wandering sails: 01.2006

1.31.2006

hanging up.

i'm a receptionist. i answer the phone. we get a lot of sales calls here. a lot. people wanting to know if my windshield is cracked. or someone wants to offer me a fantastic deal on satellite television or carpet. most of the time, i'm convinced they do not hear me say the church's name in my greeting. because after their little pitch, i say to them, 'this is actually a church' and they almost always apologize and bid me a good day. the only exception has actually been the windshield people (who call about once or twice a month) who let me go when i tell them that my windshield is in fine condition.

i just got a call from someone who didn't care that i worked in a church or that i was not interested in subscribing to the star tribune. in fact, she was quite convinced that she could persuade me to realize that my life was lacking without the paper. here is the conversation (shortened for time's sake) for your enjoyment.

persistant sales lady: this is ___ and i'm calling for the star tribune. i'd like to offer you the daily paper for only $2.70 a week for 13 weeks. what is your name?

me: this is actually a church.

psl: yes, i know. we are calling local businesses (on a side note, i really dislike when sales people call my church a business) and offering their employees a special deal on the daily paper. you would pay only $2.70 a week for 13 weeks. what is the address where you live?

me: i'm sorry, but i'm not interested.

psycho psl: ma'am, where do you get your information? in what form do you receive your news?

me: when i have time, i watch the news.

ppsl: newscasts only provide you with the basic news. with the daily paper, you would receive in-depth coverage of your local, national and international news as well as.... (she goes on for a bit and i was trying to interupt her, so i'm not sure of all she said here) what is your name?

me: unless it's free, i'm not interested.

ppsl: if money is an issue, i can offer you the sunday paper for only one dollar a week. what is your name and address where you live so we can get you started?

me: i'm not giving you my information. i'm not interested.

ppsl: (here, she reiterrated some of the stuff she'd already said, insisting that i needed to subscribe)

me: ma'am. i am working. i'm a receptionist, i don't have time to talk to you, i need to be answering the phone.

ppsl: yes, i don't want to take a lot of your time, but with the sunday paper, you would receive... (again, not sure of all she said as i was trying to interrupt.)

me: i'm sorry but i'm not interested.

ppsl: how.... hello?

realizing that she thought i'd hung up, i did. i took my out and ran with it. i've never before hung up on a telemarketer. i've never had one be so persistent. i'm pretty sure i couldn't have done it if she hadn't thought i already had, but i now understand how it feels to want to hang up.

posted by julie @ 9:46 AM 5 comments

1.30.2006

my arkansas bathroom experience.

since I’ve been coughing all week, i’ve been drinking extra water. i had a water yesterday afternoon in mississippi. my bladder filled up in mississippi. we drove through tennessee and into arkansas before we could convince them to stop. wanting to combine bathroom, gas and eating stops, exit four looked like a good exit. we passed it. we pulled off on exit five, which had a hotel and a citgo. i warned steve (who also needed to use the restroom) that he was going to need to exit the vehicle with astounding speed because time was of utter essence for me. i bolted out of the durango, dodged puddles in the pothole strewn asphalt and after a bit of confusion over the only usable door being the exit door, i entered the gas station like a woman on a mission. because i was. i looked left, i looked right. i looked in the corner. there appeared to be no bathroom. the line for the one cashier was long, so i had to wait for the people to disperse. three of us waited in eager anticipation for the answer to our time sensitive question. is there a restroom anywhere?

perhaps we should have taken the look on her face as a warning. but as we made our way around the outside corner of the building to an unlit area, steve said, oh, this can’t be good. we see a door standing open and after letting me know that we’d found it, i gave a little sigh of relief. perhaps i shouldn’t have. friends, let me introduce you to the absolute worst bathroom in the state of arkansas. or as baby steve put it, the worst in the state of earth.

through the dim light of the gas station neon, i see the light switch. i flip it. oh, you’re kidding me, i say. the light doesn’t work. i’m knowing that i do not have many options at this point, so i say screw it. i run in, noticing first the position of the toilet and the toilet paper, and i shut the door. i wade through two inches of rain water (please humor me and believe that it was water with me) and find the toilet. i reach for the toilet paper and as i go to rip it off the roll… the whole dumb thing falls off the wall and into the water. you are kidding me. my mom and barb are outside asking me if i want a flashlight. i let them know that what i could really use are some kleenex. my mom opens the door and hands me one kleenex. it’s good enough i decide, as i can feel the water creeping up my pants. i wade to higher ground where the water isn’t so deep and i open the door for a bit of light. i reach for the soap and find none. i rinse my hands, thankful that i go nowhere without hand sanitizer. i reach for a paper towel. do you think that there were any? of course not, my faithful readers. because as i said, this was the worst bathroom known to man.

