Should the cake or the mate come first?

My aunt is getting married for the first time this summer. My aunt and I have had our falling outs in the past (she is a very politically and socially conservative Christian) and I am a relatively liberal non-religious person whose spiritual beliefs lean more towards metaphysical studies than any sort of organized religion or "god" centered beliefs. However I also belive that to a point your family is very important and that even if your political, social and pretty much every other options don't match there are still events that you should attend for your family. Weddings are one of those.

My aunt also asked my to bake her wedding cake. We have a family recipe for a cake called a Chocolate Ice Box cake that has been passed down a few generations and I am the only one who really knows how to make it. Everyone else has the recipe but it is somewhat difficult to make and I am the only one who (a) has the desire to busy herself baking during the majority of the wedding events and (b) knows how to make the cake and actually make it taste and look good. I was bored today and instead of enjoying the warm weather I am sitting inside looking at wedding cake building tips. This was at the end of one recipe that I came across on the Food Network website for a wedding cake...

To Assemble: Without removing the cardboard rounds from underneath the cakes, place the 14 inch cake onto serving platter. Cut dowel rods into 5 sections the height of the 14 inch cake, and 5 sections the height of the 10 inch cake. Carefully insert 4 dowel rods around the middle perimeter of the 14-inch cake and 1 in the middle. Stack the 10-inch cake atop the 14-inch cake. Repeat dowel insertion process for the10-inch cake. Stack the 6-inch cake atop the 10-inch cake. Cover up cardboard by piping icing around perimeter base of each cake. Dust mini green grapes liberally with powdered sugar and adorn cakes with them. Further adorn cake with white ribbon. Find mate, wed, serve.

Does it strike you as odd that (a) the wedding cake recipe dictates that you "find a mate, wed, and serve"...since when did the Food Network start giving life advice and what if i have the desire to just bake the cake and eat it, does that mean the recipe isn't going to come out tasting right and (b) that it came at the end of the recipe? In my opinion finding a mate should probably come before baking the cake. It's understandable to have your wedding cake picked out before you meet the man of your dreams but I would imagine that the butter cream frosting isn't going to hold up for the duration of the relationship.

Public Service Announcement

Just a little public service announcement I came across earlier...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ&mode=related&search=

Possibly the best Budweiser commercial...

My vote for the best Budweiser commercial goes to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiTarkl31Gw

(BTW you can tell it's in the middle of a sports season because they have beer commercials on at 10am)...

Are we faced with too many decisions?

Lately I've been thinking about decisions. In this day and age women of a certain age have what seems like endless choices, which means endless decisions. While antiquated practices like arranged marriages and raising families is long gone for most people, are we any better off now than we were then? Are we better off now that we have the choice to vote in political elections, choose where we want to live, with whom and even what color our hair is. We can even vote for who our next pop idol is going to be. We can choose what to go to school for, or even if we want to go to school. What car to drive, what coffee flavor to drink, what color to paint our walls. Everything in our lives, every choice that we are confronted with we are forced to make a decision. I just finished watching Grey's Anatomy and the last line of the show was 'the people who are miserable are those who haven't made a decision." I have struggled for the past year with what I want to do with my life. My career. I spend countless hours pondering if I should give it all up and follow my unrealistic dreams and risk having a life full of good food and passion or should I stay on the path I am now and risk turning into a powerful businesswomen. How do you choose what you want, what is going to be the best in the long run when you can see the benefits and the downfalls of each choice?

Another Life...

Have you ever had a moment where you get a glance into a life that will never be? I read this book a while back called "Einsteins Dreams", the just of the book is it all these small stories of events happening at the same 'time' in parallel realities. It really is a great book and a quick read. Anyways, ever since I read the book I find these moments where I swear those parallel realities are coming together for just a moment. I am fully aware this seems completely out there but I had one of these moments today.

