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Are You Always & Forever With Your Cell Phone Provider?

March 25, 2009 / PlazaJen

“Always and Forever” (LaFawnduh’s Song)
(by Kipland Ronald Dynamite)

Why do you love me?
Why do you need me?
Always and forever

We met in a chat room
Where love can fully bloom
Sure the World Wide Web is great
But you, you make me salivate

Yes I love technology
But not as much as you, you see
But I still love technology
Always and forever

Our love is like a flock of doves
Flying up to heav’n above
Always and forever
Always and forever

Yes, your love is truly great
Always and forever

Why do you need me?
Why do you love me?

I, like Cher once sang, am a half-breed, only of the nerd variety. I am a wannabe, I have some skills, but let’s face it, I can’t hack or code, so I’m just slightly elevated above a good Googler. And I love technology. Which, every time I even think that, makes me think of the wedding scene waaaay at the end, after the credits, of Napoleon Dynamite (lyrics above). Only right now, I hate it. So much so, I’m beginning to feel a little unabombery inside. Specifically, I hate my cell phone.

I was perfectly fine a month ago. I was getting sick with what would become bronchitis, but my attitude towards tech and gadgets was untouched. Shiny things! I love them! And then the wheel fell off my Motorola RIZR, and I tried to re-attach it, but instead rendered the wheel useless and immobilized. Awesome. Little did I know the cell phone wheel falling off would serve to be a huge metaphor for the following MONTH.

So, I look at my options, and basically, a cell phone company, say one that rhymes with G-Foible, as long as you are under their contract, they will let you tweeeest in the weeeeend. Even the option to upgrade my line while renewing my contract for another two years would result in paying a Shitton of Money for another phone. And of course, I’m looking at upgrades all the time. I’m not going to replace a nice phone with a bag phone. So I turn to …eBay. For an unlocked phone. Oh! It’s a Maurice Sendak novel of cell phone gadgetry! Yes! But you must read the fine print, and then continue to check what it would cost to buy a new one of the same model.

I buy a Motorola RAZR. I know. I should have asked someone first. Since I began screeching about my hatred, it’s like an entire underworld village of RAZR-HAYTRZ rose up through the dirt to answer my screams. First off, the language for text was defaulting to Italian, which took me a while to figure out how to fix that, but hey, I could handle it. I’m the Network Administrator for our home computer network, after all! Oh, and forget storing any sort of application on this thing, it has no memory. OH and did you want it to actually get reception outside of work and home? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Plus the bonus feature I didn’t even pay for: every time I plug it in to charge (which is often, since the fucker dies every 48 hours if I don’t), it changes the ring style. I plug it in, and on the tiny window appears something like this: “RING TONE CHANGED: LOUD.” And I spent every night trolling through forums, because I needed to set up all of the actual components so it would connect to G-Foible’s network. Like, inputting data addresses and setting features, things one normally has on a branded phone. Whatev, that’s small potatoes, and I even discovered later that the phone companies have it so you can message yourself with the data & apply it to the phone. OK. It still does not change the fact that I want to fling the phone against a wall or out the window, every. single. day. I hate it.

After going to the lake, and having no reception and no web access on my phone, I hit the wall myself. So I bought an unlocked Blackberry Pearl. Which I really liked. I even upgraded the web plan so I could make it into a work device – I had felt a little Short Bus Syndrome when we’d traveled on that wheel-fell-off-trip, because everyone else had iPhones and Blackberries and oh, Jennifer, you don’t check your work email on your phone? No. My phone has a wheel. It was like a caveman holding a torch while everyone skittered around with their GPS voice-activated gadgetry in sleek speed-skating suits. And I had thought the RAZR would be a step up, but instead was unwittingly rocketing back to 2004. Which, in techno-years, is like the Dark Ages.

So, the Pearl. Yes! I’m legit! Bona-fide. I switched to the data plan, and I call the Wo. “Hello?” he says. “Hello? Hello?” Hangs up. Mind you, I’m responding. He calls me back. “Hello? Hello?” Heeeeey. The microphone doesn’t work. I abuse several co-workers with testing different options. Back to the forums. Perhaps a software update is needed. Okey-dokey. I attach the phone to the computer with the cable. Nothing. I try another cable. Nothing. I try a third cable. Nothing. I plug the cable into the RAZR. (Microsoft has detected your dumb ass phone from a previous century! Where’s the software? On a 3.5″ floppy you say?) WTH.

