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I'm the smartest, prettiest, funniest girl you ever saw, you just don't know it yet.
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20Q
A Twisted Day In The Life Of...
Anenigma
Danielle
Geek In Black
Glibbertysmidgeon
Go Fug Yourself
The Invincible Revenge Of Mr. Brick
The Marj Memoirs
Mark Pickerel
Waiter Rant
Warren Ellis
Weetabix
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I am finally up and running as a mark. representative.
I placed my first order last week, but it was all samples and items that I had ordered for myself. On Thursday of this week I will place my first official customer order. I can't even say how excited I am to be doing this.
Ladies, please browse meetmark.com and if you see anything you'd like, I will be more than happy to order it for you and send it your way for just $4.95 shipping (if you order directly from mark. the shipping cost is $5.95). It will take a little longer for you to get your products, but you will learn to appreciate the benefits of dealing with a real person who will make sure your order is correct before it's sent out, package your items prettily, and send you plenty of samples. Plus, if you order from me and get your friends to order as well, I will give you bonus deals.
And guys, if you're looking for gift ideas for your mother/sister/girlfriend, I would be glad to help you pick something out, and I'll even wrap it for you. How much easier could it get?
Contact me on any Sunday to place an order and I will donate 10% of your product total to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. As a token of my appreciation you will receive an MS Ribbon of Hope pin.
Despite my travel plans being mutilated, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to see A and the baby. In my completely unbiased opinion, my nephew is one handsome fellow. In addition to being the cutest baby ever, he is incredibly mild-mannered and I found myself unable to resist kissing his chubby little baby cheeks and his soft little baby head.
At first I felt a little awkward around him, unable to remember the last time I'd held a baby whose head still had to be supported, but by the middle of the second day I had slipped right back into the motherly routine I was forced to develop years ago.
I am a little worried that A is falling victim to post-partum depression (Maybe I shouldn't say that just in case Tom Cruise is reading my blog) but doesn't want to admit that everything isn't 'just fine'. I'm not sure how to convince her to seek help, either.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
You know that dream where you’re at school and you’re naked, and the entire classroom is full and everyone’s staring and laughing and you know that if you can just find an empty desk they’ll all go away? If you replace the classroom with a Greyhound bus full of people who won’t make eye contact I just experienced that in the waking world. Well, I wasn’t naked.
The driver took my ticket and told me that he had exactly two seats open. There was a young boy standing next to me with a ticket in his hand, too.
“You two are it,” he said. “Wait until everyone’s on the bus so you can see which seats are taken.”
Weighed down by a backpack stuffed with clothes and dollar store purchases, a diaper bag full of things for the baby, and my camera bag I walked up the aisle apologizing and asking, “Is that seat open?” Everyone mumbled that there’s someone sitting there and looked away. When I turned around to see if maybe I missed something, the bus started to move. I was only halfway back down the aisle and was forced to shout “Excuse me!” to get the driver to stop.
I stood at the front of the coach as the driver rationalized that the bus had been full and two people had gotten off, so there should be a seat. He checked tickets and left me standing there for what felt like forever. By the time he returned and started thumbing through his tickets, saying, “Well, it all checks out,” I was thoroughly humiliated and tears were burning at my eyelids.
“There’s another bus in an hour, so at least you won’t be completely stranded.” He handed my ticket back and told me to go back inside and talk to the agent.
I cried in the bathroom for two or three minutes, but I got to Seattle in one piece, and my nephew is absolutely adorable.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
Do you remember two or three months ago when I mentioned that I was going to sell Mark cosmetics? I filled out the entry form online three or four times with no result before I gave up. I finally got a phone call a couple weeks ago from the district representative, and met with her yesterday to get my account set up. I am very excited about being able to sell these products, and as soon as I figure out how, I will let you all in on how to order from me online! Especially you, Zlanth.
I received my first credit card the other day. It has a low limit on it (only $200), so it will be pretty difficult to get myself into any kind of irrepairable trouble. I am also finding myself feeling very adult and responsible, and really thinking hard about my purchases before I make them.
I had a talk with D about responsibility the other day, and offered to open a savings account at my credit union for her. Her dad has a savings account for her, but he is very parental and controlling and she can only make a withdrawal if he deems it appropriate. My thought was that if I opened an account for her and she could mail in her babysitting money and balance her account herself, she might be more interested in saving.
I explained to her that I would not keep her from spending her own money, but that the purpose of a savings account is to save. If she decided to open an account it was agreed that I would keep her ATM card for her and when she wanted to make a withdrawal she would have to think about it for five days and at the end of those five days I would hand over the card if she still wanted to take the money from her account. She seemed interested in being able to keep a register of her credits and debits, and excited about the idea of setting spending goals for herself.
When she asked our mother if it would be alright, mommy dearest said, "No". Her reasoning was that she doesn't want D to have an account with a bank that doesn't have a local branch. She thinks that D will not learn any financial responsibility unless she can walk up to a teller and physically hand over her money. I think my mother just doesn't want any of us to learn about hoity-toity things like money managing and cellular phones. She wants us all to stay poor white trash for all of eternity, just like her.
