Kiss Me Goodbye

Whenever Reid leaves for work or school before I'm out of bed he always gives me a kiss on the cheek and says bye to me. Apparently at about 4:40 am on Friday morning after he kissed my cheek my response was to say "Did you burn yourself?" and then fall immediately back to sleep. Now I really wasn't awake and don't really have any recollection of this, but when he questioned me about it later in the day I was able to remember the dream I was having when Reid was saying bye. I was having a dream about Reid trying to use a curling iron on his hair in the bathroom and I was telling him it was a bad idea because his hair was too short. So when he came to kiss me I was thinking he was coming to tell me he hurt himself. I was right, though...his hair is too short and he probably would burn himself.

Dr. Jones! Dr. Jones!

I think I would still write "I love you" on my eyelids. I have to say that I really enjoyed the new Indiana Jones movie. I won't ruin it for anyone that has not seen it yet, don't worry. It was all around just a fun movie, and funny and all that other stuff I look for in a movie. I'm not going to pretend that the plot was the strongest of any movie I've ever seen, but really what Indiana Jones movie has had that? Reid got us a large fruit punch and I drank way too much of it. I had to pee about 20 minutes into the 2 hour movie, but I couldn't bring myself to leave because I didn't want to miss anything and Reid does a terrible recap. It sucked. There were so many waterfalls and things that flowed that were constant reminders. But I made it! I had plenty of practice at field camp avoiding going to the bathroom out in the field.

And I got my glasses! I'm still getting used to them, but I think they work for me. That's all this time around.

Pedestrian Problems

Something that annoys me with walking along the sidewalks of the UW is when you come across a group of friends or whatever that insists on walking in a line. Not single file, mind you, but side by side 4 or 5 people wide which causes them to take up the entire sidewalk. This in itself is inconsiderate, but what is more annoying is when you are walking toward them and they don't break apart, expecting you to walk in the road to go around them. I'm just whining now. It happened to me today, but I wasn't about to jump into oncoming traffic so they could left/right flirt with eachother. I just kept walking until they realized at the last second that they had to break apart. I made some pretty good shoulder slamming physical contact with a girl that was wearing too much perfume and makeup, but I just kept on walking as if nothing happened...just as they would have if I had to jump into traffic. The only situation in which walking in this manner is justified is depicted below.



On my way down the stairs from campus my foot was hovering in mid-step when an overweight campus rat darted out of the brush beside the stairs to right where my foot was about to step. My foot barely missed his tail. This is much more dramatic if you imagine stringed instruments and a slow motion zoomed in camera shot happening during this 'incident'. Note: I deem almost all wildlife on campus overweight. Also, there are 113 stairs that I go up and down every day that I work at the museum. End note.

Honey Honey Honey

I have reached a level of contentment that I did not think possible with my Alberton's shopping experience. Anyone who is familiar with my eating habits knows that I consider myself a honey mustard connoisseur and that my all time favorite honey mustard sauce is the sauce they serve at Tony Roma's (they sell their barbecue sauces, but not the honey mustard). I like to say that if it was socially acceptable I would drink it with a straw. So I was at the deli counter and saw a little tub of honey mustard and decided to try it. I win! It is the closest honey mustard to the Tony Roma's honey mustard that I have found yet! My life is small so I get overly excited about things like this.

Today was a really nice day. The temperature got up to around 75 I think. I got to work today, so I didn't really get to enjoy it too much. There was the U District Street Fair going on one block away from the museum so I got to go to that for about 15 minutes. Other people walk too slow. I think I've been conditioned from when I was a student walking with a purpose to classes. I become frustrated fairly quickly with people who are just leisurely strolling along so I gave up on it and finished off my break at the museum.



Today is also Mount St. Helens Day! And my grandma's birthday. :) And also I'm very excited about The Indiana Jones movie that comes out this week. That's a movie I can probably even convince Reid to take me to see! Getting him to see a movie is a difficult task. That's all I have to say about that...

Two Monacles with Frames Please

This morning I went to Costco for an eye exam. As anticipated, I have the same problems that Chrissy has. A mild astigmatism in both eyes and farsighted. The optometrist was really cool and actually wasn't lame. He was making fun of himself and his cheap $20 squeaky shoes, etc. Anyways, so the verdict is that I get to have part time glasses (not full time, yay!). I picked out some frames that I like. They are purple (Barbie I think you'll like them!) only because they didn't have green in a frame that I liked. The employee that was helping me at the frames section didn't really speak English that well so we had some major communication issues and there was a lot of pointing and other hand gestures on my behalf so I could make sure to not have things get messed up. In less than two weeks I should have them. I'll be able to read/see like a normal person again! I'm very excited since I spend a lot of time reading.


