It's a good thing I love crowds so much!

So I'm in Dallas, right? I checked the weather forecast for while I was gonna be here, and the average temp is supposed to be in the 60's. So I brought my jacket (not my coat), which is pretty normal for Christmas in Texas. You just don't need anything heavier. Now, there was a cold front scheduled to come in Sunday and Monday, but I figured that's when I'd wear the jacket. (It's not as if I need it for 60-degree weather.)

The cold front came in a wee bit early, but no worries. (The temperature dropped 30 degrees Saturday afternoon. It was crazy.) So I wore the jacket to church on Sunday, as it was really quite cold. I also left the jacket at church on Sunday. [rolls eyes] I realized at the end of Relief Society that I no longer had my jacket with me, but by then there was another ward having sacrament meeting in the chapel, where I left it.

Today, Dad went back over to the church (he has a key) to look for it (Mom has a key to the library, where the lost and found is located). It's nowhere to be found. So now I need a new jacket, as it's below freezing. (I've actually wanted one for a while, but couldn't really justify it when I had a perfectly good one. Now, however, I don't!) So it looks like I'm going shopping. With all the crazy holiday shoppers! That'll be a good time. :(

Santa FAIL

My mom just went back to her room to do some wrapping. She came back out all confused. "Your father is weird," she says. "He wrapped everything. Labeled it from Mom and Dad. Santa isn't coming to our house this year." We all had a good laugh. See, in our house, Santa gifts don't get wrapped; they're just stacked under our stockings. But now, if they wanted to unwrap them, they'd need to identify which ones are which things, so they don't have to then re-wrap stuff. 

So, yes. Santa apparently looked down on the Johnson clan (which will be all assembled this Christmas) and said "no ways!"

I know everybody's favorite stories are the ones in which I am an idiot.

Story setup: Yesterday evening found me on campus, printing up programs for today's sacrament meeting. Well, Kyle was also on campus, in his lab, so I decided to pop over and visit. when we left, he offered to drive me back to my car, since he was parked in the grad parking garage right by his building and I was parked clear across the snowy, icy campus by the law building. (I had already almost died getting to his lab in the first place!) So he dropped me off at my car and we agreed to meet back at my house. 

Actual story: I get in my car, start it up, and assess my options. I could back out of my spot, but, due to the layout of the lot, that would require making a fairly tight turn on the previously mentioned ice and snow in order to get back in the direction I actually wanted to go. Clearly, the better plan of action is to just pull through the empty spot in front of me. I mean, really; why wouldn't I do that? Well, a bump, thud, scrape, and a crunch later, I learned why. I had, for unknown reasons, failed to notice the parking block (apparently, that's what they're called!) in front of me, and now I was stuck. I tried reversing back over it, but my car wasn't going for it. And I didn't dare try to go any further forward over it. So I called Kyle. "Hep! Hep! I'm an idiotic girl who trashed her car and needs help from a manly man." [rolls eyes] I hate confirming stereotypes. Oh well.

Kyle arrives back on the scene and just walks up to my car laughing. He was spared a good smacking by the fact that I was also laughing. After all, it was funny. In a very pathetic way. Like when I recently kneed myself in the face. If I couldn't laugh at myself...well, I'd do a lot more crying, that's for dang sure. He couldn't sort out how I managed to do this; he'd pictured snow piled up on one side of the block that I had used as a ramp to get over. There was, in fact, no such anything. Just the parking block, which I had somehow monster-trucked right over. 

I had not yet, at this point, gotten out of my car to assess the damage. Turns out that I only got one wheel over (the front right one). T'other had driven smoothly forward through the space between blocks. We develop a plan: the clearance on my car is high enough (barely) that I can maneuver a bit, and the space between blocks seems large enough that I should be able to get back through it. (Fortunately, the spots around me are empty, so I have plenty of space.) Just as this plan is being implemented, a big ol' SUV tries to pull into the space in front of me. "They can't DO that!" I yell, and Kyle waves them off. But the driver, nice man that he is, gets out to assist in the helping of the damsel in distress. (Clearly, this is two-knight distress.) So he joins in instruction-giving, which is of dubious helpfulness. I'm pretty sure that I kept turning the wrong way because when he said "go left," he meant something other than what I understood "go left" to actually mean. Anyway, we eventually got things sorted out, and my car was saved! 

...about half an hour later, my heart rate came back down to normal. :)

Just one more way in which my knees hurt me...

So I'm over at Kyle's, and a bunch of us are watching a movie, right? Kyle and I are on a couch, and I'm sorta curled up, with my feet on the couch next to me and my knees up. I don't even remember what, but something happened in the movie, and I jumped. A lot. In fact, I kneed myself in the face. My left knee barely missed my glasses--went straight to the cheekbone instead. Which, let me assure you, hurt. A lot. Of course, it was also hilarious, so I was laughing hysterically for a coupla minutes. I think most everyone else was just horrified. Personally, I'm just hoping it doesn't bruise...

I still don't know where the original ended up. Perhaps it actually ran away?

On Monday, I came in to work to discover that my nice chair had been stolen. I was very annoyed, but it was really just one in a number of things making Monday a nightmare. I casually asked the missionaries when I next went out there if they had stolen my chair (just kidding, because they already have nice chairs). Sis. Hendrix was absolutely furious that somebody had taken my chair. It's so rude! One of our super-nice elders stole me back a chair while I was fixing something for Sis. Hendrix (he wouldn't tell me where he got it from). And when I got here on Tuesday, there were signs posted: "DON'T STEAL CHAIRS!!!"

I love our missionaries. :D

Adventures in Ririe (it's actually not the contradiction in terms you might think!)

I'm still amazed that you can see cows from Tianna's kitchen table. When we were getting ready to set off for our adventuring, BJ told me that if I went closer to the cows, they'd look at me. He lied. They ran away.

Today was the day when I finally got square ice cream. Despite the fact that it was freezing outside, we all went for square ice cream. (BJ and I had never had it!) We had fun:On the way home, we stopped to look at a feed gate header thingummy. (T indulges my amazement at all things farm-related.) Apparently, until a few years ago, this was the largest one in the world!I kept getting close to the edge so I could lean out and look at stuff. T kept yelling at me. (She totally cramps my style sometimes.) (Actually, now that I think about it, she was probably just trying to follow her latest directive from Kyle: keep me alive. She totally failed at the previous one...)Don't worry, though: I didn't fall in.

Why yes, I DO feel cool!

I'm in Ririe with T, BJ, and her family for Thanksgiving, right? When we pull into the driveway and start climbing out of the car, we hear the voice of a small child from the doorway: "Jessica!!!"

That's right. T's niece greeted me first. Before her actual family members. :D

...

Jess: I thought you told me Billy Black.
Tianna: Yes, but I had to get the approval to upgrade.
Jess: So we're upgrading to Billy Black.
Tianna: Yes.
Jess: From?
Tianna: Flärke.

Just in case anybody out there thought T and I were any less weird in SLC than in Orem. Or Provo, for that matter.

It's impossible to overstate how very much of a Monday it's been today.

• I set my alarm for p.m. instead of a.m., so I didn't start work until 11.
• The beaters of my new mixer got stuck and it took me at least five minutes to get them out.
• On my way in to work, I discovered a large tear in the lace around the bottom of my shirt. Looks like this shirt won't be worn to work anymore. Or anywhere I need to be presentable.
• I took my leftover pizza for lunch today. I just heated it up on some paper towels, resulting in me burning my fingers carrying it back to my desk. And then I had to sacrifice all the cheese that melted off the pizza, as it became all paper-towelly.
• I arrived at work to a chat from Jeri, yelling at me for not having my voicemail set up. Ok, I had no idea I would have to put in a ticket to get that done.
  
