I’ve heard through independently verified, third-party sources that I’m difficult to buy gifts for. I have maintained an Amazon Wish List for literally YEARS but no one ever goes there to see what I want. So, in case you were thinking of getting me something, here is a lovely little Idaho-shaped cutting board that I want. But you’d better hurry because I’m gonna buy it for myself soon.
AHeirloom's Idaho State Cutting Board - Etsy
The story of these chanclas will probably be funny only to the three other people who lived through it.
It all began on the first morning of my San Diego trip with Kristin, Jeremy and Juan. Juan is our friend from Palm Springs, also known as Papi Chulo . Somewhere along the route, I started talking about my chonies and my chanclas which is Spanglish for underwear and cheap house slippers and/or those smelly rubber flip flops that cost $1.99. Papi kept telling us not to use the word chanclas. Papi is from Venezuela and his mother always scolded him not to call his sandals “chanclas”. She thought it was low class and, furthermore, she worked hard to give her kids an education and to buy them sandals so they better not call them chanclas. Naturally the three of us, me most of all, could call them nothing but.
The next morning I was wearing my chanclas around our room and forgot to put on my sandals when we left for breakfast. They aren’t exactly comfortable to do as much walking as we did. My feet were hurting by the time we got to the botannical gardens so I sat down, to rest my chanclas and to watch a humming bird feeding from a flower. When I went to take a photo I casually lifted my foot into the shot and took a picture. I said, “Look, Papi, I’m taking a picture of my chanclas.” Juan thought this was so funny, soon we were
giggling so hard people were staring.
That’s how it got started; it took a life of it’s own. In the gallery you’ll see pictures of my chanclas on a gate, making a wish at a wishing well, at the beach, and at the Point Loma light house. The best picture is with some stoner dudes parked at the beach. The four of us were laughing so hard about me trying not to fall over while taking a picture of my foot at the ocean. The stoner dudes wanted me to take a picture with this huge doobie (that’s what we’ll call it even though I’m sure it was tobacco, t sure didn’t smell like weed to me) one of them was puffing on. So I put my foot on the back of their car and took the shot. Kristin took a few behind-the-scenes type shots of all this. I now have a picture of my chanclas, with a big fattie and some other guy who dived into the shot at the last minute. In one of the shots you can see their buddy hunched over in the back seat who was puking the whole time between two cars. Everyone else had seen him but I hadn’t until I looked at the picture later. Guess I was too focused on my chanclas.
I’m loving my job, at least the work itself. The work is a bit different that I expected but in a good way. I’m learning so much. The people I work with are really smart and supportive. They are as new the the Agile development process as I am so we’re all learning together.
My only real problems revolve around Meniere’s disease. The past few months have been very active, abnormally so, in the vertigo department. I’ve been dizzy several times each week, twice at work, and once right as I was leaving. I sat in my car for 2 hours. Meniere’s is such a glamourous disease.
I’ve told all my coworkers about the possibility of dizziness . There is absolutly no possible way I can ride out a vertigo attack in my cubicle. One of my chief complaints about my job is the building we are in. It’s quite nice, actually, designed to foster communication, blah, blah, blah. But it’s so freaking noisy. I sit in a high-traffic area, making it nearly impossible to get work done because of all the hubbub. In the entire building, at least the part that belongs to my company, there are only 3 places with any privacy. One is a bank of phone cubes on a different floor, another is an inexplicable shower/locker room area in a restroom, and the mother’s room.
At first I thought I’d be able to use the mother’s room to ride out vertigo but I got kicked out last week. HR messes everything up eventually, I’ve found. I understand what the room is for and I respect that. But it’s a room that has to be reserved just like a conference room so I see how empty it is all the time. I don’t see why I can’t use it. But whatever. I’ll figure something else out, because it seems the vertigo is not going to let up.
I got myself a new job-y job. I’m already feeling nostalgic to leave the library. I’m going to miss it, especially my teens. Well, not all of them. But most of them. But I got a new job, a “real” job. I guess by real, I mean I’ll be working in one place, back in cublicle-land, starting and ending at the same time every day, getting paid on a regular basis, and with benefits. I’m going to be designing libraries of UI components. It’s more in my area, a career job. It will be using some technology and the Agile development framework that I’m excited about.
