So, yesterday, I started to write a blog about how hot it was and how thankful I was to have air conditioning. Then I thought that would be a bit repetitive because I’ve blogged rather a lot about the heat lately.
I wrote my blog about my book instead.
This time, last year, my air conditioner died. I blogged about that quite a lot because it was one of the hotter parts of the year and I was not happy.
Well, lo and behold, my air conditioner must have sensed the anniversary of its death and subsequent resurrection because it died again last night.
I blame myself. Yesterday, it was very hot. We had a heat index of 106 degrees. When I got home from work, I wanted to water the garden with the hose. However, since I accidentally bought one of those sprinklers that goes forward and back, I end up watering part of the lawn as well. When I looked at the lawn, I realized it was quite long and it would attract even more pesky bugs when wet than it did already.
So, I mowed the lawn. My rationalization for this was that even though it was rather hot and very humid, it would be ok because I could go inside and refresh with a cold drink in the lovely cool air conditioning.
Silly Captain Monkeypants! What was I thinking!!
The first time I went inside between mowing the front lawn and the back, the air was working just fine. I went back outside. Once I was done mowing, I came inside but was rather hot and tired so it felt fine in the living room.
Then I went outside, took out the rubbish, watered the front garden and noticed that my air conditioner outside was not working. That wasn’t anything to worry about because I have the thermostat on auto so it kicks on and off depending on how the temperature needs to be regulated.
Then I went inside and noticed the air conditioning sounded like it was on. My air conditioner is old and thusly, very noisy. You know when it’s on. At this point, I suddenly realized it wasn’t as cool as it should have been. My heart sunk a little and I trudged outside. Sure enough, the outside fan was not turning and the air conditioner had stopped working.
Panicked, I pulled off the side of the unit and hit the ‘reset’ button the way the repairman had shown me last year. The compressor hummed but nothing else happened. I left it a little while and then hit the reset button again. The compressor tried to work but then it stopped.
Naturally, while I was doing all this activity, I was outside in the heat and got hot. Air conditioning would have been lovely. Alas, it was not to be. I called the repair company and left a message on their emergency line. Call me a baby but with that kind of heat index, air conditioning is almost vital. At least to me.
Someone from the company called me back and said they’d get someone out the next day. I was told it could be any time so I planned on going to work and running home when I was given an estimated time of arrival.
In the meantime, the pups and I spent an increasingly uncomfortable evening trying to stay cool. I put the fans in the windows but when there’s only hot air to blow around, it doesn’t provide much relief.
The dogs blamed me. I got glares and stares all night as they very obviously ‘sighed’ and attempted to sprawl on the lino floor which was cooler than the sofa and carpet.
We didn’t sleep much last night. It was too hot. I knew it would be. Just as I was getting ready for work, the lovely AC repairman called. He was on his way. It was the same nice man from last year. He was at my house by 8:10 a.m. and by 8:15 a.m., I knew what the problem was. The capacitor had blown. Apparently, that reset button I had actually saved me because it stopped the air conditioner from overheating and dying forever. While he was there, he replaced something else that he said would probably cause a problem fairly soon. I trusted Mr. Air Conditioning Fix It Man so I let him fix it.
The whole thing was done in less than an hour and a half. When I left for work, the house was cooling down and when I got home, it was blissfully cool.
The pups are happier now. So am I. I know that we humans are spoiled nowadays. Even thirty years ago, air conditioning was a luxury. I wonder how people survived. Then again, I think that temperatures are hotter these days than they used to be because of that whole greenhouse effect thing so maybe they didn’t need it.
Either way, I have it and I’m grateful for every bit of cool air that circulates my way. I think the pups are too. At least they’re not glaring any more.
Happy Friday!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Monogamous Reading and Writing
I haven’t really blogged much about writing lately which is slightly ironic since the original purpose of my blog was to talk about writing.
The truth is, I haven’t actually been writing much lately. This is a combination of wanting to take a break. I wrote ten novels in 8 years and I felt like it’d be nice to take some time off. So I did.
Also, I finished my last novel in January and it’s taken a while to deal with that. Since I published The Reluctant Demon, I’ve had several people tell me that it wasn’t edited as well as it could have been and there were typos in it. This is slightly embarrassing, I admit. However, since I just found a couple of typos in the book I’m reading, A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin that’s currently in the top ten best selling books list at the moment, I don’t feel so bad.
However, with my sequel to The Reluctant Demon, I wanted to take more time to edit and make sure it was as polished as it could have been. This is one of my excuses for not having written much lately.
Editing takes time. I’m not a fan of it. My normal process is to finish a book, go back and edit and then leave it for a few weeks/months and then edit again. It’s hard to edit something when you’ve been staring at it. It’s also hard to edit something you know so well. I find that my eyes tend to miss a lot of typos or punctuation mistakes.
