CafeChatNoir

I so loathe days like this. Grey, nasty, rainy and cold. Just can’t stand them at all. I end up with absolutely zero motivation - just makes me want to crawl into bed and stay there til spring. There was one bright spot today and that was as I drove up in front of my house, seeing a little kitty face peering out the window, waiting for me to get home.

I need someone to cook dinner for me. And rub the very sore kink out of my shoulder. Though this article states that robot use is predicted to surge sevenfold in the next 3 years, I still see no mention of one that can cook or tend to my ironing… I need a Rosie Robot like the Jetson’s had. :) (Don’t we all?!)

In theory I got plenty of sleep last night, but I am still dead tired this evening. Frustrates me no end - I hate having to spend my weekend time getting stuff done, but I just flat out lack the time, energy and motivation to spend my evenings on anything other than just plain ol’ downtime. I have to say, that was what was so great about not working - after the first couple weeks of just catching up on my sleep, I didn’t need the downtime - I was relaxed all the time, cooked a ton, and generally didn’t have to spend weekends trying to catch up on everything else.

While I love my job, I hate working. I resent the fact that it cuts into the rest of my time, and since it’s just me here, it’s not like I’ve got anyone that can help out. The “just me” part probably isn’t helping with the motivation aspect, either, since it’s not like there is someone else having to scrounge for clean socks or dig through the fridge for dinner. It’s different when you have someone else to look out for.

Ah well, someday I’ll have enough to retire and I can putter around *and* get the cooking and laundry and all the little things done to boot.

Was catching up on my Get Fuzzy a day calendar (my heavy reading for this evening) and I came across the below thread from the beginning of the month. It made me think of favorite blood donor, . (Sadly, I am way too much like Satchel in this case.)

Don’t throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water.

Torturing a client sure can take it out of you. I think this is the earliest I’ve headed to bed in a couple weeks…

Lovelorn Aussie woman posts her desires on a billboard

A Chinese-Australian woman in the market for a husband decided that an advertisement in the lonely hearts column of a newspaper simply wouldn’t do. Nor would posting an item on the internet.

So Helen Zou, a 40-year-old Sydney civil engineer, went public in the most dramatic form. She erected a giant billboard at a major Sydney intersection appealing for love.

East coast client calls at 3:15, would like to toss all principles of cost accounting out the window and do “X”, when they’ve been doing “Y” for 6 months. I rattle of a litany of reasons why this is a Very Bad Idea, not even getting into, “it’s a pain in the ass for support”. She doesn’t care. I rattle off all the things they will have to do to accomplish this - stressing the ones that usually make clients balk at continuing with Very Bad Ideas. Hey, you can explain it to the auditors later…

Oh, and this has to be done tonight.

The call itself was easy, and I enjoyed it way too much from my seat of absolute power and authority (which I don’t get too often, LOL) We did some stuff behind the scenes with her techie and then it was lots of “OK, go do A, now B, and C, and now D” - and I swear at every turn, she would start to say, “But I don’t want…” to which I got to say, with a HUGE smile on my face,
“I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice in the matter. You HAVE to do this. We discussed this in the beginning. It must be done.”
“Oh, OK…”

Didn’t even bother me that I got stuck late for it.

Transistor Radio turns 50 (/.)

How many out there had a transistor radio and thought it was the coolest thing ever? I did. :)

One kinda good thing to come with the cooler temps - it’s latte season again. :-D introduced me to this fantastic liquid crack concoction about 2 years ago - I distinctly remember it was the weekend we went to the Spy Museum. (Why do I remember such odd things and yet can’t find my spare keys?) Stopped and snagged one on the way home tonight - mmmmmmm, good. Usually I go for plain, but I noticed (after ordering, of course!), they have a “pumpkin spice” version. Said they’ll have it all winter long - may have to try that sometime. One thing about where I work now, there aren’t any Starbuck’s that are *directly* on the way to or from work, which is probably a good thing, otherwise I’d be spending way too much money there.

Funny how you can start the day with thoughts of some elaborate dinner, or at least something that may require, say, 3 ingredients, and by the time you’re getting in the car to go home, you’re thinking, “You know, spaghettios would work just fine I think…” (Yes, 33 and I still eat spaghettios. Not actually this evening, but yeah, they’re in the pantry.) In this respect, I am VERY lucky that I live alone, as that way I don’t have to worry about feeding others decently. Cause heaven knows there are nights I barely feed myself properly! I don’t know how folks with families and jobs manage it all - hats off to you.

I am so excited that Penny Arcade & Child’sPlay are doing the toy drive again this year - and that DC’s Children’s Hospital is part of it. I’ll be lucky if I don’t blow all my Christmas budget on it. :-D

Decent day at work, things seem to be calming down a bit. I know we’ve got reqs out for new people, don’t know that they’re having any luck finding anyone just yet. Hope we get some bodies in house soon, cause we’ve got busy season looming large. While busy season last year wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d anticipated (well, once I got past the first 3 days where I got stuck til at least 7:30 each night) - we were at least fully staffed. This year may be a bit uglier…

The ME knitting project is coming along swimmingly so far. In theory, it’s going to be a tank top when it’s done. At the moment, it’s about 5 inches of knit up yarn.

