Oops. Ouch. Dang.

Well, I just cut my hand...it feels pretty bad but coulda been a lot worse. I was digging around in my basement looking for a 10 key calculator that I could take to work. In a brainiac moment I pulled a very large and very heavy box down off the shelf full well knowing that I didn't have a landing destination for it. I half heartedly put my left hand underneath the box and when I caught the box the force of it pushed my hand down really hard on top of rusty metal snowman sign. Now I have an inch and a half gash across the top of my hand and it hurts like crap. But I realized almost instantly that it could have been way, way worse and I could be sitting at the emergency room getting stitches rather than whining on my blog.

Now I'm at that point when you cut or burn yourself and you have to decide if it is going to be too painful to get into the shower. I'll have to check my hair again in the mirror to decide.

And after all that I still didn't find my adding machine. So much for doing a good deed (I was gonna loan it to a co-worker).

Since my photography skills are not what they should/could be I can't photograph my hand so instead I have attached the cutest picture ever of Corgi girl Twinky lately. She was laying on my bed unattended and after thoroughly cleaning out my take out salad container decided to take a comfy snooze on top of the pillows. Cutie patootie!

My life as a beauty pageant contestant.

I am laying here in bed flipping through TV stations and just watched Mario Lopez crown Miss Teen U.S.A. The chick from Colorado won. She already looks older than me.

I found it interesting and seemingly inappropriate that the backdrop on the stage was a giant comic book drawing of a woman's face with a dialogue bubble that said "OMG!"

Miss Teen Colorado started crying immediately and her father jumped up in the audience pointing to his sign promoting his daughter. No doubt he is a very proud man.

When I was a very little girl I once joined hundreds of other little girls in a tryout to become the Junior Rose Festival princess. As shocking as it may sound I made it past the first round of disqualifications. I think all we had to do was walk up to the microphone and state our name.

I remember the dress I was wearing (a hideous pea green floor length nightmare) and I remember the answer I gave during the second round when we were asked if we could invite anyone to dinner who would it be and what would we serve.

My answer was that I would invite the Easter bunny and serve ham and corn. The audience laughed and I didn't know why.

Daily Observations

The thing I like about blogging is having a place to record random thoughts.

Today I took a different bus route home from work in order to stop by "the grocery" (as my friend Maggie would say). On the #8 bus going down 15th I passed an area of town near the last apartment I lived in before buying my house. Instantly I was filled with nostalgia of walks through the neighborhood with my old Lab, Abbey.

By that time Abbey was fairly old (she died when she was 15, a few years later) and didn't do a whole lot of things that surprised me. I got her when she was just weeks old and thought I had seen her do all that I would ever see. Well, one morning while we were goofing around in a school yard I hid behind a giant container (the type used to haul stuff behind a semi or on a train or tanker in the ocean) and when she had lost sight of me I would jump out and surprise her. After a few mornings of doing this, Abbey not only caught on but actually fooled me by turning around the opposite way and surprising me from behind. It was so adorable and clever and unsuspected it made me laugh out loud. Turns out that not only can you teach an old dog a new trick...perhaps your old dog can teach you one.

On 15th and Fremont I got off the bus to go into Wild Oats which is located right next to a branch of Planned Parenthood. On the sidewalk there were a handful of people standing with huge signs stating that "Planned Parenthood kills babies"
as well as huge pictures of tiny fetuses. I had a multitude of emotions with this. It was the second protest I had walked by today (the first was downtown on my lunch break at the University Club regarding Tibet). Unlike the protest downtown, these activists didn't say a word. They had video cameras but I was fairly certain they weren't filming at the time. I didn't say anything to them but thought to myself a few things.

First was that I have a neighbor who works for Planned Parenthood. Her and her partner have two children whom they love and spend a great deal of time with. Therefore, the idea that Planned Parenthood somehow was harming children didn't fit for me. Additionally I was reminded that Planned Parenthood does not offer tubal ligations for women. Men can get sterilized there but women can't because the procedure actually involves general anesthesia (although I can personally vouch for the fact that it is a super simple surgery). Therefore I thought, well, that whole thought got me going on a lot of issues. For instance, many (well, most I think) hospitals are owned and operated by churches which do not allow for sterilizations. In fact when I got my tubes tied (by Kaiser for a $5 co-pay ten years ago) the doctor had difficulty scheduling it as they were leasing space from hospitals that did not allow them to perform tubal ligations there...which triggered me to thinking about the lack of accessibility to birth control, blah blah blah. I just don't think focusing on abortion is the best approach to helping babies. Preventing unwanted babies strikes me as the more useful approach. Of course I also thought that war kills a lot more babies than abortion and that unless the protesters were vegans they were responsible for a lot of death. Of course I didn't say anything to them...I have stood on a street corner with a protest sign way too much to ridicule anyone for standing up for what they believe in. Mostly I just wanted to document how one activity triggers thoughts.

