was for United Way staff and it was billed as "not just the basics but moderate to advanced learning as well." I should have waited for a program that had just the basics. We discussed available credit versus credit scores, fixed rate mortgages versus APR rates for purchasing a car. I was so very lost. We were working in small groups and at one point a group member asked if i had anything to add to the discussion. I told him that i was so confused about what was going on, I wasn't sure where i was anymore. Eventually I gave up and started singing Journey songs go myself. Half way through "Lights" i decided that i really should take a beginners level class, because if something happens to Brian or my Dad, I'll be financially screwed.

I don'ta think'em is what you think'em is

2010-04-19T21:58:00.001-04:00

Now that I am a professional, I find myself working hard to fit into the norms of United Way life. I try to dress better, work long hours, and generally fit into the business culture. By in large, its going well. But part of culture is language.

I make a lot of jokes about Michigan being another planet, but its a planet where most people still speak the same language that I do. Mostly.

After my first two weeks of hearing people constantly talk about "Leveraging our work," I finally sat my boss down and told her that I didn't know what they were talking about. Leverage to me meant finding a crowbar to open something, or perhaps a show on TNT, or even a finance term I looked up on Wikipedia. None of these things fit the context. It turns out that in United Way-Speak, leverage means to coordinate efforts to produce better outcomes, especially meaning that the different types of work compliment each other. So that was my first United Way language lesson.

My second lesson was about tickling and Rocks.
Each quarter, our various business units set goals for ourselves. But we don't call them goals, we call them rocks. At each staff meeting, we set an agenda to discuss our rocks, and any other non-rock topic. It took a whole "rock setting" meeting to figure out what was happening.

One of our rocks is always about making sure we are entering our contacts into the database. Most of this is to help fund development, so they know who has strong relationships with potential donors. But it also helps to know who else is talking to an agency before you go out for a site visit. So, after each contact with individuals or agency, you put a note in their data base file. But on that note you can "tickle' other staff persons, to make sure they see the note. Tickling is very important.

So i find myself at staff meetings trying not to laugh as we discuss leveraging food, carrying and trading rocks and tickling at least 15 people a month.

My coworkers' lunch

2010-04-05T21:05:00.002-04:00

Lots of people in my office are on Weight Watchers. Of my team of six, three are on Weight Watchers. They're all really supportive of each other, and talk about it a lot of the time. I'm feeling like I should join too. I do want to loose weight before the wedding and, mostly, I want to be part of the group. I want people be interested in my lunch too.

my coworkers

2010-04-02T11:17:00.000-04:00

A friend asked me what my coworkers are like. Most of them are in their 30s or 40s. I’ve seen some other folks that might be close to my age around the office, but I think most of them are in different departments, like fund raising, marketing or 211 (where folks can call in and get information about how to access resources). I think I’m really proud to be the youngest person in my department, if only because it means that they thought I could hold my own in a group of experienced workers.

About half the staff at United Way is African American and a little less than half is white. A friend of mine once worked at an agency that explicitly hired staff so that their staff matched the racial composition of the people they served. Since we serve Detroit which is 90% African American and 3 counties that are a bit more diverse, I think the staff probably reflects the area well. It’s definitely the most racially diverse place that I’ve ever worked and I’m really glad that it is. I would have been disappointed with anything less.

Since most of the staff is older and we’re often meeting with very important people, everyone dresses really nicely. I mean really. I used to think a nice sweater and dress pants were enough. Now I find myself looking for blazers and accessories to dress up my limited clothes selection. Hopefully there’s a sale at Macy’s soon.

My office

2010-03-26T15:38:00.001-04:00

Also before my computer died I had started writing a whole string of blogs that were "my ___" themed (like Scrubs episodes). So here's one of them:

I figured I’d start telling y’all about my new work life in installments. Today I’ll tell you about the building I work in. I work in a BIIIIIG old building. It’s the First National Building in downtown Detroit. The building itself has a website! It’s just off a little “park” which is mostly concrete but has ice skating in the winter time. The space United Way has looks out on to the park and I can see the Hard Rock Café (the epitome of class!).

Inside my building is…weird. If you keep your eyes level, you see an open and airy office building. Very modern and chic. Lots of new equipment and desks. New clean carpets. If you look up, you’ll see old plaster molding from what I assume to be the 1920s that is falling apart and exposed metal pipes and beams. In some parts of the office, the floor is bare concrete.

United Way of Southeastern Michigan is also a pioneer of something called free-range or hotelling in an office. Only about 30 staff out of 100 have their own desks. The rest of us pick somewhere different to sit every day. Most staff have laptops and so set up shop wherever they’d like. There’s about 10 desks with desktops where I usually set up camp as well. Interspersed throughout the 3 floors of our space are little glass cubicles called “fish bowls” that fit a desk, chair and book case. The glass cubicles have 2 walls that are opaque, one wall that is glass and a fourth glass wall that has a sliding glass door as well. The walls go up about 10 feet and then are open to the air again so you don’t get claustrophobic. If you have your own office (like 3 of the Vice Presidents do), that’s what your office looks like.

There’s a whole article on the office here:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100118/COL35/100118027/1005/NEWS03/Detroit-and-the-office-of-the-future

Apparently it saves lots of money for the United Way. I like not being tied down. I don’t like that I haven’t been assigned a filing drawer yet so I carry around a stack of paper 8 inches tall in my backpack.

The cold

2010-03-26T15:36:00.001-04:00

This is a post I wrote back in January before my computer died. Now that I have a new computer, I finally found the file and can post.

I’m learning all sorts of information about Michigan with my new job. I didn’t know that Detroit had the largest Middle Eastern population out side the Middle East. I was unaware that most of the abandoned buildings in Detroit have been abandoned since the 60s. And I was unaware that it’s legal for energy companies to turn off the heat in winter. In Wisconsin, or at least in Madison area, no energy company can legally turn off heat in winter. Sometimes this can be a problem for folks who don’t pay their heat from November to March and rack up huge bills that they have no hope of paying off, but at least these people survived.

I read a report while I was at work one day that folks could loose heat over the winter due to an inability to pay their bills and I was sure it wasn’t true. How could you do that in the Midwest? So I called one of the agencies I work with. Apparently in Michigan, although the utility companies have policies against doing something as horrible as turning off heat, it still happens. My agency told me that a senior citizen freezes to death in their own home almost every winter in the Detroit area.

Agencies like those I fund or even the ones I work for don’t want to attack the companies because they are valuable partners to us in our work. So when someone dies in the cold no existing agency feels capable of addressing the problem, and public outrage dies after a few weeks.

That’s just wrong.

Welcome Spring

2010-03-21T22:50:00.003-04:00

Every year, my church back home has a fantastic celebration to welcome the Spring Equinox. It involves the choral reading group, small children dancing with scarves and the song "Calypso Alleluia."

The service always goes the same way. The head of the service reads about the East, the congregation does a responsive reading that ends with "Welcome Spring! Welcome the season of new life and new possibilities!" Then a group of children walk in carrying little suns on a stick and the whole congregation sings "Calypso Alleluia". In case you don't know the words, the song goes "Ahhhhhh-leluia sing ahhh-luia. Ahhhhhh-leluia sing ahhh-luia. Alleluia, Alleluia, Ahhhhh-leluia. Ahhhhhh-leluia sing ahhh-luia. Ahhhhhh-leluia sing ahhh-luia."

