Can it be?

There is a dirty, nasty rumor going around in news-bringing circles.  Brace yourselves:  tonight we may have snow. 

(Dramatic pause.)

Let it sink in.  You knew it was coming.  You heard about all the terrible snow storms out in other parts of the country, but you didn't care.  Now it is your turn.

Boo.

OK, OK.  So it is only supposed to be two inches of accumulation, and you KNOW that it won't stick around for long.  It is way too early in the season for that. 

But it's so inconvenient.  The first snow of the season always causes Minnesotans to have a group memory lapse and either decide that they need to drive 2 mph on the freeway or that they can still just zoom along and cut people off like they normally would without consideration for the fact that the laws of physics are slightly altered on surfaces bearing frozen precipitation. 

Oh sure, we'll get used to it.  By mid-February it will be no big deal.  But in mid-November, I think we all hold on to the hope that perhaps the first snow will not take place until Christmas Eve.  Or later.

Some years, this hope is realized.  But after last year and the heavy accumulations we had, I am not silly enough to think that it is likely. 

In preparation for this possible snowfall, I have taken the precaution of placing my snow boots in the trunk of my car.  Next will be my heavy duty mittens and hat.  There does come a point when I am wearing this stuff every day to every place that I go, but until we have a solid six inches on the ground, I hold my ground.

Hot mess

So I do appreciate that my blog stats have been strangely high as of late, but I suspect that this may be due to several different blog crawling websites passing through, if my stats are to be believed.  Go figure.

We have now come to the week of the month where I find myself a hot bubbly cauldron of split second mood changes and misplaced anger.  You all had best keep your distance.

It starts with this morning.  Mondays are never my favorite, but I can usually bear them with a degree of tolerance.  But when one is forced to spend one's time in close proximity to someone that drives them to the point of bang-your-head-against-the-wall insanity, it gets a little dicey.  Mix in a healthy dose of hormones and you have a lethal mix. 

If you really want to have some fun, throw in some terrible news.  This time around, it is a former retired coworker of mine who passed away this weekend.  This coworker was a favorite of mine for many reasons.  First, he was just a great person.  Second, he reminded me of my grandfather, or someone who would have been friends with my grandfather.  His sense of humor was without equal, and that is always of high value in the workplace.  Due to his retirement, I have not seen him for a few years, but shared memories and stories of his exploits still float around the office.

In the midst of digesting this news upon entering the office, I received a call from my former Internet provider.  It seems that the credit card I had linked for payment expired and renewed recently, and they were looking for their $4.95 payment.  If you are wondering why I am still paying a former Internet provider, it is because I wanted to maintain my email address until I could be sure that I had changed over all my accounts and other important information to new places.

The representative on the phone was not rude, but I was not pleased to be called at work as if I were being pursued for collections.  So great was my displeasure that after paying the delinquent amount, I promptly requested to cancel the account in full.  Perhaps this was a bit drastic as the rep did offer to cut my cost in half (to $2.47) if I would stay for another month.  I refused, of course. 

It did give me momentary pause to wonder about the desperation of this ISP for business if they were willing to accept such a small amount to keep a customer.  True, I have been a customer for nearly a decade, but it is time to move on. 

All in all, a pretty boring day, wouldn't you agree? 

But I'm so TIRED!

Greetings.  It is now almost 9 p.m. on Saturday night.  Or 8 p.m. if you're already turning the clocks back.  For some reason not quite clear to me, I am exhausted.  If I follow through with the current trend, I may be in bed at the same time as many young children.

Of course, sometimes children are granted an exception to stay up late with the girls, in which case their bedtime can be later than 11 p.m.  Now that I think about it, this may be why I am so tired right now.  I partied way to hard last night with my friends and my friend's daughter.  I know there was pizza.  I am pretty sure there was tea.  And I am absolutely positive that there were frosted cake balls.

Now that we've figured that all out, I am off to bed.  Good night!

Good news

Good news:  my finger is healing nicely.  I even used some anti-bacterial salve on it this morning.  Are you impressed?

