The GirlAlive Blog

2008 has been one of those "Best of times, worst of times" kind of years. Let's briefly look back.

In January, my hamster Binky died. He was a sweet little hamster and I missed him a lot. His death led to the later purchase of two Chinese dwarf hamsters (Dru and Fred) and a Syrian named Jayne. It says a lot about Binky that we ended up with three hamsters to replace him.

From January until April I worked at a hospital. It was one of the worst jobs I ever had, and I've been a telemarketer, and I used to scrub my laxative-addicted grandmother's toilet for cash. In April I stopped going to that job. Some of the crappy jobs I've had, I look back and think, "The work was crap, but I really do miss the people I worked with." This was not one of those jobs. There are maybe 3 people from that office that I don't actively hate. I considered sending them all a gift-wrapped box of fresh dog poop for Christmas, but in the end decided that they are not worth the postage, the gift wrap, or the dog crap.

In June my grandfather's girlfriend (or whatever he prefers to call her) passed away from breast cancer. She was the second companion he lost to breast cancer, and it has been a hard blow to him and the family.

In late June, my favorite guinea pig Homer got sick. Well, sicker. He had some kind of chronic kidney problems, probably for about 6 to 9 months before that. I brought him to the vet and did all I could, but in early July he passed away. On the same day, a close family friend, Don Granholm, lost his long hard battle with colon cancer. Maybe Don is taking care of Homer up in heaven.

In later July, I had the first unsuccessful attempt to extract my broken molar. It was unpleasant.

In August, I started my new job. The work is terribly boring, but I love my co-workers. They are all fantastic, bright, clever and intelligent. They accept me for the slightly odd person that I am. Whenever it reaches the time that I leave this job, I genuinely will miss them all. They are the main reason I've even stayed in this country all the way to the end of this year. They have shown me that there are decent people here. They give me hope that someday I might actually feel at home on this damp frigid island.

In September, I went to Minnesota and visited my family and friends. I got to see most of the people I love and miss, like my friends (Sara and Sharla and Mark) and my family (even my cousin Raeanne who came all the way from Louisiana to see me). I finally got to meet my brother's twin babies, Zach and Rissa. They are cute on my brother's blog, but they are way cuter in person. My mom threw me a great party, with the help of my cousin Pedro. It was fun, but there was a bit if a Don-shaped hole missing from it. When I saw his family, I really missed him. I had a great time in general, in spite of having to enter the hell that is the Amsterdam airport. I didn't want to come home.

Upon my return, my tooth was finally successfully extracted. Thus proving that my dentist is incompetent, but not all British dentists are.

The year ended, as they so often do, with Christmas. I got some cool stuff. Neil's family got us Need For Speed Undercover. I got a fabulous cookbook and a knitting pattern book. We had steaks and pumpkin cheesecake, but the cheesecake recipe needs some work. I think more cheese and a more solid crust.

My husband got me a sweater for my birthday, and we had chocolate cake and Chinese food.

Yeah, there was an election in America. Celebrities did things and looked stupid. It was a year, and there is bound to be another one any time now. And I still miss Homer.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At work, some of the international offices have been sending holiday messages to the other offices. In the UK and the US we are encouraged to say Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings, so we don't offend anyone who is Jewish or Muslim or whatever. So which office was the first to break that unwritten rule and wish everyone Merry Christmas? The office in Jerusalem. That's awesome.

I'm not particularly into Christmas this year. After going back home for a visit a few months back, Christmas just seems like a shiny tinsel-covered reminder of all the people I wish I could see at Christmas. And just after Christmas is my birthday. I'm going to be 32. It feels like I'm crossing that line from "you're still young and you've still got time" into "if you want to have kids you'd better get working on it now." It's gone from all my brother's friends who are a few years older than me having kids to all my friends who are 5 years younger than me having kids. I'm getting old.

I've been trying to get into the Christmas spirit. I loaded my mp3 player with Christmas music, only to find that half of it is deeply depressing and the other half is boring or annoying.

At least I've got some time off work. I have some projects I need to work on around here.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Morale is an abstract idea that is difficult to grasp or define. But at the same time, we all know when morale has declined. Turnover rates sky-rocket. Sick leave increases. In some cases, people even end up taking time off for mental illness. Everyone can tell when a team is disgruntled, but most of the time managers have no idea why. They see that staff are angry and leaving for other jobs, and are quick to blame the workers for being "disloyal".

The first reaction of most managers when morale has declined is to try to do something to raise morale. This is not the right reaction because it does not address the root of the morale decline. Morale did not decline because of something management didn't do. Your team didn't become surly because you haven't brought them paintballing lately. The fact is, 9 times out of 10, a decline in morale is due to something management did.

What new policies have you enacted lately? What do these policies communicate to your team? These are the questions you need to answer to address a decline in morale. In every work situation I have seen that had a serious decline in morale -- the kind that leads to high turnover rates and the remaining staff doing only the "bare minimum" to get by -- the key to improving morale is asking the staff to complete this statement: "I would have worked harder if you hadn't..."

You see, most lower level staff like data entry clerks and data processors have dead-end jobs. Managers may not see it that way, but the employees do. There are few places to go from there, and only one in ten of them will ever rise into management. Therefore, the only motivation they have to put in extra work and go the extra mile to get things done beyond the bare minimum necessary to stay employed is if they genuinely like and respect their manager and they want to see their manager succeed. And most managers would be surprised at how quickly they can destroy that respect and trust.

So let's look at some of the answers to the statement I mentioned. These are all real examples from real jobs where I or someone I know has worked.

I would have worked harder if you hadn't:

* waited until the last minute to give me an assignment you knew about for months.
* stood behind me and nit-picked while I worked.
* banned food/coffee at my desk, without any attempt at logical compromise.
* ignored your own rules while expecting me to follow them.
* talked to me like I was a 5-year-old, including the phrase, "That's a no-no."
* yelled at me for visiting the company's own web site.
* banned talking during certain hours.
* forced me to work overtime, without giving the option of doing it voluntarily.
* timed my tea breaks to the minute.
* monitored my toilet breaks.
* refused vacation requests for no reason.
* paid me less than the new trainees, after I had worked there for two years.
* given me unrealistic goals and quotas.
* refused to listen when I told you an idea wouldn't work.
* yelled at me for "being late" when I work flexi-time.

What do all these policies and actions have in common? They show a lack of respect and understanding for the employees. They are managers showing off how important they are and how they can be pro-active with new policies, without any regard for their staff as people. Remember, if staff isn't happy and isn't producing good work, their manager will fail much harder because of it than the staff will. At the end of the day a manager will be judged by the productivity of the staff. Enacting policies that disrespect staff may look like a way of increasing productivity on the surface, but in the end, if morale falls, productivity falls. Policies that respect your staff as the intelligent adults that they are is the best way to increase productivity.

If you're a line manager, you're probably thinking, "That's not fair. I'm just passing down the policies and instructions I've been given." It doesn't matter to the people under you. If you tell them that you are only passing down instructions from above, they will not respect your manager for coming up with the idea, and they will not respect you for failing to stand up for them against a bad idea.

At the end of the day, the "golden rule" applies in the office as much as anywhere. Do to your employees only what you would want your boss to do to you. Do you want to be monitored like a prison inmate? Do you want to be scolded like a school child? Then do not do those things to your staff.

Before you enact a new rule or a new office policy, ask yourself what that policy communicates to your staff. Does it communicate trust and respect? Or does it just communicate that you want them to know that you are the boss? Keeping these things in mind are key to morale and productivity. Remember that you cannot get the best quality of work from a team that hates working under you. When you abuse your staff, you are sabotaging your own career, and reducing the value of your stock options. Nice managers are successful managers.

Posted by Alana at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Things I'm thankful for today (in no particular order):

* Tesco Cold Relief Capsules. My cold is back with a vengeance. I think I tried to do too much when I was still sick before, and now this virus is totally kicking my ass.

* My job. I was not made for office work. I hate sitting in a cubicle. I hate the random rules that serve no purpose but to make middle managers feel important. The whole atmosphere makes my skin crawl. But for a cubicle job, my current job isn't too bad. My co-workers are awesome. I have lower pay, but I did the math and the amount I'm making less than my last job is almost compensated by the amount I'm not having to spend on bottled water and coffee because they are now supplied for free.

* My brother, and his taste in music. When my computer was stolen I was able to get back a good deal of my lost music from my brother, without having to dig through two dizen dusty boxes to find cd's and re-rip all of them onto MP3. He saved me hours and hours of work. Including most of the Christmas music I really like. Plus, he gave me an Over the Rhine Christmas cd for an early Christmas present. :) (Also, tomorrow is his birthday, so happy birthday Matthew!)

* My trip to Minnesota in September. We had a Thanksgiving dinner with my family when I was there, so I don't feel so bad about the half-assed thanksgiving dinner I'm going to be throwing together on Sunday because I'm too sick (and too busy working) on Thanksgiving.

* My husband. He is very tolerant. I don't think I'll ever understand why he insists on staying married to me.

Posted by Alana at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Alana at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I haven't been posting cause I've been in Minnesota.  I'll give a more detailed summary of what I did there when I can think a bit more clearly.  I spent a very long time on an airplane, and I somehow lost Tuesday.  Plus, I learned that there is absolutely nothing that I don't hate about Amsterdam airport.  It is a model of inefficiency with all the charm and beauty of an abandoned warehouse.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some more options for a tattoo for me:

Tom Servo

Another squid

The Collator by Eric Joyner

A peacock with some cherry blossoms (sorry, I don't have a good example)

Or post something else, like if you find a really cool picture of Godzilla or something.

Anyway, comment on this post or the last one and let me know what you think.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Okay, so I want to get a new tattoo on my upper right arm while I'm in the US because tattoos are cheaper there.  I have a bunch of ideas of what I'd like, but I haven't decided.  Here are some of my top options. 

Super Grover

Godzilla

A squid with some googly fish

These are all designs that represent who I am pretty well, I think.  But I'm not sure which to go with.  Or if I should opt for something entirely different.

Let me know what you think.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 06:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For the 57th time this year, I'm all stuffed up and my ears are plugged to the point of deafness.  (My dad is mostly deaf, so I always stress when I have ear problems, more than most people would.)

It's cold and raining.  Again.

I can only breathe through one nostril.

Got my final paperwork from my old job.  I think they underpaid me, but I hate everyone there and don't want to deal with them so I won't bother.

Need a vacation.  Except that planning a vacation is part of what's stressing me out.  

Alana

Posted by Alana at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got up late and realized that my bus pass expired yesterday.  So I had to dig through the change bucket to find bus fare and then planned to go to the newsagent to renew the bus pass after work.

Went to the newsagent, and it is shut down.  Penicuik went from having one inconvenient place to refill a bus pass to having no place to refill a bus pass,.  

So I went to the grocery store to spend some money and at least get some change.  I bought a bag of something labeled "Twiglets" with the description "crunchy savoury wholewheat snacks."  I brought them home and opened up the bag.  With no warning anywhere but the ingredient list, it turns out they're marmite flavored.  I can't eat them.  Maybe I can scatter them in the garden to repel slugs or something.

It has been a sucky day.  Now I have to go find something to kill the lingering flavor of diseased ass from my mouth.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I've got nothing new to share on the topic of my stolen computer.  We're still waiting to find out if the insurance company will help me get a new one or not.  In the meantime, I'm stuck using my tiny computer.  It's a good little computer (an Asus EEE pc), but I can't play many games on it, and some web sites don't work.

I did something stupid at work and screwed stuff up and had to re-do about an hour's worth of work, along with making a bunch of work for one of the data managers.  Made me feel like a stupid piece of crap, but I think I got it all fixed.

I've been obviously a bit depressed.  I'm getting a bit better.  I've been looking at maybe going to Napier University next year to get a Master's degree.  I'm tired of being the loser of the family.  All my old friends have advanced degrees and real careers, and I'm a data entry clerk, earning just above fast food money.

One of the few web sites that mostly works on my tiny computer is YouTube.  So I've been there a lot.  I mentioned my new obsession with Weezer a few weeks ago, and that led me to this video, which is awesome cause it has both Weezer and the Muppets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4mDIpYHxWY 

Okay, so that's 100% awesome, with the Weezer and the Muppets and everything.  But then I started following links on the side and wandering around in general, and came upon this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NHPrYcJpo

It is a girl called Julia Nunes, and she's awesome.  I almost like her version better than Weezer.  Almost.  I encourage you to go to her YouTube account and check out some of the other songs.  I especially like her version of Mr. Brightside by The Killers.  I tried to buy her album, but paypal does not like my tiny computer.  

I like Julia Nunes so much I even took my ukulele out and fixed the tuning heads and got it all tuned and playable.  Of course, I still can't play the thing.  I think my fingers are too fat for a tiny guitar.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the moment, I'm feeling very directionless.  I don't like living where I am.  I'm far outside the city, in a very white trash suburb.  We live almost an hour outside the city, but at the same time live so close to all our neighbors that we have no privacy.  So it's all the disadvantages of a suburb, combined with all the disadvantages of the inner city.

I don't know where I want to live.  I miss Seattle, but I don't think I'll ever be able to live there again.  It's looking more and more like I'm stuck in the UK.  I don't know if there is anyplace in this country that I would like living.  

I don't know what I want to do for a living.  My current job is okay, but it's only a one year contract.  And besides that, I was sitting in a meeting today, and halfway through I was struck with a panicky certainty that I just don't belong in a cubicle.  The thought of dealing with the structure of an office environment for the next 35 years literally makes me suicidal.  If I'm going to spend half of my waking hours for the rest of my life in an office, I just don't see a point to continuing it.  I don't fit there.  

Truth is, I don't fit anywhere.  I have no useful skills.  I'm too much of an artist to work in an office, but not enough of an artist to actually make a living at it.  

Right now, between not knowing what to do and not knowing where to go, pretty much the only time I'm not frustrated and depressed is when I'm asleep.  Maybe I could be a good coma patient.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In September, I'm leaving my house and all my rodents in the capable hands of my in-laws, and going back to the US for about two weeks.  If any of you want to know more details about where I'll be and when, I'm trying to organize some stuff through Facebook.  So add me as a friend on Facebook, if you know me well enough to know my name and email address and everything.  I will probably only accept friend requests from people I know in real life, or at least vaguely remember from high school.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I started my new job today.  It seems pretty good.  Unlike my last job, they actually knew I'd be starting and had things ready for me.  I even could get into the computer on the first day.  And I got my ID badge and everything.  And they have free coffee, which I am allowed to drink at my desk.  It is a lot like the health insurance company I worked for back in the US, but nicer.  Nicer because it's just a small branch office of a large corporation, so it's friendlier than working at a location with several hundred employees. 

I wasn't sure what I was coming into, so I wore long sleeves to hide the scars and tattoos.  By lunch time, I figured that it wouldn't be a problem.  Just in my small working team, there are at least two others with tattoos.  And casual Friday actually means casual, with jeans and stuff.  No one seems to care if I wear comfortable shoes.

It's a good thing I did wear comfortable shoes because I have about a 15 minute walk to get from my office to the bus stop to get home.  But it's a nice walk through mostly quiet wooded areas.  I could catch a bus right outside the office, but it wouldn't take me all the way home, and that bus is only once an hour.  

So I'm getting more exercise, whether I like it or not.  My doctor is happy about that, but I'm just tired.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been thinking about cowards lately.  As a Christian I'm supposed to forgive, but that's the thing I struggle the most with forgiving.  I really don't like cowards.

It's a specific kind of cowards that I hate.  There's a kind of grudge that I carry which is a grudge that always says, "I gave you every chance to tell me the truth and you were too cowardly to just say what you think."  Let me give you some examples.