And then, we welcome the South. The congregation does a responsive reading that ends with "Welcome Spring! Welcome the season of new life and new possibilities!" and a group of children parade in with birds on sticks. The congregation sings "Calypso Alleluia."

We welcome the West. The congregation welcomes spring, children parade in with watering cans and umbrellas and everyone sings "Calypso Alleluia."

Then we welcome the North (or rather, my dad leads the welcoming of the north, as he is a very important person at the church). The congregation welcomes spring, the children parade in with colored scarves and everyone sings "Calypso Alleluia."

And then they sing Calypso Alleluia as a round.

This was the first year that I couldn't be home for the celebration. So my mom called me just as the service started so I could listen in (and sing along). Brian had no idea what was happening as i answered my phone, laughed hysterically, laughed a bit like Bevis and Butthead and sang "Calypso Alleluia" four times...

It was the most awesome phone call ever.

Tootin

2010-03-21T22:46:00.003-04:00

Today was a beautiful day in Michigan. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and we had our windows open to soak up springtime. I kept thinking I could hear some sort of brass instrument, but chalked it up to the neighbors listening to music. Eventually, I looked outside to see a man standing in the middle of a field, playing trombone with a small child playing in the dirt at his feet.

The sounds of spring.

Water water everywhere

2010-03-20T10:10:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I took a much needed afternoon off. Turns out, more than two 12 hour days in a row will tire you out. So Brian and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Badgers win at basketball and then attended the customary Bio Bev in the Ecology building. I haven't been able to make it to bio bev in a few weeks because of work and volunteering, so it was nice to be back, enjoying a Woodchuck and pretending to know what people are talking about.

*Fun fact: A Puma is a Cougar is a Mountain Lion is a Panther; A Woodchuck is a Groundhog is a Whistle Pig.

During this discussion of Pumas and Woodchucks, a strange alarm went off. I call it strange because it was just a very loud, constant buzzing. Tornado sirens and fire alarms all have varying sounds and loudness. And fire alarms usually have blinking lights inside a public building too.

So where was the noise coming from. I, with Melissa the Texan and Dan the child of Hippies went to investigate. Turns out, someone had activated the emergency eyewash station in the hallway and it was now spewing water everywhere. Dan ran through the sprinkler to go call Facilities Management. I ran through the sprinkler to go to the bathroom (alcohol+a sprinkler, of course i have go). On the way back, i saw the sprinkles which had before been creating a neat little stream were now attempting to create Lake Michigan in the hallway. I took action, got wet and figured out how to stop the sprinkler.

I was damp for a while, but satisfied with myself.

Lessons

2010-03-14T18:51:00.002-04:00

Brian has now built me a beautiful beast of a computer. I will post pictures as soon as i install the right software. But for now, I get to blog about the posts I've been saving up!

With my long commute(at least 6 hours a week in the car), I've turned to books on tape as an entertaining alternative to music. I really am enjoying being able to read a book and drive a car at the same time without worrying about running off the road. And I get to listen to books that I can't seem to get through reading on my own. Someone asked me what I've learned from listening to books. I'm glad you've asked:

"The Man Who Fell to Earth"
-If your planet's fate rests on the shoulders of one man, you might want to make sure he's not a crabby, crazy asshole first.
-If you are an alien trying to pass as human, say you are from Kentucky.

"Fahrenheit 451"
-If a mechanical dog is suspicious of you, its because it knows what you've done wrong.

"On a Pale Horse"
-If your dad sets you up on a date with the Grim Reaper, your life is about to take a turn for the worse.
-Don't offer to take someone else's sins on your soul. Especially if you have recently been intimate with a demon.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin"
-Tom Sawyer is an asshole. Don't listen to him, even if it sounds like he is trying to help you.

"Short stories of Sherlock Holmes"
-If you plan to kill someone with a snake, make sure it can't slither back through a hole in the wall and kill you.
-Don't trust people who reward you for having red hair.

"Gulliver's Travels"
-Always make sure all the tapes for a book on tape are functional before beginning. Otherwise, you will have to actually read the book to find out what happened.

"Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
-When traveling through middle earth, you will probably fall asleep a lot. Even if it seems like a bad idea, totally random, or entirely suspicious, its not a big deal.

STAY AL

2010-03-12T13:44:00.002-05:00

Like alot of highways, the road I drive on has the electronic signs that can be used to alert drivers to accidents that have occurred on the road ahead, or the amount of time it will take to reach a particular exit.

But sometimes these signs are for advice.

ON ICE AND SNOW
TAKE IT SLOW

ARRIVE ALIVE
DONT TEXT AND DRIVE

I like that its not just advice, its rhyming advice. Like "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" or "liquor before beer you're in the clear." I imagine while I'm driving a group of miniature cheerleaders in blue and yellow (Michigan colors) chanting my advice. And maybe end with "GO TEAM!" What team that would be, i'm not sure but it makes me smile in the mornings.

Yesterday I had to drive out to another city for work. As I drove, I discovered that not all Michigan is so big on Rhyming

STAY ALERT
STAY AWAKE
STAY AL

I hope Al's okay.

Importance of communication

2010-03-09T22:51:00.002-05:00

As i posted before, my computer met with an untimely demise and I am still sharing Brian's desktop. But! My own new computer parts have arrived and are patiently waiting for Brian to have 20 or 30 hours in which to assemble them. In the meantime, i think of blogs I will post soon and try to snatch a few stolen minutes on a computer.

An unrelated story that will make perfect sense when I'm done with this post: Once in college I was sitting around with a group of my coworkers from PAVE. It was during a marathon session of facilitation for incoming members of the Greek system and five of us had an hour break. We were sitting around chatting, accompanied by the representative from the Fraternity Council. The conversation, of course, turned to poop. We were discussing the frequency and our feelings about privacy and the importance of location when one poops. The Fraternity representative finally asked, "Do all girls talk about poop so much?" My coworker responded: "No, almost never. But I do talk about it alot when Jenny is around." End of that story.

Today I watched an episode of House MD that was all about a blogger who shared everything about her life. The foods she ate, her opinions on her neighbors and her sex life. She even asked her blog to help her decide what kind of arterial replacement she should use. Since it was House, she was dying of something random and obscure and the problem was solved in the nick of time by using clues that had seemed unimportant before. The key to her illness was poop. She blogged about everything, so her doctors thought they knew everything about her. Except she never talked about poop. And it almost killed her.

I don't know if I'll start to blog about poop, but this definitely reinforced my belief that I am right, it is very important to talk about poo.

Sometimes, life stinks

2010-02-20T08:57:00.003-05:00

You would think from the title, this post is going to be cranky. Sure my laptop died and sharing a computer is tough. Sure I need to read 178 FEMA applications in a week.

But that's pretty much all there is to complain about in my life. Life is good! I just got to see my sister and her new husband and had an awesome time hanging out with them. I spent time with my fantastic parents, whom i adore. My boss let me make up the hours i lost by going home for the weekend so i don't even have to expect a pay cut on the next paycheck. I am having such a good time at my job--it really is what i would have described if anyone in the world asked me what i wanted to do. Brian and I are doing great and I am quietly planning our wedding (which always makes me happy). We've made good friends here and its only 4 more months until we move to Paradise.

