Blog migration....

It's been a fun four years, but I've started a new blog and all future posts will be made over there. If you'd care to come along for the ride, follow me, follow me, as I trip the darkness....

http://diaryofapretendgrownup.blogspot.com/

Tips for job-seekers....

Some may have caught on to the fact that I've been cross-training a bit in HR lately. Yes, we are hiring. And I'm helping screen resumes. And I've already learned what I don't like (and my supervisors don't either). Here are some tips, presented in what is hopefully a somewhat humorous manner. But really I'm just kind of having a rant.

Tip #1 - Do not, under any circumstances, misspell the title of the job you're applying for in the subject line of the e-mail containing your resume. Or anywhere else in your resume or cover letter, for that matter. But really, if the subject line of your e-mail is "proerty assistant", it sort of makes me not even want to read your resume.

Tip #2 - Proofread, proofread, proofread. And if you can't proofread, get someone else to do it for you. Especially if you think the position you're applying for might involve any sort of written communication at all. (Hint: Office work involves written communication. There is no getting around it.)

Tip #3 - Unless my business is a bakery, please do not send me an e-mail telling me how happy you would be to work in my bakery. (Hint: my business is not a bakery.)

Tip #4 - Do not tell me you have "years of property management experience" unless there's something on your resume to back that statement up. It kinda looks fishy when your cover letter tells me you have "years of property management experience" and your resume tells me you have years of healthcare experience. I'm just saying...

Tip #5 - If your "objective" is to obtain a career in computer science/healthcare/some other field that isn't the field you're applying for, I'm going to think twice about wasting my time interviewing you. Because seriously, if you're just going to leave in a year to work in healthcare, why did we bother taking the time to train you in property management?

Tip #6 - Don't! Use! Exclamation! Points! We were scowling today at a resume that was riddled with excessive exclamation points.

Tip #7 - Do not apply for a position listed as being "full time permanent" when you are planning to return to school in the fall. I actually phone interviewed someone today who, when I gave my usual spiel about it being a full time permanent position (which is stated in the ad), said, "Well, I can work full time until September, but then I'm going back to school." Just to humor her, I said, "Oh, you're in college?" She replied, "No, I'm going to be a senior."

Rant over... for now. Happy job-hunting, kids!

Vintage Rantings...

This post is actually a post I've had saved as a document on my hard drive for well over a year now titled "Meagan's Rant II" (the post explains what happened to my first rant, so keep going). It's mostly about Facebook (a.k.a. CaraLibro or Feisbuk), and is slightly antiquated as good ol' FB has done away with being a "fan" of anything and is now on a strictly like-based system. However, I feel most of my points are no less valid than they were however long ago it was I originally wrote this.

With enough poular demand, I might even let my first rant see the light of day... but without further ado:


Meagan’s Rant TWO

It’s been a while since I had a rant. The last one was triggered by having to wake up and go to work, and a half-awake daydream I had about me running the world.  Nobody really read that one because I never posted it. I might go back and post it at some point because it’s horribly out of date now. But now I have a completely new subject to rant about – Facebook.
Some friends of mine convinced me to sign up for Facebook about a year and a half ago. On the plus side, it is a good way to keep up with friends who live far away. On the minus side, your friends who live ten minutes away sometimes post the minutiae of their daily lives, such as “I’m going to go take a shower now!”, “Breakfast time!”… you get the idea.
It has come to my attention that some types of people on Facebook really need to be removed. Here they are in no particular order. Enjoy.


TYPE 1 – The Drama/Attention Whore
These people are pretty darn easy to spot. They’re the ones who change their status from “in a relationship” to “single”, then make five or six other posts over the course of the next hour hinting about that change but never actually just SAYING, “Frank  and I broke up, and I’m upset about it.” It’s like they want you to notice and ask them about it, but if nobody notices their world will fall apart so they have to make SURE someone notices.
Another variation on this type is the person who posts something like, “OMG I AM SO UGLY!!!” or “I hate myself and I want to die…” just so all their friends will comfort them with a flood of reassuring comments. These people need to die. Or at least get off Facebook and get a therapist.

TYPE 2 – The Vaguebooker
The Vaguebooker is a close cousin to the Drama/Attention Whore, and in fact some Vaguebookers ARE Drama/Attention Whores in disguise. The M.O. of the Vaguebooker is to post a status update just open-ended and vague enough to get people to ask a bunch of questions about what was meant. Such as “…is starting to get really excited about something special”  or  “How can it itch that much?”  or even just “Ugh”.

TYPE 3 – The Multi-Profiler
Multi-Profilers are usually women. I say this, because one of the primary habits of the Multi-Profiler is to make profiles on Facebook for their children who are too young to read “so Suzie can play the games.” The real reason, however, is more like, “so Suzie’s mom can have control of several profiles, with which to get more points on Farmville/Mafia Wars/Petville/whatever the game du jour is.”
Multi-Profilers need to be banned from Facebook, and they need jobs and lives. And probably a therapist.

TYPE 4 – The Ego-Centrist
The Ego-Centrist is that annoying person on your friends list who responds to your every posting as though it were intended for them alone. The Ego-Centrist is not conscious of the fact that you have 85 OTHER  friends on your Facebook. The Ego-Centrist does not believe in their existence. If you post something about how “some people really get on your nerves sometimes”, the Ego-Centrist will assume that you mean that they are getting on your nerves, they will get offended, and they will ask why you didn’t just SAY something to them.
A short time later you will remove the Ego-Centrist from your friends list.

TYPE 5 – The Moron
I really couldn’t think of a better name for this type. They are the much dumber cousin of the Ego-Centrist. They make the same mistake of taking your updates much too literally, but not as personally. For example, someone I know who has been married for upwards of 15 years just finally got around to changing her status to “married” on her Facebook profile the other day. A shocking number of Morons cropped up on her friends list and in her comments, congratulating her, asking her if they were going on honeymoon, and expressing their shock that she and her spouse had not been married all this time. Morons…
Admittedly some people, myself included, like to comment on these updates jokingly. I did in fact comment congratulating her on her “recent” marriage, but with wording and emoticons that made it clear I was joking. Many of her comment-leavers were clearly not joking. These people need to be wiped off the face of Facebook.

TYPE 6 – The Social Activist/Rabid Fan
I was originally going to separate these two, but I’ve decided to lump them together under this heading because it’s a variation on the same problem. Facebook allows you to become a “fan” of just about anything someone makes a page for… from TV shows, to books, to cities, to “making squares on the desktop by clicking and dragging the mouse pointer.” (Seriously, you can become a fan of that.)
The Rabid Fan is a fan of every trivial thing you can think of and many things that never would have occurred to you. He/she is a fan of “Why can’t my shampoo and conditioner run out at the same time?!”, “The uncontrollable laughter you get when you’re overly tired”, “Changing a word because you can’t spell the word you wanted to use,” and even, ironically, “Become a fan if becoming a fan is addictive.”
The Social Activist is a cousin of the Rabid Fan. The Social Activist seems to believe that if a large number of people become Facebook fans of the same cause/idea, it can change the world. These people think, for example, that if they can find 1,000,000 fans for “Repeal Obamacare!” on Facebook, it might actually get repealed. In actual fact, if they can find 1,000,000 fans for “Repeal Obamacare!” on Facebook, they will have found 1,000,000 people who are spending way too much time on their computer to actually effect any change in the world at all. You think Obama/Congress cares if you can get 1,000,000 people to fan “Repeal Obamacare!”? No they do not. Especially since 1,000,000 is kind of a drop in the bucket when you consider that an estimated 308,971,000 people live in the United States of America.  Sure, become a fan of your social activism cause of choice, but then get off your computer and go DO something about it. Sheesh.


TYPE 7 – The Witty Wannabe
This is a fairly recent development on Facebook, but people have now discovered that when you can’t think of something witty and/or profound to put in your Facebook status, you can now get a random status generator to do it for you! This kinda makes me throw up in my mouth a little. The fact that you’re spending that much time worrying about having a witty/profound status update indicates that you’re spending WAY too much time on Facebook, which is probably why you haven’t got anything witty/profound to say… you haven’t DONE anything recently except be on Facebook, and updating your status with “…is on Facebook” would just be admitting to the world how lame you have become. Please go get a life. But don’t come back and post status updates about it, ‘kay?

Functional relationships are cool!

For whatever reason, it seems that it has taken being in a healthy, functional relationship for the first time in my life to really realize how profoundly messed up all the others were. Sure, they were varying degrees of messed up (with my actual marriage being the most messed up by a landslide), but none of them have been what you'd call "functional" or even "stable" until now. So yes, this blog is going to consist of me getting a little more mushy than usual on the subject of the Old Curmudgeon, as he is known in the blogosphere. Deal with it.

