So I was cruising around the Library Mo-Fo blog recently, and came across this little gem:
http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo/799267.html
And it was just so well written that I had to share. I'm also a bit concerned.
I had this boss-- actually, I had four of this boss ALL AT THE SAME TIME...
And... well... it's just so SAD how many of us have had to work for this person at least once in our lifetime. What happened to good management training? What happened to good bosses and work environments that are not full of forced cheer? What happened to job security for the highly educated?!
It's funny-- in the comments there was a discussion about the need to never feel trapped in your job-- about how there are always better options out there and nobody should just PUT UP with a bad boss and an unappreciated professional life. This was countered by that realistic someone who recognized that yes- we are well-educated- and yes- it is never good to stay in a bad situation... but REALISTICALLY, it is not always possible to quit your job and find something better while maintaining all of your other responsibilities... like a marriage, a mortgage, and a MLS Repayment Plan... just for example.
But MAN did I love those truly devious examples of tenacity! I could definitely learn something from that popcorn kernel, that pebble in the shoe, that bird outside my window who ALWAYS starts chirping at 4am, regardless of the weather. In fact, it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "If you think being small makes you ineffectual, you have never been in bed with a mosquito!"
Tuesday, May 6
Monday, May 5
Spring Fever
So, with one rainy exception, we've had three or four days of warm sunny weather in a row. Didn't it snow just last week?! Not that I'm complaining. I'm just... WONDERING... is all.
Remember the horrid fly invasion of '07? The one where I finally discovered that a whole bag of potatoes had passed "rot" and gone right on to "sludge?" And had, in the process, given birth to a rather large number of little flies that NOTHING COULD KILL?! Yeah. I remember it quite clearly, actually. I ended up using the "kill-anything, but safe-for-your-home" bug spray to STUN the little buggers long enough for me to squish them-- individually. It took hours. Literally.
I'm not really big on killing other living things, but between the ant invasions and the flies, I've come to the handy conclusion that I have no moral problems with defending my home from invaders-- even little crawly ones. ESPECIALLY little crawly ones.
Well, not to bring up old pain or anything, but I recently had what seemed like the beginning of a new invading hoard-- horse flies. Those big metallic blue flies that are literally the size of your thumb-tip. Big. And, it turns out, LOUD. In fact, their ability to sound bigger than they actually are has become a bit of a problem. A really funny problem.
Every once in a while, we get airplanes flying past at night. And for a good minute before you hear them RIGHT OVER HEAD, all you can hear of the airplane coming is this droning rumble. It sounds EXACTLY like those dagm horse flies. And I've sat up and grabbed my rolled up magazine in self-defense more than once, only to realize I couldn't locate the fly because it was technically an airplane. Then there's my cell phone.
I got tired of forgetting to turn off the ringer every time I went to the library-- or forgetting to turn it back on when I left-- so I've just had my phone on "vibrate" for a couple of weeks now. I actually like the compromise. When I get text messages from my bank at 4am, I am no longer awakened every two minutes by a little "ding" to let me know I still haven't checked the message on my cell phone. I sleep through the "vibrate" noise quite well, really... Or I did before the flies came.
Finally this morning I realized that NO, I was NOT hearing yet another intermittent buzzing of yet another gigantic fly buzzing from window to window-- I was hearing the intermittent buzzing of my cell phone vibrating in my purse, telling me it was out of batteries.
In addition to all THOSE little coincidences of sound, the windows in my current apartment are single-pane, and rather old. Like, the house was built in the '40's old. So they just aren't much of a sound barrier. And there are flowering bushes right below the window. I'm realizing that I haven't actually been able to locate the flies that accompany the buzzing of the last two days-- the buzzing that wasn't explained by the cell phone, the airplane, or the neighbor's remodeling noises-- because I was hearing flies and bumblebees OUTSIDE OF MY WINDOWS!!!
I think maybe I can finally relax about the latest "invasion."
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I WAS REALLY GOING TO WRITE ABOUT...
With the latest natural invasion, I've had a sudden need to FIND THE SOURCE, which means doing a deep clean on my apartment. Luckily, it's Spring, so this would actually be the perfect time for such an action. Also, since about 80% of my belongings are currently in storage, I'm woefully unprepared for warm weather. I don't even know where my non-flannel sheets are packed. So, I'll be going through my tiny apartment and packing up anything I'm not using or won't need for the spring/summer months-- and then I'll be heading over to my storage unit, pulling every last thing I can lift out into the hallway, and sorting out the things I actually WANT to access.
I'll also be looking for any MORE stuff I can donate or otherwise get rid of with a light heart (I actually only kept 2/3 of my original belongings when I moved and put stuff in storage-- I've very little idea of what's left to begin with, really...) because my original packing job SUCKED, and I can't fit anything else into that storage space at the moment. This needs to change. It's a big space. And I want to have at least SOME access to the stuff I MIGHT need, but not every day, if you know what I mean.