So why does life stink? Because I am a very gassy person. I've got two gassy stories to tell, but I'll tell the less funny one first.

We're hosting a student who is considering Ann Arbor for his own graduate studies. He's a Korean-Canadian named Jay and is very nice. Since its recruitment weekend, most of the first year students are hosting candidates. Part of hosting means that everyone had to go to an awkward party at the department chair's house. She doesn't have enough seating for everyone, so people end up standing and trying to eat Lasagna. Kevin the Texan and I did not want to go, despite the fact that our partners had to. So Kevin the Texan and I instead decided to get Qdoba, have a beer and watch movies. It was fantastic...until i remembered that we were sitting on the futon, which was where Jay was going to sleep...and Qdoba gives me gas. Hopefully it had enough time to air out before Jay went to sleep. Whoops.

Another funny but still gross story is about work. I haven't posted yet describing my office (i wrote a whole post that got eaten by my laptop when it died, so i'm waiting to get the data back first), but I'll summarize the important part. We have a few cubicles called "fish-bowls." They are glass on two sides, have walls and a sliding door that go up about 10 feet. I have been deemed temporarily important, so I have an assistant from February 15 to March 5. She does the paperwork and answers the phone for me. Its nice. She's very nice. But every morning, she wants to ask me a quick question while I'm on the way to the bathroom. I can't help it, I try to keep in the gas, but it needs to come out. I try to stand outside her cubicle, but she always wants to show me something on the computer or on the paperwork. So i always leave her in a fishbowl o' stink.

Let it snow

2010-02-08T21:45:00.002-05:00

As a social worker, I'm pretty much trained to give folks the benefit of the doubt. When most folks would look at a person who is facing difficulties and say that they brought it on themselves, I'm supposed to (and usually do) say that there's other causes of hardship. You never know what someone's life has been like or what their options where when they made what we now know is a very bad choice.

But sometimes, I'm not such a good social worker.

Take the city of Detroit for example. The social work part of me says that Detroit current problems have less to do with mismanagement than they have to do with the effects of racial tensions that have never been addressed, a reliance on a single industry rather than a diversity of economic options and a lack of funding for education--significantly impacted by the aforementioned problems.

But today as i drove to work, i found myself blocked from the main road in front of my building. By a snow machine. Pumping out snow all over the park in front of the office.

There's apparently some sort of winter carnival in this park every year in the last weeks of February. There's ice skating and some sort of snow hill situation (despite the fact that the park is literally flat cement). Perhaps I could understand making artificial snow to help stimulate the business of local shops and restaurants. But with a forecast of 6-8 inches of snow over the next two days, spending thousands of dollars on artificial snow just makes me think that Detroit has brought at least some of its problems on itself.

Up chuck

2010-02-08T06:57:00.002-05:00

I haven't posted much lately because my computer has given up on me. It no longer wants anything to do with turning on or even lighting up. As a result, Brian and I are attempting to share his computer. Its not easy, especially because the computer is used for work, school and his main source of gaming recreation. But last night I had a few hours to myself on the computer.

Because Brian was throwing up.

He must've eaten something at the Superbowl party we went to that made him sick and his face all puffy and red. There wasn't much I could do other than get him glasses of water and work on the computer in the next room.

Listening to him being sick.

In five years, I have never been in the same building as Brian when he was vomiting. Usually it only happened when he went home to visit his folks or when I was out of town. So now we've broken what probably is the final barrier of personal space between us.

I'm not that excited.

The haunting of Ann Arbor

2010-01-29T18:27:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, Heather and John came for a visit. It was fantastic to have them here. We played games, watched almost a whole season of Weeds and at one point spent 5 hours in a bar in the middle of the day.

Heather and John both said that they were shocked by how not awful our place was. They had listened to me griping and were happy to assure me that our apartment was not the worst place in the world, or even the worst place they had ever lived. They’re very sweet like that.

At one point, each one of them heard the moaning next door and asked me what it was. I told them it was a ghost.

Fractions

2010-01-28T20:53:00.000-05:00

I'm big on numbers. Anyone who has ever talked to me about my job for the past 5 years has heard me talk about 1 in 4, the number of women who will be sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetimes or 1 in 8, the number of men who will experience the same. Today i heard a new number. 1 in 5. That's the number of people (adults and children) who only know where one meal a day (or less) is coming from in South Eastern Michigan. 1 in 5 people in my area are going hungry. United Way has started some work to address that need, and I hope we can meet it soon. In the meantime, I’ll do the math and be glad that I know where 3 meals a day are coming from.

Busy Busy

2010-01-26T22:52:00.001-05:00

I haven’t posted much lately because things have been hectic. Since starting the new job with United Way, I’ve quit the old job at Kroger’s, been visited by Mr. and Mrs. Stinky, started volunteering again and generally filled up my time. It’s very different from unemployment. I’ll try to post more soon about the job and the new things in my life. I hope folks are still reading the blog, cause I’ll keep trying to write it.

Conspiricies

2010-01-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

Brian and I are paranoid people. He says it’s because the human mind is wired to see patterns, even when there aren’t any. I think it’s because we don’t like people, and so are inclined to assume the worst of them. And that he’s read “1984” too many times.

But we’ve both developed our own pet conspiracy theories lately.

I think that Kroger’s purposefully makes the break room so cold because they want to encourage us not to take any breaks, or to spend our break time on the grocery store floor, so that customers can still ask us questions during our breaks.

Brian thinks that because Michigan is the home to so much of the auto industry, the state has a vested interest in making sure that residents are forced to purchase new cars regularly. This explains why Michigan does not plow snow, but instead just dumps copious amounts of salt on the roads after every snow fall. And why the roads are in such poor conditions, including the purposefully created potholes (not kidding) on the highways that go on for miles. These potholes resemble the divots created on the side of highways that are designed to keep drivers from accidentally drifting off the road and into a ditch. But instead these indents occur every five feet for stretches of miles along the main highway to Detroit.

He also thinks that’s why Michigan is a no-fault accident state---if your car hits another car in Michigan, no matter whose fault it was, you both have to pay for the repairs on your own cars. Thus, people don’t care whether or not they cause accidents and don’t do much to avoid them. The crazy driving that results leads to more people wrecking cars and more people having to buy new ones.

Most people would call us paranoid. But you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.

Familiar

2010-01-16T11:12:00.001-05:00

Today, there was a man talking by my desk at work. His vice wasn’t familiar, and neither was his face, but there was something very familiar about the way he talked. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew I recognized it. Then he started talking about cars, and I realized I’ve found my Uncle G’s speech twin!

The first day

2010-01-13T18:29:00.000-05:00

I went to my first day at my new job today. The United Way is located in a big, old building. It’s a tall building and is surrounded by other big tall buildings. The offices themselves are very modern and well kept. Everyone was dressed nicely and looked very professional.

While I was waiting for my new boss, I felt very alone and insignificant. I seemed so small in such a big place.