Through work I know this guy. He is originally from England and has this sexy accent. For the first few months that I had knew him we talk all of the time; he would call to ask something work related and 45 minutes later we would get off the phone, I would drop something off at his office and I would stay there for a half hour chatting in the parking lot. Things always went so smoothly with him. Then one night I was bored and was searching Myspace and found his profile. His profile that said he was married and had a picture of him and his beautiful wife on their wedding day. Hmmm, so much for soul mates. Shortly thereafter he left the job he was at and I didn't hear from him for months.

He called my office today and we chatted for an hour. We caught up on our lives like we we were lost lovers reuniting after years and life had torn us apart. Ok, that was a little dramatic but it was an odd sensation to be talking to someone that you know is utterly unavailable but at the same time you feel like you are talking to someone I was spending my life with, like I was chatting with my husband about what was for dinner or what our weekend plans would be. Only he is still married to his beautiful wife. For a moment, a brief passing in time, there was a glimpse into a life with him. A happily married life with the cute geologist from England. There's no sadness that this is the life that I am living and that that is a life I will never have, just more that it is a life that I could of had given some different decisions.

Nope, still here. Shannon is my Internet chatting buddy but she is long asleep so I am going to chat to myself for a while until I can come down off my raging about work high.

Do you know I've dove with sharks and wrestled crocodiles? Ok, they were small sharks and I didn't technically 'wrestle' the crocodiles, but I did't tie their mouths shut and take blood samples...

I've been to 10 countries (some of them multiple times) and have swam in the ocean naked with bioluminescent plankton all around me...

I've watched baby sea turtles hatching, swam with dolphins in the wild and stood staring at Stonehenge.

I'm kind of a cool chick. Mind you I still don't know how to ride a bike but that is coming; everyone has to have some challeges lying in their future.

How the hell am I supposed to go to sleep now? I am all wound up and pissed and it is 12:30 am and I have to be up in 5 1/2 hours...can I quit my job and move to Mexico?

Maybe I will go back to school to become a chef, so I can open my open my own deli/bakery...I'd still have stress in my life but at least I would get to eat good food all day...

When is being a bitch necessary?

So you will probably realize if you look at the times between my last post and this one that a good hour has past. I actually turned off my computer, brushed my teeth and got into bed. I was in bed for a good 20 minutes thinking about a few random bedtime thoughts when all of the sudden it popped into my head "They went to lunch to talk about me." Now I realize that that sentence makes sense to none of you.

A little background: last Friday my boss and 3 other people were off for the day. I work in an office with 10 people. At about 10 am one of the people that I supervise and someone in a position that is higher than me (we will refer to him as the superior...this title is laced with sarcasm by the way), although in no way do I report to him, came to me and said that "they were leaving me alone at lunch and going to lunch". I thought nothing of it at the time because this superior is relatively new and had been taking everyone to lunch on a one to one basis to get to know them and their jobs, to be able to do his job. At 11:15, the time they had designated they were going to lunch, everyone else at work that day starting gathering their purses and walking out to their cars. A little confused, I asked the superior and he said "Were all going to lunch, I told you we were leaving you alone." At that point, as kind of an after thought they offered to bring me something back. I declined, deciding I was fully going to take advantage of my lunch break when they returned. First off, I was already pissed about some events the afternoon before concerning this superior person and he was well aware of it. Second, I was NOT OK with being left completely along. I work in an environment where it can go from deadly silent to a Hiroshima type chaos in a matter of minutes. They went to lunch anyways...there was nothing I could do at that point. For the remainder of the day, I was royally pissed at everyone, but especially the superior. Monday came around and things didn't get any better. Tuesday came around and something else happened to royally piss my off. By the end of the day Tuesday I was about to become a headline "Worker goes bezerk and shoots 8 people (I was ok with 2 of the people in my office, I would have sparred them)".

