Fireworks, kazoos, and Oregonians

I don't know if I'm going to fit in here.

Case in point: the 4th of July.
In California, it is drummed into you that you light fireworks, even illegal fireworks, on concrete or at least away from as many combustibles as possible.

In Oregon, I watched my neighbors light fireworks that shot up 60 feet (alas, not an exaggeration) ... from their nicely tree covered backyards.


A native tried to explain it to me. "Oh, you know, things happen. But if you set your neighbor's roof on fire, just bring the hose over and tell them you didn't mean to do that."

Oh, well, that's okay then. Good to know these things.

I've got odd neighbors anyway. Not in the same category as some people, but interesting none the less. My neighbors on one side, staunch red state rednecks, told me at great length about the neighbors next to them. Gangbangers, he called them, not once, not twice, about seven times. I kept wanting to quote Inigo from The Princess Bride. "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means..." But a quick look at the Urban Dictionary assures me that it is indeed a word for gangster. Learned something new.

Also, although this is quite definitely suburbia, one of my neighbors has a rooster in his backyard. That seems really bizarre to me. Probably the zoning laws were drawn up with the same approach as the fireworks. With luck, I will turn into a mellow person by hanging around these people.


And the town is trying to make something of itself. It's trying to become the city with the most Guinness World Records. “Hillsboro currently holds two official Guinness records: In 2006, 1,874 residents donned balloon hats to claim that record. In 2007, 3,459 people put on Groucho Marx glasses.”

If you're in town next weekend, stop by to help make history. They are going to try to set the record for the most number of people gathered in one place at one time... wait for it...
... playing the kazoo.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/argus/index.ssf?/base/news/1211912403278030.xml&co


On the exercise side, I think that this stupid coughing situation is an allergy. Some days I can exercise (cycled to work twice last week, 10 miles each), and other days I'm so worn out that my To Do list is just breathing.

The good news is that the coughing fits are just an allergic response. The bad news is that one of the main triggers is talking to my co-worker. Kinda screwed there.

After the party...

Photo courtesy of Flickr

I'm too tired to think coherently, but too wired to sleep. Bad combination for a blog post.

Some thoughts that have stumbled through my cluttered brain:

- Since yesterday morning, I have put 300.8 miles on my odometer.
- Cat herding would be simple compared to trying to organize a meeting of more than a dozen people who are intelligent, cheerful, and really quite easily distracted by Bright Shiny Things.
- It's a lot more fun to go with the flow than to try to herd cats.
- I've spent so much time laughing and talking that now my throat is swollen and it hurts to talk.
- It's a lot easier to hold a party in your house when elves come along and do the dishes, hang the pictures, and weed the garden for you.

Truly, everyone should have a party and invite Imaginary Internet Friends to come by. At least, everyone who is lucky enough to have such terrific, kind I.I.F.s who are extremely positive. On a one-by-one basis this group is kind, helpful, and supportive. Put together as a group they are a) impossible to organize and more importantly b) a positive force for good.

I swear everywhere I went, I could tell where the group was by following the sound of laughter. Most stories you hear about the internet deal with creepy men who pretend to be 17 when they're closer to 71, and things of that ilk. You don't hear stories about the kindness you'll find from people you've never 'met' but whom you've come to know over a couple of years.

One thing the CB group is always good for is support when you need it. Like coming home to find a clean house.

Thank you to McB, JenB, GP, Wapak, Lou, CMS, Pam, OH, K.L., Dr. T., CC, Me, the unsinkable Miss Scope, and Cary!

How's my day going? I'm glad you asked

I stole recycled this from an old Cranky Fitness post, because this clip pretty much sums it up:

It's not my fault, she whined...

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." -- Maya Angelou

That's why Maya Angelou is a famous writer and I'm an anonymous tech writer.
It's not my fault, and I am whining.
Sums it up, really.
You don't need to read any further.


Huh. Why does that always make people read further?

