update: the blistered feet

It seems some of you are highly worried about the state of my feet after being a slave to fashion and wearing blister-inducing shoes on my first day of work. Well, thanks for the worry! I was doing okay - most of the blisters hadn't popped yet or had just kind of deflated on their own without popping (that wierds me out a bit) ... until I decided to go for a walk with Husband on Friday night... and popped one of those blisters.

So, now I have a big ugly popped blister sore on my right foot, by my big toe (right where the strap of a flip-flop would lie). We have these nifty little square band-aids, and I wore one tonight for date night.

All was going well with my feet on the date - we went for a lovely and ridiculously filling meal at the Cheesecake Factory (neither of us can eat cheesecake, so we brought home a piece of sinful fudge sex cake) and so I wore my sexy sandal heels. Now, these are about the only pair of sexy heels I own, and I love these shoes more than, well, a lot of things (but not that sinful fudge sex cake). Now, I've had these shoes for probably 4 or 5 years, but have only worn them a handful of times (for when I'm feeling especially sassy), and when we got home, the shoes died. Seriously, the left shoe foot-bed part split completely apart from the soul/heel part - as if the glue decided it was time to go to glue heaven. This is just tragic.

*sigh*.

Anyone know how much it would cost me to get my shoe glued back together? I don't remember how much I paid for them (I got them at DSW), but they are designer shoes (a serious, expensive designer, at that) and I don't think I can continue to cope without them.

This is just so sad. Where's that sinful fudge sex cake and my glass of wine....

oooooooh...just when I thought life couldn't get better...

...it totally did.

I got home from work today, and Husband (who had today off) is looking as pleased with himself as the cat who finally caught the canary. What did he do to warrant such unbridled pride, you ask? HE! WENT! AND! GOT! A! TIVO! TODAY!

I have been wanting a TIVO for a lifetime and a half, but we haven't been able to afford it. Until now. Husband has had various Playstations, but every single one he gets is retarded - they work for about 3 months and then you can't watch a DVD on them. Which is a vital element in this house because the DVD player we got for our wedding died an agonizing death a year after our wedding (it wasn't a cheap piece of crap, either). So, when the latest Playstation model decided to go to gaming heaven, Husband decided he was tired of dealing with it, so he took the refund check and surprised me with a TIVO! today.

I am still beside myself with absolute glee.

In other news, I think the Fat Camp Police will be coming to arrest me shortly. I've been doing absolutely dismally this week. Hopefully tomorrow I will start making better choices. Augh.

Off to play with my TIVO!


Update: I never knew that programming a TIVO could be this glee-inducing! I've just spent the last hour putting in programs and messing with the settings. This is like crack!

It was a GRRRREAT day!

I had a FABULOUS first day of work! It couldn't have gone better! I was just glad there weren't any massive screwups...of course eventually it will happen, I'm just glad it wasn't on my first day.

The only thing that sucked was that my shoes completely tore up my feet. Seriously, I have blisters all over my feet. It sucks. I so wasn't thinking this morning when I thought I could go from wearing my comfy, broken-in flip-flops every day to wearing HEELS. And not just any heels. No. Slip-on, mule-type heels. I don't think my baby toes will ever recover. Which will make tomorrow interesting, trying to figure out which dress shoes hurt the least.

Off to enjoy my good-first-day-of-work glass of wine...

Well, if I ever thought I was still just a spring chicken...

...now I know I am emphatically NOT. Husband & I went to Target tonight. While I was poking around the $1 section, these junior-high age girls called me "LADY"...as in "watch out for the LADY" as they were throwing items at each other. LADY. Lady! How can I possibly continue to indulge my ridiculous fantasy that I'm still really just a college kid in an adult life when young girls are calling me a 'lady'?!

This, on the eve of me commencing work tomorrow morning. *Sigh*. And speaking of having to actually get up tomorrow morning at the god-awful hour of 6:30 am, I'm off to bed. Wish me luck tomorrow!

