Broken Thought Process...Day.

I really meant to post this yesterday.  But the death of the King of Pop really threw me for a loop.  Don't get me wrong, the man had issues.  Or, as my dear friend Amanda would say, he had a subscription.  Pause for you to get the issues/subscription connection...it took me a while.  But I still feel a little sad that the creator of the first mainstream music I ever listened to is gone from this earth.  Before MJ, I was all about the Disney soundtracks.  So...may he rest in peace.

I was reading the Boston Metro this morning, and happened across the following quote:

Boston is suffering through the cloudiest June since 1903.

Fabulous...not.  I thought I left the Pacific Northwest and its cloudiness behind.  Actually, I think even back home June was never so gloomy.  But there was sun today, yay!  There was a bit of mid-afternoon rain, but I was poking around some shops up in Harvard Square at the time so it didn't really interfere with my day.  By the time I got home it was sunny again.  I jumped in my swimsuit and hurried over to the pool before the sun left us again.  It was fabulous.

So there are some ginormous bumblebees around here.  I've never seen such fat bees!  One flew near my leg while I was by the pool.  Normally bumblebees don't bother me but I shied away from this guy because he was just HUGE.  He just continued on his merry way, as bumblebees always do.

Bend..........and snap!  Yes, you know what I'm watching.  ;)

Oh, NOW I'm hungry.  I had a huge lunch up in Cambridge.  So I didn't make dinner at dinnertime.  Now I don't feel like making dinner.  Eh, I think I have some stuff in the freezer that I can throw together quickly.

It surprises me that I don't own Bridget Jones's Diary.  Well, I have the book, and a movie poster, but not the movie.  It's odd that no one has ever decided it would be a great gift or something.

I'd better eat.  Until next week!  Or next time I have something to say.  ;)

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Happy Father's Day

My father's name is not on my birth certificate.  I've known this ever since it became my responsibility to hang onto my various identification documents and keep them safe.  I was recently reminded of this fact when applying for my first passport, since you have to submit your birth certificate as proof that you were born in the United States.

I asked my mother about it when I first saw it.  I don't remember the answer.  I remember it having something to do with my being born out of wedlock.  But it doesn't matter.  The reason I don't remember my mother's answer is because there has never been any room for a single shred of doubt that the man I know of as my father is, in fact, my father.

I have my father's temper.  Because of this, from the time I was a small child, I was one of the only people in the entire world that could, and would, stand up to him.  We're both extraordinarily stubborn when we think we're right.  When I was younger, I was probably wrong much more often.  But I would argue anyway.  As I grew, being right began to occur with more frequency.  Also as I grew, I learned what things to say that would more effectively prove my rightness...even if I ended up being wrong anyway.  Eventually our fights were more like loud, emotional debates.

These days, the most praise I get in law school is for my argumentation skills.  Legal argumentation is usually different from fighting with someone.  It's calmer and more rational.  But because I couldn't win with my dad if I couldn't prove I was right, and I couldn't be right if my argument was a logical failure, without even knowing it I prepared myself for the practice of law by simply arguing with my dad.

Another thing I got from my father is his financial sense.  These days, the only reason I have to call and ask for money is if something unexpected happens.  I would like to avoid doing even that, but unfortunately law school leaves me with a rather small budget so I can't maintain an emergency cushion.  But, emergencies aside, normal expenses are always comfortably within my budget.

The other aspect of my financial sense that I clearly share with him is the desire to have enough money to be happy and comfortable, with high-quality things.  We both know that it actually saves money in the end when you spend more initially -- it is like this with electronics, clothes, cars, anything.  When your stuff lasts forever, it easily makes up for the initial dollar figure.  We're both very unlike his father in this respect.  His father has the financial sense too, but all he does is stow the money away and sit on it.  My father and I do not see the sense in this.  We don't think it adds up to be sitting on thousands upon thousands of dollars and still buying cheap, shitty food at Winco.  I don't even buy cheap, shitty food, and I'm certainly not sitting on thousands upon thousands of dollars.

These are not the only reasons it is clear that I am my father's daughter.  I thankfully got his metabolism, his eyesight, his intelligence (got that from both sides, actually), his logic, and his mathematical abilities.  I'm sometimes thankful I got his OCD (at least things are organized!).  I'm often less than thankful that I got his baby-fine hair (my niece had thicker hair than I did when she was about 7).  I walk like him.  I lose patience like he does.  I drive like him.  We have the same silly (and sometimes immature) sense of humor.  I'm kindly honest, like him (except when mad, then I'm just blatantly honest...also like him).  I work hard and stay busy, like him, but when I need to relax I need to be alone, like him.  When I focus on something, the rest of the world does not exist, like him.