I have not exercised for three, count 'em, three days. I've been fighting off this irritating little virus for weeks and it keeps... coming... back. I start coughing and can't stop. Really annoying. On the plus side, it sounds horrible and people are very impressed (as they edge away from me) when I tell them that it's just a mild case of leprosy or malaria. Sounds more impressive than bronchitis.

The only way I've found that helps is not doing anything. It helps with my breathing but doesn't do much for my blood pressure -- look at all the things I have to do! This place is a mess! I need to vacuum, but first I have to clean out all the boxes and of course I need to go through the boxes before I clean them out and oh my I haven't hemmed those curtains yet and I really need to sweep the porch and mow the lawn and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...

Sorry cough. I think screaming was a mistake wheeze, cough, gasp.

This is a very whiny post, which is why I've ...er, well, postponed it. But I did promise to either exercise or post a reason why, so I'm doing so. I just wish I had someone else to put the blame on. (Can't blame a virus; they have no personality. It's not the same.)

Sometimes it really feels satisfying to be able to blame someone else.

A reel form of exercise

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing - that’s why we recommend it daily. —Zig Ziglar

It feels like cheating to say I worked in the yard with Scotty rather than working out with Orlando. But it was still exercise.

I was left ... I have to say it... reeling.

30 minutes mowing, 30 minutes weeding.

According to Iowa State:
• Digging and spading in the garden gives a moderate to heavy intensity workout. It involves muscles in the upper body, back,and legs. Women doing this activity burn 150 calories in a 30 minute period, men burn 197.


• Mowing with a push reel mower gives a high intensity workout involving the whole body. Women burn 181 calories in 30 minutes, men burn 236.


• Weeding the flower beds and vegetable garden gives the legs,hips, buttocks, and hamstrings a moderate workout if we stoop while we weed. Women burn 138 calories every 30 minutes, men burn 181.

Is that a futon in your kitchen or are you just glad to see me?

Getting ready for invasion of imaginary Internet friends by putting my non-functional futon in the kitchen until I decide what to do with it. That in itself is a kind of decision, though not a very good idea long-term.

______________________
Spend 20 hot sweaty minutes with Orlando Manuel. The good news is that he does make my heart beat faster every time I'm with him. The bad news is that all he ever does is lay around the house. Hmph.

Summary du Week: Vampire Dogs & Good Genes

The week was a mixture of good, bad, and surprising. I didn't get most of the exercising in that I had planned for, but on the other hand I did get some and I also got a surprising compliment.

Plus, the awful project has wrapped up, so with any luck at all I will be able to get important things done.

Methinks I tend to overestimate how much I can get done in a day. I overestimate my energy reserve and I don't budget enough for the unexpected. I refuse to get discouraged by any discrepancies between my To Do and my To Done lists. This is a learning process. I'm only going to get graded on the final exam. None of the preliminary midterms count, except for how much I learn from them to improve my performance.

One important lesson I need to keep reminding myself of is that you need to Expect the Unexpected. Douglas Adams complained that this phrase was a)glib and b) a contradiction in terms. But it isn't, really. You need to take into account the fact that things aren't always going to go as planned, and factor in some time in your schedule for the unexpected.

No matter how well prepared you are, you always have to budget for something to come out of nowhere ... like a flying vampire dog going for your ear.



more funny fail pictures at FAIL Blog

[Note: the non-photoshopped -- but less dramatic -- version of this photo can be found here.]

Thursday:
Pro: ate my vegetables
Con: two cans of V-8 are vegetables?
Summary: no exercise, but the end of the overtime is in sight

Friday:
Pro: finished the project-from-hell
Con: too tired to do anything useful
Summary: not a positive day, except for one thing*

Saturday:
Pro: got 2 out of the 3 on the To Do list done; skipped the 3rd to tread for 20 minutes
Con: just once I'd like to get everything on the To Do list done. Maybe should shorten list.
Summary: more good than bad

Sunday:
Pro: gardening is good exercise, especially if you bend from the waist to do the weeding. Also squeezed in 20 minutes on the treadmill.
Con: very tiring
Summary: More good than bad. Good way to end the week.