My first boyfriend was named Jason.  (In my life, a lot of assholes have been named Jason, but that's another story.)  We knew each other on the internet before we met in person.  I had plans to take a trip to The South to visit him, but in the month or so before my trip, he was acting distant and weird.  I asked him over the phone several times, "Should I still bother to visit you?"  He insisted nothing was wrong, and then dumped me the minute I got home from visiting him.  What an asshole move!  Make me spend time and money on you because you didn't have the balls to just say, "I'm not interested" earlier.  

I was in film school studying documentary film for a short time.  I needed to shoot footage of a friend of mine for a student film.  I emailed and asked this friend if I could go to a meeting he'd be leading to shoot some filler footage.  He never responded.  I was on a deadline.  My partner and I went to the meeting and shot our footage.  We were there half an hour before the meeting setting up cameras.  We shot for about fifteen minutes and then left.  The next day I got an email from this "friend" saying that he hadn't wanted me to shoot footage there.  In my mind, I scream.  Didn't I ask you if it was okay?  Why didn't you say "no" then?  Didn't you see me setting up cameras?  Why didn't you tell me not to shoot footage then?  I gave him every opportunity to refuse permission, but he was too spineless to just say, "I don't think that would be a good idea," and consequently wasted my time and my film partner's time and left us with a pile of footage we couldn't use.

At one of m previous jobs, I said something stupid that hurt someone's feelings at work.  Rather than coming to me like an adult to tell me that she was hurt, she had one of the other people in the office file a grievance against me.  So rather than being able to simply apologize and tell her that what I said was stupid and I was sorry, I had to go through a disciplinary hearing with a bunch of managers, which ended with me quitting my job because I couldn't stand the thought of working with any of them ever again.  This co-worker didn't have the figurative balls to say what she thought to my face, and ran to tell her mommy instead.  I am still sorry for what I originally said, but after reading the "witness" statements from my other co-workers, I have no respect for any of them anymore.  Given a choice between an uncomfortable conversation with me or using buerocracy to stab me in the back, they chose the latter option.  It was a coward's choice.

I'm working on learning to forgive cowards.  But I think it's easier to forgive when it's a sin you understand.  I just don't understand the unwillingness to have an honest conversation.  I've had friendships broken over yelling matches, but I don't have nearly as much venom for those I've argued with as I do for those who were unwilling to argue.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Are there any dentists who are not sadists?  I'd just like to know. 

I was supposed to be getting a temporary filling in one tooth, and then get another tooth yanked out.  I was not excited about this prospect.  I hate people messing with my teeth.  I don't go to the dentist as much as I'm supposed to now because I went to the dentist far too much when I was in my early teens.  My orthodontist was a jerk, and he made me hate all dentists.

Anyway, I got the temporary filling and it hurt kind of a lot.  Then she moved on to the extraction.  Or, as it turns out, the attempted extraction.  Apparently my tooth is not just rotted from the inside, but is also impacted and stuck in there hard.  She yanked, jiggled, twisted and tugged at my tooth for about 15 minutes before deciding that it wasn't going anywhere. 

I am going to have to get a hospital appointment to get my tooth removed, and I'm hoping there'll be anesthesia involved.

I was supposed to end today with a bloody socket instead of a broken tooth.  Instead, I have a throbbing stump of a tooth and yet another dentist appointment.  

Dentists always tell me that I don't see the dentist often enough.  Why would I when this is what I get for it?  Until dentist appointments end with hugs and puppies instead of blood and throbbing, I will continue to avoid them.

Alana

P.S.  In other news, Spike and Elvis are still getting along great.  Fudge is getting used to living alone, and is happier now that we moved him into the bottom cage so he can see what we're doing. 

Posted by Alana at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I went to the dentist this morning for my stupid broken tooth.  Apparently, here's the deal: the tooth was crooked after I got my braces off, and that put pressure on one point of it.  That made it crack a little, and all kinds of foul germs got into the tooth, around the filling that used to be in it.  So it rotted from the inside, and then fell apart when I was eating a crumpet.

The dentist said that my options are root canal or extraction.  Neither of those sound particularly fun.  I chose extraction because then I'm guaranteed never to have a problem with that tooth again.  Plus, the phrase "root canal" makes me want to scream and cry.

I've got an appointment for next week for the extraction, and I also need a filling in the adjacent tooth.

After the dentist, I went to the pet store to see if I could find any toys to amuse a Spike guinea pig, who is now living alone.  I found a little treat dispenser ball that I think he'll like.  There was also an adorable baby guinea pig that I totally wanted, but I don't want to move any new piggies in until we're sure Spike didn't catch anything from Homer.

We're hoping to move Elvis into Spike's cage in a few weeks.   Fudgie is a little terror and never stops humping Elvis, so it would be best if Fudgie lived alone.  Then we wouldn't have to worry so much about Spike being lonely.  If that doesn't work, we'll think about getting a baby piggy to move in with Spike. 

I failed to mention before that when Homer died, it was to a great extent the vet's fault.  I think he would have died young regardless, but the vet made it faster and more painful by injecting Homer with an antibiotic that is toxic to guinea pigs.  I'm a little pissed about that, and I won't be going back to that vet.  I found a small animal hospital nearby that has rodent specialists.  I'll be taking them there in the future.  (The daughter of one of my former co-workers who hates me works for the vet that killed Homer.  So I'm not sure how accidental the poisoning was.)

The biggest miracle with Homer's illness and death was in my allergies.  I'm allergic to guinea pigs.  I get a rash from handling them, and if I hold them too close to my face I get an asthma attack.  I handled Homer almost all day every day for about three days, and I never got a rash.  Five minutes with Elvis, and I've got hives.  But for the last week of his life, I wasn't allergic to Homer.  It may have just been some chemical changes in him caused by his illness, but whatever it was, it was good that I was able to hold him and feed him without getting sick.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I didn't have a problem writing about it when my favorite piggy Homer died yesterday.  But later in the day when my mom called and told me that my friend Don died yesterday too, I was left not knowing at all what to say. 

Don Granholm was the husband of my mom's best friend.  That doesn't sound like much of a relationship to me, but my family and theirs grew up together.  I knew him better than I knew a lot of my actual relatives.  He was like a really good uncle to me.  As a kid, his daughters were my best friends, and his son was my brother's best friend.   Our families spent every New Year's and Fourth of July together for years.  Don and his twin brother Doug were the photographers at my wedding.  He's been there for everything important in my life since I was a little kid.  So the phrase, "friend of the family" isn't nearly enough to describe him.

Of all my friends in Minnesota that my husband met, I'd have to say that if Don wasn't his favorite, he was easily in the top five.  It wasn't surprising.  Everyone who met him loved him.  He had a joyfulness that was contagious.   

He's the second friend of my family to be taken by cancer in the last two weeks.  He had colon cancer that went away and came back again.  The only good things about his passing are that he's no longer in pain, and he is in heaven now.  For the rest of us left behind without him, it's heartbreaking.  As his daughter said a few months ago, "This would be a lot easier if he wasn't so wonderful."  

If any of you are in the Duluth area, there is a visitation for him from 5:00 to 7:00 Thursday at Northland Funeral Home in Cloquet, and the funeral itself is Saturday at Cloquet Gospel Tabernacle with visitation at 10am, and the funeral service at 11.  If you can make it there, give Jeannie and the rest of the family a hug from me.  I wish I could be there.

This is a picture of Don and Jeannie from my wedding.  This is how I will always remember him.  Smiling and in love with his family and life.

I'll miss him.  Please pray for Jeannie and their children Bonnie, Jodie and Keith.  His passing wasn't a surprise, but that doesn't make it any less painful.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 03:08 PM | Permalink

I only have one grandfather left, of my four original grandparents.  I'd like to take a moment to remember all of them.  (I'm going to use first names because you don't need to know my maiden name or my mother's maiden name, thank you very much.)

Alden

Alden was my father's father.  He died when I was 11.  I miss him a bunch.  He was a smart, gentle and excited about everything and everyone.  He was one of the warmest and most welcoming men I've ever known.  If he were alive today, he'd be the only 92-year-old around with a computer, a DVD player, a cell phone, and possibly his own web site.  He loved learning new stuff and building new stuff.  He would have loved the internet and would have loved the man my brother grew up to be.  I still see Alden in my brother. 

Beulah

Beulah always hated her name.  She said it suited a cow better than a person.  She was Alden's wife.   She was a worrier.  For all the jumping-in-headfirst that Alden did, she was there to scream, "You're going to crack your head open!" from the sidelines.  I think she might have had some form of Asperger's syndrome, because she was incapable of understanding some forms of humor, like sarcasm.  She was also a bit of a racist.  But she loved her family more than anything and was absolutely devoted to her husband.  She was also very intelligent.  She was volunteering to do taxes for people who couldn't afford an accountant well into her 70's.  At a time when women were expected to be meek housewives, she worked full time and never really liked cooking or cleaning.  She lived without ever paying attention to stereotypes of what women were supposed to be.  She lived exactly how she wanted to live and didn't care what anyone thought.  It broke my heart when dementia took away her best mental gifts, and left her lingering with the full awareness of what she had lost. 

Marilyn

Marilyn was my mother's mother.  She is the one who taught me to cook and play music and make stuff.  Not directly, but through my mom.  To the outside, she looked a lot like the opposite of my other grandmother.  She cooked like you wouldn't believe.  She knew how to embroider and play four or five musical instruments.  She was a talented artist, even if the only audience who saw it was her family.  She had six kids, and every one of them is some type of artist or musician.  As are many of her grandchildren.  She was never a weak and opinionless woman.  She didn't like an argument, but she did have her own thoughts and opinions.  She was stolen from the family by aggressive breast cancer when I was in college.  She was only 64.  She was far too young.  

Bill

Bill is the one who is still alive.  He's a tough strong man, with a creamy nougat center.  He loved my grandmother and they were best friends until the day she died.  I think his example is part of what made my parents good parents.  He had rules for his kids, and they had to follow them.  But they weren't unreasonable rules.  There was enough flexibility to allow for the kids to play all manner of musical instruments all over the house, and to account for a fantastic tarzan rope in the yard.   He always seems like a gruff bear of a man, but it's all show.  He likes to have fun and he loves his family.  After my grandmother died, he got a "girlfriend" who was really just a companion and close friend.  Her name was Jeanie.  She helped him through the loneliness of losing my grandmother and gave him someone to talk to.

Jeanie died a few days ago.  She was the second woman taken from my grandfather by breast cancer.  I'm going to miss her.  She was quick-witted and fun.  I only have one grandparent left, and his heart is broken right now.  And I'm thousands of miles away and unable to do anything about it. 

Next time you have an opportunity to donate to a cancer charity, maybe throw in a couple of dollars with my grandfather in mind.  He could also use prayers right now because he's in a lot of pain.

I hate cancer. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 12:58 PM | Permalink

I'm about to make a bunch of enemies among my friends and family.  But I don't care.  I just heard about the changes of the laws in California allowing gays to marry, and I'm happy about it.

I'm a Christian.  I believe in the Bible.  I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who died for our sins.  Do I believe that homosexuality is wrong?  Who cares?  Some of the nicest, coolest people I've known in this world are gay.   And I believe that God loves them as much as He loves me.  The Bible tells me to love my neighbor as myself, and a lot of my neighbors are gay.  So I love them as much as I love any of my straight friends.

A lot of my Christian friends and family strongly believe that gays are part of some grand conspiracy to undermine Christianity.  I've known too many gay people to believe that.  My friends are not part of a political agenda.  They are real people with problems and pain and joy and happiness like anyone else.  

But that's not the main reason that I'm happy about the changes in California law.  The main reason is that I'm a strong supporter of the US Constitution.  The first line of the first amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."  Why do people want gay marriage to be illegal?  Because "traditionally" marriage is a man and a woman.  Where did this tradition come from?  Judaism, Christianity, and later adopted into Islam.  Western society has believed that homosexuality is wrong for as long as it has been dominated by Christianity. 

American society is no longer just Christian European white people.  As the world becomes smaller and cultures interact, we must accept that religion-tied traditions are not the necessarily the norm of everyone in America.  Imagine that you are a devout Buddhist from a hypothetical Pacific island.  In Buddhist teachings, being faithful to your partner (regardless of sex) is a virtue, and you hope to follow the established rituals of your new country and get married.  But you find out that because you want to marry someone of the same sex, this is illegal.  If you asked around to find out why, it would always be because of Christianity.  But didn't the constitution say that there is no state religion in America?  Why is this hypothetical Buddhist being forced to remain single? 

By prohibiting gay marriage at the governmental level, we are forcing a single religious belief on all people, regardless of their personal religious beliefs.  And that is not a very American thing to do.

Back in the 1500's the Bible was first being printed in "normal" languages instead of just in Latin.  Normal Christians could start to read it and determine for themselves what was right.  A group of them decided that it was more Biblical to baptise adults rather than infants.  So they baptised each other as adults, and the Catholic church hunted them down and killed them because Catholicism was the official state religion, and they broke the religious rules.  Christians today do the same thing when they try to mandate Christian moral law into American statutory law. 

If a church or a minister wants to refuse to marry gays, I don't have a problem with that at all.  Churches are there to interpret scripture.  That is not the purpose of the US government.   

My own pastor wouldn't perform my wedding because I was marrying a non-Christian.  I don't have a problem with that pastor's decision.  He was only following his personal moral beliefs, and I hold no grudge against him for it.  But if the state of Minnesota had refused me a marriage license because I was marrying a non-Christian, I would have been just as hurt and annoyed as my gay friends who are just trying to live their lives like everyone else.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:40 PM | Permalink

I want to quit now.  I've had enough.  Don't want to be here anymore.  And by "here" I pretty much mean earth.  But more specifically, Scotland.  I'd like to go back about five years and not leave Seattle.

I'm still dealing with unspeakable crap from work.  I'm stressed out and angry and tired and frustrated.  Then my tooth broke.  I was just trying to eat breakfast and my tooth fell apart.  Don't even know where it went.  Must have swallowed it.  The remaining bit of tooth keeps poking my tongue.  I expect it to start hurting soon.

So my coming week already featured three meetings I didn't really want to do, and now I get to add a dentist to that list.  Anyone want to give me a rectal probe or a pelvic exam to make my week complete?

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 03:05 PM | Permalink

There was a challenge to draw yourself as a teenager, and I have responded.  The quality is crappy because I have not used my little drawing tablet much, so I draw like an epileptic monkey at the moment.  And the fact that the subject matter is me didn't help at all.

And for comparison purposes, I did a quick sketch of me now.  Not much improvement, frankly.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 09:52 PM | Permalink

I shop at the 99p store a lot.  The one in my small town is not bad and sometimes has good deals, and it's a good place to get caulking guns and coloring books and hamster food at the same time.  I've even found pregnancy tests there.  But I wouldn't trust the 99p condoms.  There's a line.

Anyway, a while back my husband and I were just browsing the 99p store and looking for intersting stuff (and craft supplies for me) when we found some disturbing/funny items in the food section.  We found the following marked 3 for 99p.

I wouldn't have been so amused if it had been called Pot O' Fruit, or even if it had followed the lead of the British food item Pot Noodle and called itself Pot Fruit.  But by calling it FruityPot, the main thing they are selling you is pot, which happens to be fruity.   Not fruit in a pot, or fruit with some pot, but pot that is fruity.  I have eaten the pineapple in a sweet and sour dish, but the mandarin remains in my cupboard.

Then we found on the "2 for 99p" shelf, this brilliant little item:

In case you couldn't extrapolate, it is called "Celebrity" with the description "Danish Pork Luncheon Meat."  It is imitation Spam.  It may be made from pork.  It may be made from blonde Danish girls.  But it certainly isn't actually Danish.  Further proof of its lack of Danishness:

My Asian language skills aren't great, but that looks a whole lot like Chinese or Japanese to me.  Last time I checked, that's not the alphabet they use in Denmark.  If the fact that it is bargain priced meat of questionable origins isn't bad enough, it is also going to stay fresh until 2012.  I could hang onto this can and eat it while watching the London Olympics.  Or not.