I email the seller, they have no solution except to return it. Back it went today. I’m still using my Supah-Dupah Fly RAZR, but now I have to revert the data plan back to my G-Zones (cheaper) web plan. Ah, no, you naive stupid girl. “We don’t offer that any more.”

HUH? I had it on TUESDAY.

“Once you remove it, it’s gone, we have a new product now.” That costs $4 more a month for the same damned thing. (Oh and includes some text messaging, which I don’t really do, instead paying $0.20 per, anytime I simply must receive or send one.)

OMG. Head! Exploding! I disconnect from the online CSR, and call. They immediately put G-Zones back on my phone. But cannot offer me any sort of good deal on a phone to replace my ghetto-blaster techno-sploitation travesty I’m stuck with. My phone is beginning to resemble Ron Jeremy, only without any residual coolness. I have to wait 10 months. (And seriously, the price difference between upgrade with no contract extension and with one is negligible.) For the first time in 10 years (or however long it’s been, it’s been at least that), I’m seriously going to look at options once this contract shit is up.

So. All the drama, and swearing, and pain aside. What really gets me is that the business model for cell phones has absolutely nothing to do with rewarding loyalty. Marketing departments sit around all the time, trying to figure out how to keep and retain consumers, how do we get someone to be a brand advocate, so dedicated to our product or service that they’ll never switch. And I get it, you have a contract, which represents $X and the penalties for breaking the contract somehow translates to permission to just leave that customer alone until it’s time to revisit the contract. Sure, every time I’ve called T-Mobile (because really, did G-Foible fool you?), I’ve been thanked profusely for being such a loyal and long-time customer. But when I ask a CSR to fix a problem and they say no, no and no again, even in the face of me saying “I will leave over this the minute I can,” why do I have to make the next round of effort (and escalate it) to repair that business relationship? Honestly, had T-Mobile offered me a solution, like a Blackberry for $100-$150, I would have kept the upgraded data plan, signed up for another two years, and been happy as a clam. (I even asked! “NO.”) Now I’m just bitter.

I guess the answer is that there’s so much churn, they don’t bother to care about loyalty. Because in the end, I’m just a number, nothing more. I guess it’s a good thing I can now take that number with me, wherever I go. Until then, I’ll be wearing my RAZR around my neck, like the albatross it is….

I Can’t Make This Stuff Up.

March 20, 2009 / PlazaJen

I walked in this morning after a meeting (at the rob-em-early Latte Land, no less!) and our office manager greeted me with a letter we’d gotten in the mail yesterday. She knows my sense of humor.

Yes, indeed. This bright fellow sent out blind letters to businesses in town, offering his services. And really, even if you’re a skimmer by nature? You owe it to yourself to read every. single. word. Because if you don’t, you won’t know exactly what you’re missing.

Now, strangely, I’m sorta hungry for pizza.

Hallo!

March 18, 2009 / PlazaJen

Anymore, what with the global village shrinking to the size of a pea, combined with my own personal paranoia, I no longer announce when I’ll be out of town, or say, home alone, because even with my trusty shotgun, three black labs, alarm system and some high-quality knives thrown in for good measure, there’s just something smart about telling folks AFTER the fact that we got out of town. Which we did, under the guise of catching a lot of spoonbill, which sadly, did not happen, but for the first time in my life, I did go fishing at 5 a.m. In the rain. I just clutched my fishing pole and hoped my husband’s vision wasn’t allowing him to see me nodding off. (No such luck. I married Mr. Eagle Eye.) I will say this: Never was I happier to have had Lasik. The next day, we got about a mile out & the engine clunked-kaputt. It seemed to be something gas-liney, so yours truly squished the black gas line bulb pump thingy all the way back, and the next morning, I had a panic that my knitting life would be forever altered, as my left hand wanted only to contract into a claw-like state. The Wo worked hard on fixing the gas line, but it proved to be something beyond just a line, and so there was no more boating for us.

