Beware the Hulk

I am in a horribly, nasty mood, probably because this is the slowest day ever.  I am trying to remedy this with Original Goldfish, Diet Shitty Cola and a piece of milk chocolate that someone gave me the other day.  I thought I would reserve it for emergencies because I'd much rather eat dark chocolate, but surely this qualifies as an emergency.  Maybe this is because I was jumping through hoops last night for this application and I am out of practice since I graduated.  Maybe this is because a certain someone has horrible sinus problems and snorts them in ALL FRIGGING DAY instead of blowing them out.  This person tries to defend it by saying it's bad allergies, but no, person.  It's called Kleenex.  Maybe I will bring them a present.

So today is Cook Something Bold and Pungent Day, so I bought a cactus pear.  I was at Winco and I was like, "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" so I bought it and how handy that this holiday coincides?  Actually, I only knew it was Cook Something Bold Day, I didn't know it was and Pungent until just now.  I have no idea how it smells, all I know is that I have frigging splinters in my fingers and one is really irritating my thumb.  "Big Dummy," you might be snickering, but I didn't SEE any spikes when I picked it out.  It didn't look like it had any.  I just printed out instructions on how to prepare them and look:

 

Be warned though, while the ones in markets have been cleaned of the tiny hair-like thorns, the ones fresh off the cactus are covered with them, so be sure to handle them with heavy leather work gloves and scrub them hard to ensure all the painful little barbs are off. Either way, handle them carefully or with gloves just in case.

 

2 Make one long vertical slice down the body of the prickly pear.


Oh, fabulous. That's nice.  So, how was I supposed to pick one out at the store?  I must have missed the large leather gloves sitting next to the bin.  Remember talking to me on the phone, Tracy?  Remember how I was like, "Ow, how did I get a splinter?"  Because you just picked up a cactus pear, you big dummy.

Now I should go look up recipes for what to do with this damn pear once I cut it up while wearing my nonexistent leather gloves. Maybe I'll wait until Mom's here, ha ha.  At least I didn't try to eat it like a normal pear.

I did it!

Today I cranked out an application for an apprentice program- AND went to Jody's house and cooked meat loaf. I am flippin' amazing. Right now, I feel confident that what I wrote in my appeal for acceptance is honest and entirely readable. And it's just after 10. We'll see what I think when I reread it tomorrow morning, but confidence is important when you need to get some sleep. Keep your fingers crossed.

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Careful, she's deranged! (And her bread is terrible.)

Diet Shasta is not nearly as good as Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke... or even Diet Dr. Pepper or Diet 7Up, but it was the ONLY soda I found without aspartame. The dietician says that the problem with aspartame (and saccharin) is that the molecules break down at 95 degrees, and nobody knows where they go and what happens to them. Truvia is derived from plants and considered safe and sucralose (Splenda) is chlorine attached to a sugar molecule. That doesn't sound awesome, but they break down at something like 700 degrees, so they stay attached while in your body, so you just expel it in the same manner it came in- your body does not absorb the chlorine or the sugar.

That sounded reasonable to me, and I was sure I had seen sodas sweetened with Splenda, but after prowling through the soda aisle, I only came up with Diet Shasta.  When I say that, all I hear is George Carlin complaining that all that's left in the motel vending machine is Diet Shasta Orange.  Mom says that when all you're left with is Diet Shasta, it's probably time to stop drinking soda.  Maybe.  I can handle the taste... if I drink it fast.  Sigh.

Yesterday I was wearing the leash and poop bags all day.  Today I remembered to take off the leash, but walked into work with a big, poufy produce bag hanging out of my back pocket.  I did not understand the stares.

I made a banana bread last night for the pot luck today, but my oven has no timer, so I set the one on the microwave. Unfortunately, I was downstairs trying to check on the availability of the one washer and dryer in my building when the timer went off. The one at the house had a very obnoxious, high-pitched long beeeeeep that would continue every other minute until you turned it off, but this one just beeps and is done; if you miss it, eh, oh well. So I came back upstairs and wandered around, cleaning things up, putting things away until I noticed that the clock was no longer counting down. I thought I could get away with it- put up a sign that says: JUST EAT THE MIDDLE, but when I went into the break room to make my donation, I saw that somebody else had made a bread- looked like it had cranberries in it. Their bread was perfectly baked, sliced into totally defendable small halves, arranged nicely on a plate, and covered with plastic wrap. All I had was a burned banana bread wrapped in foil, and no plastic knife was going to break through that crust. I turned around and brought my sad banana bread back to my desk where it will sit like the rejected lump that it is until I can bring it home and cut off the ends. Then I'll eat it all in my sad little apartment with some expired milk and cry loudly in front of Bridget Jones' Diary.

My cubicle neighbors must think I'm insane. Earlier I was sobbing as silently as possible, but a few crying mews and gasps escaped and then I was honking like an elephant when blowing my nose, trying to pull it together. Maybe they thought I was crying over my burned bread. Now I'm snorting with laughter from the end of that last paragraph. Ah, good stuff, good stuff.

Simply fascinating!

A common mindfulness exercise paraphrased: Try to taste your food.

It's hard when you have a short lunch and lots of items on your to-do list, but continuing in this productive style, I got some things pulled out of my 8-pocket To Do folder.  Yes, I do have problems, that's in Section 4.  My desk at work is a mess of bills and lists and too much paperwork.  I would organize that right now, but I'm busy trying to taste my food and blog.  Ha ha, taste my blog.

