Last week to today
Jun. 4th, 2007 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thejunipertreeSo much stuff to talk about. I'll start at the beginning.
Last Wednesday, I managed to lock my keys in my car again. This time, it was at work and I only realized as I was getting ready to leave.
At first, I just couldn't find them in the blackest pits of my messenger bag. I dumped everything out to sift through it because my car keys are rather fond of worming themselves down to the bottom of the outer pocket, but this was to no avail. They were nowhere to be found.
I ran outside to my car (locking myself out of my office building in the process) and peered inside the driver's side window. There the bitches were, hanging from the ignition, taunting me. My windows were cracked because the days have been hot lately, but it wasn't enough to get my paws inside to unpop the lock. Everyone else in the admin office had left for the night, so I rang upstairs to our call center and got the manager.
"Do you have any wire hangers?" (The irony of this statement only hit me later on.)
They did not, but the manager sent down on of the patient care representatives to dig through her car to see if there was anything in there to assist me. The girl rummaged through her backseat and produced...a child's size plastic sword.
So, there we were, fishing around my lock with a plastic sword, attempting to catch the hilt on the lock. No dice. At this point, a police officer drove by and we flagged him down, in the hopes that he'd give me a hand. Jersey cops are notorious for not wanting to break people into their cars, so it was a long shot. Luckily, I won the lottery on this particular individual because 1. he was feeling charitable and 2. he had locked his own keys in his car this morning for the first time in his adult life and still had the wire hanger that he twisted into a loop in the trunk of his cruiser.
Success was mine shortly thereafter. Additionally, after the officer left, the call center manager came outside with some other implements that she thought might help: a plastic hanger and a spatula. I laughed the whole drive home.
The next day, I needed to take the Eldorado to get inspected, as it was almost expired. I drove all the way to the inspection station before I realized I'd left my new insurance card on my desk at work the day before when I had been rummaging around in my bag. So, I drove to my office, picked it up (and a bottle of Vitamin Water I'd stashed in the work fridge) and drove all the goddamn way back to the inspection station where I now had an hour freaking wait in the hot sun.
The wait wasn't all that bad. I had plenty of cigarettes, my newly acquired drink, and my iPod to keep me company. The heat sucked monstrously, but I tried to fight the good fight by ignoring it as best as I could. I got my car into the inspection station and then joined the ten or so other people waiting in the customer corral area.
The little man inspecting my car called me over after about fifteen minutes, asking me if I could shut my car off. I gave him a puzzled look and explained that it wasn't a tricky sort of manuver, you just turned the key, but he explained that wasn't quite working. I got in the car and tried to turn the ignition off, no go. I wiggled the key around and still nothing, the Eldorado merrily chortled along in idle, not-so-silently mocking my efforts. After a bit of profanity and some further key wiggling, I finally got the damn thing to shut down and went back to the customer corral to wait a bit more.
The next time the little man called me over to my car, it was to show me the jolly, candy-like red sticker now affixed to my windshielf. I had failed inspection. For emissions, which the Eldorado has never done before. Grumpily, I thanked the man and got in the car to head to work. I needed more Vitamin Water, so I stopped at a store along the way. Again, with the refusing to shut off business. More key wiggling finally produced the results I wanted, I bought the things I needed, and then drove to the office.
At this point, I really need to hit the bathroom badly. I've been drinking Vitamin Water all morning and my bladder is screaming at me. However, after I pulled into the office parking lot, no amount of key wiggling would shut the freaking car off. In desparation, I ran inside and grabbed the first person I spotted to go outside and watch my idling car for me while I ran to the ladies' room before I burst.
Shortly thereafter, needs attended to, the car still won't shut off and I'm swiftly growing angry at it. A phone call to my father produced nothing good and it was decided I needed to go to out mechanic to get things looked at. On the drive there, I called Joanna and told her the horrors of my day. Her only other response other than laughing hysterically at me was to get in some whining about her wisdom teeth. "Does your car shut off? Yeah? Then shut up." hee.