i found myself thankful not only for the opportunity to feel a bit better, but that i had kept a pair of jeans out of my bag to change into when we got back to minnesota. after changing into my much less comfortable pants, i thanked gary for stopping. because truly, I was grateful.

posted by julie @ 4:45 AM 2 comments

1.27.2006

i'm just a girl.

i've had a fairly sketchy internet connection all week, so i apologize for not posting more. we're headed out to dinner in a few minutes and time is short, but let this picture be enough. i hope it's worth the wait.

posted by julie @ 6:20 PM 1 comments

1.22.2006

things i've learned.

1. sitting in a vehicle for 24 straight hours is bad for the back.
2. sleeping in a vehicle is hard. especially when you have to lay on hard things that don't move.
3. loss of sleep while driving in a car for 24 hours is hard to make up.
4. it'll be alright anyway.
5. i like driving through mississippi.
6. new orleans smells wet.
7. the wet pine smell here is completely different than the wet pine smell at home.
8. i like a good beignet.
9. my nasal cavity has an unlimited supply of mucus. can you believe i got sick again? might have been the lack of sleep.
10. new orleans is an empty city. much like a ghost town in some areas.

posted by julie @ 7:21 AM 3 comments

1.19.2006

popping purple pyrex.

i thought i should post before i leave for louisiana tomorrow. and i think i'll tell what my week has been like.

i frequently make a meal early in the week that will last me the whole week for lunches. this week, i decided to make kathy's super great chicken and rice hotdish. i had cooked the chicken on sunday night, so while my rice was cooking, i tore my chicken and mixed the other stuff. when the rice was done, i transferred it all to the pan and put it in the oven. a few minutes later, as i was doing the dishes, i heard a noise. do you know what it sounded like? of course not. let me tell you. sometimes, when one is baking cookies, the pan will sort of pop. it'll bend from the heat or something... you know that sound? well, that's what it sounded like.

because my thoughts were thinking oven, i opened the door. i concluded, by the amount of glass spread about the bottom of my oven and the lack of glass on one end of the pan, that not only was i going to have to clean this up, but i was also going to have to wait to eat. do you know what that pan did? that pan blew up. i was mad. mad, i say. i was hungry. it was late. i love this hotdish. as i stood looking at it, just letting it all sink in, the front of the pan fell over. you know, from the aftershock.

well, my friends, i cleaned that pan up. i was so adament about not wasting such fantastic food and also about filling up the void that was my stomach that i scooped out the middle of that hotdish and put it in another pan. i know. i know what you're thinking. julie, you're stupid. maybe. but i was so hungry. and i justified it all by determining that it had blown down instead of up or out and i couldn't see any glass on the top of the food. and i'm careful when i'm eating it, squishing each bite to check for glass before i enjoy it. it does cut down on the enjoyment factor when you mix food with a bit of fear, but it's still darn good hotdish.

so this was a fair representation of my week. hope yours was less eventful.

posted by julie @ 10:46 AM 2 comments

1.17.2006

where i've been.

i'm so sorry that i've been absent for a whole six days. that's almost a week, i know. don't cry, it'll be fine. i'm writing now. oh, they're happy tears? cry on then.

what have i been doing that could justify neglecting you for so long? well, last week was a week of late nights and sore throats. i had the pleasure of spending time with my dear friend kristin, which was long-awaited and worth every minute of lost sleep. i went to see walk the line with bekah, which was a fantastic movie. saturday, i spent the day scrapbooking with kristi. we were quite a pair, the two of us, she with strep and i with my wretched sore throat. the cough drops were flowing and the progress, though slow, was made. i awoke sunday on the upside of sick, but kristi was still quite sick when we met up for lunch at her parents' house to celebrate her and joe's birthday. good times were had all weekend, despite the abundance of germs.

let's see, what else? i've been anxiously awaiting my new camera, which i'm praying comes before i leave on friday for louisiana. oh, yeah, i'm going to new orleans with my parents' church on a mission trip. that's something you could pray for (on top of helping me pray for my camera...). i go down with no other expectation than that it will be nothing like what i would have expected, no matter what i expected.

