Monday Morons--Company Shirts

So my husband and his coworkers have mostly been working extra hours for less pay--when they are actually working. The new plan that was supposed to help everyone make a little more money and have steady work has not actually resulted in steady work. So while there have been a few good paychecks, we are now about to be back on unemployment for a bit. Last week he worked four days, this week he isn't scheduled to work at all, and next week he's scheduled to work one day (in Oklahoma, which will actually take up three days of his time--the day before to drive there, the day he actually works, and the day after to drive home). We don't know yet if he will work the week after next.

So, while the employees have more work and less money, you would think that maybe the company would do something to make life a little more pleasant. Like maybe they wouldn't be so strict with the dress code. Like it's bad enough getting laid off for weeks at a time and then when you do work you work extra hours for less pay, and on a bad day the pay ends up being close to minimum wage (even less than that when you figure in the hours of drive time that you are not paid for), but it really sucks that you have to dress up and wear a tie and such. Can't you maybe just wear a polo shirt instead?

Sure.

So someone at the office got the brilliant idea that the employees should be able to just wear polo shirts instead of dress shirts and ties. Only, it can't be any polo shirt, it has to be a certain color. And it can't just be a polo shirt of a certain color, it has to have the company logo on it. Not a shirt with a company logo pin stuck on it, but a shirt that has the logo embroidered on it. So, to get that polo shirt that is the certain color with the embroidered logo on it, you have to order it from the company for twenty-five dollars plus tax and shipping.

So, in addition to being laid off for days and weeks at a time, and when you do work you get paid less for working extra hours, now the company is trying to get some of your paycheck back by selling polo shirts.

Isn't that nice?

What do you think they should do with their twenty-five dollar embroidered shirts?

Besides rearranging the boxes

The boxes are still there, but I haven't really looked at them since Friday. Saturday I went and hung out with my friends for a bit, and ended up staying out past one in the morning and not getting to bed until about two. In my usual routine I try to go to sleep at about ten and usually don't make and end up falling asleep watching TV around nine or even eight. So two in the morning is really late for me.

It was a very busy Saturday. First, there was the usual stuff. Then there was the first round of discussion about the Halloween Party. Then there were people showing off their steampunk stuff, and even a demonstration on how to make steampunk stuff.

I have no steampunk stuff. Everyone assures me that with my closet full of stuff I must have most of something steampunk already, and that I just need to add goggles or a hat or something. But I don't think so. Even if I go for an all black look and just have to get a hat (which I don't think is true) getting a hat is probably going to cost some money. Hats are not something I tend to find at Goodwill. And I'm trying to cut down on the Goodwill stuff anyway.

So I'm debating on whether or not I should try to make anything steampunk, just cause that is what everyone is doing at the moment.

Anyway, after the steampunk stuff there was a bit of just hanging out and wondering what to do til seven, when we were heading out to swim and have hamburgers and someone's house. Miss Allergies wanted to go shopping a bit and then go to a restaurant, cause she didn't want a hamburger. There was so much time spent discussing this, and there wasn't much time to kill to do one of those things, much less both. And I'm thinking that going to a restaurant on the way to dinner sounds a bit dumb. It's a waste of time, and it's a waste of money, even if I only buy and overpriced soda and tip the waitress. I don't want to do that.

And why can't Miss Allergies eat a hamburger. I know that she eats steak, so what is the big deal about eating a hamburger. I know that she isn't allergic to beef.

And even though I meant not to go home, I realize that I've forgotten my phone, and I want to go back for it. And I do have an errand to run, so I tell them I'll see them later, maybe at this restaurant, and maybe not.

So after going home and running an errand and doing one more little thing, I only have about twenty minutes to kill anyway. Going to the restaurant seemed silly to begin with, and going to a restaurant for twenty minutes sounds outright stupid. So I find something else to do and skip the restaurant.

I head out and miss the place that I'm supposed to turn. I aways seem to miss the place that I'm supposed to turn, even in the daylight, and end up having to make a u-turn and drive in a big circle to get back where I was. So I end up being a tiny bit later than I meant to be, even without going to a restaurant or going shopping or any of that other stuff.

Well, I meant to eat first and then rest a bit before jumping in the pool, but nobody else seemed ready to eat, so I was soon in the pool in my somewhat tight figure-correcting swimsuit. I don't look too bad in it, and I got compliments and such. And then somehow the discussion of modest swimwear came up, and I said that I would wear one if I knew where to buy one at a good price. And I don't want to go to an athletic store and buy one there, cause while those are more modest they are for serious swimmers and they cost a serious amount of money. Then someone is saying how swimsuits cost that much money anyway, unless you go to Walmart or something.

Now, I think that what the price is at Walmart is what the item actual costs (and I often pay even less getting things on clearance or on sale), and the price paid at other places is not for the thing itself but for the label or the fancy store, not for the thing itself. So I don't know what this person has against Walmart or Target, but I would certainly buy the thing there if they had it, I'm just pretty sure that they don't.

Anyway, after looking online I think that something close to what I want is on sale for fifty dollars, and that is still too much, especially since it doesn't cover the knees, and I hate my knees. So I'm probably not going to get one, since I don't look too bad in the one I got on sale last year for eight dollars.

After that, the atheist who went on a rant New Year's Eve went on another rant. And it wasn't like a back and forth discussion or anything, it was just her going on about it, and people mostly agreeing with her except for minor points, and I can't get a word in anyway, and even when I do she just keeps going. I'm getting tired of it. I realize that most people do not hold up to my moral standards, but I look the other way if people don't rub it in my face.

Except for that, I really had a good time, but stuff like that reminds me that I should get some new friends.

Swim, eat, and then swim again. Okay, not really swimming, just being in the pool. Then I went home and tried to get out of the swimsuit. Well, it was tight enough to start with. After it gets wet it is outright difficult to get in and out of. Then I went to bed about two.

Unfortunately, I still wake up at the usual time. So I don't feel well until a couple of hours after lunch. For lunch we went to a nice place, even though it was Father's Day and both our fathers are dead. But we had this gift card from Christmas that we still hadn't spent, and the buffet that we used to like so much is only served now on holidays, so if we really wanted it that was the day it had to be. So we went. It wasn't quite as great as I remembered, but it was nice. We ran a few errands, and then I spent most of the rest of the day in bed watching DVDs.

Monday I tried to do something in the garden involving cinder blocks. Okay, it isn't the garden itself, it is the damned "please don't flood my house" pump, which usually works now, but on rare occasions it gets tangled up and you have to go and deal with it during the actual flood. And since the pump in the area that is low anyway, if you walk to it during the rain you have to wade through a puddle. So I am clearing away the area right up against the wall and trying to make a pathway of these cinder blocks. It is more work than I had in my head. In fact, just getting the things home from the store is harder than I pictured, so that is getting done four at a time, not all at once, and not even six at a time like a planned.

So I did about a third of the first part of the work Monday, followed again by several hours of being in bed watching DVDs. And then something had to be dropped off in Arlington, and what was supposed to be just that and a trip to Home Depot turned into a whole afternoon thing ending in the all you can eat buffet at Pancho's, which isn't even my favorite thing anymore. And I really must stop going to buffets, cause I feel bad about it later.

I'm about to go and add three more blocks to the path.

Until ten this morning, there's free breakfast sandwiches at Whataburger, so we'll be doing that soon. And then either today or tomorrow we will probably be going to a garden in Dallas, cause we bought a season pass or a membership or whatever. This should encourage us to go for long walks. Walking is pretty much my only exercise, as I really hate participating in any sports, and I don't really swim, even when there is a pool, which usually there is not.

And the boxes still need to be rearranged again.

A week to myself

Sometimes I like being alone for a bit, and sometimes I don't. I suppose this time it is a bit of both.

I should know by now to have a bag packed and ready to go at all times, but I don't. It isn't so much that I don't have a bag mostly packed with clean underwear and makeup and such, cause I do have that. But I don't have other things all packed and ready to go. Like, if I'm going away for more than a day or two, I want to take knitting with me and probably a book, or else I'd just go crazy sitting in the motel room, even if there is good stuff on cable, which often there is not. And then there's the plants, which I cannot leave for more than a day or two, unless it is going to be raining a lot while I am away. I would have to arrange for someone to come and water them, and there is really no one that I trust to come to my house that has a clue about plants. So if I'm not going to hire someone, and I don't have money to do that, I worry that my plants will mostly die while I am away.

There has been some rain, but probably not enough that I would have felt good about going away for a week.

I didn't get a lot of work done yet, but some. I have removed all but the last bit of honeysuckle vine at the corner. I hope that we will get a new manager and new rules and that the honeysuckle will grow back. The backyard really looks sad without it. And with the vine covering most of the fence I felt like I had some privacy, and now I don't. It is sort of like that dream where you go to school and find out you're naked. I don't like it.

I was going to take pictures of how after I removed the honeysuckle there were all of these weed trees on the other side of the fence, but my neighbor decided to come out and cut those. He was actually going to go out and cut them with a hand saw, but when I saw him trying to do that I loaned him my new toy instead. So he got all of his work done in the one afternoon. On the other hand, I am still clearing away pieces of dead vine. But that should be done by Saturday.