My birth certificate is just a piece of paper.  I don't need it to tell me what I know is true.

I love you, Dude.

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Another late Broken Thought Process Thursday

Yeah, yeah, I know.  But I work 9 hours a day (not counting 1/2 hour lunch in the middle there, so I'm actually at the office for 9.5 hours) until Friday when I only work 4.  With all the mess of dealing with trains instead of driving to work, my commute is about an hour and a half each way, or more.  So I'm out of the house for almost 13 hours every day.  When I get home, I eat, watch TV, and go to bed.  Without my iPhone you wouldn't be seeing me on Facebook or Twitter all week.

I'm looking for a car this weekend.  Finally.  Mostly Sunday.  I might go tomorrow to start the process, but I'd be alone, and I need my moral support (Vanessa and her dad) before I actually decide to take the car with me.  But anyway, hooray!  I'm mostly going to dealers, their prices are really low right now.  Only time a bad economy is good is when you're actually trying to buy something, right?

Severus just sprawled himself across my lap.  He's been fully normal all week.  Except while I was at work today I think he threw up his antibiotics.  I gave him food with it like I'm supposed to so that it doesn't upset his stomach, but maybe it wasn't enough.  Poor guy.  I'd be worried that it messed everything up but we're in the home stretch with the medicine now, he's supposed to be done tomorrow, so it's probably okay.  He also probably absorbed at least a little bit, I think he threw up shortly before I got home.  He was acting a little unhappy and didn't want to eat the food I gave him.  Unlike most cats he gets upset about throwing up, even if it's just a perfectly normal hairball or whatever.  Cats are built to throw up immediately when something doesn't feel right (anything from eating too fast to eating something wrong to having a hairball), so usually they just get on with their day, but Severus here is upset for a bit afterwards.  It's quite strange.

Aww.  He's resting his head on my hand.  Although typing is now quite difficult.

Ahh, he moved it.  Now it's on my arm.   Well, my wrist...but typing is at least easier.

Response to a commercial I just saw:  Gummy multivitamins for adults, huh?  Maybe that will make me take my vitamins.  Remember the Flintstone vitamins?  =)

So normally I'm really weird about the randomness of shuffle on my iPod, I'm very moody about music so the randomness usually brings up something I don't feel like listening to and I just end up spending all my time skipping tracks trying to find something I want.  But this week my mood was random, so shuffle worked.  Since I have a fairly wide range of music, I've had some interesting transitions.  I've also heard songs that I haven't intentionally listened to in years.  Like Garbage.  I'm pretty sure I haven't listened to them much since high school.

I have no idea what that show was.  Apparently 3 pm came and went without me noticing, which means the show changed.  Had to switch.  New background show is now The Sopranos on A&E.  Which means they cut out all the swearing, so it's hard to actually WATCH (Hellooooo, mobsters swear...a lot.  Someone should have thought of that before syndicating it to regular cable.), but using it for background noise should be fine.

Hmm, I'm hungry.  When I got home, I went to the pantry to think about lunch, but couldn't settle on  anything.  So I ended up eating some chips.  Not exactly lunch.  Although I had a ginormous breakfast because Friday is buffet day, so breakfast is the usual breakfast buffet fare.  Today they had chocolate chip pancakes.  Yummy!

Severus has moved, he's now curled up next to me with his paw curled around my arm.  So cute.  I'm still hungry but I don't want to ruin the adorableness.  He'll shift eventually.

I think that may be all.  Later!

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Shadow Shot Sunday - Yes, it's been a while

I know, I've missed a few SSS posts. But I've been a little crazy, and shadow shots weren't presenting themselves to me. Until...this one.


I noticed this when I was laying in bed the other night. Because the light is from a streetlight outside, I knew I'd need the fancy camera and a tripod, otherwise I was never going to get the exposure to come out. I also knew that by the time I got everything all set up, curiosity would have gotten the best of my dear Severus and he would have moved, thus ruining the shot. So I had to remember to set it up before bed another night. He always gets in that same window whenever I open it to let in the cool night air so I didn't think there would be an issue with the pose.

It took me a couple days to remember to set everything up, but I finally did, and then last night the window was open, the cat was perfectly positioned, I had the camera all set on the right shutter speed, f-stop, and "film" speed (for lack of a better term...it's a digital camera but there's a setting for what would be the film speed), so all I had to do was slowly creep out of bed, hit the button (without shaking the camera...I should have set up my cable release too but I didn't think of that) and hope the cat didn't move too much in reaction to the noise of the shutter going off.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now, but I wanted to post this while it was still Sunday. =)

Oh, by the way, go to Hey Harriet for more Shadow Shot Sunday fun.

Broken Thought Process...uh...Thuriday?

