Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A reason why I shouldn't use my debit card for everything

You know one thing I hate about working in a corporate-type office? It's when a co-worker who really is just that--someone who works with you but not someone you'd actually give your cell phone number to--asks if you'd like to go in on a pizza together while in the middle of a meeting.

This happened an hour ago. I was with my boss, our intern, and Floozy when our web guy busted in and asked if we'd go in on a pizza with him. The intern gracefully bowed out saying he already brought stuff. Floozy said sure, pizza sounded better than the lunch she brought, and my boss was definitely "in," commenting that she was happy she didn't have to venture out to get lunch.

That left me. I sorta nodded, but never really said no. Part of me wants pizza because then I'd be included in something in my office. But part of me also wanted to say no, because I hate pepperoni and I promised myself I would eat healthy all week. (Minus the cookie and side of mac & cheese I ate yesterday)

Then came the next dilemma: I had no cash. This always happens to me! I swear! We continue on with our meeting but in the back of my head, all I can think about is how I only have $1 in my purse and how I should've used my other purse today, because I'm pretty sure I had a $20 bill stashed in the bottom of that one. Thankfully, after our meeting officially ended, I left to go to my desk so I could google where the nearest bank was so I could get some cash.

Turns out the nearest bank to me is 11 minutes away, or so Google says. But then I freaked out even more (silently, of course) because 11+11=22 minutes total, and what if the pizza came already while I was gone?

So I did what anyone else would do. I nonchalantly grabbed my purse and strode out of the office and ran like a batwoman to my car, where I drove 5 minutes away to the Walgreens down the street and bought a bottle of nail polish remover for $1.59. Then I hit debit, and got $10 in cash back, ran back to my car, and sped back to work.

Whew, I was only gone 15 minutes. During that time I already made up excuses of what to say, should anyone ask where I had gone. "I stepped out for a moment." "I had to take a personal call." "I had to grab my wallet from my car."

When I got back, no one asked where I had gone, and no pizza had arrived. A few minutes later the coworker who was collecting money came by my office. "How much?" asked Floozy. "Five bucks per person," he said. I handed my money over to him while Floozy was digging in her purse. "You know if you don't have it today, you can pay me back tomorrow."

OH THE IRONY!

Monday, July 26, 2010

The time gnats attacked me and my friends signed me up for online dating

Normally I don't bore you with the details of my weekend, but these past few days require a blog post.

On Friday I got off of work early and headed to the pool, where I swam and played kid's games like tea party underwater. Then I headed to my friend's house for an all-girls sleepover! We played all 16 or 18 rounds of Scattergories, where I put down some random and made up things...like tiger bass. Turns out there's no such thing as a tiger bass. Either way, we had a blast while drinking beer I had brought that was brewed in Chippewa Falls, WI. It tasted like a lemony-beer. Oh, and I won at Scattergories.

We also ate brownies and lugged a loveseat from her cute neighbor's apartment. At one point M had stepped outside to talk with her boytoy, leaving me and my friend, who recently broke up with her boyfriend. Of course you know where this is going--we had boytalk. I told her how the next boy I do date, I want to be Catholic, and actually go to church, and be a gentleman, and be able to hold a good conversation but not be too stuck up and also have a sense of humor, and oh, be college educated.

At some point during that long description of my next boyfriend, I let it slip about an online dating website that my friend from highschool emailed me about in April. Apparently she met her current boyfriend on there and they are still dating. At the time though, I didn't want anything to do with dating, much less online dating, so I promptly chucked that e-mail into my trash bin.

Fast forward to M coming back into the room, and whattya know--my friends signed me up for an online dating site specifically for Catholics. Yea, and this was at like 1:30 a.m. We had to fill out an obnoxiously long profile, complete with questions such as, "How often do you attend mass?" "How many children do you want?" "What forms of prayer do you like most" "Any favorite saints?"

Yea. I have to admit I was mildly entertained by this whole thing, and promptly said to M, that this deserved a blog post. Once we jumped through all the hoops, we finally got to my "matches." We went through about 12 pages and only sent an "emotigram" to three or four boys, all of whom are local and fit my criteria.

Since then, I've had several view my profile, and two boys have sent me "emotigrams," both of whom I didn't like during my initial screening.

I definitely have to say that while this is random--having your friends sign you up for an online dating site in the middle of the night--it fits my life. You can't make this stuff up.

Speaking of making stuff up, you also won't believe what happened to me yesterday.

Yesterday I argued with my mom all day about the money she owes me, but wouldn't give to me, unless I cleaned the house. So I did laundry, organized stuff, and basically sweat off a lot of calories. During said cleaning spree, my brother complained about a zit on his back. Of course my mom and I took a look, and it was definitely not a zit.

Queue my mother taking him to the Urgent Care place near our house, where they suspected it might be a black widow. Queue my mother calling me at home asking me to look for said spider. Queue me finding nothing. Queue my mother calling again to say that the Urgent Care place can't do anything for him--he has to go to the ER, and did they want an ambulance? Um no. Brother went to the ER with my parents where he got some IV filled with stuff to flush out the "venom," and a double dose of Valium for the pain.

Finally my brother gets home, and he's high as a kite on those drugs. He's not making any sense at all. It was really entertaining. Oh and they basically concluded that he has an "insect bite," but definitely not a black widow bite, although my brother is now telling all his friends on facebook that he almost died because he got bit by a brown recluse spider.