I can't believe that I have done all this work on making the place look ugly, and that has left me with so little energy to do the work that really needed to be done. But I suppose that will have to wait. It is just to late in the year and too hot to do much about it now.

My husband called Monday to tell me that he had arrived safely (and has neglected to call back since then), and that something that I wanted to do is only a twenty minute drive from where he is staying. So if I had been able to go with him, that would have been nice.

But I couldn't have gone with all this stuff going on. The temporary manager is just an outright bully. My neighbor told me that someone a couple of streets over was told to remove the saplings within 48 hours. In my opinion, even the simplest of violation warning should be given at least a week, even if it is just cutting the grass. Other things take more work, and more time. The guy who received this warning about the saplings learned English as a second language always mows the grass and such, and was totally baffled that he was getting a warning about the yard, and he didn't even know what a sapling was.

The temporary manager supposedly doesn't even want the job, but he sure does a lot of extra work in the job that he doesn't even want.

I'm now taking a break from the depressing yard work to try and deal with the bedroom. I'm trying to convince myself to part with clothes that I don't wear much anymore. My goal is to get it down to three extra boxes, not counting costumes and such. I think right now I still have five or six boxes.

It is Thursday. I got a lot of work done Monday (mostly helping my neighbor with removing the plants), but not so much since then. Everything always takes longer than I imagine. Throwing away junk takes a very long time. Clothing has to be washed and then tried on, even if it is eventually to be discarded. How would I know that I don't want it anymore if I don't try it on? So, I am still at it.

Between washing clothes and such, I am watching Something Is Out There, Nowhere Man, and The First Wave. I mostly missed The First Wave when that was on, and I didn't know it had lasted three seasons. Something Is Out There is okay, but somehow it doesn't quite live up to my memories of it. The mini-series was good, but somehow the series itself didn't do it for me. Maybe I don't like that in the mini-series I was left with the idea that they would become a couple, and then in the series they both date other people. And most of the shows don't have anything to do with aliens, so they aren't that great anyway. I'd forgotten how great Nowhere Man was. This was one of those FOX shows that they tried to pair with the X-files. At least they gave this one a whole season. It is The Fugitive, with maybe bits of The Prisoner. And it has been long enough that I don't remember what happened, so I'm really enjoying it.

So, that's about it. Enjoying the old TV shows while not so much enjoying the work.

Size 8 Jeans

Okay, so I'm in Oklahoma in a motel with a hot tub and a nice breakfast. It is a short trip, but I usually go here if I can, mostly cause of the hot tub and the nice breakfast. I was debating whether or not to go, cause it is a bit of a drive just to use the hot tub for the one day, but then we realized that we'd be able to go to the ren fest if we added an extra day.

So, I am here.

Anyway, we tend to stop at a certain Walmart, because it is a good place to stop, and we usually need something anyway. I misplaced my belt and my black yarn, so I knew that we needed something. And while we were there, I decided that I'd about had it with the jeans, so I tried on some new ones. And I bought them. They are a bit snug, but they look much better, and I suspect that except during long drives they will usually feel better. So I'm hoping to break them in and be comfortable wearing them tomorrow.

Size 8 jeans. It just isn't right. In regular jeans I shouldn't wear size 8 until I got down to 120 pounds or so. And here I am close to 160 pounds wearing size 8 jeans. That's just wrong.

I'm a bit concerned about where we will spend the night after the ren fest tomorrow. Looking for a motel room on a Saturday night usually isn't a lot of fun. But we have decided not to come back here. It is in the wrong direction, and the hot tub jets aren't working anyway.

What smells like beer?

Before I get too much into the boring details, let me say that I mostly had a good weekend.

And if you were planning to eat your spaghetti dinner while watching the latest episode of Being Human, alter your plans a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make some cookies. I don't think that I have made any cookies from scratch since I have lived here, but I thought that it might be a good idea after I found this recipe online, and I remembered that I would have three things coming up that would require me to bring food.

So I took the new mixer out of the box and I went and spent five bucks on a new cookie sheet (cause it had been so long since I made any cookies I couldn't find the old ones) and I got together the ingredients that I already had and went out and bought what was missing. The new cookie recipe was not that great, but now that I had this new cookie sheet and all the ingredients for making cookies, I decided to try making an old recipe except to substitute whole wheat flour. That wasn't great either, so I went and bought some regular flour and tried again.

The cookies weren't bad, just not like I remembered. They are sort of tall and fluffy. I don't know what I did wrong. Also, I don't taste the baking soda. Chocolate chip cookies have baking soda, and I am quite sure that I put in the baking soda, but I can't taste it. Does baking soda get old or go flat or something?

Again, the cookies aren't bad, and in fact I am starting to like them, though I sort of doubt that anyone else will. I just can't figure out why they are different. Anyway, I took some of the whole wheat ones to the annual meeting, cause I had to take something, and most of them did not get eaten, which is okay cause that left more for me. I took the regular flour ones to the party, and again not many were eaten, so again I have leftover cookies for me, which I am not complaining about. But I think that I will give up on making the cookies for anyone other than me, and I will figure out something else to take to the last thing, and in fact there is no reason that I have to take anything to that at all if I don't want to. But I'm thinking that I will just purchase some candy instead.

All day Friday and Saturday, I had been very careful to read any emails from the group, in case it had something to do with the party that I would need to know about. Not that there was much, just people asking other people if they were going, and what are you bringing, and once in a while what are you wearing, etc.... And there was this new guy that hasn't been to a regular meeting yet, though he's already officially a member of a club, just that most of us hadn't met him yet and didn't know who he was. And he was asking about the party, and no one else answered him, and I didn't quite know what to tell him. But I thought that somebody had to say something. It wasn't an official club function, just that someone had invited pretty much everyone in the club. If he had joined a few weeks earlier, he would have officially been invited already. I didn't think that it would be a problem if he came, but I really couldn't invite someone I didn't know, and I thought that he should talk to the couple giving the party, though by that time it was too late. He already knew where the party was, so I told him the time and a little more info, hoping that someone else would chime in and say whether he was or was not officially invited, but again no one else said anything.

So after all this wondering what I should take to the party and what I should wear to the party, I have bought a black blouse and this sort of black thing that is not really a shawl and yet another black dress, and then I decided that it was too cold to wear any of that and just gave up and decided to wear what I wore last year. Except that I couldn't find what I wore last year. So I ended up wearing some really dark blue stuff and black boots and this black thing that used to be part of a Masonic costume.

I was getting ready to leave early, cause I hate driving in the dark, when I realized that I forgot to charge my phone. So I wait a little while to put some life into the phone, and then I head out, and as I am just nearly there I realize that with moving things from one bag to another and getting my keys sorted out and everything that I have somehow not transferred my wallet and do not have my driver's license or any money or a debit card or anything. Not that I expect to need any money or anything, but it would be very upsetting if something happened and I needed to show my driver's license. I didn't expect that would happen, and I was nearly there anyway, so I kept going, and nothing bad happened. But it was still very annoying.

So I got there at about the same time as a couple of friends, and we were all about twenty minutes later than we had intended, but we were still the first there from our group, and the parking lot was mostly empty. And I have been to this place several times before, but I am always surprised by the layout when I get there. There is this sign that says something like "Lake Ahead", and literally, the lake is right there after the sign. Not that the parking lot I'm looking for is ahead, but the lake is ahead. By the time I read this sign I have already missed where I meant to go, and I have to turn around and go back a little bit.

So we go in and see all empty tables, as everyone who is already there is in the back helping our hostess. So we are relieved that we are not late.

More people come in and bring food, and I am surprised how many of them are not wearing black. A few more of my friends show up, and some of us sit down and eat. And then this guy comes in by himself, and I think that's probably our new guy, and then I restrain myself from blurting out something like "Are you the new guy?" and he looks around a bit and goes to the back of the room. So maybe he isn't our new guy. But a bit after that someone brings him over and says something like these are some of the people in your group. And then there is a discussion between the four guys about steampunk stuff, and then the new guy and the other guy wander off to meet other people.

I get up to get some more food, and I'm wondering what smells like beer?

Probably beer.

I don't drink alcohol, but I do like several things that are made with alcohol, mainly beer bread and beer chili and beer cheese soup. But there was none of that, just beer.

So there was a lot of talking to people I don't really know and whose names I can't even remember. And I talked to the new guy some more. And I talked to M.

This is not M my friend the Klingon, this is the other one, and I see him once in a while, and I have finally decided that it isn't weird and running into him a couple times a year is not a problem. So that's what I thought, so I kept talking to him. I was wrong.

I had a few items of clothing that I decided I needed to part with, though I would rather give them to someone I knew would appreciate them and make costumes from them, so I brought them to the party. I gave a t-shirt to my host, who thought it was such a cool picture that it didn't bother him that it was started to tear. And I looked around the room for women who might fit into the dresses, and I asked a few if they were interested, and they said no. And then I noticed a certain person I did not want to have any of my things, so I did not make an announcement like I had planned. But then another friend arrived, and she said that she wanted the whole bag, so that worked out. I'm glad I thought of it instead of just dumping the stuff at Goodwill with the rest of the clothes I got rid of.