In fact, I did eat the can of Celebrity.  I can't swear that it was actual pork, and I'm 100% convinced that it was not Danish.  It tasted like Spam, but not quite as good.  I had it with sweet and sour sauce and the pineapple FruityPot.  And I survived to tell the tale. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Okay, so I keep getting emails from family asking me to clarify my mention 2 posts ago about my husband being hit by a car.

He was crossing a 4 lane street (one that is generally relatively safe to cross - I've jaywalked across that thing right in front of a cop and he didn't care).  He had gotten to the median and there were stopped cars in the lane directly in front of him and it didn't look like there was anything coming in the bus lane beyond that.   He crossed in front of the stopped car and stepped forward a bit to check for traffic in the other lane, just in time to get hit by a tiny French car that was hiding behind the larger vehicles stopped in the other lane.  It really just bumped him, and it wasn't moving very fast because it was just pulling up behind stopped traffic.

He's fine.  His shoulder was a tiny bit bruised and he was sore for a couple days, but nothing was broken and there was no permanent damage.  His co-workers gave him a first aid kit and a neon yellow reflective vest.  He's done more damage sneezing than the car did.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Next week is my third wedding anniversary.  My husband and I mostly celebrate the real wedding in April, even though we're more likely to get cards from other people on the anniversary of our fake wedding in October. 

Lately, being married has been not easy.  It has nothing to do with my husband.  He's great.  He's sweet and kind and we get along like best friends.  The problems are mostly with me being more used to being on my own.  For a long time, I lived alone.  If I did weird things or borderline stupid things, I was the only person I was screwing.  It's a lot harder being married and having to constantly consider how my personality flaws are screwing up my husband's life.  He's a very patient man. 

This week has sucked for a variety of reasons.  The aforementioned fantastic husband got hit by a car.  He's fine, other than some bruises and a tendency toward the melodramatic.  

A few days ago I was re-reading my last post and I had been planning to write something of a retraction because I was way too harsh on my co-workers.  There was another incident at work that prevented me from posting that retraction.  But I still think I was too harsh.  None of the other people in my office are dumb.  They have their frustratingly blonde moments now and then, but they're not dumb.  In fact, most of the people in my office hate their jobs almost as much as I do, but they have the advantage of being a lot closer to retirement.  Of that, I'm a bit jealous.  They can all just shrug and say, "I only have to be here (2, 3, 5, 7) more years."  I'd have to say, "I only have to be here 35 more years."  On the whole, the people I work with are decent intelligent people stuck in a job that used to be good, but is deteriorating at a rapid pace.

As for the management, the less said about them the better.

A quick update on the rodents.  Fudge is still humping everything in sight.  Elvis no longer seems to care.  Spikey has something wrong with one eye, but we think it's getting better.  Homer is putting on weight because he's become addicted to Fenugreek Crunchies.  Nobby is still a sweet little hamster and Karot is still a spaz. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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 | 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)

Don Granholm and his family are some of my oldest friends.  I've known them all since I was about 8 years old.  Don and his twin brother were the photographers at my wedding.  Even though they are not technically related to me, I consider the Granholms family.  The following was sent to me by a friend of Don. 

I am writing to inform you of a Spaghetti dinner and silent auction benefit on behalf of Don Granholm. We would greatly appreciate your participation in any manner you are able. We need people to set up tables, people to decorate, severs, bakers, cooks, and cleaner If you can help in any way please call Rex or Addie Clyde at (218)879-9473.

Don was first diagnosed with colon cancer in February 2002. He was cancer free May 2002.. The end of May 2007, just two weeks before he was supposed to receive his,”Congratulations, you're a five year cancer survivor". The cancer reoccurred. We are doing a benefit to help the family with out of the pocket expenses and bills.

Place: The Gospel Tab (Cloquet)

Time: 12-5:00 P.M.

Date: Sunday, February 24, 2007

Cost  $8.50 for adults

$5.00 for children under 12 years

                              Dinner: spaghetti, salad, bread, drink, and dessert

If you cannot attend the benefit and you would like to send a donation, make checks payable to Don Granholm

Send to

Rex and Addie Clyde

1540 Schmitz Rd.

Carlton, MN 55718

If you're in the Duluth/Superior/Cloquet area of Minnesota, consider going to this.  If you're not, I can't think of a better place for a charitable donation.  

Alana 

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Grr!  I can't get Moveable Type to embed anything worth crap.  So to see the fantastic video of my niece and nephew you'll just have to go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STrgr1GTjYY 

Posted by Alana at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is my birthday.  I'm 31.  As I'm writing this, the only good thing about my birthday has been chocolate cake that my co-workers gave me, along with the birthday card with a picture of a sleeping puppy.  And also, I got the exact same e-card from my aunt, my parents and my brother.

I had to work on my birthday.  I hate that.  If I ran a company, one of the annual holidays that my employees would get would be their own birthdays.  No "you can have your birthday off if you have the vacation time and if no one else is off that day".  You'd just automatically have your birthday off, like a national holiday.

But working on my birthday isn't the only problem with being at work today.  I got my paycheck last week, and they still haven't corrected my pay.  It's now month 7 that I've been underpaid, and no matter how much I nag no one will do anything about it.  I've given them until next month to pay what they owe me or I'll be contacting the union.

The longer I work there the more I feel like they're singling me out to treat me especially like crap.  Now, it's the government, so they treat everyone like crap as standard procedure.  But it has been getting worse for me while everyone else seems about the same.  I've been working there for a year and a half.  The promise when I was hired was that I'd start out on maternity and then get cross-trained on everything else.  I've been here a year and a half and I'm still on maternity.  People who started months after me have been put into the regular work rota and are being treated like regular staff.  I'm heading towards two years at this job, and if I do anything outside maternity I have to have my work checked by the boss like a stupid noob.  I hate being made the permanent trainee.  They treat me like I'm too stupid to do anything other than maternity.  Forget the fact that my IQ is in the top 5% of the population.  I'm fat and I'm American, so I must be stupid.  I need to get out of here.  Working here makes me hate people in general.  I miss the internet industry.  I miss working with people who are genuinely smarter than me rather than people who just think that they're smarter than me.

Anyway, on to more uplifting topics.

Christmas was pretty good.  For dinner we had beef.  A lot of beef.  Probably too much beef.  I got some good presents like a crochet book and a new Zen Stone mp3 player.  I also got some good toys like beanie toys of a groundhog and a Highland cow and some video games.

I'm itchy.  I think it's because I was playing with Fudge last night.  He was sitting on me (I was wearing my anti-piggy fur apron) and he was very fidgety and kept jumping over onto Neil, who was trying to play Star Wars Lego on his Nintendo DS, but it was difficult because a fat little guinea pig kept launching itself onto his chest.

Now that I'm home I'm looking forward to a real birthday celebration tonight.  Husband is picking up home kebabs and we have chocolate birthday cake.  And I can open my birthday presents.  Apparently some are so large that they are hiding in the attic.  I hope it's a walrus.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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First of all, Happy Thanksgiving.  I could have had dinner with an American expat group here, but half of them are vegetarians, and I really hate spending thanksgiving with vegetarians and their inevitable tofurkey.   Instead I'm cooking dinner here.  We've got part of a turkey in the oven and I'm planning stovetop stuffing, sweet potatoes and crescent rolls from a can. 

I dyed my hair red the other day.  Bright cherry red.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I still wish my hair wasn't curly and falling out, but now it's at least a more interesting color.

I have a terrible cold.  I didn't sleep at all last night because I couldn't breathe.  

My husband keeps saying he expects a blog post about a thing we saw on late night tv the other night.  Wouldn't want to disappoint him.  It was a show that seems to focus on bizarre fetishes from around the world.  I saw what has to be the weirdest porn video ever.  It was a woman wearing a normal shirt, but just underwear below the waist, and she was sitting on her living room floor with a vacuum cleaner and farting into the various attachments, then sniffing the attachment while commenting on the fart.  The scariest part?  It was a clip from her fourth full-length video.  She has made not one, but FOUR videos of herself farting.  And people buy them!  There are people who are terribly turned-on by a mostly-clothed woman farting into her vacuum cleaner attachments. 

In other news the guinea pigs are fine.  Spike still has bladder problems and Homer had a mild respiratory problem earlier this week, but he seems fine now.  Fudge is a chubby little blob of piggy and Elvis is still a twitchy little spaz.  We stuck Fudge and Spike in a cage together a while ago, and it turned into some bizarre rodent gay porn.  Fudge wouldn't stop humping poor Spikey.  We went to the pet store for more hay, and they had a bunch of little baby guinea pigs, and there was one there that was humping everyone in sight, so it isn't unusual.  At least Fudge wasn't humping Spike's head.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, my husband's sister finally had her baby.  It was a few weeks late and she was pretty darned sick of being pregnant.  She had a girl (which is nifty because she already has a boy who is about a year old).  She was nine pounds, thirteen ounces.  (Insert grimace and "ouch" here.)  She has named her Elliot.  Yes, it is a girl and yes, Elliot.  Like on Scrubs.  My husband thinks it's a weird choice, but I kind of like it.  And it could be a whole lot worse.  Kat is a big fan of Buffy.   Could have been Buffy.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few years ago when I was living in Seattle, one of my best friends, Kat, told me all about when she lived in the UK and how much she loved it.  After I moved here, I pretty much thought she was maybe a little crazy.  But I think I've changed my mind.  You see, she didn't live in Edinburgh.  She lived in Manchester.

After spending a long weekend in Liverpool, I can see how in a lot of ways, the northwest of England is much different from Scotland.  The people seemed to pretty much mind their own business.  There were cool artsy and gothy type people all over, with no one staring at them.  And the cost of living is lower than Edinburgh.  A kebab that would easily cost 6 pounds in Edinburgh cost only 3 in Liverpool.  

There has been talk in my house the last few days about maybe moving elsewhere.  Edinburgh is surly, grumpy and overpriced.  I think I'd be happier elsewhere.  Maybe Liverpool.  Maybe not.  There are a few other cities, like Cardiff, under debate.  We'll see what happens.

In other news, the women in my office have been outright shunning me.  Since I got back from my long weekend of immigration crap, no one other than my boss has spoken to me in the office.  I don't know what happened there when I was gone.  I don't know what their deal is or what they suddenly have against me.  I also don't know if I care, since I have practically nothing in common with any of them, and I've already been looking for a new job.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had to go to Liverpool to go for an interview with immigration because my spouse visa expired October 12th.  Normally I could just go to Glasgow, but they were booked up, partly because the royal mail has been striking every few days and no one can trust them with a postal application.

So, Thursday morning we piled food into the guinea pig cages, and gave them giant water bottles and topped up Binky's  food and water and then got on a bus at 7:30 to go to the train station.  Halfway there, an idiot in a van parked in the bus lane and refused to move.  The bus driver had to call the cops, and meanwhile we were stuck there.  After about 10 minutes, Neil was starting to panic about catching our train, and I told him, "You are large and intimidating.  We can use this."  So Neil started walking, or actually more like storming, to the front of the bus.  The driver looked up the aisle and saw him coming, and suddenly let us all get off and catch other buses.  We got to the train station on time.

We bought ourselves some sandwiches for lunch and got on the train.  It was pretty uneventful.  We had to switch trains at Wigan, and they had appalingly bad bathrooms at that station.  I wanted to have lunch on the train from Wigan to Liverpool but I couldn't because the train smelled weird.  So we ate in the Liverpool train station.

We found our hotel (a Travelodge in the center of Liverpool) and then went on to the interview place because it was too early to check in.

We had to go through a lot of searches at the door of the building because we still had all our luggage with us.  It was a big pain in the butt.  Then we went up to the interview room, which had glass booths with the interviewer people in them.  We waited for our number to be called.  It didn't take too long.  They pretty much just took our piles of documents and sent us back to wait.

They called us back and told us that they might have to refer our case to London because I didn't have enough documentation from October 2005 to May of 2006.  But he said he'd ask his manager if maybe they could put it through here.  So we waited and started quietly freaking out.  My visa expired the next day.  I didn't know if I would even be able to go home or if I would have to leave the country. 

About 8000 years later (or maybe 5 minutes) the guy came back and said, "We're going to do it for you."  I didn't quite immediately believe him.  But he said that there was no question in his mind that we were a legitimate couple and I had good reason for why I didn't have documentation for that time peroid (I didn't get any mail).  So since it was 3:30 in the afternoon and they didn't want that kind of extra paperwork, they put it through.  I just had to wait another 20 minutes or so for the visa to be attached to my passport, and we were done. 

The rest of that day was just kind of a shell-shocked recovery from that meeting.  The only great revelations after checking into the hotel were that a) Travelodge is not a particularly good hotel and b) takeaway food in Liverpool is very cheap, but does not come with forks.

The next day we had breakfast at a little cafe next to the hotel that was cheap and really good.  Then we went to the World Museum of Liverpool, which was free and pretty nice.  Then we went to the Boots (drug store) in the train station to buy the hairbrushes Neil and I both forgot to pack.  Then back to the hotel to order more takeaway food and relax for the night.  (4 kebabs and 4 cans of pop for 12 pounds)

Saturday did not start off well, as it started at 1:15 in the morning with the fire alarm going off.  We stood outside in the cold for a long time.  Neil says ten minutes, but I think it was a long time.  Then the firemen came and decided that the building was not on fire and let us go back to bed.  I hadn't really been sleeping anyway because the bed was very bouncy.  Like sleeping on a trampoline.  Or possibly a bouncy castle.

We got up later that morning and checked out of the hotel after finishing the rest of our kebabs for breakfast.  We went to the Cavern Club, where the Beatles were discovered.  Then we found a very nice shopping area.  I bought a snoopy scarf and a blue stuffed monkey that I have named MonkeyPuppy.

After that, we met my husband's parents in the train station (since they live not too far away in Wigan) and had a nice conversation and coffee with them for a few hours.   Then we all got on trains heading home.  We went from Liverpool to Preston than on to Edinburgh.  There were a lot of Girl Guides on our train.  Then we just barely caught a bus home. 

The hamster was happy to see me, especially since I gave him banana chips.  The guinea pigs were annoyed with us.  Fudgie bit Neil when he was sweeping out their cage.  But Neil is getting back at him by giving the piggies baths right now.

By the way, if you could all maybe keep our piggy Spike in your prayers, that would be appreciated.  He's always been a bit sickly, and lately he's losing some fur on his belly.  We're going to try to get him to a vet soon, but we probably won't be able to get him in any earlier than Friday.

Oop.  Sounds like I need to dry a guinea pig.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been putting together a listography page for myself, cause sometimes it's easier to think in lists.

You can read it at http://listography.com/girlalive.

Not much else going on.  I have my immigration interview on Thursday and I don't want to go.  If all goes well I'll have permanent residence by Friday.  If all does not go well, I'll be hiding out in Ireland until I figure out where I can legally live.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was watching a tv show on the topic of hair removal a couple nights ago.  In this show they were talking about the American and British compulsion to remove all evidence of body hair from women, and people who are obsessed with removing hair and people who couldn't care less about it.  

I personally come from a hairy family, but I really don't care about removing all of it.  I shave my legs and armpits whenever there's a chance they'll be visible in public.  But I cover most of my skin all the time, so most people don't know or care if I have hairy legs.

There was one woman who shaved her entire body every day, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day.  She very literally had obsessive compulsive disorder surrounding hair removal.  But she was not the most disturbing person on the show.  The one that disturbs me the most even several days later is the one they interviewed about why she was getting a "Hollywood" wax (removal of all pubic hair).  Her answer with no irony or joking in her expression was, and I couldn't make this up:

"I used to get a Brazillian wax, but then everyone started getting the Hollywood wax, and you have to follow the trends, don't you?" 

