Harsh Truth

Today, my home teachers came over for a visit. It's the first time that these particular home teachers have been to my apartment. In truth, it's the first time that any home teachers have been to my apartment, but that's neither here nor there.

One of my home teachers looked around my apartment and, after commenting on a few of the things I have, summed it all up by saying, "This place is like the perfect bachelor pad!"

Yep.

Theme

Some days have a theme.

Today's theme: denial.

Don't bother trying to understand it--just embrace it. We're all in denial about something. I'm in denial about five or six different things today.

For now, let's just go with it. We'll work on anger/bargaining/depression/acceptance at a later time.

Screening

It's fairly common knowledge that I screen my telephone calls. If my phone rings and I don't recognize the number, I'm very unlikely to answer it. Often, I do recognize the number and decide not to answer it. I'm just not a phone person, so if I have suspicion that the conversation is one I'm not looking to have at the moment or if the level of uncertainty is too great, I let my calls go to voicemail. Sorry--I'm just giving it to you like it is--I screen your calls.

Last night, I didn't pick up the phone when it rang because I didn't recognize the number. The unsub left a message, and I listened to it pretty promptly. The message was from my new home teacher, saying that he and his companion would like to stop by, but he ended the message by saying he'd try me later.

Note to people who call me: if you don't leave a message, I won't call you back. If you leave a message indicating that you are going to call me or that no return phone call is required, I won't call you back. If you want me to call you, you need to be specific.

Thus, following my aforementioned policy, I didn't return the call.

My new home teacher called again this evening, but by the time I noticed and picked up the message, I felt it was a little bit too late to be returning the call. I hate it when people call me late at night (unless they're calling to say that they're in labor and that the baby is on its way, naturally), so I try to be courteous and not call others after hours. I plan to call him back tomorrow morning.

These circumstances are particularly unfortunate for various reasons. First, they're going to want to come over tomorrow. I know that's still many hours away, but I feel confident that I'm not going to be in an entertaining mood.

Additionally, my apartment is pretty messy right now. For reasons too complex, lengthy and boring to discuss here, I haven't had much time to clean. Take-out cartons, shopping bags, mail, and general clutter are all scattered about.

I am also in a bit of a strange ward situation. I have technically moved out of my ward, but they won't remove my name from their records until I give them the information about my new ward. The problem with that is that I am having a hard time finding a new ward. Living in Provo, I have approximately 17 different ward options. So far, I've had no luck finding anything that fits me. To stay in my former/current ward, I have to talk to the Stake President. Unfortunately, he and I are both very busy people, and I am a giant chicken.

Most importantly, I do not know my home teachers. I believe I've met them each once, but I'd wager good money that neither of them would recognize me walking down the street. I don't blame them--I wouldn't know who they are either. If they wait a few weeks, I probably won't be in the ward anymore (odds that the Stake President is going to let me stay are slim/none). Then we'll never have to meet, they won't have to find my apartment, etc. But alas, they cannot wait a few weeks, because tomorrow is the 30th.

No options remain. They're going to want to come over, and I'm going to have to say yes.

Awkward, awkward, awkward for everyone.

Comprehension

I'm not the most brilliant person on the planet, but I feel like I have a fairly good understanding of the world around me. However, recent events have caused me to re-evaluate my self-evaluation.

The light fixture in my living room is a fan with four lightbulbs. You can turn on two at a time, or the other two, or all four.

One of the lightbulbs has been burned out for about six weeks. The other day, I was sitting on my couch watching TV with the light fixture completely turned on, so the three functioning lights were illuminated.

As I sat, perfectly still, peacefully enjoying the TV, the fourth light illuminated itself.

I am at a loss for how that could happen.

All four lights have been working for about a week now.

Instead of dwelling on the fact I apparently do not understand how lightbulbs work, I'm spending time congratulating myself on my laziness, which prevented me from changing the lightbulb that I thought was broken for at least six weeks.

My lightbulbs heal themselves. That's all there is to it.

Celebration Time!

Weather.com had better not be lying to me today.

An official statement from the National Weather Service:

THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT STORM SYSTEM OF THE FALL IS EXPECTED TO ARRIVE ACROSS UTAH LATE TUESDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY... BRINGING THE POTENTIAL FOR WIDESPREAD VALLEY RAIN AND MOUNTAIN SNOWFALL TO MUCH OF NORTHERN AND CENTRAL UTAH.

I'm so happy.

Shot

I got my flu shot today. Of course, I'll still have to wrangle up an H1N1 shot later in the season, but for now, I'm all caught up.

The thing about the flu shot is that, since I get one every year, I'm pretty used to how it goes. The only painful part of the process is waiting in the lobby.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Next time, I'm just going to ask them to toss me the needle and let me take care of it myself so I can be on my way and back to work.