___________________________________________
*The incident on Friday? I had to go to a party, so I picked up a bottle of champagne.
The cashier looked at the bottle, looked at me, and said It.
Woman: "I'd like to see some ID please."
Me: "You're kidding."
Woman: "No." (She was perfectly serious.)
Me: "Oh, I get it. You have to card everyone, right?"
Woman: "No." (She was starting to look a little suspicious.)
Me: "You really want to see my ID?"
Woman: "Yes!"
Me: "I love you!"

I think at this point she was ready to back away and call for the manager, but I couldn't help it. When you've just passed the birthday that marks you as being half-way to 90, it's incredible that someone would think that you could pass for 21. I think it's heredity -- until a few years ago, my mother was often thought to be about 20 years younger than she actually was.

Thank you, Mom.

My positive thought du jour

I did enough whining yesterday to suffice for the week.

Today:
1. Work
2. exerciseSleep

Tomorrow I will start to snap at anyone who suggests I rewrite that @#!$ manual One More Time. I've got people snapping at me to finish up the Very Important Documentation for the Big Kahuna customer, and start the other V.I.D. that's due in a few weeks. No pressure, but get it done and done right.

The positive side of this is that I am becoming very assertive. This surely will allow me to carve out a bit of time for myself to exercise. I did remember to eat lunch today. I ate at my desk while typing, but still I count that as a positive step.

Tomorrow will be better.

Quote du jour:

"If you are going through hell, keep going."
- Winston Churchill

I live for my work? When did THAT happen?

Photo courtesy of flickr

The last few weeks I kept saying, I'll just finish the first draft of this manual and then I'll catch up on my life.

Huh. And the ironic part is, I even believed it.

So today I finished the manual and sent the draft out for review. Usually that means in a couple of weeks someone sends back a sentence or two of comment. Bah. This project, I had three separate managers call me in for meetings. (Separately, naturally. God forbid they should work together on this project.) But after all the work I'd put in, I figured leaving half an hour early wouldn't hurt. (That's not as sybaritic as it might sound. If you've been working copious amounts of unpaid overtime, a little flexibility is understood.)

But no. Right before I was about to leave, I got an email from another manager on another project, demanding documentation on a project that hadn't even been tested yet. Which meant that I had to present as 'fact' information that was in reality something that could most accurately be described as 'in theory.'

Mind you, the manager in question left work early (right after sending the email) so I couldn't (metaphorically) slap him upside the head and ask what on earth he was thinking.

I want to get back to a regular routine of exercise and eating them damn green leafy things. I just don't want to go on unemployment to do it. Methinks this is one of those 'Mary, Get Assertive' moments that I keep being sent. Argh.

That's all, I just wanted to whine. Don't mind me. Back to your regularly scheduled... er... schedules.

___________________________________________
No exercise today.
For that matter, no lunch and a slice of pizza for dinner.
Work is going to get better. It will, it will, it will.

Exercise, die, or post the reason why

I vowed that I would either exercise, die, or post the reason why.

(Okay, so I didn't really say "die" but I threw that in because it made the sentence more exciting. Drama, that's what the ratings need.)

Yesterday I did not exercise, so here's the why.

Inner Critic: Why didn't you exercise?

Me: Um... it was raining?

Inner Critic: And you have a treadmill indoors.

Me: And there wasn't any room to unfold the treadmill.

Inner Critic: Oh come on...

Me: No, really. See?

Inner Critic: Hmph. So fix it! Get your act couch together!


************************************************

Today, I have good news, bad news, and ugly news.

Good: I've assembled the couch. Now I have room to set up the treadmill.


Bad: It took me hours to put the couch together, mostly because I felt so rotten I kept having to take a break to lie down.

Ugly: I just found a leftover screw. Where was that supposed to go?




___________________________________
1/2 hour pulling weeds
1/2 hour mowing the lawn (push reel mower)
10 minutes on the treadmill

Living in the shadow of 'almost'

I spend my time almost ready to do something: lose weight, organize the house, start inviting people over, get back into long-distance cycling.

It's amazing how long I've been able to swallow the wishful-thinking pills. I always think if I just do a little-bit-more, then I can really start living.

