Sunday, April 27, 2008

A week without sugar...

Day One – see the last good post written.

Day Two:
I don’t know why I was making such a big deal about this. I haven’t had any candy or donuts or anything today and I’m fine. Totally fine. I was thinking this was going to be hard, but this is totally easy! Yay for me and for my rock-hard will power which is clearly made of something really solid… like rock or something. Rock hard sturdiness of solid power of my will woo hoo!

Day Three:
Must stay away from candy. Candy bad. Bad candy! Bad! Oh, but so sweet and yummy and tasty and chewy and… oh candy, how I miiiiiss yoooooou! But no, I’m going to be good and walk over to this office and- oh hey, isn’t that a bowl of mini candy bars? And M&Ms? And STAAAAARBUUUUURST????? Oh Starburst, how you tempt me with your chewy, fruity goodness made entirely of sugar and scrumptious chemicals… Give me one pack of Starburst and watch as I chew my way to ouchy mouthness… But no! I walk away from the candy! I walk away! Well, I stumble away. Ok, I crawl away…

Day Four:
OK, the urges are over and I’m fine, and I’m feeling so much better! Bright and clear and full of enerrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggyyyyyyyyyyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Day Five:
OK, the urges are REALLY over now! I honestly think I will be ok, now that I’m over… is that cinnamon rolls? Did someone bring cinnamon rolls in for breakfast? Seriously? Who would do that to me? My biggest temptation, my hardest line, my WHITE WHALE! Great, big, cinnamon-filled white whale swimming in the FROTHY OCEAN of BUTTER and FROSTING! Oh, this is SO not fair! SO too much to ask for from a girl like myself, with my tinfoil-bendy willpower! But I am good. I walk away. (stumble away, crawl away, yadda, yadda, yadda)

Day Six:
I am here at home, where there are not stashes of easily-accessible candy or surprise attacks from sugary breakfast treats. Here I am safe from sugar’s siren call. Here I can have a whole weekend of sugar-free sanctuary.

Here I have a box of Cap’n Crunch WITH Crunch Berries.

Here I am screwed.

DAY SEVEN:
I made it! I resisted the Cap’n Crunch, said “no” to the impulse candy aisle at the drugstore and just generally walked through the weekend with big ol’ blinders on. But it worked, and I feel like I finally have the stupid sugar-monkey off my back! I head back to my office of constant candy and morale-boosting through regular doses of junk food, but I can do it! Man, I hope I can do it. Wish me luck, my peoples!

Monday, April 21, 2008

Too sleepy to be clever...

OK, you know how I never write anymore? And how you guys have pretty much given up on me and my blog since hey, there are never any posts? Well I’ve been trying to resist the urge to give excuses each time I go too many days between posts because frankly everybody hates excuses and the only thing worse than no post at all would be an excusy post. But the truth is I just keep falling ASLEEP.

This constant sleepiness started about 6 months ago and it just sucks. It ruins my long-earned reputation as a night owl and turns so many of my attempts at blogposts into 3-4 solid paragraphs followed by hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and the semi colon key stuck in my eye. Sigh. And when I wake up, face full of keyboard, I’m angry! Angry at the lack of late-night creativity and productivity and other-thingie-tivity! I want my nights back!

I’ve tried a bunch of things and have reaped piles and piles of bupkiss. The only thing I know for sure is that this danged sleepiosity started not long after my change in jobs. But lately this fall-asleepiness has started hitting me at the office too. (a place you traditionally try not to face-nap, by the way.) I just get SO SLEEPY! But I’ve had a realization:

My new job is wall-to-wall sugar. No kidding: bowls of desk-candy, breakfast sweeties, candies used to keep folks productive in long meetings, supportive “thanks!” and “Good Job!”” suck-up sweets… sugar, sugar everywhere and I’m just SO weak! I started with the breakfast sweets, then changed my paths through the halls to hit all the desks with candy bowls and now I’ve got very steady candy and sweets breaks all day long, often capped off with the traditional afternoon fudgical. (seriously, love me the fudgical. Greatest novelty ice cream treat ever.) And now I think the whole problem is sugar highs, followed by terrible, terrible sugar face-plants.

So as of today I’ve gone cold-turkey on the sugar.

