Tortitude

It was such a nice weekend with Jeanne. It just freaking KILLS me that she doesn't live here anymore. She's seriously made of WIN. We had a great time--late nights chatting with Jeff and making him laugh at our discussions about The League of Fantasy Boyfriends. We can also relate to each other as professional single women in our thirties--and that's something I don't have with anyone else. She just gets it. I love her. (I LOVE YOU JEANNE! *waves*) Also she made me another glorious pair of socks which I immediately put on--they're green stripes!

After Milo's awesome first birthday party, we went to see Mamma Mia with Kelly, Rob, and Jen. It was a squeal-y fun time. As much as I love my guy friends, this was a very girlfriend-y movie and I'm so excited I got to see it with Jeanne! We browsed at Barnes and Noble and I bought the first Charlaine Haaris vampire book. Then we drove back home, hung out with Jeff, looked at shoes and cakes online (because, duh) and went to bed.

Today we drove down to the public market for breakfast at Maximilien's. Mmmmm warm pastry basket. OF JOY. We then went shopping at Sur la Table because Jeanne'd gotten me an absurdly generous gift certificate. I once told Jeanne, back when she was completing her training that I was buying her dinner because one day she was going to be a very rich trauma surgeon and it made sense to butter her up now. Apparently that has turned out to be true. I got a cake pan of joy (9x13, FINALLY) and a chrome cooling rack (so I too can make bacon in the oven).

And then we parted company. Jeanne drove her rental car back to the airport and despite being tempted by a cab, I took the bus back. I was very lucky--the 10:30 bus was running 7 minutes late and I didn't have to wait until 11!

I walked to Safeway for the ingredients for vegetarian chili. The reality is, this is quickly turning into a vegetarian household. Jeff certainly doesn't demand that I cook for him or that I not cook meat at home, but for better or for worse--he's my Culinary Muse. (He'd look good in Greek draping and an olive wreath, non?) I don't have the energy to make separate food for us and I love cooking for him too much to give it up. No chance that I'll ever actually become a vegetarian, but clearly there's going to be a lot more veggie cooking around here. It's just so deeply unsatisfying to have food on the table that he can't eat.

And now I'm home and it's only noon. As tempting as it is to do sweet fuck all and nap with Brutus, I have some goals to accomplish today, dammit!

Here they are for my crossing-out-pleasure:

- dishes, and cleaning the kitchen in general
- deflate air mattress and box for Jeff to return to Kirsten
- tidying up the mess in the dining room from packaging gift bags
- laundry
- make room for the pressure canner in the cabinet
- make chili
- make peach pudding cake
- water plants
- scoop Brutus' litterbox


I am NOT going to sit around doing nothing. NOT!

I believe I am currently in danger of DYING FROM PMS.

ARGH.

This is often the spot where I get into trouble. I've been hyperproductive and I run a little bit out of fuel and want to stop mid-project.

I'm so close to being finished. SO CLOSE. And I have to get the stuff that's in the car to Goodwill today or my dad's luggage will have no room to sit. And if I'm going to do that, I may as well deal with the rest of the bedroom closet because there are bound to be things in there for Goodwill, too.

The carpet cleaner just left. The place looks pretty damn perfect. I have everything sorted except one messy giant plastic container in the bedroom closet. That and one bookshelf. Must. Keep. GOING.

Yesterday I did all kinds of tidying up. I met the wonderful Amy T. for lunch. She is so freaking nice. I always feel so spoiled by her. We went to B&O Espresso for lunch, which was fantastic. After I dropped her off at work, I drove to Dere Auto and had them give my car an overdue oil change, fix the wiper blades, and replace a brake light. Then I drove to Queen Anne and got my eyebrows waxed. Ouch, but worth it.

And then I came home and took a break. I'd started organizing things when Pete came over and we went to the Kebab House for dinner. It was great catching up with Pete who's been in New Jersey for the past few weeks.

It was a late night, and then an early morning. The carpet guy came at 8AM and I mostly tried to stay out of his way. I got the top shelf in the bedroom closet done that way, which was exciting. I also feel like I have early onset Alzheimer's because I found this really sweet card, signed with long, touching messages by a number of people and I had no idea who any of them were. As I read all the messages, I finally figured out that it was from this place I'd once worked as a call center receptionist for three months, and apparently after I left, they mailed me a card. I have no memory of any of them except this one crazy lesbian who kept dating men and insisted on telling me all the details of her sexploits.

I have to go grocery shopping today. Jeff's coming over for dinner (squee!) and I need groceries. I also need to finish using all those Meyer lemons and make some more curd. (No idea where this curd-making frenzy has come from, but it must stop!) I want to make my dad this cranberry shortbread he loved. And I need to figure out what to make for dinner for Friday night, because OB and Em and Zach are coming over to have dinner with us. I also need to figure out what to do with my dad for 45 minutes on Friday while I have my legs waxed (courtesy of a gift certificate from Ellen). I should have scheduled that appointment last week, dammit.

