145

Today is a good day. Stepped on the scale this morning and was surprised to see 145 on the reading pane. I fluctuate anywhere between 3-5 pounds in any given week. It has been a few months since I got down to this size. guess it helps when I don't work a second job anymore and have time for exercise!!!

ROCK ON!

rants and raves

I am ranting. I am raving. I am ranting and raving.

Usually, I am a pretty level-headed person. I am a little spazzy sometimes, but usually, I can keep my cool, even at the more irritating things. Well, not today. So I am going to rant and rave.

How did this all come about? To make a long story short, today was the day I was supposed to notify everyone at work about the upcoming "social" event to be held next week. You ask, "but I thought you were a (insert occupation here),".. yes, I am that too, but for this go around, I am also in charge of the latest social event at work - courtesy of my "voluntary membership" on the social committee at work.

Anyhoo, so we are putting on a spaghetti luncheon/fundraiser and need to tell everyone about it so they can come and eat donated food and socialize for a few minutes during lunch. Since we have a work policy to not "spam" everyone in the building (there are other groups besides us), we have take care to use the correct listserv address. So yes, I search my Outlook address book for the correct listserv address, check spelling, grammar, dates/times, etc.. and hit SEND. Oops, I forgot the attachment... that listserv email can't accept attachments anyway...oh, well, no biggie if people get a duplicate copy...

So I copy/paste the info into a new email, check formatting, etc...when one by one, that little new mail notification pop-up box shows up in the right-lower corner of my screen...we have Win 2003 so I can see the 1st line: "Laura, there is no attachment.." yes, yes, I know, I know.. I grumbled to myself. So I open up the email, start typing a reply to this person...new mail notification pops up again...ugh...(who is it now?).. "attachment?"...ugh.. yes, I KNOW.... ugh...grumble grumble...So now that I have three different emails open, the Outlook main screen, and the Adobe Acrobat screen that I was working on, and the copy of email from my sent mail box, .... new email notification....Message from Laura Chen re: Spaghetti Luncheon....YES, i KNOW! i SENT THAT EMAIL! ugh! I KNOW that I'm on that list.. grr!!! Damn-it! I just hit the sent button.. without the attachment.. but, hey! to the correct Outlook Group so they can actually see the attachment... if I had attached it, that is...

Okay..calm down.. your officemate already thinks you're a bit loony for talking to yourself...but dude, people C-H-I-L-L! C-H-I-L-L! ... new email notification... Message from Laura Chen re: Spaghetti Luncheon...... YES YES YES... GRRRR... (what is it with *#$&!@!!) ... new email notification... Message from so-and-so re: Spaghetti Luncheon..."What attachment?"....(ARG!) ....NEW EMAIL NOTIFICATION....MESSAGE FROM some-other-so-and-so RE: SPAGHETTI LUNCHEON............

(insert expletive here(insert expletive here)(insert expletive here)(insert expletive here)(insert expletive here)!!! (insert expletive here)(insert expletive here)!!!

copy/paste/spell check/check email address/check attachment/ SEND

ahhhh......(*sigh of relief*)........

corporate accounts payables, this is Nina speaking.... Ju-st a mo-ment..

So it seems that my work phone number is one digit off from some research institute. See, every once in a while, I would receive a phone call asking for someone that didn't work there. While that's nothing unusual, the ones where they start leaving incredibly detailed descriptions of their menopausal symptoms are...

The first phone call came about 3 or 4 months ago. Some lady had left a message on my voice mail inquiring about participating in a study on menopause. It wouldn't be such a big deal if she hadn't started to leave complete descriptions of the symptoms she had experienced - you know, "dryness", and I'll just stop at that one to save you from the graphic details. Unfortunately, she must have been calling on her cell phone, because all the crackling muffled out the contact phone number she had left. Thus, I had no way of reaching her to tell her she had the wrong number.

A couple of weeks later, the same lady calls back. This time, I was at my desk and answered the phone. Literally, the first words out of her mouth after I had said "Hello, this is Laura" were "Yes, I am calling about the menopause study..." Lucky for me, I was able to interject before she began another lengthy description of her symptoms. I felt kind of bad because she was obviously embarassed, even over the phone, but hey, I figured that she would at least know why she hadn't gotten a call back and I wouldn't get anymore strange calls.

Go figure, earlier this week, I answered my work phone as usual "Good morning, this is Laura." First words out from the caller were "Yes, I am calling about the sexual dysfunction study..."

Grease Monkey

So a few weeks ago, I discovered a leak in the trunk of my car. I wasn't quite sure where it was coming from and had to do some testing to figure it out. After tearing apart the back of my car several times (to coincide with rain showers and then only weekends where I wasn't out of town or wanted to be lazy), I finally found the source of the leak two weekends ago.

Basically, the rear lights sit over part of the bumper where there is a matchbox sized hole on both sides. I don't know why this is, but it appears to have been purposely made that way. Anyway, the interior neoprene stuff (not the exterior rubber weatherstriping) that is supposed to seal the hole between the plastic light cover and the interior of the car had partially torn away from where it was supposed to be. Thus, instead of creating a waterproof seal, dirt and muck from the puddles that I like to drive over were getting stuck in the gap, and water was seeping through into the trunk.

