Wrong turns, evil stoves, & "adulthood"

*written 2/26/08*

Ok....so this has not been the best of days. We were supposed to have a Brown Bag Luncheon today. Unfortunately, on her way from the nearish by town where she was staying, the author took a wrong turn and ended up over an hour away from the library (at the time the program was supposed to start). It is difficult getting a group to actually come to the program and when there was a decent group there....the author didn't make it. :( Such is life. I handled that, IMHO, quite well though perhaps not a swiftly as I will next time (forbid that it should happen again ). The majority of the people who had come to hear her were quite kind about it and spent the time chatting and visiting with one another. Even though it turned out ok it was still quite draining.

In other news, for the last week and half (at least) my arms have been aching for no apparent reason...this is quite annoying and interferes with daily functioning to a slight degree. (I mean, who wants to take tylenol all day just so they are not driven crazy by the constant awareness of their arms. I know, sounds weird).

Anyhoo....the work day was over and I went home. Having depleted my stockpile of easily nuked frozen dinners, I pulled out some dry soup mix and began to heat it up (ON THE STOVE!!!! WOW!!!!) (ok....it didn't have microwave instructions or I would have done that) The water came to a boil and I "gently whisked" in the mix as the package directed. The soup began to boil over so, as I kept stirring, I reached to turn down the eye....ZZZAPPP! A shock ran up my left arm. Ok.....apparently I built up a slight electric charge. The soup was still boiling over as my zapped attempt did not get the stovetop turned down enough. I reached back to turn it down and got an even longer and quite QUITE painful shock (this is what it would look like if I were in a comic strip: ZZZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!! OWEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!). Not static electricity apparently. I grabbed the pot holder and used it as a buffer while I turned down the eye. I WAS JUST TRYING TO COOK MYSELF SOME SOUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!!!!!!!!!! Because I am such an adult and handle things like this extremely well, (see previous sentence ;o) ) I take my frustrations out on the counter (all I did was hit the counter with the pot holder resulting in a series of loud and quite stress relieving "POP"s.) This however is not enough and I break down....ever so slightly.....it's been a long day and crying for a minute always seems to help...or it at least ensures that you don't break down crying sometime within the next day over something not even remotely upsetting.

I then called my wonderful Dad who answered the phone right before his play practice. :) (Hero points) He assured me that my stove was not supposed to zap me. (Something I had begun to question)

So here I am at the end of the day and even though I have related this story to the few people I know I can call and they have to listen to me...I still do not feel relieved. I choose to harbour a grudge against my stove. :) The oven part I hold completely without fault. It baked some very nice lasagna. The stove top, however, has some making up to do if it is to be welcomed again. It's not quite a "my good opinion, once lost, is lost forever" situation, but it has a way to go. I now feel as though there is an enemy in my house (though I am the only breathing thing in here). There is a slightly more intense pain in (as opposed to the constant awareness of) my left elbow now which I choose to blame on the stove.

On the up side, the soup was absolutely wonderful....I jazzed it up with some bacon bits and an amount of garlic salt which I am sure will protect me from vampires for at least the next week.

BTW, if you haven't noticed (which I think you probably have), I absolutely LOVE parenthesis. :)

P.S. apparently I was not totally cried out because I teared up at "Your Song" from Moulin Rouge. :)

"Wrinkle in Time", Java Chiller, & Adulthood

Ok...so I've been listening to "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle for the past 6 months. (I really like it :) ) This is a great quote from it..."Meg hesitated....She wanted to reach out and grab Calvin's hand, but it seemed that ever since they had begun their journeyings she had been looking for a hand to hold, so she stuffed her fists into her pockets and walked along behind the two boys. -- I've got to be brave, she said to herself. -- I will be."

Very motivating, right? Ok..that being said, let me tell you how that quote, a weekend alone, and a Java Chiller resulted in a police car in my driveway. :)

