Sexy asshole

OK, really quick. The CAKE concert was pretty great. I can't say "great" because of the 2.5 hours of sheer torture leading up to CAKE coming out.

The opening bands for the Unlimited Sunshine tour were ... well ... awful. I actually liked the very first band the best of the four, and if you would have seen my face at the time they were playing, you'd be wondering how I could say that.

Bottom line: I wish I could go back to the time before hearing that CAKE was coming to town, so I could still say I have no idea who the Brazilian Girls are. Them taking the stage just before CAKE was where the torture REALLY came to the surface ... and if any of you tell me you've heard of this band and like it ... I can't talk to you anymore.

Once CAKE finally came out a bit after 10 p.m., the show turned around. They played 16 songs. Not bad. Two I was surprised to hear, "Sad Songs and Waltzes" and "Friend is a Four-Letter Word." I liked hearing "Frank Sinatra," "Guitar" and "Love You Madly," and everyone's favorite, "Stickshifts and Safetybelts" was played, perhaps salvaging the night for Jeanine.

CAKE gets 3.25 stars out of 4. 0.25 is docked because I didn't get to hear "Dime," "Alpha Beta Parking Lot" or "It's Coming Down." 0.5 is docked because they DID play "Never There." HATE.

The rest of the Unlimited Sunshine tour gets 0.25 stars out of 4. I'll give it the 0.25 because at Jeanine's request, the Brazilian Girls did give me the headline for the blog. By the way ... there is only one girl in the damn band. Whatever.

I get -1 star for dropping the ball on my attire. After commenting to Jeanine that I would wear a short skirt and a long jacket, the first thing she said to me was, "Where is your short skirt!?" I totally spaced it. I had worn my blue trench (coincidentally only), but had completely forgotten to come through with the skirt. I guess it wouldn't have been work-appropriate for a Monday anyway. It was tough sitting through that song in the encore after forgetting though.

P.S. - Who knew that Chicago was the city whose inhabitants ate the most per capita tonnage of Twinkies in the United States? If someone would have clued me into that ... hello Chicagoans ... I could have won a tree from the band. Thanks a lot. :)

Is it over yet?

How so many annoying situations could occur in one week is beyond me.

Sunday
I went to a bar to watch the Colts game. At the two-minute warning, I decided I HAD to break down and go to the restroom. In haste, I spun around, flushed, opened the stall door and out of the corner of my eye, saw that my ID was in the toilet.

I felt my back pocket and my credit card was gone, too. It was nowhere to be found ... I went to check around my barstool, the traveled path to the restroom ... gone.

That, of course, was my only method of payment. I managed to explain the situation to the bartender, who agreed to let me leave my ID (my VERY well-washed ID) as good faith that I would return to pay.

It also had started raining, and I didn't have my umbrella. I ran back the five or so blocks to my apartment, got my debit card, and on the way back to the bar, called to cancel the missing card.

It was a pretty cold rain coming steadily down now, and the woman with the credit card company wouldn't stop asking questions ... do I think it was lost or stolen, how I lost it, where I lost it, etc., etc., to which I finally exasperatedly told her, "Look, I think I flushed it down the toilet." She responded, "Oh, well I guess it's secure." Ha. Yeah, I guess so.

Good thing the Colts pulled out the win because I obviously didn't see the last two minutes of the game ... and my mini-buzz was completely killed. Boo.

Monday
Pretty run-of-the-mill day, though it was very annoying to watch the Ravens choke and die at the end of their game against the Patriots.

Tuesday
That damn pigtail headache ...

Wednesday
I woke to the first snow of the winter. On one hand, I loved it; on the other, I realized it was the one weekday in months I had to drive. Great.

The evening started with the trains being backed up, so I was 10 minutes late to begin my car reservation. When I got to the block the car resides at ... walking in heavy snow ... there it sat with AT LEAST four inches of snow piled on top. Gr.

I cleared the car off as fast as I could go in my skirt and stiletto heels ... how I didn't end up on my ass, I don't know ... and arrived to pick my dad up for dinner 35 minutes late.

We had a nice meal, but then all hell REALLY broke loose.

We stopped off at Harris Teeter at my dad's request, which was fine because I needed Diet Pepsi anyway. I put the fridgemates in the cart, walked over to the register and reached into my purse for my keys and VIC card.

I'm confused when the keys won't come out of my purse. I looked inside to see what was piled on top of them ... only to find the problem was that the super glue I was toting around to repair a fingernail I had been trying to salvage for two weeks had spilled ... all over the bottom of my purse. How brilliant of me.

My sinking feeling actually turned a little bit to relief because I saw that somehow, the glue hadn't gotten on my camera, earbuds, mp3 player, insulin ... somehow the ONLY thing it was on was the keys.

I was able to rip them off the bottom of my purse with a bit of force. The mailbox key took the brunt of the encounter. My apartment key had just a little bit of glue on the tip ... but the glue was still wet and sat in a pool at the bottom of my purse.

Realizing I had to be able to get into my apartment, I went into super-glue-removing overdrive ... with no regard for my own skin. I moved all the items in my purse away from the pool and started wiping at my house key to try to clear the glue out of the grooves ... while also trying to make sure the other keys don't stick to my fingers.

