I shouldn't even bother with this, because it's BORING

I wish I had these sewing patterns.  

I've been feeling pudgier than usual.  My clothes more or less fit the same, so I don't think I actually am, I think I'm just feeling that way.  Although it would be awesome if I wasn't overweight.  I have this idea of maybe someday thinking about having this life where perhaps I have time to exercise.  That would be nice.

I think I'm very much starting to burnout on living with my parents.  The free food is good (both beneficial and delicious), but I'm BORED.  And I'm tired of driving 30 miles to work every day.  And I'm just plain tired. 

I'm moving on the 17th, but the concept of moving?  It makes me feel like ripping my own toenails out with my teeth.  I hate moving.  I'm tired of moving.  I don't want to ever move again.  And moving means more expenses, more financial woes, more stress.

So I haven't really had much to say this week, on account of gearing up for moving angst, and also on account of being unreasonably tired.

I need a hug.

Or maybe I just need attention.

Dear Emma Jay!

Dear Emma,

Seriously, what's with the one-sided blogging relationship?  I'm desperately in love with you, and you don't keep me up to date with your life.  You live in Australia, so it's not exactly as though we can get together for a little chat and a spot of tea.  And I can't afford to dial international.  So I cling to your blog for news from Down Under, and I know that you keep your tabs on me here.  Sometimes I don't really have anything to say, but then I'm like, "What will Emma do while she's rotting at her shit job if I don't post something?"  And then I do.  I do it for you.  Because of my devotion to your loveliness.  

But not so for you, Emma.  You seem to feel no guilt whatsoever when you just......leave me hanging.  Sometimes for days.  Sometimes for weeks.  And stop feeding me the scraps from the table with your recycled MySpace surveys.  Sure, they'll keep me going until my next fix, but I want to know about YOU.  So balls up and tell me what's happening in your life already!

Love Sincerely,

Miss (Jennifer) Grace

P.S.  If you like, instead of maintaining your blog you can email me.  Or you can arrange another visit to California.  Though few thought it possible, Gabey is actually cuter than he was when you were here last.  

P.P.S.  Your still holding those pictures from your last visit ransom.  This is indeed low.  I have not since taken Gabriel to the aquarium, and you alone possess the magic that is my son staring at jelly fish.

I will attempt to recreate my web-browsing

I have two links that I feel I simply must share with you, but I also feel the strong desire to share how I arrived at these pages.

I've been racking my brain trying to remember how I started what quickly evolved devolved into a fascinating journey through Wikipedia, but alas, I can't figure out where I was that lead me to this article on "ghost ride the whip."  However, I can tell you that from there I quickly linked to Hyphy (which features a most amazing slang section), then to Oakland, and from Oakland to HERE.  Amazed.

For my second item of business, I started out at Dooce, then of course at her flickr site, then at this photo in specific, and from one of the comments I got here, and this is my new favorite website.  I'm in love.  The end.

Yet another wish for disposable income....sigh....

BlogHer 08 is in San Francisco (driving distance!  Woot!), and I would really like to go, at least to the Saturday session.  I have to "discover" at least an extra $200+ in my budget however, which I suspect will be tricky.

This is your chance to either convince me to go, or convince me to stay.

If I do scrape together some moneys, or maybe repurpose my stimulus package, Julia, I can spend the night in your wee little condo yes (There is no possibility of me ALSO affording the hotel room, unfortunately)?  We can celebrate your birthday a week early, since I'll be at my cousin's wedding the following weekend.

Edited to Add:

Apparently Amber is dying to give me money.  If anyone else is NOT suffering from the U.S. economic downturn, is desperately wishing to sponsor my writing/blogging endeavors, and would like to give me money to go to BlogHer '08, my paypal is grace134 at yahoo dot com.  If I don't go I'll give it back, but honestly I'd probably be so flattered to receive $5 that I'd put the rest on credit anyways.  Plus I'll write you an ode.