It's easy to forget that living is what I'm doing right now. The only difference is that this is not the way I want to live.

So I've started inviting people over. Boxes? Oh, those are decorating choices. Yes, leaving boxes scattered around your living room is the latest look. Everyone does it, didn't you know? Martha's going to mention it in her magazine any month now.

Of course, since my futon/couch let me down – literally – I’m not so keen on inviting people over until I get a Proper Couch. Or sofa. Or davenport. Whatever. I'm working on that this weekend.

Wait a minute, you say. Isn't this supposed to be an exercise & weight loss blog? Yes, actually, it is. I created this blog because accountability is one of the most important ways to lose weight successfully. However, since I can't separate exercise & weight loss from the rest of my life, I've decided to tweak this blog.

Henceforth, I will either
a) post stats about working out and eating those damn green leafy things
or
b) post the reason excuse why I failed to meet the goal for the day.

Even if this turns out to be a Thomas Edison sort of blog*, I can learn from my failures. Or celebrate my successes. Methinks posting progress or regress will help.

*I have not failed 10,000 times. I have found 10,000 ways that did not work.

In my darkest hour

What's going on?
Why is it so dark in here?
Did I forget to pay the electric bill?
Wait a minute.
There's a light switch around here somewhere...

I think I like it better in the dark.
At least until I clean up the mess...
do a little light dusting...
maybe bring in a bulldozer...

Besides, everyone is celebrating Earth Hour, so I'm not being anti-social, I'm demonstrating solidarity with environmentalists. Yeah, that's the ticket.

A toast to imaginary friends

I'm telling you, CBs are the best imaginary friends anyone could imagine. I'm saving the champagne for the Summer Solstice party, so I can raise my glass and toast CBs present and absent together. Thank you for my lovely housewarming gift!


(Um... I don't promise that all the chocolate will still be available, but I do promise to substitute the best chocolate I can find.)

Secret Canadians

It feels bizarre to be back to using the Internet, back to Blogland.

Who are all you people again?

Part of my confusion can be down to exhaustion. It's crunch time at work; my life consists of sleeping or working. No time to exercise or socialize or laundrysize. I did take time out to showercize, but even that was a bit questionable.

Luckily, the rest of the team is taking the afternoon off to watch some kind of football game, so I'm taking a breather to catch up on email and blogs. It feels very strange to be sitting here in my new house (My house) reading what everyone out there has been up to. You've all been busy, clearly. Very productive people who somehow manage to balance family, work, blogging and that sleep-thing.

How do you do it? Maybe you're all secret Canadians. (I mean besides Miss Keziah and Scope, who are quite open about their nationality.)

A Canadian ministry sent out a directive to its employees urging them not to use their Blackberries on evenings or weekends. (Or during meetings, or during lunch...) It's kind of sad that they have to tell people to relax now and then. But maybe it will help some people learn to balance life and work.

Perhaps it's a sign I should emigrate. That way I'd have time to exercise. And do laundry. And whine. No, no, I'll aim for two out of three.

Going dark...

Aghast, I said "A week without internet access?"
"Well, ten days or so," said the Verizon rep cheerfully. "We'll let you know in a couple of days exactly when we can re-schedule the installation."

I can stand that... can't I? I have my doubts. It's not that I'm addicted... exactly... sniff

No, no! Cheerful Mary time! I'm going to get so much done without any computer distractions. I'll compose haiku and compost vegetables and completely organize my new house. Maybe I'll solve Global Warming while I'm at it. Worth a try.

Okay, enough with the cheerfulness already.
Sniff I'm going out for awhile. I may be some time...

If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see a faint meteor in the lower central area of the sky. Or you can go to flickr, where there's a note pointing out the meteor.

Me vs. the Universe

Last night about 9 o’clock, when it was pitch dark outside, and I was about halfway through loading up the U-Haul, and it had just started to snow, it occurred to me that sometimes I tend to overemphasize the self-reliant bit.