As you may or may not have gathered, the Old Curmudgeon and I were friends in elementary school. I would go so far as to say he was my best friend, though I'm not sure that was mutual at the time. I'll forgive him for that. I think this is actually a key factor in our functionality. Not only are we friends now, but we were friends when we were 10. And 9. And 8. We have history. History going back to September of 1990. And I think we work now in part because we worked then. Also in part because neither of us has changed all that much since July of 1993, which was the last time we saw each other prior to June of 2012. We still both giggle at fart jokes and explosions. We both would still rather watch a show with some educational content in it as opposed to, say, Jersey Shore. We're still both nerdier than standard on the subject of geography. And yes, we have our differences. Some of them are pretty major. Yet, from what I've seen so far, our differences seem to balance each other out for the most part. We are able to use our different strengths and work together for a common goal, be it something relatively minor like cleaning the house from top to bottom in under two hours (which we did Sunday) or something bigger like planning and executing a three day trip to attend someone's wedding (which we did in August when we were still fairly new at this).

I think another very good thing in our relationship is mutual respect. I read his resume not long after we started hanging out again because he asked me to edit it for him. I was totally blown away by what he had accomplished in the 19 or so years since I last saw him. To me, his competence is not in question, which I guess is kind of a big deal because I question everyone's competence. My resume doesn't look as good as his (not even close, really), but it seems he can respect my accomplishments in other areas besides work. So on those occasions when we do not agree (and believe me, it happens), thus far we have been able to discuss logically, and so far these discussions have ended with one person or the other conceding that the other is correct. Yes, we can both admit when we've been wrong. And we both have been wrong on occasion.

Another cool thing (and maybe the best thing) is that I feel supported by a partner for the first time in ever. I don't have to do absolutely everything anymore. If I get off work late for reasons beyond my control, the Old Curmudgeon is totally okay with taking the Chamaco to karate class. Sometimes  dinner is already cooking when I get home from work. Sometimes we do stuff together, all three of us, and it feels like a family. That may actually be the coolest thing... Some guys I've dated in the last decade have not wanted anything to do with the Chamaco. Needless to say, those dates were isolated one-time occurrences. The Old Curmudgeon, however, has bravely stepped into a parenting role that nothing in his experience prepared him for. He has no children of his own and didn't have what you'd call a fantastic relationship with his own father, but he's giving it a go anyway. And sometimes I think he stresses way more about parenting than I do, but he's new... he'll relax into it. I just appreciate that he's willing to do it. Without me even asking. That's a real man right there... I once read a quote to the effect of, "Any idiot male can make a baby, but it takes a MAN to be a father." Yeah, that's it.

The bottom line, really, is this: at this time last year I didn't know if he was even still alive or remembered me at all. Now I can't imagine a day without him.

Why I hate being on call....

As most of you are probably aware by now, I manage apartments. Probably the single thing I hate most about it is the company cell phone that I have to carry at all times. I am also supposed to answer it any time it rings, day or night. The primary reason is because it's the number residents can call 24/7 for maintenance emergencies. I don't mind that so much... those are few and far between, and I can see that as a necessary evil.

What I mind, however, is the fact that the same phone number is the number that people who view our Craigslist ad are directed to call for more information. So when the phone rings, it could be a resident calling with a maintenance emergency, but more often it's someone wanting to know how much it is for a two bedroom apartment. One of these groups of people I can safely ignore for the hour I'm in church, the other I can't. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing which it is unless I answer the phone. I don't know whose idea this setup was, but I don't like it, and occasions like this morning are why.

This morning I decided to dye my hair, which I've been trying to find a chunk of time to do since I bought the dye a couple of weeks ago. This says something about my life... I can't find an uninterrupted hour in which to put goo on my head and wash it out. But I digress... my point is that I decided I was going to do it this morning, come hell or high water. So I was busily pouring black goo on my head when I hear the company cell phone ringing in on my bed where I left it.

ME: (inside my head) Crap... it's probably a sales call. I'll just ignore it and call them back if they leave a message.

And I go about my business, and I hear the missed call beep. Less than a minute later, it rings again. This usually means one of two things: 1) it's a resident with a maintenance emergency and they're mad that I didn't answer the phone, or 2) it's a sales caller who refuses to accept that the property might not be open for business at 8 AM.  It was also possible that it could have been two separate callers. So I sighed, took off the gloves, and started racing down the hall to get the phone, splattering blue-black hair dye on the bathroom wall in the process. I missed the call, and when I looked at the missed calls it was the same number twice. And it wasn't one I recognized, but that doesn't mean it's not a resident... just means it's not a resident who calls often.

So I started carrying the phone back toward the bathroom and dialed the call I missed. Here's the entire course of the conversation:

ME: Hi, this is Meagan from ___________ Apartments. I just missed a call from this number.
HIM: Oh, yeah. I was looking at your ad on Craigslist for 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartments and I had a question. What school district are you in?
ME: Centennial.
HIM: Okay, thanks ma'am. (hangs up)

Well, crap. Now to deal with the hair dye on the bathroom wall. At my old apartment in Molalla I had dealt with this before. Spray with Awesome, wipe, done. This is when I discovered that my employer apparently uses cheap paint... it took the paint right off the wall.

I guess it's fortunate that I'm the manager and have keys to the paint room. Is it Friday yet?

Stalker....

Our kitten is pretty advanced for being only around 10 weeks old. Even at that tender young age, she already has a stalker.

She hasn't quite ID'ed it yet. Every now and then she catches a glimpse of the stalker out of the corner of her eye and whips around only to find that it has disappeared. Every now and then it's a little slower to escape and she almost manages to get a claw into it.

Perhaps most startling is that, every now and then, she'll be curled up on the back of the couch and something will twitch directly in front of her nose and she realizes that the stalker is RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF HER!!! OH MY KITTY GOODNESS!!! She immediately leaps forward from her sitting position only to find that the stalker dodges off to the side and backward. She twists in the air and attempts to follow, only to find herself tumbling down the back of the couch, or - even worse - falling into the floor.

I think that so far all she has managed to reasonably determine about this character is that it's suspiciously fuzzy. One might even call it furry. And it apparently never sleeps, because whenever she's awake the fuzzy interloper is there... lurking... (See startled expression below.)

Yes, okay, I tend to dramatize silly things when I haven't had enough sleep. For some reason this blog post occurred to me around 5:45 this morning when the cat was frolicking on my bed trying to catch her tail.

KITTEN!!!

That was the first word out of my son's mouth when I picked him up from school on Monday. The conversation went like this.

ME: Hey you. How was school?
HIM: KITTEN!!!! (pause) Oh, yeah, hi mom.... KITTEN!!!!

See what he's on about is the fact that Sunday afternoon we finally brought home the kitten we've been planning to adopt pretty much since she was born in late November. The Chamaco was utterly thrilled to finally, finally have a cat again after 3 years of living in a no pets allowed apartment and then another seven months or so of me not wanting to get one because we didn't really have enough space. Moving to Milwaukie fixed that last problem, and then it just happened that a cat belonging to one of my coworkers produced exactly one kitten. Even before kitten was born we were discussing the possibility getting one of the kittens. Then it turned out there was only one to get, so we sort of got dibs.

This is Squeak when we first met her. We went over to visit her a day or two after she figured out the walking thing. It's always good to meet potential pets before you bring them home... you know, to make sure you don't hate them or vice versa. Though you just can't hate a month old kitten, really. Squeak, by the way, is so named because she doesn't really meow in the traditional sense (at least not yet). She makes more of a squeaking noise. Particularly at 4:15 AM, which she seems to think is a great time to wake up and jump on faces.

Anyway, as I said, we brought Squeak home on Sunday afternoon (or, more accurately, we had her delivered to our house). She spent most of Sunday afternoon hiding in small spaces, which I thought was a pretty natural reaction for a tiny kitten used to a small apartment with a few other cats who has suddenly become the only cat in a rather large apartment. She seemed to favor the top of my scanner under the computer desk (which, incidentally, is where she is now). Oh, and by the way, she's a little bigger now.

It's been kind of fun to watch her adjust. She spent Sunday night in bed with me, which is how I learned that she likes to wake up at 4:15 AM and chew on fingers and attack faces. Monday night the Chamaco begged to have Squeak sleep in his room. I said fine, but he had to leave the door open so she could get out if she wanted, and if she left he couldn't go get her and bring her back. She didn't leave. And she woke up at 4:15 AM and wanted to chew on his fingers and attack his face. He told me after I got up that morning that he thought maybe he didn't want her sleeping in his room anymore for a while. But Squeak doesn't like to be alone much, you see, so Tuesday night she was back in bed with me. At least when I went to sleep. When I woke up at 6:45 she was gone. I figured she couldn't have gone too far, though, so I got up and got dressed and went about my business. And when I went in to get the Chamaco up for school I found her. On his pillow. Curled up peacefully and not chewing on his face. I thought that was progress, but the Chamaco said last night that he still didn't want her in his room while he was sleeping, so I told him he was going to have to actually close the door if he didn't want her in there. He didn't love that idea... he has never, ever slept with the door closed in his entire life. I think, though, that he saw the inescapability of my logic and he let me close the door.