Sigh.
Spring Fever is sounding rather painful this year.
I'd really expected to be moved into my next long-term home by now. This long-term limbo is really starting to wear on my good intentions (and my good vibrations-- the flies are just the tip of the ice berg on that one!)...
It's got to be at least as hard for my host family to still be living around ME as it is for me to still be living around them. I'm just so grateful that they gave my cat and I such a warm welcome, and that they haven't kicked us out yet. I guess it's time to start thinking up a new backup plan-- just in case I still don't have my future nailed down by midsummer. That would be pushing the welcome wagon a bit too far, even for me.
In the good news category, I've actually done a little yoga every morning for a week now. And all my creating fabrics have got an actual HOME, so there aren't mounds of crumpled fabric bits littering the floor and all available surfaces anymore. YAY! Also, uhhh.... I haven't needed to use the heater to keep my nose, toes, and rear from freezing for TWO NIGHTS now!! What a relief!! AND, I think I finally got my hands on my favorite version of one of my favorite all-time movies, Persuasion. OH! And I've been going for walks just about every day lately, so I feel like I'm doing the healthy thing fairly well. I'm really proud of that, actually.
So, hey-- let's end this on a good note. Maybe a C# or something...
Remember the horrid fly invasion of '07? The one where I finally discovered that a whole bag of potatoes had passed "rot" and gone right on to "sludge?" And had, in the process, given birth to a rather large number of little flies that NOTHING COULD KILL?! Yeah. I remember it quite clearly, actually. I ended up using the "kill-anything, but safe-for-your-home" bug spray to STUN the little buggers long enough for me to squish them-- individually. It took hours. Literally.
I'm not really big on killing other living things, but between the ant invasions and the flies, I've come to the handy conclusion that I have no moral problems with defending my home from invaders-- even little crawly ones. ESPECIALLY little crawly ones.
Well, not to bring up old pain or anything, but I recently had what seemed like the beginning of a new invading hoard-- horse flies. Those big metallic blue flies that are literally the size of your thumb-tip. Big. And, it turns out, LOUD. In fact, their ability to sound bigger than they actually are has become a bit of a problem. A really funny problem.
Every once in a while, we get airplanes flying past at night. And for a good minute before you hear them RIGHT OVER HEAD, all you can hear of the airplane coming is this droning rumble. It sounds EXACTLY like those dagm horse flies. And I've sat up and grabbed my rolled up magazine in self-defense more than once, only to realize I couldn't locate the fly because it was technically an airplane. Then there's my cell phone.
I got tired of forgetting to turn off the ringer every time I went to the library-- or forgetting to turn it back on when I left-- so I've just had my phone on "vibrate" for a couple of weeks now. I actually like the compromise. When I get text messages from my bank at 4am, I am no longer awakened every two minutes by a little "ding" to let me know I still haven't checked the message on my cell phone. I sleep through the "vibrate" noise quite well, really... Or I did before the flies came.
Finally this morning I realized that NO, I was NOT hearing yet another intermittent buzzing of yet another gigantic fly buzzing from window to window-- I was hearing the intermittent buzzing of my cell phone vibrating in my purse, telling me it was out of batteries.
In addition to all THOSE little coincidences of sound, the windows in my current apartment are single-pane, and rather old. Like, the house was built in the '40's old. So they just aren't much of a sound barrier. And there are flowering bushes right below the window. I'm realizing that I haven't actually been able to locate the flies that accompany the buzzing of the last two days-- the buzzing that wasn't explained by the cell phone, the airplane, or the neighbor's remodeling noises-- because I was hearing flies and bumblebees OUTSIDE OF MY WINDOWS!!!
I think maybe I can finally relax about the latest "invasion."
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I WAS REALLY GOING TO WRITE ABOUT...
With the latest natural invasion, I've had a sudden need to FIND THE SOURCE, which means doing a deep clean on my apartment. Luckily, it's Spring, so this would actually be the perfect time for such an action. Also, since about 80% of my belongings are currently in storage, I'm woefully unprepared for warm weather. I don't even know where my non-flannel sheets are packed. So, I'll be going through my tiny apartment and packing up anything I'm not using or won't need for the spring/summer months-- and then I'll be heading over to my storage unit, pulling every last thing I can lift out into the hallway, and sorting out the things I actually WANT to access.
I'll also be looking for any MORE stuff I can donate or otherwise get rid of with a light heart (I actually only kept 2/3 of my original belongings when I moved and put stuff in storage-- I've very little idea of what's left to begin with, really...) because my original packing job SUCKED, and I can't fit anything else into that storage space at the moment. This needs to change. It's a big space. And I want to have at least SOME access to the stuff I MIGHT need, but not every day, if you know what I mean.