I talked to the new guy some more, and it is always nice when someone attractive is paying attention to you. He made suggestions, and though he said upfront that it would not be a date, I'm afraid that he didn't really mean that so I declined. It seems like the guys that I have known for a while who suggest something that is "not a date" really mean that and totally get that it is not a date and is not going to lead to anything resembling a date, but guys that I have just met are thinking that the "not a date" will either somehow become a date or at least end with me agreeing to a date later. So no more "not a date" type things with anybody I don't already know. I will be happy enough to talk to you when we just happen to be at the same place at the same time, which is probably going to happen a couple of times later in the month anyway.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, M has reached a whole other level of stupid. And it is hard to believe that anyone is really that stupid, so he must just enjoy making other people uncomfortable. I am thinking that if I have anymore trouble from him, I will start a new blog totally devoted to answering the question, is M really that stupid?

The party ended a bit after that, and I waited for certain people to get their things together so that I could walk out with them and not be around either M or the new guy, even though the new guy was being totally nice.

I managed to drive home without anybody finding out that I didn't have my license in my purse.

Sunday we ate at Taco Bell, after my husband saw a commercial for something he wanted but they hadn't had for a while. And then there was the Superbowl, which he watched, and I watched commercials in between Googling stuff.

Yesterday we went to various thrift stores, but I didn't buy much, and it got cold and rained and we came home earlier than we might have and watched Caprica and Being Human.

And then we got some bad news about this job he was applying for. He had read somewhere what the pay was, but then he couldn't find where he had read that, so he sent another email. And we can only hope that they misunderstood the question. Surely no one gets paid that little. We were only thinking about the job because he read that it was a lot of money, and we wanted some clarification on if that was the most you could make or if that was an average or what. And on top of that you had to provide your own transportation to the interview, which was out of the state and would require either plane tickets and cab fare, or would require driving a lot and get a couple of motel rooms. And then you had to provide some of your equipment and buy somewhat of a uniform, plus nicer clothing was sometimes required.

Anyway, that is the end of that. We would have serious problems with paying to get to the interview even if we thought it would mean a good paying job. There is no reason to even waste the time if it is really such a low paying job. It was about half or less of what we have read about similar jobs, and even those do not seem to pay enough. So that was disappointing, but at least that particular discussion is over.

A few things in no particular order

A friend sent me a link about a job, and I can't get it to work. I will try again later, but maybe it isn't worth the effort, as I missed four or five questions on what seemed to be an easy practice test. I'm getting old. I'm slipping.

We have finally figured out the whole unemployment thing. The thing about the unemployment is that you have to file all the time, even when you worked and don't need it, even when you didn't apply for a job and won't get it, even if you turned down work and won't get it, even when all this is going to do is waste time and make people at the unemployment office do more work that is totally unnecessary, and that way you are still in the system on the week that you don't work and need the money, and they send you your money in a reasonable amount of time and such.

So that is what we are doing. Unfortunately, now that we have figured all of that out, we are told that we only have ten thousand dollars left, and the way things are going that isn't going to last us very long.

My husband seems to be making an effort to be especially nice to me, if you can call it that after more than three years of him still not having done one thing that he was supposed to do for us to be roommates, much less actually be back together like nothing had happened. On my part I was having one of those moments when I think that I might as well try to enjoy myself with the way things are, as they will probably not change in the near future. He worked two days last week and two days the week before, and then he is not likely to work at all for the next two weeks, and then we don't know what is going to happen after that. So of course what we tend to do when he has all this time off is go to restaurants and go to movies and go shopping. Well, we are short on money, though not as short as we would be now that we have figured out the whole unemployment thing. We have not been going out to nice restaurants, just now and then going to Arby's and such, cause we have coupons. And we haven't done that much shopping, but we have bought a few things. While I feel some guilt over that, I can't really say that I feel bad about seeing a few movies, as we have a couple of inexpensive theaters. But there are still days when we stay home and do absolutely nothing, and it tends to get on my nerves spending all that time together doing nothing, sort of getting in each others way.

Not that the day I had to myself went any better. I had planned to spend it knitting, and something went wrong, and I don't know if I can fix it. And he was really trying to be nice to me after that, but there is just nothing to be done about it. I will just have to put the thing away for a while, and maybe after some time has past I will see a solution and not get so upset when I look at it. I instead spent the day watching videos, but I did not feel much better. The next day when he was trying to be nice to me, I did make an attempt to just forget about everything that is stressing me out and just enjoy the day, which I did, for a while. And then the next day I noticed something, and that made me think that something is going to go wrong, and that he knew about it and intended for something to wrong, or at least that he was okay with it. But even if nothing goes wrong, that is what I think of him now, that he is very selfish and this attempt at being nice is just to hide the fact that something else is going to go wrong and that he is responsible.

Christmas Eve dinner was finally rescheduled for yesterday. I ate a half dozen oysters and have no need to see anymore oysters for a while. They were really big oysters too. I'm not really complaining, the food was good, and it was good to see everyone and it was good for mom to have a break, as grandma did not get better like we thought from her most recent hospital stay.

Saturday was fun, though not what I had imagined. We did trivia as planned, but just regular trivia, not sci fi stuff like usual. So I did not win, even after having put together a really great team. And we were playing Family Feud, and the answers are based on what people think is the answer, even if that in fact is not the answer. So we were trying to "steal" points from the other team, and we just don't have any good ideas. The question involved things that turn from green to yellow, and all the good answers have been taken, and all I can think of is pears. My friend thinks maybe the answer is yellow squash, except that I and another friend have gardens, and we know that yellow squash starts out yellow, or maybe even white, and is never green to begin with. So we go with pear, cause no one else can think of anything, and the answer was squash. And then there was a question involving things associated with Texas, and the answers to this question obviously did not come from Texas, and no one was getting those right. And then there was a question about haunted houses, and I was thinking theatrical production, and I guess that the people taking the survey were thinking real house that no one lives in anymore. So we got all of that wrong too. But it was still fun, and I didn't need a silly plague anyway.

I have really had it with all the junk. This helps somewhat when we are shopping, as I have several times put things back, cause I'm thinking that I don't need it right away and I don't want it enough to find someplace to put it, and if something happened and I had to move away, would I want to pack this? Probably not. So I have stopped myself from buying a few things, but I still don't manage to get rid of much.

I know all the experts say that if you don't use something for a year (especially things that you have had in box that hasn't even been opened for a year), you should get rid of it. And I know that makes sense on some levels, but on other levels it just doesn't work for me. Like I have many craft things that I don't use for a year, but that doesn't mean that I should throw away tools or supplies that are still good (or even still new in the package). And seasonal things stay in boxes most of the year, should I throw them away cause I was too busy to put everything out this year? Throw out the stuff that I didn't put out cause it looks too old or I just don't like it anymore, sure, but just because I didn't use a particular decoration this year doesn't mean that I won't want them next year. And I haven't done any baking in forever, but I just have a feeling that in the future I will want to, maybe because of the financial situation, and then I either wouldn't be able to do anything or else I would have to go and buy all new stuff, which would be hard to do because of the financial situation.

And then like all people who have either been on a diet and gained it all back (or people who keep thinking that they will diet but don't), there are all these clothes to think about. And even if I haven't worn them in a year, it still doesn't seem to be a good idea to throw them out. If my weight changes by ten pounds either way, if I didn't keep the clothes, I would have to go out and buy clothes (clothes that might not even fit for very long), or else I would have to stay in the house all the time naked.

So I guess I would rather live with all the junk than live in fear that I'm going to be stuck in the house naked without bakeware and holiday decorations.

The other thing that I have a lot of that I don't really do much with anymore is books. For the last three or four years I have done little reading. My eyesight isn't what it was, and most of the time I just don't have the attention span necessary to enjoy reading a book. But reading has been such a big part of my life, and I keep thinking that someday I will feel better and want to read again. And it also seems silly to get rid of the one thing that is somewhat organized and I actually have a place for. I have many bookshelves, and the books that I've had for a long time have places on the bookshelves and I know where they are and I can find them when I want them. And then there are some additional books that I'm not quite sure where to put, cause they don't quite go with the books that are already on the shelves. And then there are really new books that I didn't put anywhere, cause I was reading them (or at least I meant to), and they are just here and there. So there is the dilemma about the books that on the one hand I shouldn't get rid of them because if I really put some effort into it that is the one thing that I could get organized and every book would have its place, and on the other hand books are the one thing that I could easily get rid of and there is a place to take them where I wouldn't feel that they had just been tossed out. I could even get some money for them, though not enough for that to be the deciding point. Still, I think today I will make another attempt to cull some of the cookbooks. There are two boxes of them that I meant to look through, and it may have even been a year since I last looked at them.