On the drive to the mechanic, I remember a statement I made earlier to a co-worker about my joy over having an iPod and a new car stereo: "I don't want to be at work, I just want to drive around all day listening to my music." Well, I reckon I got my freaking wish.
Several hours of me waiting at the mechanic later, the verdict is in: I need a new ignition switch. Balls. They install it. I go home. Still grumpy.
For the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of talking about getting a snake of my own.
For years, I haven't been able to have one. My mother was terrified of snakes and if I had even tried to suggest to her the idea of me bringing one home, she would have beaten my ass silly before I could even finish the statement of intent. Before that, I always lived with people who had snakes, so I never wanted to get my own. Now, the time is ripe.
I wanted something that was kind of big, with some girth to it. The Engineer's kingsnake, Betelgeuse, is almost six feet long, but he's very slender. I adore his Western Hognose, Dr. Pickles, but he's just a wee little man. I wanted something bigger, like a python. But, not too big. I don't currently want something that's going to get enormous because I don't know what the future holds. And the idea of having to give up a snake because it's outgrown my living quarters makes me frown. It wouldn't be terribly responsible of me.
So, I decide a ball python would be the best choice right now. They're not little, but they don't get gigantic. Six feet, at the most. I can handle that.
I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I could afford any of the fancy morphs (like the piebald one I wrote about in my journal last week); they're prohibitively expensive. So, a normal, run of the mill ball python would be what I bought. Looking around online at different breeders (I really didn't want to buy one from a pet store) produced no good results. All they seemed to carry was morphs. No one I could find had any regular ball pythons. Unfortunately, a pet store was how I was going to do it.
Over the course of a couple of days, I travelled to a couple of different stores to check out what the had. The first one I went to had some babies, but there was only two in the tank and stupid-headed and soft-hearted me didn't feel right about splitting them up. That caused the following conversation:
me: They're friends. I don't want to take them away from each other.
The Engineer: They're snakes. Snakes don't have friends.
me: I'll remember that the next time you tell me that Betelgeuse was giving you hugs. I still don't want to split them up.
The Engineer: You're being retarded.
me: No, I'm not. You are.
A couple days after that, another petstore. This time, it was really only to price the tank set-up and see how much money I was going to have to spend on this. However, I made the mistake of looking at the baby snakes and immediately falling in love with one of them. She was gorgeous. Normal ball python, but was slightly unusual coloring and markings. She didn't go into a defensive posture when I held her, but instead, set to exploring my hands and arms, flicking her tiny tongue as she travelled across me. Love at first sight, I tell you. And she swiftly became mine.
The first thing she did after I placed her in her newly bought tank was give a great yawn. My heart swelled with glee.
Her name is Charlie, a name that the Engineer had suggested to me the day before when I was pondering what to name whatever snake I bought. She looks like a Charlie, I think. Photos are forthcoming, as soon as she acclimates to her new surroundings. I've been holding back from taking her out of the tank every chance I get because I don't want her to get freaked out after all the commotion of being moved to her new home. Today, I held her for a little while after I'd come home from the Engineer's apartment and for about ten or fifteen minutes, she repeated her earlier behavior from the petstore: confidentially exploring my hands and trying to climb up my shirt. No fear, no striking, no defensive posturing. I'm so pleased.
Originally, we had placed Charlie's enclosure on top of my vanity table in my bedroom because it was really the only place for it to go. But, I didn't like the placement. It gave me little room to do my make-up and with her there, I could no longer smoke as I did so because I didn't want to be blowing smoke directly into her tank. Also, the air conditioning unit was directly overhead and while I haven't ran it yet this summer, I know that's coming soon and I was afraid having her tank so close to it would drastically drop her temperature levels.
This afternoon was spent deciding where to move things in my apartment to accomodate her tank. I didn't want her in the living room at all for myriad reasons and the way my bedroom was currently set up didn't allow for too many options. My first idea was to move my enormous bookcase out into the hallway and put my vanity where that was, but the Engineer vetoed that because it would give very little passing room in the hall.
