Alright, so I can't figure out what's wrong with this thing. But since the new posts show up all right I guess I'll just leave it at that and hope those other ones hurry their way into the archives.

I can't tell if I have a gas leak in the house i am dogsitting at. So I opened the windows, left the dogs there, and left. Hopefully all will be alive when I get back.

Paul where is your blog? If you tell me I will make a link! And it will be fun! Plus I am very disappointed with your membership here, you have not posted a single thing!

What the hell is going on with my blog??
No comments again, and now it's totally fucked up.
(I'll just blame it all on new member Paul.)

Anyone know how to fix this crazy-looking thing?

Paul, it also looks like (under "settings") that you can make the blog onto Mac's server. So you should like this probably. But I will research the other. (Sorry everyone else for these posts, I don't have my email open right now and I am laaaazy.)

Paul: Here is the Template HTML for the side links--

div id="Description">$BlogDescription$>

Ahh! Where'd my comments go?!

Paul had another race today, the Get in Gear 10k (season opener). It was chilly out again, but fun to go and watch. There were a million people running, with a couple of Kenyans of course taking the lead. (well actually the 2nd-place guy was not Kenyan, he was from some other country though.) They came in around 30 minutes. 30 minutes for a 10k! Wow. Paul did not do badly in my opinion but he was less pleased with it. But he is a little sick, also. So I think it was just fine.

Now we are going to go have lunch at friends', and then to Macalester's Springfest, and then I am going to go check in on the dogs I am dogsitting for the week, then to my last shift at work where I am going to eat a whooole bunch, hopefully I will have time, and back to the dogs for the night. I need to get more stuff over to the dogs' house though (presently I have nothing, of course), but I realized that I need to go grocery shopping and bring changes of clothing over, etc. Once I have my stuff over there it should be a pretty pleasant week...take the dogs out now and then, have a nice quiet place to get reading and whatnot done, and now that the buses are running I can pop back and forth to my parents' house or Macalester or Paul's house in a jiffy. And the dogs are very nice and friendly, and there is somewhat of a dog-park across the street in the evenings if I don't care to take them on a long walk, I can just take them over there and turn 'em loose.

So tonight I called the restaurant and I said "You know, I don't think this job is really working out for me. So I will be happy to work my Saturday shift, but I'm not going to be able to take any shifts after that." And you know what they said? "OK."
Haha!

Well that felt good. But I got really nervous about calling for nothing, I guess. Hehe.

I am quitting my job. For sure. I can't stand it any longer. So I am going to work tomorrow I think and Saturday and I am quitting. I was going to hold out until I found a new one, but too bad. It sucks bad and if nothing else I would gladly go back to the diner where I get better tips and at least I know what to expect there and they are nicer, more laid back and not getting up in arms over the stupidest little things that DON'T MATTER!!!!!
I saw a co-worker last night and told her that I was going to quit and she looked sooo jealous and congratulated me. I shouldn't be terrified of a phone call from them telling me to come in, or wanting to go out immediately afterwards to split a bottle of wine cause the job makes me so high-strung. That is bad news. The end, it is over.

Some local politics for Eliot (who once again tells me that my lack of politics in this blog is disappointing):

Background: Bus strike here lasting ~48 days. Our only form of mass transit. This makes it very difficult for those of us who cannot/do not drive to get around. People lost jobs, businesses lost money. It kinda sucked.

Original letter in today's Star Tribune ("newspaper of the Twin Cities"):
A waste of money
With the buses up and running again, it is clear we need to reevaluate the public funding of these buses.
Does it really serve the community as a whole to subsidize the limited ridership of the few who ride the buses? Wouldn't that money be better spent on repairing and expanding roads for all to use?
While it may have been painful for a small number of people, it became apparent that business went on as usual in the metropolitan area during the strike.
Jason Breyer, Brooklyn Park

My response:
Jason Breyer’s April 21st letter about the bus strike was hurtful and narrow-minded. Businesses did lose money, and people lost jobs. The only reason the effects were not felt more is because people scrambled to find temporary ways of getting to places they needed to be – not reliable, long-term or affordable transportation.
I fail to see how using mass transit money to instead repair and expand roads would be for the good of all. I am disabled, although you would not know it by looking at me. I cannot drive and most likely never will. There are many people like me in the Twin Cities – relying during the strike on favors from family and friends to get around, and losing our independence in doing so. Many in the Cities cannot afford cars, and take the bus instead. Road expansions would obviously not be for the good of “all” but for the good of the privileged. Isn’t this what our government is supposed to prevent?