But all was not lost. We ate well, we napped, the dogs had a GRAND time, they made us laugh, and I got some knitting done. And finally finished “In Cold Blood“, and then re-picked-up “Then We Came To The End“, which is probably a whole lot more entertaining if you don’t work in advertising in the midst of recession, seeing as how it’s all about agency life and layoffs after the dot-com bust. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still entertaining, but it resonates with that “holy-shit-he-nailed-that” kind of shock, rather than just a chuckle. Plus the doom-and-gloom and paranoia and fear are right on the money, which isn’t necessarily the greatest pick-me-up! But dammit, I’m gonna finish it so I can finally read “The Watchmen“! That also bears a little foreboding for me, as it was recommended to me by a good friend who told me it reminded him of my dad. I bought it, but it’s waited patiently for over two years for me to read it. I’m not sure where the parallels will be, but I’m at least ready for them. I wasn’t ready on my drive to the lake, as I was having a joyous Jackson Browne sing-along (could I use more hyphens today? I shall try. Post-haste!) and suddenly I saw my dad, reacting to the song lyrics in “Before the Deluge“, telling my mom, “That’s us! You hear that? Journey! Back to nature!” How he loved Jackson Browne, and felt a kinship from that music, felt so understood in his ideals and desire for a better world. And oh so many times we listened to that song in particular, straining, trying to figure out the word “rouge”….we thought it was “glitter and the glue”, and I thought of how much the internet sure would have helped back then, and through it all I cried, mourning so many losses, including the fact that I had no idea in those moments, how much they would mean to me later. It’s still a bit boggling, how you can go for days and weeks and feel like there’s so much progress, so much healing, What A Good Job We’ve Done With Grief, and then with just a click of the Viewfinder, you are reduced to a sniveling pouting heap of pulsing raw emotion and pain.

Well, two years ago, I’d have listened to the entire Jackson Browne anthology and cried for hours. Instead, I switched to Weezer and the dogs & I had a new sing-along, and they asked if they were going to get some candy with their pork and beans, and I told them I was the greatest man who’d ever lived, even though I am still a woman.

So! A mini-vacation. I’m back at work, and my non-portable knitting project is almost done – Sheldon the Turtle – ohhh, he is adorable. And despite the woes, Hubs’ motor is hopefully being fixed as I type, and he’s enjoying his greenhouse puttering with a bajillion seedlings of peppers and tomatoes and eggplants. Spring is springing, the daffodils are ready to burst, and everything always, interminably, moves forward, and only once we are there, down the road, will we know what innocuous moments from today wait to surprise us.

New Ways To Piss Me Off

March 11, 2009 / PlazaJen

Boy, I’ve been having a doozy of it. Between workload & being sick (hey! I think I’ve recovered – last night was the first night of sleeping all the way through the night without coughing!) – I’ve just been an extra bit stressy. Which makes my temper a bit shorter, and it makes me move into blunt whack-a-mole mode. When there’s a ton to do, and other people are dilly-dallying or unclear about their direction, I find myself leaning more towards R. Lee Ermey. So far, nobody’s decided to off themselves in the latrine, so that’s good. (this would be me making a reference to Full Metal Jacket, btw. I’m sure my husband will chuckle, knowing I just finally saw that movie in the past year. And he did just remind me this week that I am no Stanley Kubrick.)

SO, even though there are plenty of things that stress me out & piss me off, let’s talk about the latest new thing that happened today. Some douchebag decided to put THEIR extra trash bag in OUR driveway. We already had two bags out, and since we didn’t plan for Douchebag Drop-Off Day, we didn’t put a trash sticker on the third bag because IT WASN’T THERE. But now we had to haul it back from the curb and wait until next week.

Oh. Yeah. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I looked at the bag. If there was any indication that there was something in that trash bag to indicate who tossed it there, I would have been in it in two seconds flat. Not sure what would have happened after that, if I’d have actually taken my R. Lee Ermey act all the way up to someone’s front door, but I sure enjoyed thinking about it. At the very least, I’d have returned it to them. The nerve!