Then I remembered that I was wearing the necklace my aunt bought me for Christmas this year. And a sweater from my sister. Brian gave me my ring, my dad had given me my socks and my mom had bought me the shoes before my first grown up job two years ago. It was like I could feel my whole family around me, wishing me good luck. I didn’t feel so small after that.

The day went wonderfully, aside from a gentleman offering for “us to be together” and inquiring if I had jungle fever. I’m off to a great start!

Good news to share

2010-01-12T11:04:00.001-05:00

After a very long wait, I have some great news to share.

First of all, Brian and I have been approved to move to what we call Paradise. Paradise is a lovely apartment complex located near campus. It has a pool, and communal grills to enjoy during the summer. We would have a spacious kitchen, living room and a dining room for the first time. Paradise also features TWO walk-in closets, and a bathroom the size of our current kitchen. And Paradise costs about $200 less a month than Purgatory (our current apartment, where we pay for our sins).

After we toured Paradise, were hoping to break our contract in Purgatory and move in early. We figured there would be a monetary penalty for doing so, but that it could be offset by how much we were saving. Unfortunately, we have found that our contract specifically states that we cannot end the contract early to move to another apartment in Ann Arbor.

Despite how long our stay in Purgatory will last, we’ve been approved by Paradise and are all set to be assigned an apartment for June!

But the upgrade to Paradise is just icing on the cake for our good news. I’ve been offered a contract position at United Way of Detroit. They had asked me to apply for a position earlier, but had decided I wasn’t quite qualified to hold the position. Now they’re offering me something else. I’ll be working full time with their financial allocations and their food surplus programs. It’s a great opportunity for me. I’ll get experience, will finally get to put my degree to good use, and will do the kind of work that will make a difference. HURRAH.

The happy couple

2010-01-06T22:35:00.002-05:00

My friends Katie and Zhexin are getting married this weekend. They’re the first couple of all my college friends to tie the knot, and I find it rather fitting, since they really are the couple that seemed like they were headed for the alter from the start. Here are my favorite Katie and Z moments (feel free to add your own too):

5. Katie made a pair of boxers for Zhexin that said “Calipigious” on the back. She wanted to show them to her friends, so asked Zhexin to stand with his back to us. Katie then planned to yank his sweatpants down to show off the gift. She grabbed more just the sweatpants, and we got to see a full moon. I remember falling down like a stone because I was laughing so hard. When I finally pulled myself together, everyone involved was still on the floor and Katie was attempting to apologize while laughing. And Zhexin was trying to accept her apology, while laughing.
4. They were always a weird couple, but being together allowed them to explore their weirdness. One night, they bought baby food, just because they both wondered what it tasted like.
3. Once when I was in Zhexin and Matt’s room, Matt started complaining that all Zhexin and Katie did was lay around and giggle together. At that moment, the happy couple appeared and proceeded to giggle. For a long time.
2. When we were roommates, Kate and Z would lay around our room thinking of what they would name their future dogs. And occasionally children. At the time, I’m sure I thought it was disgustingly cute. Now I just think it’s cute.
1. Our freshman year, Katie still had her old job in Waunakee. She’d go home on the weekend once a month and be back in time for classes Monday. The first time that she did this, right around the time she and Z started dating, he bought her flowers. He conspired with her roommate to have the flower sitting on her desk when she came home. He originally wrote a very friendship style, non-committal note saying that “we” had all missed her. Kelly and I convinced him to be a bit more romantic. I thought it was so sweet that he got her flowers, and so endearing how nervous he was to make it clear that he liked her.

Congratulations! I know you two will continue to make each other so happy.

A short story

2010-01-06T16:03:00.001-05:00

I’m going to a wedding this weekend. I’ve never been to a winter wedding, so all my usual wedding dress options are out. I had considered looking for a new dress, and then instead made the decision to wear a dress I bought a LONG time ago. It looked great on me then, and I figured it would be a coup if it still looked good on me now.

To avoid any unpleasant surprises, I decided to try the dress on today so I’d have plenty of time for last minute shopping.

I discovered:
A. Putting on Spanx is a ridiculous process. If anyone has seen a YouTube video of this, send it to me, because I almost had to stop because I was laughing so hard at myself.
B. Yeah, I still look good in the dress. Damn good.

Grumpy and groceries

2010-01-06T12:08:00.002-05:00

I’ve extra hated the grocery store lately. Part of this is because I’ve been routinely scheduled to work 16-20 hours a week, but then end up working close to 40. I don’t know why they don’t just schedule everyone for the number of hours they’ll want us to work, but many of the other junior employees have had similar problems with being called in early or asked to come in on our days off. The store calls and asks us no earlier than 8am the day they want us to come in, so you’ve got no time to change your plans or do things the day before instead. Hrumph.

Also, despite the fact that the break room has a poster which outlines the break schedule (example, if you work 6.5 hours, you get a 15 minute break and a 30 minute lunch; or if you work 8 hours you are supposed to get two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch), I have been told by three different managers that I am not eligible to take a 30 minute unpaid break unless I work 8.5 hours. Which of course no one is scheduled for…

So yesterday, I was pretty frustrated. The store was packed; customers were grouch because we ran out of shopping carts (ridiculous, I know) and the music playing was what I like to call “Angry Teenage Rock.” I realized why so many people go crazy at jobs like this.

And then there was a simple change of music. The power ballads of the 80s and 90s filled the air. Van Halen. Whitesnake. Poison. Bonnie Tyler. I felt at peace.

Now I just hope they play that music every time I’m there. I can work all day as long as someone’s playing “Don’t Stop Believing”

A quiet New Year

2010-01-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

My friend Greg has told me many times not to become a boring couple. He tells me that being in a long term relationship doesn’t make me old, and I shouldn’t act like it does. The epitome of this to him has been New Year’s Eve. I think I let him down this year.

We spent the day shopping (because Brian apparently only buys clothes once a year—in the sales between Christmas and New Year’s eve), and then both went in to our respective jobs for four hours. Coming home, I drank too much as we sat in our living room at watched Alien 3. I was briefly giddy and started doing the running man around 11, but by the time we watched the ball drop, I was ready for bed.

We were out by 12:30, too early to even wish the Central Time Zone a Happy New Year.

It was a perfect night.

Two Solstices

2010-01-01T20:23:00.001-05:00

I’ve been remiss in my posting lately, the hustle and bustle of the season and all. But I’ve saved up some stories.

Anyone who has talked to me this time of year knows that I love Christmas. And I love Solstice. It’s an occupational hazard of being a Unitarian. I planned my vacation home to make sure that I would be there for the Winter Solstice celebration at FUS (my home church). But before I left, Brian and I had the chance to celebrate Solstice at UUAA, my Ann Arbor church. I was stoked. Two solstices! That’s like being told that Christmas will come three times or Hanukah was going to last for 20 nights! Right?

Not quite. After hearing all my tales of FUS solstice, our Texas friends wanted to come with to experience UUAA solstice. I prepared our dishes for the potluck, packed up the hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps and set off towards awesomeness. First let down: the way the potluck works in Ann Arbor is that everyone not only brings their own dish to share, you also bring your own DISHES, as in limited plates and cutlery. I happily began to eat my meal off the lid of a Tupperware container, when it was announced that food was limited, so everyone should take small-ish portions, or not come for seconds at all. I was bummed, but told myself that things would still pick up. And then in walked Drunk Santa.