Wow.  I mean, wow.  So this woman is getting all the hair forcibly ripped from her genitals by a complete stranger on a regular basis just because she thinks that everyone else does it.  She is the living example of, "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?"  She totally would.

Do they even teach the concept of individuality and resisting peer pressure here?  Probably not, I guess.  I mean, you would get Americans who are slaves to fashion, but none of them would ever admit it.  My parents and friends in the US complain that the heavy influence on individuality in America is destroying the concept of community.  The people here are in no way indivifual, and yet there is still no sense of community.  Conformity doesn't equal community.  Conformity just makes you unoriginal and boring.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There have been many recent inquiries about the state of my eyes and whether I have "super vision" yet.  The answer is no. 

It's been over 4 weeks since surgery and I still have to have the font in Firefox set to 22 point in order to read without squinting too much.  I have a magnifying glass on my desk at work so I can read small print without having to press my face against the desk.

What went wrong?  Why am I still blind?  Well, according to my doctors, nothing went wrong, it's just that LASEK surgery takes forever to heal.  It's getting better very very slowly, but things are still blurry.

The most disorienting times are when one eye suddenly decides to be fairly clear for a few hours, while the other one stays fuzzy.  That kind of gives me a headache. 

For the time being, it's more waiting.  And squinting.

Good news is that my new niece and nephew are doing well and getting cuter and cuter.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My new neice and nephew finally have names.  My brother and his wife named them Marissa Charis Olson and Zachary Alden Olson.  I think they're pretty cool names.  They plan to call the girl Rissa, for short.  So they both have cute nicknames for when they're kids.  They can be Zach and Rissa.  But when they're grownups, Zachary and Marissa are perfectly good adult names.  I also like the middle name Alden because it was my grandfather's name. 

So I guess they didn't go with any of my suggestions.  Not even Ren and Stimpy or Chicken and Waffles. 

I still can't see very well, and I have to work tomorrow.  This should be interesting, since my entire job is based around reading.  But they've been giving me grief about being off sick too often, so I'll just show up and do a crappy job instead.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so a ton has been going on, but I haen't been able to write about any of it because I'm still partially blind.  I mean, I can see, but I still can't see details, so I still can't really read.

First of all, let me fill you in on my surgery.  I went to Glasgow to get LASEK surgery that I paid for months and months ago.  Now, you've probably seen LASIK surgery on tv where you spend half an hour under a laser and then magically you can see everything and it's great.  That is LASIK, not LASEK.  LASEK recovery time sucks.  They didn't tell me about the excrutiating pain until I was being prepped for surgery.  I got all zapped, and the surgery went fine.  I had no problems for the first day or so.  Then the pain set in for about 2 days.  I was on heavy painkillers a lot.  Then I got the bandage contact lenses off, and the pain stopped, but I still can't see.  They told me to expect a "dramatic difference" when the lenses were removed.  It's been 2 days and I'm still waiting for the dramatic difference.  I have to go back to work on Monday, but I don't know if I'll actually be able to do anything when I'm there.

But the more important news is that my brother's wife Jaime had twins!  It was earlier than expected, but the babies are doing great and Jaime is getting better and better.  They're adorable little midgets, and you can see pictures at my brother's blog at http://blog.wayfellows.com/ 

They still have no names, so they are still calling them Raisin and Kiwi.  And the nurses are calling them "the Olson twins".

 Gotta go.  More medical appointments await.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oksy, so I had the surgery on saturday and they conveniently didn't tell me about the excrutiating pain until I had alreasy signed all the papers.  If you get LASIK, it's not bad, but I had to get LASEK which is followed by a week of near=blindness (hence my typos aplenty) and four days with bandage contact lenses that cause pain like I haven't had since I had gallstones.  I'm on ibuprofen and tylenol with codeine just to be able to open my eyes.  There should be only a few more days of pain until they teke the lenses out.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I may not be able to answer emails or anything for a while after Saturday because I'm going for eye surgery on Saturday, so I will be a little bit blind for a few days.  But I'm getting a whole week off work.

In other news, I put my guinea pigs all together in the same cage the other day.  There was fighting.  Elvis started most of it.  He's the smallest of our piggies and he's turning into a little Napoleon.  He attacked and bit both Homer and Spike.  There was no blood, but Spike was quite shaken up.  

I don't have a whole lot to say because life has been dull.  And it's going to get duller when I can't watch tv, read books or use my computer for a week or so while my eyes are healing.  And I can't play with the piggies because I don't want to risk any eye inflammation from my allergies.  It's going to be an interesting week...

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So this has been a long week.  I am so bored with my job.  I sent in an application for another job, but I haven't heard.  It's a long shot anyway because I'm overqualified in some ways and underqualified in others.

I had my immigration test on Thursday.  I had to take a test on "life in the United Kingdom".  I bought the book and I studied it.  Then I showed up for the test.  First they had to register all of us, one at a time.  It took over 45 minutes.  Then they logged us all in to take the practice test.  Which was another 10 minutes.  Then another 5 minutes to log us in for the real test.   Then we had 45 minutes to complete the test.  I answered all the questions and then double checked them.  When I clicked on "finish" it told me, "You have left 0 questions unanswered and you have 40 minutes remaining."  So I finished and double checked the entire test in 5 minutes.  I went out and got my results from the secretary.

In front of me was a guy who failed his test and was rescheduling.  Then I got my results and was told that I passed and got a piece of paper to prove it for my immigration interview.

So that is hurdle #1 down towards getting settlement here.  I don't know if I really want to live here the rest of my life, but I do know that this is where my husband, my guinea pigs, and my house are, so I'd kind of like to stay for the moment.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night was my one night of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  My husband and I planned to go to a bunch of shows all in one night in order to get completely burned out on the festival and therefore have no insane ideas of visiting the city center during the rest of the festival.  I believe that it worked.

I'll start with my trip into the city.  I had taken the day off work so I could sleep in and get some other stuff done at the same time.  I was planning  to head into the city at 1:30.  I had an eye doctor appointment related to my upcoming laser eye surgery scheduled for 3:00, and it normally takes less than an hour to get to the city center, but it is the festival and my husband informed me that there was a major fire at a kilt shop on Princes Street, so the buses were running late and re-routed.

I went to the bus stop to catch a #47.  A #37 came by, and it was supposed to be there 10 minutes earlier, but I decided to grab that bus thinking, "If it's running late who knows when the 47 will be here."  I talked to the driver and it turns out he wasn't 10 minutes late.  He was 40 minutes late.

Anyway, I got to George Street to my eye doctor appointment with time to spare.  They had a bunch of problems scanning my eyes because I apparently have huge pupils.  After the eye doctor, I went to Starbucks to meet up with my husband.  I had a really big iced mocha.  It was the first time I've been to Starbucks since moving here.  I hate to admit it, but it totally felt like home.

After coffee, we went to Pizza Hut and had a medium Pepperoni and green chili pizza.  The bathrooms were all weird.  I can't even describe it.  There was a labyrinth of stairs with no right angles and it was very disorienting.

After that, we got a bus over the the Pleasance theater complex.  It's apparently related to the University, and it's a cool area.  There's a big courtyard with a temporary bar and information booths.  We found our first venue: the Pleasance Cellar.  We were scheduled to see Owen Powell's The Two Closest Starbucks in Britain.  The cellar was literally a cellar.  Water was dripping from the ceiling and the seating was a bunch of Ikea stools.  I think there was maybe room for 30 people in there.  It was incredibly uncomfortable, but the good news is that Owen Powell was very funny.  He had spent a year travelling Britain and measuring distances between Starbucks.  He didn't hate Starbucks.  Didn't love them.  In fact, he admitted that he doesn't even like coffee.  But he needed to know how close together 2 starbucks could be.  It was genuinely funny, and he deserved a better venue. 

After that, we had a short break and then went to the Pleasance One theater to see Lucy Porter's Love-In.  My first impression after sitting on an Ikea stool for an hour was, "It's so comfortable!"  The seating was big cushioned benches, and we got a row with extra leg room for my 6'5" husband.  There was even air conditioning.  But that was only secondary to the fact that Lucy Porter was hilarious.  She was talking completely on the theme of love.  And how she considers love to be a mental illness, but doesn't mind so much because crazy isn't so bad.  She talked about bad dates and embarrassing moments and crazy habits, and she gave out prizes and had audience participation and it was completely 7 pounds well spent.  I would see her again in a heartbeat.

Our final show of the night was back on George Street, and by that time Princes Street was re-opened and the buses were a little more normal.  Our final show of the night was Rich Hall.   The theater was a more traditional theater with the individual seats with armrests.  For my husband and I, it was not really very comfortable.  But Rich Hall was undeniably funny.  It was his first night at the Festival, and you could tell he hadn't worked out all the kinks.  It didn't help that the audience was full of drunken obnoxious British people.  Despite that, he did make me laugh out loud plenty.

My husband liked Rich Hall best.  I liked Lucy Porter best.  We both liked Owen Powell, in spite of the venue.  Overall, we had a good night and by the time we caught a midnight bus home, we were completely exhausted.  

When I got home I went to bed, and laid there awake for 2 hours.  I was exhausted, but my feet hurt so much they kept me awake.  It was very annoying.  But I've got a whole weekend to recover.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was bored at work and came up with a few more name ideas for my brother's twins.

Chuck and Nora (in honor of Chuck Norris)
Mo and Henry (negative cutters rock!)
Al and Ana (Don't just name one of your kids after me.  Name both of them after me.)
Alden and Marilyn (2 of my grandparents - my grandma Beulah specifically told us never to name anyone after her.  She hated the name Beulah.)
Wayne and Nona (2 minor characters from the Adventures of Pete and Pete)
Pebbles and Bam Bam
Linus and Lucy
Buffy and Angel
Gypsy and Tom
Pat and Chris (which one is the boy? which one is the girl? no one knows!)
Ren and Stimpy
Pinky and the Brain
Laurel and Hardy
Godzilla and Rodan (or Mothra or Gamera)
Trinidad and Tobago
Seattle and Tacoma

Anyway, that's all the silliness I have for right now.  But if you want to buy some of my t-shirts, there is a big sale at cafepress right now, where if you buy 3 t-shirts you can get one free.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I haven't been posting much lately.  I've been sick.  Not seriously ill, but just feeling crappy enough not to want to do much.  But I decided it was time for an update of a few things.

First of all, the guinea pigs.  They're as cute as ever, but Fudge is no longer "little Fudgie".  More like "pudgy Fudgie".  He's now even bigger than Homer.  We have the whole lot of them on a low-calcium diet to help Spike's bladder problems. With four, it's just too hard to only change the diet of one of them.  The others miss the broccoli and greens, but Spikey seems to be doing better.  We found out last week that guinea pigs love watermelon.  Even the rinds, so we eat the fruit, and give them the rinds, and everyone is happy.

Last week we also tried putting all 4 of them together in their playpen.  There was no humping this time.  Just a lot of strutting and posing and peeing on each other.  Except Homer.  Homer got all the others to accept his dominance in the first 10 minutes, and then just sat quietly eating a carrot while the rest of them fought.  Every once in a while he would look up at me and Neil as if to say, "Can't you do something about those idiots?"

My brother and his wife Jaime are still expecting twins.  It's getting closer and closer.  So far they haven't told us what they're planning to name them, and they have just been calling them Raisin and Kiwi.  Raisin is a girl and Kiwi is a boy.  My husband and I have worked up a few possibilities for them.

Papaya & Prune
Dragonfruit & Sultana
Mary Kate and Ashley (Ashley can be a boy's name, and their last name is Olson)
Simon and River
Thing 1 and Thing 2
Regis and Kelly (or Kathie Lee, if you're a traditionalist)
St. Paul and Minneapolis (you could call them Paul and Minnie)
Angela and Damon
Kibbles and Bits
Ken and Barbie
Luke and Leia
Bart and Lisa
Ben and Jemima (named after Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima)
Washington and Brooklyn (but only if they're born on Sept 11)

Anyone else have any ideas?

As for my immigration stuff, it is going okay I guess.  I have about 1/4 of the money that I need, so I'll probably end up putting it on my credit card and just adding another few months to my credit card debt.  But it'll get paid off eventually.  

The worst part with immigration is that I need to have proof that I have lived at my current address, with my husband, since October of 2005.  I have lived here with my husband that whole time, but I don't have a lot of paperwork proving it.  I didn't have a job for the first 6 months, and it was my husband's house so everything was in his name.  So if I don't find something acceptable to immigration in the next month or so, I'll be spending Thanksgiving back home in the US.  Possibly living in a van down by the river.

Guinea pigs are squeaking for food, so I better go get them some celery before they burst a squeaker. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so I've had sinus congestion on and off since I was a kid.  I have also had my share of migraines and the usual pains and illness.  Right now I have a sinus infection.  I am very much against sinus infections.

Last week I had a toothache, but my teeth didn't actually hurt.  It doesn't make sense, but my whole mouth hurt, and it was all caused by my sinuses, not my teeth.  And it wouldn't go away.  Over the weekend is was getting worse and worse.  I had an appointment with my doctor for Monday to refill some prescriptions, and that was the only thing that kept me from going to the hospital because the pain was so bad.  It felt like my head was being eaten away from the inside by angry rabid weasels.

Today I got myself some antibiotics.  I'm still in horrible pain, but I can at least have some hope that it won't last forever.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm fat.  People who know me are aware of this.  I thought it was time for me to say a little bit about what it is to be a fat woman.

First of all, about half of you reading this naturally assume that because I'm fat, I must be stupid and lazy.  You believe that weight gain is the result only of eating junk food and never exercising.  So I must be too stupid to know what foods are good for me, and I'm lazy and never exercise.  Fat people are fat because they've never seen a salad and they eat all the time.  All of that is a complete load of sh!t.

When I was a kid, I was skinny.  I was a gymnast.  I played soccer.  Half my time was spent riding my bike around the neighborhood and the other half was spent roller skating in my basement.  I have an older brother who is and always has been skinny.  Throughout childhood, we ate basically the same foods.  If anything, I was more active than he was.  Around age 12 I got fat and he stayed skinny.

I'm not going to claim that my lifestyle when I was 12 was perfect.  I hated gym class because I was clumsy and constantly bullied.  The other reason I started to hate exercise is that I started to feel the effects of hypermobility syndrome around age 12.  I have a genetic collagen defect which makes my joints too loose.  So I am prone to back and joint pain and I dislocate joints a lot.  If I turned just wrong running the bases in baseball, my knee would dislocate.  I developed arthritis in both knees from repeated dislocation at the age of 13.  I was in pain all the time, but no one would believe me.  I was labeled a hypochondriac.

At age 14 I started developing symptoms of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, and I didn't tell anyone.  My mom has it, and I figured, "Why mention it?  There's nothing that can be done anyway."  So I didn't recieve any treatment for it until I was 19.  And I couldn't take the medication they prescribed for more than about 2 years before it started making me sick.

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome causes weight gain because it is associated with insulin resistance.  And the more weight you gain, the worse the insulin resistance becomes.  So I could eat the same food as a skinny person, and I would still put on weight.  

So I was getting fatter and my joints were in pain, so the doctors always told me that my joints would get better if I just lost weight.  And how am I supposed to do that when I'm in too much pain to exercise?  No doctor would ever address that problem.  They just assumed I was not really in pain and that I was just making excuses to not exercise.

I eventually developed a severe mental illness, rooted in the fact that no one would believe that I was in pain.  I was diagnosed as bipolar and put on medication that is known to make PCOS worse, and known to cause weight gain.  I eventually told my psychiatrist where to stick his anticonvulsives and went on antidepressants.  Eventually, I pretty much stopped cutting myself and managed to pass for sane.

Now I'm 30 years old and I've given up on losing weight.  I can't even walk for exercise because the joints in my feet dislocate when I walk.  I don't eat a lot.  I'm on Metformin to treat PCOS.  Despite the fact that it has given me chronic diarrhea, I'm still putting on weight.  I could try a fad diet, but any strict diet is likely to trigger food obsession and bulemia.  I am looking for ways to get more exercise, but it continues to be painful and difficult.