Tomorrow is a big meeting-day, and then I should get a bit of a reprieve. There’s still plenty of work, but we should get a little breathing room on these high-pressure, hulking huge deadlines. It’s nice to be busy, as long as it stays below the panic line. Spring Break is next week, we’ll be getting some fishing in, I’ll still be working, but there are all sorts of demarcations in time that remind me things are shifting – the time change, the daffodils in the front yard, just waiting to explode, the seedlings under the grow lights winding and waving in nature’s destined journey towards the light, roots expanding and threading into the soil below.

Oh, and if you want to weep from laughter, and you didn’t see Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks last night, it was utterly priceless. Bailey, Play Dead. (I hope this works – couldn’t get it to embed.)

I could hardly catch my breath, I was laughing so hard. (I think it was the :second: playing dead that was so funny, like, OH!oh, hell, no treat yet? OK, I’ll play dead again real quick, mister.) I also really like it when it’s apparent that Dave is genuinely amused. Almost as much as I love hearing my husband and I laughing uproariously, together. By golly, I almost forgot about that damned bag of trash. ;)

My Plague, It Has A First Name…..

March 7, 2009 / PlazaJen

It’s B-R-O-N-Chitis and no I don’t know if it has a last name, I’m simply too busy punching it in the face.

Yep, I went back to the Minute Clinic on Thursday because what with all the hacking, and I still have yet to sleep fully through the night, I was about ready to take the shreddy end of a hammer to anything in range.

Newsflash: the entire world is sick. My previous visit had no wait, and I zipped right in, and of course, it was too early to BE anything. But this trip, there were three patients ahead of me in line, all families with children. I waited about an hour, halfway through sitting there, I started to wonder if I should go to a different location, but then, seriously, that’s like the same mojo when you start eyeballing other lanes at the grocery store, only in this case, you can’t even SEE the other lanes. So I stuck it out. Though I do have a request for the CVS at 75th & Metcalf in Overland Park, KS: PLEASE PUT THE MUSICAL GREETING CARDS SOMEPLACE OTHER THAN THE WAITING AREA FOR THE MINUTE CLINIC.

I heard the opening music to Star Wars more times than I could count. And then one little girl discovered she liked to dance to a li’l C+C Music Factory, so I was flashing back to 1990 as “I’ve got the Power! Power!” played over and over. And over. Again.

Another family had an appetizer of Slim Jims while we waited, and I can tell you I’m in no hurry to snap into one of those any time soon, either.

BUT it was all worth it, because I walked out two hours later with a Z-pack (the elephant gun of antibiotic treatments), some cough syrup with codeine, and a nebulizer. I’ve never really used one of those, so it’s been a bit of a novelty, and I get this strange image of being a nerdy high schooler with asthma every time I use it. (I actually never knew anyone IN high school who used one, so this is all apparently colorful fiction in my mind’s eye.) The sucker really does work, though. And I can tell I’m starting to get better, and then I get all ambitious and think about doing something….and then I take a 3-hour nap. I had to work pretty hard this week, and I had a really big presentation on Thursday, which I did at least get through without coughing in a frightening way. (I timed my coughs when people were laughing!)

I’ve got another big meeting next week, but then I’m definitely going to take a couple days off, go fishing with my husband, and maybe catch another one of those huge ol’ spoonbill! James has been working diligently on the boat, as well as growing seedlings, so I know spring is coming. Never mind six inches of snow last weekend, that was just a fluke!

OH the other thing I bought at CVS, because I was wandering around the medicine aisles while I was waiting for my prescriptions, was a little jar of Vicks Vapo-Rub. Actually, a little jar of the CVS brand, because the only branded product came in a tub the size of a mixing bowl, and that seemed like a little too much overkill for some nostalgia. I put some on my chest & throat last night, and then a little more, and that familiar camphor-menthol smell alone just soothed me. I crawled into bed, thinking about how long it had to have been since I’d used the stuff – 30? 32 years? And as I lay there, it began to warm. Ever so much more. Perhaps I had been a little TOO liberal with the stuff. So much so that I think, hypothetically, of course, that if perhaps a SWAT agent were to come into our bedroom wearing night-vision goggles, I am pretty sure a Blazing Beacon of Vapo would effectively blind them.