Hang on, kids, things are about to get a little rough...

R.I.P., Chief Justice...I'm very afraid things are about to get very scary for women's rights. Heaven help us.

today = lessons learned

1. If you don't have these, attempting to use wax paper to bake cookies instead does NOT work. In fact, smoke will start to pour from your oven, and your fire alarm will go off.

2. If you don't have the brown sugar required by a chocolate-chip cookies recipe, you can make it yourself by mixing molasses & granulated sugar. (The mixing ratio is on the molasses bottle).

3. Using said mixture in chocolate-chip cookies does NOT result in normal flavored chocolate-chip cookies. Using this molasses-mixture-brown-sugar-substitute makes the chocolate-chip cookies taste like molasses.

4. Further, using said mixture in the cookies makes the cookies come out quite an unpalatable color of brown - not burned brown, but more like shit brown.

begging off 55-fiction friday...

I just can't do the fiction today. I'm afraid all that would come out would be completely non-fiction, dealing with Katrina...and I'm just too emotionally exhausted to go there right now.

So sorry, no fiction today. Life and it's horrors are just too overwhelming.

the good news keeps a' comin'...

So.....I GOT THE JOB!!! I'm very excited! I'm not going to be writing about it at all - knowing me, I wouldn't be able to walk that fine line of not saying too much. And I think it's just smarter not to say anything at all.

In any event, I had to share the great news. I start Tuesday, so it's going to be a long weekend of debauching and getting all my immaturity out of the way, so I'm ready to be a working adult by next week. Any ideas for enjoying these last few days of daytime TV and alcohol at any hour of the day?

and now, for something completely different...

I HAVE AN INTERVIEW TOMORROW!!!

WOO-HOO!

YAY FOR ME!

can't...stop...somebody...help...

So, if I'm not working and not shopping due to the lack of income, what have I been doing, you ask? I have been sucked into the ridiculous cuteness that is THIS.

I can't take it anymore!

internet saga part III: all limbs MIA

(I tried, I really tried, to be all clever and put links to the parts I and II of this saga, but I just don't have the patience to figure out what I'm doing wrong. So you'll have to scroll down the page. Sorry, kids.)

Oh, this is just getting downright hysterical. Really.

I should have known things were going to go nowhere when the technician mentioned that there was a "closed, be back at 9:00 a.m." sign on the door...at 4:15 p.m. HA!

After a few calls, I finally raised someone in the office, who happened to be on a conference call and because she didn't know how long it would be, put the 'closed' sign on the door. Golly, I just love the dysfunctionality of this management. She tells me that the woman in what is fast becoming the holy grail of apartments is refusing to let anyone enter her apartment unless she is home. Oh, but she's happy to come home from work to be there. That's if someone from the leasing office happens to be able to actually reach her at her work.

And the really gorgeous bit about this is that the office apparently *tried* to call and tell us this USEFUL bit of information yesterday, but discovered that (this is truly brilliant) they didn't have our phone number. Because it's not like they can't put a freaking note on our doornob. And this has been since yesterday, people. They had the entirety of today, as well, given that the technician didn't get here until 4:00 pm.

So where does that leave us? Well, the technician (as it turns out, some contract guy the cable company had come out) is convinced that this woman is STEALING CABLE and that's why she doesn't want anyone in her apartment. And Husband says, with a smug look, that's what he's thought all along. Rrrrrrrrrright.

We still have the temporary connection, and if we can actually talk to anyone in the leasing office to find out when this wiley woman will be around tomorrow to tell the comcast people, we'll actually be able to get this (shocking thought) taken care of.

Oh, and with this temporary connection, the internet is continuously going in and out...during the course of typing this entry, it's gone out like 4 times. Lovely. The power of the holy grail apartment is far reaching and not to be underestimated. Be afraid, be very afraid.

55~Fiction~Friday

I know I missed last week - but I didn't have internet!!! Hopefully this will make up for it. Oh, and thanks to Eve for the idea!