I took Squeak with me when I went to bed last night. She fell asleep on my head, and I had a vague recollection that at some point during the night she had been purring (which I hadn't yet been able to get her to do), but I thought maybe I dreamed that part. I guess, however, that during the night she also wandered over to visit the Old Curmudgeon, and he reported to me this morning that he also had her purring, so it seems maybe I didn't dream that part. I guess she's just decided she likes sleeping on our heads. And she didn't start chewing on my fingers and attacking my face until about 6 today, so she's adjusting.

Really I've missed having a cat. I had forgotten how much having a kitten is like having a toddler, though, in the sense that they wake up really early and want to play, and they sometimes get so wrapped up in play that they don't realize they have to pee until it's too late to make it to the potty. Oh, and the whole needing constant attention thing. 

Oh, and Squeak has a Hitler mustache. I'll try to get a decent pic of her face one of these days.

Song o' the Day: "Kitty" by The Presidents of the United States of America

Dumber than advertised...

And with that title, I am of course referring to... myself.

Every now and then, life has a way of teaching you that you're not as smart as you thought you were.

We got a new stackable washer/dryer unit in December (after our last one croaked on day 31 of the 30 day warranty). After examining it extensively, the Old Curmudgeon and I came to the conclusion that new dryer did not have a lint trap. It seemed odd to both of us... don't they have to have those? But no, we (two former TAG kids, mind you) could not find it, thus it did not have one.

Over the last few weeks of steadily decreasing dryer performance, today I resolved to look up the user guide on the internet. Sure enough, there's a lint trap. Right there in the back of the dryer. Old Curmudgeon and I had looked right at it and passed over it, not realizing that those two little holes there were intended to stick fingers in for the purpose of removing said lint trap from the rest of the dryer. I guess we thought they were just vent holes.

Anyway, I cleaned out the trap and this is what I turned up:

The larger chunk of lint on the left, by the way, is almost two inches thick, about nine inches long, four inches wide and fairly solid. That's what was in the trap itself. The rest I cleaned off of around where the trap is supposed to go. It is an absolute miracle that we morons have not burned the place down around ourselves in the last month of not cleaning out the lint trap because we didn't believe it existed.

I submit this experience as proof that something you don't think exists can still affect you. Or even kill you.

Oh, and for those that care, we're slowly feeling better. I made it through a whole two hours at work yesterday... gonna shoot for three today. ;-)

Song o' the Day: "Rain Over Me" - Pitbull featuring Marc Anthony. Why, you ask? Because Zumba class has gotten it stuck in my head, that's why.

UPDATE, 11:50 AM 1/31/13: The next load of clothes I put in the dryer after cleaning the lint trap got dry on the first go. The dryer wasn't malfunctioning after all... we're just morons.

Mongolian Death Flu...

My household has been suffering the Mongolian Death Flu for almost two weeks now. (Please note, "Mongolian Death Flu" is just a name I made up and is not the name of an actual epidemic as far as I am aware. Please do not panic and/or call the CDC.) We're being a good family and taking turns with it, but at least one of us has been sick at all times since January 18th. It's a lovely virus that starts with fever/chills and lack of appetite/energy and then transitions seamlessly into coughing up various internal organs while not being able to breathe or speak. It's also a deceptive little virus, as we've recently learned, because just when we thought we were shaking it off, we all relapsed back to square one (fever/chills, etc.).

I'm planning on going to work today for the first time this week, and honestly I have no idea how good of an idea that is. I'm feeling about 60% of normal capacity today, which is the highest I've been since Friday evening (today is Wednesday, by the way). Sunday I was at about 10-15%. What that means is that I slept all night Saturday night, slept almost all of the day Sunday (I was awake maybe 5-6 hours total, but not all at once... my longest stretch of consciousness was 3 hours between 8 and 11 PM), and then slept all night Sunday night. I texted the Old Curmudgeon this morning to see how he's doing, and he told me he had given up on work today and was going home. Already. At 8:30 AM. Not encouraging.

So if anyone has been wondering why you haven't seen us out and about for the last couple of weeks, this is why. We're all over here trying not to die, with varying degrees of success. The Chamaco has been going to school, albeit with a bad cough, and he's doing the best so far. I'm going to leave and have a go at the going to work thing in about ten minutes here, so wish me luck...

Song o' the Day: "Sick" by Evanescence (relevant in title only, given that it's not actually about disease)

Yesterday... (a reflection on 2012 inspired by my boss)

(Today all songs included in the blog post will be by Lacuna Coil in honor of 1.19.)

(Swamped - Lacuna Coil) Yesterday I got one of those lovely visits from my boss at work. Something about my office sliding down the hill thanks to TriMet. (Ramon jokes that I should tie a rope around my waist and tie it to something in the main office just in case... such a kidder!) This has happened before, mind you. (My boss visiting me, not my office sliding down the hill.) Usually it's an unremarkable occasion... she usually finds at least one or two things she wants done this week, I write it down, and done... she goes back to the corporate office. I made two mistakes yesterday, though. I did my hair and wore makeup.

First she wanted to look at me, which involved staring pretty intently at my general head area for a long moment, then she had to feel my hair, comment on my new haircut (thanks Adrianne!), comment on my new highlights (thanks me!), and then commence the gushing.

"You're just a knockout! A knockout! You've just blossomed since you've been working here!"

"Well yeah," I said. "That's because I had to get an entirely new wardrobe after I started working here. This time last year I was auditioning for rock bands and most of the clothes I had were more suitable for that than this."

"WHAT?! You never told me about that before! What do you play?" (Senzafine - Lacuna Coil)

"Actually I was auditioning to be the vocalist."

"WHAT?! (If you knew my boss, you would recognize this noise, BTW.) You can sing??"

I shrugged. "Well, I'm not 'operatically trained' like Christine but I do what I do pretty well."

"But that's a totally different thing!"

And just when I was beginning to think she might make me sing something one of the machines outside my office window started violently shaking the office and she got distracted and apparently forgot all about me ever being anything but her employee. Fair enough. But it was enough to get me thinking about it.

A year ago Monday I did something I'd always wanted to do but had always been too scared to do... I auditioned to be the vocalist in a rock band. Some of you may remember my post about that (or you can go back and find it if you want). (Cirle - Lacuna Coil) I'd actually made the appointment to do it sometime in late December and actually managed to forget about it for nearly a month, then about two days before I remembered and commenced to freak out. I almost thought I was still too scared to do it, but I did it anyway.

For those of you who don't remember, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Even though I wasn't chosen, I had done something I'd always been too chicken to do even though I really wanted to do it, and the outcome had been pretty positive. One of the guys in the band told me that I definitely had talent and even if they decided to go with someone else I should "definitely keep doing what I'm doing". And they gave me a bunch of the band's stickers and a demo CD and a t-shirt for the Chamaco (this was a band that had actually been offered a record deal before with their previous vocalist, who I think is actually back with the band now after the band had a brief run with the guy who got picked over me). (Aeon - Lacuna Coil) Overall, though, it was a really positive experience for me and got me thinking... if I can do this thing that scared the crap out of me and have it turn out so well, what else that scares me might I be able to do?

I was pretty much feeling invincible after that, and I remember trying to explain the feeling to my mom on the phone. And it was that feeling of power following that experience that led me to audition for a couple more bands and start throwing out job applications left and right, for once sure that someone would give me a chance to prove that I could be something more than I was currently being. (I Don't Believe in Tomorrow - Lacuna Coil)

One of those applications led to me to be hired as an apartment manager, which caused me to leave behind all that had been familiar for the past 19 years. So if you think about it, really, much of what I am and what I have today can be directly linked to the fact that at this time last year, I auditioned for a rock band. (My Spirit - Lacuna Coil) So I still have a special place in my heart (and my iTunes) for Still Measure, even though my only connection with the band now is that I'm friends with the lead guitarist on Facebook.

These thoughts have led me to think about where I was a year ago. I was still working for Head Start, still living in a HUD subsidized apartment in Molalla, still living paycheck to paycheck, had just about given up on men entirely (except as potential bandmates, naturally) and was spending more time in the stories I was writing than in my real life because the stories were way more interesting. Fast forward to now... I have a totally different career, am living in the second new apartment I've had within the last 12 months, I generally have $300-400 still left in my bank account when I get my next paycheck (this is unheard of... I used to be vigilantly trying not to overdraw my account), (Comalies - Lacuna Coil) I have a boyfriend who I'm pretty sure will be around long-term because he was/is my best friend, and I don't have time to write anymore! (Aside from the occasional blog post, of course.)

Do I think I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing now forever? No. But I definitely will keep doing it until the next better thing comes along. I think actually Lacuna Coil is saying it best in the song that just came on:

Today I'm gonna fly
There's nothing that can keep me on the ground
Touch the sky
I'm free inside

I'm free to do what I like, I'm celebrating my life
I'm free to be what I like, I'm celebrating my life
I'm gonna get what I like, I'm celebrating my life
(I Like It - Lacuna Coil)

And for those that wonder, Lacuna Coil has a song from one of their earlier albums called "1.19". Why on earth it's called that I don't know (I'm sure the story is out there if you care enough to dig for it, but I don't), but now 1.19 (January 19th) is Lacuna Coil day. : )

Song o' the Day: I Like It by Lacuna Coil. See/hear it here. It's a pretty funny video, actually. Watch it.