• This, of course, meant a call to the Unhelpful Desk, which always makes any list of Things That Killed My Good Mood.

That's all the non-work stuff. (Well, the voicemail issue was very much work. But still.) Not to worry, though! There was plenty of work mess, too!

• The missionaries came to me with a weird book. It contains the same info on the left and right pages, except that one is in English and t'other is in Spanish. Oh, and just to make it interesting, there are unique pictures on each page (just in case you thought it would be as simple as scanning only the English pages.) Aside from issues of organization and formatting, the OCR on our general book class is English only. We could set up one for Spanish, but it's impossible to process one book in two batch classes. So either way, the book would only be searchable in one language. (This issue is still unresolved, by the way. We're still trying to decide what will work best.)
• I had several fun books of my own to mess with. One refused to be imported into our software. (We've had this problem before, but that doesn't make it any simpler. Or less nonsensical.)
• Another book couldn't decide if it was volume one or volume two. Or possibly both. It depended on where you looked.
• Yet another book was three volumes bound into one book. The extra-awesome part was that its numbering was totally wonky. Volume one was pages 1-826, volume 2 was pages 1001-1848, and volume three was pages 2001-end. So bizarre.
• And, to make this all even more fun, my software kept crashing. This is even worse than it looks, since it's not a simple issue of restarting it. When you crash out, it takes the program anywhere from 5-20 minutes to realize it's not running anymore. As long as it thinks it's in progress, it won't let you restart. So it's like this: crash, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaait, restart. Process two pages. Crash, waaaaaaaaaait, restart. So aggravating! I finally decided to cheat. Take that, Kofax!
  

At least now I am home. I have had my yummy dinner, which turned out quite well (I'm learning how to use a crock-pot). Hopefully we'll have no further evidence of today's Mondayness to wrestle with.

Wal-Mart

Overheard at Wal-Mart: "You're scared? Say a prayer." This was said from one adult to another.

Seen at Wal-Mart: a life-sized Boba Fett, made out of Legos. Also, several different people posing with it for pictures (there was a significant amount of wandering done, in search of a hand-mixer, and we seemed to keep coming back to Boba Fett).

When Natural Instinct Fails

I almost ran over a quail on my way home. There was a whole flock of 'em in the middle of the road, but they all scattered when my car approached. Except one. Instead of running to the side of the road, away from my car, it ran down the road ahead of me. For at least 30 seconds. It kept looking back at me over its shoulder, plainly terrified. (Perhaps I anthropomorphize. Deal with it.) Eventually it figured out how to save itself, and fled to the side. It was weird. You know how generally, you don't have to change your driving if there are birds in the road, 'cuz you know they'll move? And do it quickly? Not so much this time.

Feelin' remarkably good...

I was recently paged to the hospital (I'm on the Utah County Rape Crisis Team, for those who don't know), and it sparked some thoughts. Since they were significantly different from the typical all-men-are-scum and life-is-just-too-horrible thoughts that occupy my mind for a day or so afterward, I thought I'd share. :)

This woman was an emotional wreck. Far more than I generally see–most of the victims I see are in a great deal of shock. But this woman was falling apart. Fortunately, she had two friends there with her. (I always feel extra-sorry for the victims who are at the hospital all alone.) In any case, these friends were amazing. It was wonderful to see them lend her their strength and really go through the process with her. Things like that are altogether too difficult to handle alone, and I don't think Heavenly Father meant us to. These women definitely didn't fit into the stereotypical angel imagery, but I honestly can't think of a better word to describe them and what they did. I felt blessed to be able to witness it.

This got me thinking about the friends in my own life. I generally have a really hard time opening up to people, and I'm one of the worst people I know about asking for help. But I've got a coupla friends I've learned to lean on, and they are likewise angels in my life. They give me strength to get through the times I wouldn't otherwise be able to handle. And I've been of the opinion for some time now that Heavenly Father put these people in my life for that purpose. You know how it's hard to see a beautiful sunset, or the fall colors, and not see God's hand in it? I feel the same way about people who accept the challenge of being somebody else's strength for a while. How cool is it that the love my friends show me reminds me that God loves me, too? Bless them. :)

My roommate is Bill Nye?

If you take the ice tray/bin/thingummy out of the freezer and put it on the kitchen table while you have friends over for dinner, you too can observe science at work! See, at room temperature, ice melts. And when you put it back into the freezer, all that water will re-freeze, fusing the disparate ice cubes into one ginormous lump! If you're lucky, you can stealthily observe while an innocent victim demonstrates more science by trying to get pieces of ice out of this frozen mass. As clearly shown, forces wrought by human hands, no matter the angle, are not strong enough to break the pieces loose from the whole. Chunks of skin are actually likely to break loose first. Finally, should the innocent victim be unwilling to retrieve and use a hammer on the ice mass, the entire thing will have to be dumped out. Needless to say, our victim does not get any ice. Cut, scraped, and bruised fingers, yes. But no ice.

The blasted things are EVERYWHERE!!!

There is a spider in my DVD player. It has crawled into the visual display and now spends its time obscuring the numbers. How did it even get there? More importantly, how am I to get it out?!

It's not only Monday; it's a Monday in which Tianna is not here at work with me! That's just never good.

Things I've been attempting to do simultaneously:

1. Load books online (and there were so dang many that I was using both my computers for this). Into 7 separate collections, no less. (That doesn't make it any more difficult, but it makes it harder for me to keep track of things in my head.)
   
2. My own project, the reprocessing of 5,000 (a.k.a., "a never-ending slew of") BYU books (which involves using one computer to load the pages into the software, and another to actually process them). Today, I have finished a whopping one.
   
3. (Please note that on any normal day, the list would stop here. The above is my general job these days. Not today!) Jeri was having a fit at BYU, so she set me on a project: review all the different Browse options on our site and figure out which ones were hitting the wrong collections and email those silly BYU people and get them to fix it. (Jeri didn't actually say "silly;" she called them "doughheads.") This involved a lot of squintiness, as I was poring through some very cramped and very lengthy urls. Oh, and, of course, ASAP. (Seriously, why can't people just do what I tell them to the first time? This whole project was completely unnecessary!)
   
4. Somehow, a patron got hold of Elder Hendrix on the phone about a faulty printpdf online. Normally, this would be T's department. Not today! Of course, when I got looking into it, I didn't have any problems with that printpdf whatsoever, so I didn't actually end up having to create a new one (thank goodness). I just forwarded it on to T so she can contact the patron tomorrow and figure out what their deal is.
5. I got 2 separate requests to "remove this book from the archive ASAP." Those are simple, but involve a handful of steps each. And time. If any of the stuff on the list could be accomplished quickly, this post wouldn't exist, as I wouldn't have been trying to do all these things at once.
   
6. Remember that single, solitary book I processed today? It had problems, and I kept having to go back and tell the software that there was really nothing wrong and it could generate pdfs just fine. (Unreject, already! There's not a doggone thing wrong with those pages, I promise! Blasted, wretched Kofax, why don't you ever trust me?)
   