I also have these three disposable cameras from eleven hundred years ago. No idea what's on them. (And am a bit afeared.) But I am going to take them to be developed. So weird. Thank god for digital cameras. I hate that I can't just see what's on them. Maybe I'll drop these off today, too.

Okay. Enough procrastination. Must deal with bedroom closet finale! *whipcrack*

It's just incredible how much energy the sunlight provides. Today wasn't nearly as nice as yesterday, but it wasn't cold and the sun even came out to play for a bit. I'll take it!

I woke up early and spent the morning working in the office. Then, Pete swung by and we discussed potential options for my old bookshelves, and then realized we were going to be late and hightailed it to Pacific Place. The Hoax was pretty entertaining, although Clifton Irving is obviously completely insane. Great performances, and it's always wonderful to see Alfred Molina. Pete was very patient today as I dragged him to Nordstrom to buy myself eyeliner and lipstick, and then to Swansen's Gardening Center. He's just so damn nice. He seemed pretty content to push the cart around at Swansen's and offer opinions when asked about which plants I should get. Then we grabbed lunch at the Ale House in Ballard and came back to my place, where he helped lug bags of soil and cartons of plants upstairs.

He kept me company and we chatted while I planted my new spring garden. I got more Gerber daisies and a cyclamen and tulips and herbs and it's all very very exciting and pretty out there now!

Tonight, I need to study French for tomorrow's lesson, and also re-do my insane filing cabinet which is just a mess right now. It's all part of the greater office rejuvenation project!

Shoot, I also need to run to Safeway because I wanted to bring the bears some Easter basket goodies tomorrow! Should go do that first!

Hee. My SIL is very cute. She wrote me three e-mails last night. A progression of Happy Birthday!!; Wait--am I early?; D'oh! I'm early, but I'm getting you the Kitchen-Aid ice cream maker attachment, so don't buy it!

I am now very, very excited. First step will be making that yogurt gelato.

Also, I made my first loaf of bread with my new cookbook --it's a banana sandwich loaf, perfect for a PB&J sandwich. It really came out excellent. Pete and I found the vital wheat gluten at PCC, but it was the same thing that was available at Ballard Market. They label it as flour, though it appears to be straight vital wheat gluten. Weird. But that means that this weekend I can try my hand at making a baguette! I'm a little annoyed with myself. I bought all these groceries and swore I'd take lunch to work every day, but every day this week has something going on:

Monday: lunch with Judy; Tuesday: Work Potluck; Wednesday: work is taking me out for a birthday lunch; Thursday: Jeff/Pete will be taking me out to lunch. Perhaps on Friday I can take in a sandwich. I'm going to have to give away the lovely deli meats I bought from Ballard Market on Sunday, because I don't want them to spoil! Should have remembered that so much was going on this week before spending $50000 at the store. What a weird thing to complain about. Anyhow.

After some consideration, Jeff and I are going to Marjorie's in Belltown for my birthday. I looked through all the Tom Douglas menus online, and while they all offered a vegetarian entree, they didn't have a dazzling array of them and dammit, I want Jeff to have choices. He really loved Marjorie's and we've been planning to go there for ages, so it worked out nicely!

As a pre-birthday treat--I made an appt at Habitude to get everything waxed. It's all going. I don't care if it's winter and unnecessary, I'm tired of feeling like Chewbacca. I'm skipping out in the middle of the day for an hour to be brutalized by Sonia and then limping back, smooth and hairless, to work. Today is also our work's holiday party, so I've been up making the salad with balsamic onions for my contribution. It's divided up by floors, and our floor got salads this year. It's a mixed blessing. I try to make interesting salads (largely inspired by Jeff's fervent adoration of a really good salad) but they're not something I particularly care to make. But since our floor doesn't have appetizers or desserts, Jeff and I have made a pact to avoid those floors altogether and I'm bringing us each a no-pudge brownie so we can still have something sweet. After the Halloween party feeding frenzy, we've decided that see no evil, eat no evil is the best tact for us.

In other news, I tried talking to this other person via Skype. I was apprehensive because he's in Montreal and the French accent is substantially different, and (Amy: my apologies to Martin) but I prefer Parisian French. I find Canadian French to be harsher and more guttural. But the person seemed nice and we'd agreed to speak at 6PM my time, 9PM theirs. The time difference was one bonus, because the 9-hours difference to France makes it much harder to practice during the week.