Now, I’ve come to associate Solstice with the eschewing of Christmas glamour, leaving behind our materialism and capitalism in a celebration of older traditions and simpler joys. Drunk Santa has no place at such an event.

He wished us all a Merry Solstice as he bumped into the walls, interrupted several announcements with announcements of his own, and offered each little child who refused to sit on his lap a coffee maker. I was happy to see him leave and the caroling begin.

Unfortunately, in Ann Arbor, caroling music is accompanied not by a piano, but instead with drums and an out of tune trombone. After the trombonist played “Frosty the Snow Man” so poorly that the carolers couldn’t follow the tune anymore, we left.

But solstice at FUS was everything I had hoped it would be, even without my big sister there. We ate until we were stuffed, we sang our solstice songs (including the solar power carol), listened to the choir and the choral readers and watched a mummers play that starred Old Man Winter, a jester, a single mom, a doctor and gay robin hood. We rounded out the night singing the twelve nights of solstice and folk dancing.

I think solstice is something that should perhaps only come once a year.

Elder Abused

2009-12-18T09:47:00.001-05:00

I was at work this week, quietly filling up the shelves with Jello and syrup when a customer approached me. “There’s an old woman in aisle 13 who asked me to find someone to help her.”

It’s not uncommon for elderly customers to need some extra help shopping, and I was ready to help. I found the old woman standing in front of the paper towels. She was about four and a half feet tall, short white hair permed up, and looking angry.

“I want the Bounty with NO colors but NOT the extra strength. The extra strength is STICKY. And Kroger’s has let me down again.” Since there was nothing to say to this statement except agree and apologize, that’s what I did. Then I offered to help her find something else. And she proceeded to go on a tirade about how great Kroger’s used to be and how it now is terrible (and she growled her ‘r’s). She also used the phrase “spittin mad.”

So far, I was with her. It’s frustrating to go to a store that used to carry a particular product you want only to find it’s no longer there. It’s even harder when you’re older and need to rely on a bus service to get you there and home. You can’t even shop on your own schedule, and generally having to ask for help all the time makes you feel powerless. I was inclined to be sympathetic, so I used my social work skills to respond to her in a respectful and sympathetic manner. Eventually my offers to help her find other items brought her out of her anger about the paper towels.

“I need Tropicana orange juice. In the SMALL bottles. WITH PULP!” I told her where we could find it and offered to help her locate it. We started walking (at her slower, older pace), and she eventually just stopped, clearly assuming I would find the juice and bring it to her. I wasn’t adverse to this situation, and besides, she was probably tired. So I went to the juice aisle, found the smallest bottle of Tropicana and headed back.

She must’ve had a bionic eye because I was still half way across the store when she spotted me and bellowed “I DON”T WANT THAT ONE!” I apologized and offered to bring her a different option. “NO PULP!” was her response.

On the way back to the orange juice, I spotted one of the store managers. I informed him that I was working with an older woman who had some complaints about the store for a manager to hear. “I think I’ve heard her enough,” was his response. Then a woman interrupted us to congratulate me on being so nice to the “woman who is being so awful to you.”

At this point, I was feeling like a saint among sinners. I was unimpressed by a manager who was hiding from customers, and still felt sympathy for a frustrated woman. Sure, she had yelled at me quite a bit at this point, but it was no worse than Grandma yelling at Grandpa during a game of bridge. It was a bit more malicious feeling, but I figured I felt that way because I had never been on the receiving end of old lady anger before.

We located the right orange juice, and she decided to buy the bad kind of paper towels. She asked me to help her make it up to the front of the store for check out. As we were walking slowly along, she asked me to check her out personally, so that she wouldn’t make her bus late in picking up the other seniors. I’m not trained to work a cash register, but I promised to find someone who was.

As we were walking, one of my coworkers finished loading two very full carts (not shopping carts, these carts have a bottom that’s about 5 inches off the ground and are open on 3 sides) of cardboard and decided to pull out infront of the old lady and I rather than wait until we had passed to make her trip to the backroom. I’ve always found this coworker to be a bit inconsiderate of others, but I could understand her reasoning that since the old woman was moving so slowly.

We did not realize that the old woman was The Hulk in disguise. Suddenly we weren’t walking so slowly anymore. We were walking FAST. And I mean FAST. She rammed her shopping cart in to the carts of cardboard four times, until the cardboard slid off the cart and on to the floor. After we passed my coworker picking things up, the old woman said to me “I’m sorry. She pulled out right in front of me and I just couldn’t help it,” in a very helpless old lady way. It was then that I realized I had spent the last half hour being verbally abused by Satan’s nana.

I delivered her to the cashiers who all cringed to see her, but were willing to open a special check out lane just for her. One of the nicer team leads asked me to come to the back of the store with her for a “special project.” The special project was the two of us escaping from the old woman, who apparently comes in once a week to yell at the staff, demand special treatment and vows never to shop at Kroger’s again.

Fame! I wanna live forever!

2009-12-04T10:40:00.001-05:00

A few years ago, my mom handed me a Minnesota Magazine. It was opened to a picture of some people having a picnic by Lake Calhoun. I thought it was a nice picture. And then I thought that one of the people in the photograph looked like my friend Jo. And another like my friend John…and then I realized I was on the photograph.

My friends and I remembered the picnic, but not being photographed.

Yesterday, I went in to the domestic violence center where I’ve been volunteering. One of the staff, Kim, and I have been planning their volunteer training. Kim told me she has started to research various educational films to show to their interns.

“There’s a video of you on the website promoting one of the films,” she told me.
I responded with a very articulate “Hunh?”

We looked at the site, and sure enough, there I am.
http://notherapedocumentary.org/

I remember going to the screening of the film, but didn’t remember the interview.

I wonder where else I can be found…

Insane Troll Logic

2009-12-03T09:18:00.000-05:00

Lots of my job is answering customers’ questions and helping them to find various items hidden through out the store. Sometimes it’s because items are hard to find, and other times people just have a hard time finding them.

Hard to find:
-Soy milk (located in a special section of the store)
-Car windshield scrapers (located by the recycling center)

Hard time finding:
-Peanut butter (despite the fact that the aisle is labeled “peanut butter”)
-Canned vegetables (I was asked where they were as I was putting them on the shelves)
-Aluminum foil (3 people have asked me while standing in front of the aluminum foil)

I admit that it’s hard to find stuff in the store. And I’ve figured out what the problem is. Things are perfectly logical, as long as you start at the same logic jumping off point as the store does.

For example, say you are looking for sandwich bags. You may think—plastic bags, those would be with the garbage bags, or perhaps with the Tupperware. You would be wrong. You started in the wrong place. Instead, you should look in Aisle 4: the baking goods aisle. There you’ll find cake mixes, flour, sugar, one use baking pans, plastic wrap (for keeping those goodies fresh) and sandwich bags (since they should be by the plastic wrap). Since that aisle has flour and baking mixes, it also has the pancake mixes. And where you have pancake mixes, you have syrup (did you think the syrup would be in the aisle with the breakfast foods? You were wrong). Aisle 4 also has vegetable oil for cooking. And since it has one kind of oil, of course it also has canola oil, peanut oil and olive oil. You might not use all of that for baking, but you can’t split up the oils. That would be illogical.