7. I started working on a 1400-page book, which prospect thrilled me not at all. As I got looking at it, however, I realized that it was actually 2 distinct volumes that had been put online as one. So I got approval from JP to split it, then got down to the nitty gritty of actually doing so. This meant separating files and changing a bunch of metadata and such, in addition to deleting the second half of the book from the batch I'd already loaded it into and re-scanning it separately. Again, this was mostly time-consuming, though it also required that I attend to a bunch of titchy details.
   
8. Remember those books I was loading? At about this point in the day, I discovered that one of the books sent to me from our Houston site had already been processed in Orem. So I got to discuss it with JP, decide which one to keep, and then delete t'other one.
9. I was emailed a list of data to input into one of our databases. (This hardly qualifies for the list, as it's outrageously simple and straightforward. It was only vexing because of the 8 other things I was already trying to do.)
10. Remember those books I was still loading? (I'm really not kidding about trying to do all of this stuff at once.) Fort Wayne sent me a totally busted book. We're still not sure how it got in that particular condition. I believe we're writing it off to gremlins in the system. I looked at it for a long time, and it makes no sense at all. Guess it's just one of those things that you have to expect when you work with computers. I ended up telling FW to reprocess it.
    
11. And, to top it all, my acquisition station (the software I use to load books) froze. I was so close to being done with it, too! I had to crash out and restart it and argue with it and bully it into submission. It's hardly something I'm incapable of, but I don't like doing it, y'know?

Fortunately, things are finally calming down, now that all the non-lazy-bums who got here at a reasonable hour have been gone for a long time. (As clearly evidenced by the fact that I finally had a minute to write this up.) Phew!

It's official:

I've failed.

If you find this poor botanical specimen unrecognizable, it's #2 in the linked post, the China Doll. It's really quite tragic.

(The other plants are all still alive, though. That's something, right?)

For all those who have never really thought about it...

...drying your hair with a brush becomes much more difficult as the length of said hair approaches the length of your reach.

I think that pretty much covers it.

I've been considering writing a post entitled "A Migraine in the Life of Jess" for a coupla weeks now. It's been a really rough time lately; I've had migraines for days at a stretch, interspersed with only hours of relief in between. I mostly abandoned the project because outlining one such day doesn't really get the point across. Even trying to reconstruct one "day" that's really an amalgam of all of them isn't too impressive:

7:00 am—woke up with a migraine and wanted to die; hit snooze

7:09 am—woke up and wanted to die; hit snooze

7:18 am—woke up and wanted to die; hit snooze

...

9:06 am—woke up and wanted to die, but realized that I was already late for work, so rolled out of bed and got ready for the day (verrrry sloooowly)

10:45 am—arrived at work and wanted to die; worked anyway

[granted, the day thus far doesn't differ so very much from my typical day, except for the wanting to die part]

all day—was on the verge of tears due to pain and the frustration caused by my broken computer and other nonsense

1:30 pm—Tianna went and got us both lunch because I couldn't bear the thought of going out into the sunlight

3:00 pm—convinced Tianna to rub my shoulders while she was on the phone

4:30 pm—decided that I could make up my hours later in the week and went home

4:45 pm—took nausea medication that had the added benefit of knocking me out

5:30 pm—went to bed

8:30 pm—despite the medicine, was awakened by pain

10:45 pm—got online to see who was available to give me a priesthood blessing

11:00 pm—received blessing (I can't even find the words to describe how grateful I am for friends who are worthy priesthood holders and love me enough to come when I need them)

11:30 pm—after further writhing in pain, went back to bed

What the above outline doesn't really communicate, however, is the emotional effect of it all. Though I've become rather adept at working through pain, several days of it in a row really gets beyond my ability to manage. I start being snippy with my friends and coworkers. I rarely laugh. (And given that laughter is the only means by which Tianna and I can successfully navigate the crazier days at work, this adds to the stress.) I lose my ability to handle problems well; when merely functioning requires all of my emotional strength, I have none to spare for the stress of broken computers and messed up books and unwieldy software and processes we just haven't ironed out yet. The world contracts to a focus on the pain, interrupted by the day-to-day tasks that would normally be my focus. And while I have complete faith that God can banish my pain, and I utter near-constant prayers that He will do just that, I have learned from vast experience that He usually chooses not to, so I lack the faith that He really will do as I beg Him to. This also means that I am reluctant to request priesthood blessings: what's the point of involving more people in a process that I don't really think will have any effect? I guess I have a threshhold for such thinking, though: once I am reduced to lying in bed writhing in pain because I am actually in too much pain to hold still, I realize it's time for a blessing. And I did get one last Wednesday. And it helped: the pain abated enough for me to be able to sleep again, and it was mostly gone in the morning. 

Friday, though, I woke up with another migraine and about panicked. That's another thing I've noticed about extended pain: courage fails me, and I am actually afraid of having to endure more. Just thinking about it now is raising my heartrate and bringing tears to my eyes. And trust me on this: hyperventilating never helps a migraine. Fortunately, that morning, after several desperate prayers, I was able to return to sleep, and when I eventually got up a few hours later, the pain was mostly gone. I honestly think that Heavenly Father realized that another migraine just then would send me right over the edge to Crazy Town. 

These drawn-out periods of near-constant migraines have another effect on me, though: I become much more grateful for the time when I am not in pain. Those few hours in-between migraines are filled with prayers of gratitude. And when I beg Heavenly Father to let me have Saturday so that I can attend a very special baby blessing and spend some time with my friends, I realize how precious those things really are. And I become much more grateful, not only for the time that is free of pain, but also for the ability to accomplish a great many things through the pain. 

People ask me sometimes how I deal with all the migraines I get, and I always tell them that I manage because there is no other option. When you have a headache every day, sitting out of life until the pain stops just isn't a viable option. So you learn to cope. I may get to work very late, but I stay late, too, because I can't short my hours every week. I do my very best to be polite with the people around me, even when I'm in pain, because to do otherwise would make me a very unpleasant person. I drive in the sunlight (with my dark sunglasses) and learn tricks like turning down the brightness on my computer monitor so that I can still work. I feel confident that anyone in my situation would do the same because the only other option would be to lay like a lump on the couch until I died. And during the times when I am utterly overcome and can't function at all, I am grateful for friends who stand by me, people who willingly step in when all my coping mechanisms have failed. Most of all, I am thankful for Christ and the knowledge that He has suffered everything I am asked to suffer, and that He would not leave me to do so for no reason.

I tried to be a good girl and go to bed at a reasonable hour last night.

No such luck. I turned my lights out at 12:30, but couldn't manage to get to sleep. Finally, after about an hour, I turned my bedside lamp back on and pulled my book back out. No point in just laying there if I wasn't gonna sleep, right? Well, I'd been reading for about 5 minutes when a huge bug appeared on the page in front of me. Under my very nose, as it were. Scared me to death, and there was a significant amount of flailing around, but the bug went away. I knew it was still out there, but I couldn't find it. No more than 5 minutes later, it happened again! This time, actually, I got to see it land, rather than just appear. This would have made it rather less startling, except that it was the kind of fine detail I was at that moment incapable of appreciating. More flailing (and perhaps a shriek or two) ensued. I snatched my book away, and the bug landed on my bed underneath where the book had been. (It was at this point that I realized it had likely been drawn to the only light in the room. Again, however, this knowledge didn't affect my demeanor much.) I was about to wreak vengeance on this creature that had scared me so badly (really, as if massive shots of adrenaline are what a person with insomnia needs) when it departed. Once again, I had lost it. Trying to be optimistic about the likelihood of it dying of its own accord before it could come back, I returned to reading. A few minutes later, I went to turn a page, and the pages on the left came up a bit, only to reveal this bug in between them! I had the presence of mind, this time, to not jerk the book away. I stealthily reached over to my nightstand for some kleenex and declared (with all the sense of fair play in the world) my intention to kill the wretched thing. Careful to not get bug guts on my book, I smooshed it from both sides. Finally, I could read in peace. 

