Utils in Bat Country

Oh, Sookie

A couple of months ago, I placed an order on Amazon for a book coming out this month. To make the order $25 and thus get free shipping, I had to add about $2.25. Luckily, Amazon has started including some used things in their $25-ship-for-free deal, so I searched around a little and found the first Sookie Stackhouse book for about that much.

For those who don't know, Sookie Stackhouse is a character in the True Blood series on HBO, which is based on books by Charlaine Harris. There are nine right now, with another coming out in May. One of the ones now is a compilation of short stories which technically take place in between other books.

How do I know all this? Because I am hooked, people. 100% in love with these books. They're written poorly, the story lines are beyond ridiculous, and I effing ADORE them. I'm eating them up with rapidity befitting an angry vampire. Beacause yeah, in case you didn't know, they are vampire books. Cheesy, stupid, violent and lusty vampire novels.

I found all of them on Amazon and ebay, used, for maybe $30 total. A friend at work said she found them for 50 cents each about a year ago, but she was just lucky. And these books are 100% worth the money.

So, right now, while I should be cleaning my house for the imminent arrival of Ms. Steph, I am instead blogging about reading these books. And in about five minutes I will be reading one of them. The dishes have been dirty for so long now that one extra day isn't going to matter, anyway.

Lost and Found

I somehow managed to lose one of the two pairs of jeans that fit me really well.  I had them at Christmas, I know they made it back to MI as I wore them on the plane but since then... vanished.  Not in the laundry, not in the closet, not in a random pile of other clothes on the dining room table, not in the giveaway bag, not not not.

I fretted and moaned and was generally forgetful about the whole thing until I decided that the one pair of remaining fit me well jeans was starting to get rather worn and perhaps I should go about replacing my nowhere to be found pair.  Hop on the Ann Taylor website, notice a promo for 40% off sale items and lo and behold, my jeans were on sale!  Of course, the only sizes they had left were for those smaller than the missing pair but if the fit me so well pair was fine and even a bit loose by the end of the day, surely I can go down one size and embrace the miracle of stretch (and hopefully getting in decent mileage on puppy walks soon).  Got my $88 jeans for $36 but bit the bullet and paid the $10 shipping.  Came home last night, shooed the cat out of the upstairs closet that I never open and oh, look.  Hello, jeans.  Lovely to see you again.  Called today to try and cancel the order but alas, am too late.  I can return them when they arrive but am still out the shipping fee.  Of course, if I hadn't ordered the jeans, I would still be without the original pair as that is the way of the Murphy's Law world.

In other instances of steph and shopping not always equaling my most intelligent moments, I was in F21 w/ C a couple weeks ago and couldn't resist a few pieces.  Was hesitant about one but figured eh, if I decide it's not for me, I'll just return it.  Decided after the purchase of the not as necessary jeans that I'd just return the sweater to offset some of the jeans cost.  Look at the receipt and realize that F21 won't do returns, just store exchange or store credit.  Hmph.  Guess I'm keeping the sweater.

Decided I may as well celebrate my idiocy and save myself a few minutes in the closet this morning and created a rueful little outfit for myself.

Whatever

I was sick for approximately 5493 days. Or about two weeks. Following that, The Guy was on spring break, so we had some time to spend together, rather than squeezing in a few hours after I get off work or out of class. Last Friday, we took a one-night trip to Rehoboth Beach.

It was about 45 degrees outside. And we were at the beach.

We stayed in a kitchy little B&B about two blocks from the ocean. The Guy actually kicked around in the water a little Friday early-evening, coming out with blue feet from the cold. We went to his favorite pizza place for dinner. I was underwhelmed, but had consumed enough beer over the course of the day to not care. We were the only people in the B&B that night (it was 40 degrees and we were at a beach...not exactly prime sunbathing season), and there was an outdoor hot tub, which I promptly jumped into when we got back. 34 degrees outside, and I was happy as a (very warm) clam in the water. Much better than getting blue feet just to walk around in the waves.

Now I'm surfing the web, catching up with some internet things, and updating my reading lists. I need to figure out when my summer classes will be, file my taxes, and do other exciting things like that. But I'll save it for tomorrow. Tonight is the late-night sushi extravaganza I work each week, following the 12-14 hour day I put in on Sundays. So for now, I feel fine about sitting on my duff and reading a book for a couple of hours.

There will be a Util Convergence this weekend, and I am stoked. Except that I now have to clean my house. THAT I am not stoked about.

Speshul

By looking at the volume of whine on my facebook page, I started feeling sick last Thursday.  D had been sick a few days prior so of course, I blame him.

Didn't have any sort of sore throat just cough, head fog, fever, etc.  Even my fever wasn't that high, hovering about 99.5.  Took me a few days to realize that I'm running a fever even w/ twice daily doses of Motrin for the stupid leg so actual unmedicated fever is likely more around the 102/103 range.  Ah ha.