Fast forward to this morning: My boss and this superior were well aware that I was raging for a variety of reasons so we decided to meet to try and solve some of the issues that had caused some of the events in the past few days. After about 45 minutes of discussion about this topic and that, I was feeling slightly better. Then all of the sudden (with no warning the conversation was headed this way) the superior says "Sometimes I know that you don't mean it this way but when you email people it comes off as a little cross or short and it can hurt people feelings." Ok...WTF, where did that come from and actually Mr. Superior most of the time when I send emails where it comes off as me being cross or short, ITS BECAUSE I MEAN IT THAT WAY. AND FOR HURTING PEOPLES FEELINGS, IF THEY WERE GETTING THEIR FUCKING JOBS DONE ANYWAYS AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO ANSWER THE PHONE TO RAGING PISSED OFF CLIENTS, I WOULDN'T BE CROSS OR SHORT WITH PEOPLE. Ok, I didn't say that but seriously...I actually do mean to be a bitch sometimes. It seems like when I am a bitch is the only time I get any type of effective response. So after he said that, I politely responded with "I will keep that in mind in the future and be more careful about how I approach those type of situations." Good little employee I am.

Fast forward to me lying in bed, lights off, alarm set, ready to fall asleep. It dawns on me. When everyone left me in the office on Friday, leaving me feeling even more isolated than I already do from most of the people in my office, they were talking about me. They were talking about how I am a bitch. They left me alone to deal with the chaos that occurs daily in my office to talk shit about me at Applebee's. This upset me so much that I got out of bed and needed to vent which is why this novel of a blog is still going on.

It does bother me that the people in my office think I am a bitch. I don't want to be known as a bitch because I really am not one (most of the time). However, when I am Miss Nice Gal Boss, shit gets screwed up or doesn't get done and I get screwed out of my lunch break and end up working 12 hour days when you all leave at 4:55 and take your hour long lunch and your 2-15 minute breaks. I am fully of the philosophy that sometimes you just have to be a bitch to get shit done. But this brings me back to the question of when is being a bitch necessary and did I really cross that line by sending a few emails or making a few comments telling people that I wasn't happy with how they were doing their jobs (because obviously by the upset customer, it wasn't getting done properly)? Or is it that we have created this office culture where being demanding and asking people to actually step up the plate and do the best they can do, or just do what they are getting paid to do, is too much? Are we just all supposed to be nice guys to our employees and put up with their incompetence just so as not to 'hurt their feelings'? I've touched on this before when I had to fire someone but it's harder when the cases are not cut that clearly. When people are inconsistent with their performance, how do you deal with that? How do you make someone realize that everyday that they come to work, that they expect to get paid, that they have to show the same level, or increasingly better levels or performance? How do you make someone who is great on some days be great every day? Is being a demanding bitch, or getting upset that because they can't do their job and you get stuck working until 8pm, is that crossing the line? When is being a bitch necessary and when is it crossing the line?

How do you know he's The One?

A few years ago I traveled to Australia on my own (don't get me started on how depressing it is that I have to now say 'a few years ago' when referring to my trip). I had just graduated college and had no idea what I was going to do next. So instead I took off to a foreign country in hopes of avoiding having to make a decision. I pretty much wandered around the country for a little over a month. Truthfully I probably would have stayed there if I hadn't just bought a condo. For those of you who know me know that I am not the most out going person; mind you, I have my moments but I dance of the verge of shyness most of the time. When I was traveling around Australia I was this person, this person who was free to let the wind blow her wherever it wanted. I slept in different towns, I tried different foods, I met different people. The best part about the people I met was that I knew I would probably never talk to any of them again. The freedom you feel knowing you will never see someone again is amazing. This goes for both men and women; the conversations were fun and free, deep and profound at the same time. There were a few guys that are worth mentioning... There was the Canadian drinker, he was older but sexy and he bought me drinks. He probably only bought me drinks because I was the only one who would stay up drinking and laughing with him until 4 am but either way, he bought the drinks and we had great conversations. I met the Danish student. For as much as we talked, I really don't remember a single thing about him. I met the funky guy American guy from Southern Cali who was wondering around the world until he found the place he wanted to live. I also met the Canadian engineer. He was 28, he was a scruffy handsome ourdoorsy type and he was the kind of guy who turned down the offer from him company to pay for his vacation in a 4 star hotel to stay in hostels because he knew he would rather be surrounded by people his own age than with stuffy 45 year old guys. He was funny, he was smart and he secretly loved Prince (as do I). He love to dance, he was a good dresser and loved to travel. What else could you ask for? I sat there thinking to myself, I wonder if I should go talk to the guy at the bar? I was completely, utterly disinterested in this guy. On paper, I would have been head over heels in love with this scruffy Canadian engineer. But I could have cared less about him. What is that special little thing that makes you cross the line between thinking 'he's a nice guy' and thinking 'he's a NICE guy'? What makes the difference to your heart when you are presented with 2 guys that look the same on paper? What is it that makes him The One?