My third observation is still cracking me up and perhaps is a good way to end this post on a less serious note. As I was looking out the window of the bus riding down Fremont street I noticed that there is a bus stop in the middle of a block right in front of a very large cemetery. No houses on either side of the stop for at least a block (on one side it is more than two blocks). Um, who is gonna catch the bus there?

Hipster Nascar

This Saturday hosts one of my very favorite things in Portland. It's the annual Mt. Tabor Soap Box Derby and you shouldn't miss it. That is, unless you are a lame, buzz killing, rain on the parade kinda folk. If you are, don't go.

I'll admit it did get a little mainstream and been there/done that for awhile but as of last year, the charm was back baby, back!

Greg, ya comin' down for it?

Dollars for Darlings

Okay, that is a cheesy headline but as you all should be painfully aware I am a cat lady more than I am anything else. Well, I'm pleased to say that my employer has a program for employee giving that I'm thrilled with and I might add that it feels really weird to be proud of a corporation. My work will match every dollar you contribute to a non-profit, dollar for dollar, up to $10,000 (per employee)! Mind you I don't have $10,000 to contribute but I can certainly afford something each check and through this program the charity of my choice will receive twice the amount. Now of course I realize that I work for an insurance/financial investing company and the money they are using to provide this benefit was not made in the most ethical and utopian of manner, but heh, good deeds are good deeds, at least to some degree and they don't have to be doing anything so I'm gonna give 'em props.

The charity I chose has been a long standing local favorite of mine, The Cat Adoption Team (C.A.T.). CAT is a no-kill shelter meaning that they don't euthanize healthy animals just because they are homeless (my theory is we need to stop killing dogs and cats just because they don't have homes...they should be lining the street corners with cages to help get them adopted and forcing sterilization of all domestic pets--yes, I know that would put an end to the careers of all the people who profit off of breeding animals and no that doesn't bother me). Behind closed doors quietly putting to sleep thousands and thousands of animals just because they don't have homes is not acceptable to me but I won't lecture you too much here.

I'd just like to suggest to all of you to pick a charity and donate to it. If you work for a non-profit (as I know many of you do) you can certainly attest to the importance of contributions but we can all spare a few bucks each payday. Making it a big event like my employer does (we have a two week period where they have tons of opportunities to give...raffles, games, donations so you can wear jeans, etc) is a fantastic way to do it but if you don't work for a big company like I do you can still give.

The non-profit you chose will appreciate it.

By the way, yes, I used a picture of my dog Twinky instead of one of my cats...she was feeling under represented and yes, she is a purebred. Twinky however was adopted from a rescue group...I didn't buy her from a breeder.

Budget Decorating

For the most part I'm pretty happy with how my house is decorated. One of the keys to budget decorating however is to make due with what you have until something better is attainable.

I don't have a fancy stereo (just a crappy old boom box that I got secondhand probably 15 years ago) and it is impossible to decorate with that thing. No matter how attractive the table or shelf that I put it on it looks like late 80's college style, which is not the look I'm going for.

Well, today I had one of those decorating epiphanies that can turn just an ordinary weekend into a fabulous weekend (don't worry, I'm just goofing...it isn't THAT significant).

Anyhow, I took a $5 cabinet that I got at Goodwill, took off the door, painted it with a can of paint I got at Fred Meyer for $.03 (yes three cents) and whalah, I have a new cd/book cabinet in my living room placed where a table that I got for free once lived with my stereo on it. I'm so much happier not having that stupid boom box gathering dust now.

So, you ask...what did you do with the stereo? Isn't it just being ugly in another part of your house? Why yes, it is. Under the bed though so I don't care. Yep, under the vintage twin metal bed that I use as a day bed/couch in my living room. The controls are surprisingly easy to reach so I can still use it and now I have a technology free living room (the tv was banished to the bedroom months ago because you definitely can't decorate with a tv in a house the size of mine.