Panda Epiphany....

I had an epiphany last night. At the Panda Express on McLoughlin. And yes, it was slightly painful. But let me explain first how I wound up at Panda having epiphanies in the first place.

See, Friday night is usually date night for me and the Old Curmudgeon (which is my new blog name for my significant other... he'd get a kick out of that, trust me. Also "Mr. Cranky-Pants", which is what I usually call him to his face, is harder to type for some reason). The reason date night is on Friday is that the Chamaco generally spends Friday nights at my mom's house, and it's cheaper to eat out when there are only two of us as opposed to three. Yes, we are jerks like that, thank you.

Anyway, the Old Curmudgeon had a burning desire to go to Panda. Something about Shanghai steak. Me, I can take or leave steak, and I was sort of "meh" about the idea of going to Panda, but I didn't have a strong inclination to go much of anywhere else either so I figured I'd humor him and went along. This is called "keeping the peace", and I don't think I had much of a knack for that a decade or so ago when I was last in a serious relationship. Of course, I was 19/20 then as opposed to 29/30 too.

So anyway, back to Panda with a minimum of side trips now. (Hopefully.) I got the 2 entree platter, and I had fried rice, mandarin chicken, and honey-walnut shrimp. Anyone who has been to Panda ever can now probably picture exactly what was on my plate. On a whim, I got 3 potstickers as well. (Usually I get the chow mein instead of the fried rice, but I was feeling a little weird last night anyway, which maybe should have been a warning about the epiphany.) We filled up our drinks, sat down at a table, and started eating.

I compartmentalize, and tend to eat one food at a time for some reason. So I polished off the mandarin chicken and was probably about halfway through the honey-walnut shrimp when I had the epiphany. I felt a slight nudging in my cerebral cortex (or somewhere in my brain anyway) and looked around to see what was going on. My digestive system timidly raised its hand and cleared its throat. "Excuse me, Lord Brain," it said hesitantly. "We're... we're all full down here. We actually sort of don't need to eat the rest of that."

I paused in my eating to listen in on the conversation as my brain sputtered about in surprise for a moment, took a quick peep out through the eyeballs to survey the contents of the plate, then bellowed, "Nonsense! The shrimp isn't gone yet! That stuff costs an extra dollar, you know!"

"But... but... there's... no more room in the stomach!" my digestive system stammered. Clearly it was terrified of incurring my brain's wrath but for once had decided to stand up for itself.

"We haven't even touched the potstickers yet! And the shrimp's not gone!" the brain said firmly. And it ruthlessly shoved my digestive system's voice back to wherever it had come from. And just to spite the little upstart for daring to speak out of turn,we finished the shrimp. And the potstickers. And the fried rice. Because we are a fat slob, that's why. And no, we didn't feel too great about it afterward.

I bet you're wondering where the epiphany was in that. Well, I don't know if conversation was just sparse since the Old Curmudgeon was busy filling his face with Shanghai steak or what, but this was the first time I'd actually heard that conversation take place between my brain and my digestive system. And yes, I dramatized it, but that's what they would have been saying had they been speaking with words. I assume this conversation happens pretty much every time I eat a meal and I never do hear that voice, which is why I'm as big as I am. It wasn't until I was lying in bed last night reviewing the day's events in my mind that I thought, "You know, if I paid more attention to that voice, I might not be as fat as I am." (This was ephiphany #2.) And I resolved to start trying to listen for that voice.

So this morning after I climbed out of bed around 10:00 (hey, it's Saturday and I don't have to work until 1, so there), I took a bath (again, Saturday, don't judge) and wandered out into the kitchen to find foodstuffs. I am not real fond of breakfast foods in general, and I tend to have either fruit or something more lunchy for breakfast. Today it was the latter, as I settled upon a can of Campbells vegetable soup. Maybe you will all think I'm a disgusting fatso after reading this, but I generally have no trouble putting away an entire can by myself. With cheese and crackers. Today I heated up the soup, put some crackers in it (decided to skip cheese) and headed for the table.

I was eating in rather contemplative silence (Chamaco is at my mom's, remember?) and sure enough, just about halfway through the bowl of soup I get a weird sensation in my stomach and a little nudge in my brain again. "Hey... we're done down here. No more!"

I took one more bite, which I chewed very thoughtfully for longer than was probably necessary, and looked down into the bowl and contemplated the soup. No, I decided, it actually didn't look as appetizing as it had ten minutes ago. And if I really thought about it, it didn't quite taste as good either. I have read before that these are both signs that you're done with the eating thing, so I put the bowl off to the side and reached for my laptop.

And this is where I sit right now. At my kitchen table, half-eaten bowl of soup to my left, laptop directly in front, and glass of water to my right. (Glass of water, by the way, was refilled 3 times during the course of eating half a bowl of soup, for some reason. Am I dehydrated as well?) And I don't quite know what to do with said half-bowl of soup. No one else is around to offer it to. Throwing it out seems kind of wasteful, but I know that if I cover it and put it in the fridge, it will probably just grow mold and no one will eat it, and then I will throw it away. (The Chamaco, for whatever reason, does not like to eat leftover anything.) However, I do not really want to eat it just so it doesn't go to waste, because my stomach told me pretty clearly that it didn't want anything else. (Traitor.)

So maybe I've stumbled upon a breakthrough in my lifelong (and by "lifelong" I mean, "since I was about six") struggle with food and weight. Maybe I've just got to listen for the little voice that tells me, "Hey! No more of that, jerkface!"

The Old Curmudgeon and I have been spending some evenings lately watching a British TV show called Supersize vs. Superskinny. Basically the premise of the show is that they get one hugely obese person (usually close to 400 lbs. if we calculate out how many stone that is, because they do weight funny in Britain) and one underweight person (usually 110 lbs or less... lowest I've seen so far was 85), and they put them in a house together for five days. During those five days, the fat person can only eat everything the underweight person would normally eat (which is sometimes nothing at all for some meals), and the underweight person has to eat everything that the fat person normally eats at every meal (or give it their best go, anyway). It's sort of a mutual learning thing... usually by the end of the 5 days the fat person has learned that they can get hungry and they don't actually die, and they have learned by watching the skinny person attempt to choke down their meals that they have been eating WAY too much. The skinny person, meanwhile, usually learns to try new foods (the skinnies tend to have extremely limited diets like only fruit, or even in one case only chocolate... generally there is at least one food group they've eliminated completely) and eat somewhat larger portions. It's sort of weirdly fascinating, even though having watched most of two seasons now I'm sort of getting to the point where I want to see someone fail... come back after the 12 weeks of following the doctor's eating plan and not be fatter/skinnier than they were before and glowing with good health. Of course, I'm a jerk like that.

I'm also doing karate classes with my son on Tuesday nights and have finally found a Zumba class that mostly works within my schedule (I have to go there directly from work, but I can do it). I've already got the exercise piece falling into place nicely, so maybe if I can figure out the stupid food part, I might start seeing some changes. Who knows?

Song o' the Day: "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil. The video for which (viewable by clicking on the song title over there) was cleverly released right before December 21st, 2012. Not on the 21st, of course, because if the world had actually ended nobody would have seen it. Can't take that chance! This is a slower song for Lacuna, and definitely not their most exciting video, but I still like the song.

A perk of not teaching anymore...

... is that this is the first time I've been seriously sick since I quit teaching on April 6th. Odd, no?

For any of you who missed it, which is probably 4 of the approximately 5 people likely to read this, I had a go at going to work on Wednesday, gave up, and came home early about 2 o'clock because I was primarily staring at the stuff I needed to do and trying not to go to sleep. Didn't seem like a productive use of time to me. Yesterday (Thursday) I just didn't even try it at all. Stayed home. Played Cake Mania and The Sims 3 all day and did nothing at all productive until about 6:30, when I finally decided to fix dinner. And then I had to go let in a guy who locked himself out who lives on the 3rd floor, and that about wore me out and I did nothing else at all productive yesterday.

I'm planning on heading in to work today, but I still don't feel well. What I've got, for the curious, is a nasty head cold that I'm hoping will do me the favor of NOT turning into a sinus infection, since I don't have health insurance anymore. But it is still somewhat amusing to me that I went from April to December without getting a cold. Could not have done that while teaching, I promise you!

What is blog-worthy about this, you ask? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just trying to get back into the habit of writing since I've been doing it very infrequently in between April when we moved and August, and almost not at between August and now. I think it's good for me... it makes me introspect a little, and I don't like to do that. :-)

Song o' the Day: "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil. Perhaps it's fitting that they chose to release a video for this song just days before the "impending apocalypse". The video itself is pretty boring by LC standards, actually, and a lot of people are annoyed that it only has Cristina and Andrea in it. People get annoyed about strange things. The song, on the other hand, is really good (despite having Andrea in it!).

The changes FOUR years can bring....

