Surely we didn't get off THAT easily....

Those of you who know me well (all 5 of you) know that every winter I struggle with seasonal depression and the urge to crawl into a hole and not emerge from about November 1st through the beginning of July sometime.

This year hasn't been as bad as I've come to expect, and I'm not sure whether to credit living in a house with heat for the first winter of the last 8 or so years, or the fact that this winter has so far been extremely mild aside from a cold snap shortly before Christmas. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way, my recurring thought is, "Surely we didn't get off THAT easily..."

Because this is Oregon, and we've had deceptively mild winters before... you know, the ones where it is rainy and only moderately cold December through February, then it turns around and snows most of March and into early April. And if there's one thing I hate, it's snow. Take one thing I hate extremely (cold) and combine it with another thing I hate extremely (wet rainyness) and you get snow, a.k.a. "the ultimate evil".

And in other hellish events, we had an inservice today. Meetings are probably #1 on my list of things I hate, though snow is a very close #2. And the first speaker of the day was, I hate to say it, rather useless. He had some very good ideas, yes, provided that you're working with wealthy, upper-middle class children from stable, two-parent families (in the case of his center, most of the children were the children of university faculty). Unfortunately, catering to low-income, high-risk families is kind of what we do and a lot of what he was talking about just really isn't workable in our program, so why was this guy speaking anyway? Much less going on about it for 3 hours. On the plus side, he had some lovely books in Italian that I was reading during the 15 minute break in his 3 hours of drivel. I might look up some of the books later... or I might not. But really, a guy who got his master's degree in French Literature but speaks Italian better than French and still needs an interpreter for Italian is not to be trusted. With that admission when I asked him, he lost all credibility as far as I was concerned.

Also, who gets a master's degree in French Literature?! (Also, who gets a master's degree in French Literature, then goes on to get a doctorate in Early Childhood Ed.? Kind of a stretch, don't you think?) Also he was wearing four rings, none of which were wedding rings, and Wendy thought his shirt was tucked in weird. Nancy and I agreed.

No, I despise meetings (especially meetings disguised as "trainings" - call a spade a spade, people!) and I'm afraid I got up at 6:30 a.m. today only to be bored into a stupor for the better part of the day. TGI(my)F.

Song o' the Day: "Get Out Alive" by Three Days Grace. Because I thought I wasn't going to.

Here in Oregon, we prefer our gas-station attendants to be highly educated...

Another day, another interesting tidbit learned about the CTG. Apparently he has a bachelor's degree. In production. (Whatever that means.) And he's working at a gas station for minimum wage. I felt kinda bad for him... I've only got an associate's, and I'm making more than him. Also I'm doing it indoors without the "sideways rain and angry customers". Yet he's always so darned cheerful when I talk to him. The eternal optimist, despite the fact that I already know he was unemployed for a year to the day before getting his gas station job. Yet not so cheerful that it makes me want to vomit. I know someone who's like that too. We'll call him Smiley Dick. (Yes, this is a new alias. He might crop up again occasionally.) Smiley also works at a gas station and is perennially optimistic, but he's like sunshine and rainbows and hearts and flowers until it makes you want to puke. The CTG is optimistic, but without being a hazard to the blood-sugar levels of diabetics. Much more tolerable.

Once again I say, send me one like that but less married.

Anyhow, I got to spend six lovely hours in meetings today. The first hour was a guy talking about something about development of children. I'm not sure exactly what, because the printout of the powerpoint was lousy and also we couldn't hear him in the back. The next 2 hours were about sensory development, which was actually kind of interesting. Then we had one hour of a mandatory class about harassment in the workplace and the company's harassment policy (summed up as: don't do it) and then the last two hour class was about positive discipline and basically learning how to make anything you say sound positive even if what you mean is "knock that off right now, young lady!"

I hate meetings...

