pseudostoops

Last week, I ordered a dress online.  It was adorable, on sale, and perfect for a bridal shower I’m going to this weekend.

A few days ago, I realized that the dress had not arrived.

“Strange,” I thought.  “Perhaps I should investigate.”

I looked up the UPS tracking number.

Status: delivered.
Delivery date: Wednesday, July 22

Wha-huh?  It was delivered over a week ago?  I called UPS.

“Yes ma’am, according to our records, that package was delivered on Wednesday, July 22.”

“Right, I had to give you the tracking number earlier in this call.  You have just told me exactly what the tracking number had already told me.  I’m calling to see what I should do since the package did not, in fact, arrive.”

“Have you tried looking in the bushes around your door?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The drivers will sometimes hide a package in the bushes to make it harder for someone to notice it and steal it.  Maybe check under the bushes, too.  Or, do you have any gardening equipment or kids big wheels or anything outside your door?”

“No”

“Oh.  Well sometimes drivers hide them under that stuff, too.”

(WTF?)

“Well, we don’t really have any bushes or anything for a driver to hide a package in.  Which, for what it’s worth, seems like an odd strategy since it may well also fool the person who is receiving the package.  My silk dress would definitely be ruined by now if it had been sitting under the bushes for a week, especially given the 4 days of rain we’ve had since then.”

“Well then, ma’am, there’s nothing I can do.  You can call the company you ordered it from and ask them to set up a trace with us to try to get your money back, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

Terrific.

I called the company I ordered it from, at 2pm on a Wednesday.

“We’re sorry, we are currently closed.  Please try your call again during normal business hours.”

(Last time I checked, 2pm on Wednesday IS normal business hours.  Perhaps the company is located in Finland.)

Desperate to take SOME dress-finding action, I emailed all the people in my building.  (There are only 8 units, including ours, so we all know each other.  I wasn’t spamming like 100 people or anything.)  “Um, does anyone have a photographic memory for other people’s packages who might remember seeing one for me about a week ago?”

I got 6 emails back, from 6 different units, all with some variation of “that sucks, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see anything, hope you find it.”

Yesterday after work, I walked into the vestibule and, lo and behold, what should I find?  My dress!  In a box that had already been opened.

Dear new wife of the guy who lives in the only unit I didn’t hear from when I sent out my email seeking my dress: BITCH, I AM TOTALLY ON TO YOU.  STOP STEALING MY DRESSES.

I’m sure it was an honest mistake: she took it upstairs, realized it wasn’t hers, and then forgot to bring it back down.  But how weird that she didn’t just say that, right? In a building this small, did she think I would think that the dress had just coincidentally appeared, in a box that’s been neatly cut open, and wouldn’t put two and two together? (And if it wasn’t an accident: wouldn’t it have been awesome if she, like, wore the dress out somewhere and I ran into her?  Summer sundress wrestlemania!)

Of course, I tried it on and it’s too small.  But at least now I have something to send back in exchange for my money, instead of having to beg them to give me a store credit or something.

These things are pretty much always in our house, and if they’re here, I will not starve, nor will I need to go to the grocery store to buy stuff for dinner.  I’m not counting stuff that’s a given, like mustard and vinegar and peanut butter, or stuff that comes in cans that you crack open in a true Dinner Emergency.  These are just the things I always have on hand for nibbling.  The kind of food I eat almost exclusively when John’s away, when it seems silly to cook a full meal for just me.

• Heritage flakes
• Almonds
• Cat cookies
• Pickles
• Pretzel chips
• Reduced Fat Triscuits
• Baby carrots
• Spinach
• Berries (summer)
• Apples (fall and winter)
• Cedar’s hummus
• Fage Greek Yogurt
• Frozen peas
• Frozen chocolate chip cookie dough
• Coffee beans
• Brown rice cakes
• Skim milk
• Goat cheese
• String cheese
• Extra sharp cheddar cheese
• (Um, perhaps I should lay off the cheese?)
• Diet Coke

I think these things must be highly individualized: a personal stew of comfort foods, memories of childhood, and unique taste buds.  John’s preferred list of go-to foods (were he to ever deign to actually go grocery shopping) would tend more towards the salami/brats/sliced turkey/sandwich bread schools of thought. He would forego the fruits and vegetables entirely, except perhaps for sauerkraut. There would definitely be more beer.