For the literally ones of people who read this tripe I type up on a regular basis (or to put it in Fry and Laurie terms, "the viewing several"), I decided not to disappoint this year. Since 2009 I have been doing an annual review of what has changed in my life since the previous year. Some of the changes this year are interesting, and some of them some of you might not actually know about yet, so this should be fun and informative. In keeping with past years, I've decided to copy/paste the previous year's entry so you can go back with me all the way to 2008. (The original post in 2009 compared 2009 with 2008.)

Here we go... TIME TRAVEL!!!



2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.
2012: We have moved twice in 2012. The first time was to Gresham (in April) for a new job, the second time was to Milwaukie (in October) for the same company.

2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).
2012: I am now a full time, salaried property manager. Which sort of explains how I have moved twice this year, no? And look up there and see how psychic I was in 2011! I knew something was coming, just didn't know what... lol. Anyway, not only do I get free rent on a 1,200 square foot apartment, but also I am salaried for more money than I've ever made before in my life. I've had years where my total yearly income was barely $8,000. This is not one of those years.

2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.
2012: Haven't done any shopping yet. Could I shop somewhere else? Yes, probably. Will I shop somewhere else? Eh... maybe. But it's hard to beat Wal-Mart!


2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)
2012: Virtually no change from 2011 here. I do technically still qualify for the minimum amount of food stamps, but I often forget to use them. The only reason I'm still signed up is because I do it at the same time as the Chamaco's medical insurance (which I'm keeping, since I don't have health insurance myself to add him to). 

2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.
2012: The boy will be 11 next week. And I can still pick him up, but only barely.

2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
2012: All this moving and new job stuff has created the necessity for the Chamaco to stay home alone for up to eight hours a day if he's not in school. Somehow, against all odds, I have raised the sort of responsible, independent kid that can handle this just fine so long as he has a microwave and internet access.

2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that  always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.
2012: With the new job comes a new social circle. I must say I like working with a mixed group of men and women again... lol. The estrogen levels in my life were approaching critical.

2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!
2012: I am... not single*. Haven't been since September-ish. (Don't ask me exactly when, because I don't know!) Here's the funny part: Internally, I have always said two things... that I wanted to date someone I didn't date in high school (because all previous boyfriends and my ex-husband I dated in high school), and that I wanted to date someone who was my best friend (obviously, this required finding a male best friend). To which, I presume, God said, "Okay then... how about your best friend from elementary school? That's not high school!" You will never convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humor (as well as a keen sense of irony), but I am still very grateful to have Andrew back in my life after 19 years of absence.

(*Edit: Seemingly some have taken this statement to mean I am now married. I assure you that is not the case. I'm just in a reasonably serious relationship, is all.)
Well, that wraps it up for this year, kids!

We Have Moved.... Again

I see that I haven't posted anything since July, which is going to make playing catch-up rather difficult. I'm not sure I even know where to start, aside from maybe starting where I left off in July. I don't exactly remember where I left off, but judging by the date I will say it was probably something about how cool it was to have my best friend from 5th grade back and stuff like that. That's still cool, don't get me wrong.

We, in fact, hung out pretty much from Friday afternoon through Saturday night (and sometimes on Sunday afternoons too) every weekend straight through July and August. And pretty soon the Chamaco became involved, joining us at the river on Sunday afternoons. (He simply isn't around Friday night through Saturday night because he goes to my mom's and/or his dad's.)

Interesting side note: People really don't change a lot between ages 10 and 30. I mentioned before that I remember Andrew (who will need a cool blog alias) as the kid who could draw every US state from memory. Well, we were sitting on the bank of the river one  Sunday afternoon watching the Chamaco jump around in the water, and suddenly Andrew elbowed me and pointed at the sand and asked, "What's that?" Naturally he has drawn the outline of a state in the sand. I forget which one he started with. But he did a few states, and when it became clear that wasn't going to stump me he moved on to European countries. My point here is that we were nerds in 5th grade and we pretty much still are. And clearly whatever odd chemistry made us work as friends when we were 10 is still effective 20 years later, even though now we are old and have money and cars and don't have to whine at our parents to take us places anymore.

Anyway, sometime in mid-August he was griping about being a broke college student and having to pay whatever he was paying to live in a bedroom of somebody's big fancy house, and I was like, "It's too bad I don't have 3 bedrooms... I get free rent! I wouldn't charge you to live here." He insisted he would want to pay something to help with utilities and stuff, and it sort of didn't come up again until about a week later when he realized that he was going to have slightly less income for the month of September and almost no income for the month of October. See, he gets paid a certain amount per day for days he actually attends college... this is how his Air Force thing works. And the school term ended in late August and wouldn't start up again until September 24th or something like that. So he was losing a week for August (paid in September), and then losing almost all of September (paid in October). He worked it out and realized he was only going to have about $600 for the whole month of October. Rent for him was almost all of that, and he still would need to buy gas to get to school, food, etc. And suddenly we were revisiting the idea of him moving in, which he was only willing to do if it was okay with the Chamaco. And he jokingly said to me, "Tell your boss she needs to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland!"

I believe it was the next day I was talking to my boss on the phone about moving him in with me and what would be necessary, and I said, "Oh, and he says to tell you to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland." And we had a good laugh.

A few days later, she called me back and asked, "Did you really want a three bedroom apartment?" I was like, "Well yeah, it would be nice, but there aren't any here."

"So how would you like to move to Springcreek?"

It was then explained to me that the property I was currently living/working on was up for sale. There were no offers on it yet, of course, but at some point it would be sold and then whatever manager was on that property at the time would need to be relocated. And since at that point I was the only manager living on-site, they sort of wanted to move me to a property they were keeping. They also sort of wanted the manager who was currently at Springcreek to take her sales talent over to a property that was struggling a bit more. So, the day before Andrew was set to move in with me anyway (and he hadn't much liked the idea of moving to Gresham, mind you), I called him and said, "So... how would you like to move to Milwaukie?"

The initial reaction, of course, was "why?" followed by a rant about my job's seeming instability and doubt about whether he should move at all. I told him I had asked for a day to think it over. That night I went out to dinner with Sammich, determined to forget about this impending decision for a few hours. And then the text messages from Andrew started coming in. "Springcreek is within walking distance of _______." "Milwaukie Elementary was rated 7 out of 10 stars." (Yes, he was even checking out the schools for the Chamaco." And by the time I got home from dinner that night it was beginning to sound like Andrew was not at all opposed. The Chamaco wasn't really opposed either... he didn't like the school in Gresham anyhow (which according to Andrew had only gotten 3 of 10 stars on that same site), and liked the idea of moving back to a smaller town perhaps more similar to the one we'd left when we came to Gresham.

So Andrew moved in with me anyway on August 30th, and I temporarily cleaned out half my closet to give him a place to put his clothes and essentials, and he put other stuff in a storage unit across the street (a steal at around $100/month compared to what he'd been paying before for rent). The idea was that we'd somehow coexist in a small space for a month or so, then we'd move to Milwaukie and he could have his own room. Both of us were looking forward to this. Him because the closet was really crowded, and me primarily because he snores.

Somewhere in September my emotionally retarded brain finally caught onto the idea that the vibe between us had turned fuzzy, and somewhere toward the end of September we became official enough that he told his friends. Not something I was expecting, really, but I wasn't opposed either. We moved to Milwaukie on October 13th (pictures of new place to follow, naturally), and now he has a room for his stuff.

So yes, I live with my boyfriend. I feel I must point out that those were not the terms when he moved in, and given the current financial situation (and also the fact that I like having him around) I'm disinclined to give him the boot now. It's now been about 2 1/2 months since he moved in and we still don't hate each other. I find this fact amusing, because my ex-husband didn't move in with me until after we got married, and it only took me about 2 weeks after that to start reconsidering the idea. Now that Andrew is working and going to school and I'm working full time I pretty much only see him in the evenings, but the really cool part is that dishes get done as if by magic and reasonably often, since he gets home first, he has dinner going by the time I get home. And, as he points out often, he does his own laundry. Can't beat that.

I have to run to work now, so this post will end a tad abruptly, but I'll try not to go another 4 months without posting.

Lies Tenants Tell...

So, I've officially survived 3 1/2 months managing an apartment complex. It hasn't done much to improve my already somewhat bleak outlook on humanity, that much I can tell you. It's made me feel rather House-like, in fact.

I've already touched on my House-like tendencies before (I believe the post was titled "I want to be an evil genius too!", and may have been on my old MySpace blog, but it could be here... I'm too lazy to go hunting for it). Now I've taken it a step further by adopting a new operational theory of the universe that can be summed up as the following:

Tenants lie.

Here are some of their favorite lies to tell...

#1) "I didn't know that!"  - Pssht. Yeah, right. The fact is that we take an hour (or longer) out of our lives to sit down and go through the lease with you so you know what the rules are, and then you get a copy of every single document you signed, and you seriously are claiming that you didn't know that you couldn't do that? What "that" is varies greatly, but I've even had people become greatly perturbed at me when their car was towed because they parked in another resident's parking space or because they parked in the non-reserved parking without a parking tag. In neither case did I instigate the towing, and I'm certainly not about to call the tow company and demand they return your car. Besides, they wouldn't do it anyway.