Had a long and reasonably productive discussion (read: not entirely about muffins or American/British superiority) with Wong this evening. I love that guy to bits, and I do wish he'd get his punk-ass to America already. I do respect his thought that he ought to spend his first Christmas in a decade or so with his mother, but still... sigh. Four freaking years and what for? Reaching the point of desperation/exasperation on this one.

A nice old guy came knocking on my door tonight to invite me to church at Grand View. He asked me if he could ask me a question and I said sure. He said, "If you were to die right now, are you sure that you'd go to heaven?" I said, "Yes, absolutely." He looked surprised and said, "Not many people say yes so definitely. So you believe that we are sinners and Jesus died for us and we're saved by grace alone?" I said, "Yes indeed. That's exactly what I believe." And he wished me a good evening and left.

If only the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses went away so easily...

A strange, girly night...

"Being attractive... it's the most important thing there is.
If you want to catch the biggest fish in your pond, you have to make yourself as attractive as possible.
Be sure to keep your hair spotlessly clean.
Wash it at least once every two weeks... ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS!
And if you see Johnny Football Hero in the hallway, tell him he played a great game.
Tell him you liked his article in the newspaper."
- "Popular" by Nada Surf

I'm not sure what got into me tonight. Maybe it was the fact that on two separate occasions today, coworkers told me I should get on eHarmony.  But by the time I got out of church, I was feeling like maybe it was time to work on my outward appearance a bit. I've been wanting to darken my hair for a while now... seems to be an urge I always get as soon as it starts being dark when I get home from work (stupid Daylight Saving Time). It seems like during the summer I get gradually lighter, usually arriving at some shade of red, and then as soon as the days get ridiculously short I go right back into the darkness. I resisted the urge to go directly back to black, though, and instead went with "Chocolate Velvet" or "Velvet Brown" or some stupid color name like that. It was the next shade up from "Black Stiletto", that much I can tell you. On top of the red I already had going, I think it has turned out rather well, though I'll have to wait for it to dry to be sure.

Men may want to skip this paragraph, lest they be put off brunettes forever. I'll wait for you to leave.... okay, you'd better be gone now. If not, don't say I didn't warn you. So one day I was having a conversation with the blonde twit who was cutting my hair that day, and she was coveting my insanely thick, dark hair and whining about how hers was all fine and blonde and straight, blah blah blah. I said, "Sure, the thick dark hair is great on your head, but you gotta remember that people have hair other places too." She thought about that a moment, and I could hear gears grinding... or maybe it was just the pea rattling around in that big empty head of hers. But after a few moments the rusty generator finally flickered to life and she said, "Oh!" and agreed that maybe she was glad her hair was blonde and baby-fine after all. I love traumatizing my haircutter people. But anyway, I have never been bothered particuarly by my thick, dark hair except for in one place... my face. I don't think I have any more hair in my facial areas than any other woman does, really. Mine is just thick and black is all, not all blonde and fuzzy. But I've long been slightly insecure about it, especially after a 5 year old Mexican kid told me I had a beard. (Stupid Victor.) So I decided to be all girly tonight and do something about it. Also I shaved my legs.

Earlier today I went by Toad's and wished the CTG a happy Wednesday (very sarcastically, of course). He did his big flirty grin at me and said, "If you didn't come here, nothing good would happen to me today." Sigh. I would love to have somebody who wasn't married (and preferably also of an equal degree of attractiveness to the CTG) flirt with me like that. Wonder if he has a brother... lol.

Anyhow, tomorrow I get to spend 6 hours in meetings. Meetings, in my opinion, are something Dante would have seen on his journey through one of the lower circles of hell. I remain convinced that if, by some unfortunate turn of circumstance, I go to hell, there will be meetings there. Lots of them. Lasting about 1,000 years each, with a 5 minute bathroom break in between, during which the line to the ladies' restroom will be backed up clear back to the edge of the lava pit. Tomorrow, I'm pretty sure, will suck. So I've decided I might as well look good while the world goes on with its sucking. :-) 'Cause after all, if the world didn't suck, we'd all fly off.