This time, I decided to have others help me with the editing. I enlisted the aid of a good friend who is a ‘grammar’ queen. She was very helpful but I did discover when I got the edited manuscript back that while she had found a lot of the typos and given me a lot of constructive criticism, she’d also missed quite a few errors. My assumption is that she got sidetracked by the story and didn’t catch everything.
I was still grateful because she found a lot more stuff than I had. Still, it meant I had to go through and re-edit. It was easier this time since I hadn’t read the book in a few months. I found a lot of typos, punctuation errors and even some continuity problems.
Still, I didn’t think it was quite ready so I decided to run it through a final filter, my friend Saz. She is one of those very organized writers who is excellent at punctuation and detail. I sent her the book. She was kind enough to read it and let me know of other errors/typos she’d found.
When I got it back, I made the changes and, finally, it felt like it was done. This whole process pretty much took from January through June.
During this time, I thought about writing something new. I’ve been percolating an idea in my head but I seriously don’t feel like it’s ready to write yet. Also, the idea of writing something while trying to get Emmy ready to publish just didn’t seem like a good idea. I’m one of those people who simply can only read one book at once. By that, I don’t mean that I’m holding a book in each hand and trying to read both books at the same time. I mean that if I’m reading one book, I don’t like putting it down and picking up something else until I’ve finished the first book.
I just don’t like to do it. I am a decidedly monogamous reader and if I read two books simultaneously, it feels almost like I’m ‘cheating’ on the other book. Weird, I know, but it’s true. Also, I like sitting down and getting absorbed in the fictional world behind the pages and if I’m reading a different book, I have to jump between worlds. I like to read one, get absorbed into that world until I’m done and then move on.
You get the idea. This is why I have the same mentality when it comes to writing. I can’t write two books at the same time. I need to focus my energy and passion on one book and then move on. I can sometimes work on other things like short stories but then again, I’m ok with reading a magazine and a book at the same time. They’re like apples and oranges.
So, since I intend to publish Emmy Goes to Hell, I didn’t feel comfortable starting something new until Emmy was off my plate and completely done.
Well, Emmy is finally done. It should be up for sale on Amazon.com in the next week as well as through online retailers. The last step is to get it up for e-readers like the Kindle and Nook. This is not as easy as it sounds as it involves rather a lot of formatting changes in order to be converted into the many and varied formats for each type of e-reader.
I’ll be glad to be done with Emmy. It was fun to write but I’m ready for something new and different. Once the e-reader version is available, I’ll finally be able to put the book aside and move on. It’s taken a while but I’m pleased with the result. It’ll be nice to get back to actual writing again rather than the nitty gritty of publishing. Of course, there’s the marketing but…well….that’s not the same. That’s not cheating on my new book.
So, aside from this being a blog about writing, it’s a shameless plug for Emmy Goes to Hell. Please buy my book. It’s quite funny, quite dark and, as always, just wee bit twisted. I like it more than The Reluctant Demon because there’s a little more to it. Neither book is ever going to be my magnum opus but I think they’re fun reads.
Now it’s done, I can move on and write something new. I’m not quite sure what that will be but it probably won’t involve demons this time around. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks, as always for reading!
Happy Thursday!
The truth is, I haven’t actually been writing much lately. This is a combination of wanting to take a break. I wrote ten novels in 8 years and I felt like it’d be nice to take some time off. So I did.
Also, I finished my last novel in January and it’s taken a while to deal with that. Since I published The Reluctant Demon, I’ve had several people tell me that it wasn’t edited as well as it could have been and there were typos in it. This is slightly embarrassing, I admit. However, since I just found a couple of typos in the book I’m reading, A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin that’s currently in the top ten best selling books list at the moment, I don’t feel so bad.
However, with my sequel to The Reluctant Demon, I wanted to take more time to edit and make sure it was as polished as it could have been. This is one of my excuses for not having written much lately.
Editing takes time. I’m not a fan of it. My normal process is to finish a book, go back and edit and then leave it for a few weeks/months and then edit again. It’s hard to edit something when you’ve been staring at it. It’s also hard to edit something you know so well. I find that my eyes tend to miss a lot of typos or punctuation mistakes.
This time, I decided to have others help me with the editing. I enlisted the aid of a good friend who is a ‘grammar’ queen. She was very helpful but I did discover when I got the edited manuscript back that while she had found a lot of the typos and given me a lot of constructive criticism, she’d also missed quite a few errors. My assumption is that she got sidetracked by the story and didn’t catch everything.