#2) "But _____ said that it was fine!" - In this case, ______ can be any one of the most recent five managers of this place, though some of them can remember even farther back than that. And the "it" that is "fine" can be anything from "borrowing" extra parking passes from the office, to having someone not named on the lease live in your apartment while you go live elsewhere, to growing marijuana on your balcony. A variation of this one is "But ______ knew about it!" This was the line used by my marijuana-grower, and according to him every manager previous to me has known about it. Well, there was nothing in the file and nobody told me, so maybe they all have some great psychic bond that I do not share. Or you're full of it.

#3) "I'll pay it on _______." - Now, see, I would have liked to believe this one. I'd like to be able to be understanding and go, "Oh, well, since you don't get paid until the 5th, it's okay to bring your rent payment in on the 6th." Unfortunately, it's due no later than the 4th. And real grownups who know they aren't getting paid until the 5th pay the rent out of the check they got on the 20th (or thereabouts) of the previous month. Granted, some of them actually do pay it when they say they will... but it's still late, and they're still paying an extra $75 a month by paying a late fee every month. One resident, who should serve as a shining example to all others, gets paid only once a month. On the 15th. She pays every month on the 15th, but she pays for the coming month, as in bringing me August rent on July 15th. This is how you do it. But fairly often they don't pay when they say they will anyway. My former account rep whom I miss dearly (the new one does not banter as well... or indeed at all) told me not to believe any of their stories and to stop caring so much. Good advice, I think.

#4) "I used to manage apartments...." - Oh boy... this one is my favorite! This is the sentence usually used to preface telling me what I'm doing wrong and how bad I suck at my job. Man, if I had a nickel for every time a resident told me they used to manage apartments, I could quit this job. I wonder how so many of them ended up living here on housing assistance if they have management skills, first and foremost. Perhaps they manged apartments and really sucked at it? Also, even giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they did "used to" manage apartments, they probably weren't doing it recently enough to know that there were like a zillion changes to landlord/tenant law in 2010 and everything they think they know is probably now wrong. My marijuana grower "used to manage apartments" too, and he was pretty furious about the 30/14 he got for having 19 pot plants on his balcony. Because when he used to manage apartments, you gave a warning first. Ha ha ha... that is your warning, silly! It's a warning that you have 14 days to get the pot plants off of your balcony! (Or 30 days to find someplace else to live, your choice.) What more warning do you need?? I think people just get all riled because it says "30 day notice of for-cause termination" at the top, and they don't bother to read the bit about the 14 day cure date. If there's a cause, there might be something you can do to remove that cause... the one you need to really worry about is the "no-cause termination" notice. That's the "pack your things and go" notice.

Anyway, this post was sort of a rant. I'm out of major lies now (though there are more minor ones) and this is just a subject that has been kicking around in my brain for a while, so I'm purging it. I promise my next post will be a great tale of adventure, as the Chamaco and I had one of those today.

Song o' the Day: "I Miss the Misery" by Halestorm. For no reason other than it's catchy.

Becoming a Fruit Bat...

So last night I finally did something people had been telling me for quite some time that I ought to do, but I just hadn't found a space of time in which to do it. I watched this little documentary on Netflix called "Forks over Knives". For those not familiar with the film, it centers around two doctors (both of whom are now in their 70s) who were basically the pioneers in thinking that eating meat is not actually all that good for you, and that all of the processed foods in the modern American diet are killing us.

I know you've heard that and rolled your eyes at it before, but they've got some pretty surprising research studies to back it up. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say I was pretty convinced... convinced enough, at least, to give it a go.

So for at least the next week (and possibly longer, unless I decide there are no measurable differences in how I feel), I'm going to be trying something different with the way we eat and prepare meals around here. Here are the basics:

*My primary objective is to cut out processed foods. By "processed foods" I mean "things with ingredients on the label that I can't readily identify". Example: I know what "milk" is. I know what "chicken" is. I know what "soybeans" look like. I could probably draw you a rough sketch of any of the above. I do not, however, know how to draw a "polysorbate 80". The rule of thumb is basically not to eat anything with ingredients that didn't exist when my grandparents were children.

*I'm not cutting out meat entirely, but I am reducing quantities and sticking to chicken, fish and maybe the occasional pork (we were never really into red meat anyway). After I've exhausted the current stock on hand, I'm going to look into getting organic meat and see how much it will hurt my wallet.

*Another thing I'm cutting way back on is dairy. This saddens me greatly, because cheese is one of my favorite things, but the documentary also made a pretty convincing argument that casein, one of the major proteins in dairy products, makes your risk for certain cancers go through the roof. This gives me pause, because apparently there is more of a history of cancer in my family than anyone ever really acknowledged before my mom was found to have colon cancer in 2006. This, in fact, seems to be moderately common on her side of the family. It's on my list of things to avoid... at least until I'm 50 or so. My mom said chemo apparently works really well for skipping over that whole menopause thing.

*The only thing I've so far decided to eliminate entirely that I would have considered a "staple" item two days ago is Diet Coke. I have, in fact, eliminated any beverages with any sort of chemicals and/or artificial sweeteners in them, particularly aspartame. So I've been drinking lots of water, and trying to relearn the art of making my own flavored water at home, which is something I picked up in Mexico.

*What we are still eating is a lot of fruits and vegetables, along with rice, quinoa, beans, and stuff like this. And I personally have seen some success with this sort of eating before. When I was pregnant I pretty much only wanted to eat fruit (and McDonald's chicken nuggets, for some reason), and I lost 45 pounds while I was pregnant. Yes, that's right. LOST 45 pounds. You read it correctly. My doctor was initially very concerned and did a lot of careful measuring and monitoring of both of us, and finally threw up her hands and said, "You're getting smaller, he's getting bigger... all I can figure is that he's eating you! But you're both healthy so I guess we'll let it slide." So I know it works, my question is if I sustain it without having a growing human inside me. I guess we shall see.

Dinner tonight shall consist of teriyaki chicken (mostly for Damian, because he will have to be eased into this more gradually), couscous, and this amazing fruit salad I have constructed, along with home-made lemon-flavored water (well, I didn't make the water or the lemons, but I did artfully combine the two). I may put up pictures later if it's particularly epic. The caffeine deprivation headache is already beginning though, and based on the events of Friday tomorrow is likely to be a MONDAY. In all capital letters like that. So we'll see if I make it through or if I cave and run across to 7-11 for a caffeine jolt.

Nostalgia trippin'....

Generally I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love that it keeps me from having to do as much talking on the phone, which I actually hate doing. I love seeing pictures and funny stuff that people post. I hate seeing political garbage that people post (especially in election years). I love being able to easily keep in touch with people in far away places like Mexico. I hate knowing the minutiae of the lives of friends who live fifteen minutes away. My feelings on Facebook are very mixed.

Every now and then, though, Facebook does something interesting. Like allowing someone you haven't seen in about 19 years (and I'm 29, so do the math) to find you. In fact, it was 19 years ago last week that my family moved to Molalla from Fairview, just a couple of days after I finished fifth grade. One of the people that I was pretty opposed to leaving behind in Fairview was a kid named Andrew.

I think I met Andrew in third grade. I don't believe he was at the school before that, though I can't remember if he moved there that year or what. I'd been there since kindergarten. I think we had different teachers that year, but we were in the same TAG class and there the bonds of shared nerdery were forged. I have sort of a jumble of random memories of time spent with him, but overall a very pleasant sort of association. We actually were in the same class in both fourth and fifth grades, if I recall correctly, giving us even more time to practice our brand of mischief. Which I think primarily involved playing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego on the computer any chance we got. So Andrew, if you're reading this (since I link to this crap on Facebook), please don't kill me. We don't have any mutual FB friends so your dignity should be safe... Here are some of those random memories I was talking about earlier:

*Working together in TAG class to build a structure that, if I recall correctly, was made out of milk straws and marshmallows.

*Trips to OMSI. I always thought Andrew's parents must be millionaires because not only did they have a fancy house with leather furniture in it (and the first artificial Christmas tree I'd ever seen), but he also got to go to OMSI any time he wanted, pretty much. And his mom was usually pretty willing to take me along. I always liked his mom. Even when she sang along to Michael Jackson songs in the car. (This was the only place in my whole life I ever listened to Michael Jackson music.)

*I remember when Hurricane Andrew hit. Andrew went around for days bragging that he'd just destroyed half of Florida. For some reason I found this hilarious.

*Andrew always insisted that he was cool because his family was Finnish. This was back in the day when just about all the kids at school except two were generic, white-bread Americans, and thus I also thought it was very cool that his family was Finnish. I also thought it was cool that someone besides me had a last name that nobody could figure out how to spell/pronounce. Also his surname reinforces my theory that most if not all Finnish names have a repeating letter in them. (Perttu, Eicca, Paavo, Mikko, Kivilaakso, Niiranen. The pattern holds.)