Oh, and if you were wondering, I wasn't able to sleep until 3.

It's WORKING? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

My computer broke again this morning. So annoying. But even more annoying is that when I got a tech on the phone/remoted into my comp, it wouldn't break. I tried to crash it, I really did! But it refused to misbehave. [sigh] What kind of world makes me annoyed when things work?!

How was my day?

I'm glad you asked! Here're some highlights:

• T, I'm playing with the wheel of your chair, so don't roll back. You'll squoosh my fingers.
• Follow the sultry sound of my voice...
• Tell them you're trying to weed out the weak-eyed.
• I think these carpets could really do without the pink.
• I'm just a little black raincloud...hovering under the Honey Tree. I'm just a little black raincloud...pay no attention to little me. Everyone knows that a raincloud never eats honey, no, not a nip. I'm just a little black raincloud...wondering where I might drip.
• Tanna, you're an island! Among other things!
  

That's right, folks: my computer was broken. All day. I spent almost the entire day in Tanna's cube, driving her cra--I mean, keeping her company. And yes, a significant portion of that time was spent on her floor.

Advice from my Boss

"When in doubt, run in circles and scream and shout."

We even got him to demonstrate for us! Then he said it was our turn. I modified it slightly so that instead of running in circles, I was twirling in my chair. Because, in my opinion, you shouldn't have to get up in order to panic.

Those crazy Google people...they make me laugh.

I've been trying out Google Chrome. And for the most part, I really like it. There are a few bugs that drive me absolutely insane (for example, I can't scroll up, only down), but I am confident these things will be fixed and then I will be able to love it wholeheartedly. But my favorite thing? Google has the coolest error messages EVAR. Check this one out:

I love my friends!

I got a very cool gift last night. 

Yes, that's Fluffy. He's guarding the cellar! 

It took...

• one week
• approx. 10 hours online with Microsoft "Help"
• 3 computer nerds
• at least 6 failed installation attempts
• 2 OS re-installations
• and, finally, wiping my hard drive completely

...but I finally have Vista sp1! Installed and everything! Don't believe me? Proof:

Hail the conquering hero! Da na na na na na na...

Only, I'd change it to "Time to reflect on the week..."

Copied from here.

Maybe it bit somebody, and this is the last step before putting it down.

I've driven by this a few times now:If you can't tell from the picture, yes, the truck is completely fenced in. I'm just wondering what it did to deserve such treatment. There's not even any maneuvering room, so it must have been bad.

I have been told I have to blog this. :S

So last night, Michael and I were helping get his younger sister, Michelle, settled into Helaman Halls. At one point, she was scoping out the room and Michael and I were seated on the bed. I looked down and saw that in between us was his wallet! Now, Michael has a tendency to lose things, so I snatched it up and stuck it in my back pocket. I wanted to actually be present for this "oh no, I've lost my wallet again!" moment. That's always good entertainment, right? Well, hours later, we were back at my house, and I told him that it'd be wise for him to start trying to figure out what I had of his. (I was getting tired of waiting for the non-forthcoming reaction.) He ran through some possibilities: "I've got my keys. I've got my wallet." What?! "Are you sure you have your wallet?" "Yes, it's right here." "Oh no...is this Michelle's wallet?!" I pulled it out and, sure enough, it had her driver's license inside. I felt so sheepish. I immediately started thinking of ways this could have already inconvenienced her, and I felt awful. Michael, of course, thought it was hilarious. And his only concession to helping me out of this jam was to give me Michelle's email address.

I emailed her last night, but not until way late. This morning, she still hadn't responded, and I needed to head to SLC for work. I finally had the brilliant idea of leaving it for her at the Cannon Center. (For the record, Tanna also thought the whole thing was hilarious.) Turns out, Michelle hadn't even realized it was missing.

All in all, it's got to make a great story for her: I moved to BYU and had my wallet stolen within hours of my arrival!

I work fo' da Church, foo!

Well, it's time for another division meeting! Gotta love 'em. And it was only scheduled to last 4 hours! Fabulous. Fortunately, it only ran for 2 1/2, which was still 2 1/2 hours too long. However, I've learned from past experience that notes on what Tianna and I are thinking are far more entertaining than notes on what's actually happening. And now, some humorous anecdotes and jewels from my "notes." (Unless otherwise specified, everything in quotes was actually part of the presentation. Believe it or not. Everything else was between T and me.)

• We started off with my boss, Mike, singing to himself before the meeting actually began. This is how I knew it would be an Awesome Meeting. For the record, Mike can't carry a tune for anything (and he'll be the first to admit it), but he has a marked tendency to burst out into "song."
• Our main gripe about these meetings is that we're required to attend, only to hear hours of gobbledy-gook that is all about all the other teams in the department/division. We are never discussed. It's like they hate us or something. But directly after the opening prayer, Dennis (my actual boss, above me and below Mike) was called to the front. "Here we go!" we thought. But no...he didn't actually discuss us at all. He was just presenting an award to somebody who was recently transferred to our team for working here for 20 years. [sigh] It was a serious letdown.
• Ransom (the division head running this shindig) had just finished saying "I want this meeting to be an open forum for discussion" when a guy got up and left the room. No open forums for him!
• About 3 minutes in, Ransom's cell phone rang. We think it was his boss. He explained that he was in a meeting with about 40 people. Then, the classic line: "No, you can call him—he's not here."
• I managed to write on the back of my left elbow. I didn't just smear ink on it; I wrote on it.
• We're dealers! We're trying to get people hooked.
• "People...have told the Vatican to take a hike! That's the kind of relationship and rapport we want to maintain around the world."
• Really, the excruciating boredom was all my fault. Ransom kept asking stuff like "Is it necessary to go through all of this?" and "Is this helpful?" I just didn't have the guts to stand up and say "Hecks no! For the love of all that is holy, let us leave!!!" Sorry, y'all. I fail.
  
• "I don't have official sanction. I'm just moving forward."
• It's like he expects us to remember stuff from our past meetings!
• "How do you do rap? What is rap all about?...Who are we trying to embrace with the rap program?" (It's possible this was actually some sort of acronym. But he didn't explain it—mayhap it was also addressed in one of our prior meetings?)
• "When is the beginning?"
• I now have smudged boredom.
• T: "Hurry! Run! Be a straggler!"
• I learned that Tanna's shoes are teeny and transform me into an Ugly Stepsister.
• Mike: "Our success came from the war chapters in Alma."
• "I can't pronounce it, but I am one!"
• "Well, on the back end, it's archery."
• BRAINS...LIQUEFYING...DRIPPING ONTO THE FLOOR...

I'm still not sure I agree with his assessment.