Sigh.
Spring Fever is sounding rather painful this year.
I'd really expected to be moved into my next long-term home by now. This long-term limbo is really starting to wear on my good intentions (and my good vibrations-- the flies are just the tip of the ice berg on that one!)...
It's got to be at least as hard for my host family to still be living around ME as it is for me to still be living around them. I'm just so grateful that they gave my cat and I such a warm welcome, and that they haven't kicked us out yet. I guess it's time to start thinking up a new backup plan-- just in case I still don't have my future nailed down by midsummer. That would be pushing the welcome wagon a bit too far, even for me.
In the good news category, I've actually done a little yoga every morning for a week now. And all my creating fabrics have got an actual HOME, so there aren't mounds of crumpled fabric bits littering the floor and all available surfaces anymore. YAY! Also, uhhh.... I haven't needed to use the heater to keep my nose, toes, and rear from freezing for TWO NIGHTS now!! What a relief!! AND, I think I finally got my hands on my favorite version of one of my favorite all-time movies, Persuasion. OH! And I've been going for walks just about every day lately, so I feel like I'm doing the healthy thing fairly well. I'm really proud of that, actually.
So, hey-- let's end this on a good note. Maybe a C# or something...
Friday, May 2
Alarm Bells
I was having a pretty good day. Woke up at 8am. I've been doing this a lot lately, and it occurs to me that maybe I should set my alarm to actually go off around 8am if this trend is going to continue. It goes off at 8:30 right now, just enough time for me to fall back asleep. Not so helpful, really.
Then, I spent a few minutes pacifying the fur ball. I managed to keep her tail out of my cereal at breakfast, and only dribbled yogurt-covered granola on her fur once. I even managed to clean most of it off before she noticed.
And, even better, before I had breakfast, I did a little yoga. I feel good about the yoga, and my sore neck is less likely to digress into a stiff and painful twist of nasty now that I've stretched it out in a healthy and linear fashion. Also, since I'm really trying to incorporate more healthy movements into my day, it felt good to actually spend ten minutes doing yoga for the second day in a row-- without even signing up for someone else to make me do it!
Breakfast was yummy. Strawberry Keifer over nut-and-honey granola (bought in bulk at the store)... And I had an email or two from people I actually wanted to hear from, so that was also nice. One of those emails pointed me to another great job opening to which I really think I'm going to apply. So I visited their website to get more information.
This is a pattern I regularly follow. Track down the original job posting. Read it to make sure I'm at least mostly qualified for the position. Copy the description and application procedure, and paste into a Word document for later review and reference. You know-- later when I actually apply.
Only it didn't work like that this morning.
Copy wouldn't copy, and nothing at all was Pasting.
Shigt!
After much swearing and not a little worry that maybe that "clean up" my dad told me to do to my computer actually hexed the copy/paste functionality... I narrowed down the culprit. Three separate sentences-- in the whole three pages of relevant information --included a specific phrase. And those were the three sentences that could not be copied. So I copied the rest of the document, pasted it, and typed out those three sentences. Grargh.
By now, I was in a really pissy mood. So much for waking up before the alarm, doing yoga, and feeling like I was productive with my morning. ...By the way, I'm sitting cross-legged in my desk chair while I type this, and my cat just jumped off my lap, crouched below my chair, and proceeded to attack my foot as it dangled over the edge of the seat. Huh.
The last two emails I read were from the same person. A good friend of mine. And you know, it just didn't improve my mood any to realize after reading those two emails that I had just agreed to drive an hour out of my way, attend a party I really don't look forward to, and proctor a test... all so I could go for a walk with a friend. I find that I almost prefer to walk alone, without all that hassle, when it comes down to it.
That's when I went into my Bookmarks, and decided to read the latest blog entries for a favorite blogger of mine. And you know, it was a good decision. Because her parents are adopting a Corgi Puppy, and she had posted PHOTOS!!! Now, there are only about three breeds of dog that I've ever really felt I'd want to share my life with-- if I ever chose a dog over a cat at all. Pembroke Welsh Corgis, Great Danes, and Aussie. She's a breed unto herself. Sometimes when I'm thinking of how much I'd love to have an Aussie in my life, I think maybe the third breed is really Basset Hounds... but then I think of all that drooling, and ...well... maybe not.
(Just for the record, I also love the look of French Bulldogs. I mean really-- they have bat ears. What's not to love?! Unfortunately, the only ones I've met have been really snooty, drooly, and a bit too used to the high life to be a desirable pet in my mind.)
So there I was, looking at the cutest pictures ever of a Corgi puppy-- a puppy who'd already found a loving home (the sad "adopt me" pictures depress me horribly for days after I see them)-- and thinking "I WANT ONE OF THOSE!!!" That's when the alarm bells started going off in my head. A dog? Now? Yeah, Right!
