It's a Friday night and I ain't got nobody

Well, this was my second time biting into a fruit and seeing a worm inside. Whole both times, thank you.

I have finally done the dishes. They've been sitting there for <hangs head> five days. I still haven't completely cleaned the silicone baking cups; they're having their second soaking. I didn't think to use spray on them because I thought they wouldn't need it; I'll try it next time, but unless matters dramatically improve I wouldn't recommend these at all.

I am also finally alone in the house. Eric is off at gaming night (board games, that is), being cheered up by company after a long week of work and school and intelligence-insulting work assignments and a wife who's getting tired of hearing him complain every semester about a class he feels is doing nothing for him but not do anything about it. (I'm not even going to try to check the tenses in that last sentence. Excuse me.) Yesterday my friend C from work came over and we finished her Christmas tree skirt, which we gave priority over mine because she's probably leaving town in the next several weeks. Today I'm contemplating working on my own, but mostly I'm reading and writing some trash and contemplating uses for zucchini. It'll be a good night.

Oh, and my boss confirmed that I no longer have to come in an hour early. Hallelujah!

Interlopers

I was in the garden a couple of days ago, picking tomatoes and eggplant and pottering a little, and listening to a bunch of kids in one of the back yards abutting mine. There's a treehouse right next to my fence, and every once in a while I find a ball in my yard. (I chuck it back, usually in the yard with the treehouse.) Today, the kids were playing tag, because I heard someone say something about hovering near base.

Then an actual argument broke out, then some scuffling; then a girl jumped out of the tree house into my yard and ran behind my pear tree. I turned and stood, watching, as a boy also jumped down into my yard (staying near the fence, however) and they continued to argue. After a few exchanges the girl turned to me and said, "Did I touch his pop can??"

I said, "I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. But you two are both out of bounds." They got the message and climbed up out of my yard, and I don't know how the argument ended. I told Eric about this later and he said, "Practicing to be a mom already, huh?" Now I'm just wondering if it's not the squirrels after all who keep taking the pears out of my pear tree.

I'm a regular

I went with my friend at work to lunch today, to the Coney Island we usually go to. The waitress there, our favorite, knew our drinks before we ordered them. I've never been a regular anywhere before. It was kind of neat, but also kind of scary. We'd go other places if there were any within reasonable driving distance.

I don’t know why I've been so quiet on this blog of late. I know it's partly because the gardening thing is interesting and easier, and it's partly because my words seem to have dried up a bit. But journaling is usually easy. I've been writing 500 words a night on Shoelace, most nights anyway, but it gets hard and most of what I've recently written is bad. I don't know what to do, other than keep plugging away at it and maybe doing some exercises to practice more. I want to write, but I also like to do other things, and almost everything else is easier, so I do those other things. I had a much easier time of it in 2001 when I was writing PV and had no other hobbies.

Part of it might be because I have Eric now, which means (a) someone to tell things to and (b) someone who shares my life but probably doesn't want to be written about a lot. And I am still adjusting to this whole being married thing. Or rather, this whole having-someone-else-share-my-life thing. I'm mostly happy with the way things are, but it still requires thinking about when I can no longer say "Sure, come on over" because my husband might need quiet for studying, or when I have to think about whether to get an expensive Christmas present for him because he might or might not think it's worth spending our money on (I decided he would), or when--for example--I really wish I were in some other city doing something else but I can't because I promised I would stay. And also, of course, because my husband and best friend have to stay. And it's very strange to want to go, with him, but also want to stay here because it would make him happy and moving will make him sad. My marriage does not suck, but the complexity of thinking required in married life sometimes does.

(On the other hand, I kind of like this feeling that I've moved up from a beginner's level of adulthood to perhaps journeyman level. I don't know when master level kicks in. Or does it ever?)

Anyway, yes, things going on, I'm not unhappy, but I'm a little dissatisfied. I don't know if it's because I'm too settled or not settled enough. Arrgh.

But at least I now have someplace I can go where, if they don't know my name, they know what I drink.

Without a trace

When C first came to work I talked about her a lot to Eric. "Ohmigod," I would say. "What makes her think I care about her son's football games?" Or, "She says she can't move items in Word tables because 'they go all funny' when she copies and pastes." Or, "She was telling me about buying clothes for her son, and she said, 'We got these nice pants, they were cream, or whatever you'd call it for a boy.'"

Yesterday I got to work early, as my boss asked me to for September (due to potential overseas customers we needed someone available to talk to while they were still at work). When my boss got there, an e-mail went out. "As of Friday, C is no longer working here," it read. "Until we find and train a replacement, each of you will have to do your own [document creation]."

I asked my boss what happened. "Well...we just had to let her go," he said. My coworker Tony hinted that he knew and it was dramatic, but he didn't tell me about it and come to think of it, I was there Friday after C left, and I didn't notice anything going down.

Today I was creating a document, one of the things that's normally C's job. I had a little difficulty filling in one spot, so I opened up an old one C had done for me and I had sent to a customer. Turns out she had had difficulty too: the spot was incomplete, still with the ~99 where the information was supposed to go. I was exceedingly annoyed. I could even see opening up a document like that, something I'd sent to a high-paying client, and wanting to fire the person who had messed it up. But my boss isn't a short-tempered man. So what much-worse-than-that thing did happen with C?

Insurance insurance

We just finished the job of calling our respective insurance companies to get quotes. Actually, that's not true. I called. Eric said, "You're so much better at talking on the phone...I'm better at talking face to face," and I said, "And what jobs do we have?" and new, previously unthought thoughts dawned on his face.

The Allstate person was friendly and helpful, and didn't mind my muttered asides. The Liberty Mutual person was also friendly and helpful, but somewhere during the conversation--it was shortly after I said Eric wasn't a football person, but I'm not sure why that would reflect on me--he started treating me as if I had an IQ of about 91. Also, Liberty Mutual is more expensive. The Liberty Mutual person told me, before I could get off the phone, to make sure that I compared not just the numbers, but the actual coverages, that maybe other companies wouldn't cover my computer, that with the towing and rental service I could just sign and drive away, it was irreplacable to be able to have things like that. I get the idea they know they're not the cheapest around.

However, the Allstate person mentioned we could buy "Your Choice Auto" (I think) coverage, which meant that if we had an accident our insurance wouldn't go up, plus if we stayed Safe Drivers we'd get 5% off the premium after 6 months and $100 off the deductible after 12 months or something. "Wait a minute," Eric said when I hung up and reported this. "You can buy insurance for your insurance? Can I buy insurance for that?"

Also, where am I?

M, where are you?

Stardust the movie

Actually better than Stardust the book. Go see it.