And while I am trying not to spend money and buy things that I will just have to put away somewhere, I am thinking of buying yet another black dress. I was invited to a party, and it is less than a month away, and since I just now learned of it I haven't been planning what to wear. Ideally, it would be something goth, and while I have plenty of black I don't think that just being black makes it look goth, and of course a lot of my things just don't fit at the moment. So I am looking through my things trying to find something that looks goth, or something that I can add to something to make it look goth. I don't think that my best black dress looks goth, but if I add enough stuff to it then maybe it does, except that I wore all of that to a party this time last year that was for the same people, and I'd rather not wear the same thing two years in a row. Though they do not have the same reason for the party as last year, they are thinking of just having a theme party as an annual event. So this may require a whole series of black dresses and gloves and hair ornaments and such.

I thought that there was more, but now I can't remember what.

Sorry, I've been busy, sort of

It has been pointed out to me that I haven't blogged in a while, and if I don't blog and I don't write long emails to individual people, how are my few remaining readers supposed to know if I'm okay?

So, I'm okay. Or, at least, I'm as close to what now passes for okay as I tend to be.

My husband had steady work for a bit, but this week he doesn't work until Friday. And he will soon be laid off for about a month if things go as last year. So that isn't good. We are trying to do pleasant things with his almost week off. We had one last nice dinner out at Campo Verde, where I tried to figure out how I might copy something. And anyway, you have to go to the place at least once during November or December, when they put up extra Christmas stuff in addition to the thousands of Christmas lights that they have up all year.

Until further notice, we have to stop going out, and he doesn't do much cooking himself, and he needs more calories than soup and such that I like to make. The one thing that he does like to do is make pizza, so we spent seventy dollars on groceries, some of that being a turkey, and some of that being cheese and stuff for pizza.

Some of that was also potato chips and such that he probably doesn't need, but I never can really convince him that potato chips are not a necessity. On my part, the variety pack of Tang wasn't a necessity either. But most of the other stuff wasn't an unreasonable splurge, and we did get some things that we really like and maybe that will keep us from missing restaurants too much. And we did remember to get stuff like soap too. Except for veggies and milk and eggs, we shouldn't have to buy much for a while.

For the person I confused by saying that I would be spending Thanksgiving with G, I meant Uncle G, so I hope that clears that up. Uncle G's second wife is an angel, though I still can't quite wrap my head around the idea that Uncle G actually got a divorce. We just don't do that, except in the most extreme circumstances, and I just can't picture that of Aunt S. Not that I was best buddies with Aunt S, but it still seems strange that she was Aunt S for all of those decades, and then a few years ago they signed some papers, and then Aunt S was just S, and then a year or so later I got a new aunt. Weird.

So I expect Thanksgiving to be nice, as we have in the past spent Christmas with Uncle G and the new aunt, and she is very friendly in addition to being a good cook. Since Dad died Thanksgiving has not been too great, and half of the time my sister is with her in-laws and it just isn't that great at all. So this year it is actually something to look forward to. And it is next week, I think.

And then comes Christmas, and despite all of my plans last year, I am not ready. In fact, I do not even remember what all of those plans were. I knew that I probably would not have money for Christmas presents (though I had no idea it would be this bad), and I knew that if I wanted to do gift exchanges with as many people as last year that I would have to plan ahead and mostly give things that I had made for them, and that I wouldn't have the time unless I made them well in advance.

So I went out and bought all these supplies. And I remember buying the supplies, and I even remember where I stored most of them. But I just don't remember what I planned to do with them.

So of course I did not make any of the Christmas presents ahead of time. I am currently working on a scarf which I had planned to give to Miss Allergies, but I have only just a couple of days ago taken it off of the machine, and there is still a lot of work to be done by hand, in addition to the normal four hours it takes to finish up a scarf. And, I have made some mistakes and I must find some way of covering that up as I have no way of actually fixing it. I also had something planned for the pilot, but I am waiting on some supplies to come in the mail. There is something that I usually get for another friend, whether or not she decides to get me anything, except that I usually get it in the summer when it is on sale and put it away, but I didn't have the money to do that this year. So I don't really have anything for her, and she has pretty much announced that she plans to give most of us baked goods.

Now, if you remember watching The Big Bang Theory last Christmas (click here to see Sheldon's Greatest Christmas minisode on YouTube), you might recall Sheldon's description of traditional Saturnalia gift giving. "The essence of the custom is that I now have purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same level of perceived friendship as that represented by the gift you have given me."

So I am not sure what would be of commensurate value to baked goods. I would think that the thing I usually get her would work, if I had the money to go and buy it, which at this point I probably don't. Giving her baked goods in return doesn't seem like a good idea, as her house would already have plenty of baked goods (the broken cookies and other leftovers of stuff she makes for other people), and I'm not that good of a cook anyway. Anyway, I have been warned not to give her a scarf or anything that I might make for the others, as she likes to keep her house clutter free, which she does by throwing things out on a regular basis. Ideally she likes more practical stuff like soap, which she can use and enjoy and then it is gone. So I might make her some soap. Or, if they turn out good, I might make her some sweet potato chips. But then I would like to give her more than the one thing, just in case she really dislikes sweet potato chips.

At this point I don't think the sweet potato chips are going to work anyway. The regular potato chips were a disaster, and I have given up on them. Next I will try tortilla chips.

As for the rest of my Christmas gift list, I still have no clue about J. For R I was thinking about a scarf similar to the one I am making for Miss Allergies, except that it is taking too long, and R wants to limit the gift giving to about ten dollars. So the idea of giving her that particular scarf is out. I have something small for the last person in that group, and he will either be giving cards or "stocking stuffers", and while my gift for him won't fit in anyone's stocking, I did spend less than five dollars so I think it will work with the general idea.

And then there is my family, and I don't have a clue what to get for any of them, and we haven't yet discussed plans. I don't have the money for what I usually get my mom and my sister. I really don't have much money for anything. And I don't think any of them want a scarf. If they want scarves, I hope someone will tell me, but other than that I hope that they decide to go with something small, or maybe an exchange of baked goods.

Maybe I can get someone a fruit basket.

What else have I been doing?

Tuesday last week we heard that you could get a free Whataburger buy dressing from head to toe in orange. I wasn't sure about the head to toe part, but I have plenty of orange Halloween shirts. So I wore one with a mostly orange skirt and an orange headband. My husband wore one of the shirts and an orange hat. We hoped that would be enough. When we got there the place was crowded, as it turns out they were giving out the free burgers to almost anyone wearing any orange, and there were plenty of people with just orange shirts. We spent another five dollars on drinks and such with our free burgers, and it was a bit of fun.

Today or tomorrow I have to go to Irving, so we will probably see 9 at the dollar theater. Then I will be out of money again.

Halloween Party 2009: and the Oscar goes to....

Well, I spent most of the day not doing much. I woke up earlier than I wanted, tried to go back to sleep but did not succeed. So I was just trying not to do anything much that would make me tired.

At some point I tried to deal with the weird food. Do to technical difficulties, the weird food did not work out. I tried three times to make it work, but it just wouldn't do. I have an idea now why it didn't work, so I will make one more attempt (for future reference, cause I might want to make that same thing for next year's party), and then I will just give up on the idea. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, I don't guess that it matters that much. I don't think that there were cash prizes this year.

After I decided that the weird food wasn't going to work out, I started thinking about putting some flowers in my hair. My costume just didn't look that much like a costume, it was just clothes. I thought that it needed something. And I had bought flowers, thinking that I had wire and such at home to make a wreath, but I couldn't find the wire when I needed it. I tried using something else and then gave up.

Next I thought about props. I was going to make a fake menu and complain about a missing waitress (or, if someone showed up in that costume, complain directly to the waitress), but I changed my mind and put the bar's name on a wine glass. I know, most of the time the name isn't on a wine glass. On a shot glass, sure. On a beer glass, maybe. On a wine glass, not so much, though I suppose they do have them sometimes, and I used to have a souvenir brandy sniffer from a local landmark.

Anyway, I fixed my hair without flowers, put on makeup, but on a necklace that I had added a bull's head with permanent black marker, put on my black almost dress and headed out.

I got to the party and pretended to be Maryann Forrester, the maenad from True Blood, and then I asked people to guess who I was. Only one person could guess. I had clues. I had the bull's head necklace and the wine glass with the Merlotte's logo on it. Still, only the one person guessed right.

I took off my shoes and sort of danced around the place, thanking people for coming to my party. People still couldn't guess. I decided the costume contest might be a waste of time if no one could guess who I was.

I went around the room, telling people that they should loosen up and have a drink. Someone I didn't know said that she couldn't drink because she was the designated driver. I told her she shouldn't drive anyway, just stay at the party.

She thought I was already drunk.

I don't drink. At all. Ever.

It is called acting.

Anyway, we weren't supposed to open the bar until nine, but since no children came, we opened the bar at seven, and people just thought I had a few too many.

More fun. Still didn't tell anyone who I was. They would just have to guess.

A couple of guys tossed coins at my cleavage. One of them actually landed on target.

About this time I decided to do the costume contest anyway. Then I could tell everyone at once who I was supposed to be.

Taking the shoes off seemed like a good idea, but my feet really started to hurt right before the contest. I took a break.

Then we lined up for the contest, and without assigned numbers it was just whoever got in line first got to go first, so I was third. Which meant that I got to sit down sooner and rest my feet some more.

