The GirlAlive Blog

The last few days have been full of rodent urine for me and my husband.  Neil takes care of the guinea pigs because I'm allergic to them.  Just today Elvis peed on him.  I take care of the hamsters, and Nobby pees on me as a hobby.  Several times a week.  I think I have the better deal because hamsters have much smaller bladders.

Have I mentioned that I hate my job?  I requested a temporary reduction in work hours, and my boss had, according to policy, 21 days to respond.  It's been 23 days.  24 on Monday.  So that's one more for the checklist of reasons for filing a grievance when they finally reject my request. 

My job is boring.  I hate maternity coding.  My boss thinks she's a kindergarten teacher.  The person "in charge" of maternity has the IQ of a mushroom.  I very much need a new job.

I've sent in applications and resumes and stuff all over town.  Most of them never even bother replying.  I think I'm unemployable.  I have a history degree.  What can that get me?  You'd think maybe one of the dozens of museum jobs I've applied for.  But no.  I have experience as a software tester and an HTML writer.  But it was a couple years ago so it doesn't count.  I'm forever branded as "medical paperwork girl".  I hate medical paperwork.  I hate working with people who are glad to have worked their way up into medical paperwork.  

The only good news I have at the moment, other than the comedy of my husband being peed on by Elvis, is that I finally got plane tickets to go back to visit my family in the US.  I haven't been in the US in years.  I miss Americans.  I miss people with morals and being able to afford to eat in a restaurant.  I miss root beer.  I want to go home.  Too bad I don't really have one.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 08:02 PM | Permalink

So what are the kids listening to these days?  At my office, we have the radio on all day, but it is on an inoffensive middle of the road pop station where I get to hear a lot of Queen and Britney Spears.  To be fair, they play a good amount of stuff that isn't terrible, but I am starting to feel disconnected from good music.

Back In The Day, when I lived in Seattle, I hung out with all the cool people and most of my friends were musicians or promoters or in some way connected to good music.  I was friends with the guys from Poor Old Lu and with Damien Jurado and some of the guys from Pedro the Lion.  

The last bunch of music I acquired was a Leigh Nash cd, a few cd's of Over the Rhine, Fair (Aaron Sprinkle's new band) and The Killers and I downloaded the free cd from This Diminishing West. 

What am I missing?  What is going on back in the real world that I'm missing over here in the land of techno and pop?  I desperately miss living in a country that doesn't give a crap about Robbie Williams.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a very long time:

Food Court Musical (still can't get anything embedded). 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our washing machine is dead.  It's been dying for some time, and the final blow that killed it was when someone (I'm not naming names, but he is married to me) put the guinea pig cage bedding (towels and fleece) into the washer without shaking the poop and hay out first.  Just so you know, this was a Bad Thing.  So now we're re-wearing clothes and the guinea pigs have wood chip bedding until we can get a new washer sometime later this week.

I still hate my job.  I applied to have my week shortened to four days, but my boss implied that her boss is going to probably turn it down.  So it's going to dissolve into a horrible hell of grievance filing and union complaints because the main reason I want a shortened week is because there isn't enough work to keep me busy for five days a week.

The hamsters are growing up and getting a bit less twitchy now.  Nobby fell asleep in the bend of my elbow last night.  They're turing out to be very cute and sweet little rodents.

I noticed yesterday that I have a varicose vein.  But here's the weird part: it's on my finger.  I have one swollen itchy vein on the ring finger of my left hand.  It is not fun.

Have to go to work.   Grr.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)