Man, by about 2:30 today I had the serious sugar jonesing going on. I could hear the voices of every little foil-covered chocolate hearts in the nearest candy bowl calling out my name, telling me that they all loved me, and would give me their sweet, sugary energy if only I would come and nom-nom-nom them up. I forego the now-traditional after-lunch handful of Oreos, instead enjoying some grapes. (so not the same thing, and if ANY of you try to point out something about grapes having some kind of natural sugar in them or something I will travel to your homes and I will set fire to ALL of your toilet paper in a completely unrelated act of aggression!!! I didn’t have any Oreos! You cannot take away that triumph, no matter the fact of the matter!!!)

I was also, once again, fighting off the mid-day desk-drool-puddle from unstoppable naps. SO SLEEPY. But I know that I cannot do anything about my sugar problem in a day. No, I totally understand this is a process, not a quick fix. I’m sure I won’t have this gummy-monkey off my back right away. Heck, it could take as long as 2 or maybe even 3 days! It’s hard!

Also rest assured that I am not swearing off sugar altogether. That would be crazy talk, and also I’m just not that strong. I still drink sugary sodas and right now, when I finish this blog post (created at night, and with only planned run-on h’s!) I’m going to reward myself with a lovely slice of chocolate cream pie, left over from dinner at the Royal house last night. The traditional tiny dessert will not go away. It will just no longer be an hourly snack plan! I am enboldened (it's a word!) by today's success and am sure it will all fall asleep tomorrow when I have a Cap'n crunch, Starburst and Snickerdoodle sammich! (on wheat, of course.)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Birthday parties, and the ways in which they rock

My birthday hovers some time around this general time, give or take a few weeks, and in my family there are so many of us, with only so many months in the year, so we tend to do monthly birthday parties. For April I get to share party-duty with my favorite, favorite Mom and also my favorite, favorite niece. The Mom, she is the bestest Mom ever in the world, and the niece is also the premium of all nieces. We rock the April birthday party scene – rock it haaaaaard.

In years past we’ve had themes of “South of the Border” birthday (featuring a burrito bar and killer piƱata) or Hula-Hula birthday (that included this killer kahlua pork thing by my brother-in-law with his big, fancy green egg grill thing totally shaped like a green egg BUT with no ham and no questions about where you would have it, like in a box or in a train or with a fox, and seriously if you had ham with a fox wouldn’t the fox just grab the ham and run, because hey – free ham!?) and this time our theme was “a good, old-fashioned birthday party” (also known as “man, I’m kind of tired of coming up with themes and ways to theme them, aren’t you?) We had cake! And ice cream! And presents! There was a sing-along, which was extremely topical (even mentioned birthdays and everything!) and we set fire to some parts of the dessert food! Seriously, it was awesome and I seriously think that this classic birthday party thing is TOTALLY going to catch on!

A quick note on cakes: larger should not translate into taller. A taller cake is not really a handy thing, because cakes can be tippy, especially when you start taking parts of it away and giving it to people. You need to make a cake larger? Think SPREAD IT OUT, people. We had a party of about 25 people we needed to feed, and unfortunately the bakers on whom we had depended decided that meant we needed a cake with eleventeen layers, roughly 3 and a half feet tall. Tasty? ABSOLUTELY! Yummy chocolate cake with frosting and flowers and words encouraging us to be extremely happy on this, our day of celebrating that none of us have died at all the whole last year! But logistically this cake was, to put it mildly, a big challenge. So next year we’re going to have to say to the baker-people “we need to feed about 25 people, and we’ve got a station wagon ready to pick up a cake that could be up to 4 feet across if need be – don’t go up. Seriously, don’t go up. No more than 2 layers, pleeeeease.”

Do not worry – we muddled our way through the logistically-challenging-yet-flavor-excellent cake. We’re up for any cake-eating challenges in my family.

My family is chocked full of frustrated Tony-award-winning Broadway performers. To that end, we do a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” that would knock all available socks off! And if you were wearing Birkenstocks? Flying Cork, people! The only problem with our birthday song performance is that we get completely stuck on “Haaaaaaaaa-“ The song lasts nine minutes, 8 minutes and 20 seconds of which are the entire family holding the “Haaaaaaaa-“ note because nobody can seem to get the next part rolling. Also we do it in something like 8-part harmony, which is very cool, but there have been a couple of years where there was almost a fist fight at song’s end due to the starting note having been too high, too low, too sharp, not adagio enough, whatever. But it’s totally worth the effort – we’ve brought entire catering shifts to tears.