My dad came back to see what I was doing, and while laughing at me, saw tissues in my purse. Desperate to get the glue dry, I grabbed for one and sopped up the remaining glue.

It was a mess. People were looking at me oddly. My fingers and purse bottom were covered in super-glued tissue. The mailbox key was caked in glue. I hoped my apartment key would work.

I went to pay for my soda, and as she's asking me if I found everything OK, it hit me that I'm no longer holding onto the parking garage ticket I brought in to validate.

I searched through my wrecked purse for five minutes, checked my pockets, looked around everywhere I was in the store. As with the credit card at the bar ... gone. I still have no idea where that damn thing went. And I HATE to lose things.

I was able to sweet talk the parking attendant to let me out for the lowest $2 fee even though I couldn't find the ticket.

My hands felt like I had permanently-encasing gloves on.

The thumbnail the super glue was there for was lost after a two-week fight.

I made it into my apartment with some determination and bruises on the palms of my hands from forcing my key in the door.

Thursday
I had to see my endocrinologist for prescription changes because of my awful, new health insurance for 2008. My appointment time was 3:30 p.m. She didn't see me until 5:20 p.m.

Georgetown waiting rooms are NOT pleasant places to sit for long periods.

Other patients were complaining about being there two hours after their appointment time.

A baby slung over her mom's forearm came within an inch of throwing up on my foot.

I could hear office workers bitching about the people in the waiting room.

Once I got in there, she completely rushed me through, didn't do half of the usual checks, wrote the prescriptions wrong and the lab was closed by the time I was finished. That means calling her AGAIN for the correct prescription and returning to get blood drawn for my A1c ... um, why was I there wasting three hours of my life again?

"I wanted to talk to you in person, so you WOULDN'T screw up the new scripts, but you still did. Thanks. You don't need to verify for me that I gained four pounds in your half-assed physical, and I really don't like you anyway."

Friday
Tonight, I'm off for a holiday party ... hoping nothing out of the ordinary happens. Nothing bad out of the ordinary anyway.

I have a headache

I get bored with my hair pretty easily. Since I've decided I want to let it grow long (-er than it is), this is a problem because I can't just go chop it off for a change.

So, I decided to wear my hair in pigtails today. This is something I haven't done since Coal Creek Central days ... and for those of you that don't know, that would be K-3. I really don't even think I liked wearing it like that much then, and now I might have a reminder why (see headline). Too much weight tugging at both sides of my head ... yes, my "pig"tails are pretty much two ponytails by anyone else's standards. Ouch.

Anyway, I thought it would be something to make a Tuesday more interesting and see what kind of reactions I would get. Here are my findings:

1) My boss told me he doesn't talk to women who wear pigtails. He was kidding ... I think.

2) I got a few double-take looks on the street.

3) The guy at the store where I bought my dad's Christmas gift was EXTRA helpful ... and kept smiling at me strangely.

4) Another co-worker asked me if I was in a bad mood when he got into the office. When I said no and asked why he would think that, he said, "Because you've got your naughty girl hair today." Hahahahahaha. That one was funny.

5) After I paid for some items at CVS, I turned around and a guy in line had a huge smile on his face. When I made eye contact, he gave me the "what's up" nod. Sorry, Dude. I was over it by that point.

Number of women that commented: Zero. ;)

And there were a few people that held a conversation with me completely like nothing was out of the ordinary. I might find them the most odd ...

Random sighting

I got to the airport WAY earlier than I needed to for my flight today. I see that Indy is in definite need of an airport upgrade now because there weren't any TVs at the gates for me to watch the game on ... not in D concourse anyway ... and the only thing in that concourse is the lame, Dick Clark's American Bandstand restaurant.

I thought that restaurant had gone out of business, but I guess not.

Anyway, not important. I go in there to the bar to watch the Colts game until my flight.

There was hardly anyone in there, and TONS of open seats at the bar, yet two guys come in and sit down right next to me. Even though there were plenty of open seats to have put an empty one in between us. Annoying.

And the game was annoying at that point, too. And the guy kept grabbing his cell phone every two minutes and bumping my chair. Enough already.

Not far into the second quarter, a guy comes up to the guy who sat next to me and says, "Are you Rupert?" To which he replies, "Yes, do you need a picture?"

HA. At that point I realize the guy who has been annoying me for the last 20 minutes was Indy's own Rupert Boneham from "Survivor."

It still didn't do all that much for me since I don't watch the show, but I did think it was kind of humorous. And I still kind of wished he had sat farther down to allow a seat in between the two of us. :)

Vacations anyone?

I usually feel a little weird when people talk about traveling ... with that sound in their voice like absolutely nothing would make them happier than seeing destination A or B. I've never really gotten it. I guess if I'm going to spend a lot of money on something, I like to spend it on an object that I can keep/see/touch/use everyday.

I'm not much for seeing tourist sites. The museums and such around here? Boring. My skin doesn't take too well to tanning, so it bores me to lay out on a beach knowing it will do nothing for me ... though it MIGHT cause me some pain from a burn at day's end.

That's probably why I can barely remember the last time I took a "vacation" that wasn't to fly home to Indiana to see family and friends for a holiday or event. While that honestly suits me just fine, it isn't very interesting, so I finally came up with a couple of options.