I was still grateful because she found a lot more stuff than I had. Still, it meant I had to go through and re-edit. It was easier this time since I hadn’t read the book in a few months. I found a lot of typos, punctuation errors and even some continuity problems.
Still, I didn’t think it was quite ready so I decided to run it through a final filter, my friend Saz. She is one of those very organized writers who is excellent at punctuation and detail. I sent her the book. She was kind enough to read it and let me know of other errors/typos she’d found.
When I got it back, I made the changes and, finally, it felt like it was done. This whole process pretty much took from January through June.
During this time, I thought about writing something new. I’ve been percolating an idea in my head but I seriously don’t feel like it’s ready to write yet. Also, the idea of writing something while trying to get Emmy ready to publish just didn’t seem like a good idea. I’m one of those people who simply can only read one book at once. By that, I don’t mean that I’m holding a book in each hand and trying to read both books at the same time. I mean that if I’m reading one book, I don’t like putting it down and picking up something else until I’ve finished the first book.
I just don’t like to do it. I am a decidedly monogamous reader and if I read two books simultaneously, it feels almost like I’m ‘cheating’ on the other book. Weird, I know, but it’s true. Also, I like sitting down and getting absorbed in the fictional world behind the pages and if I’m reading a different book, I have to jump between worlds. I like to read one, get absorbed into that world until I’m done and then move on.
You get the idea. This is why I have the same mentality when it comes to writing. I can’t write two books at the same time. I need to focus my energy and passion on one book and then move on. I can sometimes work on other things like short stories but then again, I’m ok with reading a magazine and a book at the same time. They’re like apples and oranges.
So, since I intend to publish Emmy Goes to Hell, I didn’t feel comfortable starting something new until Emmy was off my plate and completely done.
Well, Emmy is finally done. It should be up for sale on Amazon.com in the next week as well as through online retailers. The last step is to get it up for e-readers like the Kindle and Nook. This is not as easy as it sounds as it involves rather a lot of formatting changes in order to be converted into the many and varied formats for each type of e-reader.
I’ll be glad to be done with Emmy. It was fun to write but I’m ready for something new and different. Once the e-reader version is available, I’ll finally be able to put the book aside and move on. It’s taken a while but I’m pleased with the result. It’ll be nice to get back to actual writing again rather than the nitty gritty of publishing. Of course, there’s the marketing but…well….that’s not the same. That’s not cheating on my new book.
So, aside from this being a blog about writing, it’s a shameless plug for Emmy Goes to Hell. Please buy my book. It’s quite funny, quite dark and, as always, just wee bit twisted. I like it more than The Reluctant Demon because there’s a little more to it. Neither book is ever going to be my magnum opus but I think they’re fun reads.
Now it’s done, I can move on and write something new. I’m not quite sure what that will be but it probably won’t involve demons this time around. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks, as always for reading!
Happy Thursday!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Bad Dreams and Not So Good Days
I find there is little more frustrating than going to bed early, falling asleep and then waking up not much later and being unable to sleep.
That happened to me last night. I went to bed early instead of staying up late to read too much of my current book, the third in George R.R. Martin’s, Game of Thrones series. Then I fell asleep. Less than an hour later I woke up and spent the rest of the night having on-and-off nightmares.
The nightmares were a direct result of my day at work. It wasn’t a good day. One of my consultants hadn’t shown up to work since Wednesday. We tried to reach him and couldn’t. Finally, our branch administrator called the hotel where he was temporarily living and had them check his room. It turned out that he’d passed away several days before.
I feel bad for him. For one thing, it took a few days for anyone to notice he was missing and then, when they did, it was his employer rather than family. Secondly, how sad to die in a hotel room, far away from home. The police are investigating to find out if it was a natural death or self-inflicted but, either way, it’s a sad thing.
It was an unsettling day at work to say the least. My vivid imagination has a horrible habit of picturing things and wondering how often that happens in hotel rooms. It also didn’t help that another consultant that we’ve just hired is going to be temporarily locating to the same town and thus, staying in the hotel. We’ve asked the hotel not to tell our new consultant what happened. My guess is that they won’t. It’s probably not good publicity for a hotel to have someone die.
It’s an unpleasant thought, isn’t it? The hotel said they were calling in a special company to sanitize and thoroughly clean the room. Yet, the twisted part of me can’t help wondering if the next person to stay in that room will have any idea. I’m guessing not. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
So, combined with my sadness regarding the death of our employee, I was also trying to quash these rather dark thoughts as I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, our subconscious is pretty hard to control so I didn’t do very well.
As a result, I woke up groggy and fuzzy-headed. That’s no way to begin a day. A worse way to begin a day is to find out you have to fire someone.