As dull as it must seem to many, I find this subject fascinating.  Indulge me: what are your go-to foods?

I spent yesterday afternoon here:

It’s a lousy cameraphone picture, but trust me, it was gorgeous.  It was a nice tonic after spending all weekend here:

Don’t get me wrong, the Sheraton is a lovely hotel, but even in lovely hotels the conference rooms tend to look like this:

As in:  rooms where one cannot fully appreciate the fact that it is finally, mercifully, GORGEOUS in Chicago,  after weeks of asshole rainy weather.

So. BlogHer: I’m tremendously glad I went, though I enjoyed it differently than I had  expected to.   I thought I’d attend and enjoy panels with topics like “who’s reading you?” and “lifeblogging outside the lines,” but I went to exactly one of those panels before I started looking around frantically for a paper bag to breathe into as people heatedly debated why “certain segments of this community get all the advertising dollars” and how “BlogHer ads won’t let you do xyz” and all I could think was “abort abort abort find friends and glass of wine, stat!”

I found it disorienting that Ragu wanted to sponsor our lunch, and Pepsi wanted to sponsor all of my liquid consumption for the weekend, and Degree wanted to give me samples of a deodorant called “Sexy Intrigue.”  (Thank God I’d gotten a heads up on the existence of this awesomely-named personal anti-sweating device, thanks to Amalah, or I would have laughed right in the poor product rep’s face when she did her “big reveal” of the new scent’s name.  As it was, I  made sort of a trying-not-to-laugh grimace.)  It just wasn’t doing much for me.

So instead of learning how to read my stats better, or do SEO, or get sponsorship dollars thrown my way, I started ditching stuff.  I coerced Alice into skipping morning sessions so we could go get the best french toast in the world.  Six hours later, I stuffed myself into a cab driven by a man with a death wish to have a carbo-loading dinner with five lovely ladies.  I sat for hours on the floor of their hotel room as tears rolled down our faces from laughing (mostly at Sam’s accent).  I took deep breaths to overcome my profound feelings of moron-ness and introduced myself to people whose writing I admire.  I made Linda tell me which P90x videos to order.  (She counseled against the one with all the pull ups; probably wise given the state of my arms.)  I drank gin.  I ate pop rocks:

(Photo courtesy of Alice: I did not take one single picture because I am awesome.)

I’ve noticed something about other BlogHer posts: they’re not filled with raves about the content of a particular panel, or how well the conference prepared someone to “get her piece of the monetization pie.”  Instead, people are talking about the people they met, the reconnecting with friends, the laughing until incontinence.

That’s why we do this, right? That’s what this is about.  That’s why I’m glad I went.

I need music to run, particularly ouside.  If I do not have music, I focus even more on all the things I’d rather be doing than running (for example: sleeping, eating chocolate chip cookies, flossing.)  As I mentioned in my last post, some songs passed the “10K test”; others did not.

10K worthy:

• I Love Rock ‘n Roll, Joan Jett
• Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Jay-Z
• Boom Boom Pow, Black Eyed Peas
• Titus Andronicus, Titus Andronicus
• Ruby, Kaiser Chiefs
• Whatever You Like, TI
• The 59 Sound, Gaslight Anthem
• Song Away, Hockey
• Twist, Frightened Rabbit
• In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel
• The Seed (2.0), The Roots
• The Underdog, Spoon
• Troublemaker, Weezer
• Paper Planes, MIA

Kicked off the playlist (good songs, all, they just weren’t getting it done for me during the long run):

• Universal Mind Control, Common
• Should’ve Said No, Taylor Swift (Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking either)
• My Doorbell, White Stripes

My problem now is I’m getting to a point where I’m really used to hearing all the songs on my running playlist, and need some new ones.  Suggestions? Please? I like all kinds- hip hop, rock, goopy pop, cheesy country- as long as it’ll keep me running, I’m open.