Things I've done while driving

• Changed my pants
• Tied my shoes
• Changed my shirt
• Applied eye makeup
• Brushed my teeth
• Read 
• Knit simple projects
• Flossed
• Filed my nails
• Done my hair
• Paid my bills
• Peeled an orange
• Popped zits
• Taken pictures

And in the interest of fairness, here are some other things I've done while driving:

• Rear-ended an old lady
• Rear-ended a young lady
• Driven my mom's car off the driveway, rolling it 1.5 times
• Nearly driven my car off of a cliff, being stopped only by a tree stump
• Side-swiped my aunt's car....on my driver's side
• Not put the car in park and had it roll into a nearby field
• Been issued a speeding ticket

And although I did get that one speeding ticket, here are some that I avoided:

• Speeding ticket, did not receive because I turned of my dash lights and claimed that they didn't work, and that I did not, therefore, know how fast I was going.  Officer helpfully showed me how to operate my dimmer switch.
• Speeding ticket, did not receive because sheriff's daughter went to UCSB, where I was headed.
• Speeding ticket, did not receive because Gabriel was hurting my brain with how much he was screaming, and likely hurting officer's brain as well.
• Ticket could have been for any of the following:  Parking illegally, parking in closed lot (in closed park), possession of (several) fake IDs, minor in possession (of alcohol), violation of open container policy, expired registration.  Received ticket for not having proof of insurance (WHICH I HAD), went to traffic court, dealt with it, the end.
• Pulled over because I didn't have my headlights on, ticket could have been for this, or for drinking and driving.  Was coherent and therefore did not receive.  Boy who was receiving a ride home on account of his own DUI felt this was unfair.  
• Pulled over (I was so SURE this time that I had my headlights on) for not have my headlights on.  I wasn't otherwise doing anything wrong.

Shmursday

Yesterday I met darling Miss Jules for dinner, then picked up James from work (because I'm SO HELPFUL), then went home to my parents' house and to one tautly strung Gabriel, who felt that having me hold him whilst his arms were draped around my mother's neck was a PERFECTLY reasonable demand; so reasonable, in fact that he commenced to scream when my mom walked away.  Tragedy.

I just got off the phone with my mom, who let me know that all of my furniture needs to be pulled away from one wall.  

"Can it wait till I have to move all my furniture anyways, because I'm moving?  In two weeks?"  

"No.  You have until tomorrow.  So actually, you have tonight."

I got some new clothes yesterday.  Which I don't need.  Because I'm a consumer whore, and Julia was there goading me on.  But.  They're cute.  And I have a hard time finding cute pants.  So whatever.

Figuring out how to give up my car

I think I spend about $750/month on owning a car.  

I think that I have mentioned before that I am a strapped-for-cash single mother who can't depend in any reliable bill-paying way on her son's father for financial support.

I have thusly been inspired to give up on car ownership, and have been doing research.

Mid-May, I'm moving out of my mom's house, and instead of a 30 mile commute, I will be commuting approximately 200 yards to work every day.  Well, 200 yards to the shuttle stop that will take me onwards to work.  

I will have a washer and dryer in  my apartment, and will therefore not need to worry about hauling my stuff to the laundromat.

I enjoy riding my bike.

One of my employment benefits is the option to buy a Santa Cruz County bus pass for $60/year.

There is an active zipcar program in Santa Cruz.

My mom will buy my car from me.

Which leaves me with only the following problem:

Gabriel's daycare, while only about 3 miles away from where I work, is about 3, inconvenient, non-busline, traffic-filled miles from where I work, and it closes promptly at 5:30pm.  Driving, I get there at about 5:20pm.  Gabriel is very happy and very settled at this daycare, and he is not a child who is easily happy or settled.  I plan on sending him to preschool in the fall, and am not eager to change his daycare when I am planning on changing it again so soon.  However, the fall preschool plan is contingent on potty-training success, and all of my moving and life shifting and upheaval has left Gabey determined that he will never, ever, ever poop in the potty, because that's one thing over which he has firm control.

But I would really like to not spend $750/month on something that I so clearly don't need.

And here's a breakdown of that, if you're wondering how on earth my car could cost me so very VERY much:

Car payment:  $270

Car insurance: $225 (a note to y'all: don't get into a car accident AND get a speeding ticket within a one year span, you will pay through the nose)

Gas: $200

And I estimate that my misc. car repairs and oil changes have thus far averaged out to around $50/month, although I also realize that my car is new and I will likely end up spending more than that on repairs and maintenance when all is said and done.  

I'm not ready to talk about Nemo's mom

On the drive to daycare/work this morning:

"Mom, where is Nemo?"

"What? Oh. Nemo lives in the ocean."