Family

My mom is 67 years old and not in very good health. Her current issue is a cyaic nerve being pinched in her back that is creating an overwhelming sense of pain from her hip down to her knee. I once suffered with the same issue so I know how much she is in pain. When I was going through my back issues I was in so much pain I had to go to the emergency room several times trying to get some pain relief. Not much works. Weekend before last my mom called me at 4:45 a.m. Sunday morning crying hysterically because she couldn't stand the pain any longer. I stood next to her bed in the emergency room as she screamed in pain begging for them to "put her out" because she was in so much pain. For an hour and a half they tried to start an IV in her arm but after nearly 50 years of smoking her veins are just too hard and resistant to get a needle successfully inserted. (I'm sorry folks, but if you are a smoker do your family a favor and stop now). They eventually gave her an injection of morphine and it alleviated the pain enough for her to walk for most of the rest of the day but it didn't take long for the pain to begin again.

My brothers and I are in the process of trying to sell her condo and have moved her into a retirement community less than a mile from my house (as I am the only daughter in the family--with three brothers--I am the main caretaker of course). The new place isn't an assisted living facility just a fancy (and frankly really nice) apartment complex for seniors. All of this is forcing my family to interact with each other and it isn't going well. Funny, just because you are older and have all moved away from each other doesn't mean that the dynamics change. Therefore, in addition to dealing with my mom's health and move I am having to relive many emotions from my childhood which was not a pleasant time in my life. I hadn't been able to get in touch with my mom all last week and knew my brother's had physically moved some of her furniture and her to the new place so I visited her on Friday.

Turns out my mom had been left without a phone for an entire week which meant no communication with anyone including her doctor. She couldn't get online which meant she couldn't pay her bills, view her bank account, answer emails or order her medications to be mail delivered. When I went on Friday she didn't have any groceries, had only one of her heart pills left (she had a heart attack a few years ago and now has a stint in her heart and yet she keeps smoking). Both of my brothers had left town for work and just left her there either assuming that I was gonna take care of everything or that my mom would somehow take care of herself (which she refuses to do). Not only do I get left with the day to day care taking, I get zero respect or recognition for it (from my brothers, much less my mom).

My point in all of this is that I spent the entire weekend moving boxes, unpacking boxes, doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning, lifting, shopping, chauffeuring, cooking, sorting through papers, entertaining and providing moral support to my mother (not to mention giving her my cell phone so she can have access to the outside world). While I wouldn't mind doing that once in awhile (she is my mother by the way) I can't stand the fact that it is just assumed by my family I will do it (or frankly mostly assumed that my mother does it herself and that I don't do anything). I was completely disregard by one brother, lied to by another (the third doesn't talk to either of my parents), yelled at by my dad (who my mom divorced 24 years ago and nobody requested play a role at all). I hate the drama. My role in our family for so many years was the scapegoat, the drop out, the radical left winged ignorant liberal (my family is all very homophobic, racist, conservative and --other than my brother who has an engineering Master's degree from Stanford-- uneducated). I am an outsider and it is clear that my assumed role hasn't changed even now that I am an adult.

Needless to say my weekend is over, my dishes aren't done, my laundry isn't done, my papers haven't been sorted, my back is now killing me and I am an emotional wreck from being manipulated, yelled at and misunderstood all weekend, just in time to go to work for one of the busiest days of the month. Ugh. For those of you that have cohesive families please appreciate the heck out of it because those of us who have a big, fat wreck of a family that only deals with each other in emergency situations (that God, I couldn't handle much more) are more envious than you know.

The Temp

We have this temp at work that is driving me nuts. He is a nice enough guy but has no business working in our department. He has somehow managed to take a project that I used to work on at most a few hours a week and turn it into a full time job for the past 9 months. He takes leisurely long breaks and lunch hours, he leaves early to go to class, he spends the majority of his work time on the internet (even going as far as having his Yahoo account open on his desktop throughout the day. Other than an occasional email to a supervisor, this temp really has no reason to be on the computer at all. I've pointed out to him numerous times that our company monitors internet usage so if he was indeed trying to get hired on as a permanent employee (in a different department) it might be good idea to quit being on the internet so much. When that approach didn't work I finally took the guy aside and told him he was really ticking the rest of our department off because the money paying his salary was coming out of our department budget and the rest of us were working our butts off because my supervisor didn't want to spend money on another employee yet we were essentially subsidizing this guy's social life. That didn't work either. He was self absorbed and I think just didn't even realize that what he was doing was so out of line for the work place (the only real job he has had previously was working in a mail room). I know you are asking yourself why wasn't your supervisor doing anything? Well, you know how some people have blinders on because they don't want to see the truth? That scenario is alive and well here. She doesn't chose to recognize that he doesn't know how to use a 10-key calculator, that he stammers on the phone to the point of complete ineffectiveness while trying to relay company policies to employees, that he is always the first one to know if Lindsay was arrested again or if the highway is closed, if he takes a 30 minute 15 minute break, etc.