The first is a ballpark tour. I hadn't really thought about it until talking about someone in the process of completing one a few months ago, but it seems a good way to have an excuse to see various areas of the country while doing something that is a LOT more fun than sitting out on the beach or visiting museums.

I could say I have some crossed off the list already, but to do it right, I guess I should go back to the three still functioning and document them with photos other than me in my seat with a beer or something ... A trip to New York will be must-schedule for next season as well.

I have little doubt I can find people to accompany me on this mission, but the second is a whole other story. It's an expedition to Antarctica. I haven't really started asking anyone, but how do you suggest taking a cruise somewhere you'll be walking around on ice?

I say there is nothing better than the chance to have a penguin come sit on your lap, and surprisingly the ice looks amazing, too. I don't know though. That could just be me. We get to leave from Buenos Aires at least. Any takers? :)

Weird lunch situations continue

It happens to all of us every now and again. You walk toward a stranger on the sidewalk, you side-step to not run into them, both of you go the same way ... then both back the other way. You get hung up. You smile and laugh. You apologize. You go about your way.

Never in all of my 28 years have I been a part of such a ridiculous encounter.

On the way to lunch, Melina and I waited to cross the street. The walk sign came on. We started to cross.

Coming toward us was an older guy in ridiculous '80s running gear. A sweatband on his forehead, those too short running shorts, the mesh tank top over a t-shirt ... a real train wreck.

I'll admit there have been times when I have decided I'm standing my ground and make the other person dodge. NOT this time. I wanted out of this guy's way.

On my left, Melina took the outer maneuvering route. There were strangers on my right, so I decided to follow suit and go left, too.

He kept going straight, but wavered a bit as if in a drunken stupor. Wavered a bit TOWARD me. Melina made it, but I couldn't get out of the way.

I stopped to see which way he would go before continuing.

He never stopped his forward motion, kept mumbling something like a crazy person ... and continued going straight.

I couldn't go anywhere. Still, he went forward ... continuously bumping into me like a Roomba does when it hits a wall and needs to turn around.

Correction ... continuously bumping into my BOOB.

First there was a boob graze, and I expected the usual recoil and apology when an accident such as that happens.

Instead, he looked down, seemed to see what had happened, and PRESSED forward two or three more times before brushing past.

I spun around with an annoyed, "EXCUSE ME!!?" He never turned around.

I stood in the middle of the street, speechless. Melina stared at me with her jaw dropped. I said, "He poked me in the boob!" as I instinctively wiped my shirt off. I felt moisture on my hand. I looked down to find a wet spot left on my boob from his sweaty, disgusting hand.

I was molested in the middle of F Street NW in broad daylight! Talk about a ruined appetite. Even the two or three hand washings prior to getting in line couldn't wash away the filth. I considered buying a new shirt, too. Ew.

Division series ... total suckage

This pretty much sums up how I felt about my entire evening last night:

I believe this was taken around the time Arizona was tacking on another run in the ninth inning. Ugh.

As if the double sweep wasn't bad enough for the night, it also became glaringly apparent I belong nowhere near bars where college people hang out. Maybe my mood wasn't optimal, but as more and more of them shuffled in ... all WAY more interested in dancing like idiots to "My Prerogative" than to watching the game (weren't we at a sports bar earlier in the evening?), I wanted to kick them. A lot of them. And even more so because they were all about 4 years old when that song was on the charts (and that is even probably spotting them a couple years). Then it was "Ice, Ice Baby," "You Can't Touch This," "Footloose" ... I could go on and on. It was awful.

So, the season's over ... again. I'd be OK shifting more of my focus to watching the Colts ... but networks around here don't find it necessary to broadcast their games, so you can swap out the Cubs shirt for a Colts tee and reference the above pic for how I'm feeling about that as well.

Old Town Trolley

My friend, Melina, and her boyfriend like to laugh that the Old Town Trolley drivers seem to have some sort of infatuation with me. While I highly doubt this is true (really it's probably just that their main post is right beside Qdoba, and we go there every week), there have been a couple of incidents that might lead one to think it.

The first one is my own poor decision to go out on a date with one of the drivers last summer. One Mike Fox. The story of that is documented in this blog. (Scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "The aspiring actor.")

The second one involves an apparently magnetizing white dress that I will never wear to Qdoba again. We were sitting in the window eating. One of the drivers walked up to the window, paused, got my attention, gave a thumbs up and walked away. He must have seen my look of confusion because later he came into the restaurant and told me that he wanted to explain that he gave the thumbs up because he really thought I looked nice in "that white dress" ... and then kept hanging around creepily. I didn't get his name. I do look pretty good in that particular dress, but seriously.

Today, I went to get a sandwich at Potbelly's. As I waited in line, I noticed there was a guy in an Old Town Trolley uniform behind me. In a pretty good mood today, I immediately started smiling knowing that when I got back to the office, Melina was going to LOVE hearing about this. I hadn't even turned around yet.

With a big smile on my face, I turn to check out the driver ... and it was none other than THE Mike Fox. DIRECTLY behind me.

Now, forgive me, it has been more than a year since I went out with the idiot (who, if you have read the blog remember, said the trolley job was a "temporary gig"). When I first turned, I thought, "Oh, that looks like it could be him," but I couldn't really tell.

So, I didn't just glance. No, I looked right at him for a good 15-20 seconds, looked down at the name tag that said, "Mike," and THEN turned around knowingly with a BIG smile on my face.