I busted out of work early because I didn't want any bus debacles making me late, and I made it on time. The first surprise was that Maxime wasn't a woman, though I don't know why I thought he'd be --his profile lists him as a 24 year old male. I must have gotten him confused with another profile. Secondly, he started by telling me I was late, which I wasn't. Turned out he hadn't read the e-mail properly, because he thought it was 6PM for him. And we really had nothing to talk about. He was definitely a young club-loving guy.

He had that odd, attempting-to-be-flirtatious thing going on which confused me. I Kevorkian'd the call about 30 minutes in. Just didn't seem to be any point in wasting our time. Boys are silly. Also, it made me appreciate Didier so much more.

And i forgot to post this yesterday. D'oh!

Jeff, unprompted by me, took one look at me this morning and said, "Your hair looks fantastic!"

*preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen*

And I'm not sure if I'm just used to it now, or have figured out how to style it better, but I like it much more today.

Also, my hair-cutter found another grey hair (the second one EVER), but won't tell me where it is!

BUT she did tell me that the location is somewhere at the back, near my neck. Mrrrrrh.

It's all downhill from here, folks. I'm just going to go buy a pack of Depends and call it a day.

Feeling very spinny and wound-up today!

Grrr. I hate it when my place is messy. But I'm been struck by an inordinate amount of laziness when I've been getting home. And tonight I'm going to be home late. So, bah!

Yesterday's seminar was surprisingly good. David Blatner rules. He was hilarious, but very knowledgeable. And I think his style of teaching particularly works for me. He dove right into the application and showed us the very cool things you can do. And because it was a tips class and not a 101 class, it wasn't boring and irritating ("...this is how we open a file!"). And for once, there weren't 20 people in the class slowing everything down by asking inane questions.

I am in desperate, urgent need of a haircut, and finally remembered the damn name of the salon my favorite hairstylist moved to, and she returned my call yesterday with her cell and I'm going to hurl myself at her mercy and see if she can squeeze me in NOW. 'Cause, damn. And I think I want it all lopped off. I am armed with leetle photos of the last short haircut I didn't hate on myself on my PDA to show her. I've been growing my hair out for some time, so I hope I don't regret it.

It's always mildly terrifying going back to work the day after I've been away. I stopped in briefly after the conference to find poor Pete had had a rotten day, and there is to be some sort of Discussion today. There were 18,000 e-mails which I tackled so this morning wouldn't be hideous. And poor Jeff had no one to bust in on him 6 times a day with inane chatter, and was thus a little stir-crazy from being holed-up in his office all day.

Ahhhh, must head out now.

In other news, my mom and I went shopping. For some reason, I find bedding utterly challenging. I'm very picky, and don't like anything. Or rather, I like much, but not for my room and bed. So, we scoured the countryside this weekend, and I've bought the Italian hotel bedding from Restoration Hardware. I have to spread it out and see if I like it in the room, but it's certainly very pretty.



I still need to buy some nice, crisp white sheets. I wanted the ones at Restoration Hardware, but couldn't barf up the $350 it would have cost. They are so impossibly soft. I need to buy some less expensive sheets immediately, though, because my dark red bedding isn't going to work with this new cover/shams. Also in the near future, I want new, nicer pillows. I have two nice down pillows, but two completely deflated and yellowed sad-looking things that were probably once pillows.

I did finally get the light down blanket I've coveted for ages. Mostly because my mom insisted on buying it for her cheap daughter.

I really hope to get the last two pictures framed and hung tomorrow, and then I will take a metric buttload of pictures. I also hope that the new bedding will light a fire under my ass about finishing the trim in the bedroom. Especially around the window, which will also require me to replace the crappy metal blinds.

So Dawn got me all these lovely LUSH bath bubble bars, and I'm seriously so freaking excited.

I'm going to use the Bathos one. The description reads: Sensual, relaxing essential oils - violet leaf, rose absolute, jasmine, bergamot, ylang-ylang. I've got the iPod setup in there, because I think not having music last time was a key failing. I have my girlie book, my terry-cloth pillow, and my fluffy towel all ready.

I feel kind of giddy.

And afterwards, I'm going to dry off and head for bed with my book. Because I need to get some sleep before the new, crazy work week!

My hair is completely hopeless. It's grown out of control. And I don't even have an idea what I want to do with it. I want to keep growing it out, but I think a shorter cut would be more professional. And then showering wouldn't take 5 hours and a gallon of conditioner.

I fight this battle year round. I decide to grow it out. Then I decide I hate the in-between stage. But I'm usually too busy to jump on the impulse to get it cut right then. And then it grows unwieldy. And now I look like Cousin It.

And then Judy yells at me for shoving it into a bun. Hobbes likes it long, because it gives him something to step on in the morning which wakes me up right away. Granted, I'm generally cursing, and he ends up flying off starboard, but regardless.

Also, I don't want to take the time to go get it cut right now. I just want it to behave. Goddammit.