"Does Nemo lives with his dada?"

"Yeah."

"But Mama? How come Nemo not lives with his mama?"

"Nemo doesn't really have a mama."

"What happened to Nemo mama?"

"Well a bigger fish ate her."

"A fish ate her all gone?"

"Yeah, a fish ate her all gone."

"What you mean mama? Where she go? She gone? Why?"

"Well...she's with Nemo in spirit. Do you wanna sing the song about the sun?"

"Yeah! Sun song!"

About 5 minutes later, after we'd sung a rousing rendition of the "Sun Song" (and no, I won't sing it for you, for only the fruits of my womb may be so lucky as to bask in the glory of my beauteous voice):

"Mama, a fish not eat you all gone? Right mama?"

"No I think I'll stick around for awhile."

"I don't want a fish to eat you!"

Can I be my own charitable cause?

Every now and again I try to work up a budget for myself, and I invariably make far less than what I must spend. This is the problem with America. And perhaps also with my life? Sigh.
At least I'm saving $$ living with my parents.

Let them eat cake!

Questions from today, all from different staff members:

"Today IS cake day right?"

"What time is the cake?"

"Did you email everyone to remind them about cake day?"

"Did the cake get delivered this morning?"

"Did you remember that today is cake day? Did you remember to order cake?"

"I saw we're having cake today. Is it true?"

"You ordered cake right?"

"I just want to confirm that cake is still happening?"

By way of explanation, at my job we have a staff birthday once a month where we have cake for everyone. Apparently since my position's been vacant for the past year, Cake Day has been spotty, and often fallen by the wayside. Everyone is CLEARLY excited that I haven't yet dropped the ball.

Boys don't make passes on girls who wear glasses

A conversation from a few weeks ago:

“You look nice, is your hair different?”

“Yeah, I re-dyed it.”

“It looks nice.”

“Thanks.”

-About five minutes later-

“Seriously, you look REALLY good, there’s something different.”

“Thanks.”

-A few minutes after that-

“Your boobs are huge.”

“They’re the same size they’ve always been.”

-Slightly later-

“Are you wearing makeup?”

“I always wear makeup.”

“Well you look really nice.”

“Maybe you just forgot that I’m pretty.”

“No, there’s something different.”

-And Finally-

“You look really good.”

“Um. I’m not wearing glasses.”

“OHHHHHHHH”

Don't tell ME what's wrong with my car!

Friday I was supposed to pick up James from a swim meet at Santa Cruz High on my way home from work. Waiting at the stoplight at Aptos High, I realized that I was missing an important Aptos High School student, and I had to drive all the way back to downtown Santa Cruz in Friday rush hour traffic to retrieve him. For the elucidation of those not familiar with Santa Cruz County, consider this map:

View Larger Map
I'm driving from A (roughly), to B, to C, to D (roughly), in bumper to bumper traffic. Which was awesome.

Saturday I took my car in to have the money taken out of the car stereo. You see, Gabe put some loose change in there. It fit so nicely into that slot meant for CDs, how could he possibly resist the urge to try it out? I remember having similar feelings about a grilled cheese sandwich and the VCR, so I can’t really hold it against him. So in went the change. For the first month or so that I had quarters rattling around in my car stereo, the only noticeable side effect was that some of my CDs skipped really badly after my car heated up. Not worth fixing. Then my stereo in its entirety stopped working. Immediately before I had to make about four driving trips between Chico and Santa Cruz. Annoying. Then the clock stopped working. Then the mechanism that beeps at you when you open your door and your headlights are still on, or your keys are still in the ignition. Then the dome light. Finally, whatever mechanism inside of my car that talks to my alarm remote ceased to function. Not. Good. Terrible, in fact, on account of you can still quite easily turn the car alarm ON by way of LOCKING THE DOORS, but can only turn it off (and this is according to the Toyota Dealership) by way of the following process:
1. Unlock doors from outside driver’s side (alarm sounds).
2. Roll down passenger side window (which are automatic, so keys are required, alarm sounds second time).
3. Exit vehicle, close doors.
4. Again unlock door from driver’s side (alarm sounds).
5. Then walk around to passenger’s side, reach through the window, and unlock doors from the inside, then from the outside with the key, and the alarm will turn off, and you can drive away.
6. I am not kidding.
When I asked, why, why, WHY would this inventive practice be an even somewhat good idea, service man at Toyota Dealership asked, “Well you want it to be hard to steal you car, don’t you?” Well, yes, but IF I HAVE THE KEYS TO THE VEHICLE, can’t we infer that I have some right to drive it, or at least that I tried hard enough to steal the car that I deserve to get away with it?

