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I just finished reading “The Nanny Diaries.” Ugh…. Just ugh. Don’t get me wrong, I was completely engrossed in the story, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. I just wanted to reach in and shake the nanny. WTF are you doing? Get out! I know, that wouldn’t make a very exciting tale if she came to her senses and bailed on the horrible family midway through the book, but I do think that this book was written specifically to give the reader stomach pains. I kept going, kept hoping for some sort of resolution or divine justice, but nothing. Just more heartburn.

I’m tense. In fact, I’m wound up and not in a good way. I took a shower after reading the book. I just felt dirty or something.

This is a great book for a plane ride, but if you’re going to read about a sadomasochistic boss, just read “The Devil Wears Prada.” At least the ending is decent.

Oh yeah, and this book makes me never, ever want to have kids. I’m sure my mind will change eventually, but just…………ugh. *shudder*

Image courtesy of janine42584

This week’s Veronica Mars was the season finale. In it, we find out that the mass-murderer/rapist/blackmailer was Beaver Casablancas; cute little put-upon, victimized, total sweetheart Beaver. Sigh, it was so sad but so believable. Who would really suspect that the puppy dog would murder innocent people and rape the heroine while she was drugged? Bravo Rob Thomas, Bravo. *slow clap*

In other related yet even MORE frivolous news, I found out that I am most like Veronica Mars.

You scored as Veronica Mars. You used to be really popular, but now you are the school outcast. You are really smart and somehow have all the answers… and you can snark like no other.

Throughout my life, I’ve been happy, even grateful at times, to have a simple, boring name. There are drawbacks though. Tonight, at midnight (of course!), I received this in my email.

Ummmm…okay? If you know me, I can appreciate this as a good joke. This is not from someone I know. It is for some other Sarah. I really don’t think it’s spam either. It’s just….weird. I mean, what?

For more weirdness, check out bible ball. Of course! Combine the most boring sport with the most boring subject matter ever! I essentially failed Sunday school, so no, bible ball does not appeal to me.

Here’s a sobering thought. After reviewing my tax documents for 2005, tuition for my two college courses plus books roughly equals the amount I paid in tuition for my first 15-credit-hour semester of college. Granted, the courses I took/dropped are 9 hours in total, but damn! One is at Berkeley extension and the other one is from a community college. Damn!

First of all, I finally made it to my math class on the scary, hard-to-find campus. It turns out that the campus is neither truly scary nor hard to find, so I will blame my inability to navigate on late-week exhaustion (yeah, that’s it).

I made it to my class and realized that I was back in high school. I was one of three people over the age of 22. I have a bad feeling that the HSers are going to get a crash course in college, be it community college. The teacher is Russian and, although I’m sure he’s a kind man, he doesn’t take crap. He was patient with the HS giggling and chatting, but he kept saying things like “and if THIS is hard for you, then you should go back to introductory algebra.”

The material we cover will be challenging for me but not impossible. I did make good grades in calculus and pre-cal once upon a time. I’m taking this class as a prerequisite for one of the MBA programs to which I applied. Plus, if I don’t get into the MBA program (I’ll be notified in eight weeks), then I can drop the class. Or that’s my plan so far…

We watched Serenity the movie last night. It was good. I thought it would be good and it was pretty much what I expected. It was a little bit dark but the story was interesting. Still, it doesn’t make me want to go back and watch the short-lived TV series.

I had a really nice day on Saturday. We slept late, did some shopping, went to the beach and walked around for 45 minutes. Despite it being January, this was one of the nicest trips I’ve had to any local beach. The weather was perfect: cool but not too windy. We stayed until the sun set and then we drove home.

We got home at 7pm, so I gathered up my stuff and went to the gym to swim in the pool. The gym wasn’t crowded at all, so I had a light workout and then sweated with the old men in the sauna. Mmmm….it wasn’t packed in the sauna - no sweat was swapped.

