You're Doing It Wrong

Turns out I’m about three weeks ahead of schedule on my regular holiday-overschedule hysteria attack.

I had a slight preview to this earlier this week. I had an errand to run in another part of town and I thought I’d invite a friend who lives out that way to join me and we could have lunch and visit and so forth.

I got out the calendar and realized that the only day I could do this errand before December 19th was today. And because I’m crazy and doing National Novel Writing Month and doing a related but different project for my writer’s group which meets tomorrow in addition to regular old having a life, there was no way I could do lunch or visit. I ran out and did errand and returned and parked back in the writing chair.

But the panic started when I tried to figure out when to schedule our inspections for the furnace. We have to do two and we were advised that one of us should take the day off to be here for these inspections. But Bob doesn’t have the kind of job where you can just take a day off so you can get some inspections and I shouldn’t have to take a day off since I’m on a 4-day work week.

First I thought we could do it next Friday and get it over with. But you know what’s on Friday?

Twilight. And I know it’s just a dumb movie but I have been looking forward to that dumb movie for a long time and I want to be sitting in the theater downtown at the first matinee at 11am with my Team Edward t-shirt, and my Team Vampire baseball cap and my limited edition Bella and Edward Raisinets and my Forks Washington Commemorative Super Gulp and see my damn movie. I don’t think I should have to miss it just because we got a new furnace.

Meanwhile, I have something every single Friday between now and December 19. I need to call and see if we can schedule it that far out, otherwise I’ll suck it up and take a day. I just hate using up leave pay for something stupid like that. Or to make it even stupider, you could argue that I’m taking leave pay so I can see a vampire movie.

I bet I’m not the only one.

John-Boy and Gibbs have the same Dad.

This morning Bob took me to a breakfast place that’s a local chain. It’s located in a strip mall between a laundromat and a payday loan place and has yellow walls and hard chairs.

After we were seated Bob said, “Isn’t this nice?”

I said, “Remind me how we ended up together.”

It’s one of those places with a confusing menu where if you order just what you want to eat, say, 1 pancake and 1 sausage link, it costs about $9 but if you order the special with 2 pancakes, 2 eggs and 2 sausage links it’s a buck cheaper and all the food you can’t finish gets thrown away.

The monthly pancake special was pumpkin and it was delicious. But between my breakfast special and my hot chocolate I had more sugar and fat (two giant dollops of whipped cream!) and carbs than I’m accustomed to before Noon and as soon as we got home I had to have a nap.

Today’s writing hasn’t been worth crap and I’m fretting about wasting a whole free day without getting any work done. I’m going to keep my butt in the chair for one more hour and then light a presto log and goof off until dinner.

On the way home from yoga I composed a post in my head about the amazing personal growth I’m experiencing due to NaNoWriMo (18,217 words so far, if you’re interested) but now it’s almost 8:30pm and I’m tired and I just hoovered my dinner which was a salad and potato chips. Maybe I’ll write it a different day.

Today’s post will be about another energy saving tip I read. It said you should take clothes out of the dryer slightly damp. They will dry as you put them away.

First of all, I’m not sure which is the “slightly damp” setting on my dryer. So do I stand there and check every five minutes?

Second, I’ve taken items out “slightly damp” because I had to get a move on and didn’t want my stuff in the dryer any longer. I then hung them up and two days later they were still damp.

I think this is a lame tip.

I’ve been hearing that energy is expensive. Yet almost every weekend I hear people leaf-blowing for what seems like hours.

I’ve also heard that Americans don’t get enough exercise. Yet, there are leaves that need to be raked.

Why don’t we team up the people who don’t get enough exercise with the people who have leaves and rakes. Everybody wins.

My First Ever Embedded YouTube Clip

Bob and I went to Wordstock today.