I won’t lie to you, my true-blue chums (new thing I’m trying for how to refer to you guys – what do you think of “chums”?) – I do enjoy being given gifts. I do. I love to give gifts during Christmas way more than getting gifts, but when it’s a day where I can shamelessly revel in GETTING STUFF, in being totally MINE, MINE, MINE!, I go for it. I got a bunch of cool things, from “awesome, I need this!” to “rock on, I wanted this!” to “Woah, I didn’t even know this was an option!” A couple of highlights included a Steve Martin biography, which I’m excited about because I think that guy is one of the funniest and most brilliant people ever! and I’m pretty sure if I read his biography I’ll learn all his secrets and finally be funny and brilliant my own self! Also this board game called “Pandemic” which is cooperative, which means it's you and your fellow gamers playing against the game. In this case the game is a pack of runaway, out of control diseases who want to ruin everything for everybody, and the game players are a bunch of scientists working to cure those nasty diseases. But of course we're sexy, hot scientists, like on Star Trek or The Core or stuff like that, who do their scientific thinking in tight tank tops and low-rider jeans and who, if need be, will grab a gun and shoot those bad, bad germs right between the... eye-thingies. I'm totally loving the idea of the cooperative game, although I think for this game to be truly realistic there should be the potential for you to have to battle packs of rabid, disease-infected zombies. Because we all know that all diseases eventually lead to zombies. Just ask Will Smith.

So, to summarize, birthdays are awesome and cake (even too-tall cake) is yummy and everyone should put their heart and soul into any sing-along and zombies are bad. And happy birthday to us!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Do you like me -- check this box...

OK, confession time: I’ve been thinking about checking out speed dating.

(we’re gonna give a minute for those of you who are working through the mocking. Do your thing. Also in case my Dad finally decided to check out the blog, because his head might have ‘sploded just then…)

Now in my own defense, I don’t really think I’ll find love at an evening of 6-minute meet-and-greets. But I’m curious enough to check it out. Also, it's pretty obvious to those of you who've been paying attention that I need things to write about.

(quick tangent: why six minutes? I’m not pulling that number from my butt, it’s the official amount of time they advertise. Is that for people who say “oh please, you couldn’t possibly get to know someone in five minutes.” but think that ten minutes is officially a commitment? “oh SIX minutes! Oh well that’s different. That’s ample time to decide if Joe Winecooler here is my especialist soulmate. Sign me up, six-minute mating ritual!” Whatever. Moving on.)

The free internet dating website (loving it more and more, in a way that means I don’t really interact with it but I don’t resent it for the money I’ve spent on it. Plus hey – speed dating!) has started putting together speed dating nights. I kind of think that’s a sign of progress for our sleepy little town. “Speed Dating comes to Hippyville! Soon we’ll get indoor toilets and one o’ them fancy movin’ staircases!” So I went to sign up for the April event.

But sadly it turns out I’m either too young or too old for zoom-mating. Man! (picture me snapping fingers in an exaggerated fashion.)

Seriously, here are the two options I have for the April speed dating:
  • “Active/Fit Lifestyle, Ages 23-36 -- For those who are on the go, like to keep in shape and would like to meet the same!”
  • “All Single Professionals, Ages 42-58” (for, um… old, creaky people who want to be nasty with another before they die. Of being in bad shape. With same. Or something.)
As luck would have it, I’m a less-than-active-or-fit-of-lifestyle single professional, age 37. Apparently we’re not worthy of wove. (I’d often suspected as much.) I know I’d be completely wrong for the “active/fit lifestyle” group, both in being too old and also probably the only person there who might have had 4 bowls of Captain Crunch for dinner (plus, of course, dessert). But I’m also not crazy about being in a room of prospective partners who are all at LEAST 5 years older than I am. Best case scenario: “So, where did your kid go to college, and hey, how about those high property taxes!” Worst case scenario: “Man down! Man down! Does anyone here know CPR? Be careful, I think he broke a hip when he hit the ground! Here, let me move his walker…” (oh you SO knew I was going for the broke hip joke! I’ve never been above that level of humor, not even ONCE!)