I don’t like firing people, even when they deserve it. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. I have the power to find people jobs and to take them away. In this case, it was a lady who’d only been working for us for three months. She had been having some issues already. Then, she didn’t show up to work on Monday and no one could reach her. It became my job to try to get hold of her.
I was a little paranoid by this time. Monday was the day we found out about our deceased consultant so, later that day, when you have another consultant who can’t be tracked down, you can’t help but wonder if she, too, might have passed away and no one had found her.
Fortunately, she was fine. She had just had some extremely personal crisis that she couldn’t discuss. She had forgotten her phone so she couldn’t let anyone know she wasn’t going to work.
I think if this had been a one-off occurrence, she would still have a job. However, it wasn’t the first time and so I was told to let her go.
It’s a hard thing to let someone know they won’t be returning to work again. In this case, she wasn’t surprised but she was still upset. She cried. I hate when they cry. I tend to be overly sympathetic by nature, anyway. This is why they tease me in the office for liking the ‘gutter puppies’- the down-and-out people who haven’t been able to find a job and need something, anything to pay the bills. I just feel sorry for them. I’m a firm believer in that if someone is willing to work and wants to work, they should be allowed to work. There’s far too many people out there who don’t want to work and don’t do so and expect to live on ‘free money’ from the government. I like to help people.
So, this is why I don’t like it when they cry. It makes me feel guilty even when I have nothing to really feel guilty about. I don’t think anyone truly likes being the bearer of bad news and I’m no exception.
I’m hoping that tomorrow, I won’t have anyone die nor do I have to fire anyone. I am meeting with a candidate as a favour to his dad who is another candidate. The son was released from jail last year and has been trying to get back on his feet. His dad wants me to see if we can help him. I might be able to but it’s hard to find jobs for people with felonies on their records. Did I mention I tend to be over-sympathetic. Some people might call me a sucker. I probably am.
Still, tonight, I’m hoping to sleep without nightmares and tomorrow, I’m hoping for a better day. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ll keep you posted.
Happy Wednesday!
That happened to me last night. I went to bed early instead of staying up late to read too much of my current book, the third in George R.R. Martin’s, Game of Thrones series. Then I fell asleep. Less than an hour later I woke up and spent the rest of the night having on-and-off nightmares.
The nightmares were a direct result of my day at work. It wasn’t a good day. One of my consultants hadn’t shown up to work since Wednesday. We tried to reach him and couldn’t. Finally, our branch administrator called the hotel where he was temporarily living and had them check his room. It turned out that he’d passed away several days before.
I feel bad for him. For one thing, it took a few days for anyone to notice he was missing and then, when they did, it was his employer rather than family. Secondly, how sad to die in a hotel room, far away from home. The police are investigating to find out if it was a natural death or self-inflicted but, either way, it’s a sad thing.
It was an unsettling day at work to say the least. My vivid imagination has a horrible habit of picturing things and wondering how often that happens in hotel rooms. It also didn’t help that another consultant that we’ve just hired is going to be temporarily locating to the same town and thus, staying in the hotel. We’ve asked the hotel not to tell our new consultant what happened. My guess is that they won’t. It’s probably not good publicity for a hotel to have someone die.
It’s an unpleasant thought, isn’t it? The hotel said they were calling in a special company to sanitize and thoroughly clean the room. Yet, the twisted part of me can’t help wondering if the next person to stay in that room will have any idea. I’m guessing not. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
So, combined with my sadness regarding the death of our employee, I was also trying to quash these rather dark thoughts as I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, our subconscious is pretty hard to control so I didn’t do very well.
As a result, I woke up groggy and fuzzy-headed. That’s no way to begin a day. A worse way to begin a day is to find out you have to fire someone.
I don’t like firing people, even when they deserve it. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. I have the power to find people jobs and to take them away. In this case, it was a lady who’d only been working for us for three months. She had been having some issues already. Then, she didn’t show up to work on Monday and no one could reach her. It became my job to try to get hold of her.
I was a little paranoid by this time. Monday was the day we found out about our deceased consultant so, later that day, when you have another consultant who can’t be tracked down, you can’t help but wonder if she, too, might have passed away and no one had found her.
Fortunately, she was fine. She had just had some extremely personal crisis that she couldn’t discuss. She had forgotten her phone so she couldn’t let anyone know she wasn’t going to work.
I think if this had been a one-off occurrence, she would still have a job. However, it wasn’t the first time and so I was told to let her go.
It’s a hard thing to let someone know they won’t be returning to work again. In this case, she wasn’t surprised but she was still upset. She cried. I hate when they cry. I tend to be overly sympathetic by nature, anyway. This is why they tease me in the office for liking the ‘gutter puppies’- the down-and-out people who haven’t been able to find a job and need something, anything to pay the bills. I just feel sorry for them. I’m a firm believer in that if someone is willing to work and wants to work, they should be allowed to work. There’s far too many people out there who don’t want to work and don’t do so and expect to live on ‘free money’ from the government. I like to help people.
