scrambling for pittance.
esther came by my desk at about 11 this morning and we eventually got around to talking about gas. fuel, that is. it was mentioned in the conversation about the extreme low level of fuel that was currently residing in my beloved sophie and esther's vehicle, the certain possibility of gas rising above $3 this weekend and past instances of us kicking ourselves for not taking advantage of lower prices and the common practice of gas prices rising after noon. this prompted a spontaneous excursion to the nearby holiday station where esther had seen it for $2.85. as we traveled along dunkirk, the convoy song ran through my head. oddly, i had just heard it this morning on my way to work. you know, we've got a great big convoy, or something like that... we weren't really big, but we're sure great.anyway, i was going to tell you just how much i saved by scrambling this morning, so i called the gas station to find out what unleaded fuel cost this afternoon. do you know what she said? of course you don't. but i'll tell you. because i think it's funny. she said, i can't tell you that over the phone. how odd. why do you suppose that is? i took it to mean she could tell me if were to go into the store, but why would i need to? i would have seen the price on my way in. maybe if i were blind that would be helpful. after some questioning, i found out she could tell me if it had gone up at all throughout the day. so now i can tell you how much i saved by running out during my morning break instead of waiting until after work. nothing. absolutely zilch. life is good.
a bit of the random.
well, my plan turned out to not be a solid one, as i didn't actually take a break yesterday. i simply forgot. i just kept working. briefly, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, i thought about my resolution, but i guess i must have shrugged my shoulders and decided that june resolutions are worth about as much as new years ones. sorry. but here i am today, taking a break, ready to ramble.
this woman just called and when i said my obligatory 'church of the open door, how may i direct your call?' she seemed a bit taken aback. at a loss for words. when she found her words, she said, oh. you have such a nice voice. i laughed and said thanks, but she still seemed to have a hard time getting over her surprise. lovely lady.
i found my emmylou harris red dirt girl cd a few weeks ago. i'd oddly lent it to someone without the case. i'm still on the lookout for the jake armerding one, but i'm on the verge of just getting a new one.
speaking of jake, he emailed me a couple of weeks ago and apologized for slacking off on the email. his reason for doing so? 'something of a habit of taking off for Europe for a couple weeks.' oh. i rinse my dishes thoroughly after use, even if i'm going to wash them right away. i always put the toilet lid down before i flush. sometimes i chew on hangnails. and pen caps. i sing in the shower. traipsing off to europe? i didn't know i could have a habit like that. i like that one better than mine. anybody know where i can trade these things in?
my gardens are doing great, for the most part. i think the left side of my in-front-of-the-porch gardens has an esteem issue. it just doesn't do as well as the other side. i think it's partly my fault. i don't spend as much time there. i definately favor the right side. i should really work on that.
oh, and also, i'm doing better with the situation about my youngest brother and his fiance. i didn't pray about it, but i'm certain someone else did. because all of the sudden i didn't care. i'm too busy to spend time being a pain in the rear end. and i do like her more. and i'm excited for them. these are all good things, but sometimes i can't help but feel like someone out there and God sure pulled a good one over on me. i didn't want to be fine with it and even though i am and i'm glad that i am, i still would have liked to be right. my brother bob and his wife nicky are buying a new house. they close on friday and move on saturday. i went over and helped them clean for a while last night... it's a super cute house, but let me say this: gross. the woman who lived there was not in the same catagory of clean as anyone i know. i can see why the owner kicked her out. the bathroom i cleaned, which nicky said looked better than the one she'd already cleaned, looked like something blew up in there. i have never seen a bathroom like that. she also had funny ideas about where the best places were to store certain unmentionable toys, which were some of the only things she left behind. the pantry, the guest bathroom... perhaps a few presents for the new people? yeah. we threw them away. my brother laughed out loud at one point as i walked by him. to my what? he replied, 'it's just really, really weird to see you carrying something that says penthouse.'
i suppose that's a good thing.
st. louis addendum.
i thought i'd post some of the pictures that wouldn't load on the original st. louis post.
so, um, here they are.
in the park with kristin.
last monday, i drove down to edina to hang out with my dear friend, kristin. the original plan was to shoot together and then it changed to a trip to the art institute and then we had nothing. so we walked. we went down to the centennial lakes park and found ourselves at a concert where i couldn't resist pulling out my camera. randomly, i had my n80 in the bag, too, so i pulled that out and kristin shot the roll of film that's been in there for awhile. you can see some of the concert pictures on the goya site, but here are a few others from the park.