But then they’d still be able to find me, what with the coughing and the camphor. My imagination. Sometimes it needs to just take a nap! Sounds good to me……

Plague of the Month Club

March 1, 2009 / PlazaJen

Apparently, I’ve enrolled in this fantastic offering from Time-Life, and it’s truly the gift that keeps on giving. Last month was rotovirus. This month? I’d had a sore throat for a couple of days, to the point that on Friday, I had such difficulty swallowing, I was convinced it was strep. I availed myself of the latest in health care: the MinuteClinic. It truly is convenient, and rather breezy in the approach. Within five minutes of checking in, I’d had my throat swabbed, and then just to be safe, she did a second one to send to the lab if the insta-strep-test came back negative. Which it did. Much to my disappointment. I know! Who wishes for strep? Well, I do, and have continued to rue the negative conclusion, as I’ve spent the past two days with a Head and Chest Cold of Epic Proportions. I wake myself up with my hacking, and I’m tired & sore from it all. And I have another huge week of work ahead of me, so I’m hoping the worst of it has been experienced this weekend. At least with strep, there are DRUGS to KILL IT.

I tried to go to the KC Addy awards last night – well, I :did: go, but an hour into the event, the fire alarm went off and everyone was told to leave the room in an orderly fashion. What kind of amused me, in my foggy state, was that everyone just went to the various bars and none of the bartenders left their stations. So it didn’t SEEM like there was a fire or any imminent danger? But then the paranoid voice inside me said, “That’s just how it’ll read in the headlines chronicling the aftermath…..’Hundreds Die in Sweeping Fire, Most Taken By Surprise. Fat Girl Trampled to Death, Autopsy Showed She Had Terrible Cold That Must Have Impaired Her Thinking’.” You get my drift. I reclaimed my coat, got my car from the valet service, and went home. With the delay, the evening would be even longer, and I was already disrupting my table with my coughing & the drugs had worn off.

The funniest thing of the weekend was when I posted on my Facebook status that I must have enrolled in some Plague-of-the-Month club, and my husband replied, “for just 1 penny more you can choose 10 more maladies from our fabulous catalog of illnesses!” Never mind it made me laugh like a barking seal. It’s why I loves him!

NYC Quickie….

February 25, 2009 / PlazaJen

In NYC, very uneventful (though long) travel day. We had dinner at Patsy’s, which wasn’t the restaurant my boss thought we were going to, but, oddly enough, he’d also been there before. The food & service was very good; the umpteen-mirrored staircase is enough to give a gal vertigo, especially after a Bombay Sapphire on the rocks!

Then, because one of our travelers had never been to NYC before, we decided to make the trek to Times Square – which would have been fine, had this traveler pulled her coat out of her suitcase, or at least had a random Clapotis to drape around her head/neck. It may have been 70′ in KC today, but it was Dayum Brisque tonight in midtown Manhattan! I have a sore throat to boot, so I finally peeled off from our crew and parked myself in a Starbucks, so they could still go see the blinking lights, and enjoyed an apple chai while catching up on the ‘net with my mo-bile.

I’d forgotten a book at home, but fortunately, had a book stashed at work that I hadn’t read yet: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. Certainly a classic, and two winters ago, I was riveted by the movie version with Phillip Seymour Hoffman (of course, most everything he does is riveting to me.) Anyway, I am utterly enthralled. This book is written so well, to even try to describe it feels like I’m automatically doing it a disservice. You know, as I’m in one of the biggest cities in the world, and everything’s moving at this accelerated pace – people are walking along, texting, plugged in, a constant barrage of instant information, incoming and outgoing, I just am struck by how FAST it all goes. How fast we expect everything to happen, to communicate. And that is not this book. In the first 20 pages or so, I caught myself wanting to skim, to gather the main nuggets of data, give me the Tweets here, Tru. But I forced myself not to, and slowly that desire to push through faster gave way to sinking deeply into the text. Reading the minutae of descriptors, how the post office in town was drafty through the roof, the boxes didn’t shut, and so on he goes, page after page, painting this utterly detailed, gorgeous account of a terrible, horrible murder of a family and the men who did it.

I’m as guilty of it as anyone, hurtling headlong into the tunnel, running the race, thinking a mile a minute, chasing the next project and to-do list action item, plurking and twittering more than I write paragraphs. But the excrutiatingly beautiful detail falls away, and while you don’t always need it to understand what is happening, you realize how much it adds to the experience when you re-encounter it. It’s an inspiring read, and I want to read the rest of his work, because I sense I have utterly missed out on something fantastic and engaging.