The first thing I’d like to mention is that the parking situation was clusterfuk 2008. Apparently there were two other events at the Convention Center. Oblivious, I got in line, took my ticket and circled the tiny lot — who planned this thing? No one thought such a giant convention center could use more than — well, the website says 800 spaces with 2500 in the vicinity with street parking and such. I think they lie. Regardless, me and 100 other cars circled the parking lot for a half hour before I gave up and left. The overflow lot was full. By now my wonderful positive attitude was trashed and I decided, screw it, I’m going home. But then I got to the park-n-ride right before the bridge so I decided to park and get on the train and was in the venue 20 minutes later.

So I spent more time looking for parking at the convention center, than I did driving most of the way home and taking the train back in and walking up to the venue. While I walked to my event I passed two storm troopers and Darth Vader cruising down the hall. I have no idea what they were doing there but my inner geek squealed a teeny bit.

We saw Spain Rodriguez who does cartoon stories and then were in perfect seats to see John Hodgeman with Jonathan Coulton.

John Hodgeman is at the same time, nerdier in person, but a lot cuter. He has the best smile. The room was SRO and one of the organizers got on the mic and asked if anyone had empty seats near them to skootch in and then raise their hand since lots of people were looking for seats. “This is Portland, Oregon,” he said. “We’re friendly here.” I’ve never seen anyone do that before and I thought it was a good idea.

John is completely hilarious and really quick. He was a scream during the Q&A. He joked about how his books are bunches of made up facts. But then he told this fabulous and heart-twisting story about how when you’re young you dream about being famous and what that would be like. But eventually you get older and have a family and start doing something and you forget about the famous thing and if you’re smart, you’re happy with what you’re doing. But then, what if one day after you’ve forgotten about fame, someone knocks on your door and throws you out there with no preparation whatsoever. He told it a lot better than I am. He refered to himself as a very famous minor television personality.

Jonathan Coultan is a longtime friend of his who is a musician and sang some songs. During the Q&A a little girl in the audience asked if he (Jonathan) would do the zombie song and that’s how we ended the show. (See above clip.)

Things that Should Come in Pumpkin Flavor

• Jello
• Cough Syrup
• Licorice
• vitamin water

Things That I Put on the List Above and Then Found Out Really Exist

• Instant Pudding mix
• Toothpaste and Mouthwash
• Vodka
• Gelato
• See’s Candy

I sometimes make fun of Bob because he has so many jackets/coats. A casual lightweight waterproof rain jacket. A heavy weight long dress coat. A mid-length medium weight sherpa shell. Every time he comes back from an outlet store he has a jacket to fit a unique niche circumstance.

I have: a raincoat with broken zipper, a heavy wool coat with torn pockets that I got at a garage sale for $1, a nice synthetic-something coat with leopard print collar that my Auntie bought me in Germany, and my new coat from last year, the power goose-down arctic expedition weight like-wearing-a-bed super coat.

I wore the super coat today. It’s not really cold enough but I’ve been chilly in the plain old raincoat. I guess I can understand an in-between coat. But I can get by without it.

(Historical aside: yesterday was post #1500. Woo!)

I walk three blocks from my office to reach the bus stop. On the way I pass the courthouse and I leave work at the same time they take the prisoners back to jail.

Here’s how it works based on my extensive experience walking by while they do this.

Two shiny, windowless green trucks idle in the street. Two portable flashing lights on plastic stands are set in the middle of the street. One where I cross and one by the trucks. I guess you aren’t allowed to drive right there while they’re loading up.

Several well-fed men with mustaches and sheriff’s uniforms stand around in strategic pairs, visiting. One well-fed man with a mustache and sheriff’s uniform stands by the flashing light where I cross the street. One time, while I was waiting for the light to change, he held up his hand as if to tell me to stop or keep back. I guess he was assuring me he was relevant.

I wasn’t going anywhere near his prisoners and his gesture was not going to stop me from going my way. Several prisoners (Inmates? Is there a PC term I’m supposed to be using?) were brought out and got into the truck. None of them looked like George Clooney in Brother Where Art Thou?