Jenn has been doing this on non-Thursdays, and the whole thing is her idea, so it's all good.  I only missed last night because Vanessa suddenly came out of her room, came to my door, and said, "I'm bored, are you bored?  Let's go to the Cheesecake Factory."  Well, I'd be crazy to say no to that just because I wanted to write a blog post, so away we went!

I know I missed BTPT last week, but you all saw why. Cat sick, car sick, too much sick.

Anyway.  Dad's helping me pay for a car now, and we've expanded my budget a bit beyond what I was going to be able to do myself.  I'll pay him back eventually.  So now I just have to find a car, yay!

He and I decided this on Sunday, but because of sick cat I've been very focused on that and haven't really been browsing car ads.  Much.  I'm being a little picky about type of car, I'd prefer to spend my money on a Toyota or Nissan at this point because I need something that I can rely on for a couple years until I'm in a financial place to go do the fun car shopping.  Although even then I'll probably get another Nissan, just much newer than I can go right now.  I've been eying the pretty new Altimas for a couple years now.

As for sick cat, he's been getting better.  I had a really worrisome moment this morning, he seemed to be backtracking because Wednesday and Thursday he was waiting about two hours in between trips to the box, then this morning he suddenly made like, 4 trips in the hour I was getting ready.  But I checked and there was pee in there so it wasn't urgent, and therefore I couldn't stay home because I knew the vet couldn't do anything more than what we'd done (antibiotics and new food) as long as he was still peeing and hadn't gotten blocked.  So, with worry on my brow, I head off to work.  Which turned out to be an adventure this morning.  I was already cranky because I'm not a morning person and I was worried about the cat AND it was nasty and rainy again, and then I ended up forgetting my headphones for the third day in a row.  I really like to block out the other sounds and people and such, unless I'm with a companion on the T, my headphones are key.  But anyway.  To make matters worse, I sat next to this pair of Asian women (I want to say Chinese...there are many Asian groups in Oregon, I have a bit of a sense about the differences in appearance and such, but I'm not always certain) and because of my mood the sound of the language just got to me.  Plus, they were talking awfully loud, considering the fact that it was a little before 7 am and the train was fairly empty.  But even just that would have been fine...until we hit the next stop after I got on the train and the woman announcing what stop was coming up along with various other info (JFK/UMass, change here for Ashmont service and Commuter Rail service) was WAAAAAY too perky.  And loud.  I know sometimes it's hard to understand the announcers, but if you know where you're going (which, at that time on a weekday morning, I can't imagine you DON'T know where you're going) you don't even really need it.  So I'd much rather have one of the normal announcers that kind of mumbles out the information, sounding like they're still pretty much half-asleep just like me.

So anyway.  You'd think that would be the last of my troubles.  Well, then my commuter rail to the town where I'm actually working was 20 minutes late.  Nice.  Luckily, they don't actually care when we get there or when we leave as long as we get the 40 hours a week.  They like us to aim for arrival by 8:30, but it's not set in stone or anything so we're certainly not going to get in trouble for random stuff like late trains.

How'd I get on that anyway?  Oh right.  Back to the cat.  So I did call the vet when they opened just to check in and make sure the random issue in the morning wasn't a sign that maybe we need a different antibiotic.  After telling him the story of having seen improvements and then having them go away, he asked a few questions about the other behavior besides the frequent trips (crying, whether he did pee, etc.) and said that really the medicine and the new food are all we can do for him.  The only thing is if he does look like he's getting a blockage then I have to take him in.  Oh, regarding the new food, so basically it's the cat's version of a person drinking lots of cranberry juice.  It does the same thing for his system that cranberry juice does for ours.

Anyway, I've now been home a few hours, he's back to the more normal bathroom pattern at this point, so who knows what this morning was all about.  It was raining really hard, he gets anxious about how loud it gets on the skylight in the hall, so maybe that had something to do with it.  You never know with animals.

So I have to say that I really enjoy working as in-house corporate counsel.  At least, at a big corporation.  It's busy, but it's clear that even the full-time staff (non-interns) aren't working too much more than 40 hours a week.  And there are lots of perks, at least at this particular place.  We have free coffee until 10:30 every morning, and there's a cafeteria with very reasonably priced food.  And they do different specials every day, along with the standard sandwiches and salad bar and such.  The food is good too.  I've been getting the specials a lot, yesterday I had a taco salad that I'm pretty sure was bigger than my head.  I only managed to eat about half of it.