Dirty little secrets.

Does everybody have dirty little secrets? The kind of secrets that bring a smile to your face when something reminds you about it. The kind of secret that maybe no-one knows about, or maybe just your best friend. Whether it's a secret affair, a secret trip, a secret habit; it's something that you truly enjoy, without worrying about others judging you or commenting on. I have one (that no-one knows about). I keep a reminder of it in my kitchen. In plain site but to anyone who saw it, they would probably never even realize what it represents, what it reminds me of. It reminds me of a time, an event, a person that makes me smile. It reminds me that for a time, no matter who short lived it was, I was a sexy, single, attractive and most importantly POWERFUL woman. That I was the kind of woman who commanded respect and passion and adventure in her life. It reminds me of the woman that I strive to be more often in my life. That's why the reminder is still in plain site, as a reminder that that woman lives inside me and that all it takes is a little bit of bravery to bring her out to play.

Pro's and Con's of Living by yourself...

Pro: You can grocery shopping as often as you want, and try new things whenever they look good.
Con: Food always goes bad before you can eat it all. I opened my sour cream last night and it was like a chunk of cheese (and sour cream has like a 3 month expiration date).

Pro: You can cook something inappropriate (say like cupcakes because you watched a show that has them eating cupcakes and you can't get the idea of a cupcake out of your mind) whenever you want,
Con: When you do make something, say cupcakes, you have to make the entire box of them (i.e. 18 ... it should have been 24 but apparently I make large cupcakes so I only came out with 18). I now have eaten 2 cupcakes and don't want anymore. I have 16 cupcakes that I don't know what to do with.
Pro: If say...I wanted to eat all 18 cupcakes, no-one needs to know that I even made them and I can enjoy my cupcakes in peace.

Pro: There is no-one to see your dirty dishes pile up so really you can pretend like they don't exist.
Con: You are the only one to blame for the sink being full of dirty dishes and the only one left to do them at the end of the night.

Pro: You can spend all the time you want talking to yourself, your pet, your plants...and no-one thinks you are a mental case.
Con: You spend way to much time talking to yourself, your pet, your plants....because possible living alone has turned you into a mental case...

Pro: If, after working a 10 hour day, I feel like it, I can come home and drink a bottle of wine and completely ignore the pile of laundry spilling into my hallway.
Con: Besides self-motivation (slim to none on this subject) your house (well at least my house) is in a general state of disarray 90% of the time because there is no-one to nag on you about or to impress with your cleanliness.

Pro: You can watch whatever you want on t.v./movies, even cartoons or dirty movies, whenever you want.
Con: You have no-one to watch the dirty movies with.

Pro: You can cook whatever you want.
Con: There is no-one to brag too when your chocolate souffles turn out perfectly the first time or to applaud you for making an awesome dinner.
Pro: There is no-one to see you royally screw up a lemon tart and throw the entire thing away.

Pro: You can arrange your house how you want it...and re-arrange it whenever your heart desires.
Con: You have no-one to help move the couch at 2am when you decide it would look way better on the other side of the living room.
Con: And no-one to move it back at 2:30 when you decide that you were TOTALLY wrong about it looking better on the other side of the living room.