What are the chances of that!? Hahahahaha.

At that point, I could not STOP smiling because I thought the story was going to be fun to tell even if it was just some random driver, but now that it's Mike Fox ... I had hit the jackpot. So, after staring at him longer than I should have, seeing his name tag and smiling wider, I didn't say a word to him.

I don't know if he recognized me or not, but I didn't care. I stood in line in front of him for another 7-8 minutes ... smiling the whole time. It was glorious. Hopefully after 3.5 years working for the trolley company, the guy isn't still telling dates his job is temporary while he looks for acting work. As Melina says, "No, that's not temporary, that is your CAREER."

It was a good day.

NOTE: Please know, I see nothing wrong with anyone working as a tour guide for a career. I just found it completely annoying from him because he insisted multiple times he had plenty of time to move to New York to be an actor, and I thought he was insane.

Fun, fun ... K-12 pics

The reminiscing for the "Senior year" bulletin, and the ensuing response it generated made me think it would be funny to dredge up all my old yearbook photos.

I might not have remembered enough to be able to answer the questions in that bulletin properly, but I DO remember that quite possibly the single most traumatic incident of that entire year occurred when I returned from graduation and saw that my mom framed and displayed, in a row, all of my school photos for my graduation open house ... especially those 6th-8th grade, middle school ones. EW.

Now 10 years later, I'm OK doing it to myself, and could even come up with some added history below. Enjoy. :)

Kindergarten: My hair used to have a nice wave to it ... I think that was a cute little red dress that year, too.

1st grade: I was well into my closed-mouth smile phase here. As a child, I decided to allow one of my front teeth to wage battle with a softball bat being swung during a warm-up at the Elston ball diamonds. The tooth lost, required a root canal and turned brown. I didn't like bad teeth even then. Thank God it was a baby tooth.

2nd grade: I really liked to wear sweatshirts, but ONLY with the sleeves pushed all the way up, so it was as if they were short sleeves. I have no idea why. My mom tried to get me to stop, but it was documented in the school photo this year anyway.

3rd grade: My yearbook from 3rd grade was lost a long time ago, but I might be able to at least scrounge up the pic the next time I go home. We'll see if I remember. (Anyone who went to school with me that last year at Coal Creek, if you can refresh my memory on what it looked like that year, I would like to try again to find it.)

4th grade: If a clothing item had a cat on it, it was in my wardrobe. Those are large cat ears poking up there.

5th grade: Don't let this one fool you into thinking I stopped wearing my hair up EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I hadn't. Length of my hair at this point: Well beyond my waistline. Since I hated to wear it down, I have no idea why I refused to cut it.

6th grade: The side pony. Niiiiiiice. Ugh.

7th grade: Oh, how it would be nice to lose that baby fat. And those bangs. Lord.

8th grade: A perm and short hair does NOT mix for someone with thick hair. It shouldn't have taken a genius to figure that out.

9th grade: The bangs lived on that one last year, but this pic at least holds the prize for biggest change in a calendar year. Thank goodness because looking at these is wearing me out.

10th grade: I had to give a speech for English class on picture day, and I was NOT happy that Mrs. Escamilla was dictating what I had to wear that day, rather than wearing something more of my choosing. Yes, you read that right. At our school, Escamilla was an English teacher.

11th grade: Does anyone watch "How I Met Your Mother"? I feel like I had the "crazy eyes" here. Or maybe it's more "crazy smile." The picture just looks strange. I sure hated that cowlick, too. It was the bane of my entire bang existence ... so traumatically annoying, it almost kept me from getting my current ones, but luckily it had mysteriously vanished.

12th grade: The cookie cutter senior picture pose. They took the yearbook pics that year before I got the signature "Rachael cut."

Ahhhh ... memories.

"I Will Survive"

For oh so many reasons, hearing this song NEVER fails to put a smile on my face.

My high school girls, I know, can remember quite a few ... and fittingly, it all started with one of our random Meijer trips. Ah, the $6 Disco Mania compilation. :)

RobG and Natz ... you know at least one as well. Um, can we say, "Neon Cactus piano bar"?

And now this ... which quite possibly rivals the piano bar incident for its jaw dropability factor:

I'm not sure about the added vocals from the piano player, but all in all ... it's so funny, I even forgive the guy in boxer shorts for getting a couple of the lyrics wrong.

Remembering Minneapolis

Some of you know I spent three months in Minneapolis on a summer internship in 2001. A few of you know how much I liked it there and how I longed to return.

Those feelings had waned in the last couple of years, as I realized that really I wanted city life and maybe I just loved Minneapolis because it was the first place I lived that gave me that experience. It was no Muncie, and was that ever a good thing.

Then last night I started seeing stories on the Web about the I-35W bridge collapse. I hadn't thought much about Minneapolis as of late, but bits and pieces of fond memories resurfaced.

I-35W. It was a familiar name. I tried to remember why, but concluded it was likely because of the oodles of locator maps I had created, forcing me to quickly learn to differentiate between I-35W and I-35E when the interstate split. Nonetheless, I had a weird feeling about it. You hear things like this happening all the time, but it's a completely different feeling to hear it knowing you had likely crossed that bridge.

I went to bed hoping the people I so enjoyed working with were toiling away on a bridge graphic, and they hadn't happened to be ON the bridge.