i'm excited to see what kristin came up with from the day. i love seeing the same thing from different perspectives. because i see with my eyes and don't know what it's like to look at the world from your eyes. so, pony up, kristin... let's see 'em!
work.
let me talk about my job for a minute. i don't usually say much about it, but that's because there isn't much to say. i'm a receptionist. i answer the phones, i make the (fantastic) coffee, i greet the visitors. when i applied for and accepted this job, this is what i wanted. i wanted to be overqualified. i wanted to do crosswords to fill the time. i wanted to not have to think. i wanted to rest. but mostly, i wanted a job. so i took this job of answering phones with a bit of data entry.
the interesting thing about being overqualified for a job is that people soon realize that you have a greater capacity than what they're using you for. and before you know it, your job is no longer filled with crosswords and crochet, but with more responsibility and projects. i still love my job... this is a wonderful place to work, it pays my bills and i have benefits. i'm just busy now.
all this to say that i'm sorry i haven't been posting much lately. i don't have internet access at home and once i get going at work, i run out of time to post. i'm making an end of june resolution, though. i'm actually going to start taking my fifteen minute breaks.
so, here's morning break #1. though fairly uninteresting, it does hold the promise of an afternoon post.
i heart marathons.
i went to duluth this weekend to cheer on my friend jen while she ran grandma's for the first time. it was a blast! i had no idea that watching a marathon would be so stinkin' fun. her husband, ben and i parked ourselves early at mile 16 and passed our time rooting for those that passed before her. when we saw her green shorts coming (we decided she should wear fluorescent shorts next year because they were definately easier to see from a distance) it was more thrilling than anything i've experienced all year. i could hardly contain myself... snapping pictures, yelling, clapping. unbelievable. i highly recommend marathon spectatorship. ben and i, both first-time marathon spectators, have big plans already for next year. they involve a coleman stove, some chairs, a couple of bikes and cow bells, among other things.
AND, i want you to know that i, too, ran in the grandma's marathon. right between miles 23 and 24, i think. ben and i had to cross the street and in order to not get in the way of the actual runners, we had to do this sort of jogging zigzag across the street. i didn't have a number, but so what... i ran in a marathon. now i can die with no regrets.
questions.
why are toothbrushes getting bigger?warning: i have quirks. the following will alert you to one of the quirks i have that no one, including myself, entirely understands. right outside my bathroom, i keep a red owl measuring glass full of toothbrushes. remember red owls? i don't think they're around anymore. we had one in monticello when i was growing up. i've been using this cup since i was in junior high or high school, ever since i started using more than one toothbrush. i think i started this because i couldn't decide which toothbrush to get so i got them both. and then i alternated the use of them. every other day. and then, one day, i got a third. i remember someone giving me a toothbrush once as part of a present. that made four or five. eventually it got up to seven. and then i retired one and didn't end up replacing it, so it sat at six for quite a few years. recently, i started to get annoyed that i didn't have seven, because there are not only six days in a week. i know this seems total ocd, but i swear, i could quit at any time.my ideal toothbrush is one of medium firmness in a compact head. through the years, as i've been replacing the aging brushes, it's been getting harder and harder to find compact heads. i can only find them once in a while now, but they are always soft. i'm wondering if i missed some dental study that posed the risks of using compact heads. do they get a bad rap because people are poor brushers? have they been blaming the lack of bristle area for their unclean teeth?but what i'm most concerned about is the size of the handles. they're getting so big. it's getting really hard to keep seven toothbrushes in order in my red owl glass. and something tells me that people may be having issues getting some of these handles in actual toothbrush holders. i don't ever remember the holes being that big. are we losing dexterity in our hands that makes it harder to hold smaller handles? are we that concerned with ergonomic qualities in something we hold for such a small percentage of our day? is it worth it?and so i ask. why? why are they making toothbrushes so big?
st. louis.
i'm sorry! i'm sorry, i'm sorry!
life got busy. but that's no excuse. funny things happen in the busy days and i should let you know these things. as it were, i was out of town last week. i was in st. louis at a database conference. thrill-a-minute, i tell you, thrill-a-minute. no, it was good. super long days and a buttload of information, but it was good. i went with my supervisor lori, who turned out to be a great traveling partner, and after four days, we mastered the transit system.