After running my first 5K, I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment.  Running 3.1 miles in a row, without stopping, was definitely not something I could have done a year ago.  It’s not even something I could have imagined doing a year ago: my whole life I have been plagued by breathing problems, and running outside led to painful wheezing, which led to me avoiding running or anything requiring running, which led to me being a total no-confidence wimp about my athletic abilities.  True story.

Getting an inhaler again, for the first time since I “outgrew” my childhood asthma, has made a huge difference.  (BIG shout out to my allergy doctor who recommended it.  She was kind of nonchalant about the whole thing, actually:  “You wheeze when you run outdoors? Let’s put you on an inhaler to use before you run outside.” Me: “Does this mean I have asthma again?”Her: *shrug* “Does it matter? If it works, it works.”  Me: *mind: blown*)  Running outside is now, while not exactly pleasurable, a nice way to get in a workout outdoors, instead of stuck in a dank gym.

So: first 5K. I ran it, I ran it pretty fast, I felt like a superhero.  I immediately started looking for other 5Ks to register for.  Having a goal, a race, to prepare for is a REALLY GOOD motivator for me.  (I fear embarrassment, so I am motivated to train to prevent being embarrassed during the race.  If that’s not a window into my effed-up psyche, I don’t know what else I can give you people.)

As I was shopping for 5Ks, my friend Tribecca suggested that I start training for a half marathon.

My actual reaction?  “Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha (gasp gasp) hhahahaahahahahahahaha.”

Tribecca: Please?  I’m coming to Chicago to run the half in September.  Run it with me! Please?

Me: I’ll think about it.

So I’ve been kind of, tentatively, noncommittally training for a half marathon.  It still feels a little ridiculous to say out loud.  I am not a runner.  I am a wheezer.  Runners run half marathons.  Wheezers WATCH half marathons.

According to my “novice half marathon training program” schedule, I was supposed to run 6 miles this weekend, my longest run yet. (And yet still less than half of the half marathon distance!  WHAT AM I THINKING?)  You know what 6 miles is?  It’s 10K.  So I got this idea in my head that I would be more likely to actually DO the 6 mile training run if I registered for a 10K.  I did a quick search of local runs, found one called the “Fleet Feet Women’s 5K and 10K Festival,” and signed up.

Then I panicked.  See the title of that race?  See what it says in there about “women’s”?  Um, that means I can’t force John to do it with me.  This is my main strategy for training: I make John do things with me, so when I want to wimp out, he talks me into sticking with it.

So! I was running at 10K…by myself.

Sunday morning we got up at approximately dawn and made our way to the race site.  The airhorn went of and I started running….and running….and running…and dear god is this ever going to be over?….and oh! there is the woman in first place, doubling back towards the finish line while I’m still at mile 2! she is fit! and tan! ….still running….This Common song seemed like a good idea at the time but is insufficiently peppy to take my mind off this torture…still running….oh my god we just ran by that woman’s FOUR CHILDREN cheering her on, she has four children and is definitely running even faster than me, I have got to step it up…still running…..hi John! Thanks for riding your bike all over the course to cheer for me at various points!….still running…..oh my god make it end….

Etcetera.

I had to take a little walking break in mile 5, which made me disappointed in myself, but I finished, in under an hour, which was my goal.  Unlike the 5K, though, where I felt a joyful rush IMMEDIATELY and was like “when can I do that again?” my feelings after the 10K tended towards “I might barf”, followed by “and people expect me to run twice this far in a month and a half?  Not bloody likely!”

In fact, it’s taken me almost two whole days to start feeling like actually, maybe that wasn’t so bad.  Maybe I could do another one of those.  Maybe I should start surreptitiously checking the schedule of upcoming races in the area.  So yeah, I guess I get “runner’s high,” I just get it on a 48 hour delay.

******

Unrelated note: a bunch of people are coming into Chicago this weekend for BlogHer.  I have put together a little food and insider tips mini-guide for the area around the hotel where it’s being held.  I really would be delighted if BlogHer folks were spared the mediocre chain stuff that’s unfortunately the easiest to find in the area around the hotel.  Anyway, if you’re coming to town this weekend, or know someone who is, feel free to check it out, and forward it widely.