Now, a lot of you are saying, "Don't give up!  There's surgery, etc."  I'm not interested.  Being fat is not a sin.  Fat people are not the monsters the media portrays them to be.  Fat people may or may not be unhealthy.  You can't tell by looking at them.  Fat people are not stupider or lazier than anyone else.  Most fat people feel better when they lose weight, not because they're healthier, but because they finally stop getting harassed and tormented about their weight.

Look at it this way: if someone told you that they were depressed because they faced terrible descrimination because they were a Muslim, would you tell them, "Maybe you should change religions"?  No.  You'd probably find the idea abhorrent.  Or if a black person faces descrimination, do you tell them to try bleaching their skin?  Yet you would tell a fat person who is suicidal because they are the target of hate and discrimination that they should just lose some weight.

The problem does not lie with me and the extra pounds I am carrying.  The problem lies with the people who would stereotype me and discriminate against me.  The media and scientists of the 19th century used to say that black people were naturally lazy, stupid and inferior to whites.  They were wrong.  Now the same people who will acknowledge that racism and racial profiling is wrong want to take rights away from fat people because they claim that fat people are stupid, lazy and inferior to skinny people.  

"What about how unhealthy it is to be fat?"  Most of the assumption of unhealthiness is based on bad science.  Even if it wasn't, why do you have a right to dictate healthiness?  Go bother some smokers or alcoholics or drug addicts.  Those things kill far more people than my obesity ever will.  No one has ever died from secondhand obesity.  

Before you condemn me for being fat, ask yourself why you hate fat people.  Why does my size offend you so much?  What right do you have to hate me just based on the way I look?

Alana

(Let's watch the ignorant and hate-filled comments flood in...) 

(EDIT: 9 Oct 2007- Comments disabled because this post is becoming a spam magnet.) 

Posted by Alana at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A while ago, I opened up the comments for this blog, but I have to approve them before they get posted here.  So you don't have to read all the irritating spam comments that I get.  Believe me, they're not even interesting spam.  But I just wanted you all to know that if it takes a while to get your actual comment up here, it's because I'm sifting through spam.

My sister-in-law has started a new blog about her impending twins.  There is a link in my link list over to the right and down a bit.  For those who don't feel like scrolling, you can click here.  They aren't even born yet, and already there are fuzzy images of their genitals on the internet.  They are practically celebrities!

My husband has been working non-stop for the last 12 days.  Long hours with no time off has left him a bit loopy.  This is going to be the first weekend he doesn't have to work for about 3 weeks, and it just happens that it's the weekend we promised to babysit his neice.  Grr.  We can't back out because we promised, and his sister doesn't ask very often.  But she likes cartoons and so do I, so we can just pop on some Veggietales and let her go.

I've got to get to work.  Trying not to miss the bus like I did yesterday.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been off and on antidepressants for about 7 years, and mostly on.  I don't have too many horrible side effects, other than strange dreams.  I'm not talking about night terrors or anything bad really.  Just weird.

The weirdest ones usually feature celebrity roles.  Never the celebrities I'd want, like a naked Ewan McGregor.  It's always bizarre celebrities. 

In the past, my weirdest dream was the one in which I was on a Seattle bus with Robert Carlisle and Ed McMahon and they were critiquing and portfolio of my artwork.  If I remember right, they both thought I was very talented.

Last night I had a dream that totally tops that.  I was a camera operator for The Daily Show (but the set was different) and Jon Stewart was feeding cherry tomatoes and Hershey Kisses to a pair of orangutans while Carol Channing sang "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am".  Think about that scenario for a moment.  Then think about what kind of twisted subconscious could even manage to assemble that scenario.  I'm a little scared of my own brain now.

(In other news, my brother's wife is still pregnant with twins and I'm still all manner of excited about it.)

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 09:45 AM | Permalink

I talked to my brother and his wife on Saturday about their trip to Belize.  At least, that was the ruse they used to get the whole family on the phone.  They really were calling to tell us that my brother's wife is pregnant.  (Although they really did go to Belize too, and had a lovely time.)  But they told us not to tell anyone until they said so.  It was less than a week, but it was killing me.

On Sunday I went to visit my in-laws, and saw my little nephew and my husband's pregnant sister.  And I was desperate to tell my mother-in-law the happy news.  But I promised I wouldn't tell.  Then all week at work, there has been a big hoo-haw because one of my co-workers is having her last day tomorrow, and is going to be off for a year on maternity leave.  So she's extremely pregnant and there are baby things all over the office for her, and still I couldn't say anything.

Finally, today my brother said that they had an ultrasound and found that my sister-in-law is further along than they originally thought, so we are free to tell people.  Finally.  I thought I was gonna 'splode!  

Not only am I allowed to tell people, but apparently they also found out that she is having twins!  Hooray!  I love twins!  Twins are awesome. 

I wish I could be in the US with them in the fall when the babies are due, but it isn't working out that way this year.  I'm planning to have some eye surgery, which is taking up all my money and vacation time.  I keep thinking, "It's elective surgery.  Put it off and go see your brother."  But then the other side of me counters with, "If you don't get this surgery now, you will soon be having children of your own and will never again have the time or money to do it.  Plus, it's not like the new babies will in any way register my visit in their mushy little noggins.  Better to wait until they are actual functioning humans."  Which is why I'm doing the surgery, even though it seems like a selfish and horrible thing to do at the moment.  Sometimes those are the things you have to do.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a long time since I've posted.  You'd think I'd have a lot to catch up on, but I seriously don't.  I haven't posted because nothing has happened.  My life has been boring.  I've been going to work, coming home, taking care of the rodents, playing Need For Speed on the PS2 and then going to bed.  That's about it.

I guess some stuff has happened, but nothing worth a post in its own right.  I tried to go off my anti-depressants, with pretty horrible results.  Now I'm on a different one.  Looks like I'm too crazy to go around unmedicated. 

My brother went to Belize.  That's all I know about that.   

My office keeps threatening to give us uniforms, but I don't see it happening as long as our HR contact is completely incompetent.

I apparently did something horrible to my sacroiliac (the bit connecting the pelvis to the spine) and for most of a week I was on tons of painkillers and couldn't sit down for very long.

In guinea pig news, Fudge has been learning how to pull the top sheet off his cage bedding and crawl underneath, so that he smells like stale rodent urine.  Elvis has been helping him, when he's not trying to assert his dominance and hump Fudge.  Spike has continued to have problems with bladder sludge, and makes terrible heart-breaking squealing noises when he pees.  We're doing our best to help him.  Homer has stopped biting and become the most friendly laid-back and sweet guines pig in the world.  But that's just my opinion.  (He's my little furry homeboy.)

That's about it, and I have to go catch a bus to work.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 05:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been having the craziest week ever.  About a week ago I got linked somewhere.  I'm not sure where all I've been linked, but I got 45,000 hits in one day.  And I've been averaging about 5000 per day since then.  That used to be about the number of hits I got in a year.  I've had a total of 92,000 in the last 7 days and almost 100,000 in the last 30 days.

Most of this traffic by far is my food site.  Then when I thought that it was starting to slow down, I got an email from BBC Radio.  I was interviewed about the site on BBC Five Live on Saturday.  Then today I got an email and a phone call from BBC in Northern Ireland, wanting to interview me.  It's crazy!

I've been getting a flood of fan mail and hate mail.  It seems that Americans love me, the English love me, and the Scottish want to kill me.  So no change from what I've experienced living here.  I've been getting so much mail that I actually had to change my contact email address for this site.  I've changed it to .

The new address will allow me to actually answer my emails from my friends and family by putting the email from strangers into a separate place.  So my friends and family should continue to use the email address you have been using.

I don't know how I feel about all of this popularity.  It is flattering and exciting, since I'd love any chance to write for a living instead of doing medical coding.  But it is also stressful.  I have always hated being stared at and judged.  At least I'm being judged for my words and ideas so far.  I guess I don't mind the radio inerviews, because at least it isn't television.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I've gotten a lot of friendly notes from family and friends all over wondering where all the postings have gone, and why I have been so internet-quiet lately.  I'll attempt something of an explanation.

A bunch of years ago I was diagnosed as manic-depressive.  Which I ignored because my psychiatrist was a jerk and a moron.  At the time I actually had borderline personality disorder.  I've evened out over the last few years, but I fear that at last my idiot ex-psychiatrist's diagnosis is actually correct now.  I'm a type 2 bi-polar.  I don't get seriously manic, but just hypomanic.

When I'm hypomanic, I post like crazy and design t-shirts and accomplish things like crazy (so to speak).  When I'm depressed, I sleep.

It has been raining, with gale-force wind for the last month.  It is dark when I leave for work and dark when I go home.  My house is British, and therefore poorly-insulated and terrifyingly expensive to heat.  So I'm cold and tired and depressed.  Over Christmas and my birthday, I was assaulted by the fact that I have no friends in this country outside of my husband and my guinea pigs. 

So it's been hard to come up with anything to post that doesn't just make me want to step in front of a bus even more than I already do.  So please excuse my lack of posting.  Maybe it'll get better if the weather here ever improves or if the people here ever stop being so rude and unpleasant.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've taken the day off work for thanksgiving.  I've got a pumpkin pie in the oven and a pre-stuffed boneless turkey.  Thanksgiving dinner is pretty easy to do here.  Cranberry sauce is readily available and so is everything else except for pumpkin.  I got a can of pumpkin back in September because you have to go to this one shop called Lupe Pinto's and you have to get there before all of the pumpkin disappears in october (for Canadian thanksgiving).  But next year, I might be able to get a pie by cooking and pureeing a butternut squash.  Those are good for pie too, and are available this time of year.

Mostly I'm glad to have a day off work.  I'm bored with my job.  It's not a bad job and the people aren't bad people.  I am just not happy sitting at a desk all day every day.  But I don't have to go there until Monday.  Yay!

On a sad note, there has been a death in the family.  My brother and sister-in-law's hamster Habeebi passed away.  I never got a chance to meet her, but she was incredibly adorable and I know Jaime and Matt will miss her.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One thing I've learned about this country is that it is a country obsessed with newspapers and magazines, and they can be bought relatively cheap.  So I've been on a quest to figure out if there are any that I liked.

First, I tried SFX.  Instant success!  It is about sci-fi, and I never get tired of articles about Doctor Who and the latest Robert Rankin novel.  And one issue even came with a free book of short stories.  So that was good, but it is monthly, and I need to read things more often than once a month, so the quest continued.

Next I tried a few music magazines.  I quickly realized that I am too old for them.  They are all about British bands that are popular with teenagers.  I listen to American bands that no one has heard of.  So not so much.

Then I thought I'd try some fashion magazines.  I found that some of them were all about how to "find Mr. Right" (the ones written for 20-somethings) and some were very firmly in the realm of teenager magazines, with articles about beating acne and getting over the embarrassment of farting in class.  Clearly not for me.

I had some success with the knitting magazine I found, but that one is printed less frequently than SFX, plus I am not good at knitting and only about 1/3 of the articles are about crochet.  So I'm not so sure about that one.

I also tried a science magazine, and it was good, but I couldn't get into the articles about throwing cows into a black hole.  Not exactly light reading. 

I was left in an awkward position.  I only categories left were the tabloids (which I cannot waste my money on because I don't care who Jennifer Aniston is or isn't sleeping with) or the Women's Magazines.  The Good Housekeeping type.  I hate the idea that a woman is solely responsible for keeping her house magazine-spread perfect and that every meal should be cooked from scratch.  Basically, I hate the Martha Stewart ideal, so these magazines seem horrible.  Plus, they are meant for "mature" (a.k.a. "old") women.  I'm not old.  For the next 2 months I'm still in my 20's!  I can't be reading housewife magazines.

Of course I bought one.  And I kind of like it.  It has stuff about cooking, and I like to cook.  It also has articles about diseases, which I enjoy.  So I guess I'm an old married woman now.  Grr.

I think that when you're young, like in high school and college or whatever, you read the fashion magazines and hipster music magazines and stuff, and then you meet someone and spend about a year reading wedding planning magazines.  And once you have done that, you can never read the other ones again.  The wedding magazines are a transitional genre from the single person fashion magazines to the old person household management magazines.

I'd rant more on the subject, but I want to finish reading that article about preventing skin cancer, and I need to finish reading the Christmas recipe supplement.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I just finished making a new product in my online store.  It is a calendar with sexy adorable shots of my guinea pigs and hamster.  You can find it at the cafepress girlalive shop.

While I had the camera out, I also took some pictures of the tattoos me and my husband got for our anniversary.

This is mine (it is at the top of my forearm with the tail on my upper arm).

And this is my husband's tattoo, on his upper arm.

So those are our tattoos.  Mine isn't completely healed yet.  But it's getting there.

Go and buy my calendar.  It is silly, and there are cute guinea pigs.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 02:30 PM | Permalink

This week was my pseudo-anniversary.  It was one year since my husband and I pretended to get married in front of all my friends and family.  I have now been living in Scotland for a year.  I am starting to appreciate tea everywhere, and I am even starting to talk like the people here (except that I still refuse, as a card-carring adult, to refer to a cookie or biscuit as a "bikkie"; I have my limits).  I still miss Seattle and I miss friendly people.  On the radio they said that Edinburgh was recently voted the unfriendliest city in the UK.  I can't disagree.

To celebrate our pretend anniversary, my husband and I went out and got more tattoos.  He got a pacific northwest native American serpenty sort of thing on his upper arm.  I got a little orange fishy on my left forearm.  All the women in my office are fascinated/concerned by my new tattoo.  Fascinated because none of them have tattoos, and some don't even have basic pierced ears.  (Oh, and I got an extra piercing in my ear because I got bored while waiting for my husband's tattoo to get done.)  And they're concerned because it has been very red and sore.  It is red and sore because the body of the fish is on my forearm and the tail extends upwards onto my upper arm.  It looks all cool, but getting tattooed near the inside of the elbow joint hurts like you wouldn't believe.  And it is very thin skin there, so it bled all over, and is still bruised a little.

I'll show you pictures someday.  I need to wait until it stops flaking and isn't all gross.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I ride the bus to and from work every day, and I work in a busy metropolitan hospital, and I see hundreds of people every day.  I have recently noticed a few absolutely idiotic fashion trends in the last few months.

First off, you're going to look at me in my completely un-trendy clothes and think, "How can she judge fashion?  She dresses like crap."  You'd be right.  I do dress like crap.  I hate my clothes.  All of them.  I dress the way I do because there is only one store in Edinburgh that sells clothes in my size, and there are only a few things at that store that I can afford.  So I'm limited by my own lack of money and the UK's cultural intolerance of fat people.  So I observe fashion from the outside.  I'm like a double-amputee ballet fan.  I enjoy it, but I can't participate.

Right now there are some fashion trends I hate.  The first thing that I hate is hip-huggers.  They look good on no one.  All over the streets, there are girls wearing hip huggers so tight that they cut the fat on their hips into 2 hideous rolls, above and below the waistline.  The skinniest girls look like fat cows in these trousers.  They add 20 pounds to anyone dumb enough to wear them.  Manufacturers: please stop making them.  People: please stop buying them.  The answer to that timeless question is, "Yes, those jeans most certainly do make you look fat."

The other trend I hate is random patches of bleached hair.  Women will bleach a few chunks of hair, or even worse, men with short hair will bleach spots and patterns onto their heads.  It doesn't look natural.  It doesn't look good.  In fact, it looks like there is a horrible vitiligo epidemic in Edinburgh.  Maybe the bleach has eaten into their brains, and that's why they think the hip-huggers look good.