Okay, time for an amazing story. We got a new high councilor this week, and he spoke for a few minutes at the end of sacrament. Turns out, he's been assigned to Institute for the last few years. He realizes that our ward doesn't have an Institute chair yet, but he "knows somebody in the ward who gets stuff done. She's sitting right down here—Sis. Jessica. I've read about you in the program! You only have 2 callings. (He turned away just as I held up 4 fingers.) The fact that you have two callings means that the bishop knows who to call when he needs something done! So as soon as the bishop gets on the ball and calls you as Institute co-chair, will you collect these surveys on the back table about what course people want taught?" Of course, I agreed. But I was apparently quite red when I got up to conduct the closing hymn. (I mean, high praise, to be sure. But I hate being singled out in front of a group!) Afterward, he came down and shook my hand. And, y'know, met me. He mentioned again my only having 2 callings, and I pointed out to him that the truth of the matter is that I have 4. He immediately started looking around: "Where's your bishop?!" He seemed horrified. It was kinda funny.

I totally just finished this!

I've been working on this cross stitch project for years! Okay, so for the first several years, I only brought it out during General Conference (having something for my hands to do helps me to focus). But a coupla months ago, I started working on this hardcore. I am supremely pleased with myself. I can't stop grinning.I still have to frame it, and it needs ironing before then. But I wanted to brag tonight!

I so wish I had had my camera. And hadn't been driving.

I saw this truck today. It was parked on the side of the road, and across the top of the windshield was written, "Four Sail." The driver's side window read "4-Sell." It made me want to cry. I sincerely hope it was some sort of gimmick: "Hey, all y'all orthographic autocrats* out there! You can't stop looking at this, can you? You'd better just buy it so you can fix it!"

*No, this is not my own phraseology. And no, I'm not one. It has been sworn.

Disturbing Interactions

First off, I will admit to being a bit on edge today. My yesterday was filled with horror and terror (there should be a cool way to combine those words, but I can't find one!) and the upshot is that I'm both exhausted and a bit high-strung today. Just so you know. And just so you know that I know.

Okay, encounter number one: I was in the cafeteria downstairs getting lunch (which already creeps me out because it's crowded and I always feel like people are looking at me). As I was in line to pay, this older guy (50's? 60's? in any case, old enough to be my father, easy) sidled up to me to say "You're nice and tall." (And of course, as it was very loud down there, when I say he "sidled up," I mean he "sidled right up." Inches away from me.) What the?! What do you say to that? "Well yes, I have to agree that I am freakishly tall. Speaking of which, it's always been a sore spot with me, so I'm really glad you've just pointed it out. And in such a decidedly disturbing fashion! Thank you, Stranger, for your time." I mean, really. After I'd paid and was waiting for my co-worker to do the same, he came up to me again. Wanted to know where I worked and what I did. And whaddya know?! He works on the same floor! THEN, after I'd finally escaped upstairs, he tracked me down in my cubicle! DAH! Creepy man, go away! If he'd been younger, I'd have said he was hitting on me. And not in a good way. It certainly felt like it. But he's older, so it was all rather unclear. Either way, a certain case of unwanted attention.

Encounter number two: In the elevator down to the parking garage, the guy in there with me stared at me. The whole time. Guess what? I DON'T LIKE TO BE LOOKED AT! Gives me the creeping heebie-jeebies.

Second disclaimer of this post: it is entirely possible that people don't actually look at me very much. I mean, what's to look at? But it feels like it, and as I'm so self-conscious and insecure about it, it amounts to the same thing for me. It has been suggested that I start staring back at people, just to verify whether or not they're really watching me. Not sure how I feel about this idea, though...

in which I display heretofore unknown skillz

I'm all proud of myself right now. Why? Because I managed to blow dry my hair this morning using a brush. I've never been able to get the hang of the whole hair-dryer-in-one-hand-brush-in-t'other thing. I have not this skill. For me, drying my hair involves a lot of hanging upside down and using my hands to get through my hair. But no more! I used a brush today, though I ended up settling on having the brush in my left hand and hair dryer in the right; I had started out the other way 'round, which made more sense, but I couldn't do it. All in all, though, I am well pleased. It took hardly any longer at all than my usual method, and my hair is a lot less frizzy today.

(Is this the part where I determine that I've earned myself a reward from Arctic Circle?)

Way to buck expectations there, friend!

So, I'm driving to church today, right? Crossing the street in front of me is this chick wearing a heavy purple overcoat! Faux fur on the cuffs and collar and everything. All zipped up. It actually threw me for a second. I was all, like, "Wait, is it winter? I'm wearing short sleeves!" It took me a second to realize that she was the one being weird because it is, in fact, August.

Glory, Laud, and Honor

I was informed this afternoon that I am "still smart." Yes, my brains had been called into question. But by some fluke which I'm sure involved as little of my brains as possible, I managed to solve the problem and earn this praise.

And of all this I might have been mistress...

I totally just found Mr. Darcy in a book I'm working on!Sure, he has a different name in this book. But I imagine that's just to keep all his adoring fans at bay.

Also, Tanna says that he could be Wickham. I think I can tell the difference between Darcy and Wickham, Tanna!

P.S.! This was owned by the same guy! Note the name!!!

I rarely have excuses to toot my own horn, so here we go!

I just want to briefly point out my awesomeness. I'm working on a cross stitch project, and I'm getting close to the end. It's down to the detail-work now. (Which is nothing to sneer at; I shall be doing several things I've never done before. Hopefully I won't ruin what I've done so far, 'cuz it's looking pretty good, if I do say so myself.) The finishing of this project will definitely be blogged, 'cuz I'm going to be all kinds of proud of myself.

But that's for later. My current awesomeness has to do with the fact that I threaded 8 strands of blending filament (it's shiny thread, and it's a beast to work with) onto my needle at once, and in one try! Really, I am in awe of my own mad skillz. And in case anyone doubts this prodigious feat, there was a witness. So yes: I rock.

I work with awesome people.

I sent an email to our Hawaii site this morning, telling them I had loaded the books they sent. I was supposed to attach a list of the specific books, but I forgot. So I sent them another one, asking if they'd wanted a file to go with the email, and attached it. I just got this response back:

"I thought you were helping me to develop a greater gift of receiving more detailed inspiration."

I love my coworkers. :D

I find this highly entertaining. Yes, because I'm a nerd.

According to dictionary.com:

• "PS" means "phrase structure."
  
• "ps" stands for "picoseconds."
  
• "Ps." is an abbreviation for "Psalms."
• "ps." can be either "pieces" or "pseudonym."
• If you want to abbreviate "postscript," your only options are "P.S." and "p.s."
  
• (In case you're wondering what you might possibly be mistaken for, even though you're right, "P.S." can also stand for "passenger steamer," "permanent secretary," "Privy Seal," "prompt side" (theater) and "public school."

I'm just sayin', is all.

Aren't abbreviations fun? I love them.

Sometimes, it's your FEARS that come true.

I was getting into the elevator down in the lobby this morning, and the heel of my shoe got stuck in the gap between the elevator and the floor! I don't know any woman that wears heels who hasn't worried about just this thing. But it was really stuck! The guy getting in behind me almost ran me over, but he stopped himself and waited while I yanked my shoe back out. It took a couple of tries, too. Tianna and I laughed all the way to our cube.

Tianna's Thoughts: Taken from Jessica's Head

So last night, I was wheeling a cart of books out to the car so we could take them back up to SLC. This one was in the top bin:Say what? I thought it was odd. Tianna pointed out that since we were taking it back, it must have already been processed and posted online. So I checked it out, and, sure enough, it's clippings from Georgia newspapers about people in/from Texas. So bizarre.

I am so smatr!

