Pancake day (1 week late)

I ate a Lean Cuisine today that I had put in the mini fridge freezer in my office quite awhile ago. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now my stomach is making weird noises. It does say "No Preservatives" in big letters on the front of the box and it did have a fairly flourishing patch of freezer burn all over the top. I have vowed to bring my lunch everyday this week and when I was packing up this morning, I was a bit rushed and distinctly remembered putting that baked chicken with corn and fake mashed potatoes in there. What was I supposed to do?

I think there is a ghost in the bathroom at work. One of the automatic faucets in there keeps going off even though no one is activating it (my stomach just made a weird noise again). I was sitting in a stall, minding my own business, thinking I was alone the first time it happened. It's really cold in there, too. I wonder if anyone else has noticed it. Too bad there are no other women in this office.

I keep finding tiny holes in the bottoms of my shirts. I think it's like 4 or 5 of them now. Maybe it's the washing machine? Or the detergent? Whatever it is, I don't care for it. I really don't want to buy new clothes right now. I'm too fat and I'm waiting for the boot camp activities to kick in before new garments are purchased. I'm off to join the gym tonight. LA Fitness - they have nighttime yoga classes which is great when you have no daylight hours to yourself.

I've been working on the weekends for one of our clients. The nice thing about it besides the extra money is the items one acquires while assisting someone with good taste in a bit of early spring cleaning.

Tomorrow is free pancake day at IHOP. I realize that 3 pancakes are not that expensive and are basically available to me whenever I may need them, but I am surprisingly excited about this event. I've already sent the word out to several people and I'm pretty sure I've amassed a free pancake posse. This is probably going to be the most exciting thing that happens to me this week. Sad or awesome? You decide.

The Oscars

If District 9 wins a single Academy Award, I am changing professions.

Terrible Headshots - Vol. 5

One is better than four. Unless the one is that bottom photo.

Don't text me, I'll text you

I've decided that sending important news via text message is NOT okay. Recently, I've had several friends end relationships through the magic of text message. In fact, I received a rather hilariously passive one myself this morning. There is an episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry debates whether he can break up with a girl over the phone or if he has to do it in person. Elaine tells him if they've slept together then he has to do it in person. I know that this show was written in the 90s, but I think that this standard should still apply. You can't break up over TEXT! I will admit that I am just as guilty of hiding behind technology as the next person. To be honest, the text I got this morning was in response to an email I had sent. It is so much easier to press "send" at the top of an email than to confront someone face to face. Just to get my point across, I "unfriended" on Facebook. This way, the offending party knows I mean business, but it requires very little pain and suffering on my part. And, it leaves the door wide open for them to speculate what exactly my problem might be. Through these new methods of communication, we are able to avoid so much disappointment and we have a record of EXACTLY what we "said." The bad thing is, when you avoid actually having a conversation, you aren't able to see the other person's face and you don't get to know what their initial reaction is. Most likely, the first version of the text/email is different from the one that is actually sent. Catherine and I spend good chunks of time composing the perfect text response for various occasions. Not only have you completely avoided hearing the person's voice, you've probably had their side of the conversation in your own stupid head.
If this is the kind of behavior coming from someone who grew up without a cellphone and who was alive before the internet was invented, what's going to happen to the poor socially-retarded younger set?
I am resolving to to only convey important info verbally. Or I'll at least send a handwritten letter.
And I'll try to stop saying, "info."

Let's talk about EARTHQUAKES

Recently, there has been quite a bit of tectonic plate movement on this fair earth of ours. As a resident of Southern California, I'm mildly concerned by all this activity. Just in the past week, there have been 2 in towns through which BFF and I traveled on our recent holiday trip. Today, there was a pretty big one in Haiti. And, apparently, for the past several months, the border of California and Mexico has had an unusually high number of earthquake swarms.
I have felt 2 earthquakes in the past 3 years. Or ever in my life, I suppose. The first one shook my office building and I almost hid under my desk and the second one was barely noticeable. Because of all this first hand experience, I think I can expertly say that earthquakes are fucking frightening and I don't want to be here when the shit goes down.
I've been researching earthquake survival kits. It seems that the best option is to compile your own. The prepackage ones you can buy online come with "food bars." These are NOT Luna bars, people. They are these weird little squares that apparently can sustain an adult human for 3 days. They appear to be made of cardboard and, according to the packaging, taste lemon-y.
One blogger suggested peanut butter and jelly and crackers. A friend of mine keeps a giant bag of shelled peanuts in her closet. I'm going to continue my research and when I put together my own kit this weekend, I'll post a list. Hopefully, nothing will happen between now and then.
Despite the levity in parts of this post, earthquakes are not a joke. My most positive thoughts are being sent to Haiti today.

Blue Cake

Today, as I was walking down a hill in the park, making my way toward the daily humiliation that is boot camp, I spied a curious object: folded up against a tree was half of a bright blue birthday cake on an aluminum cake pan. There was a design on the cake which included words, but they had been smeared and were thus illegible. I was staring down at my own sneaker clad feet, wondering how in the hell they had brought me to this place for yet another morning's worth of pain and suffering and then - a blue birthday cake. A couple things struck me immediately - #1. why hadn't any of the homeless people who clearly sleep in the park eaten the rest of this cake, and #2 - how difficult would it have been for the celebratory party to take the rest of the cake home? I've spend most of the day pondering how that blue cake and I crossed paths this morning. Did a mom get mad and leave it on purpose? Did someone drop it so it landed perfectly against that tree? Did the birthday boy's sibling try to hide it out of jealousy? Was the other half eaten by a family of willpower-less diabetics who did not trust themselves to have half a chocolate cake in the house? Had it happened late at night and none of the homeless people had seen it by 7am? If I was homeless, would l want to eat discarded blue frosted birthday cake? Was I an asshole for even thinking that?
I'm going to walk the exact same way tomorrow morning and see what's up. I bet at least a dog tried to eat it. Likely, a maintenance worker threw it in an actual trash receptacle at some point today.
Hopefully, I'll find something equally intriguing.

New Year's Boot Camp

Dear Steph, Happy New Year!!! Hope you enjoy getting up before the sun and being tortured in the public square 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Because that's what's going to happen to you! Sincerely, The Universe.

Today I started some terrible thing called Morning Crunch Boot Camp. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I actually paid for it. It happens at 7:15am in Pan Pacific Park. I have very mixed feelings about what happened this morning. I should start by saying that by the end I was shaking and near vomiting. That means it's working, right? How in the world am I going to actually make it again tomorrow? My body became sore approximately 4 minutes into my drive home. It's actually quite difficult to move my hands to type right now.

In happier news, I had a delightful holiday touring the West side of the country with my BFF. We only almost died once or twice. I can't say I get the appeal of Portland. It's nice enough, but I don't know what all the fuss is about. They do, however, have amazing happy hours. Once I am feeling better, perhaps I will share some more antidotes from our adventure. Sadly, BFF had to go back to Austin today. I hate it when that time arrives. The party is officially over. Actually, I will be throwing a party in 5 weeks to celebrate my liberation from this hell camp. Excuse me, Boot Camp. I better look good at the end. Do you hear that, Universe?