*I forget what he did, but in fourth grade he somehow managed to have his face contact a curb somewhere between home and school and showed up at school with blood running down his face. I remember the teachers freaking out over it and him being all nonchalant. It was the greatest display of manliness my nine-year-old eyes had seen (at least from someone in my own age bracket). And I think last time I saw him he still had scars from that. (Do you still?)

*One year, I think it was fourth grade (but possibly fifth), Andrew and I took first and second place in the school's geography bee. He only beat me because I couldn't remember the name of the volcano that had been erupting in the Philippines. Well, I'll never forget it now - Mt. Pinatubo. He won a Carmen San Diego board game, and generously offered to let me play. I think we decided it was kind of boring, though, and we ended up doing something else entirely that afternoon. But I would have been completely furious if I'd been beaten by anyone but Andrew.

*I have never known anyone else who could draw accurate maps of most (if not all) US states from memory. I remember in fifth grade for Valentine's Day we had these little heart-shaped books that we made and had to pass around and everyone had to write something nice in everyone else's book. Andrew drew a state in everyone's book. And he drew Illinois in mine, because he said it was his favorite state to draw. I think I may still have that somewhere in a box.

*Andrew's mom (who I believe is named Karen) actually taught me how to swim. In Blue Lake. She took us there quite a bit too, it seems. But I think he actually lived pretty close to Blue Lake, so that wasn't really a huge ordeal. 

*Fairview Elementary thought it was cool to torture fifth graders in April by making them learn the maypole dance and then having them perform it on May 1st. Most of the fifth graders thought it was torture because they had to be partnered up with and dance with someone of the opposite gender. Andrew and I were partnered up together. I remember practicing in his driveway and laughing about it with both of our moms looking on like we were insane.

*I actually did see Andrew one time after we moved. His mom drove him all the way out to Molalla, and he and I spent an afternoon hunting down the feral kittens living under our front porch. I think both of us got scratched quite a lot that day, but we caught some kittens (all but one of which we eventually tamed).

What really blows my mind, though, is that when we moved to Molalla I was almost exactly the age that my son is now. And suddenly I'm having all these memories from a ten-year-old perspective, which is a mental place I haven't visited in a long, long time, and remembering how I saw the world then. Also interesting since I just moved Damian from the only school he'd ever known (Molalla) and brought him to Gresham, about six miles from where I grew up in Fairview. I remember that first summer in Molalla as being one of the most boring times of my life, because I didn't know anyone, there were no kids around, and I hadn't been to school there yet so I didn't have any friends to call (and I think Fairview might still have been long distance from Molalla back then, before the dawn of EAS). If it hadn't been for the Molalla Public Library (and the mother of my future husband, but that's another story) I think I would have gone completely mad. Overall I think Damian's handling a remarkably parallel situation much better than I did. Of course, he's not hormonal yet. ;-) Though we did have this dialog this evening after I'd tucked him in bed.

DAMIAN: Auughh!!! My blanket reeks!
ME: Yeah, that's because it smells like boy. I keep telling you every morning that it smells like boy in here and you gotta let some air in!
DAMIAN: Man, I didn't realize that men stink so much!

Well said, my child... well said. ;-)

Knowing me...

Interestingly, Amy happened to post a blog about knowing oneself when I'd been musing on that topic just last night as I wrote the other post about music and stuff. (I Wanna Get a Mohawk - AFI) I don't know if Amy has spy cameras in my brain or if we're just psychically linked somehow, but it's a topic I've been thinking about lately. Probably because the knowledge that I will be 30 in just a few short months is really settling in. Also maybe the fact that my little sister is getting married on Saturday and that makes me feel SERIOUSLY old.

So here's some more stuff about me that I've recently figured out that I didn't already put in the comments of Amy's blog (and maybe some of the same stuff, but in more depth). Some of it you might not have wanted to know, but too bad...

#1) My first marriage screwed me up bad enough that I might never get brave enough to do it again. And I'm sort of okay with that. In fact, the only part of it I'm not okay with is the lack of sex. I am definitely not okay with no sex (sex, in fact, is one of the things that tends to get me most into trouble), but my belief structure is not okay with a "friends with benefits" setup, which would otherwise be totally ideal for me. I really, really like the idea of someone to just have sleepovers with when the mood strikes, but who has his own house and spends more of his time there. (Intoxicated - Lacuna Coil) I don't know if this is what happens when your husband totally destroys your life and self-esteem and then abandons you or what, but that is at least what happened to me and it's been a long road to recovery (our 11th anniversary would have been yesterday had our marriage lasted more than a year and a half). I'm not particularly jumping at the chance to let someone have another shot at ruining me forever. So I wouldn't say that I'm happily single, but I can at least maintain equilibrium that way.

#2) Music is my substitute for the sex I'm not getting. Yeah, you read that right. It's like the next best thing I can think of. (Okay, alcohol might have had a place in there but it had to be discarded for the same reason the "friends with benefits" idea didn't work out. I could quite easily become an alcoholic, I think, but more of that under the next number.) I have to have some music every day. I like music before bed. I like music first thing in the morning. I like music in cars. I like music in the shower. I'll even get music in the office if I can work it in around my busy schedule of being the face people can come in to complain at. And I like music with Shaun Morgan best of all. He is my musical friend with benefits. ;-) (The Gift - Seether)

#3) It was my sister who first called this to my attention, but she was absolutely right... I have an obsessive personality. I've always been this way. I have many interests, but there's always one thing that I am currently in the process of taking way too far, and I tend to take most things further than they ought to go. My line of obsessions started in about first grade, and I can remember them roughly in order: Ninja Turtles, Astronomy, Paleontology, Ballet, Ornithology, Gymnastics, The Lion King (shut up), Star Trek Voyager (continue shutting up... Chakotay was hot, okay?), Spanish, Pre-hispanic Latin American Civilizations, Seether, Jamie, Seether, Italian, Seether, Rock Band/Guitar Hero, House, Bones, Zumba, Seether. (Notice which one of those keeps popping up again? Every time they release an album, man...) (Eaten Up Inside - Korn) Some of these lasted much longer than others, the longest-lasting being Star Trek Voyager, which lasted from roughly the time I was 13 until shortly after the series ended when I was 19. And the end result is that I know a lot of trivia about astronomy, dinosaurs, birds, dance, Aztecs/Incas/Mayas and foreign languages and I can totally kick your butt at either Guitar Hero or Trivial Pursuit. Interestingly, however, my obsession with Seether is not strong enough to make me pay $75 to see them. You know why? Because they're touring with Nickelback, that's why. I'm not gonna pay $75 to see Nickelback. (What I've Done - Linkin Park) But like I mentioned under the last number, I think I could very easily become an alcoholic if I were to make alcohol more readily available. It's a thing I like too much, and for me that's dangerous. Moderation is not a thing I do particularly well.

#4) I'm shy. For the first five minutes, anyway. Maybe. Depending on the time of day. (Dónde Están los Ladrones - Shakira) This is what I have noticed about myself... the idea of getting up in front of people to perform, sing karaoke, act, dance, whatever, makes me nervous and jumpy. I invariably do it anyway. And then you can't get me off the freakin' stage/microphone. I think I read an interview with a musician once where someone said (I can't remember who it was) that after many years they still got nervous before shows, and they thought that was healthy, because if you don't get nervous anymore that means that you no longer care at all about your performance.

#5) I am getting slowly more girly as I age. I used to be a total tomboy. I used to be "more one of the guys than Derral is" (this in the words of Matt, one of the guys I hung out with in high school). And gradually I started wearing earrings. (Fire - Lacuna Coil) First it was just one at a time, then it was up to four as long as they didn't match. Now I can wear matching earrings (this is a recent development) and coordinate them to my outfit without cringing. I still hate carrying a purse (so far), but I can force myself to do it on those days when I just get the urge to wear a skirt. I am developing an increasing collection of shoes. I am beginning to enjoy shopping for clothing (I'm not sure if this is a side effect of having more money or of being able to find more stuff that fits now that my boobs aren't as ginormous). (Ghettochip Malfunction - Beck) Just the other day I gave in to my recent urge to buy cute underwear. Never before have I bought underwear that didn't come in a pack of 6 for $7 or less. Part of me died a little when I paid $3 for a single pair of underwear. But also they match my new purple bra really well.

#6) I am an introvert cleverly disguised as an extrovert. Most of my friends, if you asked them, would say that generally I am friendly and outgoing. This is a complete fallacy. (Got the Life - Korn) I find dealing with people to be draining... even people I actually like (and we won't talk about the ones I don't like). I enjoy spending time with friends, family, church family, etc., but I need several hours of solitude to recover afterward. This is why Damian goes to bed at 8:30 (during the school year) and I stay up until midnight. Because I need the alone hours, that's why.