Learning the logic of the store is taking some time, but it gives me something to ponder as I stack the salsa on the other side of the store from the chips….

Friend!

2009-12-02T22:16:00.001-05:00

Today at work I made a friend. Blake and I were set to help restock the beauty and other non-food item aisles. This is not our job since we’re supposed to be only working with food items, but the non-food people got really backed up the last few weeks. Since we had so many small items, it gave us a chance to talk.

He went to a liberal arts college in Idaho and came here with his girlfriend. Majored in English and History. It seemed like things were going well. And then he said that he was planning on going to see a play in Minneapolis next week. I asked which play, and he sheepishly told me “A Christmas Carol. In Klingon.” I told him we were going to be friends.

We continued to talk all through our 8 hour shifts and even took our breaks together. I managed to lock my keys inside my locker, and my new friend helped me pry the locker open to retrieve all my belongings.

This was the best day at work yet!

Expecting

2009-12-01T22:58:00.000-05:00

I think I’ll probably be writing a lot about work for a while. The job gives my mind a lot of time to wander, and it usually wanders in what my sister called “blog thought.” I start writing blog posts in my head through out the day about the odd things that happen, and hopefully I’m not too tired to post them once I get home.

Today I had a blog thought. Working at the grocery store is a lot like being pregnant.

-My back and feet hurt.
-My hands are swollen (mostly because I run into things)
-I expect to gain weight (my current schedule has me trying to eat dinner at 9pm and go to bed at 11)
-I look at the future with a mixed sense of dread and anticipation (anticipation about what direction my career could take, dread that this is the direction its already taken)
-I have strange food cravings. It seems like a good idea to purchase marshmallows, teriyaki sauce and pickles.

Hopefully I won’t still be there in 9 months to deliver any results.

Survival Tactics

2009-11-29T21:58:00.000-05:00

I’ve just finished my third day at the new job stocking groceries. I mostly take a cart full of items to an isle, spend 45 minutes seeing if any of those items are needed and take a cart ¾ full of times back. It’s not such a bad gig.

Except for the customers.

I had noticed on my first day that everyone I worked with walked very fast. No matter what we were doing, we walked at a brisk pace. After being stopped three times after I had clocked out for break, I understood why. We are running from the customers. If you walk fast enough and look preoccupied, they can’t catch you or think that you just didn’t notice them asking for help.

I unfortunately generally look bewildered and since I don’t know where I’m going most of the time, see no reason to hurry to get there. The customers sense my weakness, and thus often pounce on me.

I wonder if there are speed walking classes.

The care package

2009-11-27T18:29:00.001-05:00

My family hasn’t sent me many care packages since I moved away from home. I received several after my lung collapsed a few years ago, and I know my mom and sister have each sent me a few here and there through the years, but its not a common occurrence.

Most of the things I think I would want, like fresh cooked zucchini bread, I can make on my own. And the things I don’t make—like turkey stuffing from scratch and Laotian sticky rice, are too strange to ask for

So I’m still a bit puzzled by care packages.

Brian’s family has always sent plenty of care packages. Not just his mom, but his grandmother as well. Grandma Metzger sent Brian a care package for his birthday this year. Two jars of home made jelly. Candy. Home made bars of some sort of deliciousness. Crackers. A small ham (only 2 pounds). Sliced cheese. 4 sticks of butter.

I’m thinking asking for sticky rice is not so odd after all.

A thing to be thankful for

2009-11-26T11:18:00.000-05:00

After the insanity of my unexpected training day on Wednesday, I remembered that I was supposed to pick up some pop tarts for Brian before coming home. Grocery shopping the day before Thanksgiving isn’t the best idea, but I figured I’d be brave and provide for my starving partner.

While I was standing in line, the older gentleman behind me asked if I had already gotten my cooking done for the next day. I told him that at the rate the lane was moving, we’d end up eating the pop tarts. He laughed and asked if I was a student. I told him no, but my fiancé is. He asked me, “Is he a good man?”

“Yeah. He really is.”

An unexpected first day

2009-11-25T23:29:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday, I got my call back from Kroger letting me know I had passed my drug test. I was told to come in on Wednesday at 11 for my “hiring session.” Great, I thought. I’ll have a job for after Thanksgiving, and still will have plenty of time to cook today after the ‘session.’ I was wrong.

I went in and spent 15 minutes signing forms. Things were going as planned, until she set me up with a computer so I could complete the online training sessions. There were at least 15 sessions, between 25 minutes and 60 minutes long. I was told by the manager not to worry, that the sessions really only took half as much time as listed. She was wrong.

Each session was essentially like watching a glorified powerpoint presentation, except I couldn’t control the speed at which the information flowed. A bullet point would pop up, and I would read it. And read it again. And spin around in my chair. And then the next bullet point would pop up.

I learned all about in store safety, how to operate a price gun, how to operate a fork lift, how to prevent theft (which really just gave me tips on how to shoplift), more about how to promote safety, how to create a work schedule for my department and how to use work schedules to train new workers (impressive, given that I haven’t even been trained yet).

At the end of each training session, I was tested on the material. For information on safety and fork lift usage, I had to get a score of 70% per section. For information on proper dress and team spirit, I had to get a score of 100%.

At one point when I found myself listening to the in store musical stylings of Justin Timberlake and watching an hour long cartoon about a floating talking star and a guest services clerk, I thought I was loosing my mind.

Finally at 6:00 I left. I am $52.50 richer (not including taxes and union dues) and theoretically able to operate a forklift and assist a coworker in removing sulfuric acid from their eyes.

The Job Hunt

2009-11-20T13:33:00.001-05:00

So the job hunt has not gone well. I had a promising prospect with the United Way here, but it’s been over a month of decision making on their part, when originally they had planned on telling me in a week.

And while I continue applying, it’s been a very long time with no income. So this week, I broke down, swallowed my master’s degree and applied at the grocery store. I try not to be a snob about jobs, and kept telling myself that there is no shame in making a living, but it wasn’t a good day.

I knew that when I interviewed they would ask why I wanted to work there. It’s a common interview question and I always try to come up with a good answer ahead of time. For the grocery store, all I could come up with was the fact that I want money. It’s an honest answer, but I’m not sure the good folks at Kroger Co. would appreciate it.

On Thursday, I went to my interview and of course was asked why I wanted to work there. I told them it was because I want to get married soon and I need an income right away to do that. I struck gold. The woman interviewing me is still paying off her daughter’s wedding from two years ago.

I wasn’t hired on the spot, because first they have to receive my drug test results. Ahhh the workplace.

Possible Impending Doom

2009-11-19T22:41:00.000-05:00

I haven’t blogged lately because not much has been happening. I’m still job hunting, Brian is busy studying. Most days I spend my time knitting, watching bad TV (wifeswap!) working out, cooking and cleaning. Saturdays we spend time together, Sundays I go to church then clean up the apartment. Mondays we go out for drinks with the students from Brian’s program, Wednesdays I watch Glee with some friends, and Fridays we go to Bio Bev.

