DROUGHT RELIEF!!

Hey hey hey..sorry I've been so damned delinquent.


So..lemme see...what's new avec moi?? Hmmm...

Am wrapping up week 2 at my new job at the Visiting Nurses office .I am an "office specialist"...got me a badge that sez so. And uhh, basically, "specialist" is a tactful euphemism for "wench". My primary gig is receptionist, fielding the incoming calls, doing the mail, but I pretty much am the go-to wench for all things clerical for the whole office-- y'know, beaucoup filing and data entry, crap like that. I don't mind the work. I mean, in my ideal universe, there is no ideal work, as my massive independent wealthiness makes a career unnecessary. So if I must work, than this work is fine. The only shitty thing is the fact that I have quite a bit more work to do than I did in my last gig but I get paid around 12% less. I either have to do some belt tightening or find a 2nd job. UGH. I say "phooey" to both options.

But back to the "pros" of the situation -- everybody has been super nice. Of course, I have yet to determine if everybody is for real super nice or if I'm just getting the super nice treatment during a sort of rookie grace period. Oh, and let's not forget bennies..I tell ya--it's IMMENSELY reassuring to have health insurance again. My new hours are 8-4:30 (vs the 8:30-5:30 shift I used to have). No more hour lunches, but it seems like I get out super early. Of course, if I have to take on a 2nd job, all that extra evening time would be a moot "pro".

Alright, enough blathering about my job...onto the more fascinating world of trivial minutiae..

Because my folks are suddenly getting the Turner Classic Movies channel (I heart TCM. I get AMC..which is a-okay... but ultimately inferior) and because May has been Frank Sinatra appreciation month for some reason (possibly because sometime this May it will be 10 yr anniversary of his death?? That's nice, but sort of morbid. Why not comemorate his birthday?) I've been on a bit of a Frankie kick. Sure, he's been getting a good deal o' play on my iPod, but mostly I've just been wanting to catch his movies. The early stuff...prior to his From Here to Eternity comeback. He was a handsome fellah. I stayed up super late (3am) to watch Guys & Dolls when TCM aired it (even though I own the DVD) and also tuned into On the Town (even though I have that DVD too) And then I picked up Take Me Out to the Ballgame whilest shopping at BJ's (I'm a new member!) last week. And I'm intending to get my hands on Anchors Aweigh at sometime in the near future too.

Other movies I've watched lately... I rented Dan In Real Life off iTunes and really dug it. The central love story was decent enough, but it was really Steve Carell's character/acting that made the movie for me. I think he does funny-sad even better than Jim Carrey does. Don't get me wrong... I'm looking forward to seeing him in Get Smart, but I still think it would behoove him to do more "dramedies". At the same time I rented that I also rented Southland Tales. Now, THAT movie is the ideal movie to rent if you enjoy continually uttering "whaaaat tha FUCK?" to yourself (I know, seems kinda like an odd hobby, but is it ? there's a world of wackadoo fetishes out there, and a "WTF mantra fetish" certainly wouldn't be the oddest of 'em.) The only thing I really enjoyed about the movie was how ginormous and varied the ensemble cast was, you know,having someone like Revenge of the Nerds' Booger surprisingly popping onscreen and you have that warm fuzzy moment of "Awww, it's great to see he's still getting work, that dude!" There were a lot of those moments in Southland Tales. Also, it's always nice to ogle Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ( I tried- I really tried-- to extricate the "The Rock" from the middle of his name but I couldn't do it...I felt like if I gushed "it's always nice to ogle Dwayne Johnson" you could SO easily think I was ogling some anonymous dweeb just 'cause the name DWAYNE JOHNSON so reeks of anonymous dweebishness, y'know?) Otherwise the movie was a total migraine-inducer.

I'm really terribly, shamefully lax about picking up my mail but I did on Monday night (this is mostly because I knew I had new auto insurance cards coming to me) and I got this Victorian Trading Co. catalog that is chock full of stuff I dig. I don't love *all* things Victorian, I mean, some of the stuff was overly rose-adorned for my liking and I'd pass on any of the angel paraphenalia, also, seriously, dolls from that era gimme the heebie jeebies. If there was a flag for Creepytown, there would be some sort of emblem on it that featured a porcelain doll. ( As I'm sure you know Creepytown is merely an unincorporated hamlet at this point in time...so no flag needed. But heeey, if your town ever becomes in need of a flag, Mayor Freakshow, have I got a design pitch for you!) But rosy, angelic, doll-related crap aside, there really is a lot of primo merchandise in the Victorian Trading Co. catalog. Really, I spent 2 lunch breaks poring over it and marking little stars next to my faves. (Check here if you don't believe me. Like,how dope would it be to have this hammock, for instance? Also I was showing my parents this set that I enjoy. It's in the exact same rustic/ sorta Adirondack-ish style that I want their gazebo to be. The gazebo I'm going to build this summer...ha ha haa. Just watch...)
I really don't need a damn thing but I want so much...my capacity for materialism is ASTOUNDING.

Okay...brief culinary reviews and then I must wrap it up.

Last night at the co-op I bought some really delish apricot-glazed salmon for dinner and an icky samosa (which might have been an OK samosa, had I bothered to heat it up but I didn't) and then I bought Peanut Butter Puffins cereal (YUM- I highly recommend) and Ritter chocolate with CORNFLAKES in it (BRRRRRILLIANT!! I love me a bit of texture with my choco-fix and the flakey crunch avec milk chocolate is perfect)
Also getting my thumbs up is the Southern style chicken sami new @ McDonalds. It's so good that I don't even mind that it's totally sans condiments. Is that what makes it southern style I wonder? An old timey recipe from the deep South where it's too damn hot to keep mayo...even in the fridge... Anyways, even with lack of mayo it's good. But DO NOT try the sweet tea at Mc Ds... I don't know if it's faithful to the quaff that southerners refer to when they rave about their fabled, beloved "sweet tea" but I do know that it was totally vile. Just using the modifier "sweet" is a gross understatement. I would compare it to sugar water except the sugar isn't watered down in the slightest. Liquified sucrose is more like it. BLECCCCH!
I also tried some Cabot Greek style yogurt that was really excellent. I belatedly checked the nutrition facts (why check at all? No need! Yogurt's just innately good for ya, active cultures and all that happy [healthy] horseshit) ,when I was about 3/4 of the way through with my cup. 14 grams of fat!! No wonder it was so damn tasty! As much as I liked it, I do NOT intend to get any more. ('cause, like, how nightmarish would it be for my new willow chairs to snap under my weight! NOOO!)