The only bright spot in the fashion scene here is that as the days get shorter and the air grows colder, I am subjected to fewer and fewer pairs of giant windscreen-sized Paris Hilton sunglasses.  Whenever I see a girl wearing those, my gut reaction is to just punch her in the head for being a brainless fashion victim.  But I can't do that because if I assaulted every brainless fashion victim in this country, my hands would become very bruised and sore in short order.  

Alana

Posted by Alana at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I took this week off of work because I was getting stressed out with life in general (not so much with my job, but just with life).  Since I have vacation time aplenty, I decided to use some.  I spent Monday and Tuesday kind of just chilling out and getting extra sleep and reading a few books.  Then I woke up on Wednesday.

First thing in the morning, I thought, "Oh, I have to poop."  So I went to the bathroom and had a bout of the runs like I've never had before.  So I went back to bed.  Before my head even hit the pillow, I thought, "Uh oh.  Back to the bathroom," and went back into the bathroom to puke my guts out for a while.  The day pretty much continued in that pattern.  All day.  

So the there was Thursday.  By then, my digestive system calmed down, and I woke up to my husband calling to tell me that my web site was down, thanks to the assholes at AIT web hosting who shut my site down, despite the fact that they have not been my web host for over a year.  I live in Scotland now, so calling customer service isn't an option.  I added my dad as an official contact on the site, and had him handle it, which he did just fine.  (Cause I have the best dad in the whole world.)

Basically, if I had wanted a vacation filled with this much inconvenience, vomiting, and diarhhea, I would have gone to Mexico.

Today, I went out and had some fun, and ran some errands.  I got my cafepress check deposited (which is a pain because it is in US dollars).  I got my contacts ordered.  I stopped at Lupe Pinto's, the store that sells American foods, and I got some canned pumpkin.  Then we went to Argos and got ourselves new £29.99 MP3 players.  Nothing like shopping to make it all better. 

We're considering some new guinea pigs, but haven't made any solid decisions.  I want some more boy piggies, and I want to name one of them Steve.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:57 PM | Permalink

This blog entry covers a variety of topics.  Try to keep up with the group.

First of all, if you're female and you have no job, and you have some kids, that does not automatically make you a "full-time mom".  If your husband is unemployed and you're living on welfare, you are just as unemployed as your husband.  If there are 2 ablebodied adults who could be working and no one is, you are both unemployed.  You are not a full-time mom if you are shooting heroin 4 times a day.  You are a full-time junkie and a part-time mom at best.  If you have one child, and a nanny who does all the childcare, you are not a full-time mom.  You are lazy and you have too much money.

My hamster is problematic.  He still stinks.  Now he has started peeing and pooping on me because apparently, he is now more comfortable with me.  And the other day, he spent a very long time "cleaning" some unmentionable regions of his anatomy.  It was gross.  He's a cute little fluff ball, with some disturbing habits.

They're giving us uniforms at work.  On one hand, that's one less thing to think about early in the morning.  On the other hand, it is a horrible light blue polyester blend that needs to be ironed.  And why are they spending money on uniforms when we can't even get office supplies or toilet paper in our office?
 
My husband and I were at the pet store the other day and we saw the cutest baby guinea pigs.  They were barely bigger than Binky.  We both wanted them, but we don't have the room or the time for many more piggies.  But if I ever win a million pounds, I'll be getting into small-scale guinea pig breeding, cause I love those little baby piggies.

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 10:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

I've been very busy with work and I haven't been on my own computer in a while.  I've mostly been using my husband's computer so I can watch tv while I play around online.  But I also forget to write in my blog when I do that.

It was very hot here for a long time.  I hate hot weather, so it started to grate on me and make me grumpy.  Then I had a few things come up (my friend with the abusive husband, my other friend with ovarian cancer, and my dad with the whole heart blockage thing he talks about on his blog).  Those things made me sad about being stuck here in Scotland when all those people are still in the US.  I like it here, but it isn't easy being so far away from all of my people.

I've basically been depressed for a few weeks, and I don't post blog stuff when I'm depressed because I mostly just sleep.  I wish I was back home.

I also have been getting frustrated with my job.  I don't like working in an office.  I don't like having bosses always micro-managing how I do my job.  For a few years I've been kicking around a hundred ideas of what I could do for a career that would be better.  Lately there have been some radio commercials here that have been getting to me. 

Back up for a minute.  I have a bachelor's degree in history with a minor (3 classes away from a double major) in geography.  These degrees are worthless.  They qualify me to work at McDonald's.  I only have a nice office job because of my charm and personality.  So I'm not starting from a good place to re-train to a new job.  I'd love to re-train into something like biochemistry, but I'd have to get a whole new bachelor's degree and then a master's, and it is a lot of work and expense.  

Anyway, on the radio, they've been begging people to get trained as teachers.  So I looked into it.  It pays better than my current job, I'd have more freedom and creativity at work, and I'd get 2 months off in the summer, plus other school holidays.  It only takes a year to get a post-graduate diploma in education.

I can't do it now because I have no money.  And if I went to school right now, I'd have to apply (and pay tuition) as an international student because I haven't lived here long enough to be a resident.  But in a few years I might think about it. 

I hate kids.  I think that the teenagers here are all surly, rude, foulmouthed bastards.  But I can't complain about it unless I'm willing to do something to fix it.  So I think I might become a teacher.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

It's been painfully hot here for the last week or so.  I don't do well in hot weather.  I am from Minnesota.  I need to be refrigerated.

At the same time that the weather got hot, the management of my office sent out the edict that no one is allowed to wear sandals anymore.  Grr.  

Life has been rather boring.  Work and then more work.  I got a chart recently for a woman who was in the labor ward, and got up off the toilet and as she did, she spread her legs too far and the baby fell out onto the floor.  (The baby was fine, so it's okay to laugh.)

I'm out of money because we had some unexpected expenses, and I only get paid once a month.  So I'll be okay after Thursday, but for now I'm all kinds of broke.

I've been getting really annoyed lately with living in a beautiful country with rolling hills and all manner of sheep, and because we don't have a car, I only see the bits along the bus route.  I'm thinking of getting a bike.

I'm not in a very good mood today because last night I found out that a friends' husband has been abusing her for the last 10 years, and she has been hiding it.  I just hope she really goes through with her divorce.  She deserves so much better.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 03:24 PM | Permalink

My husband has decided that for our pseudo-anniversary in October, we should both get tattoos.  He has one already, and I have three.  My current tattoos are a small celtic cross on my ankle, the alchemy symbol for purification by fire on my wrist, and some thistles on my upper arm.

I'm planning a few more tattoos.  I was originally going to get something on my right leg, since I have tattoos on both arms and my left leg.  But there's also a scar on my left forearm (the arm with the thistles) that I'd like to cover.  It's right up near the elbow and it is shaped like this:

I would like to use the shape of the scar in the design of the tattoo.  Originally I planned to put a little fish over the scar.  And I still might do that.  But I've been kicking around some other ideas relating to the shape of the scar.  Here are a few ideas I've had:

• a flower
• a brazil nut
• a penguin
• lips
• corn on the cob
• a fat butterfly
• Mr. Hanky (the Christmas poo)
• a slug
• a lizard
• a banana
• a lava lamp

If you have any other ideas for my scar, post them in the comments thingy.  (You'll have to register to use the comments, but it's a registration thing that'll carry over to a lot of other blogs, so it's good.)

Alana

Posted by Alana at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I haven't written an entry here in a while.  Not because I've been doing nothing, but more because I've been doing so much stuff that I don't really have time to write much without getting all stressed out about how much time is being allocated to husband and rodents and work and everything else.

So I'll try to cover the main points of the last week or so.

I've been working.  My supervisor, who we will call #2, was out all week, so the main boss, #1, was hanging around a lot more than usual.  Particularly around my desk.  She apparently ran out of things to do and started auditing my work.  The thing is, she would find some correction I needed to make, and usually I had it right in the first place and ended up explaining why I did it the right way in the first place.

I have 2 doctor's appointments coming up this week.  The first appointment I made was with an eye doctor.  I can only see clearly if my glasses are pushed up to the "proper" position on my nose, and then I can only see things that are directly in front of me.  I can't see at all in bright sunlight because my eyes start to burn and water because I can't wear sunglasses.  So this appointment is to try to get myself back into some contact lenses.  I'm not staring at a computer screen 8 hours a day anymore, and I am tired of having no peripheral vision.

My other doctor's appointment is on the subject of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  I was diagnosed with the condition a lot of years ago.  I haven't been on medication because the only meds available before made me sick.  But now there are new drugs, and I want them.  I don't fancy getting hypertension and diabetes within the next 10 years because of this stupid disease, and I want it drugged into submission with some Metformin.

I'm having more money issues.  I have no money left in my US bank account, but my US credit card wants money.  They don't want it bad enough to give me the option of direct debit from a UK account, but they do want it bad enough to harrass my parents.  So I've been working on juggling paypal accounts to be able to transfer the money to my US account so I can pay my stupid credit card bill.

On a happier note, I have the day off on Tuesday.  I'm celebrating July 4th because I'm an American.  I told #2 that it is traditional to set off fireworks and barbeque things, which I could either do at home or in the office.  For some reason she gave me the day off.  The husband and I went out yesterday and got ourselves a little barbeque grill.  It's pink, which seems to bother my husband, but it was the only color it came in.  I hope you all have a good 4th of July.

Also, if you aren't playing Kingdom of Loathing yet, why aren't you?  It's oodles of fun.  I just donated $10 to the site to get myself an Astral Badger.  It poops magic mushrooms.  If you join because of me, consider joining our clan "The Good Ship Serenity".

Alana

Posted by Alana at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't update my blog or check my email from work. They have not
given me internet access, which I guess is okay because some people who
download porn at work and spend all day on ebay screw it up for everyone.
So I'm writing this blog as an email to myself, which I will post when
I get home. (It's my lunch hour. I'm not breaking rules.)

I woke up at 5:30 this morning because we took the blanket that has
been hanging over the bedroom window down. It was there because it was
too sunny to sleep when I was not working. Now that I am working, the
darkness was making it hard to get up in the morning. But I'm not used
to so much light, so I woke up at 5:30. So did my husband.

At that time of the morning, I didn't feel like making myself a lunch.
So I bought my lunch from the shop in the hospital. I had a sandwich.
In the UK, that's a huge decision, choosing a sandwich. In the US,
you'll get a selection of highly questionable and overly moist sandwiches
that were very likely packed during the Nixon administration. They
tend to be things like "peanut butter and jelly", "ham and cheese" and
"the substance formerly known as egg salad". They should not be taken
internally, in the US. Here in the UK, packaged sandwiches are actually
quite good. They have bizarre but tasty combinations like "tuna and
sweetcorn" and the one I just had "brie and bacon". I should have gone
for the healthier "tuna and cucumber", but the bacon was just so tasty.

I have to get back to work. These charts won't code themselves, I
guess.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really don't feel like going back to work tomorrow.

I still don't have a desk.  I have a place to sit for 2 weeks while someone is on vacation, but my boss is just kind of hoping the pregnant girl will go into labor soon so I'll have a place to sit for a few months.  On friday afternoon, I got a computer password, but I still don't have access to all the software I need to do my job, so I still spent the whole afternoon bored out of my mind.  After promising "I'll stop by tomorrow to get you your ID card," 2 days in a row, I still don't have it.  I get to be interrogated every time I go into the office, and I can't get employee discounts in the cafeteria.

Really, I'd like to say something positive about my job, but I haven't really found much to love yet.  Some of the people in the office seem really nice.  Mostly they just seem busy.  

I've had a headache since Wednesday afternoon.  I'd rather stay home and sleep.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I had my occupational health visit.    It was a big waste of time, and it was really early in the morning.  Hopefully I can now start work next week or the week after (depending on how fast they get their report to HR).

On the way home from the appointment, I was tired of sitting on the bus, so I got off on Princes Street and did some shopping at Book World.  I got a book about dog breeds that I wanted.  Basset hounds are my favorite.

Then there was the long ride from Princes Street to Penicuik.  By the time I got into town I was again tired of sitting on the bus, and also hungry because I hadn't eaten anything since a peanut butter sandwich at 7 this morning.  So I got off at the grocery store and bought some food, then I walked the rest of the way home.

Now I've eaten my lunch (scotch eggs and raspberry soda) and I've had a bath.  I'm feeling much better than I did when I got up this morning.

By the way, if any of you don't play Kingdom of Loathing, you totally should.  My husband and I have been playing for a few months.  My player name there is orangelazarus and my husband is gaspode, the head of our clan, The Good Ship Serenity.  Yes, it is a Pete and Pete reference, married to a Terry Pratchett reference, together in a clan that is a Firefly reference.  Anyway, I am a Pastamancer with one acension under my belt, and gaspode is a Sauceror with 2 ascensions.  I just finished my post-ascension ronin period and I'm totally jazzed about having all my stuff back. 

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm bored.

Sitting around the house waiting for my job to start has sucked.  I've been spending far too much time with my rodents.  The guinea pigs are still a little freaked about the presence of Binky.  They're not sure what the little interloper is up to, but he's too quiet and he smells weird.  (He's blissfully quiet since I oiled his wheel.)

I've posted some of the guinea pig and hamster pictures on my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/girlalive/

I can't believe how stupid some people are.  I've gotten 2 pieces of hate mail from people who I would guess are around 13 or 14 years old, basically saying, "If you hate so much stuff in Scotland why don't you go back where you came from?"  First of all, I'm here because of my husband, not because of any other person in this country.  Second, since when does hatred of thick beurocracy and hatred of Marmite equate to hating everything here?  I'm not allowed to talk about it if anything here is annoying or disgusting?  Basically, because of the recent mail, my main complaint about Scotland isn't the food (which I've always mostly liked anyway) or the government beurocracy.  I mostly just hate the stupid people who write crap like this.  If you don't like a web site, don't read it.  I guess that's a concept just to far above the mind of a whiny teenager.

If any of you know a girl named Lindsay Moore (email address ftt1960@yahoo.com), she's a total bitch.  She decided that since I don't like Marmite, I must hate Scotland and that I "poke fun at all things Scottish".  In America, we have a thing called a "sense of humor".  We use it to deal with stressful situations like moving to a new continent.  She also took the opportunity to insult me about my weight (such a 13-year-old move) and basically chose to be offended by everything about me.  So if anyone should happen to know her, please feel free to punch her in the crotch for me.

Oh, yeah, that's the punishment for stupidity that my husband and I came up with.  Any time someone is profoundly stupid, they should get a swift punch to the crotch.  Once or twice in a lifetime, you'll be fine.  But the chronically stupid like Lindsay would soon be rendered unable to reproduce by the constant swift punches to the reproductive organs.  Who is with me on this?

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First off, I didn't get an account opened.  They have complicated and convoluted rules to prevent money laundering and to prevent people on spouse visas from being able to get a bank account.  Because you know that it's the drug dealers and the housewives that are all about the money laundering.  *sigh* More British red tape.

Then we didn't get Chinese food because we got there a few minutes past the lunch rates, and it would have cost a ton.  So we went for Thai food instead, which was good.

The only thing that did go according to plan was buying a hamster.  We got a little boy hamster who is cream and white colored.  We named him Binky (after Death's horse in the Discworld novels).  Ever since we brought Binky home, Homer and Spike (our guinea pigs) have been jumpy and kind of freaking out.  They can smell a new animal in the house, and they aren't sure if it's something that is going to eat them or not.  I'm hoping they'll get over it soon.

I'll post some pictures of Binky later, but for the moment we're letting him sleep and chill out because he had kind of a hard day yesterday.  Hamsters do not like riding on the bus.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I actually have things to do today.  That's unusual.  I usually sit at home and screw around on the internet all day, or watch crappy daytime tv.  But not today.

This afternoon I have an appointment to go and get myself a bank account.  Yay!  I'll finally officially exist in this country.  You can't do much of anything without a bank account.  So I'm going to the bank to get hooked up with a sweet account number.