Anyways, after going through that four or five or seven (or seventeen??) times, I decided to get it fixed. Being that Toyota Dealership is open a heavenly seven days a week, and seeing as I NEED MY CAR during the weekdays, they were the natural (and I suppose pretty much the only?) choice.

So I took my car in Saturday morning. To me, the link between the change in my CD player and the spontaneous shorting out of electrical devices in my general dashboard area was obvious. To my “service manager” this was not a clear link. He wished to take all sorts of things apart and do all sorts of diagnostics and what-have-yous. Despite the fact that I am (a) a girl, and (b) sort of a giggly and airheaded girl, I’m not actually a complete nitwit, and don’t much take to being bossed around by mechanics. So against his recommendations (and mostly as a money saving measure) I insisted that he remove the change, replace the fuses, and be done with it. He told me that the link between the stereo system and the blown fuses was unlikely, but okay, whatever. So I did not fake any kind of humility when I picked up my car Saturday afternoon and he told me that yes. Indeed. My fuses were blown, and when the change was removed and the fuses were replaced EVEN MY STEREO (the thing he insisted could not possibly work) was working properly. So, $167.03 later, my car works. I think that’s a total rip off for popping out my CD player, fishing out some change, and replacing a couple of blown fuses, but I haven’t managed to track down any willing and mechanically capable young men in the Santa Cruz area, I didn’t want to do it myself, and the dealership was my only choice. So I’m comfortable with the decision.

Scarring my hands

I think that in the planning process, this most likely seemed awesome, but in reality, it was totally terrifying:

Let's see off the bride and groom with sparklers!  Yay!  But wait.  Should we give a large crowd of drunks fire and tell them to wave it at people?  In an enclosed space that is full of hairspray?  Perhaps not.  Molly and Danny actually looked quite panicked leaving the reception.

And I can't quite remember the details, but a sparkler got put out on my hand, and not only was it inappropriately painful, I now have oozing burn blisters on my right ring and middle fingers.  

This, combined with the fact that I have not managed to shower since Saturday before the wedding (and all the associated tomfoolery) makes me feel classy indeed.

I attract the most amazing kind of men

-The two best pickup lines I have ever heard-

Friday night, after the rehearsal dinner, at an Irish pub, from a Marriott security guard (in uniform), directed to my friend Kathy:

"Your friend is about to find out what 9 1/2 inches feels like inside of her womb."

Saturday night, after we had come home from the bars, from another wedding guest:

"Do you wanna go to the stairwell?  You know, to be alone?"

No thanks to both of those, but they were EXCELLENT tries.

No rest for the weary

Monday, Tuesday and today were mandatory 730AM – 7PM work days. VERY LONG, but the overtime will be nice, especially as I’ve opted to have it be extra vacation time as opposed to extra monies. Because my goal in life is to spend as little time working as possible. More vacation will help me to actualize that goal.

It’s been a hard week for me and Gabey though, what with the lack of home time. And I have a 630AM flight to Philadelphia Friday morning for MOLLY’S WEDDING(!!!!) so it’s sort of a bad week to be at work all the time, since I’m not gonna see my baby for three days.

I am however QUITE excited for Mol’s wedding. Her bachelorette party weekend marked the best time I’ve had with friends, possibly in years, but definitely in months. I don’t have a hotel room. I’m just hoping to skate by on my popularity I guess. I’ve warned a couple of people that I may be spooning them this weekend, and that I’ll pay them for their time. Ahem. Kathy. Sara. Mira. Mira and I have similarish flights, so we’re carpooling to the airport, which is both eco-friendly and cost-effective.

I haven’t had much luck insofar as finding myself an apartment, but I haven’t been trying too hard just yet. I can’t really afford an apartment if K doesn’t give me money, and he doesn’t reliably do that (not that he NEVER does, but it's very spotty), so I’m reluctant to get into an untenable financial situation without some guarantee of supplemental funds (like a child support case? for instance?).