The reliable schedule should help with the Menieres stuff, too. This past few months have been rough, lots of disequalibrium episodes, a few real vertigo episodes, lots of milligrams of diazepam. My records indicate last spring was tough, too. I wonder if it’s an allergy thing.
I haven’t written for a while because of school. All I do is work and school and try not to get dizzy. Right now I should be writing a paper. It’s due in a few hours and I’m still doing the research. Relax, it’s only 1,200 words and it’s about websites, my specialty. I ran across a post on Closed Stacks, a library blog I follow. The author of the post talks about what we don’t learn in library school, which is pretty much anything of practical value. This exact topic has been on my mind lately, mostly because one of my classes this semester started out as something semi-practical and interesting only to devolve to the point that I hate it, I’m learning nothing other than how to try to pass a class, and hoping it doesn’t screw up my GPA. I’m mid-way through the program and wondering why am I doing this, again? Oh, I’m going to finish because I want my credentials. How am I going to boss web programmers and developers around if I don’t have an advanced degree? But the lack of anything practical to anything I want to do after graduation is starting to chafe. Or maybe it’s simply that I don’t want to read one more earnestly written journal or paper about what librarianship should be.
I’m watching the “Virus” episode from the second season of Emergency! the paramedic rescue show from the 70s. This is awesome! I mean not for poor Mikey the kid on TV with Meniere’s. Poor tyke had a vertigo attack and now he’s stuck in his tree house. But it’s awesome that somebody on TV has Meniere’s. And in the 70s no less. Poor kid. Except I never got stuck in a tree house I know just how he feels. His mom didn’t need to call an ambulance, though. Just give the kid his diazepam and wait until it passes. Apparently Mikey also needs an operation. I wonder if he has an acoustic neuroma. I don’t, by the way. Finally got an MRI.
Fireman/paramedic Johnny Gage, played by the handsome Randolph Mantooth, was my first TV crush. I remember watching this show with my dad when I was 5 years old and thinking I wanted to marry someone like that when I grew up.
Happy Holidays!
Here are two tacky finds on recent trips to Savers, my all-time favorite thrift store. Usually I find only one item worthy of a blog post. These were found on the same day.
This gem was discovered at Goodwill (16th Street & Indian School). It was deemed to frightening even to be added to my bad wall art collection. Not sure the picture does it justice. It features a half-girl half-puppet either swimming or shambling away from a melted tree toward a witchy woman pushing a shopping cart. On any given day, I have some humdinger of weird dreams. Even mine aren’t this effed up.
Just saw Cher on Regis and Kelly (yes, I watch it). When asked about dating younger men, she said she’d never have had a date if it wasn’t for younger men. Men her age were timid, intimidated, whatver.* But younger men were being raised by women like her.
I am Cher. In the past ten or more years, I’ve dated only one person older than me. And he moved across the country and married someone else.** Me an Cher. Separated at birth?
* I paraphrase.
** That really didn’t have anything to do with me but still.
I’m getting a slow start this morning. I’ve been having about an hour a day of what I think is called disequalibrium. It’s not the fully loaded 4-6 hours of vertigo from last year but it’s still a problem. Sometimes it crops up twice per day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. Never in the middle of the night when I’m asleep. Ah, the good old days.
So I’m sitting here, starting up slowly, watching The Today Show, being lazy, and let me just say, if I never have to see another political ad ever again I would be fine with that. They have gotten so negative. Democrats seem to have given up in Arizona. Or at least in the greater Phoenix area as Republic commercials outnumber Democrat at least 5-to-1 (survey results completely unscientific). I wish there was a way that they (whoever they are, scientists in France I guess) could tell that I already voted by mail and do not need to be subjected to this commercial form of torture.
I wish I had a cot behind my desk. Tuesday before last I got dizzy at work and had to lay behind my desk for 40 minutes. My building is entirely concrete and not very comfortable. I’m lucky, however. My colleagues were very supportive. After the attack, I was able to get up off the floor and finish out my shift. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to getting dizzy when I’m working the public desk.