Pro: You can walk around in your underwear.
Con: You have no-one to appreciate you walking around in your underwear.

Where my mind goes on vacation...

The edge of the world is a great place to be....

If you look closely, you can see even the dolphins gather here...

It's official...

...I am a little bit of a stalker. Not the scary 'going to kill you' type of stalker, just the "I'm too chicken to ask you out so I hang out in a place that I know you go to on a regular basis in an attempt to 'accidentally' run into you" type of stalker (I do actually have a reason to be there but I probably go there more than I need to). Just thought I would let you know so if it starts getting out of hand someone can smack me in the face and tell me just to step up to the plate or go sit in the stands.

And don't say that you've never done it because all of my girlfriends have (with me driving the get away car...oh wait, I wasn't allowed to drive the get away car because I would stop in front of the guys houses and honk, I was confined to the back seat where I screamed really loud when we drove by...mind you I was normally three sheets to the wind by that time of night.)

French Kissing Life...

I used to lay around and daydream. I would do it for hours at a time. Admittedly I was in high school and college and most of my life consisted of avoiding doing any type of chores and/or homework. Thus I would lay on my bed, lay on the beach, or sit in a hot bath and just daydream. I would imagine meeting Mr. Right, I would imagine my travels around the world, I would imagine looking like I always dreamed I looked like and (a) running into my secret crush who was now madly in love with me or (b) running in the mean girls in school and having them realize they wish they were me. I would imagine simple things like watching sunsets, or having great conversations, or great kisses. I would imagine a life I knew I would never have, nor do I really think I would have, like falling in love with a sexy country singer (see below) or coming a bohemian nomad, traveling the world with nowhere to call home. Anything that would let me escape my current reality, whether good or bad. Day dreaming was my hobby. I found so much joy and relaxation in daydreaming. It is an amazing feeling to just tune your mind out, tune it to a different channel than the one you are currently watching past you by, day by day. Tune into a different version of you life, whatever you want it to be. The travel channel, the adventure channel, the romance channel, the comedy channel. I even had day dreams about getting in fights with friends, or family or fictional lovers. All of these let me experiment with version of me.

Most of the time, when I day dream I listen to music. Possibly my favorite all time CD to day dream to is Kenny Chesney's "Be As You Are" for two reasons (1) Kenny Chesney is definitely my celebrity crush and starred in many of my day dreams, but mostly because (2) the entire CD is filled with songs about doing just what the title says, to 'be as you are", to enjoy the simple things in life, whether it's a pina colada, a piece of key lime pie or giving it all up and moving to the islands. I lost this CD a while back and have missed it dearly. I finally succumbed to my Kenny Chesney obsession and bought this CD again today. I put it in the stereo and I was immediately transported to a feeling of calm and relaxation. This evening I spent most of my night listening to "Be As You Are" and day dreaming. I spent the whole night just thinking of Mr. Right, Mr. Kenny Chesney (It's been a while so I had to include him, I didn't want him to feel left out of my daydreams), my life as a traveling bohemian, my life filled with passion and adventure. Great kisses and great conversation.

How is it that just thinking about things, things you know you'll never have, things you know you don't even really want; how is it that it can make you so relaxed, so happy about the life you are living? How is it that this mental journey can be more rejuvenating that an actual vacation can be?

Maybe I should consider putting my laundry away more often?

I live by myself. For those of you who have lived by yourself, you know how you only really clean up if others are coming over (ok, maybe that's just me...).? Either way, one of my problems is that I hate folding laundry and since I don't make enough money yet to pay someone else to do it for me, I tend to leave me clean clothes in laundry baskets until (a) I have worn all of them and the basket is empty or (b) I have so many dirty clothes that I am forced to put the clothes away because I need the basket to carry my dirty laundry downstairs to the laundry room.

The major problem with not putting my clothes away is that I can't find things that I want. I know that what I am looking for is somewhere, in one of the baskets, but that is about as specific as it gets. This escalates when I am running late (this happens often) and I start throwing my clothes OUT of the baskets and onto my bed or my floor looking for the article of clothing.