So, this is why I don’t like it when they cry. It makes me feel guilty even when I have nothing to really feel guilty about. I don’t think anyone truly likes being the bearer of bad news and I’m no exception.
I’m hoping that tomorrow, I won’t have anyone die nor do I have to fire anyone. I am meeting with a candidate as a favour to his dad who is another candidate. The son was released from jail last year and has been trying to get back on his feet. His dad wants me to see if we can help him. I might be able to but it’s hard to find jobs for people with felonies on their records. Did I mention I tend to be over-sympathetic. Some people might call me a sucker. I probably am.
Still, tonight, I’m hoping to sleep without nightmares and tomorrow, I’m hoping for a better day. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ll keep you posted.
Happy Wednesday!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Bugs...Bug Me...
It’s been hot and sticky for over a week now and we haven’t had any rain in ages. I finally got tired of going out to my tomatoes with a watering can and I broke down and bought a new hose and a sprinkler.
I’m curious to see how the sprinkler does. I’m more curious to see if the pups decide the sprinkler is a friend or an enemy. Since it’s going to be watering their favourite ‘hanging out and watching for squirrels’ spot in the garden, they’re either going to deliberately get wet or they’ll be sulky because they can’t follow their usual routine.
In all honesty, part of me is tempted to enjoy the sprinkler too. It’s so hot out there that whenever you’re out for more than two minutes, your clothes start sticking to you and you’re instantly sweating. It’d be nice to act like a kid and jump through the sprinklers. However, I’ll probably resist just because even though I shouldn’t, I do care what the neighbours think. This is most likely because it would probably involve me wearing a swimsuit and I’m not sure I want to inflict that on the neighbours. Thus, I’ll just be a responsible grown-up and just use the sprinklers for watering my vegetables.
The heat is making it hard to do much outside. It’s too hot to be pleasant and even if we do brave the humidity and heat and attempt to do something outside, there are these rather unpleasant little gnat things that seem to multiply by the second until you’re so tired of trying to brush them off that you end up running inside.
I’m not a fan of bugs anyway. I find them to be a huge nuisance. When I was younger, I used to visualize how nice it would be to go for picnics in meadows of flowers like you see in the movie. Or I’d visualize running down a meadow-hill like that girl at the beginning of “Little House on the Prairie”. Or running through a cornfield, letting the taller corn embrace me and change my perception of the world for a while.
Why I visualized these things, I can’t tell you. I have a weird way of thinking. If you read my blog, you probably know that. The fact is that I did picture these things.
However, the reality of it was never the same because of the stupid bugs. I have yet to find a place on earth where you can sit outside and have a picnic without having some buggy pest drive you a little crazy. It could be mosquitoes that bite and make life unpleasant. It could be spiders who don’t mean to be ominous but are anyway because, well, they’re spiders. It could be those pesky green flies that seem to thrive on vegetation and the pretty the landscape, the more irritating the green flies.
As for the “Little House on the Prairie”- I have yet to find a meadow without similar bug problems. Granted, when the weather is perfect, the bugs are slightly less prominent but try running through prairie-long grass without having a secret fear of ticks, chiggers and other nasty biting bugs.
And then there’s the cornfields. When my family moved to the U.S., we moved to a house in the country. There was corn on all sides of us. My brother and I decided to play in the cornfields. Then, after a few minutes, we realized between many of the rows of corn were spider webs. Inside the spiderwebs were rather terrifying looking spiders that made the experience suddenly far less fun and far more alarming.
Of course, I found out that the spiders were harmless and wouldn’t bite but, well, would you want to risk having a spider like that crawling on you?
Thus, I haven’t run through the corn since. Call me a chicken. Call me a wimp. It’s just that over the years, all of the pleasant, fun outdoor activities that seem so exciting in theory are never quite as exciting in reality because of the bugs.
I shouldn’t let them bother me but it’s hard not to, really. Last night, I went to a dinner party at a coworker’s and we attempted to sit outside. At first, in spite of the heat and humidity, it was pleasant. And then the bugs decided to join us. It was primarily these little black gnats. I’d kill one and three more would appear. We lit bug candles but that had no effect. In the end, when the flies joined in, we abandoned our outdoor gathering and fled inside.
So, I’m not a fan of bugs. I find them annoying. I’m sure there’s a greater purpose to them than to, well, ‘bug’ us. They probably do some good by at least providing a diet to frogs and things. However, it’s hard to see that when you’re outside and suddenly you’re covered by a layer of horrible, tiny biting gnats.