I just burned myself. How? By pouring boiling water on the palm of my hand. Was it an accident? Nope. I was putting a noodle on my hand so I could pop it in my mouth and see if the pasta's done. But I didn't want to grab it in my fingers; that'd be hot! So I poured it into the palm of my hand, out of the large metal spoon I was using to stir. Of course, there was a fair amount of boiling water on the spoon, too. This is why you should always use wooden spoons!

Weird Photos of Today

I've seen this car(?) in the parking lot here at work a few times now. I finally took pictures today.
So...weird, but not really blogworthy. Until you look at the hood:
Is this Sid's truck?

Moving on, I got Panda Express for lunch. (Actually, T picked it up for me since I was violently nauseous and afraid to go out into the heat.) Point is, I love their cream cheese rangoons. Really a lot. But now I'm a bit worried:
Is there something corrosive in them? They melted the styrofoam!

There's really no accounting for the way my mind works. I've stopped trying.

Sometimes my imagination does interesting things. In church today, I had several really entertaining thoughts occur to me, and I thought I'd share.

• I was reading in Helaman during Sacrament Meeting, and Helaman 1:12 says that Kishkumen was in disguise when he murdered Pahoran, and verse 10 talks about the speediness of his flight. I swear to you, the image that came into my mind was of a man in a toga (a reference to Julius Caesar, I guess) wearing those silly glasses with the nose and mustache attached, and probably the big bushy eyebrows, too. And as he fled around a corner, the glasses fell off, and a little bit later, a wig went flying on the wind. Who says the war chapters aren't entertaining?!
• In Alma 53:15, which was part of our Sunday School lesson, Helaman fears that the people of Ammon would lose their souls if they broke their covenant of peace. Unbidden, the thought came to my mind of dementors, acting as covenant-enforcers, of all things. Would we all take our covenants a bit more seriously under the threat of the Dementor's Kiss?
• Our lesson in Relief Society was on emergency preparedness, and Val, who was teaching, made reference to the ward "Emergency Leader...or whatever you call it." I pictured this girl organizing and executing major disasters, almost like a conductor leading a symphony. I could see her bringing in the earthquakes, supplementing that with fire and/or floods. Telling the assembled "instruments" that "I need a bit more from the famine section here." I guess it's a good thing that "Emergency Leader" isn't the actual technical title of the calling. That'd just be freaky.

I have been accused of silliness when I start imaging literal interpretations of things. Silliness, or bolts of creativity sent to lighten my mood? You decide.

Pleasant News

Ok. My job for the Church is a temporary one; it only lasts for 6 months. But it seems that I have made myself indispensable, so my boss and my boss' boss have been working on getting me a permanent job for the last few months. They tell me every couple of days that they're working on it as hard as they can. (I love Mike. He's the kind of manager who works really hard for his employees. I think he views his job as facilitating our work, instead of t'other way around. He's a dear.)

Well, he called me this morning. I didn't hear the phone, but I got his message before I left. He wanted me to call him. So I did, and he said that although They won't give him a permanent slot, They did concede a year-long internship. (They're still sorting out if this means a year from now, or a year from when I started, which would make it another 6 months.) But Mike is pretty optimistic about being able to get me a permanent job by then.

Ironically, my fortune cookie yesterday told me that "Soon, [I] will receive pleasant news." Tianna has decided that she truly believes these things now.

I've actually had my own cubicle and a brand new computer for a few weeks now. I thought it was highly entertaining that I had all this official, new equipment, but not a real job. :D

Anyway, Mike apparently called several people this morning before he found somebody that had my cell number. He called Tianna. He called Jeri. He called the missionaries here in Orem. Seems that he was really excited to tell me the good news. The coolest thing was when I got in here and told the missionaries. Sis. X said that Mike had called and asked her to have me call him when I got in. So she left me "a little note:"Tianna and I both laughed. Hard.

Today's actually been quite fun. So many people are so glad that they can keep me! It makes me feel really special, and really loved. It's awesome.

How do these things happen?

On our way to Annaleise's reception on Friday (a journey fraught with misdirection and circular driving, thanks to T), we saw the Coolest Road Sign(s) EVAR. Check this out:
Please note that 4430 North is also Jens Monson Ln. is also 9850 North. And that 900 West is also 4000 West. Seriously, what is going on here? Who thought this was a good idea? "Gee, I'm putting up a new street sign, but I'm not gonna take down the old one. Especially as they have conflicting information." I mean, really. Believe it or not, this is not where T and I got lost. She has no such excuse. :)

Coincidence, or really horrible irony?

I just smooshed a bug on my notebook. I am using this notebook to write out my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow, "Words of Hope and Consolation at the Time of Death." I think Heavenly Father is laughing at me.

I get a gold star!

It's true, I do! This is the note I left Tianna on her board last night before I left work. Because why? Because I WIN!

Here's the deal. I've been working on a lengthy and complicated project at work for several weeks now, and last night, I finished it! You want more details? Very well. (This will probably get far more technical than most of you care about, so feel free to pretend that this post ends right here.) We've got serials online in a collection, but we wanted them moved to new collections, separate for Localities and for Surnames. Now, it's impossible to just move a book; it has to be deleted and reloaded. In addition to moving these, we decided we wanted to group them by volume, rather than by issue, which is how they were previously done. So I had to get the original files and combine the issues into one volume. Then I had to do the tricky part: merge the metadata. This involved some very complex work with large spreadsheets. And everything had to be just right, or CONTENTdm would yell at me. Or, if not that, it would load properly but be all screwy, with the title in author field and whatnot. Needless to say, I learned a lot about these spreadsheets and the way they have to be compiled. This generally happens in the background when we process books, so it was rather new to me.

But I finished! I combined 308 issues into 116 volumes and successfully messed around with all the accompanying metadata. They're all online and beautiful, and I'm really quite proud of myself.

What is wrong with people?!

Dear Crazy Person,

I appreciate your determination to get in touch with whoever works in the cubicle in the next row. But you're calling an office at 6:30 on a Thursday night. I'd say the odds are good that if they didn't pick up any one of the first 37 times you called, they've probably gone home for the night. Please, for the love of all that is holy, desist calling here!

Sincerely,
Driven Nearly to Distraction

My Quest

So, in Orem, I actually sit in a co-worker's cubicle. She works from home, so she lets us use it. Anyway, there used to be a whiteboard here, propped against the wall. It still had the protective film over it and everything. Several weeks ago, a guy came along and asked if he could borrow it (we were pretty obviously not using it). We said sure, and he said that if we ever wanted it back, it would be in the conference room down the hall.

Well, last week, there was a lot of moving. Tianna officially moved her office from SLC to Orem, so she has her own cube across the way. (Don't worry; we still talk all the time, just louder. This is really a great service that we provide, letting more people in on our crazy conversations.) I got my own cubicle up in SLC, not far from my old one. I actually really like it; it's got more desk space, so T and I aren't so cramped. I also got a brand new computer, complete with new keyboard that is all clackety-clackety, which I really enjoy. But the key here is that I had a whiteboard of my very own now. And guess what? I realized that I actually have a use for it. I took all the information I had on various sticky notes and wrote it on the board. I was pleased. But, of course, this was only in SLC, where I now only work once a week.

I was therefore filled with a desire to have a whiteboard in Orem. But the conference room where my whiteboard now resided was locked. And we could see through the window that it had writing on it. AND we couldn't for the life of us remember who the guy was that took it, so we couldn't ask for it back. Was this the end of my dream? NO! Like anybody working for the Church in good standing, I decided that the obvious route to be taken was thievery. So I stole the whiteboard out of an unoccupied cubicle down the row from me. Way to represent!