This morning, I saw the image below in a Star Tribune slideshow (minus my added graphic elements), and the reason the I-35W bridge's name sounded so familiar became immediately clear. I had crossed that bridge hundreds of times in my short time there. I walked across the pedestrian bridge, looked to my right and saw cars crossing the bridge multiple times a week. A few times, I sat in traffic on the bridge waiting to take my exit.

It has been a weird day. I'm partially in love with Minneapolis again. It was there I felt certain I had made the right choice to change majors five times in college. It was the first time I forced myself out of my element. I left my car parked and used public transportation to get to work. I made myself live with a roommate I had never before met (it was only three months, and thank god for that ... we could have a whole other blog on stories from that alone). I walked a lot more (it was a mile and a half to walk across that bridge to get home). It was even the first place where I ever ate Chipotle.

I guess it seems like it was really just primer for how I'm living my life now, minus the roommate. I might pay $1,755 a month on rent to not have one of those, but it's definitely worth the expense! I've gone farther than just parking my car, and walking a mile and a half doesn't even seem that far anymore.

And now I'm just rambling, so with mushiness, I'm off. Here's to you, Minneapolis. As I focus now on returning to Indianapolis, I fear my time with you is over, but I'll love you always.

Steer clear

My morning started off with my left big toe hurting for no apparent reason. I had no idea that would translate into putting me in one of the WORST moods I can ever remember. As I have expressed to a few already, I honestly cannot remember EVER being more annoyed by EVERYTHING than I am today. It has been slightly disturbing to me actually.

One of the results of this mood had me reading the AP wire with added cynicism, and in order to pass the time, I find it necessary to share a few things I came up with here.

1. Extending the once a cheater, always a cheater notion:
A man who fatally stabbed his first wife in 1981 is accused of attacking his second wife with a knife in the same home, authorities said.
Christine Groth, 53, was taken to a hospital Tuesday after she crawled bleeding onto the porch.
The couple married in 1991, nearly 10 years after Joseph Groth pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges in the stabbing death of his first wife.

Sorry, but this lady was asking for it.

2. Check the logistics of your plan ahead of time:
Mechanics inspecting a United Airlines jet that had just arrived from China found a dead body in the nose gear Thursday.
He said the person apparently had crawled inside the nose gear's housing intentionally, suggesting an attempted stowaway. It's been attempted before, he said, "but it's never been successful."
"At altitude, there's no air to breathe and it's maybe minus-40 degrees for 12 hours," McCarron said.

Brilliant.

3. And this column being promoed on Yahoo! has been pissing me off for a week now:
3 Life Lessons from Country Music

COME ON, SERIOUSLY!?!?

Ugh. Click here if you're the least bit interested by what this has to say, but don't tell me about it. I WILL judge you.

Oh, and Yahoo! people, spell out a numeral at the beginning of a sentence. Thanks.

Going too far with the heterosexual safety seat

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the situation in the headline occurs when males who are seeing a movie together sit down with one seat separating each of them in order to make sure other patrons know they are not there "together." I have seen this done even when there are more than two guys in attendance.

Today, I witnessed (and was forced into being somewhat a part of) an expansion of this ridiculous philosophy in Qdoba. (Guys who are reading this, please own up and leave a comment explaining your reasoning if you do this. I'll still think you are ridiculous, but try to explain yourself. I'll at least think you can stand your ground.)

So, the situation: Melina has been sick, so I ventured to Qdoba by myself this week. While many would just take their order to go, I still feel it necessary to eat in the restaurant so I can get a refill on my soda to take back to the office. ;)

At this time, there are only two tables available in the restaurant, one a two-top and one with two tables pushed together for four. I head for the single table, but a guy steps in to sit there right ahead of me. I figure I'll sit at the other one and push the other table over a bit to separate and not monopolize the whole thing.

So, I sit down, and the guy who took the two-top asks if I am going to be using all four chairs. I tell him no, and that he is welcome to take that table (wondering why he sat at the smaller one in the first place).

He says, "That's OK, there are only three of us."

I find that odd, but put my earphones back in and go about eating my nachos.

Then his friends come to sit down. See in the diagram below, how they leave the tables the same, but one sits with me, one at the side-end of the other table, and the guy who started all this (labeled "First offender") sits in the crack with no real table space ... and they do this without hesitation as if nothing at all is out of the ordinary.

Please, please explain to me why the three of them would not sit at a four-top table to eat together like the rest of the normal world ... and don't try the "maybe they were hoping to converse" because I listened to my mp3 player the whole time thinking to myself that they were complete idiots. And being weirded out.

OK, discuss!

Put in my place ...

Just a quick post to direct everyone to this hilariously-amazing story (the audio is the best):

http://prdifferently.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/how_not_to_act_.html

I'm still shocked at how weak this makes my bad dating stories. Mine (reference April 16, 2007, blog) aren't even in this league! I guess that's a good thing. ;)

Fourth of July

Watching the nation's fireworks show over the National Mall for the second year, all I could think was, "Wow. This is the one time of year I think I will actually always miss New Richmond."