I have too many calendars and lists and notebooks and phone apps to actually stay organized.  I like my 8-pocket approach, but it gets dicey when you forget to look through it. I put sticky lists on the cover and then forget to bring it home, come in the next day and say, "Damn!"  Or (more often than not), bring it back in to work only to realize that I didn't even open it at home and still have all these things that are supposed to be done already.  I still believe that someday I will finish- check the last item off the list and say, "Ahhh."  Well, I'm a slow learner.  No, I am a stubborn learner.

I bought groceries last night and really loaded up.  I bought some meat and the good cheese and lots of fruits and veggies, some snacky things, bread, milk, yogurt... I even spent a good twenty minutes scouring the soda aisle in search of something that didn't contain aspartame (part of the diabetes class- remind me to explain why later).  All that and I hardly spent any money.  Oh Winco, I love you so.  And I finally dropped off the coupons for Jody.

How about that for a completely uninteresting blog?  You're welcome.  Tune in later for more boring details of my day!

I'll stop now.

Outtake from last night's cat picture

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Tonight's cat picture

Titled as such so those who are uninterested may avoid.

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What's that noise?

Oh.

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Kitchen

Here is my half of my kitchen. Does it look cluttered? Of course not, I just cleaned it up.

I have my spice rack and my water filter and a toaster that has no cancel button and will not let go until it has burned the toast to the setting you chose in the first place.

As you can see, I have already started covering my cupboards with maps again, a look I love way more than barely finished wood resembling materials.

And sadly, I do not have a window over my sink, but I feel fortunate to have one in the kitchen at all.

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Titles are good

Hi! I will give you a little tour of my new place today. This will be my view in the morning from now on, thanks to Daylight Savings Time. I was waking up in the dark.
You can't see much yet, but you can see my crazy comforter from Ross. There is no better place to find cool comforter designs for awesome prices- Big Lots be damned.
You can also see that I have hung a sweater over the door after my trip to the laundromat last night. I've started this new plan to try not to dry the shit out of everything I own.
You can also see Riley. Good morning! Actually, I lied. I picked Riley up off her dog bed earlier this morning. I toss and turn too much for her, so she likes her bed and blankie, but she will never turn down a chance to snuggle with me for a while on a cold morning.
Solo is up here too, but I don't think you can see her. She has this weird habit now of standing up in the corner of the bathroom with her paws on the tub and nuzzling the shower door. It must be entertaining for my neighbors because the shower door has some play in it, so it sounds like this:
Thunk, thunk... THUNK... thunk... THUNKTHUNK...
"Mini, stop."
THUNKTHUNKTHUNKthunk
"MINI! Knock it off!"
There are all these things that I'm finding that are really nice about this new place. One is not having my bed on the floor. It does mean that Riley has to take the elevator until I can find an ottoman for her to use as doggie stairs, but it also means that Solo has a place to hang out where she feels safe. As soon as I brought her here, she went straight under the bed and returns there when something scares her. Maybe at some point I will store something under there, but I will make sure I leave plenty of room for her.
You know what else is nice? I don't miss the stupid things Chris would say sometimes. It never seemed like he was being intentionally mean, maybe just oblivious and a bit pessimistic. Now that I am on my own, those comments shake me- they stand out more when they happen- and I can see how they have beensupremely undermining my confidence for years. This is not to condemn Chris- there are many things that we both miss about each other, and our conversations make up a big part of that. I think maybe I just didn't have enough confidence in the first place, and some of his statements that had no intentional malice ended up sounding that way to me.
Not long ago, he told me that he likes coming home to a clutter-free house. I took that as a shot against me and pointed out two things: that he has never been the picture of neatness and asked him to consider the way that I am living now. He said my apartment is very cluttered.
I don't see this as cluttered. I left a lot behind and donated a lot more once I got here. I still have a lot of stuff, but I took next to no furniture, so I don't have a lot of places to put things yet. Also, I just moved in! I am very proud of what I have accomplished, purging and filing paperwork, organizing, and making this place mine. Suddenly, here's this indictment of my housekeeping skills and why? Who had piles of shit all over the house that never moved, were never put away? Not me. You want to talk about a nightmare? Open the garage door!
That comment shook me, and I looked around and tried to see the clutter and found that I did not care- I liked what I saw. I saw serious organization and purging in process. I saw some innovative solutions to make up for the lack of furniture. I saw evidence that I know this is a project and that I do not feel rushed to go out and buy everything right now. I am not being a slave to my impulses.
He didn't mean anything bad and apologized, but it made me realize that I was being shaken all the time by those sorts of comments and I am much more productive and motivated without them. I don't want to go through my life overconfident and self-righteous, so I am always questioning my actions, but I have also learned that overconfidence is a defense mechanism against anxiety. Anxiety is what keeps me paralyzed, so maybe a little overconfidence would be helpful. In a very short amount of time, I have charged through some difficult projects that were too daunting before. Surely part of that is just trying to keep myself distracted, and suddenly I have the time, but being without those comments for a while made that one stand out, and I saw just how much it shook my confidence. I'd rather be productive- that feels much better than anxious. Besides, I don't need somebody else making those judgements about me- I am still perfectly capable of questioning myself when I do something that feels wrong. This doesn't feel wrong- this feels good, and I like my new place. I will give you a little tour today and maybe you'll find it cluttered, but I don't care and I doubt you will, either.
Now I'm going to finally get up and go replace my brake light.

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