Then after that my husband and I are going to a Chinese buffet.  It's cheap on thursday nights. 

Then after the Chinese food, we have to stop at the pet store to get parasite drops for Spike and Homer.  Here's how the conversation kind of went yesterday:

Me: How late is Pets at Home open?  Spike has that flakiness on his leg.  I think he still has mites, and the spray isn't doing anything.

Husband: I'm not sure how late they're open.

Me: As long as we're there, they have hamster cages on sale right now.  I saw that if you buy a cage you can get a starter kit, a ball, and a treat for free.  Maybe we could get that while it's on sale and then get a hamster later.

(Husband had told me that I could have a hamster in a couple months after I start work.)

Husband: If we're going to get a hamster cage, we might as well save ourselves a trip and get the hamster too.

Then we went on the internet and saw that Pets At Home is open until 8:00, which is plenty of time for us to buy a hamster.  Yay!  Hamster!

Alana

www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the last few weeks I haven't posted much because my parents have been visiting.  They had never left the country before, except to go to Canada, which doesn't count.  Cause it's Canadia.

We brought them to Edinburgh Castle, and the Royal Museum and the Scottish Museum and Rosslyn Chapel and Princes Street and the Royal Mile and Camera Obscura and Mary King's Close and they went on their own to the Highlands to see Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle.

Then we went to Wigan and my parents got to meet my husband's parents.  I was happy to see their house and see that it wasn't the trashed piece of junk our house is.  So it wasn't my husband's parents who were the pigs in the family.  It's good to know.  I like my in-laws.  They're very nice.

After that we also took a drive up the coast and saw a car museum that my dad wanted to see.  It was actually very fun and a cute little museum.  Then we went to Dirleton Castle, which I think was my favorite castle.  I love Edinburgh Castle, but it is a different experience because it is still a working castle, with a lot of "do not touch".  Dirleton is partially a ruin, so you are allowed to run all over and climb on stuff and sit in the old window seats and look down the medival toilets. 

Now my parents have gone back home and my husband is back to work.  So I'm back home watching bad daytime tv and spending hours working on the Babble puzzle for the day.  I think I might be starting work on May 1st, but I'm not sure.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today me and my visitors took the rental car down to Wigan to visit my husband's family.  I got to meet his aunt and uncle and his grandmother.  I like his Gran because she is somewhere around 90 but still all stubborn and feisty even though she's almost blind.

On the way down to England, we saw a whole lot of sheep.  More than normal because it is "lambing" season so there are little baby sheep all over the place.  They're very cute, but my husband would not let me take one home.

We also stopped at Tebay Services, which is a really nice service station on the M6.  They had all kinds of good stuff and for lunch I had a crayfish sandwich and some Japanese seaweed and peanut things.  I also had a tiramisu Kit Kat, which was really good.

On the way home I saw a cloud that looked just like a pig man with an afro.  It reminded me of the Wookalar (sp?) from the Don Knotts movie "Private Eyes".

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sick.  I think I caught something from one of the nasty little children at the castle the other day because I currently have the worst cold that I have had in years.  Since moving here, I've mostly been sequestered away in our house, and now that I'm out among the people I find that I have no immunity to the crazy British viruses.

I have to go blow my nose for a few more days.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I still haven't started my job.  I think I'm going to end up starting around the first of May.

For the next week or so, I won't be able to answer my email so much because I'm really busy.  I've got some family in town and I've been showing them around Edinburgh.  So I'm spending a lot of time touring museums, cooking for everyone here, and then being a good host and mingling and playing Uno and stuff in the evenings.  

We're also trying to figure out why we keep finding ants in our living room.  

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

*sigh*

I'm extremely bored.  I've been here for almost 6 months now, and I'm officially tired of crappy daytime tv.  It's been 2 weeks since I got hired for my new job, but I just got my background check report in the mail today.  I emailed the HR department to find out if they had a start date for the job yet.  Nope.  They're still waiting for background checks from everyone, and I think they have 3 or 4 new people starting and they'll want to train them all at the same time.  So I wait.

My parents are coming to visit, and they'll be here in a couple days.  One thing that sucks is that hotels and B&B's here are so expensive.  It is okay if you're travelling alone, but they always charge per person.  So even the cheap ones that advertise as (the equivalent of) $40 per night will really cost $80 for both of my parents.  So they'll be staying with us. 

My mom and dad will be staying in the bed that was making my butt go numb for the first few weeks that I lived here.  Since I couldn't do that to my parents' asses, the husband and I went to Ikea last night and picked up 2 small foam mattresses to go on top of the old crappy mattress.  They are childrens' mattresses, so the two of them together are the width of the double mattress, but they are about 15 inches too short.  We're trying to fill the gap with old comforters and pillows and stuff.  

I guess I should go figure out what dinner is going to be.  I'm in the mood for yorkshire pudding, but I don't have any eggs and I don't feel like going to the store.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 04:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been having a slow week.  I'm still waiting to get the paperwork for my job, but my husband keeps telling me to be patient because the health service moves slow.  And since they have to do a background check and check references from another country, I guess I can understand the holdup.

I intended to stay home and mope all day.  I've been doing that a lot because I'm bored and I just want to start my new job already.  But then at 2:30 in the afternoon my moping plans were foiled.  There was a knock at the door.  It was a delivery guy with a big box of stuff I ordered from CafePress.  I ordered a bunch of copies of my cookbook to sell or give to my friends and family here.  I was not expecting it so soon, since as far as cafepress told me, my order had just shipped 2 days ago.  But that wasn't the real problem.  The real problem was that the delivery guy said that I owed 13 pounds in customs fees.  Poopie!  I only had 11 pounds in my wallet, and it was all in change.  He said he could come back tomorrow.

So I had to go out.  I took a bus to the Penicuik town center and then got some cash from one of the cash machines there.  Then I checked out the charity shops to see if they had any books that looked good (I found 4 at the cancer research shop, where the books are only 75p).  Then I went to farmfoods and got some frozen food things.  Then I went to the pet shop and bought bedding and food for the guinea pigs.  Then I came home.

I cooked some of the frozen things for dinner and then the husband and I fed the guinea pigs.  And now I am exiled to the bedroom upstairs.  My husband exiled me because I have slight gas.  In his words, "It smells like something died in there!"  So I'm messing around on the internet and then I'm going to read one of my books.  There's nothing good on tv tonight anyway.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I woke up this morning from the weirdest dream.

I was back at one of my old jobs (we'll call it Company A) and they were at the center of a reality tv show that had celebrities doing data entry to see if they could make it in a normal job.  The computers were hooked up with an alarm system that would go off if anyone started falling behind.   Some of my old friends from that job (who I will call J and K) were working there, alond with my old boss L.

The only celebrity that I remember there was Ewan McGregor, which makes sense because I think he's completely adorable.  He was entering claims, but started getting slower and slower as soon as I walked in the room.  Slow enough that his alarm was going off.  And it turns out that he had a huge crush on me, and instead of working was writing love poems about me in the computer.  So he got fired.  

As dreams do, this one shifted sharply to some sort of classical music concert.  I was there with my aunt and my grandmother (who has been dead for years) and we were running late but got there just as it was starting.  As I was sitting there listening to the music from near the back row, someone sat down beside me.  It was Ewan McGregor again.  He started introducing himself to my grandmother and my aunt as "Alana's fiance".  I tried to tell him that I was married, but he wasn't having it.  Then I woke up.

I stayed up for a few hours crocheting and reading, then went back to sleep.  I had another weird dream where I was in some sort of challenge at my old university.  It was maybe something like a scavenger hunt.  Some guy I don't know paired up with me because he had a crush on me.  Then I got on a bus and went home, and then woke up.

I don't know what to read into all this.  Odd.  All I know is that I still think Ewan McGregor is cute.  And I'm still glad I don't work at Company A anymore.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went shopping today.  Well, the first thing this morning was cleaning the guinea pig cage.  Those little rats sure do poop a lot.  Then I waited until 2:00 and went shopping for food.  We needed some food here, and also the guinea pigs had no veggies.  So I got important things like discount greens for the piggies and the DVD of "Serenity" for me.    I also bought a whole bunch of unhealthy things like toffee cakes and caramel and chocolate shortbread.  (In case mom is reading, I bought chicken and broccoli and mushy peas and stuff too.)

I sent in a resume for a job as a scriptchecker for the SQA (which is the educational testing authority for all the exams that Scottish high school students do).  I got an email saying to call a lady at the job agency and so I did.  She said, "The job starts in April and runs to the end of July and it is full time.  Is that okay?"  My brain immediately said, "Your parents are visiting in April and if you say yes you won't get to see them!"  Then another part of my brain countered with, "I need money and mom and dad will understand.  The husband can show them around."  And all this internal debate was kind of meaningless, since my mouth had already said, "That sounds great.  Please send me an application."

Gotta go start dinner.  I think we'll have szechuan turkey and broccoli followed by spotted dick with custard. 

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've had a headache for several days.  I think it is stress related because of how I got flat-out rejected at the last job interview, and I still don't know what I should have done differently.  I have another interview next Monday for a job I really want, and I don't know how to correct mistakes that I can't figure out.

I put up a new set of t-shirts.  I have been watching a lot of South Park lately, and it shows. 

My dad made a new blog, which is pretty cool.   I also put a whole bunch of linky things for other blogs in the column to the right.  None of them link to me except my dad. 

Sales at my shirt shop have dropped.  I'm not sure what I can do to push more.  The simple fact is that the economy sucks and no one is buying t-shirts, no matter how well-designed and clever they are.

I need to go cook dinner.  My husband has been home for a while and I've been up here in my office since he got home.  I was supposed to go to the grocery store today, but I didn't.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 06:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so for the benefit of anyone who lives with me, I will type up some clear and concise rules of laundry.  This does not apply to the guinea pigs in my house, since they do not wear clothes.  Some of the other people living in my house apparently were never taught tidiness or consideration for others.  Where your mother failed, let me fill in the gaps.

1. Clothes only belong in 3 places in my house: on your body, in a laundry-related machine (for a maximum of 2 days, or preferably only when said machine is in operation), or in a designated clothes storage area (see rule 2).

2. Designated clothes storage areas include our bedroom, the other bedroom near the bathroom, and possibly a laundry hamper, if it is kept in the upstairs hallway.

3. Designated clothes storage areas DO NOT include: in a basket on the kitchen floor, draped over the living room chairs, hung over the stair rail, piled on top of my boxes in the downstairs hall, or in a pile in the corner of the bathroom. 

4. Clothing that is not confined to the laundry machines, your body, or the designated clothes storage areas is really getting on my nerves and will eventually be chucked out into the back garden as nest material for neighborhood squirrels. 

Thank you. 

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My husband and I still refer to Ikea as "the bad place".  We went again yesterday.  But this time there was a plan.

I went online and made a list of every item and every item name we needed.  Then we knew we would only need to go to the childrens' section on the showroom floor (which is right near the end, so we could skip past most of the showroom stuff).  Once there, I got two hanging storage thingies for organizing my yarn, and a reading lamp for over my side of the bed.

Then we went down to the main shopping area.  We got what we needed from the kitchen section: some cutting boards and a container for storing rice.  We also got a big thermos carafe because I wanted one and it was really cheap.  Then zip through to the bedding.  We got what we needed.  Matching blankets and new pillows.  I needed a fresh new blanket and pillow because I hated having a blanket that was all used and full of other peoples' cooties.  Larry and I are not good at sharing blankets, so we got 2 single size blankets instead of one king size.  Then there is no blanket hogging.

Today I'm cooking a barbecue beef brisket.  It was cheap at the store because it was really close to expired and wasn't looking so good.  But once it has cooked all day in barbeque sauce and Coke, it should be fine.

I'm bored and tired.  So I'm too tired to do anything, but really bored with doing nothing.  

I guess I could go downstairs and see if Extreme Dodgeball is on.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our friends brought us to CostCo the other day.  It was fantastic!  I just wish we had more cash to spend there.  But we got a big 20kg bag of rice, and 24 cans of beans and a huge package of processed cheese slices.  They also had Asian pears that were cheap and delicious.  They're already gone because me and Larry and the guinea pigs all loved them.  (Except for Homer.  He's such a picky eater.)

The most important thing I found there was American peanut butter!  It wasn't my favorite, Jif.  But it was my second favorite, which is Skippy.  2 days in a row I've woken up singing "Peanut butter jelly time!" and then had sandwiches and toast piled high with Skippy.  

The other day I went to a charity shop and picked up a few books.  I got one that is called, "I'm Okay, You're a Brat".  It is very encouraging about my decision to not have children for a while.  I'm not quite ready to give up that much of my life for a kid.

Later tonight, there will be more food reviews, but not until after we have Bubble and Squeak for dinner.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've got three Terry Pratchett books that were given to me by my friend who I have referred to as the Poopsmith.  Now my husband has been cleaning his old room (I'll explain in a bit) and keeps piling all the Terry Pratchett books that he finds on my bedside table to read.  So I keep getting to read funny books for free because men keep giving them to me.

My husband has been cleaning because we live in his parents' old room now (he bought the house from his parents) and his sister is going to be moving into his old room.  I would complain more about his sister moving in, but frankly, the timing is really good.  I'm almost out of money and they rent they'll be paying will help cover food, which is what I've been paying for out of my savings.  

I'm hoping to get a job I applied for.  It's the same kind of work I did in the US, but the other end of it.  What I mean is I used to process insurance claims which were covered in medical codes.  This job is to be the person who records all the codes.  Not for insurance here, but for medical records and such.  I could totally do it, and it would be great pay and benefits.

I've also been thinking about my husband's lack of a nickname in my blog.  At first I thought about calling him Homestar, but that's my guinea pig's name so it could be confusing.  I have finally decided to call him Larry (which is totally not his real name).  My brother calls me Bob and when I married Larry he said that he needed a name to call him that would go with Bob.  So he settled on Larry, in honor of Veggietales.  So I'll use that name.  Also, Larry insisted that I not call him "Fluffy", which was another option mentioned.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 1:20 a.m. - 2005-11-23

Hmm.

I forgot that I updated my time zone on Diaryland. So it accurately shows that I'm starting this entry at 1:20 a.m.

This is the second night in a row that I can't sleep. I gave up pretending to sleep and changing positions every 5 minutes and just came downstairs. No sense keeping Husband awake.

I don't know why I'm not sleeping. I'm tired and yawning all day and yet as soon as I lay in bed, I'm anything but tired. I don't have anything specific on my mind. My brain just won't shut up. A thousand ideas of things I could/should be doing flood my head and I can't sleep.

In the past 2 sleepless nights I've accomplished a lot. I've figured out how to make a cake that looks like a guinea pig. I've figured out how to program a macro related to a cookbook I'm writing. I've pondered all of my career options. I've written a 3-minute stand-up routine about my husband's eyebrows. I just haven't figured out what I need to do to get some sleep.

I thought that maybe writing a diary entry would clear some of this crap out of my head and I'd be able to sleep. I'm not sure it worked. In any case, I should go back to bed because it's really cold in here. The heat isn't turned on at night, so the only warm place is under the covers.

Dang. I have to pee. The toilet is going to be freezing.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  1:33 p.m. - 2005-11-03

The bed broke again. Just one slat, so we're just going to repair it instead of venturing back to Ikea. We've started just calling Ikea "the bad place".

We got partial satellite tv hooked up. Just the basic channels and doumentary channels. I just wish we could get the Food Network from the US. I miss Alton Brown.

I keep fiddling with the look of this page, but I'm too lazy to do any real design and just keep slightly modifying the pre-built templates. I think this is better than that yellow one I had before.

I need to go write a grocery list. Husband did a lovely job cleaning the kitchen last night, so now I just need something to cook in there...

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 1:20 p.m. - 2005-10-31

Okay, first of all, the whole story with my bed.

When I got here, the matress on my husband's bed was worn out and just a mess. So I demanded that we use our wedding money for a new mattress.