This past weekend, I actually stayed at home instead of going home home. This meant that following church and lunch I had an entire Sunday afternoon to myself. I drove and found an internet connection (completely legal one FYI) and spent about an hour checking email, purchasing songs, etc. To complement this wonderful Sunday afternoon activity I decided to go get a Mocha Java Chiller from Sonic (they are really good, you need to try one). I took my Java Chiller home and wasted the rest of the afternoon watching portions of Masterpiece Theater and random movies. This feeling of going to Sonic just because I wanted to made me feel very much like an adult (because adults, as you know, spend all their spare time going to Sonic). This feeling does not happen very often. In fact, it was such a novel feeling that I even noted it on my calendar - "felt like an adult". This should have given me a clue that something was going to go wrong. Preparing to go to evening church, I turned my cell phone on silent, like any good Christian would ;o). After church, which was quite good, I got in my car and headed home. Now, I normally call someone as I'm walking in at my house - it is precaution of sorts. Well, I decided that this time I was not going to call...("Wrinkle in Time" has apparently become part of my subconcious workings). I was going to be brave and walk to my front door. That went well and I felt very good. I opened my phone and started to dial home, but changed my mind. I am ALWAYS calling home. I was not going to be the one to call this time. I closed my phone, fixed some supper, and went about watching Masterpiece Theater (which happened to be showing Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" - one I have not yet read). It was quite good - people being all confused about who they really love and such but realizing their true feelings in the last 15 minutes or 3 chapters- typical Jane Austen. I got to thinking at one point, "Why hasn't anyone called?" I was a little sad but again, being stubborn, I was not going to be the one to call. I went on watching Mr. Crawford try to woo Fanny to no avail when I heard a vehicle pull into my front yard. Not good! No one ever turns in here! Then there was a rapid knock on my deck door. Also not good because the light bulbs I put in after finally getting the broken bulb out (which caused my thumb to bleed profusely by the way) were mimicing strobe lights and I did not want to cause anyone passing by on the road to have a seizure. I went to the door, pulled back the shade, and heard from a source I could not see "Hey!" Ah! "I'm ________, the pastor's wife." Oh, ok. Oh, crud! What is this? I opened the door. "You're mother wants you to call her". ???? Oh double crud... "I must have left my phone on silent", I said along with an abundance of apologies. She was very nice and said that she completely understood, that she is a mother. I continued to apologize as she headed back to the vehicle at which point I realized there is some man silhouetted against the vehicle's headlights. I began to close the door and heard her say "Thank you, officer!". Oh MY GOODNESS!! The local police had been called out to my house. The calendar note definitely needed an amendment, which it got. As if that wasn't enough, I went to pay my rent a few days later. My landlord also happens to be my next door neighbor. I was going to quickly drop off my check and head back to work. He came over to the desk and said "Now, Emily, let me ask you a personal question. Well...not a personal question...." Oh wonderful... "........We got back to our house and saw a police car outside your house. We weren't sure if you had gotten spooked or if you had a guest...."

::sigh::

So....This is my life.I am very glad that my family would be searching for me if something were to happen. I am more angry at myself for feeling like an adult and then messing it up. Is there ever a point where you get comfortable with this adult feeling? and don't mess it up? Or are there just more mess-ups to dread?

Though it seems kind of dangerous, I am not yet ready to give up "Wrinkle in Time" or Java Chillers. I will attempt to isolate other factors to see if they are the root cause of the "felt like an adult mess-up". I might begin with the internet connection.....as it is certainly not the forgetting to turn my cellphone off of silent. ;o)

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Hey....I just read this the other day and it kind of sums up how I felt sometimes this week starting my new job.
"...they are all nice, kind, motherly souls, who like me and whom I like, and that is why what they said, or hinted, had such undue weight with me. ..I was crazy going to Redmond and trying to take a B.A., and ever since I've been wondering if I am. Mrs. Peter Sloane sighed and said she hoped my strength would hold out till I got through; and at once I saw myself a hopeless victim of nervous prostration at the end of my third year; Mrs. Eben Wright said it must cost an awful lot to put in four years at Redmond; and I felt all over me that it was unpardonable in me to squander Marilla's money and my own on such a folly; Mrs. Jasper Bell said she hoped I wouldn't let college spoil me, as it did some people; and I felt in my bones that the end of my four Redmond years would see me a most insufferable creature, thinking I knew it all, and looking down on everything and everybody in Avonlea; Mrs. Elisha Wright said she understood that Redmond girls, especially those who belonged to Kingsport, were 'dreadful dressy and stuck-up,' and she guessed I wouldn't feel much at home among them; and I saw myself, a snubbed, dowdy , humiliated country girl shuffling through Redmond's classic halls in copper-toned boots."
~Anne of the Island
Ok....not the exact situation, but it made me realize how easily I lose confidence. Someone makes a statement and I automatically imagine the worst and see myself falling on my face.
Work did go pretty well....my throat is a little sore from talking above the roar, but it got better as the week went.
Be warned....I would really like to semi-rant about something and might do so if I ever have the time.