This week at Bio Bev, I suddenly noticed a lump on the underside of my calf, just above my ankle. When I looked more closely, I realized it wasn’t just a lump, it was a huge bruise! And all weekend long, the bruise continued to grow (the lump part did not, just the funny colors). Usually my bruises look terrible right away and fade quickly. This one spread from the size of a silver dollar on Friday to the size of a tea cup today, with gross colors changing all the time. It also leaves lines of color each day where my socks sit.

I have decided the bruise is
A. Ankle cancer
B. The hanta virus
C. The bubonic plague
D. A voodoo curse

I am completely serious.

Happy Birthday stinky love

2009-11-05T10:20:00.002-05:00

Today is My Heather’s birthday. She is a person I love with all my heart and I am happy to have the privilege of us being bffs. And since I liked it so much when my sister did it, I’m going to tell you 10 reasons she is awesome:

1. She is the best smelling person I have ever met. If you know her, try smelling her sometime soon, you’ll like it.
2. She decided to go to school in Madison, which made me go to school in Madison, which was one of the best decisions of my life
3. She often starts to entertain herself when left alone. Once while I was driving with her somewhere and ignoring conversation in order to concentrate, she started putting on a little play with the items in my purse.
4. When we were in college, we invented a game called “tears or snot.” You can play by crying on your best friend’s shoulder and then deciding whether the wet parts are from tears, or snot.
5. She told me that we would not hang out the first month of my freshman year, so I would be sure to make friends outside of her, because she wanted me to grow as a person
6. My second night in college, she broke our no-contact rule to bring me to an awesome party.
7. She surprises me. For example, most people thought it was very odd when I spent a week carrying around a giant plastic Buddha and taking pictures of it every where. Heather thought it was a good idea to take him to Target. And to Victoria’s Secret (as long as he stayed in the shopping bag).
8. She calls me every year on my birthday to tell me she’s happy I was born. (She should expect a phone call today, because I’m happy she was born).
9. She has seen Dead Man on Campus and The Pest at least 10 times. Minimum.
10. She went with me as a Ninja for Halloween two years ago. It’s been my favorite costume ever since. We spent the entire evening defending each other and yelling “Ninjas Fight in Pairs”

Happy Birthday Stinks!

The Scariest Day of the Year.

2009-11-01T22:06:00.002-05:00

I had a very un-scary Halloween. Brian and I watched the gory, but not scary Sweeney Todd and then attended a party thrown by one of the third year students. The number of dogs (in and out of costume) and babies at one point exceeded the number of students. Brian and I had very awesome last minute Ninja costumes (my brother in law is right, you should always have a sword for last minute emergencies), that were fun, but not scary.

The big scares came today. The first while I was relaxing in the living room this afternoon. I had the strange feeling that I was being watched, and saw out of the corner of my eye—a face pressed against the window. It was the 10 year old neighbor boy, and he stayed there until his grandparents called him after about 5 minutes. Creepies.

Later, Brian and I were rough housing next to the stairs. I was about to put a stop to it, hearing my mom say that we would fall down the stairs and die, when I lost my grip on Brian’s hand. In slow motion, I watched him he reeled backwards, and all I could think was how far it was and how hard the stairs were. Turns out, it wasn’t just my vision in slow motion, it was really happening that way, because out of my line of sight, he had a firm grip on the railing and was never in any danger of falling at all. Boo.

Final summation: October 31, not scary. November 1, scary.

Bio Bev Rookies

2009-10-30T22:20:00.002-04:00

I posted a few weeks ago about the Friday night tradition of drinks in the Evolutionary Biology department lounge. I said I’d update about what was discussed, but haven’t posted yet.

Last week, things were very quiet. There were only a few people, all of whom were first year students. We groused about the one girl in the program that no one gets along with and there was definitely a conversation about tiger testicles (I wasn’t listening closely enough, so I can’t give you any more details).

This week there was a conversation about what you wanted to be when you grew up (best answer: Velociraptor). Another discussion of what to name your children (best answer: Velo Ci Raptor). And someone loaded the room’s dishwasher with the wrong kind of soap, creating a nice sudsy background for the evening. When I saw the suds, I called it a “rookie mistake.” Two other people said the exact same thing about the situation later that night.

Apparently, it’s a common rookie mistake.

More Animals!

2009-10-27T20:54:00.003-04:00

So I’ve seen more animals. Brian and I have seen a set of three deer all around Northwoods. They’ve been by the dumpster, grazing on the sidewalk by the engineering buildings, and right outside our door one day when Brian left for class. We had disagreed about the size of the fawns, but didn’t put it together that there were actually TWO families of three deer running around.

Until I was driving up to our apartment and found them all together. I got excited, I pulled out my camera, and I took pictures.

Unfortunately, all six would not pose together

On the way to photograph the deer, I also finally got a picture of one of our woodchuck friends

He’s a little camera shy

The most exciting encounter, once again, is the overly friendly squirrel

We encountered OFS on Sunday and on Tuesday this week. On Sunday, we were leaving our apartment to run some errands. Just as we got out the door, OFS peered around the corner of our building, in a very stalker-ish fashion. Once again OFS approached us, and the faster we ran away, the faster he followed.

We got to the car and locked ourselves in. But where was OFS? We’re too kind hearted to want to run him over, but we couldn’t find him. Then we rolled down the window.

Peekaboo!

He was right next to the car! And when I stuck my hand out to take a picture, he came closer. We tried throwing food in the opposite direction, but he was only interested in us. The noise of the car horn eventually frightened him off, but we felt it was a near miss.

Today, I got home from the grocery store and had both hands full of groceries. As I approached my door, I realized that OFS was between me and the apartment, and he wanted love. He wanted contact. I dumped half my groceries on the picnic table, skirted the squirrel and bolted for the apartment. I barely missed contact with the squirrel and had to wait until he went away to get the rest of my groceries.

And my neighbors who we don’t like (who I just gave a candle to), were watching and laughing the whole time. Dang.

Would you light my candle?

2009-10-27T19:16:00.001-04:00

On Friday, we came home from a quiet Bio Bev to find that all of North Campus (including our apartment) was without power.

Luckily, I am always prepared.

There’s a rechargeable flashlight plugged in right next to the front door, as well as a slew of matches and candles tucked away in the closet. We were ready to sit out the night.

But, we had noticed on the way in that our neighbors (the awkward ones who stare at us and have a loud child) did not appear to have any sort of illumination. I decided to extend the neighborly olive branch and went next door to offer a spare candle. Mom and son were delighted to have some sort of light in the house and accepted it gleefully.

Hopefully this is the start of a more pleasant neighbor relationship.

When Animals Attack

2009-10-21T12:29:00.001-04:00

I saw a movie once where a character kept getting attacked by animals (like chipmunks and other non aggressive animals) because he was out of balance with nature, or something like that.

My subconscious must be out of balance because I often have dreams of animals attacking me. Opossums, rats, dogs, giraffes, elephants and most recently a goat.

When I write it, it sounds hilarious. But I’ve woken up screaming, shivering and freaked out!

I gotta get back in balance.