These are the kind of glasses I got. I'll try to change my wardrobe so that I will be able to look as fashion coordinated as I am in the picture. I'm joking by the way, but this has to be one of my all time favorite pictures of myself. Most of you have seen this picture before, but I'll try to overuse it as much as possible.

After my Costco adventure I went and picked up a book at the library that I had put on hold. It's incredibly nice out right now. About 77 degrees. Reid will be in complain mode since he can't handle anything above 70. He starts getting all dramatic saying that we have to pull out all the fans. All he needs to do is just not wear 6 layers of clothes and he'll be fine.

Earlier I was watching A Haunting which is a ghost show on Discovery Channel. Yes I love that kind of crap. Anyways, this episode was about a couple of grad students in Seattle that went to the UW that got married and then moved away from the U-District and moved into a haunted apartment in Ballard. It was very exciting as they used a lot of UW establishing shots and they ALMOST showed the Burke. It was very exciting--sort of. Well for me it was anyway. The acting was terrible as always, but the story was kind of cool as the apartment was being haunted by a couple of ghosts where one killed the other over a drug deal or something. Good stuff.

Call Waiting?

Sunday drivers are TERRIBLE. Seriously. But back to the point of this post. Today is Mother's Day, so while I was pricing books in the basement of the museum I gave mumsy a call. It turns out that she had been on the phone with Chrissy when I called, but switched over to me when I beeped in. Apparently that's all that mom knows how to do with her cell phone. She can't switch back to someone once she's switched over. According to mom she was first on the phone with her friend Lynn, then Chrissy beeped in and mom switched to her and then I beeped in and mom switched to me. The part that is so annoying is that when mom switches over to someone else the person she was talking to is told 'hold on' as opposed to I'll call you back later. During our conversation I heard the telltale click noise that indicates that the person you are talking to has got someone beeping in on the other line. She gave me the pattented 'hold on' and left me in silence. Now since mom had told me all about her inability to switch back to a caller I hung up. Then I called Chrissy who it turns out was the person who mom had switched over to when I was pushed out of the conversation. So now Chrissy was talking to me and mom was left in silence and as it turns out, Chrissy is also incapable of switching back to someone who is on hold. So then Chrissy and I talked for a little while and mom was left by herself. We're wonderful daughters. Happy Mother's Day.


A (not so flattering, but the only one I have on the computer) picture of mumsy and her daughters.

..and the verdict is...

So I have been summoned for jury duty in Spokane County on June 16th, 2008. I should plan for a full day. They've even given me a parking pass so that I can put it on my dashboard while I make important decisions. Sounds like a good time right? Well what's wrong with this (which is probably already apparent to most of you reading this) is that I live in Seattle, not Spokane. The last time I was living in Spokane was at my Dad's house for one summer while I worked at K-Mart in 2003. My drivers license has been registered for Seattle for a long time and I'm even registered to vote here, so I don't get it. It says they chose based on licensed drivers and registered voters sooooo....???? It also says I cannot call in to tell them I can't make it (as my parking permit did not include a complimentary plane ticket) but I have to submit this 'claim' in writing. At least I have plenty of time to procrastinate that.

I guess now that I think about it I wouldn't even be in Seattle on June 16th but in Georgia with Chrissy and mumsy. That's right. I'm going to Georgia in the summer so that I can be incredibly hot and have hair that's even frizzier than it already is if that's even possible. You all can look forward to me having pictures of myself looking like Monica from Friends. By June I figure I might actually have figured out how to post pictures properly.

I just saw a commercial advertising the Emerald City Comicon for this weekend (a comic book/sci-fi convention). The only person I recognized was Gigi Edgley. She played Chiana on Farscape (which used to be one of my favorite shows). She was my favorite and I always thought it would be awesome to dress up like her for Halloween. But alas...I don't have a full crew of make up artists to work on me for 3 and a half hours at my disposal. Oh yeah, and I don't have a chest either. That seemed to be a part of the costume. Below is a picture of her because I'm playing with the picture uploader thing. PS. I fixed the comment thing so that you don't have to sign into anything or try to figure out what the picasso numbers/letters are to prove you're not a robot.