He wanted me to put the bookcase in the living room, next to my china cabinet, but I vetoed that because I thought having so many big, heavy, squarish-shaped objects on one wall cluttered it up too much. Originally, there had been a large hutch next to the china cabinet and I moved that into the kitchen last year for just that reason.
After a little bit of bickering, judgements on how I own too much stuff, eye-rolling, and heavy sighing (I won't tell you who did what), it was decided we would move the china cabinet over half a foot, put the ferret cage next to it, drag the bookcase out to the living room and put it where the ferret cage was, then bring down a table from the Engineer's apartment and put that in my bedroom for Charlie's tank, where the bookcase was.
Got all that?
If you've seen my apartment, then you'll understand the mechanics.
We accomplished all of this in a handful of hours and now, everything looks wonderful. I just need somewhere to put my two knitting baskets full of yarn (out the freaking window is swiftly becoming an option because I'm really beginning to just resign myself to the fact that I Am Not A Knitter).
Solely because I was so pleased with dinner:
Tonight I made a duck breast, marinated in an organic honey, soy sauce, balsamic marinade. Cooked rare and accompanied by organic peas with butter, dill, shallots and (slightly too brown) garlic and onion pierogies. I smoked the hell out of my tiny little apartment while cooking the duck, but everything turned out fabulous (even the too browned garlic). I was going to open my bottle of Rosa Regale sparkling wine to go with it, but managed to forget.
After dinner, we watched a wretched movie with Corey Feldman in it, about a voodoo frat house (which caused a lot of growling from me about Erzulie not being a "snake goddess"). And then 1974 zombie film called Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, which wasn't as wretched. Probably due to its lack of Corey Feldman.
Tomorrow is back to work and back to drudging through the day. I need to get up to the college some time this week and speak with financial aid about my not enrolling in summer classes and I need to hit the registrar's office with the information of my major change to Human Services from Business Administration (in preparation for the Thanatology master's in six years). I don't know if I can get out of work at any point to do it, but I reckon I need to just try.
Last Wednesday, I managed to lock my keys in my car again. This time, it was at work and I only realized as I was getting ready to leave.
At first, I just couldn't find them in the blackest pits of my messenger bag. I dumped everything out to sift through it because my car keys are rather fond of worming themselves down to the bottom of the outer pocket, but this was to no avail. They were nowhere to be found.
I ran outside to my car (locking myself out of my office building in the process) and peered inside the driver's side window. There the bitches were, hanging from the ignition, taunting me. My windows were cracked because the days have been hot lately, but it wasn't enough to get my paws inside to unpop the lock. Everyone else in the admin office had left for the night, so I rang upstairs to our call center and got the manager.
"Do you have any wire hangers?" (The irony of this statement only hit me later on.)
They did not, but the manager sent down on of the patient care representatives to dig through her car to see if there was anything in there to assist me. The girl rummaged through her backseat and produced...a child's size plastic sword.
So, there we were, fishing around my lock with a plastic sword, attempting to catch the hilt on the lock. No dice. At this point, a police officer drove by and we flagged him down, in the hopes that he'd give me a hand. Jersey cops are notorious for not wanting to break people into their cars, so it was a long shot. Luckily, I won the lottery on this particular individual because 1. he was feeling charitable and 2. he had locked his own keys in his car this morning for the first time in his adult life and still had the wire hanger that he twisted into a loop in the trunk of his cruiser.
Success was mine shortly thereafter. Additionally, after the officer left, the call center manager came outside with some other implements that she thought might help: a plastic hanger and a spatula. I laughed the whole drive home.
The next day, I needed to take the Eldorado to get inspected, as it was almost expired. I drove all the way to the inspection station before I realized I'd left my new insurance card on my desk at work the day before when I had been rummaging around in my bag. So, I drove to my office, picked it up (and a bottle of Vitamin Water I'd stashed in the work fridge) and drove all the goddamn way back to the inspection station where I now had an hour freaking wait in the hot sun.