Now it’s time to head to bed – tomorrow will be filled with exciting, energetic meetings, and another long journey home. Which is kind of nice, because it means more time with my book. (though now my knitting is suffering!)

See you in a day or so!

Bustle, bustle!

February 24, 2009 / PlazaJen

Yep, it’s bizzy ’round here. Big client meeting yesterday. Off to NYC tomorrow, back home on Thursday, then keep dog-paddling because there’s a big meeting/presentation next week to boot. woo-hoo! In the midst of all that, got to keep getting the ‘regular’ work done, and then handle the curve balls on top of it all. Because boy howdy, there was a curve ball, and I seriously wanted to remove heads from bodies with a croquet mallet. Yes, I was channeling my inner Red Queen, and all I can say is, good thing I read the emails at home so I had time to explode and then calm the hell down by the time I could actually address it. GAH! Life is hard enough, when things are going well, it’s in everyone’s interests to make! things! work!

OMG Tripper is going to start marketing his weapons-grade gas to the government. That’ll help pay the dog food bills ’round here. He is seriously, seriously toxic with his farts. I keep a bottle of Febreze ‘Air Effects’ right by my chair, and it’s almost comical – he gets royally offended when I counter-attack with one puff of “Linens-n-Sky”. Sometimes he even gets up and moves. It’s the only weapon I have, and I have to use it!

Speaking of crazy dog stories – last Saturday night I met up with some of the LSG folks on Ravelry, which was great fun – and when James got home from his banquet duties (MWA banquet in Oregon, MO), I headed for bed & left him to take care of the dogs for the night. Good thing. Polly apparently dashed in the door, and he only caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, and knew she had something in her mouth. Uh, yeah. “Something” turned out to be an enormous full-grown rabbit that was in dire straits. At least I have a husband who can calmly handle these things, humanely. I’d just shriek and run into doors. Just a regular Mutual of Omaha around here, I tell ya…..

Speaking of wild kingdoms, the seed-planting is well underway, as the gardener of the house starts getting excited for planting and gardens and spring. Since he’d gotten me a Christmas present when we’d agreed not to exchange gifts, I decided Valentine’s Day would be my turn to surprise-treat. I took the rest of the money I’d left in my PayPal account from my Loopy Ewe DPN holders, and with just a smidge extra, I bought him a set of Texas Tomato Cages. After all, tomatoes are the “Love Apple”….and he grows them so extraordinarily well, with all kinds of fantastic varieties, knowing how much I love love love fresh tomatoes. Apparently these things are THE support system for growing tomatoes, so we’re just going to start investing in them and add to the pile as we go.

Let’s see… working furiously on some more knits, including a couple of fun projects for classes I’ll be teaching, and really, just trying to not let too much slip through the cracks. It feels kind of crazy that tomorrow is already Ash Wednesday, that next week is -yikes- March! and pretty soon we’ll see Spring really settling in, bursting through the ground and in the trees, welcoming us to a new season and another chapter. Despite being agitated about dunderheads, and feeling like I’m burning the candle at both ends, I’m really excited about what’s on the horizon this year – both with work and my life outside of work. (For instance? The Wo and I are going to take a vacation! YES! Where? Dunno! But it’s going to happen, and that’s all there is to it. The pool will be there for later in the summer, yes, but staycation be damned!) And yes, eventually I’ll be able to throw all the nice facts up about the zombie, proving once and for all, the dead truly can live comfortably in California.

Knit, Knit, Knit….

February 20, 2009 / PlazaJen

I finished the Studio Sock Club socks a while, back – Sivia Harding’s “Journey” socks, out of Claudia Handpaints Sportweight in Woodland – these are so warm and cozy, I just love ’em, and the cables are snazzy to boot!

I also am participating in The Loopy Ewe’s Spring Fling monthly KAL’s – which have been great motivators to finish things, but this month I’m a bit panicked. I finished last month’s project just under the wire, and without fringing or blocking. I made the Crest of the Wave scarf, and then added the Fringe from Hell. It’s gorgeous, but it kills me. KILLS! So much braiding. And then beading. But I love it! This was knit out of Numma Numma Toasty, Black Cherry Jam.

