A little commentary on the bar scene and how visuals do not the person make.

Idiots

enjoy.

So I shared my dream the other night, and mentioned the personal symbology and lexicon that makes most dreams utterly irrelevant . . . .

Last night’s dream had me in the snow in New York City (an Art Deco version of it) putting on loads of makeup in a high-end store.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in medical establishments lately and they all have some version of this:

You’ve probably seen some version of that chart before.  You may also have noticed how inadequate it is at helping you.  Based on the faces, this is my interpretation of the chart:

0: Ha ha!  I’m not wearing any pants!

2: Someone just offered me a free hot dog!

4: Huh.  I never knew that about giraffes.

6: I’m sorry about your cat, but can we talk about something else now?

8: The ice cream I bought barely has any cookie dough chunks in it.  This is not what I expected and I am disappointed.

10: You hurt my feelings and now I’m crying!

None of that is medically useful and it doesn’t even have all the numbers, so I made a better one with all the numbers:

0: Hi.  I am not experiencing any pain at all.  I don’t know why I’m even here.
1: I am completely unsure whether I am experiencing pain or itching or maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth.
2: I probably just need a Band Aid.
3: This is distressing.  I don’t want this to be happening to me at all.
4: My pain is serious!
5: Why is this happening to me??
6: Ow.  Okay, my pain is super legit now.
7: I see Jesus coming for me and I’m scared.
8: I am experiencing a disturbing amount of pain.  I might actually be dying.  Please help.
9: I am almost definitely dying.
10: I am actively being mauled by a bear.
11: Blood is going to explode out of my face at any moment.
Too Serious For Numbers: You probably have ebola.  It appears that you may also be suffering from Stigmata and/or pinkeye.

from: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html

Today, at a crucial moment, the end of an era arrived. My food processor, a sturdy though not-much-used workhorse died.

I was pulsing flour and butter together for a few seconds at a time, barely starting the task to make dough. It just went ‘click’ and then  . . . nothing.

Needless to say, I had to finish by hand. (Ouch.)

I guess now I need to decide how much I was actually using that food processor, and for what. Do I really need to replace it? Will a replacement be better, and make me use it more?

Hmmm . . . .

EDIT: The reason its the end of an era is that I got this appliance in the early ’90s. So, I’ve had 20 years out of it.

Yes, that is my attempt at humor.

Yesterday — Saturday — I worked a 10 hour day. We have a big project going to the client (hard deadline) on Tuesday and they are still writing one portion of it. One of my ‘hats’ is report production, so I went in to take all of the other portions of the report and make them pretty. This is after working a normal week.

It’s an important job: the client pays us a lot of money to do our work ($50k to $500k), but all they see are invoices until they see our report. The report has to be worth, visually, what they paid. So I stress — BIG time — when the process is getting weirder than usual, and there is no time left to make the report look good.

Because J. is visiting his parents this weekend I have Sasha care. (Quick note: J’s mom is doing great. She’s in a rehab facility in their hometown, so Dad can live at home and her friends can visit her. She’s progressing well, and they’ve set a tentative ‘go home’ date for her in a couple of weeks.)  So I took her with me, hoping it wouldn’t be *that* long a day.

She had a lot of fun, I think, although she continues to have problems with ‘strange’ men. So there was a lot of barking (especially when they called me on the speaker phone — a new thing for her). And a little submissive peeing (boring!). But mostly she just hung out. Played a bit, napped a bit, the usual.

I wish I had my camera with me. One of her napping places was on my ‘visitor’ chairs. She doesn’t really fit . . . but she made it work.

Moreover, I have not been sleeping well. I’m off sleeping pills, but still sleeping only on one side. Which is really messing with my lower back, shoulder, and legs. Essentially, the whole right side. We have a ‘tempur-pedic’ type bed unfolding and de-gassing in the living room, but it will be a few days before I can sleep on it (the smell alone is horrid). I’m really (REALLY) hoping it will do the trick of supporting me on my side. As it is I have a whole battalion of pillows: one under my head to support my neck, one across my middle so my left arm doesn’t drag down on the BLO, one in front of me to hold my arm up further and to provide an illusion of being on my stomach (which is how I used to sleep), and one to put across my head/face if I get cold or am lying on my back.

Oh, it’s great fun.

I think I need to cut coffee out of my diet completely, because I know that my old habit of two cups will now keep me from falling asleep. And one cup might be doing it as well. In any case, I have a hard time falling asleep when I go to bed at 10pm.  Sasha, however, is full of vim and vigor at 6am, so that’s when I get up.

J. comes in at midnight tonight, and I’ll pick him up. I doubt I’ll sleep past 6am tomorrow, and with work stress  . . . suffice it to say that I doubt I’ll get a lot of sleep tonight, either. I’m strongly contemplating a nap. Yes, a nap.

(*looks to see if the 5th seal to the gates of hell has come off*)

Because this picture makes me laugh.

She really doesn’t like her picture taken, for one. For another, she doesn’t understand why J. is taking so long to throw the duck into the water so she can keep playing!

The white rope is about 6 ft long and attached to her collar. We need it because sometimes she likes to play ‘keep away’ and that is not acceptable.

My surgery intake is at 7am, surgery to start at 8am. I’ll be done before lunch.

J will be updating via his Twitter feed once again. (You do not need a Twitter account to read his posts.)

To keep you amused in the meantime: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, via Facebook. Enjoy!

I haven’t been silly in public in a while . . . my thanks to the folks at FAILblog for this.

Spend a day discussing hiring for a new position.

Spend a day crafting the job description and getting ‘buy in’.

Spend a few hours crafting a job posting. Make sure ad specifies three specific qualities we are looking for and the  three elements that are absolutely required to be considered.

Post the ad in two (appropriate) categories on craigslist at 6:07pm.

At 6:17pm receive first response.

At 6:18pm note that candidate lacks any qualifications and did not include two of the three required elements.

At 6:48 receive 2nd response; see note for 6:18pm.

Craft a form response:

Dear Candidate,

Your inability to read our advertisement and provide the required elements means that we will not even look at your resume.

You have wasted our time and succeeded only in demonstrating that you are either sending your resume to any posting to maintain unemployment benefits, or you have no idea what your skills are and what job you are trained to do.

You need all the luck in the world to find a job.

Delete response as being too cruel.

Craft a form response:

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your interest in our listing for an **. However, your background and/or skill set is not appropriate for this position.

Good luck in your job search.

Save to folder and prepare to send out with every batch of 10 resumes.

Although I didn’t have a great night of sleep, I was nicely productive today. Last night (and presumably tonight) have 4 or so hours set aside for work (mundane job). Today I updated Facing North with a couple of articles and a handful of review.

This is a bit of a milestone: it’s my first (non blog) writing since a week or so pre-surgery. It felt very good to finally get my writing cap on. I’m planning on a couple of more review written each day for a few days, and another update (maybe even two) this month. I want to end this year ‘caught up’. Or at least as caught up as I can be.

An acquaintance, Evn (Lover of Strife), usually posts a Tuesday (movie) Trivia, but a bad case of food poisoning kept him from doing so. I had a flash of creativity and came up with my own trivia questions, and offered them to him. He said yes, so now I’m running a trivia game through another person’s blog. (It’s in the comments for “Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live” — feel free to join in.) I’m apparently too obscure, but then again perhaps people just haven’t noticed yet.

Yesterday I played “Return to Mysterious Island” which was fun (and is the mother of all puzzle games!) and diverting. Today I’m about 1/2 way through “Aura: Fate of Ages”. Diverting, even though the ‘character’ interaction is HORRIBLE.

A good day.