It seems every Fourth of July, I've still remembered how great it was to sit around that pond to watch the fireworks. Richard Franklin would be nice enough to go out early with blankets to stake out our spot. We'd hang around until late afternoon at the house (usually Shel's), then go down to get food at the fish fry, an elephant ear, a lemon shake-up, play some silly games where you could win a 2-liter of soda, a goldfish or something equally as useless, and you always knew you would run into some people you hadn't seen since school let out in May because EVERYONE went to New Richmond for the fireworks.

It was nice. It was the middle of summer. There was always that one ground firework with the annoying whine, loud boom and flash of light at the end that I HATED, but then there would be the waterfall firework to make up for it. I loved waiting to see what character would be made out of lights at the finale with the "See you in 19XX" tag. And most importantly, when it was over, you knew you still had a whole month and a half left before school started again.

I can't remember the last time I was in New Richmond for the Fourth, and I know that it couldn't feel the same now. There's no more summer break, and it's back to work tomorrow. There's no hope of seeing the person you had a crush on that year. It's not really exciting to be able to stay up past midnight anymore ... but I still remember the feeling those things brought when I'm watching fireworks on the Fourth ...

Other notes from the day:

The outcome of the Cubs/Nats game was not so nice from my point of view, but it WAS nice to finally see a game at RFK that actually seemed to have fans. I think there were about 39,000 there. Usually it's somewhere like 22,000 ... and in that stadium, 22,000 seems like it's only about 5,000. Horrible.

Am I mistaken in thinking that the nacho cheese is a given when ordering nachos? Today, I tell the woman at the concession booth that I want nachos with jalapenos. My standard order. This time though, she brings me back a tray with ONLY tortilla chips and jalapenos. I look strangely at them, and say that I want cheese, too, to which she says, "Oh, well you just said that you wanted nachos and jalapenos." I said, "Well, yeah, I didn't know I had to specify cheese." Weird.

I've always kind of preferred to go to the concession stand to get my food at the game, and today I witnessed the reason my subconscious has told me to do so. The guy with the hot dog contraption came huffing and puffing up the steps toward me, and I looked over just in time to see sweat drip from his brow down onto the packets of ketchup and mustard. Nice. Beer is maybe OK, but you know they're sweating down into that ice water those cans and bottles are in, too.

I'll leave you to ponder that.

Ice machine update

The situation has gotten out of hand.

I wrote the original blog the week before I was to be out of the office for a week in Indiana. I thought, "Thank God, I'm leaving next week. The machine will be fixed by the time I return."

Anyone following my Twitters knows this was not, in fact, true. Since it was not fixed, this put the timeline at "broken just more than two weeks."

I was told a repairman was in the office two times the week I was gone: The first time to bring in the cleaning solution that was alluded to in the e-mail about not putting notes on the ice machine, and the second time because the cleaning solution did not fix the problem.

The second time, the guy saw the blinking light, pressed the off button and turned it back on again to hear it filling with water (just as my boss had already done the previous week), told our office manager that it wasn't broken because it just needed to be reset, and left. I was told the machine made four cubes of ice that time.

Our HR person then got two bills for $150 from the repairman. $150 to pour cleaning solution into the machine, and $150 to turn the machine off and on and say it was never broken.

At this point, Tim says, "It's not going to be fixed. The guy has already charged $300 for nothing. We could have bought another ice machine for that much. Did he really think we hadn't tried that already?"

I, meanwhile, didn't understand why this repairman had not been called back for a free visit because he had charged, at the very least, $150 to do nothing, so he owed us for shady practices ... but our office managers were getting exasperated and annoyed that we were asking about it so much.

Yesterday, I went into the breakroom, and there finally was a man on his hands and knees with tools unscrewing parts and taking parts off of the ice machine. I happily go out to report this, and Lee says that it is the same guy that did not fix it three weeks ago.

I still had positive vibes going because he was actually taking the machine apart this time, even though Tim was not convinced. Tim asked an office manager what the status of the machine was, and she said, "It is fixed. It has to run through the cleaning cycle which takes 24 hours, so at 2 p.m. tomorrow, it should have ice."

I went into the breakroom today at 2:05 p.m. to find the following:

It did produce about 30 cubes, but tomorrow marks the timeline at "broken for five weeks." When a coffee machine broke a couple of months ago, it was replaced in two days AND we have two coffee machines! I am feeling some iced-drink discrimination here. Edit that. A LOT of iced-drink discrimination.

They've been around for more than 100 years

What I'm talking about here is the escalator. Figure out how to use them, people.

I'm not going to elaborate much on the "stand on the right" rule for Metro escalators. The topic has been covered in many blogs before (and it will be sure to piss RobG off hehe).

In short, if you visit D.C. and make use of the Metro trains, if you want to stand and ride, stand on the right side. Some of us don't want to wait five minutes to be transported to the top (and that's not even that much of an exaggeration at some stations).

But here's my new pet peeve for escalator use: If you're scared of the escalator, take the time to use the stairs or the elevator instead.

An adult woman this morning walked up to the left side ...
stalled ...
watched the escalator run for a few seconds ...
took a wide step to ensure her entire foot would only be on a step, not on a crack ...
walked slowly up about four steps ...
stopped, presumably to mentally prepare herself for the exit ...
stepped off in a nervous, wobbly manner ...
then paused again to right herself.

This is fine if you are two, but the rest of us who mastered the art of using an escalator by age four piled up behind her with nowhere to go, and me, being directly behind her, took the brunt of the stack up.