We went to Ikea, and found that the mattress we wanted wasn't in stock. So we put it off, deciding to come back a few days later.

A few days later, we went back and bought the mattress. It was delivered and it didn't fit the bed frame. It was too big. But it was the size we wanted, so we went back to Ikea and bought a new bedframe.

We got the frame delivered and went to put it together and couldn't find any screws or bolts. So Husband went back to Ikea and picked up a bag of screws. We put the whole bed together, which took 2 hours. And then we found the bag of screws in the bottom of the box.

The slats we got with the bed were not the type we were used to. Typical Ikea slats are just pieces of pine attached together with fabric and staples. These were curved pieces of plywood that we had to insert into little rubber doohickeys. I mention this because the first night in the new bed, at 4am, Husband's side of the bed collapsed. The slats fell off the side ledge and the rubber doohickey broke, leaving Husband's butt on the floor.

So the next night, Husband went back to Ikea (trip number 5) and got the old-style pine slats. Which is about 35 pounds of wood. So Husband had to carry this lumberyard home on the bus, in the rain. By the time he got home, he was cold and wet and very tired.

But we finally got our bed put together. And it is my favorite size. UK sizes, it is king size, which is queen size by American standards.

Today I went to the doctor to get my prescriptions. I got 2 month's worth of Paxil (the UK equivalent) and had to pay for it straight out, since there is no health insurance here. I was a bit scared about having to pay for it because that much Paxil in the US would cost about $150 if I had to pay for it without insurance. Here, it cost the equivalent of $11.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diaryland entry 8:37 p.m. - 2005-10-25

I'm still in Scotland. I guess since I live here, that kind of thing is going to get redundant. I got my computer running, which was important. My husband has some kind of crazy European keyboard (not even a standard British one) that has the quotation marks in the wrong place and it disturbs me. Granted, I'm still using my laptop, so the space bar is still causing me some issues.

We don't have satellite tv hooked up because we don't have the money at the moment. Without satellite channels, British tv sucks. I like some of the shows like Eggheads and QI and we get some cool stuff on the travel channel sometimes, but mostly it's very dull.

Today I went out and bought food. Theoretically food for me and my husband. But I have suddenly become territorial about snack foods and purchased items I knew he didn't like. Then I ate them before he got home from work anyway, so it didn't matter. My lunch was salted rice cakes (yes, the ones that are like styrofoam - I like them) and tomatoes.

Being married kind of sucks so far. A lot of the suckage is related to our bed. The bed here when I arrived was a double bed with a horribly bad old mattress. I demanded a new matress. So we bought one. When we brought it home, it was too big for the bed frame. So then we had to buy a new bedframe too. It isn't getting here until tomorrow.

For the first couple weeks, the horrible flat old matress was twisting my spine and making my ass hurt. Then with the ill-fitting new mattress, my husband keeps rolling over to my side of the bed and sleeping pressed right up against me. I can't sleep like that. It's too hot and I need SPACE. So I haven't slept at all for two nights, except an hour or two after he leaves for work.

I should come up with a nickname for the husband so that I don't have to use his real name. What should I call him? I called one of my friends "Poopsmith", so I can't use that (appropriate as it is on occasion). I don't know. I'll get back to that later. For now I'll just call him "husband".

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  9:31 a.m. - 2005-09-30

I'm bored.

I'm down to my last 2 days of work and I've lost the ability to care about my job. I get all this crap from all these people who want to get paid for stuff. Like I care.

In a perfect world I would have quit my job yesterday and spent today watching a Firefly marathon in preparation for going to see Serenity tonight.

I don't really have anything to say. Just wanted to ramble a bit. I guess I need to get back to work.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:36 a.m. - 2005-09-27

I'm getting closer and closer to my wedding. It's about a week and a half away. So I'm now taking care of all the stupid last minute crap. I'm not good at details.

Last night I went to a fancy-pants salon in Superior to do a practice run on my hair for the wedding. So I'm there, almost straight from work in my Poor Old Lu t-shirt and jeans. She did my hair with more hairspray than I've used in the last 15 years and a pile of hairpins that would guarantee that my head would never get through airport security.

After it was all done, I went home to have dinner and watch tv and work on the wedding flowers. The whole time, with a fancified head and a tiara. Actually, not the whole time. Just long enough to unnerve my parents.

Then I took the pins out and that was even more fun. Once they were all out, my hair was sticking out in all directions like an anime character. I felt like my mouth shouldn't be matching up with my words.

Meanwhile, I was finishing up the wedding flowers. It was a pain, but I'm glad I'm using fake flowers. Real flowers have to be done at the last minute, and I'm not into that. Especially after spending several hours de-thorning roses for my brother's wedding last year.

Got to get back to work. Only 4 and a half more days of soul-crushing claims processing.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

diaryland entry 12:30 p.m. - 2005-09-15

Today is September 15th. Is that the Ides of September, or is that just a March thing?

Anyway, I have about 12 1/2 more days of work before I quit and leave the country. I've put down a deposit on a mover. I've got most of the wedding stuff done. I just haven't actually figured out the ceremony part. Buying dresses and picking hairstyles is easy. Working out what music to have in the ceremony is a big giant pain.

I wish I could quit my job today. It makes my stomach hurt and makes me hate psychiatrists even more than I already did.

Back to processing claims and telling the providers and the customer service people that they are stupid. Cause they are.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:47 a.m. - 2005-06-29

Okay, so I got a new tattoo the other day. I'm not going to show you right now because it is crusty and flaking. It looks kind of like a molting lizard at the moment.

I went into the tattoo place (Anchor's End Tattoos in Duluth) and showed them a picture of 2 thistles and a quote in Hebrew. But I told them that I wanted them to do something cool with it. So the artist did. After making minor changes here and there in the design, he got to work.

I sat in the chair and he jabbed me with a thousand needles. Cause that's what a tattoo is like. It's not horrible pain. Just like an hour and a half rug burn. So I weas just sitting there chatting with him and looking around the room and amusing myself within my own head.

Meanwhile, in the room next door there was a constant stream of piercing customers. Mostly college students up in Duluth for the weekend. None of the girls asked about whether it was going to hurt because most of them already had things pierced. Plus, anyone smart knows that a big needle jammed through your flesh will involve a certain amount of pain. But all the guys asked how much it was going to hurt. Since I wasn't reacting at all to the needles in my arm, the piercer just pointed over to me and said, "It won't hurt half as much as what Josh is doing to her."

So anyway, now I have my third tattoo. The artist was good and the place was clean and nice. They also didn't overcharge me. The new tattoo covers most of my upper arm and it only cost $150, and that was for about 2 hours of work, between the design and the actual tattooing. Quite a steal. At the last place I went it was $60 for a 20 minute tattoo with no design work involved.

Anyway, my break is over. I need to get back to processing claims.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:06 p.m. - 2005-05-12

Long distance relationships suck. I just wanted to make that clear. I don't recommend them. If you have a choice between a guy in your neighborhood and a guy in the other side of the world, most of the time you should pick the guy next door. I didn't.

This is not to say that I regret marrying my husband. Not for a moment. I love him and I can't wait to finally be able to share a time zone with him. But in the meantime, this married-from-a-distance thing is torturously painful.

Last weekend was mother's day. So I had to do a church banquet on Friday, and then I had to go to a service and a half at church on sunday. So I had to talk to old friends I haven't seen in a while, and I had to rehash how horrible it is to be away from my husband in about 3.8 million conversations. So by Sunday night I was sick to death of people. I wanted to hide in my room and never talk to anyone who is not my husband again.

I've been married for a month yesterday. And I haven't seen my husband for 3 weeks. I hate people for reminding me of how much I miss my husband. I hate my job because it's so boring I have 8 hours a day to think about how much I miss him. And I'm mad at my husband for being so inconsiderate about where he was born. I recommend long-distance marriage as much as I recommend gallstones.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:00 p.m. - 2005-05-03

Hi everybody!

I got a new computer, and I'm as excited as, well, as excited as a geek with a new computer. It is a notebook computer, which means that I can now check my email while sitting on the toilet. But I would not want to.

The only problem with the new computer so far is that I am not used to typing on this wee small keyboard, and I keep missing the space bar and squishingallmywordstogether.

Oh, also, one of my favorite science teachers from high school, Mr. Sorensen, was just named the Minnesota teacher of the year. So that is very nice for Mr. Sorensen. And for his wife and kids, and even his tapeworm.

That's about it. I need to go to bed because it has been a long day.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:36 p.m. - 2005-04-19

Hello.

I have not been working for the last two weeks. That is just one of the reasons that those weeks have been good.

My fiance came to visit me. He met and survived my family and even my previously mentioned friend who we will call Poopsmith.

Then about a week ago I got married. It wasn't the "real" wedding in a church with flowers and everything. But I'm legally married to my now former fiance. Former because he is now my husband.

We had a honeymoon and we did some shopping and we saw "Sin City" and we went to the Spam museum. But then he had to go back to Scotland. Now I am sad because my husband is in on his way back to Scotland, and I am not. And to make it even worse, I have to go back to work tomorrow.

I had 2 fun weeks of being with my husband and not processing any claims, and now I have to go back to processing claims and not seeing my husband for another 6 months. Grr. *pout*

Time to go to bed and try to wake up tomorrow like normal. Normal sucks.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  9:57 a.m. - 2005-04-04

Hello.

I don't want to be at work today. I still have a cold. But that's nothing compared to being really really hyper. You see, my fiance is coming to visit me tomorrow! I have not seen him since October, so I am very excited. But I have to work half the day tomorrow and the whole day after that. Which makes me want to say "Grr" a lot.

I'm also all excited because in just a week and a few hours, I will be getting married! I feel like I should not be processing insurance claims. I should be doing all kinds of girly things like getting a manicure and a bikini wax. Well, maybe not the bikini wax. That sounds ouchy.

I must get back to the claim processing. Grr.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Grr.

Posted by Alana at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:44 a.m. - 2005-03-31

My fiance gave me his cold. You might not think that that is a strange thing, but it is. He lives 6 time zones away from me. We have not seen each other in about 6 months. But he somehow managed to give me a cold. He has had a bad head cold all week, and I woke up with the same bad head cold today. And he is the only person I know who has a cold.

I think that if he has special magical long-distance transmitting powers like that, he should not be wasting them by giving me sinus congestion. He should be beaming himself here every weekend, so we could see each other and not spend a fortune on airplane tickets. But no. He just makes my head hurt and makes me tonsils swell up instead.

I love him like crazy and I'm gonna marry him in about a week and a half. But man, this cold thing just isn't funny.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  9:42 a.m. - 2005-03-28

So. It's Monday again. It seems like there are more of them than just the standard one per week.

I'm tempted to start counting the hours until my vacation time starts. After today, I'll only have 6.5 days of work left. I've got half a day of vacation next tuesday, and then the real vacation begins on Thursday.

I have my engagement party on the 9th. But I have other plans for that day too. After the party (which is a very adult early dinner affair) my fiance and I shall try to sneak off to an event called the Geek Prom. It is a prom for geeks who never got invited to a real prom. I think we qualify. I never dated in high school, I met my fiance on the internet, and I have been to a Star Trek convention. My fiance did date in high school, but I think that is cancelled out on the geek scale by all the role-playing games and Babylon 5 conventions.

Now I don't just have to worry about what to wear for my wedding (which is alarmingly in only 2 weeks now). I also have to figure out what to wear for the prom. Maybe I'll need to re-watch Napoleon Dynamite for inspiration.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:29 a.m. - 2005-03-17

There are a variety of beverage options at work. But I don't understand the bottled water.

For $1.00, I can get a bottle of chocolate milk. Someone grew, roasted and processed cocoa beans into cocoa powder, and someone else grew sugar cane or sugar beets and refined it into sugar. Then in another country, someone squeezed a cow and pasturized and homogonized the milk, separating the cream out to make 1% milk. And then they blended in the cocoa and sugar. And I can get all this for a dollar.

For $1.25 I can get pop. Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Root Beer and sometimes even Orange Crush. A factory produced artificial flavoring from chemicals and natural ingredients. Someone either grew and processed sugar, or made artificial sweetener. They blended this with filtered and carbonated water. And I can get all this for $1.25.

Then there's the bottled water. For $1.25, someone filtered some water and stuck it in a bottle. It's not even spring water. It's one of the brands where it's basically tap water from the bottling plant. They didn't bother to flavor it, sweeten it, or even carbonate it, yet they want the same amount of money as they charge for an equal amount of root beer! For less money, I could be drinking milk. For that price, it comes out to about $8 a gallon, for tap water. It comes out of the faucet for free, but they want me to pay $1.25 for it. People are complaining about gasoline being over $2 a gallon, but they're paying $1.25 for a bottle of tap water. I've seen them do it.

I don't understand people. And I know water is supposed to be good for you, but dammit, I can't do it. Not for $1.25 a bottle. I'll be drinking root beer, pepsi, and chocolate milk at work.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:07 a.m. - 2005-03-09

I have a notebook in by backpack that I use for writing down funny or useful stuff that I think of during the day when I'm working. It works much better than stealing sticky notes and losing them in the bottom of my bag. Somehow my notebook manages to acquire a new brown stain (probably from old coffee in my coffee cup) every day. Nothing else in my bag seems to be effected. But there are new brown stains on my notebook every time I pick it up. The top edge is getting kind of crunchy.

Here are some things I wrote in my notebook.

Things That Make Me Laugh No Matter How Mature I Pretend To Be

- That one video of a monkey picking its butt, sniffing its finger, and then falling off a log.

- People named Dick.

- When I see the name Timmy on a claim and immediately think of Timmy from South Park.

- Chinese restaurant menus, when they list chicken balls.

- Chinese restaurant menus, when they list Poo Poo.

- Jokes about uranus.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 12:20 p.m. - 2005-02-24

It is cold outside. You would think that I wouldn't care by now because it has been cold for as long as I've lived here. But I still hate it. More than the cold, I hate the dryness. I feel like every mucus membrane in my body has become mummified. There's a crunchy noise when I blink.

When I was growing up here I always had a stuffy or runny nose and I always had horrible red bumps all over my face. All of that went away when I moved to Seattle. It turns out that I don't have seasonal allergies. It's just that humans aren't meant to live in a frozen desert tundra. And I didn't have acne. I have eczema caused by dry air.

I feel like the guy in "Big Fish". You know, how he always was swimming or in the bathtub because he said he was starting to "dry out". I envy fish.

Anyway, I've decided that northern Minnesota isn't a fit habitat for humans. This is a good place to visit if you have a corpse laying around that you need to mummify. Other than that, there is no good reason to live here.

I think I'll start counting the days until I can leave.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 9:44 a.m. - 2005-02-14

Valentine's Day sucks.

Usually people who say that do not have spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever. I have a fiance. I'm getting married in a matter of months. But Valentine's Day still sucks.

It sucks when you have a big argument on the day before Valentine's Day, and you know that everything will be fine eventually, but you are still licking your wounds from the fight, and then just because it's February 14th you're supposed to pretend nothing happened and act all lovey. I love my fiance, but at the moment I don't feel romantic. I am not in the mood for all this Valentine's crap today. I tell him that I love him every day. Why do I have to make a big thing about it today?

So I guess if I want to celebrate properly, today is hypocracy day for me. I will tell lies and pretend that I am in the mood for hearts and flowers, when I'd really rather join up with a group of single girls having a "boys suck" party.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

originally published on diaryland

12:25 p.m. - 2005-02-09

Welcome!

So I decided to add this diary thingy so that I can add short random musings without having to FTP and write code and stuff. I am good at writing code, but it is not convenient to do at work during my lunch hour cause of how it makes my brain hurt sometimes.

I'm gonna write some more stuff later, but I thought I'd just pop in and say "hi".

Hi.

Anyway, lunchtime is almost over and I haven't finished my oatmeal cookie.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)