She sighed, surveying the pieces of her life; tables filled with knick-knacks, old dishes, stacks of books, movies, records, yearbooks. How on earth had she managed to become the owner and provide a home to so much? She fingered a green-haired troll; did discarded items knew they were being cast off, unwanted, sold?

loss of limb-internet saga part II

SO, Husband had the day off yesterday. Before the technician came, he went down to the leasing office to double check that all systems were 'go' for this quick, 5 minute repair (so swears the technician). Everything seemed to point to our little internet problem getting, oh, FIXED.

The technician arrived. He got into the apartment on the first floor, the problem wasn't there. He went to enter the apartment directly below mine, only to discover that the leasing office didn't specify where in the apartment they needed access to, so the people in that apartment LOCKED THE DOOR leading to the bedroom/bathroom wherein the closet with the problem cable wire resides. And the management of course doesn't have a key to this lock (that the tenant put on).

SO. The office did another 24-hour notice and this whole madness will hopefully be remedied this afternoon around 3:30 pm. Unless, of course, this tenant decided to put a lock on the closet containing the cable wire. Which I wouldn't be AT ALL surprised with at this point.

After much resistance, Husband convinced the leasing office to give us permission for the technician to run a temporary cable wire outside the building. We have to keep the sliding door open to our porch, and the cable wire runs down the side of the building, but I DON'T CARE. I have internet & TV, however temporary the situation turns out to be.

OK, and by way of reality check, I have on a morning show on Fox and they're showing this apartment building fire that's just started - the smoke is black, so the fire is still with full fury. I can't imagine being at work and, say, going into a break room and discovering that it's your apartment that's going up in flames. I guess my week hasn't been so bad! But really, how many of you apartment-dweller readings have apartment insurance? It's things like this that make me thing I really need to get it.

Just cut off my right arm next time and we'll call it even-steven

AUGHHH!

I have been without internet & basic cable for a day over a solid week. It feels like 6 months. I never knew how debilitating not having internet access could possibly be!

Here's the story, people. Last week, I was enjoying my free preview of every cable station known to man (a nice perk of having basic cable - they give you free previews every now and again). I turned it off to work out, came back and BAM! NOTHING. No internet. No cable. Gone was the TLC/MTV/Discovery station orgy. *sniff*. But really, NO INTERNET?!?!?! GASP! You have got to be kidding.

And so begins the messy and rage-inducing saga of my life for the past 8 long, interminable days. To make matters even worse, our DVD player is on the fritz, so unless I want to watch a DVD on my laptop, it's watching and re-watching the videos. Grrrrr.

I can't even really go into all the sordid details of dealing with Comcast and the numbskulls that have taken over and fully staffed my apartment's management office. It just makes me too angry, and I've tried to be really zen about the whole thing and go on walks to the ocean for the calming effect. Suffice it to say, my apartment's management office is staffed with quite possibly the world's bitchiest secretary, who seriously makes me want to run out and buy a voodoo doll. She is single-handedly responsible for FAILING to give the 24-hour notice to the 2 apartments underneath mine so the Comcast people could go in and re-connect our internet and cable (don't get me started on why they wired only OUR apartment through the closet of the 2 apartments below me. What, am I surrounded by FRICKIN' IDIOTS?!?)

So we are 'theoretically' getting all our services back tomorrow afternoon between 1:00 pm and 5:00 pm. Hopefully this will be more successful than the Saturday, 1:00-5:00 pm OR the Tuesday, 9:00 am -12:00 pm appointments. Because I really can't take this having to come to the library, sign up for a computer time, and have to deal with these 'privacy' screens on the computer monitors that are inevitably completely BLURRY down the middle of the screen and it's making me dizzy, not to mention making it seriously difficult to actually read what I'm typing. But I daren't remove on pain of death, to be sure.