Brandi Carlile rocks my socks off

Ok, so this isn't a video of her rocking per-say...and I guess she doesn't really do rock music. Anyways, this video is from a concert of hers that she did in Seattle on November 2nd, 2007. I should have gone! After seeing this song I really regret it. I had the choice to go as a birthday present, but I decided that Reid and I would be too busy packing for me to go since we moved on my birthday (November 4th) to the house we live in now. This is an incredibly rare performance by her since she is a gee-tar girl all the way and as far as I'm aware has not ever played the piano during any live performance. She has so much emotion when she sings it always gets my attention. Reid really hates when I play this song because I play it so much. Baby =P haha. Anyways, watch it and then you can tell me how much I suck for making you watch it, but watch it!! Oh yeah, and it's a 6 minute song, but don't let that stop you :)


Video: Brandi Carlile - Seattle - 20071102 - 21 - Hallelujah

Mushroom Maynia

Yes, I know how to spell mania but this is how it was advertised for the museum. Will the cleverness ever end? Anyways, it was a fun event. I can't say mushrooms hold a particular interest for me, but I think I may have learned a couple of things. One or two perhaps. The museum didn't cater for the employees, but it did for the volunteers. I did try some bread with mushroom butter at one of the tables and I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it. Enough to eat 5 pieces. Some might think that's selfish, but I would like to say that there was a huge tray FULL of them. The people in charge of the event on the museum's side gave the volunteers an estimate to expect 1200 people. That's about the number of people we get on our second busiest day of the year which is Bug Blast (Dinosaur Day is our biggest day at around 2000 visitors). I think it was a ridiculous estimate to give them being that the event is on a Sunday and also isn't really a children oriented event. We had around 370 attendants. It was because of this retardo estimate that there was so much extra...everything. Food, volunteers, brochures, etc. I just feel bad because they were very misled and wasted a bunch of money. Oh well, more mushroom butter for me!

One of the mushroom volunteers was wearing hammer pants with a mushroom design. I then had to explain to my coworker what hammer pants were. He is Alicia's age and there is a bit of a generation gap between us. I also had to explain to him what MST3K was (Mystery Science Theater 3000) and then had to further explain that the show is much funnier than the description of it would make it seem.

When I got home Reid was obsessively cleaning his car in the driveway. I asked him when he was going to clean my car. No reply. Then he proceeded to spend forever photographing it. More pictures of his car. Gosh that's exciting. All the while the dogs were out in the yard putting on their saddest neglect faces (where they look like they are next in line to be euthanized) and whining because they both had to be on their ropes. BOTH of them are no longer trustworthy to be in the yard without constant supervision. It used to be only Kona. So I decided that since today was actually nice out that I would pay the dogs a bit of efficient attention and used the furminator (special grooming brush) on the doggies out in the yard. Kona really enjoys it and it confuses Zoey. Then Reid and I had sandwiches from Jersey Mikes for dinner. I highly recommend these sandwiches.

Saturdays are Sundays

Right now my days off are Friday and Saturday which shifts the idea of what I call a weekend. It's not so bad. At least I get two days off in a row. One of the sucky things is that most of the people I would hang out with have the whole Saturday and Sunday off days. Saturday night is the hang out time, but I'm lame and I work Sunday mornings so I always hang back. Sundays aren't the worst Monday because I work only one job and it's the museum, so I get to gently ease my way into my work week. Really the only stress that can come on a Sunday is that the weekends have a lot more visitors and then we have dinosaur birthday parties that also run at the same time. I don't think we'll have birthday parties tomorrow since it is one of our special days called "Mushroom Maynia." It's a special day with a mushroom theme, obviously. I wonder if they'll cater it for the employees? They do that sometimes on special days. That would be nice.

So Chrissy called me this morning to tell me that coincidentally before she had even read my previous blog post where I complain about my vision, she had gone to the optometrist this morning. She had all the same symptoms and complaints that I had and apparently it turns out that she has a mild astigmatism in both eyes and will now need to wear permanent glasses. My guess is that this will be the outcome of my yet to be scheduled visit to the optometrist, but maybe I'm wrong. Who knows. We're very twinny sometimes.

That phone conversation caused my cell phone to beep its 'I'm dying' beep about an hour later, which is ridiculous considering the phone had been charging all night and that was the first conversation I had had. It's a very dramatic phone. It thinks its over worked. Reid and I need a new phone plan and cell phones anyway as ours changes at the end of the month.

I'm learning a lot from I heart the 80's on VH1. For example, I did not know that Jaws III was made as a 3-D movie. I always thought it looked a little funny. Mom used to make us watch quality films like that all the time.