After that, I went home, showered up and then had a very nice Italian food dinner with Danny. Although we both agreed that what I ordered (spaghetti stuffed eggplant) looked disgusting, it tasted great and the waiters were not shy about filling my wine glass.

Here are some pics from the beach. We look happy because we’re not freezing (for once).

Here is a pic of what was hiding under the fridge. I got all of the “toys” out when boomer and boris immediately slid their new catnip mice up under the fridge.

My cats are kinda dumb. Okay, poor little Boomer is kinda dumb or, as someone at dinner the other night so eloquently put it, “a few plywood sheets short of a shed.”

Anyway, Boomer loves to play with and chew on plastic, paper, and anything with adhesive on it. The other night, I got down the Christmas decorations. To get to them, I pulled out a small plastic grocery bag containing a spool of red ribbon and set it on the floor. Boomer was on it. One of his favorite things is to stick his head through the handles of grocery bags and then become entangled. I have to make sure that all bags are put away or trashed so I don’t come home to a suffocated pet. I pointed out to Danny that Boomer was doing his favorite dumb trick. Danny looked over at the cat and said “hey kitty!” This scared the crap out of boomer who raced out of the room with the bag in tow. It was kindo of like a big plastic parachute tied around his neck. His speed increased as the bag bonked against other things he passed such as chairs and walls. Poor little thing was scared to death. He also scared Boris who started racing around the house trying to get away from boomer and his scary bag-cape.

Boomer got under the futon and I managed to reach under there, grab a hold of the bag, and let boomer extricate himself. He wasn’t hurt at all, just very spooked. I would feel sorry for him, but this is not the first time he’s done this. I figured that Boris was under our bed hiding.

After thirty minutes, Boomer came out from hiding but I hadn’t seen Boris. Danny was lying on the bed, so I went in to talk to him and find Boris. I plopped down and noticed that there was a kitty-shaped lump up by my pillow. I smiled and pulled back the covers expecting to find a cozy kitten taking advantage of the heat from our electric blanket. Instead, I found a scared kitty surrounded by small bloodstains. He hopped off the bed and left a little trail of red spots. “Oh no,” I thought. He’s hurt.

I figured it was his paw since his face and body looked normal when he hopped down. Danny reached under the bed and dragged him out and we took him into the bathroom for a look. After examining his paws, we saw that one of his front claws had broken and that’s where he was bleeding. We had clipped his claws a week earlier, but Danny made sure not to get to close to the nailbed. My guess is that he got his claw snagged on the carpet as he was trying to get away from Boomer.

After determining that the cat was no longer bleeding, we decided to wait until morning and see how Boris was feeling.

The next morning, Boris acted fine and wasn’t even limping. Still, I made a vet appointment for that afternoon. I’m an overprotective kitty mama and I didn’t want to run the risk of his foot getting infected.

The vet said that he would be fine and wouldn’t need antibiotics unless he started limping or licking the wound excessively. She cleaned his foot and clipped the raggedy edges of the nail. Boris was very good during the vet visit and didn’t make a peep until the drive home. Poor little thing was so scared that he didn’t want to exit the cat carrier when the vet wanted to examine him. He was a trooper though and didn’t try to scratch me once. This morning, he was super friendly and wanted lots of attention as I was getting ready for work. Maybe he’s trying to suck up so that I take Boomer next time.

This is why I should never go to the store when I’m STARVING:

4 avocados
fruit gummies
3 kinds of chips
salad dressing
3 lbs of grapes
small can of olives
box of mint meringue cookies

Does this stuff look good? To me, yes… Does it go together? Hell no! I mean, did I think I was going to have olives, avocado and gummies for dinner? And what’s with the salad dressing? Did I buy salad ingredients? No. *sigh*

I’m having neck issues today. My neck isn’t cramping but it isn’t exactly normal either. For some reason, the left side of my upper back and the left side of my neck feel pinched and there’s nothing I can do about it aside from taking drugs or getting a massage. I can schedule a massage, but until then I’m stuck here wishing I was at home lying on an ice pack. Woe is me.