I also meant to put in a sentence about what big asshole he was for not thinking that disable people are as important a part of society as he is, but I forgot. Oh well.

Bye!

Oh, I forgot. I am still working there partly cause I havent bothered to go find a new job and partly cause I am saving my tips for DC so we can do things like get dinner and such. Also I can visit my masseuse (haha, Paul tells me that I can't refer to Xavier that way when I've just gotten one massage, but oh well). Also E check your email.

Concussion-boy is fine; I just hope he doesn't get worse in the next couple days, that would suck for him.

Today is the little one's 4th birthday, but we had her party on Saturday. So she doesn't want anyone to mention birthdays to her today because she is afraid that will mean she's 5 and all grown-up and won't fit in any of the new clothes she got for her birthday. She's very intensely fearful of this. So instead it will be my 18-year-old brother John's 5th birthday. No presents for him though!

Last night I was going to go out for drinks with a friend, but ended up hanging out with the baby instead. It was thunderstorming, so it was wayyyy humid and hot and WINDY all day. We played outside for a long time in the afternoon and I explained the nitrogen cycle to her (involving digging up plants to look at their roots, talking about lightning and power lines and rainstorms and what thunder is). It was really fun, but I threw in as a side note to not go outside in a thunderstorm and do anything silly cause you would get hit by lightning. Then we went through all the characteristics of being a lightning-strike victim. She was fine with this, but then when the first drops of rain fell she completely freaked out. She cried and cried and i had to carry her inside so she wouldn't "get struck by lightning!" (at least she had the words right!) Eventually though Peter and I persuaded her to watch the storm with us (she pretended it was a movie, we brought treats and everything) and we laughed and clapped every time it lightning-ed or thundered, so she LOVED it and actually got bored with watching after an hour or so. Phew!
She loves hearing the scientific and medical explanations for things (she finally agreed to wear her bike helmet I gave her for her birthday when I explained that it would protect each lobe of her brain if she bumped her head) but I guess every once in a while I forget that I'm talking to a 3-year-old (4-year-old) and that she still might get scared of things. (Not scared of thunder cause I explained it was just a noise and hellO, noise isn't scary. Peter and I yelled and clapped to show her that.)

The buses began running again today and yay! I need to go down Grand to the yarn store and get some more or I'll never finish this blanket. Also I am going to call my work and tell them when I am working rather than the other way around, cause they still havent asked me when I am available to work, they just tell me when I am working and usually it is days that I really had different plans (not plans I can't cancel, but c'mon!) They are so unorganized maybe they will be grateful if I just call up and say "Hi, I am working Tuesday, Wednesday and a weekend evening or substitute that with TWR days. Thank you!"

So my little brother, wishing to follow in my footsteps, came home today with a concussion. His story's a little tougher, though; he got his head bashed into a brick wall by some other junior-high kid. Get well sooner than I did, Patrick!

So, I have the best friends in the world...

That's all, goodnight.

:-)

So I didn't really do much this weekend, as I had to work on Thursday-Friday-Saturday nights. It was really busy every night, which wasn't bad tip-wise, but that just makes it more tiring. And you have a better chance of having pissed-off customers, cause you can't pay 100% close and personal non-stop attention to each one. I got 'punished' on Saturday night cause I supposedly wasn't washing the tables well enough (a streak here, a smudge there....we were in a hurry to seat the overflow people!) So after we closed I had to go around and re-wash every single table. Boooo!! Plus, my boss watched me for the rest of the evening as I watched tables, then would come criticize how I did it. Wow, so I get an ultra-menial job and I get criticized for how I do it?! I have a feeling I'll do great in this world.