Table for Four

2009-10-20T16:54:00.002-04:00

I recently watched an episode of the fantastic How I Met Your Mother that posited the theory that couples need other couples to spend time with. In the way that sitcoms do, it compared a couple on their own to a pair of couples double dating to a single person envying people in relationships.

This was one I could relate to. Ever since Brian and I have been dating, I have the need for the Couples Night. Four people going out to dinner, watching a movie or playing board games sounds like the best evening ever to me. Spending time with other people is fun, but you know it would be more fun if it was couples (even when it sometimes isn’t).

I’m sure there’s some sort of anthropological explanation—that group living benefited all, and that groups of couples provided no competition for mates etc. But I know that I have been craving a couple to spend time with since we moved to Michigan.

I’ve been hoping to make friends with a couple from Brian’s program. They’ve been dating as long as we have, they’re just as serious and they’re both students, so we understand their schedule. The hard part has been broaching the prospect of the four of us doing things on our own, without other people there.

This weekend, we invited over ½ the couple (she was out of town, but he didn’t have any plans). I suddenly reverted to the teenage girl who almost exploded when calling a boy from her parents’ basement. I had to rehearse what I was going to say first, and then run it all past my best friend (in this case, Brian). When I got the nerve to make the call, I told Brian that I hoped it would go to voice mail, saving me the need for direct interaction. And so it did. When he called back, I made Brian answer the phone. And I did a happy dance.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Biology, beer, and ?

2009-10-19T19:51:00.001-04:00

Every Friday, Brian’s department holds “Bio Bev.” One of the first year students (Brian this semester) brings in a case or two of beer and members of the department “donate” to the funds for future beer, and everyone sits around the department lounge sharing drinks and ideas. The original intent was to have conversations about biology or ecology or genetics. Last week topics included: bombing the moon, Obama’s Nobel prize and the historical subjugation of women. This week, there were two dogs and two babies present among the scientists. Topics included Roller Derby and YouTube. I’m excited for next week.

Everybody's workin' for the...

2009-10-18T18:05:00.001-04:00

It’s been quite the weekend. I set up a phone conversation with a possible employer, had a friend over for dinner (friend!), went to church and went apple picking. I was hoping to have great stories about the apple picking, but it turned out to be a big bust.

Luckily, church can provide blog fodder. I’ve been going to the local Unitarian Church, and they like to have a few minutes at the beginning of the service for the congregation to “greet each other.” This mostly consists of exchanging names and a handshake, and then moving on to the next person. Little conversation, but I’m not sure what I’d talk to folks about anyway. The last two weeks, the minister has been encouraging the congregation to find other ways of greeting, given the fact that it’s cold and flu season. Some members ignore this and continue to shake hands or hug, but others take the message to heart. There’s an older woman who I usually sit behind who has my particular interest. She’s in her 70s and appears to have had a stroke that paralyzed the right side of her face at some point. She likes to greet those around her (and around meaning the nearest 20 people) by bumping fists.

Today, she and I exchanged our first fist bump. It was a thrill.

When you’re up, you’re up; and when you’re down, you’re down….

2009-10-08T16:22:00.001-04:00

Here’s a low and a high for the last two days

The low:
On Wednesday I fell down 5 stairs in the apartment while Brian was on campus. When I got up, both my knees and my wrist hurt, and my butt was one big bruise. At first, I couldn’t put any weight on my leg, so I was really nervous. I tried calling Brian, my mom, my sister and a friend from Madison for some knee-care advice. No one answered. I told a friend that I was concerned that I could die in the apartment and be eaten by cats. She said it was unlikely, given that I did not have a cat.

The high:
I have a good lead on a job. My potential boss is hoping to be able to hire me right off with out having to post the job to the general public. It sounds like exciting work, and although the commute might be long, it will be worth the drive!

Say that again?

2009-10-03T22:48:00.001-04:00

Since we made the decision to move to Michigan, I’ve applied for 30-35 jobs. And even for the jobs that I’ve kept careful track of, its hard to remember everything.

The other day I received a call from “The Ginsberg Center” asking me to set up an interview. I was excited for the interview, but had no idea whatsoever the job could possibly be. After hanging up the phone, I frantically searched for the job description. Finally, I figured out that it was one of the top four jobs that I would like the most.

Fingers crossed!

Our interesting apartment

2009-10-01T12:21:00.001-04:00

Our apartment has gotten interesting again.

We had received a message from the main office that our cable was changing over to HD, and that if we didn’t have an HDTV we should pick up our free digital converter. So I walked over to the main office and instead of being given a converter, I was put on a list and upon arriving home, found that the cable had been canceled.

We had also received a message that our apartment building would not have water Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday from 7am to 7pm. We assumed that when the water was on, we’d be able to shower, so it seemed a minor inconvenience. Except we didn’t have hot water or enough water pressure once the water was back on.

I also asked the main office about our heat. So far, we have been unable to find a thermostat in our apartment, and last night the temperature was supposed to get down to freezing. I was informed that our building has a central heating system, so once the maintenance department turns on the heat, it’s just on. I asked when “on” would happen, since its getting a bit chilly in the apartment. I was told that it usually would have been turned on, but since there are “problems with the water,” we would have no heat until the “problem” was resolved.

And our on going problem of having no internet or 3-prong outlets on the second floor means that we still have internet and extension cords running up the stairs.

As Brian summed it up: “No heat, no water, no cable and messed up electricity.”

Michigan is an interesting place.

So fragile

2009-09-26T21:44:00.001-04:00

Today I was cooking and realized, right in the middle of things, that I needed eggs. Really just an egg, but its not something that you buy individually. I quick ran over to the grocery store, found the eggs and hurried to the check out counter.

Usually when I’m buying a single item, I skip getting a bag. It seems like a waste for a single item, and I always picture forests devoid of trees or a landfill full of plastic bags in a million years.

I told the bagger to skip the bag, and he looked at me and said, “Really? Without a bag, the eggs could break.”

I took the eggs without the bag, and walked out of the store wondering how much protection a plastic bag really does offer.

Hobbies

2009-09-23T21:52:00.003-04:00

I recently went to a job interview where at the end, I was asked what my hobbies are. What did I do with my free time. I froze.

So I’ve been thinking, what would I want to say? I had been thinking of ways to meet other people here, and so far I had decided that I wanted to get involved in a church, maybe join a knitting group and look into a community garden project. But how would these play out in a job interview?

Job interview question: What do you do for fun?

Answer 1: I’m very involved in my church. It’s a Unitarian church
Possible response A: Interviewers don’t know what a Unitarian is and assume I’m just a crazy religious person.
Possible response B: Interviewers know what a Unitarian is and assume I’m just a crazy person.

Answer 2: I knit
Possible response A: You might just be a young version of an old crazy lady with cats.
Possible response B: You must be very industrious, and considerably older than you appear. Also, will you make me a sweater?

Answer 3: I garden.
Possible response A: You are someone who spends their time at work wanting to leave to go outside
Possible response B: You are cool and sporty
(I made the mistake once of telling my coworkers about my upcoming backpacking trip and my beautiful garden. Everyone assumed I was sporty and outdoorsey. They never learned the truth, but it explained many of my strange interactions with them.)

I ended up saying I liked to knit.