I mean, people did offer to help me move. And there were more people who would have helped if I’d asked. But I was fixated on the idea of trying to have an Organized move. I had 10 days in which to move, and I wanted to move stuff over, organize it, then go back for more stuff. Every time I’ve moved it has been a rush to box stuff up and schlep it over in as short a time as possible. Then everyone drives off and I’m left with dishearteningly, overwhelmingly, discouragingly huge piles of boxes, boxes, and yet more boxes. There’s only a limited amount of amusement you can derive from trying to guess where the toothbrush is, or the toaster, or what’s behind box #3.

Of course, the reality is that I needed to rent a truck to move the box-springs over, and of course I ended up getting stuck with a much larger truck than I wanted. I ended up doing an everything-in-a-box move anyway, simply because I didn’t want things to rattle around when I moved. But it's not all the rental agency's fault. The truth is, I have way too much stuff. Moving would not be such a trauma if I traveled light as a way of life.


So I’m making a New Year’s resolution. (I can still do that, right?)

By the end of the year I’m going to get rid of half of the possessions that I now possess.

The good news about the move (besides the fact that once I get the fence fixed, I’ll get my dog back) is that I can go back to bicycling to work. It was getting so dark in the afternoon that I didn’t want to ride home. Now I can bike in and take the Max (lightrail) back. It’s nine miles to work from my new house, and it’s almost a straight run in – long stretches where I don’t have to slow down for cross streets. Once you get into a rhythm on the bicycle, it’s easy enough to continue; you can rack up some good mileage and get a good workout without too much hassle.

I'm in! Backaches and feng shui

I now own a house.

I'd gotten quite cynical, didn't think it was really going to happen, but I've got the keys, they've taken the For Sale sign down, and I've started to move stuff over. Must really be happening.

Damn, but I've got a lot of stuff.

I've moved three times in the last five years, so I'd gotten to the point where I just left stuff in boxes until I needed it. Yes, I'm lazy, but I've also been a pack rat all my life, and damn but I got a lot of stuff. I'm hoping that leaving it in boxes this last move has helped me disentangle myself.

One of the books I have on my overflowing shelves is called Clear your clutter with Feng Shui. I thought it was a joke; somehow it's hard to take a title like that seriously. But reading a book on a subject is one way to get myself motivated, and one thing the author said got me thinking.

According to the author (Karen Kingston), people who collect lots of clutter also tend to be overweight. In both cases, the excess is used as a buffer between the self and the outside world. This could be true, at least in my case. It's a theory I can test, at any rate.

I'm giving myself this week off from regular exercise. I justify this on the grounds that carrying endless boxes of stuff down two flights of stairs constitutes enough damn exercise already. Thankfully I only have to carry things up two stairs. (Not two flights, two stairs. My back loves this.)

Next week, I'm planning to do two things:
1- sort through all this damn stuff
2- go back to my regularly scheduled exercise program

I'll have more time to sort and exercise, since Verizon is cutting me off from Internet and phone for a whole week. I'll see if getting rid of stuff helps shed pounds.

Once I find where I packed the scale, that is.

The meek may inherit the earth, but it takes a bitch to get a house

So to continue the saga that is my life.

I called the bank again. This time, when the customer service rep started giving me the same spiel, I interrupted him and fiercely demanded his supervisor.

When she came on the line, the supervisor asked what she could do to help. I told her the story about the mythical husband, and she interrupted me. Now their record shows that I'm single, and she was puzzled why I would have gotten the impression that they ever thought otherwise. (So apparently they corrected the situation, they just couldn't be bothered to mention it to me.) And damned if she didn't go on to imply that I Must Have Misunderstood something that had been said. I pointed out, rather dryly, that I had a piece of paper from them SAYING that I was married. That at least shut her up on that topic.*

She proceed to go over the whole spiel again about how they couldn't change their process, things had to be done a certain way. (For example, they wouldn't wire the money to me; they would only mail it. Even the woman from the mortgage company said that this bank was a "real winner.")

