That Girl's Blog

Ahh, the smell of trash in the morning!

I drove-through Dunkin' Donuts for a coffee this morning, and watched as the guy two cars up got out of his car, took the lid off the trash can (the kind they have before the drive-through window so you can throw trash out of your car into it), and proceeded to dig through.

I'm guessing that he must have thrown some trash in, and then realized that he didn't have his money or credit card or phone or something, and thus began the Friday morning trash-digging. He didn't seem to find what he was looking for, though, so he put the lid back on the can, stopped at the drive-through window briefly and then pulled into a parking spot and seemed to be ransacking his car.

Poor guy; what a crappy way to start your day!

Has my smile gotten fat, too?

You know, I used to always get compliments on my smile. Sometimes from creepily flirtatious men, sometimes from non-creepy, non-flirtatious men and women. A cashier at Virgin Records in Croydon once gave me a discount because he said I had a nice smile and I was actually friendly, unlike all the other customers.

Since I got all horribly pudge-pudge, no one ever compliments my smile anymore. It's no surprise (and frankly no disappointment) that I don't get creepily flirtatious compliments anymore, but I wouldn't mind the occasional non-flirtatious reassurance (from someone other than my husband) that my smile is still pretty.

Maybe I need to get some whitening strips. Or, you know, lose weight. But I think whitening strips would be easier.

Juicy

I have a sore throat — some sort of virus, I suppose; I don't think it's strep and really really hope it isn't — and all I seem to crave since it started is juice. Orange juice, V-8, Cranberry-apple-raspberry, whatever. I've been to the cafe here at work three times today to buy juice. I don't think it's actually helping anything, but I suppose there are worse things I could be craving.

I never had strep throat until I was about 17; when I got it the first time, I thought I might be dying, that perhaps a tiny alien with very sharp teeth was eating me from the inside out, starting with my throat. I then proceeded to get it many many many times over the next few years. I would estimate that from age 17 to about 22 or so, I probably had strep at least 3 times a year every year. For a period during which I had one regular doctor, he started off steadfastly refusing to prescribe antibiotics until the throat culture came back positive, but eventually he relented and began giving me the antibiotics as soon as I appeared with a sore throat complaint. (According to Wikipedia, there are a number of other symptoms that may come with strep, but I never had most of them — just sore throats more painful than most human beings deserve to suffer.)

Eventually my predisposition to strep seemed to fade, and I haven't had it in quite a few years now, knock on wood. I really, really hate it and hope I never get it again. Every time I get the beginnings of a sore throat, I get very nervous, and wait fearfully to see how it's going to develop.

Hmm, I seem to have finished my juice. I suppose I should just refill my water bottle rather than buy a fourth bottle of juice.

Tired of wearing those watches nobody has heard about?

That's the subject of a spam email I've been getting a lot of, and I guess I'm just not the target audience, because I really could not care less whether people have heard about my watch. Or even whether they have heard of the brand, which I assume is what they really mean, despite the slightly awkward ESL phrasing.^[1]

In junior high, I cared about brands a great deal. Unfortunately for me, my mom could rarely afford to buy me the name brands I wanted (though she was willing), and my dad & step-mom could afford some of it but were generally unwilling. Still, I managed to get my hands on the occasional Nike shoes or L.A. Gear shoes or jeans. (My mom saved up to get me some awesome L.A. Gear jeans with lattice legs — like, the denim on the outer sides of the legs was latticed, I suppose for the purpose of showing skin. Was that high school or junior high? Seems a little inappropriate for junior high. Although just wearing shorts showed more skin. At any rate, it's hard to believe I ever wore such a thing. I think they were about $75. I remember my dad exclaiming that they should be charging less for them, since they had less material.)

Oh, and of course I had a Hypercolor t-shirt, the epitome of high fashion. I do have a picture of me in that somewhere, with big hair and teased bangs to complete the look. I was probably wearing it with jeans with the cuff folded over and then up twice. (Hmm, no, maybe that was out of style by the time Hypercolor was in.)

Anyway, once I'd gotten through freshman year of high school, I had pretty much grown out of name-brand concerns, and certainly by graduation I'd lost all interest. If it fits, looks alright, and is made well enough not to fall apart after a couple of washes, I'm set. Why do some adults still care?

Is it just because I can't afford designer brands? I mean, as an adult these days, $75 jeans are no longer impressive; you need, like, $300 jeans and $700 shoes. If I were rich enough for such things, would I care more?