The judges went off to debate who won what. There was more dancing (without me) and door prizes giving away (I didn't win any), and then the judges came back out to announce the winners.

Without much in the way of a costume, and there not being a special award for staying in character, I did not really expect to win much if anything. I hoped I would get an honorable mention, but, no.

Miss Allergies got Most Beautiful. A chupacabra got Most Disturbing. There were about four or five other awards given away before they got to Best In Show, which I assumed would go to the pilot, since he didn't win anything else. The pilot and his wife came as these old toys where you move metal "hair" around a face with a magnet. So we spent the evening giving the two of them interesting hairdos.

So I just knew that the pilot would get the last award, until the head judge started saying something about drinking and such. I don't quite remember what he said or who he was quoting.

I got Best In Show. I have never won Best In Show at the Halloween Party, and my one time winning Best In Show at a con must have been fifteen years ago. So I was totally surprised.

Some other people were also totally surprised, and maybe not too happy. The pilot was happy for me, but people who just didn't get it, well, they just didn't get it.

So it was explained to someone that I (and a couple of other people who also won awards) had stayed in character all night until the contest (almost three hours for me), and that even though they didn't have a special award for staying in character that they decided those of us who did should get extra points for our efforts.

And here I had almost decided not to enter the contest.

So I had fun at the party, even if the rest of the Halloween season was a bust.

We really must film the last part of the video today

And I have no doubt that we will do just that, after we've watched Sunday Morning, and after I get cleaned up a bit and such. I haven't heard that it is going to rain or anything, so it should get done before lunch, and then we can think about editing.

Neither of us has done a video before, so we know nothing of editing.

I am thinking that I will make that second video after all. A slightly altered version which would require no editing, so that way I would still have something to send in if the editing of the first video doesn't go well.

Of course, I will have to have nice clean room to film the second video, and nothing here is exactly that. I will have to decide which room would be best and start cleaning it.

Yesterday was a lot of work. First, I got up and did a lot of work, and I knew that it would be a lot of work, I just haven't tried to do so much of this particular work in one day. I was tired and sweaty and I got about a fourth of it done and really did not want to do any more of that. I went inside, and my husband made a very nice sandwich with sausage and that white cheddar we bought Friday. I got cleaned up, and then we drove to the DAV.

I know that we did quite enough shopping already on Friday, but one thing that we had looked for that we did not find anything we wanted was two Dallas Cowboy t-shirts. Not that I'm a big fan and really want one, but sometimes there are silly things to do if you have a team shirt, and I don't have one, so I keep meaning to get one just for those occasions. Like tomorrow, you are supposed to wear something of your favorite sports team to Chick-fil-a, and you get a free sandwich. So, we will say the Cowboys are our favorite team, and we will see if the line for getting a sandwich is too long. Also, Albertson's grocery store has a ten percent off sale on game days for people who wear Cowboys stuff. So now we can do that too.

The nicer looking stuff was long sleeve, but since most of the stuff would be done this month, we decided to get t-shirts, even though they didn't look so great. We spent four dollars on the two t-shirts, and didn't find much else worth looking at as we had been in the store last week.

Then it was back home to do more work. I would get a bit of it done, and then get really tired and go watch TV for a bit. I did that for the rest of the day. I had to leave just a tiny bit of it for this morning.

This is really going to suck if we can't get the editing figured out.

Filming delayed again due to more shopping

Yesterday or the day before, a new reader left a comment on a post I made like a year and a half ago. I don't know if he is still reading. But I thought I would stop and say hello, just in case.

It was raining a bit yesterday, so we did not film the beginning of the video like I had planned. We got an early start on the shopping instead.

First, there was the trip to the bank, cause I think that the ATM was empty. I don't think that has ever happened to me before, though I suppose it must happen once in a while. But, it didn't say that it was out of money, it just refused to give us any. We could check our balance and see that we had money, and we were given the option of depositing money, but we were not given the option of withdrawing any money. Weird.

So after we went to the bank to get our money, we had to go to a different bank and deposit some money. Then I had to go pick up some pills, and as long as we were in the neighborhood we might as well go to the Only 99 cents store.

It was closed. The store is gone. I learned that was going to happen last week, but I didn't realize it would happen so soon. I was expecting a clearance sale or something. But, no. It is just gone now.

I loved that store, and there isn't another one within a reasonable driving distance for regular shopping visits.

The rest of the shopping went rather well, considering it was off to such a sad start.

From there we went to eat at Pancho's, and since the Irving location has closed we had to go to Euless. We shouldn't have spent the money, and we didn't even have a coupon, but this is one of his favorite places, and for the last three or four times I've talked him into something else. So we ate out this one time, and we will behave ourselves for the next week or so.

From there we went to Goodwill, and almost all the dresses I like were black. I love black, but I really can't justify buying another black dress. No matter how good it might look, it would just be another black dress, and I doubt that anyone would even notice that it was a new black dress. I might see all these little details that might it look good on me and make it look better than the last one, but if I want a new dress I should probably wait and buy something that really looks different. There were a few other things that caught my attention, but nothing really spoke to me enough to try anything on. We didn't buy anything at that stop.

Next stop, Jo Ann's Fabrics. Not that I bought anything there either, but I did want to have a look around. The one thing that I actually went in thinking I might buy I found for eight dollars, but I was thinking it would only cost two or three dollars, so I didn't buy it. And then there was something else that I had to look at, not cause I needed to buy one, but just cause I needed to know what a new one cost. A red knifty knitter, sold by itself, is seven dollars and forty-nine cents. I took a quick look at the Halloween stuff, and then I left.

Having come so far into the Tarrant County side, we kept going. We went to Thrift Town, and that was worth the drive even if we hadn't gone anywhere else. In September and October, they put out the clothes that they can't sell the rest of the year, just in case someone might want something for Halloween. So not only is there all this great stuff, it usually doesn't cost that much, cause if they don't sell it before October 31st, they either have to put it in storage for another year, or they have to put it in the trash.

So, I just wanted everything, but I managed to narrow it down to five things before heading to the dressing room. One item wasn't even for me. I plan to give it to a friend for Christmas, cause he never has any costume stuff to wear. Then there was a long blue dress, which isn't too different from a long black dress, but it wouldn't be exactly the same either. But it didn't fit. Then I had something short and purple, which would have potential if I ever want to be a fairy (I already have purple wings), but I probably won't do that this year. The dress fit just fine, but I could still lose a few pounds if I actually want to look good in it. And then there was this red Chinese thing, which was just a bit large and had a defect that didn't even show when it was buttoned up. And I really wanted it, but in the end I decided that since I wasn't planning to wear it to anything specific this year, I should put it back. Besides, if the idea is to look like a character from Firefly, I think the shirt is light blue, not red.

I just wanted to try on a whole bunch of other stuff, just in case I ever go to a Shindig, but I decided not to. I'm probably not going to such a thing this year, and whatever I buy this year might not look good on me next year. So no Shindig dresses. I'm not altogether sure which direction I would go with the Shindig dress anyway. Would I want elegant or pretty ruffles? I can't decide.

So one item for a friend, and one little purple thing, and then there was this greenish blue dress that spoke to me. It made me think of a certain character on a TV show I've been watching, and with some minor fixing, I could wear it. The main thing is that I would need a matching bra and some good shoes. So I think that I might have found my Halloween costume after all, though not for the character I had originally planned.

Three costume pieces cost me eight dollars and some change. Nice.

From there we went to Town Talk, where we bought odd sodas and really awesome white chocolate and some brie and white cheddar. And some energy drinks. But, we did also manage to buy more than five pounds of rice at twenty-nine cents a pound, so it wasn't entirely luxury items.

On the way home we stopped at a Walmart. This isn't the same Walmart as Thursday, but I was hoping that they would have the same item on sale. I knew that they probably wouldn't, since it was probably a clearance sale and there doesn't seem to be an uniformity in clearance sales for Walmarts. So, I went in and found the item, or at least, it looked like the same item to me, but it was five dollars. At the other store, it had been two dollars marked down from four dollars. So how is it five here? I can understand that it would still be regular price instead of clearance price, but isn't the regular price four? I don't get it.

Anyway, after some slight begging and a stop at 7-11 for a cold drink, we went to the other Walmart so I could look for the clearance sale item. And, display I had seen on Thursday was gone, so they had probably sold all of them, but I went to have a look on the regular shelf space anyway. And there they were, or at least, I thought I'd found them, and they were five dollars. That didn't make sense. Thursday they had been two marked down from four, and now they were up to five? This didn't even make sense at a different store, but at the same store it really didn't make any sense.

I hoped the price was wrong and that it would somehow scan two dollars. I found a scanner, but it was five dollars. I took the item back to the shelf.

I really gave it a careful looking over. This is the same item, isn't it? I know that a lot of similar things end up not being the same price, but the same item being a different price? Was there anything different about this item and the item I bought on Thursday?

And then I noticed that the item had the barcode on the side, while as far as I could remember the item I purchased Thursday had the barcode on the bottom. I had a similar thing happen the day after Thanksgiving, when I went to buy some eight dollar jeans that looked exactly like some twenty dollar jeans, and I couldn't find any that scanned eight dollars, until I noticed some of the tags were in a different place.