tuesday, we left super early (a bit too early for cohesive thinking, but late enough that i managed to get three hours of sleep in before i had to get up again...) so that we would have all of tuesday to do stuff. what happened, was that instead of cramming a ton of stuff in, we just took our time and did half the stuff we had planned. we spent quite a bit of time at the zoo, which, if you haven't been there, is a fantastic zoo. you can check out some pictures on the goya page.
and on wednesday, we went to see ben bedford in this incredibly dark (read: super hard to take pictures) bar. for some reason, i thought that this place, the shanti, served food, but it didn't. after leaving late and then walking two and half miles, we were starving. so we walked down a few blocks and came upon fat toney's. we got to meet fat toney while we were there. this is what i know: toney is a large man and his food is good. when we got back, we were a part of the smallest audience i have ever been a part of. aside from ben's dad, we were the only two people there that were there to hear him. there were others there... but they were watching the cardinals game or talking at the bar. it was weird. he said he's gotten used to it, but i cannot imagine not being offended. it is safe to say that both lori and i absolutely enjoyed ourselves.
i'd like to show you more pictures, but i can't seem to post anymore. so you'll just have to imagine, because i've been trying since monday and i'm thinking it's just not going to work.
on thursday, we rode the arch. this is what i have to say about that... once is enough. i was fine, nothing super spectacular. in fact, it was more impressive looking at it than from it. i'm not sure what we were expecting, but we felt a little let down when we got up to the top.
and there was a telephone by our toilet. i think this is weird. of course, i come from the opinion that you really don't need to spend any extra time in bathrooms than what is necessary. get in, get out. it's a bathroom, for pete's sake. we thought the funniest part of it all was a hold button. imagine with me why you would need to put someone on hold in the bathroom. funny, right? lori and i decided that we couldn't let a toilet phone go to waste, so i called my cousin, jenny, and left her a message. i wasn't using the bathroom, due to my philosophy surrounding such rooms, but i was sitting on top of the toilet. i'd show you a picture if i could. but i can't.all in all, it was a good week. we laughed a lot, we got little sleep and we had an immense amount of knowledge injected into our heads.
the worst ugly.
today, i proved to myself how incredibly self-absorbed i can get. i leave my house tomorrow morning at 4:15 for a conference in st. louis. after i get back late friday night, i have to pick up my grandma on saturday and go to a bridal shower. i had a gift to pick up, last minute shopping for the trip to do, a house to finish cleaning, packing to do and supper to eat. and i had to swing over to my parent's house to pick up a few things.
about an hour before i should have left work, a man came in asking to possibly speak with someone who could encourage him and pray with him. he was a traveling evangelist, living out of his car just trying to show people a little glimpse of jesus. i did what i was supposed to do and started the trail to find him a pastor to talk to. he sat with him for quite some time and as i was leaving, already fifteen minutes later than i should be, he popped up and started talking to me. i made idle chitchat with him as i made my way to the door. inside, i told him to stop talking, i was in a hurry. but he wouldn't stop talking. and i very slowly and quite rudely made my way to the door until it was open and i was backing out of it. i threw out a shallow blessings to you and turned around. out in the parking lot, i started scolding myself and realized how horrible i had been. the man was lonely. he just wanted to talk. what business of mine is so important that i couldn't spare ten minutes to sit down and chat? the stores would all be open. my parents' house would still be there. my unpacked clothes would not run away if not put in a bag before eight. i sat in my car, telling myself i should just go back in and talk to him. do you know what constantly ran through my head? 'what you have done for the least of these, you have done for me.' as i drove away, having done nothing, my heart ached. i left my lonely jesus inside my church, wishing he would just stop talking. i suck.
wet plants.
after work yesterday, i picked up vegetables for the new garden before going home, eating and falling on the couch. i realized, at about 8:45 that it had been a few days since any of my plants had been watered (it's key here to remember that maple lake gets gypped every time the rain passes through minnesota), so i put the flip flops back on and hooked the hose up. i spent about 45 minutes watering plants, getting my feet, hands and skirt dirty in the process. i know, it makes no sense to get so dirty when you're just watering, but it happens. especially when you can't help but weed at the same time. i looped the hose up, went back inside and went to bed, glad i had taken the time to water.folks, it poured last night.