My annoyance might have been escalated this morning because it was about 95 degrees down there at 100 percent humidity; there were train delays; I had been on a packed train with pretty much nowhere to stand but too close to a sweaty armpit; and all I wanted to do was go home to take another shower ... but seriously! Don't get on the damn thing if you're an idiot.

That's all.

My life on shuffle

OK, I took this from Natz's blog. I filled a similar one of these out months ago as a bulletin, which I really wish I would have saved because all the songs came up perfectly. We'll see how I fare on this one.

How am I feeling today? Lyin' Eyes – Eagles; Huh ... I don't think I've lied about anything today. Or cheated on anyone. Oh well, NEXT!

Will I get far in life? Where Would I Be? – Cake; Apparently I'm waiting for someone's arms to be around me. I've been waiting ... for so long. I guess I'll keep doing that.

What is the story of my life? Baby It's You – The Beatles; Again, not sure who we're talking about here.

How can I get ahead in life? Lightning Crashes – Live; There was lots of lightning tonight causing me to have to read Cosmo by flashlight in the dark for an hour ... I guess that means I'm on my way to getting ahead.

What is the best thing about me? Wifey – Next; Uhhhh ... I guess that's for someone to figure out.

What is tomorrow going to be like? Been Around The World – Puff Daddy (yes, that was the nickname he was going by then); Sounds like Chipotle Thursday could turn out to be a hassle.

What is in store for this weekend? Heard 'Em Say – Kanye West; I don't know.

What song describes my parents? My Sharona – The Knack; Well, they were at least still together when this song was released.

How is my life going? Stay Fly – Three 6 Mafia; OK, sure. I am pretty great haha.

How does the world see me? You Turn The Screws – Cake; Everyone thinks I'm ruthless?

Will I have a happy life? I Wanna Know – Joe; This might be the most accurate one yet.

What do my friends really think of me? Liar – Profyle; Wow, the world and my friends are hard on me in this thing! Maybe I was walking around with lyin' eyes today haha.

Do people secretly lust after me? Take It Easy – Eagles; Haha ... Take it easy, and stop asking dumb questions.

How can I make myself happy? Bizounce – Olivia; Right ... stop taking people's shit.

What song will they play at my funeral to immortalize me? Private Idaho – The B-52's; A little obnoxious for a funeral, but if you all so choose ... They did put on one of my favorite concerts.

I think the bulletin one came up better ... it wasn't my day today for the shuffle.

Office ice problem

Friday, noon: I go into the kitchen at work, and where normally there is a plethora of nicely-sized ice cubes in the machine, there was just enough left to fill my small cup. I saw the cleaning light was blinking, so I figured it would refill itself soon enough.

Friday, 3 p.m.: I go in to get some ice for my afternoon soda, and the machine is empty ... cleaning light still blinking. I was forced to drink my Diet Pepsi from the can. (For most people, this seems to be not a big deal. I also used to think it wasn't a big deal, but as I get older, I AM turning into my mom and my grandma, and I NEED the ice. Especially when I have a nice styrofoam cup waiting.)

Monday, 10 a.m.: I check the machine. Still no ice. My boss, who relies on the ice more heavily than I, expresses his annoyance and tells me that the machine is broken and someone has been called in to fix it. He went and bought himself a glass of ice, I was fortunately going out for lunch and could deal.

Tuesday, 10 a.m.: I ask my boss if the machine is working. (Yes, first thing when I arrived.) He tells me quietly that he decided to press the off button and turn it back on again. When he did this, the cleaning light stopped blinking and it filled with water. Perhaps it wasn't broken after all. We laughed.

Tuesday, 11 a.m.: My boss sadly tells me that the cleaning light is blinking again, and the machine made one, single cube of ice. I decide that I must go out for lunch again even though I had brought something from home to eat. I MIGHT be able to deal with drinking out of a can in the middle of the afternoon, but I will NOT drink from a can at meal time.

Today, 11:55 a.m.: I go to put my pizza in the toaster oven. (I was desperate enough to bring ice with me from home today.) On the door of the ice maker, there is a sign posted that says, "PLEASE FIX!" in large, blue marker. I go to ask my boss if he put that up. He says no, but we are happy we are not the only ones missing the ice.

Today, 12:02 p.m.: I go to get my pizza out of the oven. In seven minutes' time, the sign has changed. Now in green marker, the original request has been marked out, and in the corner it says, "CHILL OUT." I discuss this with my co-workers. We aren't surprised when I realize that the only other person in the kitchen with me the first time was an office undesirable we have named "the butter thief." Of course he would do something like that.

Today, 1:14 p.m.: An e-mail comes in from an office clerk.

Subject: Ice machine!!!

Good day all,

Due to a lengthy wait for cleaning solution to be delivered, the ice machine will be down for another day or so. Please do not leave any notes pertaining to the fixing of the ice machine, the problem is being worked out. If it helps any you can make ice the old fashioned way by filling up a ice tray and placing it the freezer located in the kitchen.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience with this matter.

David B

Anyway, I've had a few conversations in the last couple of days where the person doesn't understand why this ice situation is such a big problem, which is why I felt the need to write this blog to share the e-mail. Others are obviously finding this to be an issue, too. I also got enjoyment from the tone of David's e-mail. Don't judge. You just don't realize how much you love the ice until it is taken away from you.