I think my cat must have heard me thinking about adopting a dog, too, because there was this sudden flurry of movement on the floor by my chair, and when I looked down, she was rolling around, shoving herself along the floor in a big circle, chasing her tail. She then proceeded to get distracted by: a piece of yarn, a length of basket reed, a plastic bag that crunched nicely, and my toes. Her ears were back the whole time. This is a good sign that I should expect to be attacked, and should not try to do anything that requires concentration-- I WILL be interrupted.
I sat here, watching her antics, thinking to myself "GOOD LORD, my cat is POSeSSED!! I definitely don't need more than one insane pet at a time, thank you very much." That's when she jumped back in my lap and curled up for a nap. sigh.
Then, I spent a few minutes pacifying the fur ball. I managed to keep her tail out of my cereal at breakfast, and only dribbled yogurt-covered granola on her fur once. I even managed to clean most of it off before she noticed.
And, even better, before I had breakfast, I did a little yoga. I feel good about the yoga, and my sore neck is less likely to digress into a stiff and painful twist of nasty now that I've stretched it out in a healthy and linear fashion. Also, since I'm really trying to incorporate more healthy movements into my day, it felt good to actually spend ten minutes doing yoga for the second day in a row-- without even signing up for someone else to make me do it!
Breakfast was yummy. Strawberry Keifer over nut-and-honey granola (bought in bulk at the store)... And I had an email or two from people I actually wanted to hear from, so that was also nice. One of those emails pointed me to another great job opening to which I really think I'm going to apply. So I visited their website to get more information.
This is a pattern I regularly follow. Track down the original job posting. Read it to make sure I'm at least mostly qualified for the position. Copy the description and application procedure, and paste into a Word document for later review and reference. You know-- later when I actually apply.
Only it didn't work like that this morning.
Copy wouldn't copy, and nothing at all was Pasting.
Shigt!
After much swearing and not a little worry that maybe that "clean up" my dad told me to do to my computer actually hexed the copy/paste functionality... I narrowed down the culprit. Three separate sentences-- in the whole three pages of relevant information --included a specific phrase. And those were the three sentences that could not be copied. So I copied the rest of the document, pasted it, and typed out those three sentences. Grargh.
By now, I was in a really pissy mood. So much for waking up before the alarm, doing yoga, and feeling like I was productive with my morning. ...By the way, I'm sitting cross-legged in my desk chair while I type this, and my cat just jumped off my lap, crouched below my chair, and proceeded to attack my foot as it dangled over the edge of the seat. Huh.
The last two emails I read were from the same person. A good friend of mine. And you know, it just didn't improve my mood any to realize after reading those two emails that I had just agreed to drive an hour out of my way, attend a party I really don't look forward to, and proctor a test... all so I could go for a walk with a friend. I find that I almost prefer to walk alone, without all that hassle, when it comes down to it.
That's when I went into my Bookmarks, and decided to read the latest blog entries for a favorite blogger of mine. And you know, it was a good decision. Because her parents are adopting a Corgi Puppy, and she had posted PHOTOS!!! Now, there are only about three breeds of dog that I've ever really felt I'd want to share my life with-- if I ever chose a dog over a cat at all. Pembroke Welsh Corgis, Great Danes, and Aussie. She's a breed unto herself. Sometimes when I'm thinking of how much I'd love to have an Aussie in my life, I think maybe the third breed is really Basset Hounds... but then I think of all that drooling, and ...well... maybe not.
(Just for the record, I also love the look of French Bulldogs. I mean really-- they have bat ears. What's not to love?! Unfortunately, the only ones I've met have been really snooty, drooly, and a bit too used to the high life to be a desirable pet in my mind.)
So there I was, looking at the cutest pictures ever of a Corgi puppy-- a puppy who'd already found a loving home (the sad "adopt me" pictures depress me horribly for days after I see them)-- and thinking "I WANT ONE OF THOSE!!!" That's when the alarm bells started going off in my head. A dog? Now? Yeah, Right!
I think my cat must have heard me thinking about adopting a dog, too, because there was this sudden flurry of movement on the floor by my chair, and when I looked down, she was rolling around, shoving herself along the floor in a big circle, chasing her tail. She then proceeded to get distracted by: a piece of yarn, a length of basket reed, a plastic bag that crunched nicely, and my toes. Her ears were back the whole time. This is a good sign that I should expect to be attacked, and should not try to do anything that requires concentration-- I WILL be interrupted.
I sat here, watching her antics, thinking to myself "GOOD LORD, my cat is POSeSSED!! I definitely don't need more than one insane pet at a time, thank you very much." That's when she jumped back in my lap and curled up for a nap. sigh.
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