On Saturday morning Paul had an 8-mile race at Boom Island in Minneapolis. I went with him to watch, and his sister and mom showed up, so did Jude while Michelle was off doing her training run on the race course. It was pretty fun. Paul had a really good time (49:31, although I think it was faster cause I was watching them change over the clock from the 5k and they lost a few seconds on that), came in only 6th, so I was very proud of him.
Also after the race started and the runners disappeared for the next 45 minutes, I heard some people talkin' the portuguese, so I went over and started chatting with them. They're from Rio and gave me travel tips for when I go. Since they were Brazilian, they were very nice. It was fun. Also they were astonished that I spoke Portuguese. Hehe. (Full of surprises, I am.)

After the race Paul and I stuck around for the awards (oh by the way it was in the 20s and snowing this morning), which took about an hour or so to process. Then we went back to his place and Jude and Michelle came over, and Summer and Chester and Jessie were there, and we all ate French toast and strawberries and sausage and it was deemed good. Yummy.

Saturday afternoon I watch the Matrix 3 with Paul. Bridget I know you haven't seen these so I won't say anything except...eh. Bridget I recommend watching the first one only.

Sunday = Easter so I got home in time for the egg hunt; little kids are hilarious cause you can hide 6 dozen eggs (yep, that's my family! Paul got invited over to help dye eggs on Saturday night but he politely declined my mother's offer) in plain view and they won't find them! Haha, they're great. Then we ate scones and meats and eggs for breakfast/brunch, and everyone laid around being sick from too much candy for the next few hours...we had a big Easter dinner where everyone came over and people were all crabby cause they had too much candy...we had turkey & ham and all the things that go with that...afterwards I walked over to Paul's house where we ate Cornish game hens and all the stuff that goes with those, and tiramisu, and then Paul and I went to our respective homes cause that boy was falling asleep already. The end of my fascinating easter story. Johanna was hyped up on sugar and wanted to play, which meant jumping on my and beating me with a stuffed toy, giving me a bloody nose. What a sweetie.

Goals this week:
1) Get a schedule for REAL from the restaurant, or at least a solid one for this week.
2) Get an afghan pattern
3) Finish Albright book
4) Work a lot on blanket

PS- Today I ran twice as far as usual, yay!

OK, so my new job is kind of pissing me off.
They called me last Friday, shortly after I had turned in my application, and say they are interested in hiring me. They ask me if I can come in that weekend, and I say, sure, I can probably do that. Then they say, can you come in tonight? I say ummmm....(cause I think I was going over to Paul's shortly) I guess so..., thinking they just want to interview me more or something. They say, good, be here in half an hour.
Oh, turns out they want me to work.
Well, ok, I get trained in and work for a few hours, and then I am ready to go and the owner says, Well, see you tomorrow, same time! I say, huh? And it turns out I am working the shift on Saturday night too, although I already had plans. Well, ok, they want to see how I work alone (not shadowing someone). So I do it, cause I don't want to complain my first day on the job. Although I am disappointed to miss out on my Saturday night plans. Wasn't bad though cause I got lots of tips since pretty much the entire International Film Festival came and ate there.

So the night ends on Saturday and I am getting ready to leave, and the owner says, so, we'll see you on Monday night. Now I am thinking, alright, I said I was flexible, but I didn't mean I have no life!! So I tell him I can work that shift but what is my permanent schedule going to be, etc, and he says his wife is the one that handles all that.

Ok, so Monday evening I am about to start walking over to the restaurant at 5:30 (for my 6 pm shift) when I get a phone call. They don't actually want me to work anymore that night, they just want me to be "on call." Screw that. I went and finished my paper instead, un-contactable in the cartography lab at Macalester. The owner('s wife) told me that she is going to call me on Tuesday to tell me what time she wants me to come in to work. ("You want me to work tomorrow?") I say to myself that I'm going to give her until 5 (pretty generous on my part) and if she doesn't call me by then, I'm not going in. 5:35 rolls around, and guess who's on the phone. My sister actually answers it and pretends I'm not there, so I don't call them back until around 6:15, when I tell them that I can't get in for at least an hour, because of the bus strike and all. She goes back and forth with me for a little bit but finally says that it's alright for that night, but...then I tell her that she really needs to give me more advance notice cause I'm not going to be able to come in within barely any notice, since I have no reliable transportation without the buses.