Well, the other day, while the temp was gone on his break or lunch or whatever...since he does very little while he is there we don't always notice when he is gone, a "tech" guy stormed into our office asking my supervisor which computer was #562281 or something like that. She pointed to our temps computer and the IT guy unplugged it and make this big fuss about nobody logging in as their was a virus and security risk, blah blah blah (remember that I work for a publicly traded company and the confidentially of information is of highest importance). The guy was gone just as fast as he had come in and my boss and I were left reliving the scenario which simulated the scenes in the movie Brazil (my favorite movie by the way) where the government broke into the family home, abducted an innocent father and then disappeared again.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because of that virus my boss has now placed a strict no personal email accounts policy on each of us in our department. No Yahoo, no Gmail, you name it. I can still shop on eBay and beat to death my Google skills but those privileges are no doubt short lived. All because of this damn temp who never should have been working for our department in the first place. He is probably feeling it most of all at this point (funny, now he doesn't have any work to do and has a hard time pretending that he does). So I continually walk by his desk, refuse to make eye contact and point out that his inbox is empty (yeah, I'm a bitch to him but the dude has totally worn out his welcome). Problem is, one of these days he will walk out of these doors to another job and (hopefully) I'll be at this same job for years. His self-centeredness has cost me a significant benefit of my job (with dial up at home it was so refreshing to be able to look at photos, etc while on my lunch at work).

At a previous job (where we didn't have any internet access) I pointed out to the owner of the company that in this day and age it isn't realistic not to offer internet services for your employees. It is like a phone. It's just a sign of the times. In order to attract and keep good employees you need to offer them that tool. That tool is gone from me and I am oh so sad.

Ads of the '80s

Do any of you remember Slurpee rock cups? For those of you that don't, they were part of a fantastically successful ad campaign in the early 80's that had a tag line of "7-11's got Slurpee rock cups!"

For some reason I find myself singing that ad line over and over at various times. It just pops into my head. I really have no idea why. Anyhow, I randomly chose to Google it. I Google everything. It's an obsession. I'm a Googlist. Well, it turns out I'm not the only one who sings it. When I Googled the phrase "Slurpee rock cups" the first half dozen results were people writing about how they sing that phrase over and over and don't know why.

Is there some ratio to how many you purchased somehow effecting how much you think of the ad? Obviously that could have something to do with it. I purchased a lot of Slurpees (in fact I still love them). In high school it was common practice for us to go to 7-11 after soccer practice and get either a Slurpee or a Big Gulp...or in the times of daily double practices we would get both.

Slurpee rock cups had little round flicker sticker pog type items inserted into a false pocket on the bottom of each cup. Each pog advertised a particular band. Looking back now I realize that at least some of the bands must have been fairly indie types as R.E.M. was the one I remember particularly and was my favorite band back in the day (and still one today). Well, in the early 80s nobody knew who R.E.M. was. In fact I saw them for the first time in '83 at the Schnitzer and the place was so empty many people didn't have anyone in the seats next to them. I got a fantastic shirt at that concert (my favorite ever) and wore it non-stop the next year at the University of Oregon and people would often ask me who that was. My point being that 7-11 having that band on a card in one of their Slurpee drinks now seems fairly inconceivable.

I remember that card because I still had it up until a year or so ago. A rather annoying student named Mike Wilson who did the ad sales for the school paper signed my yearbook (I dated the editor of the school paper my Senior year so I hung around in the press room a lot) with an exceeding graphic drawing of a frog being seduced by a human (ah, hormones). To cover up the gross image I took my R.E.M. Slurpee rock cup card and stuck it directly over the frog. The sticker stayed there until I decided to sell it on eBay when I sold the rest of my R.E.M. fan club newsletters and collectibles. It didn't go for a lot, maybe $5.00 or so and I kinda wish I still had it (if nothing else to continue to cover the damn frog picture).

Nevertheless, even just yesterday I caught myself singing "7-11's got Slurpee rock cups!" and I still can't figure out why.