Really, not terribly much of note going on in my world this evening - I think I may do something good for myself and hit the rack early.

Sweet dreams, all.

*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*cold*

34 degrees at the airport this morning. I am NOT ready for the weather to be turning cold yet!!! It seems to be a fluke as it’s only supposed to go down into the 50s the rest of the week, but still - NOT READY!! It’s things like this that force me to go spend money on sweaters…

Goodness, there isn’t any good way to tell a coworker to just get over it is there? Someone got inadvertantly screwed over by tech, yes that sucks, I do understand, but it WAS unintentional, so really now, move on, PLEASE….

While the big ol’ salad for lunch is tasty, I’d say we’re hitting hot lunch weather now. Eep! Gotta start cooking again for real.

Penny Arcade is doing it again this year!!

http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

Last year, gamers around the world pitched in and donated over $250,000 in cash and toys to the Seattle Children’s Hospital.

This year Child’s Play is expanding to help Children’s Hospitals across the United States. Each star on the map below represents a Children’s Hospital that needs your help. Selecting one will direct you to that particular hospitals Amazon wish list. Any items you purchase from that list will be delivered directly to the hospital you selected.

And this year, we’ve got FIVE hospitals participating:
Texas Childrens Hospital
San Diego Childrens Hospital
Childrens Hospital Oakland, CA
Seattle Childrens Hospital
and
Childrens National Medical Center here in DC!

Totally stoked that our Childrens Hospital gets to be a part of it. :-D

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Theodore Roosevelt

Bills, junk, adverts, and an invitation to the company year end party. (I don’t even think it had the word “holiday” in it)

Not exactly chomping at the bit to begin with. Oh dear, apparently it’s a theme party.

I think I will have to find another obligation for the evening. Such as bathing the cats.

You may want to avoid anyone who appears to be on a rampage. You don’t want to be the brunt of someone else’s fury. Do your own thing.

I’ve found that’s usually good advice for every day of the week.

And an interesting quote to have pop up today after last evening’s ponderings, from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
The only gift is a portion of thyself.

I almost made myself famous this morning for all the wrong reasons as I was sorely tempted to go outside and whack someone upside the head with a maglite - why does anyone think it is OK to repeatedly honk the car horn rather than just walking up to someone’s front door, knocking and saying, “Hey, I’m here!”??

Today’s word of the day is, “Housework!” The past couple weeks have been rough on the ol’ homestead and there is much to be done - my things have taken on a life of their own and scattered themselves all over the place when I wasn’t looking. Been a while since things have been as out of control as they are domestically-speaking, and even so, it’s really not too bad and shouldn’t take much at all to get back in shape, which pleases me no end. Amazing progress for me.

Have had a positively horrid case of foot in mouth syndrome of late - I do hope that passes very soon without my having to resort to simply not speaking to anyone ever again.

Happy Birthday talona!!!

No, no, it’s really not as morbid as all that, I’m certainly not planning on shuffling off this mortal coil anytime soon, but I’m low on sleep and my mind is in overdrive, which leads to bizarre questions rattling about my head.

I know I’m not going to be famous for anything I’ve done or dramatically change the world, and my obituary will likely not have any notable achievements in it, and I’m OK with that. I am content with having an impact on my world, small though it may be.

I want to be known in my world for being kind and generous, thoughtful and caring. For at least trying if not always succeeding in being able to be a source of support for others when needed. For being positively goofy over animals and small children. To be thought of as a genuinely good and decent person.

I hope I am achieving that.

Photos from the island did come out, despite the wonky lighting today.
TR Island

My favorite of the day, plus a couple silly animal shots
behind the cut…

Eve when she was staying here a couple weeks ago

This one just made me laugh with the way it turned out.

RAWR!

Went to a new bar last night, “Eleventh” - very good. If you’re in Clarendon & looking for a martini, be sure to drop in - good food, too. It’s on 1041 North Highland, right on the corner - they’re still waiting on approval for the sign, though.

Went over to TR Island today for their annual birthday celebration - pretty much all geared towards kids, and though the weather was a bit spotty at times, they had a good turnout. (Next year, I think what little maturity I have will get tossed aside and I’ll have to make a birdhouse along with the kids.) TR Island is such a pretty little spot here, if you ever have the chance to go visit, pack a lunch and enjoy.

Did get some pics today, no idea how they came out yet, should get around to getting those off the camera & taking a look at them.

Checked the mail today……ooh!! Things from faraway lands! :)

was kind enough to send me his leftover metro fare card from his trip here, and I got this adorable card to boot!

Courtesy of kitiara:

Spamusement - Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!

It also has an rss feed -

Ended the day with less calls than I started with, which hasn’t happened in a few days.

Got to reassure one customer that really, they could call support for help while closing out their year - they seem to be a tad anxious about it this year…

Told another one it wasn’t a good idea to change things through the back door (um, audit trail anyone?), and that she’d have to manually re-enter everything she’d changed via the front-end, because the system balked at what they tried to do. Yay for system crankiness with date formats, because it hopefully drove home the point of, “Don’t do that!”