Adventures in Spelling Part II

Yesterday at work, my boss asked me who would be more likely to spell an employee's name wrong: that employee themselves, or the HR department.

It's a tough question indeed. The woman in HR who enters employee records is very meticulous. I've never seen her spell an employee's name incorrectly in the official records.

On the other hand, the employee who wrote her name on the form should be able to spell it correctly, as she has been spelling it for 20 years, give or take.

As my boss and I discussed the error in spelling, we finally decided that it was the employee who had spelled her own name incorrectly on the form. She seemed to blend her first name back into her last name, and since we've seen her write it differently in the past, we decided that she had, in fact, misspelled her own name on this occasion.

I giggled about that last night, and then I realized that the employee in question would not know that she had done it. There would be no point in mentioning it to her.

This truth makes it entirely possible that I've done the same thing in the past and no one has bothered to mention it to me.

Awkward to spell something wrong. REALLY awkward to spell one's own name wrong.

I'm going to have to start paying attention when I write my name down.

My Boys

Some of my friends have complained lately about the lack of men in their lives.

My response? I have all the men I need.

Ouch

On Tuesday afternoon, I was racing around town trying to get a few odds and ends taken care of before I headed to my conference.

I was wearing some pretty comfortable black shoes that I thought would be perfectly suitable for walking around. No high heel, nice squishy sole, figured I had it made. I had to walk very quickly at one point over a substantial distance because I only had enough money for a teeny, tiny amount of time on a parking meter (don't ask).

As I walked, I could feel that the backs of the shoes were digging into my skin. I couldn't slow down or stop, so I just kept walking. I figured that I might end up with some blisters, but I hoped for the best.

By the end of that errand, the skin on the back of both of my ankles had been scraped off and there was blood.

The areas in question are right on my Achilles tendons. When I flex my feet one direction or the other, it hurts. When might that be? Oh, when I drive, when I walk, when I sit on my squishy couch, etc. They don't hurt too much when I hold perfectly still, but I've never been too good at that.

Why am I telling you this? I'm in pain.

Do you care? Not really. But I'm in pain. When I suffer, you all get to suffer with me.

We're a web community. Deal with it.

Back And Forth

Yesterday, I drove down to Bryce Canyon.

Today, I drove back.

In between the driving, I attended a great conference. I learned lots of interesting things, ate some great food, and tried really hard (unsuccessfully) to get some sleep.

It was all fabulous, but it was a lot of driving for someone who doesn't like to drive.

The only real downside? I didn't actually get to see Bryce Canyon while I was down there. I've got to get out on some national park vacations again soon.

Today

The day just keeps getting longer and weirder.

All of the water in the entire office building is brown. I'm not sure what happened. Someone says that they (no idea who "they" are) turned off the water last night to repair a leak, but something happened.

So now, we just have brown water.

The water I just got out of the water filter/cooler machine is clear, but I'm the first one to get water today, so it's probably just what was already in its tank.

I'm thinking this is a good reason to close down the building for the day. I mean, if I can't get clean water, I might get sick, and then I'll have to be out on worker's comp, and we certainly don't want that to happen.

Ew, ew, ew...

Guilt

Saturday night, there was a big, scary, black, hairy spider on my ceiling. I couldn't reach it to kill it, so I watched it crawl around and hoped it would go away.

Eventually, it did. I was relieved, but then became concerned that I had no idea where the spider was. Later, it returned up high on the wall. I knew what I had to do. I dug out my fly swatter, slowly approached, and squealed like a giant pansy as I swatted it.

I have no idea if I killed it or just angered it, because there were no...remains, if you will. So it's possible that the spider just crawled off on the floor to plot its vengeance.

Sunday, I told my mom about how grown up I had been in killing my own bugs.

Her response?

"Oh, poor spider!"

Apparently, I was supposed to capture him in a glass and then release him into the wild.

I see that as highly unlikely, as it took everything I had in me to get close enough to swat him, and that wasn't very close.

But now I have guilt about the spidercide.

I'm sure I'll work through it.