A perfect example was this evening. I was meeting friends to celebrate their birthdays with a dinner. I worked until about 5:45 and was supposed to meet them at 6:15. Theoretically that should have been enough time to get home, change and get to the restaurant. That is until I started realizing I was running late and couldn't find the little black jacket that I wanted to wear. Because...guess what, it was in one of the baskets of clean clothes. Fast forward 15 minutes and I was sitting on my floor, surrounded by mounds of clean clothes but no black jacket. I finally get up, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I walk into my living room and lo and be hold, my jacket was crunched up on the floor underneath a dining room chair. How it got there is beyond me, I can't remember the last time I wore it, however I do know I cleaned my house this past weekend at it was not there, nor have I worn it since last weekend. So I put the jacket on, decide it looks weird with my outfit and leave it at home anyways. Luckily there was a long wait at the restaurant and I got there right after my friends got seated. Running late has it's benefits.

I had to learn sometime or another...

I am finally the owner of a bike. A used bike, but a bike none the less.

Most of you I realize are probably saying to yourself "So, what's so exciting about owning a used bike?"

What is so exciting is that I, as a 24 year old adult who has a college degree, a pretty good job and owns her own condo, does not know how to ride a bike. Up until recently I never really wanted to know how to ride a bike but I am excited about having a bike now. I actually wish I had it with me right now because I had a few too many Cosmo's at dinner and would be outside, in my pj's, falling on my ass all over my parking lot trying to teach myself how to ride it. But instead I will write a blog about being just drunk enough to go outside and try to teach myself to ride my "new" bike because it is sitting in my office at work. Which by the way makes me look all cool and l like I ride my bike to work when the hotties come into my work (I like to pretend that the hotties that come into my work are not married but they all are...see...in my fantasy world I can ride a bike and the hotties are single).

Now the story behind why I have a used bike sitting in my office at work. My boss, also a successful young women who owns her own business and the building that the business is located, did not know how to ride a bike until she got engaged and her fiance insisted on it. This was our bonding moment when we realized that somewhere along the path through childhood, we both missed the whole "learning to ride a bike" experience. Back on subject...Someone had given her this bike but she it is too big for her so she offered it to me like 9 months ago. Because neither her or I have the initiative to get the bike from her house to mine, the bike was sitting in her garage until her now husband got involved. When I got back to work today after being out of the office all day, the bike was in my office (from my boss) with a pretty purple bow on it (her fiance's touch, he is very thoughtful like that).

So now my only dilemma is how to get the bike from my office to my condo because I don't think I can fit it inside my tiny tiny little Honda Civic...

Addendum to "Penguins and Itchy Boobs..."

Did I mention that thoughts like that are probably the reason I am single? What guy could handle sitting next to me while I am imagining skiing penguins on a stage floor? ...although most guys probably would have enjoyed the whole "feeling myself up so I could scratch my boob" episode.

Penguins and Itchy Boobs...

Tonight I attended a performance of the Whirling Dervishes. It was one of those spur of the moment ideas to attend. I had no idea what they were when I walked into the Pioneer Center but to inform my readers (the whole 3 1/2 of them) the Whirling Dervishes are an expression and interpretation of Islam. It focuses on love, tolerance, worship of God, community development, and personal development through self-discipline and responsibility. It really was an incredible performance; beautiful and truly odd at the same time. I still am not sure what to think about it. I didn't attend for the religious aspects of it, I attended because it is an interesting cultural tradition from Turkey, an area I truly know very little about. On top of the fact that I had nothing better to do tonight.