Told another one (after getting the OK from management), “Your problem has been sporadic for 2 years and we have looked for 2 years to find the cause with absolutely no luck. We give up. Love & Smooches, Support” Which resulted in “Thank you for you candid response, who can I escalate this to now to fix it?” He was at least quite polite about it - and it’s off my plate now at least.

Clients has two reports that don’t match and toolkit output that says they should. Tell her to go find the month where the reports stopped matching and we’ll go from there to see if it is a system problem. (Unlikely given the nature of the reports in question, and we can’t go blindly mucking about a year’s worth of data to find a disconnect…) Call her back in a bit to check on it, and they’ve managed to find it and fix it already. So, I’d say, not broken software, wouldn’t you?

Got some way overdue shopping done this evening after work, both for myself and others - little bro gets to have a birthday present after all! :-D Have to say, our new little dollar store here in Burke is awesome - gift bags, bows, & sparkly tissue paper - $4.20!

Ladies, if you’re ever in the need of a bit of a boost to the ol’ bodily self image, go get something at Old Navy. I swear, the way they size things, you’re down 3 sizes just walking through the door. Gotta love it.

Gave in & ordered pizza for dinner. Mmmmm, pepperoni & sausage. Somehow the order got a tad bolloxed and I ended up with something bigger than a small pizza, so I’ve got lunch for tomorrow & the weekend! The cats were absolutely despondent as I wrapped the leftovers in tinfoil packets and put them in the fridge.

Sooooooooooooooooo glad tomorrow is Friday. Weekend is in a bit of flux, but should be good no matter how it turns out.

Me for getting to play with Clifton when I got home, or & Heather getting 10 minutes they could do something w/the car cause they both had free arms for a change. He is just SO precious, and loves to stand up already.

MmmmmmmMMM! Avoided another trip to the market this evening (lets call it “being frugal” instead of “exceptionally lazy”) and just had the bestest redneck dinner from what I had about - pigs in blankets!!

Busy again today - not as bad as last week, but still busy. Went something like this:
Mildly-jerky client calls, we determine it is NOP. Bye!
Client then direct emails me on something new, I dump in queue for first available. I end up being first available. Damn.
Client’s partner in crime direct emails me, I attempt to dump in queue for first available. Something goes horribly wrong and I manage to assign it to myself… Many, many cuss words as it is almost 5 and I am very overdone already for the day.
Another client calls, something not right w/the info he has, he can’t find user - can he call me back? It’s already 5 at this point - I tell him I will put it back in the queue and to call the call center cause I won’t be around. Guess who is still in when he calls back? Of course.

Tomorrow is our busy day of the week. Last Wednesday I was there from 8AM to 9PM. I really don’t want a repeat of that, since I really do need to go pick up my lenses at the eye docs office and tomorrow is the only night they’re open late.

Ooooooooh, DC area folks - going on display at the Natural History Museum this weekend is the Carmen Lucia Ruby

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=11&u=/ap/smithsonian_ruby

Very pretty - think I may have to take a trip into the city sometime soon - haven’t been to the gem hall in forever it seems.

Chris & Celia are getting married. Never thought I’d see the day. (Figured he’d ask and she’d say no!)

Christopher Reeve dies at 52

What better way to squander a restful weekend than by staying up too late on Sunday night? :) Par for the course for me.

Physically feeling a ton better. Mentally, eh. Too many kicks to the head recently.

Did realize that tomorrow is a gov’t/bank holiday. Maybe things will slow down a bit after all.

So, yes, to bed - which should have probably happened about 2 hours ago…

Happy Thanksgiving, paperpath!!

The exception to the “do nothing” weekend has been laundry. How on earth does ONE person generate so much laundry?!

Cause then at least I wouldn’t have to guess at what is and isn’t open on Sundays…

Went out and had a fantastic breakfast at Spartan’s down the street, and flirted with the cutest guy in the whole place. Little 17 month old across the aisle from me. He spotted me first via the mirror on the wall, then finally turned around - there was much smiling and waving going on. Sooo adorable and just a really happy camper.

Tried to hit the local yarn shop for a set of aluminum circular needles (the big chain shops only have them in plastic, ick), some DPN’s, stitch markers and stitch holders. Unfortunately, they’re closed on Sundays. I went to Total Crafts for the stitch markers as I need those now, but the rest will wait for later in the week, as they’re for a project I’m doing for ME and hasn’t been started yet, so a few more days won’t hurt.

My current project is no more, I didn’t like the way it was turning out at all, just too many little errors, so I frogged it and have set the yarn aside for another day and I’ll start w/something new this afternoon.

Going for a “do absolutely nothing” weekend was a very good call. Life’s been a 4 lane one-way no speed limit highway recently with everything being outbound and nothing coming back - draining to say the least. This last week at the office took it out of me big time - we were just so insanely busy with absolutely no apparent reason for it. Had there at least been some way of knowing it was coming, you can at least prepare mentally for it, but when it’s out of the blue like that, it’s like getting hit by a truck. When I’m all out of, well, everything, I get edgy and tense and quick to get hurt feelings.

Lots of sleep and puttering about have been good.