i'm also all vaccinated now, in case you were wondering. bring on the rusty nails, the tetanus has been engaged. i'm not any different, except my arm hurts like a bugger and i have a small round band-aid on my shoulder because, folks, i'm a bleeder. i had no idea, but i am. and, i also have remarkably low blood pressure for someone from my family. yeah me! the things you find out from your doctor...

posted by julie @ 8:10 AM 3 comments

1.11.2006

that must be a mousseance.

i don't know if it's the lack of sunlight we've been having, but the corn factor in people's humor seems to be at an all time high right now. whoosh! through the roof corny.

i.e.

rather short lady (rsl): are you getting taller?
rather tall guy with spiky hair (rtg): only here (patting his rather spiky hair).
(all laugh)
rtg: i've been using my wife's hair products because i keep forgetting to get more of mine.
rsl: that must be a mousseance.

posted by julie @ 3:53 PM 3 comments

1.10.2006

eat yo cookie!

so, this was my fortune yesterday at the good chinese buffet. i concluded that the reason i was hesitating was because i have no idea who it's blooming with. joel said that even if i did, i'd still hesitate.

the last fortune cookie i ate had these words of wisdom inside: oops... wrong cookie! i'm not so sure about that one. one time, my dad got a cookie and it was empty. my mom said she wasn't going to ride home with him.

another time, i went to leann chin, grabbed a cookie and there were two inside! it was around the time that the wrs blog was started, so julia told me one of them must be for my rock star husband. my fortune that time was 'good news from afar will bring you a welcome visitor.' and my yet to be named famous husband got this one... your body is for use; not abuse. that got me worried. but, since he's not real, i figure it doesn't matter.

there are two fortunes i have saved. the first, follow the dream that keeps coming back, is framed in my scrap room. the other, your lover will never wish to leave, i save for when i actually have one.

and there is one fortune which i remember well. your next car will be better than a porsche. my next car was my current car... a 1989 camry. i like it. cheaper than a porsche, but i don't know how many people would say she was better than a porsche. because the people that would care about rating cars would not likely be interested in sophie's finer qualities. you know, like the static almost constantly present on the radio due to her lack of an antenna.

posted by julie @ 1:38 PM 1 comments

1.06.2006

my grossest post ever.

okay, one more. the pre-prepreface. i'm dogsitting for the hansons this weekend. you know joel from his fewest posts ever fame.

let's get a pre-preface going... this very well could be the latest i have ever posted. you could benefit from this tidbit. we'll have to see.

let me preface this post with this: i love the hanson dogs. so much in fact, that i have said multiple times just tonight, 'i love ya, bosco.'

i've been reading nicholas nickelby. the soundtrack is amazing. you should get it. oh, wait. that's not a soundtrack. books don't have soundtracks. that's bosco PUKING! 'i love ya, bosco, but you've got to stop eating things that aren't meant to be eaten.' did you see how i did that? i left out the second half of the sentence when i first said it. it made you think that was all there was, didn't it? yeah. i'm sure it did.

i have no recollection of ever dealing with a vomity dog. vomity children, yes, but dogs, no. what's been interesting is the progression. he changes it up every time. here's where the squeamish may want to skip ahead. go ahead, it's all right, no one will think less of you. bosco, who is an awesome chocolate lab by the way, started out with straight food. i was greeted by two small piles of leftover breakfast in the bathroom when i first came over. then, after supper, his stomach rejected virtually all of his food near the patio door. this was when i called and asked, what's with your dog? soon, my question was answered by the canine who doesn't speak. that was pile #3 by the door. we had a few stomach acid pools around the kitchen and then, the poor guy couldn't stand to stand still. so he walked. this results in trails. and the more he threw up, the harder it was to find because it became clearer with each offering. so, the trailing with the lack of visibility was what resulted in a small run-in with my foot and vomit. no big deal, just wash it off, but it made very nervous. it's been about a half an hour since the last episode, so i'm thinking maybe he's good.

i must say, however, he is smart. he removes himself from any carpeted area right before he releases his stomach muscles. i like that. we've had that going for us. makes for easier cleanup.

so this has been my night. it's all right. i take it in stride. no big deal. but really, guys, if you wanted me to wash your floors, there are easier ways. just ask.

posted by julie @ 10:34 PM 3 comments

1.05.2006

too tired to write.

so here's a picture.

this is shortly after my youngest brother ben was born. that's me in the middle. i'm the girl.

posted by julie @ 8:47 AM 3 comments

1.04.2006

$10 reward.

LOST

one chiropractor with excellent skills.
no idea where he might be.
if found please call.
my neck needs him.

posted by julie @ 11:34 AM 2 comments

wandering sails