Already Irritated

As the title implies I am already annoyed with blogging. Mostly because like most Americans I dislike things I do not fully understand. I'm just trying to figure out how everything works, but I'm not going to pretend I'm good at the whole computer operating thing. You can ask any poor customer that comes into the copy and print center and has a file that for some reason isn't just the straight forward 'file', 'print', select printer. They look at me like I'm supposed to be some sort of magician. I know the whole store dress code makes me look 'magical' and I come off as slightly schizophrenic (with people constantly talking in the ear piece that has to be worn at all times), but the pen I have attached to the cord of my walky talky ensemble (because I have nowhere else to put it as I do not have pockets) is not a magic wand and I cannot change the fact that you made your original file on a mac and our computers are not smart enough to handle that! And speaking of dress code there is an entire issue at the moment with wearing a red apron that I think is bull and makes my face a matching color to said garment, so I will hold off on my pirate language for the moment and save that thought for another time.

Anyways, I feel the need to tell everyone that the letter p key on this keyboard is malfunctioning and has to be pressed very hard. This problem showed itself right after Reid had borrowed my computer for a while. He claims he did nothing to it and gets really angry when I try to accuse him of damaging my computer. I feel it is a rather large coincidence that suddenly right after Reid uses my computer there is something physically wrong with it. I'm JUST saying....

So hopping around in thoughts here I'm hoping I can actually keep up with this blog a little better than my last one. I go through phases with my down time. I'll either read for months at a time, crochet for months at a time, paint or watch movies, write in my journal, and now I can add blogging to that list. Right now I'm in the reading a lot phase, but I'm coming to the end of a really good book and am for once not feeling motivated to go out and get another one right away...which gives me my clue that I'm changing phases. Also, I think I might need glasses as in the last month or two my eyes are really feeling strained and I've even done the old person thing where I've upped the font size on my screen so that all the web pages I visit can be read from 10 feet away.

The really good book I was referencing is Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. It is historical fiction and makes me eternally grateful that I am not a female in 19th century China. No foot binding for me that makes my feet look like mutant lilys that are only 7 cm in length!

And speaking of China there was a really good issue of National Geographic that came out this month that is all about China. It is one of those special issues that comes with a big fold out map on the inside. The gentleman that lived in this house before us had a subscription to almost every magazine imaginable (yes, including Playboy) and apparently all these companies haven't realized yet that he doesn't pay his bills so we get A LOT of magazines each month free to us! I get all the cool ones like National Geographic and Reid gets all the boring car ones. We usually just throw away the Rolling Stones ones (and others that are similar that I can't remember the names to right now) because neither me or Reid are cool enough to even touch those. They would spontaneously combust upon us opening them in protest anyhow. Not worth the effort or the possible fire.

And I welcome myself... :)

Ok... so I have entered the world of the blogging years behind everyone else, but wide world of inter-web here I come! Well, I guess it wasn't behind everyone else as I had a blog several years ago that I never updated and I'm pretty sure it was deleted from my lack of maintenance. Life goes on.

Here are some of my concerns about having a blog (which is mostly one reason--and the same reason as to why I have not had a blog for a long while). Anyone who has met me knows that I have a tendency toward bluntness (I feel one of my more 'charming' qualities). In the realm of my little Melissa-centric universe this attribute is mostly well understood and is somewhat tolerated, but it has the potential for me being judged in a not so positive manner. My friends will obviously not be bothered by this, but other persons that may know me from a different realm of my reality may not expect it. So this is my WARNING! My blinking sign that will remain on if the power goes out. This blog will hopefully be a fairly accurate representation of ME. I'm not asking that you like it, just that you don't secretly/passive aggressively hate me for it. And if you do decide to do the latter please inform me so that I can make a mental note to not care. That's all. Oh yeah and I was recently told that I swear like a pirate hooker, but usually the swearing comes as an 'in the moment' verbal release and I don't plan on being that worked up while blogging (plan being the operative word).

Oh, and another one of the reasons why I haven't set up a blog is because I feel Reid will be constantly telling me how I could improve stuff on my blog as he is an expert, after all. That annoys me. Actually, I think it is just the idea that he's telling me that what I have done is not to the highest level of perfection achievable. I am Melissa and therefore perfect, right?? Haha. I have to laugh at my own jokes a lot to keep my self esteem up. Anyways, he hasn't even said anything yet and I'm already living in my world of scenarios and getting worked up about it. Nothing new there.

This blog is getting long. I usually become disinterested in posts that start to become this long, so perhaps I will start a new post just to be annoying like that. It makes me feel as if I have accomplished more, ok?