It took some doing to get it set up, but we finally managed it. And now, I present the fulfillment of all my hopes and dreams for the last week:
I am seriously well pleased. :D

The secret to staying entertained while you're on the phone with tech support for an hour:

Wear cool earrings!


These are birds:
This is the best kind of spider: a dead one!
What a cute fishie!

Aww, a flower!

I dunno what these two are, but I think they look cool.

For when you just can't hold yourself up any longer

When I'm feeling particularly lousy, I usually walk into an elevator and go straight to the back, leaning my head and whole body against the back wall. I've got a killer headache today, so I did this, with the slight variation of going to the corner. And I thought to myself how cool it would be if everyone always did this. You'd get into an elevator and all the occupants would be facing the walls. And people would fight for the corners, since they're the "good spots." Wouldn't that be awesome?!

I wonder if anybody tracks these things. Am I gonna get in trouble?

I just saw this ad on a website, and I thought it was hilarious.My favorite part is the "Find a Bar" button. Just in case you're in the mood to get sloshed, but don't know where to go. But it got even better. I clicked on it. Problem is, I'm at work. In the Church Office Building. Yep, it was blocked. I got a screen saying that "Access to the website you requested is filtered by Church policy." I laughed. Hard.

It was just the pickup I needed, really. I'm so sick. I'm all stuffy and sneezy and basically lack the energy required for life. I seriously expect my lungs to just stop working, or my heart to stop beating. I'm so exhausted. So yeah, a laugh at a ridiculous ad was just the ticket.

[shudder]

Ok. So, we all know that spiders give me the creeping heebie-jeebies. Well, this morning, on our way to work, I'm driving along the road, Tianna in the passenger seat. I stop at a light, and notice, to my horror, a smallish spider dangling from a thread from the driver-side window, not far from the steering wheel. I immediately threw the door open and tried to get said spider outside by swinging my hand through the thread. Physics was not on my side, however, and this plot failed. Twice. Tianna, who had her headphones in listening to Harry Potter, was at a complete loss for what was going on. She caught up quick, though, when my third attempt to oust the spider from my domain failed miserably: it landed on my chest. There may have been whimpering at this point. Oh, and traffic started to move again, so I had to, too. Well, Tianna doesn't really like spiders, either. She was not about to grab the thing with her bare hands, and who can blame her? She asked if I had a tissue. I did: in my purse, in the back seat. I reached back for it and handed her the tissue, making incomprehensible noises of terror all the while. She bravely grabbed the spider and squooshed it. She even held on to the corpse-containing tissue until we got to work and she could throw it away. Tanna, you're my hero!

That's how Iike my irony!

I just received an email in which it had the word "type" when "typo" was intended. Brilliant.

A Test Program

So, I've been thinking about this for a while now. And I've decided that yes, my entertainment could stand some cleaning up. I've been abiding by the "no R-rated movies" rule for years, but I still probably watch a lot of movies and TV that I'd be better off without. See, I've always thought that the good justified the bad. But maybe the bad actually nullifies the good? Most of the time, I don't even remember the bad stuff; my brain seems to have an automatic filter that way. So then I go recommending movies to people who I know don't like a lot of swearing, only to find out that yeah, that movie did have an awful lot of swearing; I just forgot it. Anyway, this is another excuse I've used. I mean, how big an effect can the bad stuff have on you if you don't even remember it later on? But then, I've always struggled somewhat with my language; it's just so tempting to swear sometimes! But since I moved to Happy Valley, I hardly ever hear bad language at all. Except in my TV shows, my music, and my movies. Mayhap the reason I still think bad words so much is because I still hear them so much.

Anyway, I've decided to try and cut some of this stuff out of my life. This means a couple of TV shows I love. But I survived without them during the writers' strike, didn't I? And even after they came back, I found myself busy, even if it was just reading a book. Of course, I planned on catching up on them online, but still. As for movies, well, I haven't been watching a lot recently, except for the ones that I own. But I'm gonna try and avoid the ones with excessive amounts of swearing, violence, or crudity. Where is the line? I'm not sure. I don't really want to specify a rating level. But I'm gonna clean it up. I need to be more willing to stop watching a movie or even reading a book if I find out it's not good. I recently read a series of books that were completely clean until the fourth volume. Well, by then, I was so sucked into the storyline and the characters that I read it anyway. I shouldn't have. There was no overarching value or worth to the series; it was just entertainment.

So, in a nutshell: I'm gonna do my best to raise my standards a bit in this area. For now, this is a test. But if I don't actually die, I imagine I'll keep it up. :D

Just don't ask me what happened on House.

Wyoming is beautiful, by the way.

So, I spent this weekend in Idaho again. Tianna's second reception was up there on Friday night, so I drove up that afternoon. Saturday morning, we all went to the Museum of Idaho to see their latest exhibit, World of the Pharaohs. Saturday night, we went up to Jackson Hole to see the Bar J Wranglers perform and have dinner. Then on Sunday, T's nephew was being blessed, so I stayed for that, too. After a celebratory lunch, I caravaned back to Utah with the newlyweds. We stopped at BJ's family's house for dinner and to open gifts. I finally made it home a two o'clock this morning. It was a long weekend.

Enough of the boring stuff! It wasn't only a long weekend; it was also filled with bizarrity. So now, for your reading pleasure, a list of oddness I encountered on my trip:

• strange stores I passed:
• the House of Hose
• The Dam Store (located, predictably, near a dam)
• Stinker Stores, complete with skunk logo
• my favorite: The Midnight Taxidermist (Seriously, if you have an animal you need stuffed so badly you can't wait until morning, well, we just don't have anything in common.)
• I drove by a farmer (cowboy hat and all) sitting on a riding lawnmower out by the road; not moving or anything, just sitting there.
  
• There's a Potato Museum! Those crazy Idahoans.
• I spent quite a while behind a car with a skull on the back window; this was special because the skull was flipping me off with both hands.
• After hearing about it for so long, I finally got to pay over $4/gallon for gas! Thrice, actually.
• a couple of fun signs:
• "Game Crossing." Yes, I am well aware of what was actually intended (I'm not that much of a city girl), but I swear that when I read it, I pictured Monopoly, Scrabble, Twister, and the like toddling across the road. Try it! It's a funny image.
• In front of a handicap parking space: "Stupidity is not considered to be a handicap. Park somewhere else."
• I actually saw, with my own eyes, square ice cream. (We didn't get any because the line was forever long and we were on a schedule. But it looked cool!)
• On my way up, I'm driving through the middle of nowhere, right? I mean, there's just nothing around except the highway. Well, perhaps as a marker that this was, in fact, the Middle of Nowhere, there are these two street lights. One after another. Just sittin' there. No others for miles and miles in either direction. Odd.
• fond memories that were brought back to me:
• On the way home, we spent over an hour stuck in construction near Ogden. I saw a couple of cars pulled off to the side (tricky, when you're surrounded by orange barrels), and it reminded me of a time I was driving home to Texas. I was stuck in construction, in either Oklahoma or Arkansas. Not sure which. Well, I wasn't really stuck; we were crawling along at about 5 mph. I looked down at my left leg and saw a huge spider on it! Its body was at least the size of a quarter, and it had very kind and helpful neon yellow markings on it to let me know that it could kill me. It was situated just below my knee, and I promptly started to freak out. But what could I do? There was nowhere to pull over, and I couldn't just stop. I could brush it off my leg, but then it would be loose in my car, an idea not to be born. So I stayed very still (as still as it's possible to keep your left leg when you're driving stick, anyway) and waited until I got out of the construction and could pull over. This was quite the test of my composure, let me tell you. But I was so relieved to finally get rid of it!
• I passed a billboard advertising My Turn on Earth, available for sale at a bookstore. I saw this movie for the first time last year, and I am now scarred for life. Particularly as regards a certain lullaby that my mother always sang to me but never told me came from the most ridiculous, cheesy movie EVAR. When it started to play, I had a very violent reaction, let me tell you.
• I mentioned the construction traffic nightmare. Well, BJ and Tianna and I conversed a few times during said madness, and a new game was born. Freeway Karaoke! Just roll down your windows, hold out a sign telling your neighborly sufferers to tune to a certain station, and everybody sing along! Sadly, no, we didn't actually try this. If everybody was as near to insanity as I was (I am quite certain you can only push the clutch in and out so many times in an hour before you go stark raving mad), it probably wouldn't have been received very well. But it was a fabulous idea.
  