The wait wasn't all that bad. I had plenty of cigarettes, my newly acquired drink, and my iPod to keep me company. The heat sucked monstrously, but I tried to fight the good fight by ignoring it as best as I could. I got my car into the inspection station and then joined the ten or so other people waiting in the customer corral area.
The little man inspecting my car called me over after about fifteen minutes, asking me if I could shut my car off. I gave him a puzzled look and explained that it wasn't a tricky sort of manuver, you just turned the key, but he explained that wasn't quite working. I got in the car and tried to turn the ignition off, no go. I wiggled the key around and still nothing, the Eldorado merrily chortled along in idle, not-so-silently mocking my efforts. After a bit of profanity and some further key wiggling, I finally got the damn thing to shut down and went back to the customer corral to wait a bit more.
The next time the little man called me over to my car, it was to show me the jolly, candy-like red sticker now affixed to my windshielf. I had failed inspection. For emissions, which the Eldorado has never done before. Grumpily, I thanked the man and got in the car to head to work. I needed more Vitamin Water, so I stopped at a store along the way. Again, with the refusing to shut off business. More key wiggling finally produced the results I wanted, I bought the things I needed, and then drove to the office.
At this point, I really need to hit the bathroom badly. I've been drinking Vitamin Water all morning and my bladder is screaming at me. However, after I pulled into the office parking lot, no amount of key wiggling would shut the freaking car off. In desparation, I ran inside and grabbed the first person I spotted to go outside and watch my idling car for me while I ran to the ladies' room before I burst.
Shortly thereafter, needs attended to, the car still won't shut off and I'm swiftly growing angry at it. A phone call to my father produced nothing good and it was decided I needed to go to out mechanic to get things looked at. On the drive there, I called Joanna and told her the horrors of my day. Her only other response other than laughing hysterically at me was to get in some whining about her wisdom teeth. "Does your car shut off? Yeah? Then shut up." hee.
On the drive to the mechanic, I remember a statement I made earlier to a co-worker about my joy over having an iPod and a new car stereo: "I don't want to be at work, I just want to drive around all day listening to my music." Well, I reckon I got my freaking wish.
Several hours of me waiting at the mechanic later, the verdict is in: I need a new ignition switch. Balls. They install it. I go home. Still grumpy.
For the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of talking about getting a snake of my own.
For years, I haven't been able to have one. My mother was terrified of snakes and if I had even tried to suggest to her the idea of me bringing one home, she would have beaten my ass silly before I could even finish the statement of intent. Before that, I always lived with people who had snakes, so I never wanted to get my own. Now, the time is ripe.
I wanted something that was kind of big, with some girth to it. The Engineer's kingsnake, Betelgeuse, is almost six feet long, but he's very slender. I adore his Western Hognose, Dr. Pickles, but he's just a wee little man. I wanted something bigger, like a python. But, not too big. I don't currently want something that's going to get enormous because I don't know what the future holds. And the idea of having to give up a snake because it's outgrown my living quarters makes me frown. It wouldn't be terribly responsible of me.
So, I decide a ball python would be the best choice right now. They're not little, but they don't get gigantic. Six feet, at the most. I can handle that.
I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I could afford any of the fancy morphs (like the piebald one I wrote about in my journal last week); they're prohibitively expensive. So, a normal, run of the mill ball python would be what I bought. Looking around online at different breeders (I really didn't want to buy one from a pet store) produced no good results. All they seemed to carry was morphs. No one I could find had any regular ball pythons. Unfortunately, a pet store was how I was going to do it.
Over the course of a couple of days, I travelled to a couple of different stores to check out what the had. The first one I went to had some babies, but there was only two in the tank and stupid-headed and soft-hearted me didn't feel right about splitting them up. That caused the following conversation:
me: They're friends. I don't want to take them away from each other.
The Engineer: They're snakes. Snakes don't have friends.
me: I'll remember that the next time you tell me that Betelgeuse was giving you hugs. I still don't want to split them up.