The company is on "summer hours" right now which means we work 9 hours a day Mon-Thurs and then we work 4 hours on Friday.  The 9 hours are a bit tiring, but it's so worth it when Friday afternoon rolls around and you're already heading home.  So anyway, my lunch was kinda weird.  The cafeteria was still open and I certainly could have gone down and grabbed something, at least eating it at my desk or something, but I had a giant breakfast (Friday is breakfast buffet day so there's eggs and potatoes and breakfast meats, and this morning they had pancakes!) so I wasn't really hungry enough when lunchtime rolled around.  So I ate the remaining half a roll of Ritz I had at my desk (I like to keep desk snacks with me) and some Pringles before leaving.  Then when I got home I ate my cheesecake from last night because Nessa and I decided to take it home since we were about to explode after our dinner.  But you can't go to the Cheesecake Factory and NOT get cheesecake, right?  Now it's close to dinnertime and I think that slice of cheesecake actually left me rather full...I might wait and just eat late.  Ha, that rhymes.

So when I checked the weather earlier in the week it said it was supposed to clear up this weekend, now it's still supposed to be raining AND there might even be lightning.  So I still can't go try out the pool here at my apartment complex.  If it were just rain, but warm rain, I might go, but with the potential lightning it's a really bad idea to be swimming around in an outdoor pool.  Or any body of water.  Lightning will hit water, and then it goes through the whole pool.  Yeah, not a good idea.  Lame.  Maybe next weekend.

Well, I think that's about all the thoughts I've had going on this week.  Until next time!!

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Okay. It can stop now.

My car broke again on Saturday. After already breaking the week before and getting fixed. I'm selling it and getting something else. I'm just tired of it. I don't even care that I'll get less money by selling it "as is" than if it were working.

But then there was more drama. Had to get to my first day of work on Monday and then work out a plan for transportation from there. Because, of course, I'm working outside of the city and there's no good method of transportation between the commuter rail station and the office. So I was going to rent a car for Monday then talk to people so that I wouldn't have to do that for too long. But then I went to rent a car, and when they went to run a credit check they apparently couldn't find my SSN at Equifax. A bit disconcerting. Even though I made her do it three times, I still suspect that she just did something wrong, maybe at one of the points where she was just entering various codes that had nothing to do with me. But anyway, it was a little weird to basically be told I don't exist.

So then the issue was, once again, how in the hell do I get to work? But, luckily, Amanda was going to be driving down the exact same highway to go to her first day of work so she was able to drop me off Monday morning and then pick me up after. But, that meant sleeping on her couch. Which meant I was EXHAUSTED on my first day. And I didn't really catch up throughout the week so I'm still rather tired.

Oh, and as for getting to work until my car situation is settled, I'm taking the train to the commuter rail and then the other intern is picking me up from the commuter rail. Then to get home he actually just drives me to Cambridge and I catch the regular subway from there because the commuter rail trains that leave in the evening are either 5:42 or 7:40. So we decided to just completely avoid the whole mess of trying to rush to get there in time for the first train.

So, anyway. That's the end of the car stuff at the moment.

But wait. There's more. When I got home from work tonight, I discovered that my cat was having litter box issues. He'd go in, try to pee, meow about it, then leave the box. Then he'd go back a few minutes later and try again. And back and forth. This can be a VERY bad thing for a cat, it can indicate that there's a blockage in their urethra preventing them from going at all. So I had to rush him to the animal hospital. And, due to the lack of car, I had to do this in a cab. So when I called the first thing I asked was if it's okay if I bring the cat in the cab. Actually, I said something that was just a rush of panic and upset, the operator had to ask me to repeat myself, and then I just said "my cat is sick" and she just said, "That's fine, he can go in the cab" and then got one sent out and just basically took care of it. I actually really love the cab company in my little suburb, they're always so nice. And the guy she sent out was fine with the yowling cat in the back. We just chatted about this and that all the way there, which was good, it kept me distracted.

Anyway, so the vet said there was no blockage, which is good. Unfortunately, his bladder was empty so they couldn't run any urine tests. They asked if I wanted to leave him for a few hours while they gave him some fluids to hopefully build up some pee, and I explained that I had to go back in a cab and then would have to come back and then go home again the same way, so they just decided to send me home with a sedative to help him just generally relax so that the muscles around his bladder aren't contracting, and something that's supposed to reduce any inflammation going on in his urethra so that when he does actually have to pee for real, it won't be quite so painful. These meds seem to be helping. He's at least not running back and forth to the box trying to pee. So that will have to do for tonight, and then tomorrow I'm going to walk down to the vet that's just a few blocks away (they're not a 24 hour emergency vet, which is why I couldn't go to them tonight. They were just about to close when I called.) and have them run the urine test, see what's going on there, and do what needs to be done to deal with it.

So. Anyway. I'm done with random crap popping up. I'm not supposed to be stressed when I'm not in classes. Co-op time is supposed to be my time to destress.

Anyway. I'm going to try to sleep. As much as I can while worrying about the cat, at least.

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