Good things so far today: cloudy cool weather which makes me want to stay indoors on the computer as opposed to wishing I was outside frolicking in the sunlight, getting an extra half a pastry (blueberry scone) at breakfast that some kind soul brought to work this morning, knowing that tomorrow is friday and I can go home after work and RELAX, knowing that my work deadline is tomorrow and that I will actually make it.

Is it just me or does anyone else find the katie holmes/tom cruise relationship creepy? They’re all over the news and, when they are shown making out, I have to shield my eyes. Even though katie is just a year younger than me, I feel like I’m watching my 16 year old cousin making out with her best friend’s dad or something. It just seems so icky and tom cruise is getting weirder and weirder.

I don’t know whether or not he’s gay, but this cracked my shit up:

“That guy is so far in the closet he is finding Christmas presents.”

There are times when we don’t like our jobs. We must keep in mind though that it could be much, much, MUCH worse. Case in point - read the description my brother sent me of his latest and greatest job interview as he attempts to “penetrate” the job market of technical writing.

……

OK here it goes for my blog story:

Tech-Writing Job from Hell

I know that I am just starting out in the field of technical writing, but this has to be the worst tech-writing job I have ever heard of. I went to interview for a position as a Documentation Specialist in Buda (just south of Austin), and let’s just say that the job wasn’t exactly what I expected. The Hotjobs listing stated that the company needed an experienced Documentation Specialist with experience in Word, Excel, digital photography, and strong written/verbal skills. OK, sounds like your usual job listing. Anyway, on my way to the interview, I’m picturing your typical corporate work environment - office buildings, cubicles, business-casual dress, etc. Unfortunately, these expectations quickly vanished as I turned off of the Interstate access road onto a dirt driveway. Following the directions, I pull around next to the shipping building, a windowless metal warehouse, and park in the appropriate space in the “parking lot”, which was basically a dirt lot with parking lines painted on the dirt ground. This was not looking too promising. At this point, I’m wearing my Dockers, dress shirt, and tie. After seeing most of the people on site wearing jeans and t-shirts, I quickly lose the tie. So we get to the interview and this guy starts to show me around the manufacturing plant that I am potentially going to be writing training materials for. As we tour the plant, he explains that many of the workers do not speak much English, so the training material I will be writing will consist mostly of pictures and symbols. About this time, I look up and see a good example on the wall. It is a sign with a picture of an open mouth next to a trash can with a big circle/slash symbol over it. Apparently, it is a sign to discourage “trash talking” between the employees. Heh, heh — pretty clever. Anyway, it looks like this job will require me to spend a good amount of time conducting training research out on the manufacturing floor. Although it doesn’t sound too appealing, I’ve had temp jobs working in manufacturing before, so it is not that big of a deal. However, I soon learn that the company has another plant in Lockhart that I will need to visit a couple of times a week for more training research. OK, I guess I could handle a little business travel, since the plant is only about 30 minutes away. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when I find out exactly what this “plant” in Lockhart really is. It is actually a manufacturing plant inside of a correctional facility. Yeah, a prison. So basically, the job would have me studying the work duties of immigrants and prisoners and then writing understandable training materials. Hey, now that I think about it, it actually sounds like a pretty easy job. I guess I just need to learn the Spanish words for “shiv”, “shank” and “bitch”. For example: “Remember, you should NEVER attempt to unjam the machines with your shiv or shank.” Or how about: “Always work with a buddy. If one is not around, them make someone your bitch.” Ah yes, the many possibilities… So, to make a long story short, I politely declined the job offer and got the hell out of there. I guess you could say I was looking for a different type of position — preferably sitting at a desk, as opposed to getting bent over a routing machine.

This is a picture of a couple of tornadoes that formed in west Austin today. My friend Lisa sent me a pic one of her coworkers took as they were standing out on the balcony at their office. Fortunately, they were far from the twisters but it still looks pretty unsettling to me.

Here are some more pics from the local news.