So apparently the whole situation was not going to change. That's when I went into Drama Bitch mode. In a voice full of barely controlled emotion I pointed out that an error on the bank's part had resulted in several days' worth of delay on this loan, that I had already incurred several hundred dollars' worth of extra charges as the result of this delay, that if they kept delaying matters further I was going to miss my closing date and lose the house, were they trying to deny me the loan? If I hadn't been getting the runaround from these people for days, I wouldn't have done it, but damn it everything I was saying was true.

After about 10 minutes of "there's nothing we can do" the woman suddenly thought of another option. Apparently** I was already pre-approved for a five-year loan. If I went for that instead of the six-year loan that I was applying for, I wouldn't have to send in an application at all. Magically, all I had to do was speak to someone on the phone and voila! The check would be sent out to me that very same day.

So why the hell couldn't someone have mentioned that option A LONG TIME BEFORE THIS?

Thank you Bag Lady, Heather, Reb, and McB for recommending that I take the assertive route. I bow in homage to your wisdom.

Theresa, Crabby, Zandile, Katharine, thank you for your support. As Cary pointed out, this is a funny situation, and I do see the humor in it. (Most of the time.) All the same, it's nice to have someone who'll listen when you're having a bad day.

Maybe now everything will go smoothly and I can get back on track with exercising and eating them green leafy things and stop carrying on cranky. It's possible.

* It was the same situation when I spoke to the first customer service rep. He said that they had been told by my company that I was married; it wasn't the bank's fault if they had that in their records. The people in my HR department deny this, and frankly I'm with them.

** I use that word a lot when I speak of this bank, because I don't quite trust anything they say.

Bring on the popcorn!

I've decided to treat my life as if it were something happening to someone else. Really, when you step back and look at it, this situation is not without humor.

The background: My progress toward getting a house has been held up at the last minute by a bureaucratic mixup: the bank says they need my husband's signature on the loan or else they need documentation proving I'm unmarried.

The story so far: My HR department, who are wonderful, offered to fax or email a screenshot of my single status in their records. So I called the bank to get a fax number or email address. This time got a woman customer service representative.

Me: All I need is a contact number or address and I can resolve this situation today. There is a time-critical element to this issue; if I can't resolve it, I won't be able to close on the house.

Her: I'm sorry, I can't give you any contact information. Because of your last call, your loan application has been put into an expedited queue. You can't send any information in, but a customer service representative will call you to deal with your situation personally.

Me: When will they call me?

Her: In a couple of business days.

Me: So instead of resolving the situation today, you're saying that I will have to wait a couple of days so you can expedite it?

Her: Yes.

So far as I'm concerned, my life is some kind of dark comedy. I like to think that Julia Roberts is playing my role. Bring on the popcorn!

Okay, God, enough already?

No matter how bad things get, there's no reason why they shouldn't simply get worse.
-Douglas Adams

I thought I was all set. I finally asked the seller to provide a home warranty for a year. If he was that confident in his wiring and plumbing, I wanted him to back it in writing. And he did, so I figured everything was settled.

Nope. There's more house drama.

My headache du jour is with the 401k people. I'm taking out a loan to cover the down payment (since I will please God get a loan from a relative in a few months to pay the 401k back).

So I go to fill out the form they sent me, and it indicates that I have to have my husband sign as well.

I call the 401k company and explain to the customer service rep I'm not married.

Him: Our records indicate that you are married. This could affect getting the loan approved.Can you prove that you're not married?

Me: How do I prove that I've never been married?

Him: Well, do you have any documentation? Maybe a copy of a divorce settlement?

(At this point I begin gently hitting my head against the wall...)

They consider this issue serious enough to delay my getting the loan, which means I'll have to push the closing date back, which means I'll have to... oh, I don't know, probably something. Hey, maybe they can delay matters for a couple more weeks, at which case I'll be out of my apartment and homeless!

Yes, I know I'm dramatizing. I like to think of the Worse Case Scenarios even though they almost never come to pass, just so I can be prepared. On the plus side, eventually Life is going to get tired of throwing challenges my way. Or I'll become a tough, assertive person who sneers at obstacles, climbs over them, and charges ahead to her goal. Well, it's possible.

I'm not going to hold my breath though.