No lessons learned from Meredith Grey

Addison Montgomery should have learned a thing or two from Meredith about what it's like to have things stolen, but if she did, those lessons didn't transfer over to Kate Walsh ... who I saw in the Express this morning has stolen my haircut! Sorry Kate, I had you by a month. :)

According to this blog last month, not many people are liking it on her. If you believe these people, then lucky for Walsh it's confirmed here that they are just part of a wig.

No hairpieces here ... I have the bangs for real. I still like them (and Kate Walsh's for that matter, though hers are pretty thick), but I'm definitely not looking forward to growing out process when that time comes. If only we all could have stylists changing our look up for us on a whim.

NOTE: After watching tonight's episode of "Grey's Anatomy," it is ALL I can do to not rewrite my headline ... and the whole premise of this blog ... because that horrible wretch does not deserve her name anywhere near my blog. WHAT A DUMB BITCH! But I won't ... I'll leave it true to what it was.

5.17.07 - 10:17 p.m.

Installment 2: The story behind the tattoo

The year was 1999. I had transferred to Ball State and made a trip back to Purdue to catch up with Shel. We might not have seen each other much in college, but we certainly made the most of the times we did.

(NOTE: It's been nearly eight years now. Thanks to Shel for helping fill in some of the fuzzy parts here.)

We set off for Indy that Saturday for a simple shopping trip, as we had done many times before. During the hour-long trip, shopping started to seem boring apparently. Shel says I nonchalantly suggested tattoos, and when she agreed, the look on my face revealed complete surprise. This is probably quite true. I don't remember what made me bring it up, but it did sound more interesting than shopping.

So, in a matter of minutes, our destination switched from Castleton Mall to Skinquake on Keystone Avenue. (I already knew of the place from getting my nose pierced there, and despite the area, the shop was pretty nice.) I do remember thinking we'd change our minds and end up at the mall after being at the shop for about 15 minutes though.

Pause for the bubble sidebar

The day of the trip wasn't planned at all, but the scrubbing bubble idea came up about a year prior. I wanted a tattoo, but only in a location where I would be deciding if people got to see it. I wanted no part of it showing when I was in a business suit or dressed up in a nice strapless dress. That left few places.

Then I needed to come up with something "butt appropriate." Anything cliché and girlie was out. No butterflies. No dolphins. No flowers. No hearts. Etc. I wanted something few people would consider. The scrubbing bubble had started kind of as a joke in the beginning ... that I could get a tattoo of one of those, and it would "keep my ass squeaky clean." It was discussed over jello shots and Jimmy John's in the apartment the Robs once shared, I'm sure. The more it was talked about, the more it seemed that HAD to be it. Who else other than Ang would get such a thing? No one. And that is just how it should be.

And return to the tattoo shop

Shel found a design she liked ... a nice sun, and now it was my turn to decide. She says I "took forever deciding," despite the fact I had the idea already. I say that is completely acceptable considering I was thinking of putting an advertising icon on my butt. Well, I finally decided to do it, and the tattoo artist needed reference from which to draw.

Here begins my most ridiculous Target excursion ever. We walked across the street to the Target that was there at the time (not sure if it still exists) to buy a cleaning product. While we were there, I determine I don't want to buy a bottle of cleaning spray for this purpose (we were "poor college students" and all, but I can't give a good reason as to why I didn't want to shell out $3 for household cleaner that I could, at some time, use at my apartment). Shel suggests we just tear the label off and be on our way, which we did ... being overly careful to shield from other shoppers that we were going to steal a Dow label from Target. Sheesh. Don't judge me, people. :)

Anyway, three to four hours later, my right cheek had a happy little scrubbing bubble on it. Shel had her sun. I let the artist take a picture of the tattoo for the album. And off we went for dinner at Don Pablos ... I wishing that I had worn looser jeans. We never made it to the mall.

Who knows if the shop discards photos from their albums after awhile, but it was once documented for all to see. All of you Indy people, feel free to take a side trip to Keystone Avenue and about 52nd Street and report back to me if it's still there. Maybe there are other bubbles out there now, but I feel it's pretty safe to say that mine was the first of its kind.

"Twitter" away

Intrigued by Justin's "what am I doing ..." box, I wanted one. It sort of seemed like Facebook's "status" feature, which I don't use (because I haven't gotten hooked on that site), but that I'd use if it were on MySpace.

Little did I know it's way more than just a MySpace/blog add-on. Twitter has all kinds of crap going on. Link it to your IM, your cell phone, update it from pretty much anywhere.

Problem is, there's a lot going on, but there isn't a lot of explanation about its purpose on the site. That makes it tricky to convince others to try. Luckily, there are blogs everywhere explaining it. Here's one to get you started.

What's the point? Will I use the thing more than a week? Who knows. But I signed up ... and linked it to my AIM account. Already in less than 24 hours, I've decided to link it to my phone. Just what I need. Another addiction. I fear it has already started. Or maybe not. We'll see.

Check it out. If I keep the thing going, if nothing else, you can for sure bet on getting lots of snippets on my "Elaine" moments. All those little ones that aren't exactly blog-worthy, but still good. This should be the perfect forum. Check for my new "twitters" in the general interests section on my page, or at http://twitter.com/ang_410.