Today's Stream of Thoughts

In no particular order:

• Baby nephew is THIS CLOSE to being born. I can't wait! He's going to be adorable--I can feel it! I wager he'll also be quite snuggly... Baby Center email says that this week, he's the size of a crenshaw melon. Seriously, who picks this stuff? Is that like a cantaloupe? I know what size that is...if they're going to go with melons on these things, they've got to stick with watermelon or cantaloupe. Watermelon seems highly unlikely though...
• 71 degrees in my apartment when I got up this morning. SO NICE! I hate the heat. I'm looking forward to the fall.
• Yesterday, someone at work looked at the pictures of my nephews and asked if they all were brothers. Um, nope.
• Yesterday's fabulous rainstorm soaked some of the bugs off of the front of my car. Too bad I'm about to go on a long drive and get more on it. When I get back, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and really wash the car. I'm not sure how long it's been since I've done that. Six months? A year?
• A family that lives near my parents was hit crossing center street in Orem at Mountain View High School last weekend. Please, people, be more careful! They were in a crosswalk with a traffic light. That crosswalk and light are there so that this doesn't happen.
• We have 20 people at work who use one particular program and 7 licenses for concurrent use. We all got an email today reminding us to get right back out as soon as we finish using it. Obvious solution? Purchase a few more licenses...alas, we will not. It's not even a very good program. I wouldn't use it if I didn't have to. Oh well.
• Left my fruit snacks at home this morning. Bummer. Gonna be a long day.
• Yesterday, someone told me that pickles were just cucumbers soaked in evil. Amen to that.

Dear Weather.com

I'm so tired of the way you mislead me. Each forecast, you toy with my emotions. You say that it's going to get cooler outside, but it's not. It just stays hot. As each day gets closer, you revise your wicked little numbers, destroying my hopes by changing the numbers into temperatures that I cannot bear.

I'm ready for fall. You're forecasting temperatures in the 70s this coming week. And rain. I need you to do that for me.

You've been messing with me for a month now.

Please, please, be right this one time.

Regards,

Sizzling in September

Adventures in Spelling

As today's example of pretty scary spelling, I submit the following.

Word to be spelled: zucchini (a variety of summer squash that is shaped like a cucumber and that has a smooth, dark-green skin).

Spelling generated by restaurant: zukiney.

Not even close, people. My poor spell-checker wants to change it into "funkiness."

I'm a bit worried about that person at the restaurant, and frankly, a bit concerned about my spell-checker as well.

Prepared

It's been said that when the time for action arrives, the time for preparation has passed.

Recently, someone I know was sitting at a table in a public picnic area making small talk with an older woman. Suddenly, the woman stopped talking, looked panicked, and then motioned that she was choking.

This person quickly stood up and successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver on her. She was a bit shaken up, but otherwise fine.

They continued to talk, and no one would have ever known what had transpired, but as soon as another member of our party was present, the older woman expressed that this person I know had just saved her life.

I'm glad that this person I know was prepared to take quick action to help in this situation. I keep referring to him or her as "this person I know" because he or she is a fairly loyal blog-reader, and I know that he or she would be embarrassed if I made a big deal out of it.

I'm sure glad that in the right place, at the right time, this person was prepared do what was necessary. I think that I probably would've just panicked, but some people are cool as cucumbers.

New Couch

Dear World,

I wanted to express my apologies for my inability to come see any of you outside of my apartment.

I just got a new couch, and it's so comfortable and snuggly that I have no need to leave.

Things are good here on the couch. I see no reason to go elsewhere.

Peacefully yours,

Liz

Peril

Another example of how difficult dating can be...

Stuff

My life seems to be ruled by stuff. As I continue to sift through boxes of stuff, I find that there is a big general category of stuff that I feel like I should keep, but it doesn't fit into file boxes.

I am THIS CLOSE to starting a new box called "Random Keepers." I have to get this leftover stuff out of my living room somehow.

It's totally throwing off the homeyness that my new love seat brings to the place.

Wonder Woman

Friends and family know that I've been shopping for furniture for the past three months or so. It's been difficult to find something that I like and that is in my price range (read: cheap).

Today, my parents came over to my house to help me put together some furniture and wire up some speakers I inherited from my brother (it's been a pretty fabulous couple of weeks, acquisition-wise). A few minutes after they left, my mother called to tell me she found a love seat that was very much like what I was searching for. The color wasn't quite what I had described, but the price was definitely right. She promptly sat down on the couch to discourage any other shoppers, as it was a clearance floor model.

She tried to send me a picture, but for some reason, the email didn't go through. After a few more tries, I told her that I'd hop in the car and drive down there to take a look at it. I asked what she was going to do, and she told me that she was going to stay on the couch and wait until I got there.

After I arrived, I examined the couch and quickly decided to purchase it. Some nearby women looked disappointed. Somebody's Mother had told me that they were circling the couch while she was there. My parents quickly headed to get their van so that they could help me get the love seat home. As the salesman was ringing me up, he told me that those other women had approached him earlier to ask about the couch. He told them that no one had talked to him about it so far, and then they explained that there was some woman sitting on it, but that they planned to purchase it if we didn't.

My fabulous parents helped me get the love seat into my apartment, where I now sit in luxury while blogging and watching TV.

Somebody's Mother isn't just some woman--she's Wonder Woman.