• I also learned how to signal an "S.O.S." with my headlights. Needless to say, nobody came to my rescue.

The weirdest things happen to me at fast-food joints.

Ok, so T and I went out to run some errands this morning, right? Well, we were hungry, so we decided to stop at McDonald's for lunch. As I was getting out of the car, my flipflop broke!This was very sad, since, as we all know, McDonald's forbids entrance if you're barefoot. What to do? Obviously, pretend it will stay on my foot (which, of course, it didn't). But I had Tianna call BJ and invite him to join us. And bring me another pair. Which, of course, he did. And since we still had to go to the grocery store, this was a good thing.

Other weird thing that happened to me today: I opened up a bottle of creme soda, and it exploded all over me! And the floor. And the chair. Interestingly enough, my first instinct was to try and hold the foam in by pressing my hands around the neck of the bottle. This failed miserably, to everyone's great shock. Hours later, I realized that my hands were still sticky. Don't worry: I have washed them again, and they are now clean.

Good Times & Happy Hearts

I just returned from dinner at Cracker Barrel. What a trip down memory lane! My family used to stop at these restaurants frequently on our road trips (Dad's from the South and loves their down-home country food). Afterward, we'd proceed to coerce our parents into buying us something we absolutely needed from the store. I was actually able to look around and pick out which things each of us would have chosen as children. It was fun. And I got to buy one of my all-time favorite candies! These fruit-flavored slices are coated in sugar, and they're exquisite. I'm rather excited to eat them, truth be told.

But the coolest part, by far, was when I saw this book:I cannot tell you how excited I was! This book was an integral part of my childhood. I can remember my mom reading it to me, as well as reading it many times on my own once I learned to read. I flipped through it and enjoyed the stories all over again. (T may have been laughing at me the whole time. Whatever.) It was amazing! I was sorely tempted to buy it, but I know I could get it for a lot cheaper in a normal bookstore. But oh, how the sight of this book lifted my heart!

Professionalism

Ok, so we had this big division-wide, mandatory-attendance meeting this morning. We're doing some reorganizing. But that's not the cool part. The cool part was when our Head of Division was up in front, just getting started on his presentation. He had his laptop hooked up to a projector and was doing the PowerPoint thing. A couple of slides in, a window pops up for him to accept the iTunes licensing agreement. He physically jumped back, then looked at us a bit sheepishly. "I fully expect none of you to have iTunes on your work computers." We all laughed at him. "And, just so you know, it's all classical and Mormon Tabernacle Choir. [pause] Bob down here is looking at me like he doesn't believe me." We laughed more. Then, about five minutes before the meeting ended, his cell phone started ringing! It was awesome.

Things Found in "My" Desk

*Okay, it's not actually my desk. It's the desk I sit at. Whatever.

• 2 plastic spoons
• pens/pencils
• Silly Putty
• 3 sets of earplugs in a nice plastic case
• toothpaste
• $0.51 in change
• Post-Its
• velcro strips
• 1 tablet of asthma medication that expired in June 2006
• an electric fan
• business cards
• whip
• soundtrack to God's Army
• extra computer memory cards
• bike lock
• manicure set
• can opener (the hand-crank kind)
• toothbrush
• moist towelette
• salt in a baggie with a 1/8-tsp. measuring spoon
• scissors
• pushpins
• an empty case for heaven-only-knows-what

So no, I take no responsibility for any of these items. But I am allowed to use them, so don't give me a reason to get that whip out!

Optimism I Can Live With

This appeared on the wall at work this week. I kind of like it.

Snowflakes are for pretty!

It's things like this that make me all kinds of happy. Even when I'm headachy and trippy from all the Excedrin I've taken today. If you know me well, you'll immediately understand why. If you don't...well, you probably won't care.

Theological Discussions at My House

Jess: I have a hole in my pants.
BJ: They're holy pants!
Jess: Does that make this a holy patch of skin?
BJ: No...skin isn't really holy.
Jess: It's porous.
BJ: It's...micro-holy!

Awww...fer cute.

It's always good to know that someone cares.

I'm in no mood for fun, T!

I am in a lousy mood. (Also, I just noticed how the word "louse" is in "lousy." Does this mean that my mood actually contains lice? I sure hope not. But if it did, I'm not sure how much worse it could really get.) I'm pretty grouchy. Why? No idea. I just am. I'm tired and work is being retarded and I just wanna go home. But I'm supposed to work for another 3 hours. [whimper]

I'm actually pouting at my screen right now. Nothing better around to pout at, y'know? (For all those of you who might be wondering, no, this is not the "cute" fake pout I've sometimes been accused of. I'm in a rotten mood and I mean it.) And I just feel...meh. It probably doesn't help that I'm actually waiting for a migraine. My vision went all funny earlier, and while it's possible that was due to having not eaten, it's more likely that it was the first symptom of a migraine on the way. And now my vision is back to normal, so I'm waiting. I mean, I might not get a migraine. Visual symptoms are unusual enough for me that I don't have the details all pinned down yet. But it's really far more likely that I will get one. And I'm hardly in the mood to be optimistic about this.

So, what to do? Stick it out here? Go home and hijack T's work laptop? At least then I'll be at home, out of this wretched skirt and nylons. And then when the migraine hits, I won't have to go anywhere. I could even get ice cream on the way. Of course, that would require movement on my part, and I'm hardly in the mood for that, either.

Hmmmm...I wonder if I can imagine a scenario that would improve my mood. What if the man of my dreams came to rescue me from my workplace and we could start a whirlwind romance? Blah. In this mood, I'd probably smack him for being annoying. Now, if a good friend were to come and coax me into mobility and a movie at home, that might work better. If there was ice cream. And it was the right sort of movie. Not completely sure what sort that is, though; laughing would undoubtedly help, but it'd take a lot to get me going right now. A sad movie may actually suit better.

Of course, imagining it doesn't make it so. Guess I'll have to coax myself into mobility. Hate that. Is it too much to ask to be coddled every once in a while? It gets old, providing your own comfort. Also, it just doesn't work as well.

[Sigh.] I think I will head home soon. Then I can at least derive some pleasure from hiding out in my room. It's hard to feel like you're hiding when you're in a cubicle in the middle of a huge room with bright overheads. This is really a curl-up-in-the-corner kind of mood.

And if any of you have actually read this far and are now feeling depressed and suicidal, I apologize. Go get some ice cream and curl up in a corner. It's good for the soul.