I shouldn't have even had D ask first. I should have just set up the account and said, "Screw what mother thinks."
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
I signed up for PayPal on Thursday. I just got all the information for my new checking account and am bidding on a cell phone on eBay, and if I can pay by PayPal I will have it much sooner than if I pay by money order.
PayPal does that verification thingy, right? Where they deposit a few cents into your account and you have to sign into PayPal and type in the amounts? So they can make sure that your bank account is, in fact, your bank account? Well, it is only supposed to take two or three days for them to deposit the pennies in your chosen account.
Last night I was freaked out about it because my PayPal account said that the deposits had been made Saturday, but as of midnight last night my checking balance had not changed. I was afraid I'd put an extra digit at the end of my account number (if this were the case then I had probably made the same mistake on my direct deposit forms at work).
The auction ends at 11:30 this morning (only three hours left!). An unverified PayPal account would limit my highest possible bid, since I don't have the cash right now to cover my desired maximum bid and I haven't received my debit card yet to be able to remove my PayPal-accessible funds from the bank. And I really want to win this auction (did I already say that?).
I was so stressed about this last night that it made my stomach hurt.
I went to bed rationalizing that I would call my bank in the morning and see if the deposits were there but just weren't showing on my online-banking balance. If it was a no-go, I would have to check my account number, re-enter it on PayPal (and check to make sure that I put the right information on my direct deposit paperwork) and wait the two or three days for the second set of verification deposits. If that didn't work, I would just have to wait until I get paid on Friday and mail the guy a money order then.
I was still a
While I was asleep I dreamt that when I checked my bank balance the pennies were there. I dreamed of entering the numbers into the little boxes on PayPal, and I woke up with a clear mind ten minutes before my alarm clock was set to go off. As I clicked my way across the internet at 8:00 this morning I prepared myself to have to call my bank, but when I made the final click, there was an extra $0.56 in my checking account. Hallelujah! We have PayPal!
Now I just have to be patient and wait for my auction to close. I have to leave for work at 10:30 this morning so I've asked Jessica to let me know who won so I can complete my day knowing whether I am the proud new owner of a gently-used Samsung SPH-i500, and I'm pretty sure I will be. Having something to look forward to will make it go by so much faster.
My 13-year-old sister and a group of her friends got caught smoking pot with an 8-year-old. D said that she has smoked weed once, but did not partake on that particular occasion, rather just watched as the kid asked them if he could try it and they said 'Yes' and rolled him a joint. My sister is only grounded for a week.
Two or three weeks ago she was caught lying straight to her father's face about hiding a boy in the house while she was babysitting. She wasn't even punished for that one.
Now, call me strict, but when I grow up and have children, they will be grounded for the rest of their lives if I find out that they're taking any drugs. I have never smoked pot, and I can't say that I regret it.
If my children have babysitting jobs and deliberately disobey the rules of the home they're in, they will no longer have a babysitting job.
Not disciplining D for these things is not teaching her responsibility.
Last night I confessed to my mother that I'm getting very tired of having to look after a teenager, and her response was, "Well, I'm not quitting my job. That's what I would have to do if you weren't helping me out with her."
When I was D's age I was not only responsible for myself, but for my mother's four other children. Is it too much to ask that D be trustworty enough that I don't have to spend my free time making sure that she's not sneaking boys into the house or getting high with the neighborhood delinquents? Am I expecting too much of her just because I happened to be a good kid with no friends and never got into the kind of trouble that she finds? Maybe I'm resentful that she's allowed so much freedom at her age when I was burdened with cooking and diaper changing and keeping four young children from killing each other at the ripe old age of 12. I was certainly resentful of C when she, only a year younger than I, was able to do pretty much whatever she wanted while I was confined to the house and denied even extra-curricular school activities. The only thing that's changed in the last dozen years is that I no longer have to change diapers.
Needing to keep myself grounded and focused on the future, I spent a large part of Tuesday perusing the CIC website and found answers to a lot of my questions regarding immigration. I would not be able to apply as a skilled worker with my nurse's aide certification, so I don't have to take that class this winter and drive 60 miles a day for a year to gain experience in a job I'm sure to hate. I could apply as a skilled worker since I have worked in secretarial positions, but a family class sponsorship will likely be easier and less costly in the end.
At the beginning of next summer I will apply for a job with a Safeway in Burnaby. The assistant manager at the store I'm interested in told me that they're always looking to hire people who don't need training, so it's a pretty good chance that I would be offered a job. The next step would be obtaining a work visa permitting me to accept Safeway's job offer, and I hope to have said visa by September 1. If everything goes according to plan Kevin and I will be common law after a living together for a year and will be able to apply for family class residency. At this point it's looking pretty good, and I am excited and relieved to finally have a 'How' and a 'When'.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
Last weekend a co-worker set a $70 gas prepay for a man who only gave her a $50 bill. When he had pumped his fuel and started to drive away she sent me after him to tell him we owed him $20. He said he only paid $50 and pumped $50, so I went back into the kiosk and asked the negligent co-worker how much money he had given her.