#7) I have developed a burning hatred of American Politics, and when people post things about it on my Facebook wall it sort of makes me want to unfriend them. And no, I don't care which side they're on. (Stay and Play - Saron Gas) I may alienate some people with this one (particularly those of you fond of sharing your political beliefs on Facebook), but really I just cannot make myself care. Both of the major political parties are now more interested in money and badmouthing the other party than they are about actually doing anything for the country they supposedly "serve" as "public servants". I think they both suck. I think the American political system is irreparably broken and we are on our way to the collapse of government as we have always known it. And I'm not entirely convinced that will be a bad thing. I do not discuss my political views because they would make me immensely unpopular.

#8) I believe television is part of a conspiracy to dumb down the American public. Don't believe me? Watch Jersey Shore. Or Desperate Housewives. Even the TV news is so much conflicting misinformation that people willingly allow themselves to be spoon-fed, mixed with enough violence and tragedy to keep people interested. Anyone ever heard the song "Vicarious" by Tool? That song is completely correct. "Eye on the TV 'cause tragedy thrills me, whatever flavor it happens to be like. Killed by the husband, drowned by the ocean, shot by his own son, she used a poison in his tea... kissed him goodbye. That's my kind of story. It's no fun 'til someone dies. Don't look at me like I am a monster, frown out your one face and with the other stare like a junkie into the TV, stare like zombie while the mother holds her child, watches him die, hands to the sky crying "Why oh why?" I need to watch things die from a good safe distance. Vicariously I live while the whole world dies. You all need it too, don't lie... Why can't we just admit it?" And that pretty much sums up my thoughts on television news. (Mala Gente - Juanes)

#9) I always wanted to believe (and wanted everyone else to believe) that I didn't care what people thought of me, when the fact of the matter was that I cared way too much what other people thought. My entire life, until very recently, was ruled by what other people thought of me. Just recently I'm learning to worry more about what I think of me. Because let's be real, worrying about pleasing everyone else clearly wasn't pleasing much of anyone, and I have successfully managed to disguise my real self from most people for many, many years. (In fact, some of the things I've said in this blog post alone will probably cause some readers to choke on their coffee, because they might not believe I had such thoughts in my head... particularly the ones about sex and alcohol.) (Nada Me Mata Más Que Tu Voz - Gamberro) I've always read that your 30s are a time of self-discovery and self-realization. Maybe I'm starting early, but the real me is coming out to play and some of you aren't gonna like her much. But neither of us really cares anymore. :-)

#10) I figured I should think of a tenth one of these, just to make it a nice even number, so give me a second... hmm... oh, got it. People who attend the same Sunday morning Bible class as I do just found this one out in the last week or so, but most of the rest of the world is in the dark... I've always been fascinated by/attracted to the paranormal/supernatural. Not to the point of dabbling in any dark arts, but I don't mind reading about them, watching ghost-hunting shows, etc. Because think about it for a minute... demonic possession is clearly real. It's biblically documented. Even after the crucifixion. Evil spirits also are "scriptural" for lack of a better term. I personally have seen things I would term as being "ghosts" for lack of a better term, even within the last year. (Cult of Personality - In Living Color) The first time I remember seeing such a thing, I was probably five. I've never been frightened by anything I've seen... my reaction has always been closer to fascination. I don't know how much of this has to do with the fact that the house we lived in until I was 10 was at least eighty years old when my parents bought it and since then I've had a tendency to spend a lot of time in churches, funeral homes, and schools that are close to 100 years old (all 4 are prime spots for the paranormal, from what I've read). And yet, I think I've always known this is not the sort of subject my parents would be receptive to... even as a five year old, I figured telling them about the glowing lady I saw walking down the hallway at night was probably not a good idea, even though I saw her more than once. (Duality - Slipknot) Besides, she didn't scare me. I'll admit that I don't quite understand why Christians, who are supposed to be all about the supernatural (God is pretty supernatural) are so opposed to the idea of there being anything in the world currently that we can't quite get a handle on. Yeah, it's okay if people were getting possessed by demons in Jesus' time and I have to believe that because it's in the Bible, but that surely doesn't happen anymore, right? Umm.... okay, if you feel better believing that. I'll just say that there are an awful lot of practicing Satanists out there, to profess a belief in God is also to admit the existence of Satan (because if it were not for Satan there would have been no sin and you wouldn't need God, strictly speaking), and a lot of creepy stuff tends to happen in places where Satanism has been practiced in the past... forget about where it's actually happening now. Some things just leave a mark. We read something in the book of Mark in class this morning that made an impression on me: "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first." (Luke 11:24-26) A nearly identical text is found in Matthew 12. These are the words of Jesus himself, people. Jesus just told you that at least 8 "impure spirits" of varying degrees of wickedness really do exist and are actively looking for people to dwell in. I think we do ourselves a disservice by pretending they don't exist anymore. I can go to Africa and say I don't believe in lions, but the lion believes in me. And he believes I would be crunchy and good with ketchup, whether or not I believe in him and am on guard against him.

Anyway, this turned into a much longer blog than I intended for it to be... I guess we'll see if anyone actually reads it!

I've got you covered...

I take some flak from my friends sometimes because of my distaste for pop music (and indeed pretty much anything that's currently "trendy", but that's another matter). I was being forced to learn the Rihanna song "Umbrella" (ella, ella, eh eh eh, etc.) for a skit earlier, and I was mentioning my distaste for Rihanna. The comment was made that Rihanna was one of the ones who can actually sing and I should respect Rihanna (note the implied admission that there are indeed pop "singers" who cannot sing). I replied that I might respect her if she put some clothes on.

I have in the past mentioned my distaste for things like "Ke$ha" (or Ke-dollar-sign-ha, as I prefer to call her), which like to portray themselves as pop "singers" when in fact they cannot actually sing without the aid of auto-tune. Their primary function is to look hot and be minimally dressed while bouncing about to whichever catchy song someone has written for them to "sing" on that particular day (or, in the event of a live show, lip-synch to).

I remember I was watching an interview with Shaun Morgan once in which he stated that they didn't put a lot of pictures of the band in their album covers/booklets because they didn't want the focus to be on what they look like... they wanted the focus to be on the music. He pointed out that in the case of bands like Tool, almost nobody knows what those guys actually look like. Their faces aren't recognizable, their sound is. The guys from Slipknot all wear masks 100% of the time when they're performing as Slipknot... the only way to know what they look like is to find pictures of them from their personal lives (or collaborations with other artists in the case of Corey Taylor). The focus isn't on whether or not the guys from Slipknot are good-looking... it's on their music.

I was pointing out to the Chamaco in the car earlier that most of the bands I like, such as Seether, Nirvana, Three Days Grace, Shinedown, Lacuna Coil, etc., write their own songs. On the other hand you have artists like Britney Spears, who are mediocre singers but are good-looking, so specially trained monkeys in Sweden write their songs for them and they are paid to sing them (with auto-tune if necessary), then dance around wearing as little as possible and earn money. He agreed this was pretty dumb.

Then as I was wandering about in the inky depths of YouTube this evening after forcing myself to listen to "Umbrella" a few more times, I stumbled upon the original version of a song I only knew the cover version of. The song is called "Losing My Religion", and the original is by REM. I'm new at posting videos in this manner, so hopefully it works, but you should be able to see the original here:



Now I'm not saying that REM sucks... I like some of their stuff. But Lacuna Coil, which happens to be a band that can do almost no wrong in my eyes, comes along and covers "Losing My Religion" and it comes out like this (please note that this is a fan-created video, not official... but the audio is good):



And that thought reminded me that just about everything is better with Lacuna Coil. Even a perfectly respectable band/song like Megadeth's "A Tout Le Monde"....:



... gets a million times better when you add Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil!:



This thought led me to ponder how many other songs get better when covered by a proper rock band. Take, for example, "London Bridge" by Fergie. I recommend not listening to the whole thing... just enough to get the idea:



Now see what happens to it when Bowling for Soup covers it!:



This is not the only song that Bowling for Soup has improved immensely. They also took on one of Britney Spears' earlier travesties, "Baby, One More Time."



Now look what BFS did with it!!! This one is even cooler because I can actually play it on guitar... :)



Even I will admit that Lady Gaga can craft a catchy pop tune, such as the following "Bad Romance":



However, it takes Lzzy Hale and the guys from Halestorm to make the song truly great. Also Lady Caca only wishes she could sing like Lzzy Hale...



And it doesn't stop here... I'm not even done! Of course Seether has been on this bandwagon as well. Take the original 80s George Michael "classic", "Careless Whisper":



Seether had their wicked way with this one, resulting in the following:



And they even did the video with old video games! How awesome is that?!?! Seether has also worked their magic with Frank Sinatra... "I've Got You Under My Skin". Behold, the original:



And now Seether's take on it!:



Seether has also covered "Across the Universe" by the Beatles, but I'll let you dig that one up on your own. And I'll say again... Shaun Morgan can come sing me to sleep any time he wants... ;-)

There's a lot of fantastic improvement of pop songs going on out there, and today I'm especially proud to be a part of the not-so-mainstream rock brother/sisterhood that is improving most of what the music industry machine is currently mass-producing.

Rant over.