So then tonight. I had to meet with the dogsitting people at 6:00 and of course, I got a phone call from the restaurant at 5:30. I tell them no, I can't come in, I have a "meeting." "When's your meeting?" "6." "Well, when will it be over?" "7" (I made that one up) "Well, can't you come in at 7?" I finally say I guess so, but I make sure I sound really reluctant. So finally he said he'd call one other person and see if they could come, and luckily they could. But then he says, "But you'll need to come in Thursday Friday and Saturday nights."

J-C!!!!!

I'd better be making good money this weekend. And they'd g-d better give me a permanent schedule soon. They say they are training 2 other people for this spot, why aren't they getting called in every night?!

I wouldn't mind so much if I had been working there a long time and felt comfortable saying no or knowing who else was available, but I just feel like I can't say anything cause I'm new. Also, when I said I was flexible I didn't mean it like "i'm so flexible I'll bend over backward so you can walk all over me!!"

therein ends my rant.
i just got a big sloppy random kiss from the baby, so i guess that makes things better.
bedtime.

Healthy, full-grown elephants have no natural enemies. Their hides are too thick for predators to bite through. At night they protect the young and infirm by circling around them.

Wow, this week has been really good. Since Friday, I have:
1) Gotten a job (restaurant)
2) Finished my last paper from Fall Semester
3) Gotten another job (house/dog-sitting)
4) Started the 2nd section of my blanket
5) Finished 2 books

Yay!

HILARIOUS new ad I just saw of President Bush's -- it says John Kerry wants to raise gasoline taxes, so people DRIVE LESS!! Then it shows people on bikes. And talks about how horrible this would be.

Well, if they frame a gasoline tax hike in THAT light...I can see what an awful idea this would be...? Hahaha. Man, with every ad I see I like Kerry more and more.

I'm free I'm free I'm free I'm free I'm FREE!!

No more school until August!! Or maybe June!!

man this feels good. i couldn't believe I was done so I was almost hesitant to send my paper in, but then i just did anyways!
yayyy!

Erin, I believe your story and yes the Wiggles are awfully odd, so I thought I'd check it out on google, the source of all truth. First I got the MSN Encarta dictionary, as follows:

slip·per·y dip (plural slip·per·y dips)
noun
Australia children’s slide: a long children’s slide in a playground or funfair

Then I found this REALLY weird australian website
dolly story
with this story about some dolls, and someone with obviously way too much time on their hands.

There's also some powerpoint about slipperydips which I can't open cause we dont have powerpoint installed on this computer...
slippery-dip powerpoint

Then, finally, there is some story about seeing ghost-children use a slippery dip, cached off of google.
haunted slippery-dip

Great stuff, that google.

I have taken to eating raisin bran for breakfast (every stay at the hospital gets me liking a new, unexpected food -- last time it was Cream of Wheat). This makes me feel old and constipated (of which I am neither, thank you very much!).

I only have 2 friendsters right now, but I got a new testimonial from a girl I went to high school with, and she said she liked my hair! Whoo-hoo!

Yesterday Johanna wanted to have a picnic in the backyard, but no one would picnic with her. And poor thing, she had already set it all out with a pink blanket and cookies and a banana and granola bars and ... i dunno some other stuff. She wanted to go get dessert from the convenience store up the block but no one would go with her and my mom wouldn't give her any money. So I found her in the corner crying, and she told me all about the picnic she had planned, so I took her to get some dessert for it. We put our jackets on (this girl wears shorts and a tank top in 45 degree weather, but I said if we were going up the block she needed a jacket) and headed out into the pouring rain. Of course we each brought striped umbrellas and opened them up. (By the way, 1754 knows this but the rest of you most likely do not: most people considered it to be quite sunny yesterday. Silly people.) We walked super-slowly up the block making sure to miss every single crack in the sidewalk and warning the folks we saw that they needed to go inside or get an umbrella because they were going to get soo wet! Don't they know it's raining?! Also we had some nice comments on the way back from people in cars who liked our umbrellas.