I’ve had a bunch of days in a row that are the crazy-making kind – darting from one meeting to another, no time between, always running a little late, scarfing down sandwiches during meetings that aren’t technically lunch meetings because there is no time to eat lunch unless it’s in front of other people in a conference room – those kind of days.

It’s funny, on Monday when I looked at my schedule for the week, I actually felt relieved that it was so crowded.  I thought I’d be enjoying this, after several weeks of long, sparsely-filled days populated mostly by blah administrative work.  I’m leaving this job in a few weeks, and everyone in the office knows it, and as a result I’ve gotten about zero interesting new work, and a fair amount of “hey, can you make sure the commas in these footnotes are placed correctly?” (For those wondering if I’ve gotten canned: no.  I always had an expiration date.  Such is the joy of public interest legal jobs for young lawyers: your funding often runs out after two years.)

Though I fully understand WHY no one in my office is exactly fighting to give me fascinating, challenging assignments right now, I was starting to feel a little annoyed when it became clear that my last two months here (fully 1/12 of my entire time at the company) were going to be spent colating and updating Excel spreadsheets.  I wanted to leave on a high note, do something useful.  I wanted to leave my mark.

It’s a ridiculous thing, I know, that I had any idea that I should be leaving my mark after a scant two years at a company that has existed for longer than I’ve been alive.  But that’s what we’re taught to aspire to, right? Work hard try hard be good do your job well leave your mark.  I suspect this feeling is particularly acute for those of us who have self-selected into lower-paying careers for the sake of “doing something meaningful”.  It doesn’t make me better than you, but it does really heighten one’s sense of “god there better be something to show for this at the end of all this!”

I’m not sure if there will be.

But back to this week: after several weeks of being slower than slow, sudenly things are fast fast rush rush hurry print write this rewrite this rewrite it again please this has to go out today we’re counting on you!  Just what I wanted, right?  Except apparently, during those slow weeks, my brain got on board with the idea that I’m wrapping up.  I guess I made some peace with my imperfect mark-leaving skills.  Without even realizing it, I transitioned into a place where I’m okay with being slow, with tying things up neatly, drafting transition memos, filing things away for the next person.  Suddenly, I find myself longing for the slow days.

Stupid grass is always greener.

Administrative note:  I was so tired this morning that I accidentally posted this to my old site, and didn’t notice until JUST NOW.  Because I am AWESOME and ORGANIZED.  Sheesh.  Sorry about that.

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Dear creepy crawly thing who crawled up the leg of my pajamas last night,

Are you particularly dim, creepy crawly thing?  Did you get lost and panic when you could not find your way out? That is the only explanation I can come up with for why you did this:

It might not look that bad in the photo, but let’s examine it more closely, shall we?

EIGHT BITES?  What gives, creepy crawly?  Were you not sated after one long draught of my tasty blood?  Or did you get stuck and, in a fit of rage at your predicament, decide that the best way to solve the problem was to bite me EIGHT TIMES within a 3 inch radius?

Helpful hint: if you crawl up someone’s pajama leg and get stuck, you can turn right back around to get out.  No need to bite eight times!  No need to then be so tired/lost/confused that you give up and DIE in the leg of my pjs, so that when I wake up in the morning and stand up, a dead creepy crawly falls out of my pant leg and nearly causes me a heart attack!

Truly, we both would have been happier had this situation ended differently.

Yours in Benadryl,

pseudo

One of the loveliest places we went on our vacation was Hvar.  Hvar is an island off the coast of Croatia, and it fancies itself something of an Adriatic Sea version of Ibiza, with beach resorts, fancy yachts in the harbor, and a main square lined with bars and cafes.

Hvar

There are several smaller islands off of Hvar, there are dozens of boats that offer water taxi service to beaches on of those islands.  But at the suggestion of our guesthouse operator we opted instead to rent our own boat, so we could control when we went/came back, and so we could go to more isolated coves and not be limited to the water taxi routes.