Anyways, peeps, I'm feeling very out of the loop. (I don't even get the newspaper, so I haven't even gotten any news for the past 8 days. And no, there's no extra money for buying a paper. Really.) I miss you all! Hopefully, by tomorrow night I'll be typing away...all about my visit to see a taping of Two and A Half Men...going to LA's Fashion District...all the books I haven't been able to finish reading...all the movies I've been watching...

So as my timer runs down (oh, don't think you can just hop on a library computer and use it willy-nilly), I'm going. I have email to check and news to read up on. And really, how have I lived through the past 8 days without knowing what TomKat's every move has been?!?! The cruelty!

doing my own 007...

So I was just going through some of the pics from my post-bar trip to the San Diego Zoo...and thought this one really fit my mood tonight.


Going Undercover 

That's what I get for being curious...

In the past few months, I've gotten back in touch with people from high school and college. It's been really cool because I've been feeling all lonely and separated from family & friends waaaaay out here in LA. But it has inevitably left me feeling super nostalgic. Examples: being at boarding school for high school (it was a religious thing, not a disciplinary thing) and dealing with stupid rules and deans & doing the Austin Powers dance [yes, Val, I'm talkin' to you]; living across the hall from Ladyberries* in college and letting Sinead O'Connor get us through the dramas; living on the lake during law school and all those law school shenanigans and highlighter fights with Kav...*

Naturally, this leads me to be curious about other people I've lost touch with, mostly those from college. Through searching the links on one of my college friends' websites, I found a site of one of my college boyfriends' friends. And it had pictures of the college boyfriend on it. This led me to compulsively google him and the other college boyfriends, because I somehow became possessed with having to know what they're doing (read: how crappy their lives inevitably are, duh).

This is where I become befuddled: I tracked down the 2 major college boyfriends, and reading about them caused me to have an actual physical reaction. And I don't mean a good reaction. It was completely awful. I felt like something was sitting on my chest and that I was going to start hyperventilating. And neither of the boyfriends were necessarily bad relationships, just cases of badly matched people, I guess.

At this point I feel like I need to say that I don't know the last time I thought about either of these 2 college boyfriends. I have to just blame it on the nostalgia and blatant curiosity, because it's been at least a good 7-8 years since these relationships, and I was never one to jump from boyfriend to boyfriend. So what gives with the bad physical reaction? I dunno. Both of the breakups were really bad, but I'm not one to go with the 'we're still good friends' load of BS. As Husband likes to say, with me it's "all or nothing".

So if anyone has anything to say about this, let it flow, please.

*OK, guys, sorry if you didn't want our past outed, but it's packs of lovely memories for me, so deal. :)

Oh, this is just cute

And to think, what rejected crayon you are all turns on the color underwear you are presently wearing.

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

55 Fiction Fridays

So this is my second attempt - it went much more smoothly than last week's.

"Hey! Over here!" he called. She glanced around, searching. Ah, she thought, there you are. As she walked toward him, she pondered how to let him know. She paused. Okay, here goes. "You're great, but I just can't." "Okay", he said, "I'll be here next Sunday, same place, same price."

Sir Mix-a-Lot

Can anyone tell me why Sir Mix-a-Lot is doing Target commercials?

No, really, why? I mean, is he that strapped for cash? Can anyone answer this mystery for me?

Fat Camp

So, this is how this particular fat camper falls off the fat camp wagon. Oy vey.

I'd decided to start fat camp last week to shave off those 'barzam' pounds. I've been doing pretty good - going for walks, doing Billy Blanks' form of torture, yoga, the elliptical machine (not all on the same day!). I've also really cut down on my alcohol intake and limiting my sugar intake.

However, when Husband said he was going grocery shopping last night, I got a craving for those damn sugar cookies. Talk about a way to jump off the fat camp train. Woo! I ate 1 1/2 of those last night - and my body experienced something akin to euphoria. It was wonderful. Of course when you're at fat camp, one must pay the price for such indiscretions, and mine today was rollerblading along the beach. Not much of a punishment, but exercise nonetheless. And good thing I've got almost a full container of those cookies. Hee!