Then, of course, the final irony: the less-than-fit-and-disactive-lifestyle group is SOLD OUT. Apparently we are a town with a lot of older people who shun the healthy foods and the exercise and yet still think we’re worthy of wove, or at least hip-breaking nooky. Shame, shame on us all.

Gotta go take my calcium pill and learn to knit.

(and yes, I’m on the waiting list.)

(and just shut up.)

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Attack of the crappy crapweasels, part II

So last night I'm writing an email to a chum of mine who is FAR TOO PATIENT WITH ME, in that I don't write her ever. I am the worst at keeping in touch, even while I still post to the blog (not a lot, of course -- you've already noticed that I'm sure) and she READS the blog, so to her it looks like I'm too busy to write an email to her yet I have the time to get busted by hot cops, get all flustered around strange grocery store dudes and send adoring emails to random email customer service guys. (man, I now see how much I suck -- why does she continue to be my friend?) ANYWAY...

I'm writing this long-overdue email and I'm already in my online email (we'll call them SUPEREASYTOHACK-DOTCOM!!!) but I try to log into my email on another browser to see other emails she's sent me and gee, apparently ONCE AGAIN my perfectly correct email password is no longer perfectly correct. F*********CK!!!!!

I check my info in the browser where I'm already logged in, and SURE ENOUGH, the secret question has changed, as has the alternate email address. And here's the really sucky, frustrating, KILL SOMEONE BY WEDGING FIRECRACKERS INTO THEIR CREVICES part: even though I can see that these have been changed, I can't go in and change them back to anything accurate BECAUSE the password has also been changed, and even though I'm in there, right then, seeing the badness I have to have the correct password to make anything better.

SOOOOOO FRUSTRATING!! It felt like I woke up to the sound of someone wandering around my house (someone whom I knew was unarmed and also timid and only weighed about 63 lbs, so I knew that they could not HURT me, but still) and they're looking at my stuff and taking things, and can't make them get out because they've found my keys and in this Bizarro world whomever is holding the keys is in charge of the house. And if I actually had been in my house with some interloper holding my keys I would have just have beaten them repeatedly with an iron skillet or 12-pack of Pepsi or my television set. (REPEATEDLY. UNTIL THEIR BRAINS WERE A SMOOTH PASTE.)

AND of course by the time I'm hip to all that's happening its past bedtime, but I know that once I go to bed I'll eventually lose access to my email because at some point the email-thing decides that you're not there anymore and you have to sign in again to get access, which I'd love to do IF ONLY SOME STUPID WANKER WASN'T HOLDING MY EMAIL KEEEEEEEYS!!!! So I'm dashing around logging in to other important online accounts, making sure that I've changed all my passwords and looking for any signs of tampering and feeling just totally at risk. There should be some kind of 911 for hacking!

I’ll tell you who has a system – Ebay! Sure, they’re probably where the initial hacking started, for which I would like to Fedex them a box of flaming donkey poop, but when I said “Help Me, help me, help MEEEEEEEE!” they were all over it. I said “danger, Will Ebayson!” and they said “hey, we’re going to call you and make sure that you are you. Get ready – here it comes.” And then the phone rang, which was much spookier than I’d expected. And I answered it, and it was Ebay (who is apparently a bright young lady, possibly from the Midwest somewhere) and she told me that if I was EXPECTING this call I should press 1, and when I did some new guy (I’m thinking this was Ebay’s disgruntled younger brother who is feeling kind of lost, can’t figure out what he wants to do with his life, especially difficult with his living in the shadow of his extremely successful, even famous bigger sister Ebay) who just kept yelling “Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER!” over and over in this aggressive, surly voice. But I put that PIN into the window on Ebay and voila – instant fish! I’m in!

So in short: online email company probably bad, online auction company vulnerable but tricky, hackers SUCK. I think I’ll go back to writing letters.

Cyber Sibling Stupidnessity

The desktop image for April:

Funny Pictures


(courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger)

Monday, April 07, 2008

You should see how I tip!