So, I found three with the barcode on the bottom. These scanned two dollars each. I was happy. And, now that I knew what to look for, I found a few more.

I had gone into the store hoping to buy four, but after all of this trouble I decided to buy six. I would have bought six more, but I really do not like being totally without funds, and I couldn't see doing that again for another two weeks, especially since I haven't yet bought gas or the lottery tickets.

Anyway, now that I know what to look for, I will look again next time I'm in Walmart and I have some money.

So I went home tired but happy. We decided to rest for about an hour before we thought about the video. We did finally get the beginning of it done, and now I have to go and work on the project so that we can maybe film the end of the video tonight and then try the editing on Sunday.

Just a day or so behind schedule. And there's a little more shopping planned for today, but not much.

Behind schedule again

Before I get into that, someone has read the last post and asked if I had fun at the party. Sorry I didn't make that clear. I had fun at the party. You maybe don't think so, cause I don't drink alcohol and I don't dance, but I still enjoy going to a couple of parties. I like to hang out with my friends, I like to eat, I like raffles and such, and most important I like to watch people.

I don't know if it was said that children were not invited, or if just most of the people knew what to expect and didn't bring any. Not that anyone wore anything particularly out there, but in this group there's usually a lot of costumes that prominently display the quadra-boob. I only remember one such costume this time, but it just all depends on who shows up and if they've had time to make anything new or if they'll just show up in last year's ren faire stuff.

So at some point I went to get something to eat, and I came back to find one of my friends had been told she wasn't dressed appropriately. Did she display too much boob? No. Did she have on a really short skirt? No. Did she wear something skin-tight or see-through? No.

She wore jeans, and this was a formal dance.

Okay, it says that somewhere, but I don't think that it says anywhere that jeans are forbidden. It is a party, and it is supposed to be fun, and for some people stressing over what to wear is not fun.

At our table, no one was particularly in costume. I had the black slinky dress, but I didn't do anything particularly interesting with it. No latex, no hat, just plain old me but in a dress. A male friend had nothing interesting to wear, but he did put on a tie. One girl had on a uniform top with jeans. This is a no no when one is out in public to represent a particular group, but when one is only at a party to enjoy oneself, it shouldn't matter if jeans were worn instead of black dress pants. Another girl wore t-shirt and jeans, another wore jeans and a very average looking top, and still another girl wore black shirt and pants with a lot of loud costume jewelry. Half of our table would dance a lot, and the other half didn't dance at all.

But it is a party. You should do and wear whatever is fun for you. I probably wouldn't be having much fun if I didn't wear something interesting, but I wouldn't want other people to stay home if they can't wear something equally nice. That would be almost as unacceptable as someone trying to make me dance.

After that little bit of drama was over, we went back to having fun.

One of my friends will soon be off to Dragon Con. I, of course, will not be going. I never go. I never have any money. I rarely even go to anything here anymore, so going to Atlanta is out of the question.

Anyway, my friend is going. I should think that he has to go somewhere to show off his costume.

He is Ironman.

Seriously, he is Ironman. He probably put as much effort into this costume as the comic book character put into his suit. He wore it to last year's Halloween party, having this idea that he shouldn't enter it into the costume contest. He thought that it would be unfair to the other people who wanted to be in the contest.

He has the best costume, cause he worked on it all year and spent a lot of money on it. It is a damned good costume. What the hell is unfair about entering and winning a costume contest?

Some people in our little group used to go to conventions and some of us even used to compete, but now most of us seem so focused on ren faires and our Halloween Party that we almost forget to enter other contests. And most of our Halloween costumes just aren't convention material, but Ironman fits in just fine.

At some point my friend was talked into going to a local convention and entering that costume contest, and he won first place.

In Atlanta, he will get some real competition, but I still think it is a good idea for him to try.

Back here, I have all but given up on this year's Halloween party, at least as far as the costume contest goes. I just don't have the money to do anything new. I have a new dress, but I can't buy anything interesting to go with it. I seriously have no money at all. I will have to figure out something to do, mostly with what I already have. The most I can do is fix a new hat, but I'm losing interest in even trying to do that.

So I should be putting up Halloween decorations today, but I'm not going to. The house isn't clean enough. And yes, there are already Halloween decorations up, but I mean that I won't be getting started putting up any extra Halloween decorations. The decorations that are already up are there all year.

Halloween is just two months away. There's just no time to do anything.

At this point, I am even starting to worry about Christmas. I knew from last year that unless there were major changes I wouldn't be able to do much. I considered just making an announcement that I didn't have enough money to participate in any gift exchanges. But I had so much fun last year, and I got it into my head that I could give my friends some homemade things that they would like, if I got an early start on it.

And of course, Christmas is now less than four months away, and I haven't started on anything. If fact, for the most part, I can't even remember what it was that I was going to make. I remember that I was going to make a few scarves, but that's about it. I even remember buying a lot of supplies at clearance sales, only now I can't remember what I was going to do with them.

I've wasted the whole year.

I did end up going to that party

So I did finally find a black bra, though not the best one. Still, after I found that I was able to wear a certain black dress that I haven't been seen in for a while.

Somebody said I looked slinky.

Okay. Anyway, not much of a costume, but something I was happy to wear anyway. So I did not win any awards, though I wish that there was some way of finding out if I even got any votes. Marvin won two awards, but of course, he is Marvin. And I didn't see him even take off his mask the entire evening, so for a while I was wondering if maybe she was Marvin.

I was one of three people who got all the correct answers on both of the table games, but I didn't win a prize for either. After spending about four dollars on raffle tickets and the silent auction, I came home with an Erin Grey picture, a Klingon bird of prey model kit, and some sort of homemade liquor. I do not drink alcohol, so I will either find something to cook with it, or else I will give it to my brother. I am strongly anti-drug, so I think that giving someone alcohol is a bad idea. Still, he'd probably just put it in his collection and not drink it for a long time anyway. May end up giving him all three items for Christmas or something. I have to think about it a bit.

I feel somewhat guilty that I did not put a scarf up for auction, just to see what would happen. The last one only got 23 dollars, but that would have been an extra 23 dollars for charity. Someone else put a scarf in as a raffle prize. That I wouldn't do. All that work for not much money, and you don't even know if the recipient even wanted the scarf.

We have our own auction next month. But that is for the club and not a charity, and I've donated two scarves to that in past years. I think that I've done my bit there.

Note to self: if you really want sodas at the next party, bring your own. Also, the spaghetti from the Mexican market was probably a good thing for the donation box, so look for it again next year.

The party broke up at a bit after eleven, about two hours sooner than some of us wanted to go home. I am thinking that we have to be out of the building by twelve or something, or else some people would stay longer as at other events. Still, getting home at a bit before twelve is a lot later than I would normally stay out, so I was a bit tired on the drive home.

After I got to sleep, I was still in the mood for a party. I met some actors. A fun dream, and it felt so real I'm afraid that I would say something stupid if I ever met these people in real life.

So I must have gotten a lot of sleep if I was able to dream, but I don't feel rested. I would just go back to bed if I could.

Today will be an odd Sunday, as my husband works today. He almost never works on Sunday. And while he's actually making some money for a change, he was happy to hear that this particular account was cut short by two days. The customers are buying, but they're a bit strange. The salesman who bailed on us two weeks ago is working on this account, so the sales are good, and we need the money.

The salesman is back to being his friendly self. But he's suggested to my husband that the next time he gets his own account that they should work together. He's apparently acting as though nothing has happened. Anyway, as nice as it would be to have him work on the new business, we don't trust him now. We don't know if we should give him another chance or what. I would think that he needs to do something to show he's committed to the project, like buy his own laptop, but then that wouldn't work either because he'd have people's credit card numbers on his computer. And someone would still have to watch him to make sure that he didn't have people write checks directly to him. So I don't know what to do about him.

I got almost nothing done yesterday. I spent some time looking for my black bra and trying on clothes and such, and I went to the library, and after that I pretty much sat around watching TV while waiting for it to me time to get ready for the party. So I'm not sure why I feel so bad. I didn't eat that much, I didn't overdose on soda, and I didn't spend all night on my feet. But I still feel pretty strange, like the day after I go to a party and do all that stuff that I'm not supposed to do.

Glad that I went anyway.

Should I go hang out with the Klingons?

Well, that is the question of the day, and I might not arrive at the answer until just before it is time to meet up with them.

First thing to be decided, do I want to hang out with Klingons? Yes, actually, I do. Some of them are friends of mine. And I have been to this particular event before and I enjoyed it. I didn't go last year, but I don't remember why.

Possibly, I couldn't decide what to wear.

And that is getting to be a problem again, and probably it is the main reason I have such a difficult time deciding. I have nothing Klingon to wear, that is for sure. But it isn't necessary to wear anything Klingon. I could wear something Vulcan, but even that is not required. It is acceptable just to go as a human, but preferably, to at least go as a nice dressed human. And I would have preferred to wear a nice dress that they hadn't all seen me wear before.