(Side note: “guesthouse” = Croatian for “hostel, complete with 20 year old Aussie backpackers and shared bathrooms and no towels or bedding provided and an extra 5 euro fee for using the air conditioning.” We were traveling with our friend Will and his girlfriend Sara, and when the four of us walked in and saw the dorm-style beds and the floor littered with other people’s backpacks, we just laughed. Hey, at least it was cheap!)

On the morning we decided to rent the boat, John and Will strode confidently down to the shore, negotiated briefly with the 15-year-old boat-renting dude, and secured us our craft for the day.

“We sprung for the powerful motor,” John said.

I looked at the boat, which strongly resembled a rowboat with a toy motor attached.

“This one has six horsepower,” John said.  “The standard model has only five.”

Power Boat

We piled in and putt-putted our way across the channel to the island of Palmizana,  After about 45 minutes of putt-putting (Will “okay, man, we’re clear of the harbor and can speed up.  Open it up!”  John: “It’s as open as she goes, dude.”  Will: “alrighty then, we should definitely get there by nightfall.”) we arrived at a cove on the back side of Palmizana:

Ooh. Pretty.

The afternoon was gorgeous, and we spent it swimming, playing water Frisbee, reading our books, and napping on the rocks.  Heaven.

In the late afternoon, we decided we should probably head back, so we loaded up our stuff, got back in the boat, I pulled on the line to raise the anchor and…..nothing.

John tried yanking on the anchor.  Nothing.

Will gave it a go.  Still nothing.

John pointed the boat so it angled away from the anchor and gunned the engine.  You could practically hear the motor weeping as it started to shudder and smoke from the effort.  Six horsepower: not enough to dislodge an anchor.  Duly noted.

We were stuck.

Sara donned a snorkel mask and leaned over into the water to see what we were stuck on.  As she leaned over, her center of balance shifted and she flipped over the side of the boat, catching her chin on the side.  She came up with a bloody chin and bad news:  “it’s stuck between two rocks,” she said.  Then, “does anyone have a bandaid?”

Will put on the mask and took a look.  “She’s right,” he said.  “We’re stuck.  I’m going to go down there to try to get it.”

I looked down.  It looked deep.  Like, 30 feet deep.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” I said.

“I know how to clear my ears to balance the pressure,” said Will.  “I’m good.”

He dove in and followed the rope down.  The rope jerked around as he tried to dislodge the anchor.  Then he stopped suddenly, and came up quickly.  He broke the surface yelling, clearly in pain.

He flipped himself into the boat, still yelling, face all twisted with pain.  He was holding his ear.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Vertigo,” was all he could say before he leaned over and looked like he was going to barf on the floor of the boat.  Instead, he spit on Sara’s foot.  “I think I popped an eardrum.”

Well crap.

It became really clear that we could not continue to dick around with the anchor, and that in fact we needed to get Will back to land.  We untied the anchor from the boat, tied the line to an empty water bottle so it would float (apparently boat ropes and anchors are really expensive; this was a super-smart move as it saved us 50 bucks the boat company would have charged us for a lost anchor and line) and headed back to shore.

We got back to the hotel and Will did that thing where you hold your breath and plug your nose and breathe out to try to clear your ears?  You know? And the sound that came out of his ears was, I swear to god, like BIRDS CHIRPING.  Things were all manner of effed up in there.  Oh, and it caused him lots of searing pain.  There was no blood coming out of it, but the pressure was clearly a disaster.  One day before we were supposed to get on a plane back to Italy. Swell.

We went to the Croatian pharmacy and engaged in a comical exercise of trying to explain Will’s symptoms using a mixture of English, Italian, and elaborate pantomime.  She gave him some eardrops.  John tried to put the drops in, and the application of one single tiny drop caused enough pain that Will yelped out in pain and punched John in the gut to get him to stop.  We then read the (hilariously mis-translated) instructions on the drops, which said quite clearly: do not use if the eardrum might be perforated.  Oops!