LOOKIT THIS FRINGE. Now look away, before you feel compelled to do it yourself.

Now I’m working on the Boing! scarf pattern by Anne Hanson (sorry, I’m uber-lazy, it’s Friday, I haven’t linked a single thing today). This is knit with Tofutsies, and even on 1’s, it’s still rather open. I’m such a loose knitter.

Now, since our KAL ends next Saturday, and I have a lot of work stuff going on (and travel – which is usually a plus for knitting, but still), I realized I’m probably not going to complete this in time, so I’ve pulled out some Aran Rustic Wool, and started whipping out a very pretty Poinsettia neckwarmer, since I still need to make a gift for a friend, and I’ve already done the first set of neck repeats in one evening. That’ll get done, and hopefully, Boing will be right behind it!

In other randomness, and utterly unrelated, we have continued to have our homeless man problem at the office (staying overnight in the stairwell), and yesterday morning’s stench was almost enough to topple a Marine. I mentioned it to our office manager, who in turn, called the building manager. I noticed when I left that liberal amounts of pine-sol had been used. (which actually didn’t change the situation !) And when I say liberal, I mean, perhaps-an-entire-bottle. So then I wondered, would that actually entice said homeless to sleep there? Would it be like snoozing in a Carolina pine forest? There’s your ponder for the weekend.

My Brain Is on Simmer….

February 19, 2009 / PlazaJen

I’m grateful I took the opportunity last Friday and this Monday to organize and clean up my desk, because the past couple of days have brought a LOT of new things to think about, to work on, to accomplish and do.

I was talking to a former sales guy who said he’d had a great career in sales, he’d been successful and was extremely good at his job. He also said the past 15 years had been the same year, over and over again, until he hit 15 and decided he just couldn’t live that same year again. That really hit me, because sometimes you do feel that way, like, wow, is this it? Have I reached capacity (fill in the blank – in this job, in this industry, at this place, with these people – whatever)? But really, with the luxury of hindsight, I can see that the past 4 years have not been the same – personal life aside! Which for someone like me, with my inquisitive, creative & easily-bored personality, that’s a good thing. Some people love their work routine, and I’m more the homebody who loves her home routine. At work, pelt away. Chaos and puzzles and problem solving await around the corner? I can’t get there fast enough. Sure, I may bitch about it and even get snappy from the stress, but that kind of percolation is so invigorating.

Right now, I’ve got a couple huge project pots on the stove, and my brain is mulling and simmering as I contemplate what they can and will become, along with what I need to learn and do for that to happen. (Yes! Learn! Without learning, it all just becomes atrophy.) The excitement and fear are also there – when you haven’t done something 10,000 times, there’s a lot more room to trip and fall. But the exhilaration to be had is 10,000 times greater, too. I apologized to my husband last night for being such a zombie – I just needed to zone out between some Facebook Mafia Wars and the movie (couldn’t even knit!), and let my brain absorb everything at its own pace.

Dogs? They don’t worry about these things, unless it means something might fall off the stove and then, man, they’re ALL. OVER. IT. I had fixed James’ lunch the other morning, and the peanut butter jar was empty (as far as we’re concerned – the spatula had gotten what it was gonna git.) I thought I’d see what the dogs thought of an empty p.b. jar:

This would be Polly. Polly does almost everything delicately, despite her high-strung-ness. She will quiver with energy at the mere notion you’ll pet her, but she is always full of grace and swiftness.

Now. We can’t really say the same thing about Tripper.

He’s got such a long nose, and he has no problem crossing his eyes if the object he’s focusing on is right at the end of said schnozzle.

He was making me laugh so hard, I think it worked out in his favor.

Now, don’t worry. Suzy got her turn as well. She actually exhibited the most brains in her approach – she took the jar right out of my hands – while I kept laughing – and went in to curl up on her pillow with it. (I took it away from her, because this is the same dog who ate a clean Rubbermaid container!)

Dog’s life, indeed. I’ll be back tomorrow with knitting updates, promise!

PlazaJen: The Blog

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