It’s one of the things in summer that I find the most annoying. However, since it comes with the territory, I’ve learned to accept it.
But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bug me.
Ok, I’m done with the bad puns now.
Happy Tuesday!
I’m curious to see how the sprinkler does. I’m more curious to see if the pups decide the sprinkler is a friend or an enemy. Since it’s going to be watering their favourite ‘hanging out and watching for squirrels’ spot in the garden, they’re either going to deliberately get wet or they’ll be sulky because they can’t follow their usual routine.
In all honesty, part of me is tempted to enjoy the sprinkler too. It’s so hot out there that whenever you’re out for more than two minutes, your clothes start sticking to you and you’re instantly sweating. It’d be nice to act like a kid and jump through the sprinklers. However, I’ll probably resist just because even though I shouldn’t, I do care what the neighbours think. This is most likely because it would probably involve me wearing a swimsuit and I’m not sure I want to inflict that on the neighbours. Thus, I’ll just be a responsible grown-up and just use the sprinklers for watering my vegetables.
The heat is making it hard to do much outside. It’s too hot to be pleasant and even if we do brave the humidity and heat and attempt to do something outside, there are these rather unpleasant little gnat things that seem to multiply by the second until you’re so tired of trying to brush them off that you end up running inside.
I’m not a fan of bugs anyway. I find them to be a huge nuisance. When I was younger, I used to visualize how nice it would be to go for picnics in meadows of flowers like you see in the movie. Or I’d visualize running down a meadow-hill like that girl at the beginning of “Little House on the Prairie”. Or running through a cornfield, letting the taller corn embrace me and change my perception of the world for a while.
Why I visualized these things, I can’t tell you. I have a weird way of thinking. If you read my blog, you probably know that. The fact is that I did picture these things.
However, the reality of it was never the same because of the stupid bugs. I have yet to find a place on earth where you can sit outside and have a picnic without having some buggy pest drive you a little crazy. It could be mosquitoes that bite and make life unpleasant. It could be spiders who don’t mean to be ominous but are anyway because, well, they’re spiders. It could be those pesky green flies that seem to thrive on vegetation and the pretty the landscape, the more irritating the green flies.
As for the “Little House on the Prairie”- I have yet to find a meadow without similar bug problems. Granted, when the weather is perfect, the bugs are slightly less prominent but try running through prairie-long grass without having a secret fear of ticks, chiggers and other nasty biting bugs.
And then there’s the cornfields. When my family moved to the U.S., we moved to a house in the country. There was corn on all sides of us. My brother and I decided to play in the cornfields. Then, after a few minutes, we realized between many of the rows of corn were spider webs. Inside the spiderwebs were rather terrifying looking spiders that made the experience suddenly far less fun and far more alarming.
Of course, I found out that the spiders were harmless and wouldn’t bite but, well, would you want to risk having a spider like that crawling on you?
Thus, I haven’t run through the corn since. Call me a chicken. Call me a wimp. It’s just that over the years, all of the pleasant, fun outdoor activities that seem so exciting in theory are never quite as exciting in reality because of the bugs.
I shouldn’t let them bother me but it’s hard not to, really. Last night, I went to a dinner party at a coworker’s and we attempted to sit outside. At first, in spite of the heat and humidity, it was pleasant. And then the bugs decided to join us. It was primarily these little black gnats. I’d kill one and three more would appear. We lit bug candles but that had no effect. In the end, when the flies joined in, we abandoned our outdoor gathering and fled inside.
So, I’m not a fan of bugs. I find them annoying. I’m sure there’s a greater purpose to them than to, well, ‘bug’ us. They probably do some good by at least providing a diet to frogs and things. However, it’s hard to see that when you’re outside and suddenly you’re covered by a layer of horrible, tiny biting gnats.
It’s one of the things in summer that I find the most annoying. However, since it comes with the territory, I’ve learned to accept it.
But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bug me.
Ok, I’m done with the bad puns now.
Happy Tuesday!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Harry Potter and The Annoying MovieGoers
I won't make this a long and blithering blog as I often do on Sundays and will try to keep it shorter and sweeter than usual.
As I said on Friday, I did finally get to see the last and final adventures of "Harry Potter" this weekend. It was a great way to end a great series of movies and I enjoyed every minute of the movie. It was sad, exciting, clever, funny and just overall fantastic. That's my review.
My only question about the whole experience was not about the film but, rather, to one of the fellow movie watchers who shared the theatre with us. Here's my question: What would possess you to bring a very young child to a 9:15 p.m. showing of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2"?