Last night I went to watch Gopher women's basketball (final four) at a bar with jude and ben and michelle and marye and their friend chuck (paul was working). It was very fun except there was this obnoxious girl cheering for connecticut (the other team) very loudly the whole time. ben and jude begain cheering against her every time she opened her mouth, but as soon as we were done with our food we switched rooms.

that's all i have to say for now.

So, uh, my little sister is a freak, and last night she was pretending to be a baby while my brother and I were eating pizza. She wanted some pizza, but whispered to me that babies don't have any teeth, so I was joking and said, oh I guess Peter will have to chew it up for you and take it out of his mouth to put in yours! She smiled and nodded. Considering that was a disgusting suggestion that I wasn't actually serious about, it's not surprising that soon I found myself biting off little pieces of pizza and taking them out of my mouth to put in hers. Awesome. Perfect disgusting way to spend an evening.

This evening I am going wedding-dress fitting. Z is SOOOOOO excited about it. I thought it would be alright, but apparently she wants to spend a real long time doing it and it's going to be cameras and lots of girls (I get uncomfortable around lots of girls) and just plain-out girly all day. So I don't know how I feel about that and I hope it's alright.

Today I am also going to go pick up a job application at a different restaurant. And I saw a flyer at Mac looking for a house & dog sitter, so I should call them. I forgot to do that last night. Even though dogs smell, I could probably put up with them for a couple days if it meant moola.

The rest of the weekend, I don't know what I am going to be doing. Big adventures, probably.

So I am reading a 2004 Congressional Budget Justification for aid to Pakistan, and I am really having some troubles with it. On one data sheet they will claim that their obligation for the year is only $55,000, but that's right after they've allotted millions to different sectors.
Plus, they set up a 5-year aid package (of $3 billion) in 2003, with $20 million per year already allotted out to the education sector, so I can't imagine why they are busy justifying what totals tens of millions in aid for 2004...if they wanted to give more aid to the education sector it is much more likely that they would fool around with the amounts for different areas within the $3 billion rather than add more aid to the table. So I don't know where they're coming from here. I've looked it over several times now and am baffled and I wish I hadn't looked at it cause now I don't know what to put in my paper.

So I just wanted to tell you all that so that everyone could barf and not just Sarah with me incessantly IMing her things like that.

Oh, and I forgot to say: (Erin and Paul probably already know this)

Australians call a playground slide a "slippery-dip"??
(I found that out cause I got to watch the Wiggles this morning with the sis while stretching out after my run.


Oh, and 1754: who was it who was on Friendster?

OK, main question of the day:
Why did the recovery of kidnapped UW student Audrey Seiler warrant a huge front-page photo and story and the killing, mutilating, burning etc of American civilians in Iraq only get a side column? The reason I first noticed that one was because I was reading the Audrey story and I thought the picture in the other column (of cheering faces, happened once I looked to be under the body of a hanging American) was related to her safe return...
OK, that was the Pioneer Press. The Star Tribune gave it second-story status (so middle of the page, you have to unfold the paper to see the photo -- I guess that could make it first-story if you saw the whole page at once), but the headline was in bigger print.

On to less important things...

I am extremely grateful that my ass don't hurt so bad no more...I didn't want to move yesterday after lifting so much on my gluts on Tuesday, but today I made myself go running. After 10 steps I wanted to stop cause OW!, but I kept going, and by the end I had stretched my ass out so much in the running that I felt much better. Pleasant story. Pleasant and true.

I have discovered that I have an odd need to pour my drinks into smaller containers...i.e. if I have a full Nalgene, I will never drink it. If I pour that Nalgene into 3 glasses, however, I can drink it in one sitting. Odd. So on days that I have glasses available I will drink like 90 oz. On days when I am just carrying the Nalgene around I will drink about 4.

I also have these protein bars that are supposed to be chocolate mint flavored. I checked the ingredients, and there is chocolate, but no mint. It reminds me now of the carob-mint soy ice cream which had no mint either.