With a little help of the sales guy at Knecht's, I bought some neoprene weatherstripping stuff and a couple of bolts (to replace one that I had broke and one that I lost somewhere underneath the metal car body and cannot reach) and again dismantled the back end of my car on Sunday. Once again, I removed all the plastic paneling and put all the little screws and bolt and caps in a ziploc bag and fuddled around with the weatherstripping until I was happy with the fit. I even found use for the plastic model glue (that had been sitting in my desk for how ever many years since I last put a plastic model together) for some added bonding to the plastic parts. I replaced everything in its place, including the back seats that I've had to take apart, screwed and bolted the parts back together and my car almost looked normal again.

The Spring rains should help give the seal a good test. Hopefully, it won't leak anymore and I would feel a good sense of accomplishment that I fixed it all by myself. The only thing left to do is de-rust my car jack and replace it in the trunk. With a little luck, I can then tackle the fuse panel (needs a new cover) next, maybe the interior handle for popping the hood, or even the front bumper.... we'll see...

I wanted to be a PE teacher when I grow up.

Yes, that was what I wanted to be whenever someone asked me that question. At the time, I didn't know it, but I probably knew myself better back then than I do now - the PE part anyway was true. The teacher part, maybe not so much.. Well, maybe..

See, for the better part of my childhood, I didn't know sports existed, except maybe for the running track in elementary school until 3rd grade. Until I was about 10 years old, I had never so much as had a ball, raquet, or any other sport equipment of any kind. That was the year that I moved to the US. That was the year I learned about kickball, tetherball, four squares, dodge ball, and pilo polo (kind of like field hockey, but with nerf sticks and balls on blacktop). From there, I watched football and baseball on TV for the first time when I was 11, saw classmates playing basketball and handball in the school yard when I was 12, and heard about other girls playing in softball leagues and boys in pop warner football.

I wanted to try all of those things - they all sounded like so much fun! I would ask if I could play softball, or basketball, or football, anything.. anything. But it was "un-girl like" for me to participate in sports - I remember mom saying. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom - the difference between my mom and I is that we grew up in very different households and different times. It wasn't kosher for girls to play sports where she grew up.

Anyhoo, so back to why I got started thinking about this. Before my volleyball game last night, there was a girl about 10 yrs old hanging around the court waiting for her mom to finish playing. I had my vball with me and was shooting baskets with it. The girl looked kind of bored, so I invited her to shoot around with me. I helped her adjust her shooting form and encouraged her to try different things, like using her legs when she shoots. It was just a different experience for me. I've never really had an opportunity to do that before, other than with my sister when she was younger. On occasion, people would ask me if I ever coach basketball. I always thought they were crazy because I am of the opinion that coaches were athletes who started playing the sport when they were in kindergarten, and then at least consistently at the varsiy high school level and maybe some college - as opposed to me, who hardly played varsity as a high school senior and then only city leagues afterwards. I don't even consider myself as good, just average, you know?

But anyway, with all the thoughts that had been running through my mind lately about a career pursuit/change/whatever you want to call it, or at least how undecided I've been about it, something in my subconscience must have woken up and reminded me that I wanted to be a PE teacher at one point. And yes, I thought about going into sports therapy as far as my junior year in high school, but then found out that I had to take anatomy and dissect cadavers. The idea of cutting into dead people didn't sit well with me, so I had stopped thinking about it.

Maybe I ought to think about it...

distance makes the heart grow fonder...

Every once in a great while, I catch an old friend of mine online. We've known each other since high school and have managed to keep in touch throughout the years even if we do not live in the same area anymore. As we've both grown older, we have become very different in some ways. Nonetheless, whenever we have the opportunity to chat, it always surprises me that it feels like we could tell each other anything no matter what. It is REALLY COOL.

It is also kind of weird because the last time we spent time together in-person was 4 or 5 years ago. And I don't even really remember what we did. I think we went out for dinner, or something. We probably just caught each other up on what's been happening in our lives and chatted up a storm.

Sometimes I miss my friend. There were some tough times that this person has helped me through and was there for me when I could not confide to anyone else. Perhaps that is why I feel so comfortable talking my friend, even though I couldn't tell you what kind of foods my friend likes, or even what my friend's favorite color is, or what kind of car this person drives now.

I am glad that I met this person. I am glad that this person is still in my life. I am glad I have this friend.

know thyself...

So I went to open gym at a local middle school the other night. My sister had told me about it. A nearby church sponsors the freebie time and anyone could go play, regardless of affiliation. Iniitally, my sis and I were going to go together, but she became ill. I went anyway since I am always up for basketball, regardless of how horrible I may be.

Those of you who know me well, you know that I am agnostic. My immediate family are regular church goers. And by regular, I mean, at least weekly. They all say grace at dinner time and go to Bible study, etc. So yes, they are believers.. and I am not.

Anyway, one of first things that the group did was stand in a circle and prayed. Out of respect, I bowed my head and was silent for the duration. And then we played ball for the rest of the evening.

So, a few days later, I was talking to my sis and mentioned that I did not expect the prayer part, that it was kind of weird for me. She asked me why, and I didn't have a good answer for her. So I have been thinking about it and I think I've figured it out. Yes, it seems kind of weird that I didn't put the two together, but sometimes that's how my mind works, or not work, depending on how you look at it.

My answer is: I felt uncomfortable in that situation because I felt like I was going against my own beliefs. Out of respect for others (because everyone is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs about things), I will usually bow my head and be silent during those situations. But yes, it really makes me uncomfortable. And yes, it is because I don't believe in the same things, and I am compromising my own beliefs.. I think that is why I don't like situations like that. So there it is, I said it.