During the last half of the show the guys literally whirl around the stage. To assist their whirling, they place white powder on the floor in piles where the dervishes end up. However they move around in certain patterns, thus spreading the white powder in the pattern that they move. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the performance but after sitting in the unimaginably comfortable chairs (can you sense my sarcasm in my writing?) of the Pioneer Center for nearly 2 hours my mind started wondering. By the end of the show all I could think about what how the pattern the white powder had formed on the floor looked like a short, squat penguin wearing a scarf and how my boobed itched. My boob itched so much I couldn't handle it, my only distraction was the large penguin skiing across the stage.

I am a horrible friend.

April is a busy month in my life in terms of birthdays. I have 4 friends with birthdays within a 7 day period. Now I am pretty on top of it when it comes to birthdays and today happened to be one of my friends birthdays. I remembered all day yesterday and all day today I remembered it was her birthday but didn't want to call her early in the day to wish her a happy b-day because she works nights and sleeps late.

Fast forward to 7:15pm. I am getting out of my mom's car at the Pioneer Center to go see a show and this friend calls me. I am assume she is calling me about our plans for tomorrow night and just start talking about that. Finally she goes "Isn't there something that you want to say?"

I paused. I paused because for a split second I was completely, utterly clueless about what she was talking about. NO IDEA AT ALL. All the sudden it dawned on me. "Happy Birthday" I almost screamed. She totally knew that I had forgotten. The worst part is I probably only forgot for like 30 minutes that it was her birthday and she just happened to call me during that period.

So yeah, I am a horrible friend and now I don't know what to do because even though I've bough her a present and am taking her to dinner tomorrow night, I am going to get marked as the jackass who didn't even call her friend on her birthday.

The weather in Reno.

I have never understood the people who complain about the weather. It is one of the few things in your life that you NO control over, besides moving to another location. I relish in the changes of weather. The split personality of the weather in Reno is one of the reasons that I have come to love this town. People always joke that if you don't like the weather here, wait 5 minutes at it will change. This has never been more true than over the past few days. It was sunny, clear, calm and skating on the verge of 80 a few days ago; it is now snowing a mere 15 minute drive from town and was raining a few minutes ago, with a low tonight of 30 degrees F. On top of the bizarre makings of the weather here, we actually have seasons. And not seasons like they do in southern California where winter is like 70 degrees and summer is like 90 degrees. We have the changing of the leaves in the fall, wildflower blooms in the spring, hot and dry summers and winters that can dump 20 feet of snow in the mountains. I love the constant reminder that life has stages, that there is always a start and an end to those stages.

Ratty old shoes.

Something you should all know about me is that I love shoes. I probably own enough shoes to provide foot ware for a small country, that is if they were all ok with walking around in flip flops and stylish (aka uncomfortable) high heels and my 1 pair of ratty old tennis shoes. Here's my thing...I buy shoes on a regular basis. The reason I think it is ok to own this many pairs of shoes is because no matter what I weight (within reason of course) my shoes will always fit. That pair of jeans on the other hand may not. Even though I buy shoes on a regular basis, I have owned the same pair of ratty old tennis shoes for 5+ years. Yup, I walk my dog every morning in the same pair of tennis shoes that I bought when my grandma still took my school shopping. I have since then bought a 'smart' pair of tennis-type shoes for walking around cities when I travel, etc. but they are not actual work out shoes. Want to know the reason why I haven't bought a new pair of sneakers? What stopped me from buying new sneakers all these years is that I HATE THE LOOK OF NEW TENNIS SHOES. They are so bright and shiny, like glaring headlights on my feet. It drives me crazy to look down and see my shoes glaring back at me. Every time I try on a new pair I always go and look in the mirror and then I look down at my feet, and it's over, the shoe's are back in the box and I am out the door. Trust me I realize that this is a totally bizarre quality, but come on, you can buy broken in jeans, why not "broken in sneakers". I don't want some smelly feet smell infused in them but a little dirt on the front, some grass stains, maybe a drop of paint on the front. Just something to make them not so glaringly bright!