After all that craziness, fast forward to 11:30p.m. when I'm about to go to sleep for the night when I notice there's all these little black bugs on my ceiling. Of course I blame my mother for opening my window, and wake her up. She comes into my room and tells me they are just "gnats," and to "vacuum them up."

*So I was that crazy cat lady only with bugs, standing on my bed with the vacuum hose in one hand and the other hand on the ceiling for balance, sucking up all the bugs. At 11:30 at night. WHO DOES THIS??

Welcome to my life.


*So funny story, or not, but three years ago M and I were hosting a sleepover and before our friend came over, we had an invasion of these huge flies in our apartment. Naturally, I thought we should just vacuum them up, only that failed the next day when we realized that a) they were still alive and b) they were flying out of the hose.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Guest Post

Hey guys, I'm guest posting over at Lost in Singledom today about my recent encounter with an actual decent guy...apparently they DO exist. Who knew? Anyways, read it & add your two cents!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

No, I'm not a lesbian

Yesterday I went to Lilith Fair and man what a day it was.

I arrived with a few friends around 2, after getting lost a bazillion times. But that's just how I roll.

We got through security, and then hit up all the white tents for some free swag. We came away with a bunch of OB tampons, Stayfree pads, some scented cooling towels, and how could we forget the misting tent complete with a photo booth? Pretty awesome. We also got a bunch of samples of cooling mist by Degree and a free tote bag from the Chevrolet booth.


After winning some lemon lip balm from the Luna bar tent, we sat down and listened to Anya Marina and Rosie Thomas play. Both were great, but Rosie was seriously hilarious. She kept talking about how many gin and tonics she had had and her voice reminded me of someone who was high on helium. Very entertaining to say the least. 

After roasting in the sun for too long we headed over to grab a seat on the lawn, where we observed many lesbians wearing plaid shorts. We listened to Anjulie, who had a bunch of energy on stage, and Metric, who sang really loudly.

Then there was my favorite of the night, Ingrid Michaelson, who was full of sass and sarcasm! I loved her last song by Britney Spears. Her entire band danced and sang. It was awesome.

Emmylou Harris (who's that?) performed next. I had no idea who she was, but she sang country songs. While she was good--she definitely was a pro on stage in her glittery pants and platform heels--she should've performed earlier in the day because her voice just about lulled me to sleep.

But I stayed awake for the best act of the night--Sarah McLachlan, who helped start Lilith about 10 years ago. She was freakin' awesome. She played a ton of her old songs, but also some of the songs off her new album, which took her seven years to make. She was simply fabulous and her encore was seriously the best of the day.

Even though by the end of the day I was sweaty, tired, and a bit tanned, it was worth my $10 ticket and the memories that were made with my friends.

Just a quick update: my mom is out of the hospital! Surgery went well and now she is at home recovering. Thanks for all the sincere comments!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Oh Charlie Brown

It's Monday, I'm worried about my mom's surgery, and I need more tea.

So, let's start the complaining.


#1. My cell phone. I know I should be over this by now, but I'm not. A week ago, the touch screen on my pink LG Venus just stopped working. I took it into Verizon thinking it might just be a software problem, but they were morons and totally unhelpful. Since then I've been without the ability to read any of my text messages, and I have to use the voice command option when dialing anyone. Can you say annoying? YES.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, why doesn't she just get a new phone? Duh! Well, that's not possible because right now I'm on a family plan and in order to get a new phone we'd have to renew our contract for another two years, which is totally not happening because my dad wants to switch to AT&T so he can get the new iphone.

I could probably get my own plan, but it wouldn't be with Verizon, because they are too expensive. What sucks the most about this situation is that my type-A-planner-self totally planned for this. I saved the last two phones and chargers I've had specifically in case this happened. The only failure to this plan, is that all of those phones are in my storage unit, which has a gazillion boxes, most of which I didn't label because I hate packing.

So, now I've gotten desperate enough to bid on ebay, check craiglist, consider going to a refurbished cell phone dealer, and might have bribed my brother's friend with alcohol if he will sell me his old phone.

#2. Junk mail. Seriously, I don't even think me using my reusable water bottle and bag everywhere will help save the trees and the ink that we are literally wasting by printing junk mail. I'm averaging two credit card offers a day lately, and let me just tell you, a) I have no desire to get another credit card. Hello! If I wanted to spend ridiculous amounts of money, I would just use the ones I already have. b) What about this economic depression we've hit? I'm not stupid, I know nothing is free, and frankly, there aren't enough perks for me to consider going through the process of opening another account. It's just not worth it.


#3. The radio. Out of eight different stations, I somehow keep hearing the same songs being played, over and over, and over, and over, and over, and OVER again. I'm so sick of the radio. I'm sick of hearing California Girls by Katy Perry or Your Love is My Drug by Ke$ha. It's like, there has got to be other artists out there. It's times like these that I wish my ipod still worked.

What do you want to complain about? I'm listening.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Help

So, I  have a favor to ask of you all.

On Monday, my mom has to undergo major surgery. Even though she won't admit it, I know she's terrified inside.

That's where you come in: just send your positive thoughts or prayers to the big man up there.

Her recovery time is supposed to be 2 weeks, during which my family all might go crazy or it might be a time that brings us all together.

Either way, on Monday my fingers will be crossed for her.