I mean, ok, so maybe they couldn't find a babysitter but that's not a very good excuse. THe movie was incredibly dark and I imagine quite scary to a young child. Also, it's 9:15 p.m. Shouldn't the child be IN BED?????
Ok. Rant over. Well, except to ask the young woman behind me who liked to put her feet up on the back of the seat next to me after taking off her shoes...is it really necessary to talk at almost full voice quite often? Most of the people are there to WATCH THE MOVIE. She was explaining what was happening to her significant other. I'd like to think that if he's watching the same movie as her, he might have been aware of what was happening but what do I know.
In spite of that and the person who had a rather large and uncomfortable sounding coughing fit in the back of the theatre, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.
I'm just turning into a cranky old lady, I think. Either that or I wanted my experience of seeing the LAST HARRY POTTER MOVIE EVER FOR THE FIRST TIME to be, you know, something where I could focus on the movie instead of the habits of other patrons.
At least no one's cell phone rang. Though the girl a few seats down from me was rather distracting while she texted and the glow of her phone lit up. Ah well....at least it was a great movie.
Thanks, J.K. Rowling for making such a wonderful story for us to read and then watch.
Happy Monday!
As I said on Friday, I did finally get to see the last and final adventures of "Harry Potter" this weekend. It was a great way to end a great series of movies and I enjoyed every minute of the movie. It was sad, exciting, clever, funny and just overall fantastic. That's my review.
My only question about the whole experience was not about the film but, rather, to one of the fellow movie watchers who shared the theatre with us. Here's my question: What would possess you to bring a very young child to a 9:15 p.m. showing of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2"?
I mean, ok, so maybe they couldn't find a babysitter but that's not a very good excuse. THe movie was incredibly dark and I imagine quite scary to a young child. Also, it's 9:15 p.m. Shouldn't the child be IN BED?????
Ok. Rant over. Well, except to ask the young woman behind me who liked to put her feet up on the back of the seat next to me after taking off her shoes...is it really necessary to talk at almost full voice quite often? Most of the people are there to WATCH THE MOVIE. She was explaining what was happening to her significant other. I'd like to think that if he's watching the same movie as her, he might have been aware of what was happening but what do I know.
In spite of that and the person who had a rather large and uncomfortable sounding coughing fit in the back of the theatre, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.
I'm just turning into a cranky old lady, I think. Either that or I wanted my experience of seeing the LAST HARRY POTTER MOVIE EVER FOR THE FIRST TIME to be, you know, something where I could focus on the movie instead of the habits of other patrons.
At least no one's cell phone rang. Though the girl a few seats down from me was rather distracting while she texted and the glow of her phone lit up. Ah well....at least it was a great movie.
Thanks, J.K. Rowling for making such a wonderful story for us to read and then watch.
Happy Monday!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Short and Sweet...
I was going to write a lofty blog about being how lately I’ve been feeling much more like an adult than ever and how we appreciate different things in life.
But, really, I can’t say that at the moment because this is one of the things my weekend is going to be all about and that sort of nullifies the original intent of my blog.
So, for today, that’s all I’m going to say. If you see it, enjoy it. As a huge Harry Potter fan, I’ll be sad to say good bye at the end but the beauty of movies based on great books is that you can always reread the book and be reunited with the characters all over again.
Happy Friday.
But, really, I can’t say that at the moment because this is one of the things my weekend is going to be all about and that sort of nullifies the original intent of my blog.
So, for today, that’s all I’m going to say. If you see it, enjoy it. As a huge Harry Potter fan, I’ll be sad to say good bye at the end but the beauty of movies based on great books is that you can always reread the book and be reunited with the characters all over again.
Happy Friday.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Job Gratitude...
You know, one of the things that I always tell myself if I have a bad day at work is that someone always has it worse than me.
This is not to say I had a bad day at work today. In fact, it was pretty decent. I may have just got another candidate a job if everything goes well. I like working with good candidates; they make it fun. Now I’ve been doing this job a while, I’m learning the way I like to do things. My strategy is simply to get to know the people I’m working with. I was taught in my early training that building relationships is important and I’m finding that to be true. I have one candidate who is going to start a new job with us in a week and he’s so comfortable working with me that he tells me the contents of his freezer. This sounds odd but it’s actually kind of endearing, believe it or not. In a job like mine where there’s a lot of completion to get the good candidates, it’s nice to have that type of relationship with your candidate. It means they trust me and feel like they know me which is exactly the way it should be. Changing jobs is a big decision in life and I like to make it easy for people by making sure that it’s the right thing for them.
I’m sure I’m a bit of a sucker. Some of the other recruiting companies out there are all about the resume. They pull thousands off Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com each day and just call the people, promising good jobs, high pay and benefits. However, they have a bit of an impersonal approach. Even if the candidate doesn’t really fit, they’ll try to shove them in a job anyway because they have a quota, they need the revenue and their client needs an employee. It’s a quick turnaround.