I haven't had the time or the money to go out and get something new. At this point, I am even starting to worry that I won't have anything good to wear on Halloween.

My friends advise me to wear something that I haven't worn in a while, possibly something that I've already worn to a Halloween party, only remove anything from the outfit that just screams Halloween. The Klingons wouldn't have seen it, and most of my friends will probably have forgotten I already had that dress. The problem with wearing a dress from that far back is that there is probably a reason that I don't wear it anymore. Like it probably doesn't fit me anymore. Or it needs to be cleaned and probably isn't worth spending the money on it.

I have decided not to wear my newest black dress. As I am having no luck with getting together a new Halloween costume, I may end up wearing that to the Halloween party. So putting that one away, what else do I have?

I have one that I haven't worn for a long time, and it has the bra sown in. But, after cleaning it and trying it on, I've decided that it is a bit too snug. I can certainly get into it, but I don't think that I would be comfortable in it for very long. And then there are two other dress that I think I look good in and would be comfortable in. One of them I wore last time I went to this thing. The other one I haven't worn in a while, and the Klingons haven't seen it, while most of my other friends have. But both of these require a certain black bra which I have, but at the moment, I cannot find it.

If I eliminate everything else that I would find to snug or otherwise uncomfortable, I'm left with a few things that look rather dull as they are, and I haven't the time to make them look more interesting.

So if I am going, I will either need to find the missing black bra, or, I will look dull.

And what is the point of going to hang out with Klingons if one is going to look dull?

Then I come to the questions like, am I in the mood for this anyway? Maybe I should know that with the way everything else is, I probably won't have a good time anyway. Maybe I should just skip it. But I usually have a good time at this sort of thing, and it has been such a long time, and I need to go out and at least try to have a good time, don't I?

And then last of all, there is the money situation. Going to this thing will cost me at least fifteen or twenty dollars. I spent about that on groceries yesterday. Maybe I would be better off keeping the money to buy more groceries. Anyway, part of this thing is to collect for a charity, so you bring stuff to donate, and for me that would be about five dollars of the groceries I bought yesterday. And then there is at least another ten dollars to go to the thing, and the gas to go to the thing. And then there is more money that I might spent once I get to the thing, and while I probably won't spend a lot of extra money, it is good to at least take some extra money, just in case.

Almost two weeks ago, my husband and I had what I thought was a strange conversation about the new business. The salesman had quit, and I took over his job. And I did the best that I could, but really, I'm just not into sales. So if the salesman had done his job, he and my husband would have split the money that they took in, after they took out the money for the rental equipment and paid for the expenses (not all the expenses, just the ones specifically for that particular account), which when I did the sales part turned out to only be about nine hundred dollars, but if the salesman had stayed probably would have been more.

So my husband was willing to split the money with the salesman, but after I did the work instead, he asked me if I expected half of the money. And he seemed to be saying that he knew I had worked hard and deserved to get paid something, but not half. So it seemed an odd thing to say, that the other guy deserved half but his wife did not. And of course, considering the small amount that we made, it seemed odd to discuss how it should be divided anyway. We need to pay the car and the rent, and I doubt that there is going to be much left to split after that anyway.

If we had made several thousand dollars that we imagined that we would make, I damned well better get half. But from the money that we did make, I didn't expect that much. I wanted to go out to dinner at least once (which we did way more than once and spent too much), and I wanted some garden stuff, and I wanted to go ahead and buy tickets to this and to the Halloween party. So I don't think that I'm being unreasonable about spending this amount of money, except that I didn't really plan to spend as much as we did at restaurants, and I don't know how much more money will be coming in for the next few weeks, and I didn't have enough left to pay the credit card people.

So maybe I'm feeling a little guilty that I forgot to put anything aside for the credit card. But really, if I skip this, I still won't have enough to pay them anything this month. I'm just wondering if I will feel bad about spending the money next time they call.

Well, I had better go look for that black bra.

Love the new purse

I may have mentioned that I am not so much what you would call a girly girl. Not that I was ever really called a tomboy either. I didn't like sports enough to be called that. And I am way to old to be called a tomboy now. But, still, compared to the rest of my sex, I don't spend a lot of time shopping for clothes or looking in the mirror or getting my nails done, etc....

At some point, I decided that carrying a purse was too annoying for everyday use. My keys and ID and money could go in my pockets, along with maybe some lip balm, and I was good to go. This did not please my mother, as she could see all this stuff in my pockets, and it did not look lady-like or something. But I find that carrying around a purse is annoying, besides the fact that I might forget and leave my purse somewhere, and a couple of times that I've had my purse stolen. So most of the time I would rather do without one, unless I am trying especially hard to look nice, or I need some stuff that I don't want to carry around in my pockets like a brush and a bunch of medications and extra cosmetics.

So it is sometimes necessary to carry a purse, and I do have one or two. I'm just not often seen carrying them around.

A couple months back I found a purse at a Goodwill. It was black and it had dark purple or plum flowers glued to the top. In my opinion, this was rather tacky. I thought that it would look good with a Harry Potter costume, as at some point I hope to have a hat with black or dark purple flowers on it, and the purse would match the hat, sort of.

I had a look at the purse and found that it was in good shape and had a magnetic clasp. So it wasn't an old purse. It was four dollars, and I decided to buy it.

A bit more than a month ago, I was going to wear some of a witch costume to a Star Trek club meeting. I didn't want to wear the costume all day, as it was rather warm. So I took the costume to change into. And as long as I would eventually be in the costume, I thought that I might as well take the purse too, even though I did not yet have a hat with flowers, I thought the purse still looked good with the witch costume. So money and ID and cell phone and keys and brush and medications and extra cosmetics all went into the new purse, and off I went to the meeting, not yet in costume otherwise.

And then a lot of my friends were saying how much that they liked my new purse, and did I glue the flowers on myself or did it just come that way, etc....

Okay.

I had expected that maybe after I got into costume some of them might say how well the purse went with the costume. But I wasn't in costume yet, I was just in regular clothes. So I thought that was a bit weird.

Maybe they are like my mother, and they hate that I stuff everything in my pockets, and they are just happy that I have a purse. Any purse. Or maybe they are just happy that I decided to act like a girl for a change. I don't know. But it was hard for me to think that they really liked this tacky purse, other than for it's costume potential.

About a week ago I was going to see my mother, so I took the purse to get her opinion.

Mom, do you like my purse?

Um, well, let's see. Not particulary. It's okay. I wouldn't like it for me, but if you like it, I guess it's okay.

So it is not just the coolest purse that you have ever seen?

Um, no....

So I tell her about my friends all liking the purse, and she thought that was funny, and she agreed that they might just be saying that to make me feel better, and that it might not really be a great purse. But she really isn't the expert on such things. Better ask my sister.

So my sister agreed that it was a nice purse, though she did not all go crazy about it like my friends had. But she did say that it was a good purse to have, and not just for costume potential. My mother still thought it a bit on the tacky side, but it was a major improvement over stuffing everything in my pockets.

So I have somehow managed to buy a cool purse on accident, when I was intending to buy something tacky. How did that happen?

My husband locked me out of the house

Seriously.

He was going out to the car, and for some reason, he hit the lock on the front door, and I didn't see him do it. And I followed him out to the car, and I wished him luck and all of that, and he got in the car and started the engine. And I get to the front door just as it is closing. And it's locked.

Crap.

So I yell at him, and he doesn't hear me, and he drives to the stop sign. And I yell at him and run after the car a bit, and he still doesn't hear me. He drives away.

Crap.

Okay, so I'm wearing what rather looks like pajamas (not even matching pajamas), and since the pants don't have pockets I don't have my keys to get in. And I don't have my cell phone, and I don't even have a bottle of water.

Crap.

I'm locked out of my house, in the summer, in Texas, with no cell phone and no water.

After a few minutes I stop and think that isn't exactly true. I do at least have water. I can at least get water out of the garden hose. It is very unlikely that I'm going to die of thirst. I can probably just wait for him to get back.

I don't really want to walk to the office to get someone to unlock the door for me. I think that there's a fee for doing that if it isn't a emergency. This probably doesn't count as an emergency.

Besides, I don't want anyone to see me in these things that look like pajamas, that don't match, and that are starting to rip near the waist.

I can just sit here and wait for him to get back. He will probably be gone about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Maybe two hours if he goes to get something for lunch on the way home. I think that I should try waiting an hour, maybe an hour and a half before I panic and ask someone for help. Cause I really don't want to walk to the office looking like this, and I don't have any money to pay if they decide this is a non-emergency service call.

I'm not wearing a watch. I don't have my cell phone. And I'm certainly not sitting in front of a computer. How am I supposed to know when an hour has past?

Crap.

Okay, if I just sit in the shade and do nothing, I won't get too hot. And I have a few chairs out here. I go and get one and put it in the shade. I sit down and wait.

I can't do it. I can't just sit and do nothing. No book to read. No music to listen to. No one to talk to.

Oh, and the frog lady might see me. The frog lady might see me out here wearing what look like mismatched pajamas.

The frog lady might even come out and talk to me.

I can't just sit here. I have to go out in the backyard and find something to do.