Symptoms moved around as most illness does w/ me: head fog -> cough -> irritated throat because of cough -> congestion.  Also have some sort of mouth cut/irritation that just is not going away and is the most painful part of this whole illness. Was willing to let it run it's course but partly since I'm loathe to let anything that has the potential to irritate my leg go unchecked and partly since my aunts saw my fb updates and called my mom to ask if I was feeling better so she called me to ask if I was going to the doctor, decided to go.  Called, couldn't get it w/ my doctor, was able to see one of the others in the practice.  All fine.  Go to the office, get told my vitals are perfect (yay blood pressure and pulse ox!) but it is a bit concerning that am still running a fever.  Doc comes in, doesn't think it's pneumonia, runs a strep test just to be sure and I get what I expected: it's going around, rest and fluids, just have to wait it out.  I got one of the newfangled strep tests - has a double swab so you get results w/in a minute and they send the second culture out overnight.  Are these new?  Is my primary care holding out on me? Rapid response comes back negative, off I go to the grocery store.  Doc recommended teething gel for some mouth pain relief which was the best money I've spent this week.

Stayed home from work yesterday and spent the majority of the day lying about watching the Cooking Channel.  Was in today and trying to focus and my phone rang w/ a nice Blocked where the number should be (seriously medical professionals, I'm not going to sell your number on ebay, if you don't want to answer patients calls, don't answer, now it's just like a quest to find the number).  Answer and realize it's the actual live doctor, not the your test results are negative news giver.  Hmmm.  She tells me well, when we think of people with strep, we're usually thinking of people with Type A.  Your culture didn't grow that but it did grow strep so we'll probably want to treat that.  Me: so I have...special strep? Wonderful.  Mama always said I was a speshul snowflake.

Got myself a course of amoxicillian, fingers crossed that takes care of everything and there are no leg flare ups/relapses.

Come to me wonder drugs (and they're even in a nice springtime palette).

Siiiiick

Both your intrepid util borgs have been stricken with the sick.

Am waving the white flag and staying under the covers.

We shall return, fever and tissue free!

How Old Am I?

I only have a moment for this, as I'm typing between watching basketball and doing laundry.

But here's the thing. I am watching basketball, something I haven't done much of this season. Lacking a TV and working a night job has derailed my college basketball viewing in a way that's unusual. But money outweighs sports every time. That and lacking the ability to see the Big Ten rather than whatever conference is out here.

NEVER MIND ALL THAT. THE POINT IS. How old am I? I'm watching Michigan v. Tennessee  right now, and I swear that these kids playing are about 12 years old. TWELVE. Of course, they're not, they're 18-22. But DAMN do they look young.

If I had kids when I was 20, they'd be in 7th grade right now. 18? They'd be in high school.

At some point, I reached my early 30s. And today? I'm not dealing with it well.

 

Thank goodness my hair is hot pink, or I would almost think I was a grown up.

I spy

Was walking by the sliding door the other day and amongst the gray slush of the landscape, something caught my eye.  A wayward animal?  I generally don't hear about this species being spotted in the area and it is rather colorful...

Wandering moose!

My evening with Anthropologie

A few weeks ago, I got an emailed invite to my local Anthropologie's spring fashion show.  Oh yes, I have reached that special level of consumership where enough of my income goes to the store to be invited to the fashion shows.  Win!

I wrote back to the questions address, not the RSVP address and asked if I could bring a couple of friends.  Got a very nice reply back saying sure, we have you down for you plus two.  Fellow dog park friends M&K were available so perfect.

The store is over an hour away (on a good day) so given Friday rush hour and the fact we had to be there at 7:30, we wanted to leave b/w 5:30 and 6.  Managed to get on the road in decent time, didn't hit too much traffic and arrived around 6:45 to this sign

Not closed for us!!

Since the doors weren't open, and we didn't feel like waiting in the cold, we headed down the street to Cosi and got an actually quite yummy pre show dinner.  Mmmm brie.

Headed back down around 7:45 and went in.  Because I am both organized (ha) and suspicious and pessimistic, I had printed out the invitation and the entire email string just in case.  Go up to the woman with the clipboard and we're all feeling all sorts of cool and give her my name and she looks and says 'well, you're not on the list.'  And then I panic, because I am a goober, and starting justifying our presence pleasedon'tkickusoutwecanbehereIhavePROOF.  She was all no worries, come right in, I don't need to see the email but it was a little deflating.  I resisted waving my emails around and as we walked in I noticed people with video cameras wandering around.  Somewhere, immortalized for all time, is me being told that I'm not on the list and promptly turning into a babbling fool.  Sigh.

M&K thought the whole thing was hilarious.  We go in and after taking stock of the amount of people in the store decided to eschew both the coat check and the bar and do a quick circuit around the store to pinpoint all the items we wanted to try on.

Once it was time for the show to start, all the seats were filled so we ended up wedging in behind the seats in a little nook of housewares.  Which actually worked out quite well, we had a good view of the runway and were able to pick out exactly which egg timer colors we preferred.