I could work this way but I don’t. I try to find out what the person behind the resume wants. Are they fed up of their job because they’re bored? Is the commute too long? Do they work overtime and they’re missing their kids sporting events? There’s always a reason and I like to find out. This way, it’s easier to find them jobs that actually fit rather than trying to make them fit the job. My way is slower than the ‘resume farm’ companies but it means I build up relationships and my candidates remember me. In turn, they recommend me to their fellow IT job seekers. It’s a nice feeling to hear that I was recommended because I did my job well.
Granted, hearing the contents of someone’s freezer is a little extreme but it’s all part of a day’s work. It’s nice to have days where I really get to work with people.
As I said before, working with people was one of the reasons I left my last job. I didn’t get to work with people unless you count my coworkers and, well, I really didn’t. Certainly, there were some good people there but it was such a cliquish, awkward atmosphere that the rather insane quiet of the cubicle farm where I worked was just not a healthy environment for me.
Now I have my own office and the buzz of my coworkers is around me. We communicate here. We have meetings. We have gatherings. We chat. We laugh. We do our jobs. It’s the way things should be in an office.
So, I’m not blogging today to whine about my job. My original intention was just to say that I’m quite lucky to have the job I do and I’m thankful for it every time I see someone doing a job I most certainly would NOT want to do.
One of the jobs I find the most baffling are the sign-holders on street corners. They hold signs advertising a store or restaurant. Sometimes, the more interesting sign-holders get bored and do a series of spins and flips with their sign to get attention. Of course, this means you can’t actually read the sign but, well, it’s sort of fun to watch.
I don’t look down on the sign holders. They’re clearly doing it for the cash/paycheck at the end of the day. Instead, I question the need for sign holders. If there’s a big neon sign visible during daylight and darkness only 400 yards down the road for a business from a sign-holder, what’s really the point of the sign-holder? Am I really more likely to go to Bob’s Furniture Emporium because there’s a guy on the corner holding a sign and pointing me there than I would be if I drove by it?
I suppose some people might pay attention to the sign- people who, say, didn’t know Bob’s Furniture Emporium was there. But, really, it seems a little silly.
I’m always amused by the Chick-Fil-A cow too. Someone dressed as the cow is often outside our local Chick-Fil-A trying to get cars to honk at him. I suppose those that recognize it as the Chick-Fil-A cow as they’re driving by may suddenly think, “hey…cow. It’s the Chick-Fil-A cow! Oooh, Chick-Fil-A!!! MUST STOP, TURNAROUND AND GO BACK TO CHICK-FIL-A RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I WANT A #1 COMBO WITH WAFFLE FRIES AND A COKE!”
Most likely, however, people can see there’s a Chick-Fil-A right there and a waving cow isn’t likely to make them decide to detour through the drive through any more than seeing the restaurant might.
Other jobs I’ve noticed lately that I’m glad I don’t have are being a salesperson on those carts at the mall. More specifically, those that sell the lotion-type stuff. If you don’t know what I mean, you’re lucky. They are usually manned by pushy salesmen who have some type of ‘miracle’ lotion and they’re rather aggressive as people pass by, trying to get people to try their free lotion sample. This also applies to the hair straightener sales people and the mineral makeup that isn’t the name brand stuff. What I’d like to see is a stand for something like, cupcakes, where the salespeople chase you down to eat their free cupcake samples. Alas, the closest I come to this is the person standing outside the cookie place with teeny samples of cookies on toothpicks. These people are NOT aggressive and often give you a look as if to say, ‘cheapskate. You know what a chocolate chip cookie tastes like. Just buy a damn cookie instead of eating my free ones.’
I’m also glad I’m not a furniture salesperson. In the extreme heat that we’ve been having, I’m very thankful I don’t have to work outside and I feel bad for people who do.
Though the list of jobs I am glad I don’t have could go on for pages and pages, I won’t bore you any longer. Just watch “Dirty Jobs.” I don’t want any of those jobs. Nor would I want “Billy the Exterminators” jobs because he deals with dead animal corpses, bugs and alligators. You get the idea. What it comes down to is that even when I have bad days at work, I’m still grateful to have the job I do. It doesn’t involve chasing people with lotion, flipping a sign or crawling into a basement to pull out a rotted raccoon corpse.
I admire the people who do those jobs because it means that I don’t have to and, for that, I am immensely grateful to them. I’m also appreciative that I have the job I do. And though sometimes I do have to remind myself of that, all it takes is the sight of the Chick-Fil-A cow outside on a 95 degree day to drive that home.
Happy Thursday!
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