I find an empty milk jug and fill it with water. I could do a bit of gardening. I do have water.

I shovel a bit of dirt. I get hot, but I know that I have water. I don't panic.

I find a plastic cup. It will be easier to drink water from a cup. And I'm supposed to drink two liters of water a day. I guess that won't be a problem today.

I drink some water and shovel a bit more dirt. This might not be so bad. I might end up drinking the whole gallon of water and moving all of this dirt.

It occurs to me that I've been locked out of the house and can't get to the bathroom.

Perhaps this is not the best time to drink a whole gallon of water.

Crap.

I stop shoveling the dirt and weed out the pepper plants instead. That needed to be done anyway, and it isn't as much work as shoveling dirt.

Time for some water and a bit of rest. I go back to the chair in the front yard. I sit in front of the door.

The husband comes home.

"Why are you sitting out here?"

"You locked me out of the house."

He thinks that is very funny.

Of course he thinks it is funny. I had really been afraid, and he thinks it is funny. Everything is a joke.

Okay, it was a little bit funny.

Still, if it had been the other way around, I wouldn't have locked him out of the house. I would have kept watching him until he went inside the house, so I would have noticed something was wrong and not driven away.

I ended up being locked out of my house for almost exactly an hour. The pepper plants have been weeded, and I moved half a mound of dirt.

We don't need no stinking badges Part 2

Yesterday, I sent off for my first free Kellogg's Star Trek T-shirt. I asked for a medium size blue one. I hope that I wear medium, and the blue one probably looks the most like something that was worn on the show. At least, that is what I think. We can't really be sure, because I have yet to see any actual photos of the shirts.

This month we ate three boxes of Corn Pops, a box of Frosted Shredded Wheat, a box of Cheeze-its, and about six packages of Fudgeshoppe cookies. In addition to that I bought another box of crackers, five boxes of Cheeze-its, a box of Eggo waffles, and I'm not sure how many boxes of cereal. I have enough tokens to mail off for the second shirt. Possibly, I have enough tokens to send off for the third shirt. And I have fourteen assorted badges, which are mostly command and engineering, but I got an extra Romulan and traded it for a Klingon. So now I have all five badges.

I have the science badge.

So now the question is, do I keep it or put it on eBay and try to get fifty dollars for it.

And the other question is, should I buy some more cereal and such and get a fourth or fifth shirt, or maybe more badges?

I found one science badge. Maybe there's another one out there.

Monday Morons: Please do not block the shopping carts

A few days back I went to Home Depot and while I was there I bought some of the scrap lumber to do garden stuff with. I had such great luck with that the first day that the next day I went to a different Home Depot to buy some more. It was raining a little bit that day, so I had my head down a little bit to keep my glasses from getting too wet.

So I looked for the thing where you put the shopping carts when you get done with them. I'm not sure what they are called, but I think it is called a shopping cart corral. At Home Depot, the shopping cart corrals are rather large, because in addition to putting regular shopping carts in them you also park larger carts there if you were actually buying lots of building supplies.

Anyway, so I looked for one of these shopping cart corrals just to get a regular shopping cart before I went in the store. And I saw where one was that had shopping a few shopping carts in it, and then I tilted my head down again and walked toward it. And there were only the really large carts on the one side, which I didn't think I needed, but there were regular shopping carts on the other side. So I was going to get one, but then I couldn't because someone had parked their car halfway inside the corral, so that you couldn't get the shopping carts out.

I mean, I realize that they had someone paint the parking lot before they put in the corrals, and that technically the place was stripped as a parking space, but do they really not have enough sense to know not to park in the corral? Can they not handle walking an extra twenty feet or so to park in regular parking space?

What is wrong with people?

Okay, I have a few other things that are not really about morons, I was just wondering about them.

This first thing would fit better in a Freaky Friday, but I haven't done one of those for a while, and I would rather not do one this week either. For the last few days I have been getting hits from China. I see China on the tracker, but I don't see any search words or referrers or anything like that. Just like forty people from China stopped by for no apparent reason. And I haven't written anything particularly interesting these last few days, and I haven't written anything about China, so I totally don't get it.

The other thing was an odd bit of clothing that I noticed about a week ago.

There are these dollar stores around, and they have been around for many years, but in the past few years I haven't gone to those as often as I have the newer stores that are part of large chains like Dollar Tree and Only 99 Cents Store. But I still went to the independent stores once in a while, cause they sometimes have something I want that the other stores don't. Like there is this store near my house that tends to have a lot of stuff like nails and clamps and other tools.

Recently, this particular store decided to drastically change the store. So they moved all of the dollar store stuff to one half of the store, and some of that stuff stayed a dollar and some of it got marked up a little bit. The other half of the store is now thrift store stuff, mostly used clothing. And then there in the middle of the store is some new clothing, mostly cheap bras.

So I am looking at the new clothing, and they have these cheap girdles, and I notice that they are a bit odd looking. And for a moment I thought that maybe they were made for men. I don't know if there are girdles especially made for cross-dressers, but maybe there are, and maybe the items weren't selling well and they ended up in this thrift store. But, no. Closer inspection of the item revealed that the odd looking part of the garment was a pocket.

Okay, I don't think that I have ever seen a girdle with a pocket before.

Are these made for hookers or what?

Maybe I'm just out of the loop. Maybe this is the new thing. Or maybe everybody out there is wearing girdles with pockets, and I'm just the last to know.

So, should I get a girdle with a pocket?

RSVP?

Okay, so I'm not a very social person, at least not when it comes to the formal stuff. But I do get the occasional written invitation to parties, when one is expected to RSVP, or tell say whether or not one is going to be there.

I've always thought that this means to say if you are going. If you don't say that you are going, it would be assumed that you are not going. So if you send out a hundred invitations to something, and then you would get back maybe seventy-five answers saying that they would be going and whether or not they were bringing an escort, and then you would maybe get back five or ten answers saying that they would not be going and apologizing and saying why they would not be going. And then that would leave fifteen or twenty other people not going, but they either did not have a really good reason for not going or else just didn't want to say what it was, and you would assume that since they did not answer that they would not attend.

A few years ago, my sister got married, and one of her new in-laws explained to me that the opposite was supposed to be true. For a formal invitation only event, it is more important to answer if you will not attend. If you send out a hundred invitations and seventy-five people answer that they will be there and possibly bringing escorts, and five or ten people apologize that they will not be attending because they have to be somewhere else, that leaves fifteen or twenty other people you assume will also be there but that their answers were lost in the mail or something.

As no one else on my side of the family had ever heard this explanation, I just went back to thinking that just isn't the way it is done. Maybe that was the way it was originally supposed to work, but I don't think that anybody does it that way now. It seems almost rude to say that you're not going to something you're invited to if you can't give some good reason to stay away. I'm not going because I have to be out of town that weekend sounds perfectly reasonable. To make a point of saying that you're not going to be there and not give a reason sounds cold or something, and it seems unnecessary. They'd figure out that you're not going to be there when they notice that you haven't said that you were going to be there.

No need to rub it in that you won't be there because you'd rather wash your hair or clip your nails and watch TV.

I more often get less formal invites anyway, by word of mouth or emails. If I want to go I say that I'm going and ask if I need to bring something or if I need to wear something special. If I don't answer, they'll figure out I'm not going. If they ask me a second time I'll elaborate that I don't like to drive in the dark or to the other side of Dallas or whatever my problem is.

Now there is the electronic invite, the Evite and other similar things. I haven't quite gotten it through my head that this now counts as a formal invite, though if it is a wedding I think that paper invites are still the thing.

So the daughter of a friend at the club is getting married this month. And the wedding is a small family only thing, but he said that we were invited to the reception they are having later. And I don't really know the daughter and thought he just mentioned it in passing to me just to be polite, and that he didn't really expect me to go. I don't go to a lot of weddings. I went to some with my family when I was younger, but as an adult I can only remember going to three. One of them was mine and another was my sister's. I really don't go to a lot of weddings, and it seems that those I want to attend happen when I really do have to be somewhere else like an out of town business trip.

So an email about the friend's daughter's wedding went out, and I didn't really pay any attention to it. A lot of emails come about club stuff that doesn't really have anything to do with me and I don't answer them. Just thought that it was one of those group emails that goes out to the whole group, mostly to be polite, but they don't really involve everyone.

So then I got another email, saying that I most have missed the first one. Well, this one I didn't see until just now, but he sent it a few days ago. And I hadn't seriously thought about going at all, since I think I've maybe met his daughter twice, and he has two of them and I tend to get them mixed up. So I'm not even clear on which one is getting married, that is how little I know her.

So I wasn't going to go because a.) I don't really know her, b.) I think that one usually gets all dressed up for such things and I'm not sure that I have anything to wear that fits right now, and c.) I think that when one does go to a wedding reception that you get the couple a gift (often something expensive and/or totally useless) and I have no money for that sort of thing now and I certainly don't want to spend money on someone I really don't know anyway.

Now I'm not sure if I'm being asked because he would just like me to confirm that I am not going, or if he was really expecting me to be there and wants me to say that I am going.

Now I don't know what to do, but I'd better say something to him today.