The show itself was nice, ended up adding some things to my wishlist that I hadn't taken stock of before.  There were a couple women with a group of 10-12 yr old girls watching and they were SO into it.  Taking notes, taking pictures.  There was a raffle after the show and one of the girls won a pair of sunglasses which I thought was rather nice.

The crowd was a whole mix of people.  I generally don't see much Anthro out in the wild, aside from various TV shows, so I was taking mental stock the whole time 'oh, I have that too', 'hmm shouldn't have passed that one over', 'so that's what it looks like on an actual person'.  Audience ran from a couple of other bloggers/journalist type people around documenting the show and taking notes to others looking beyond bored flicking through their Louis Vuitton Neverfull's in between golf clapping for each look.  M, K and I may have passed some time snarking about them.

The show ended and I ended up winning one of the raffles (more gift cards to Cosi!) which we all nearly collapsed in giggles over.  In true goober fashion, when they announced my ticket number, I was still barricaded in so couldn't actually go up to get my envelope.  Rather than squeeze through and hold up the whole store, I resorted to yelling over the crowd that I'd come find it later.  Smooth, Steph.

They released us and it was like hounds on a hunt.  People beelined for the racks and the fitting rooms.  Kudos to the staff, they handled the whole thing with customary Anthro service; taking the items back to the fitting rooms, keeping track of everything in the frenzy and I never saw anyone act harried or get snippy.

Got back to the fitting rooms, tried everything on and started filtering out what we were going to buy.  I was w/in $100 of what I said I'd stay under.  Given that I'm considering that a win, no wonder I get invited to the shows ;)

The store was beginning to clear out so the staff was bringing the food back to the dressing room area and since it was after work, I passed on the sweets.  So proud of myself.  Yay me and my Lenten steadfastness.  Except that for lunch that afternoon I completely forgot it was a Friday and had a turkey sandwich.  Was even talking to a colleague about what we had given up for Lent while I was eating it and it still didn't click in my head.

Wandered around a bit more, got some outfit ideas

(though I'll save the apron for the first pie of the year)

All in all, a fun night, peppered with the ridiculous that follows me throughout life.

Thanks Anthropologie!

Of Mice and Yellowtail

1) The veggie thing got derailed last night, due to some yellowtail tuna. It was late at work, and I thought I ordered the vegetarian version of a roll I love. The sushi chef made the fish version, and since I was whipped (I love working doubles, but they kick my ass) the protein in the fish sounded GREAT. So I ate it. I'm back on the wagon today, though. But I could easily see myself going pescatarian instead of vegetarian.

2) Mickey's little brother decided to make an appearance over the weekend. Not to be deterred from him pacifist ways, The Guy set the live-trap for Little Mickey Friday night. And actually caught the little bastard right away. We took him to live near his touring relative Saturday afternoon. Now I watch the dogs to see if there are any more of Mickey's relatives hanging about. But I sure hope not.

3) Just to toot my own horn a little, the restaurant got a complimentary email about me last night/this morning, that one of the managers was thoughtful enough to forward to me. And I must say, it's really kind of awesome to get something like that. It's so rare that people take the time to say the nice things about places they visit, that to be told you're good at what you're doing...well, it makes busting your ass for 13 hours on a Sunday seem a little more worthwhile. Yeah, I get paid, but it's nice to know I'm doing it 'right'.

No Time for Goodbye

Yesterday, I recieved the following email regarding my tap-dancing mouse friend.

He felt his act was unappreciated on [redacted] St. and chose to take it on the road.  His college campus tour begins with an engagement (a gig as it is called in the business) at the [redacted].  He was looking good, looking strong (despite the hurt feelings, he is grateful that you feed him so well). I gave him a piece of my sandwich just in case, but he had filled up on peanut butter during the ride.  So, the humble little mouse with talent and charisma from the Eastside is going to his Westside debut.

 

I actually feel a little bad about the place I found to release him.  I was looking for a place that had food but not too much food.  If there's too much food available, there will be eradication programs. [Redacted....]  Unfortunately, after I released him, I saw there was a glue trap nearby.  I think he's smart enough to avoid getting caught.  I hope so.  I went by to check on him later, and the glue trap was still empty, and it was empty this morning too, so, hopefully he's finding his way around his new digs. He should have plenty of food and maybe he will make some Westside friends.  He certainly looked big and healthy when I released him.  He had grown in the time you were raising him. Perhaps we should have tagged him.  If he shows up at your house again, that would be amazing.  You may find some other mice come to your house from your neighbor's, but I think we would definitely recognize your grateful, musical friend.

So, The Guy caught the mouse, took him somewhere else and freed him. Hopefully that's the end of the story, and the stupid mouse doesn't figure out how to hop planes, trains, and automobiles to find his way back to my humble abode. If so, I'm catching him, buying a cage, and naming him George.