Out of options, we pumped Will full of Sudafed and Afrin and Advil and all got on the plane saying quiet prayers that his head did not explode.  Miraculously, he made it through the flight all right, and as we bid him farewell to continue on our trip, he promised he would go to the doctor.

A week later, we saw Will again as we all met up in Venice.

“How did the doctor go?” we asked.

“I went to an ear specialist,” he said “and he used this pressure-measuring device in my ear, and where it’s supposed to have this nice sinusoidal curve, instead it was a jagged, unpredictable, all over the place reading.  The doctor told me that in 30 years of practice, he’d never seen anything like it.  He also said I’m lucky not to be deaf.”

“Well, that’s something,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.  “He also said I should hope that my ear clears someday, but he can make no promises.”

“So it might be like this forever?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I expect I’ll get used to it.”

And that, my friends, is my cautionary tale about Why You Should Not Dive In Water Ten Meters Deep To Try To Retrieve An Anchor Because You May Not DIE, But You May End Up Deaf Or At The Very Least With Seriously Messed Up Ear Pressure.

The End

(Will, if you’re reading: any updates?)

When I put in for a two-week vacation at my office, it raised some eyebrows.  See, two weeks is all the vacation I get for the entire year, and it’s definitely unusual for someone as junior as I am to take it all in one fell swoop.  But John and I had been saving and planning for this trip for two years, and there was no way I was going to make it just a week because I was worried about violating some silly office social norms.

The main street in Dubrovnik

May I say: that was an excellent decision.  The first week of vacation was truly great, and included some of my favorite destinations, but it took until the second week for me to feel like I forgot I even had a job, to feel totally relaxed and focused just on what fun and relaxing thing we wanted to do that day.  It was heaven.

A cove on Palmijana, an Island off Hvar

We spent a week in Croatia, a destination which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone considering it (just look at that clear blue water!) with some friends, and then a week in Italy on our own (this just in: pasta in Italy is way more delicious than here).  We did a lot of walking around, stopping for drinks and/or food.  Basically, we walked until we thought “I could use a libation!” or “I am craving a snack!” and then we would stop and drink and admire the views and pat ourselves on the back for planning such a lovely trip to such cool places.

Bar at the top of a castle turret in Korcula

There are lots of stories I could tell you about our vacation, but I realize that a twenty-paragraph post on all the funny/weird/annoying little things that happened on my two weeks away would be achingly boring for most, so I have decided to take a poll.  I have, in my head, narrowed the possible stories down to the three that are the most funny/interesting/compelling/tragic, and I am going to put it to a vote!

Duomo at dusk

Which story would you most like to hear:

• The time we almost killed our friend Will in a freak dinghy accident
• The time when we tried to travel from Venice to Rome and realized that yes, in fact, we ARE in Italy, which means no, in fact, you will NOT get to your final destination at anything approximating the scheduled time today!
• The time I learned to fillet a whole fish (including cheeks!) in a trial-by-fire way involving a stern waiter and a bottle of Croatian white wine

I’ll take the most popular answer and regale you with that tale of woe in my next entry.

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Oh, and by the way: I’ve started a little side project with my awesome friends Sam and Kori, and it launches today: it’s called LiveWellSpendWell, and it’s a shopping/review/giveaway blog that focuses on items that cost less than $15. We all like shopping and review blogs, but were growing weary of sites that claim $50 tshirts are “bargain priced!” and exhort you to purchase $900 grills. So, we started our own! Go over to livewellspendwell.com and check out the best in truly bargain-priced beauty products, home goods, kitchen gadgets, and kid stuff.  We hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor!

Jetlag makes you surprisingly awake and alert in the morning.

Things John and I accomplished yesterday morning before work:

• 9 holes of golf (John)
• 30 day shred (pseudo)
• bike ride to farmers’ market to pick out week’s veggies (pseudo)
• shower (both)
• reviewing of credit card statements and paying of bills (John)
• finishing artwork for top secret web-based project (pseudo)
• breakfast (both)
• packing lunch (both)
• folding laundry (pseudo)

Seriously.

Of course, we were falling asleep in our dinner plates by 8:30 pm, but that’s a minor detail.