An email just sent to a customer service dude with whom I was ever so slightly pleased:

"To the boss of CustomerServiceDude: I'm writing to let you know of just how much Mr. CustomerServiceDude is a rockstar. And that amount, if quantified, would be equal to 16 large barrels of rockstardome, plus an additional VW Bug full of rockstar-type clowns, each contributing their rockstar-ness to his overall rockstar quotion. In short: a half-time show of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin and Janis Freakin' Joplin have nothing on our friend CustomerServiceDude.

Before now I have always waxed poetically about your establishment, the fine things found both on-site and online and the exceptionally reasonable prices, and that surely won't be changing. But now I can add to my "Ode to [Consumer Establishment]" that their customer service is so good as to be dipped in chocolate with sprinkles and gold flakes and deep-fried (in that excellent way that Twinkies sometimes are, not the gross way that rats sometimes are) and then served with free booze and canvas bags marked with great, big dollar signs!

Thanks to CustomerServiceDude and I hope you guys will buy him a cupcake every day this week, unless he doesn't like cupcakes, in which case you should bring him daily nachos or daily shots of tequila or whatever sinful and indulgent thing would make CustomerServiceDude a happy camper.

And have a nice day.

-Femtastic"

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Dear Abby Internets

OK, so the other night was “tv and food night of fun and tv and food” and we discovered a distinct lack of dessert which is just WRONG. So I trekked off to the grocery store for yummy, sweet goodness. Anyway, I’m standing in checkout line #1 and over in checkout line B is this guy who, for I have no idea what reason, I totally, TOTALLY noticed. He was not bad looking but my noticeyness went beyond “hey, that dude is kinda cute.” I mean I was really looking. Really looking a bunch. I was about 6 seconds from “piercing mad gaze of a crazed nutbag.” looking at this guy. Somewhere in the back of my brain, where I keep the unicycle and the old issues of Highlights magazine, I had this idea that I was just sure this guy was single and my age and cool and that we’d have things in common and make a connection. I can’t remember having ever been this instantly intrigued by a stranger. And yet this isn’t the part I’m confused about.
I had just NO idea what to do with this moment.

I mean I stood there and kind of hoped that he’d look up and maybe we’d make eye contact, because I knew that an extended look in the eye was a way of saying “I’m single and my loins are inflamed. And you?” But he didn’t and we didn’t so I didn’t, so what do you do when you’re in this situation? I’m really, really asking here. After all, Hippyville is a little place, ripe with second chances for Mr. Fleece-Vest-And-Sharp-Goatee to appear again. And even if I never see him again, in another dozen years I could be instantly attracted to someone else and I’d love to feel less simultaneously helpless and also dorky! So compelling was this one-sided infatuation of about 83 seconds that when I finished my transaction I caught myself hurrying out to the parking lot. (and wouldn’t you know it – he drove away in a mini-cooper, a car I am personally ape over! Augh!)

It’s funny too, because lately I’ve been surrounded by other people being asked out in really average locations. My PT got asked out while faxing a timesheet at a Kinkos. Kinkos, not normally a place I think of as being a hotbed of steamy sexual tension. You don’t think of people going “Hey, let’s have a couple of wine coolers here at my swinging singles pad and then we’ll go pick up chicks while we make some color copies or perhaps purchase some binder tabs. PARTY!!!” Another person at work was approached by some cute dude while at the laundromat. (with her boyfriend – aaawkwaaard….)

Based on all of these stories from others I’ll admit that I thought for a second that this guy at the grocery store might be my turn. Maybe I should go stand by the fresh cut pineapple to give the story a better ring for our grandkids? Then he ruined it by being totally unaware of my human existence. Like we weren’t on the same page at ALL. Just so not cool, dude.

So really, from you people out there who have healthy social interactions and maybe have had sex since the last time a Clinton was in office: what would have been my move here? I don’t mind being single if there’s not an alternative, but I am embarrassed to admit that it really bugged me to have this moment and not been able to figure out how to capitalize on it at all. I need insight, ammunition, possibly alibis if you guys are as nuts as I am and things go awry. Don’t leave me hangin’ here, internets – give me your worldly wisdom!

Signed: Sexless in Safeway