The Engineer: You're being retarded.
me: No, I'm not. You are.
A couple days after that, another petstore. This time, it was really only to price the tank set-up and see how much money I was going to have to spend on this. However, I made the mistake of looking at the baby snakes and immediately falling in love with one of them. She was gorgeous. Normal ball python, but was slightly unusual coloring and markings. She didn't go into a defensive posture when I held her, but instead, set to exploring my hands and arms, flicking her tiny tongue as she travelled across me. Love at first sight, I tell you. And she swiftly became mine.
The first thing she did after I placed her in her newly bought tank was give a great yawn. My heart swelled with glee.
Her name is Charlie, a name that the Engineer had suggested to me the day before when I was pondering what to name whatever snake I bought. She looks like a Charlie, I think. Photos are forthcoming, as soon as she acclimates to her new surroundings. I've been holding back from taking her out of the tank every chance I get because I don't want her to get freaked out after all the commotion of being moved to her new home. Today, I held her for a little while after I'd come home from the Engineer's apartment and for about ten or fifteen minutes, she repeated her earlier behavior from the petstore: confidentially exploring my hands and trying to climb up my shirt. No fear, no striking, no defensive posturing. I'm so pleased.
Originally, we had placed Charlie's enclosure on top of my vanity table in my bedroom because it was really the only place for it to go. But, I didn't like the placement. It gave me little room to do my make-up and with her there, I could no longer smoke as I did so because I didn't want to be blowing smoke directly into her tank. Also, the air conditioning unit was directly overhead and while I haven't ran it yet this summer, I know that's coming soon and I was afraid having her tank so close to it would drastically drop her temperature levels.
This afternoon was spent deciding where to move things in my apartment to accomodate her tank. I didn't want her in the living room at all for myriad reasons and the way my bedroom was currently set up didn't allow for too many options. My first idea was to move my enormous bookcase out into the hallway and put my vanity where that was, but the Engineer vetoed that because it would give very little passing room in the hall.
He wanted me to put the bookcase in the living room, next to my china cabinet, but I vetoed that because I thought having so many big, heavy, squarish-shaped objects on one wall cluttered it up too much. Originally, there had been a large hutch next to the china cabinet and I moved that into the kitchen last year for just that reason.
After a little bit of bickering, judgements on how I own too much stuff, eye-rolling, and heavy sighing (I won't tell you who did what), it was decided we would move the china cabinet over half a foot, put the ferret cage next to it, drag the bookcase out to the living room and put it where the ferret cage was, then bring down a table from the Engineer's apartment and put that in my bedroom for Charlie's tank, where the bookcase was.
Got all that?
If you've seen my apartment, then you'll understand the mechanics.
We accomplished all of this in a handful of hours and now, everything looks wonderful. I just need somewhere to put my two knitting baskets full of yarn (out the freaking window is swiftly becoming an option because I'm really beginning to just resign myself to the fact that I Am Not A Knitter).
Solely because I was so pleased with dinner:
Tonight I made a duck breast, marinated in an organic honey, soy sauce, balsamic marinade. Cooked rare and accompanied by organic peas with butter, dill, shallots and (slightly too brown) garlic and onion pierogies. I smoked the hell out of my tiny little apartment while cooking the duck, but everything turned out fabulous (even the too browned garlic). I was going to open my bottle of Rosa Regale sparkling wine to go with it, but managed to forget.
After dinner, we watched a wretched movie with Corey Feldman in it, about a voodoo frat house (which caused a lot of growling from me about Erzulie not being a "snake goddess"). And then 1974 zombie film called Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, which wasn't as wretched. Probably due to its lack of Corey Feldman.
Tomorrow is back to work and back to drudging through the day. I need to get up to the college some time this week and speak with financial aid about my not enrolling in summer classes and I need to hit the registrar's office with the information of my major change to Human Services from Business Administration (in preparation for the Thanatology master's in six years). I don't know if I can get out of work at any point to do it, but I reckon I need to just try.