I finally was forced to buy a new pair of sneakers today (I can actually stick my little toe out the side of my old ones now). I bought them despite the fact that they were glaring back up at me while I walked around the shoe store. I think I only bought them because I feel like I am walking on marshmallows. Sure enough though when I put them on to take my dog for a walk, I stood there looking in the mirror with my shoes looking back at me. AHGGGG, I just had to walk away from the mirror otherwise I probably would have returned the shoes. Instead I went to the park and walked my dog. I think I am ok with my sneakers now...only because I might have rubbed a little dirt and grass onto them so they are not glaring back at me. I almost feel comfortable wearing them but I think I need a good muddy rainstorm to break them in nicely.

Possibly the best reason to love Easter.

Instead of sleeping I am flying on a sugar high and watching late night tv. I never watch late night tv, I am normally either sleeping or doing something more pleasureable at this time of night, however here I am watching late night tv and writing blogs. Disclaimer: I may read this entry in the morning and realize that what I am about to say is not really as funny as I seem to think it is tonight (either because I am delirious or am on a major sugar high) but here I go....

Possibly the best reason to love Easter is that it is the only time of the year that white people can say "peeps" and not look like idiots.

Yeah, I know, but you read the disclaimer so I gave you fair warning that it may not be as funny as I think it is right now.

The idiocy of the human race.

On Friday I was running errands for my mom (this is what happens when I take a day off, mind you I had an enjoyable first half of the day hanging out with a friend and even was slightly entertained when she proceeded to toss her newly pregnant cookies all of the bathroom floor of a foo-foo thai restaurant while we were at lunch). Back to the subject of the idiocy of the human race. One of my errands was to get some copying done for my madre at one of the fine office supply stores in the Reno area. I dropped the items off and went and ran some more errands (I know you could care less about the mundane details but blog readers don't have much choice now do they?). I returned to pick up the items and (1) the originals were missing and (2) I was charged wrong.

My first challenge was to obtain the missing originals. This is how the following event went:

Me: The originals aren't in here, I would like them back.
Office supply store guy (OSSG): Why do you need your originals back?
Me: Because I want them back.
OSSG: Ok, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm (it really lasted for like 30 seconds but I will spare you)...I don't know where they are. (with a look on his face like he didn't know that maybe the next thing he should do is LOOK FOR THEM).
Me: Maybe they got left in the copy machine???
OSSG: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...(as he stands there staring at me like I AM THE IDIOT)....
Me: I really would like them back in case we have to make more copies. It looks just like these copies here (pointing the the copies of them) on WHITE CARD STOCK.
OSSG: (begins to walk around the 10 x 10 foot copy area shuffling every piece of paper around, picking each one up and asking me if it is it...first came a blue copy of something, then a pink copy of something, then a few random white copies of things. Mind you after each one he is asking me if this is it even though I specified it was on WHITE CARD STOCK).
Me: MAYBE IT IS IN THE COPIER STILL???
OSSG: Hmmmmmmmmmm....(as he continues to pick up the same pieces of paper he already showed me and I denied...finally he picked up a white piece of paper and asked me if this was the original. Want to know what was on the piece of paper??? Come on I know you do...NOTHING...absolutely nothing, on either side. He picked up a blank piece of paper and asked me if that was my original copy.
Me: Nope, that's not it (I held myself back from saying "Unless you have a magic copier that can make copies of actually documents from a blank piece of paper, that's not mine".
Me: I finally just stand there and hope that my passive resistance is enough to make him realize how positively stupid he is being...

Finally he walks over to the copier (does this sound familiar, like maybe it was suggested early on in the preceding events) and lo and behold, there is my original!

I won't bother going into my 10 minute discussion of trying to explain to a different OSSG why I was charged incorrectly (obviously beyond their mental capacity even though I am pretty sure my dog would have understood why the charges were wrong...then again she is a very smart dog!). Needless to say I paid $15.00 extra for my copies because I couldn't handle dealing with what is obviously the "Center for the Study of the Idiocy of the Human Race"...maybe they have cameras all over the store and geeky little scientists are sitting behind the walls studying how the true mental defects of the human race respond to normal stimuli?