"Well, the computer says he prepaid $70 and pumped $50," she said. "So, give him $20."
The customer had returned to the payment window to see what was going on. I gave him the $20 bill even though I was fairly certain co-worker had screwed up it wasn't really his money. He hopped in his truck and left. As soon as he was off the property, co-worker asked how much he told me he had given her. Sometimes this woman is just so infuriatingly slow that I want to scream.
This weekend I saw the same man and pointed him out to the woman I was working with.
"I don't understand how he could take the $20 knowing that it wasn't his," I pondered.
As I was talking to the other attendant, I heard him shouting across the deck to his wife who was fueling up a big black truck at a different pump.
"Just put in fifteen or twenty!"
When she came to the window to pay for the diesel she had pumped she said to her husband, "We're going to take it back to them on empty? $15 isn't going to go far in that truck."
He insisted that $15 was enough; why should they fill up the tank before returning it to their friends?
I started to understand how this man could take the $20 from last week.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
There are plenty of tragedies in a small town and quite often they hit harder than in larger areas, simply because everyone's more likely to know everyone else. Being an anti-social youth of a lower-class lifestyle I didn't know so many people and when someone in my high school committed suicide, I knew him because everyone knew him; or when someone's mom was in a car accident, I knew who they were but did not know them personally. In the last few weeks things have been hitting close to home home left and right.
A couple of weeks ago a local 19-year-old girl died in a car accident in Florida. She was a friend of my sister's when they were in middle school. I could not put the name to the face until I saw a photograph of the girl, and now I can picture her clearly in my mind, right down to her dimples and slightly crooked teeth. In my mind, she is always smiling.
Last week a 22-year-old man whom I've known since grade school was in an accident and airlifted to a large hospital in Seattle. Within two days of that, a 14-year-old girl in the same class as my brother, her father, and his best friend drowned in the Cle Elum River.
This morning a woman I worked with at DBC shot her husband. Six times. He's in the hospital and she's in the psych ward.
Have things like this always happened here and I've just been oblivious? It all just seems so strange.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
Ben & Jerry's ice cream has been on sale at Safeway for the last two weeks. Since I will only buy it if it's on sale, I have probably purchased 10 or 12 pints* in the last 14 days. Yes, I am ashamed to admit that.
Safeway has a system called Camino that prints out different coupons for each customer based on the items that they buy. Each time I have left the register with ice cream and coupons in hand I have had one coupon for $0.75 off two pints.
Tonight I received this same coupon, but in addition I was given a coupon for $1.00 off two pints of "Body & Soul", B&J's new line of reduced-fat, reduced-calorie ice cream.
Do you think Camino is judging me?
*Does anyone besides me think that 1/2 or 1/4 pint tubs of Ben & Jerry's would be a good idea? I am loathe to spend $3.50 on a pint, but would probably gladly spend $2.00 on half as much product, or $1.50 on a quarter as much, partly because it would be less money to shell out at once, and partly because I would be less tempted to devour an entire pint in one sitting if I were required to open two or four different packages to do so.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
One of my Blogger friends, Scott, is in the hospital. I really don't know him well (and I hope this post is not too personal), but from the few instant messenger conversations we've had, and from what I've read in his blog, I've grown very fond and respectful of him.
He's been battling cancer for almost a year now, and his latest round of chemo has been really tough. He's got a blood clot in his leg, and a tumor in his stomach is bleeding out. He is constantly being poked and prodded and stabbed with needles (or worse). For the last six days they haven't let him eat anything but Jell-O and clear broth. In spite of everything his attitude is always that things could be worse.
When I called him at the hospital the other night he said, "Eryn? Eryn The Nerd?" I had forgotten that we'd never spoken on the phone. I meant to call him last time he was in the hospital.
I am not good at comforting people when their position is much more dire than breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or losing a good job, and I was worried that I would say something stupid and thoughtless. I think that when the topic turned toward illness I handled it pretty well. He admitted to me that some days it is hard to maintain a positive outlook. I try to live by the same "things could always be worse" idea, but were I in his situation I am not sure my outlook would remain so unfailing. I would be in a perpetual state of self-pity and self-destruction. I would probably turn away my friends and family, favoring solitude, convincing myself that if they weren't allowed to see me they would forget about me and stop caring about me and it wouldn't hurt as much if I died.
It feels wrong to talk about death, to even think about it. Scott is strong. He has an amazing network of friends and family, and a beautiful, caring, blushing bride. I cannot think of what the world would lose if we lost someone as great as Scott. When I was in middle school a friend of my mom's died of leukemia, but at that time I had no concept of death or loss. This is the first time I have been so personally touched by cancer, and it makes me want to cry every time I think about it. If I never feel like this again it will be too soon. My heart goes out to you, Scott, and to Julie. I hope with all of my might that all will be well soon.
Don't forget to see what's new on my photo blog!