Do you care about name/designer brands? (I don't mean, do you like a certain brand or designer that just happens to be hip or expensive, I mean do you care? Is it important to you that others see that you are wearing some particular brand or designer?) If so, why?

[1] I am imagining this conversation:

Bob: Hey, Jane, I heard about your watch! Are you wearing it now?

Jane: Oh, yes, this is it. Holds wrist out.

Bob: Oh, wow! I had heard it was black and told time, and it sure does!

It's a bit nipply outside.

This is the weather forecast right now:

What you can't see there is that the "RealFeel" (what they estimate it actually feels like, due to factors such as the bitter, biting wind that feels like a million tiny icicles stabbing you in the face) is currently -8°F.

(For those who live in Celsius, 9°F is -13°C, and -8°F is -22°C.)

In the name of counting one's blessings, I am glad that it's not (yet) precipitating, and that I don't live in, say, Minnesota or North Dakota. But, shit, guys, it's still fucking cold. Knowing that it's colder elsewhere doesn't actually make me feel any warmer, especially when I can't find my damn scarf.

"There must have been a better way to do this."

So, there's this guy at work, another assistant, who is annoying and lazy and stupid. When I talk about him to The Husband, I replace the first syllable of his name with "Douche". Because he's a douche.

Today the Douche had to schedule two recurring monthly meetings, for the rest of the year, for one of the managers he assists. Two of the managers I assist are attendees at these meetings, so in their inboxes I found a total of 22 invitations for each of these managers — one invitation for each meeting (11 of one, and 11 of the other). So that's a total of 44 invitations that I would have to wade through and accept, one by one.

This was rather time-consuming, but not as time-consuming as it must have been to schedule all 22 of those meetings, one by one.

I pinged him (on our internal instant messenger), "What's wrong with just one repeating meeting? You hate me that much?" He responds, "no... sadly I could not figure out how to make that happen since they happen on odd dates... there is no rhyme or reason".

Bummer, that sucks for him (and now for me).

Except then I begin to go through and accept them, and it takes me mere seconds to see that there is, in fact, both rhyme and reason — one meeting is on the first Friday of every month, and the other meeting is on the second Friday of every month. Simple. And Lotus Notes, though I despise it for its slowness, does indeed have the convenient ability to schedule recurring meetings at all sorts of intervals — this one would have been no problem. (They are all at the same time, in the same location, with the same attendees.)

The only problem was this guy's inability to see the pattern. So instead he spent what must have been quite some time creating those meetings one by one, and then having to deal with the influx of acceptances. And in the future, if that manager needs to change those meetings (and he will; we are moving to a new building soon, so the conference room will change), he will have to change them all one by one.

(A while later, he complained to me that one of the meeting attendees had emailed him, "There must have been a better way to do this." He was all righteous and indignant, and it is a bit rude, but they're right! There was a better way!)

I'm certainly no rocket scientist, as they say, but I do have the kind of basic intelligence (occasional moments of inexplicable stupidity aside) that I can't really understand how people get through life without. I mean, what is that like? I imagine life must be very frustrating. For example, always doing things in time-consuming, awkward ways because you're incapable of seeing the shortcuts right in front of you. I often wish I were smarter — good at math, maybe, or better able to understand the complicated philosophy that The Husband reads — but I suppose I should be grateful that I can do things like determine at what interval a meeting repeats.

This is why winter is a pain in the ass.

(Well, one of many reasons.)

You've stayed up all night and have to stay up all day and have your brain conscious enough to work (from home, thank fuck, or you would never have attempted this), so you're debating whether you can be bothered going to Starbucks when it opens (triple-shot venti latte with whipped cream), or if you should just make your own (plain old coffee). You decide that the latte option is worth the effort of putting on boots and coat and hat and gloves and driving two miles to the drive-through Starbucks.

Then you look outside, and discover that your car is covered in what appears to be quite a thick layer of ice. Well, then the debate begins again, and now it's a whole new ballgame. Having to scrape all that ice off the car changes everything.

Winter is just so annoying. I will never understand people who "miss the seasons". The seasons are a pain in the damn ass.

Billy!!!

Is on Knight Rider!

(That is to say, the Tivo recorded the new Knight Rider as a suggestion, and I was delighted to find that this terrible shitefest is thoroughly redeemed by the presence of Paul Campbell, who played Billy on Battlestar Galactica and apparently also plays Billy on Knight Rider. So pretty. I [heart] Billy.)