Also good news:  today is Friday.  True, tomorrow I will spend the majority of my day either at my internship or in class, but at least it is some variety.

As predicted, my mother was amused by the fact that I had inflicted fingernail related injury upon myself.  I am nothing if not entertaining.

I received some good news this morning.  It seems that I may not be forced to spend the entirety of my evening trapped in the basement with three dogs and my father while my mom and her book club cronies yuk it up in the rest of the house.  You see, one of my oldest friends is coming to town with her husband and two adorable children, and some of us are going to meet her for pizza tonight.  Yay!

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that I will likely have to spend some time in the basement as I believe the dinner plans fall earlier than later and the book club ladies are known to party quite long and hard.  I only hope they leave some jalapeno dip for me.

Beware!

My mouth is tingling.

Wait, is "tingling" a legitimate word?  Let's spell check it out!

The answer is:  Yes, it is legitimate.

Sweet.

Now to the obvious question:  Why is my mouth tingling?

The answer is:  Because I just ate a sandwich with hot peppers.  Technically, not only hot peppers, but other "hot" vegetables as they were all pickled/spiced in the same hot brine.  Love, pure love.  You know those Mentha lip glosses that you can buy at Bath and Body Works?  The effect is like that, but stronger.

Hopefully, by the time class starts, the effects will have worn down as I would hate to subject my classmates to the fiery dragon breath I have going on.

Grievous Injuries

This morning, I grievously injured myself. 

No, it was not related to a motor vehicle.  It happened in the office. 

No, there was no office equipment involved.  I will not be collecting any kind of worker's compensation.

How did it happen?  With a great deal of trepidation, I will tell you.  My mother and brother will enjoy this story, so Happy Birthday, Mom.

When I speak extemporaneously, I tend to make good use of my hands.  As in, I like to gesture dramatically with them.  I have been known on occasion to smack my hands into things like walls, counters and people, but that is not what happened today.

I cannot even recall what I was saying when it happened, but somehow, my left hand pinkie finger collided with a finger nail of my right hand.  It should be noted that my nails are not long; I cut them just last week.  Nor are they jagged as I filed them carefully.

Somehow, in this collision I managed to deeply gash and would the top of my pinkie.  Blood began to ooze forth immediately as I stared blankly at the somewhat painful wound.  At first I thought, "Bah!  It's not that bad!"

But the blood did not stop.  I gave in, went to the supply closet, grabbed the Band-Aid box, and went to the sink to wash up.  After displaying my now gruesome gash to a couple of co-workers, I carefully positioned a bandage to stop the blood. 

Now, to take a little side note, I don't know what it is about Band-Aids that is so fascinating, but it seems that all children go through a phase where they are obsessed with wearing them.  I don't know if we all have a secret desire to be seen as wounded or brave, but I held a constant hope that some catastrophe would befall me and necessitate a really awesome and highly visible Band-Aid solution.

Back to the story.  OK, wait, sorry.  One last sidetrack.  Although the sheer act of wearing a Band-Aid was always cool by itself, there was always extra cache for being able to see blood stains through the padded area.  Gross, but true.  Otherwise, how were people to know that you were legit? 

Alright, this time we're back to the story.  I mean it.  So, the first Band-Aid I applied quickly soaked through.  While I know that this would not be a big deal as blood does eventually clot, it is not exactly seemly to look like a bloody mess in a professional environment.  So I changed the Band-Aid. 

Now, this would normally be the kind of thing that fades in importance over the course of the day, but unfortunately, the cut is located on the pad of my finger and is thus irritated every time I type, which is something that I do on a fairly regular basis on a regular weekday. 

As I know that no one feels sorry for me in this situation, I will not share much more.  Except that I should probably tell you why the origin of this injury will be of particular satisfaction to my family.

I am the oldest child in my immediate family.  I am the only female child in my immediate family.  When we were young, until my brothers reached puberty and the accompanying growth spurts, I was taller than them.  This equated to the fact that I was physically more powerful than them as well.

Like most siblings, we occasionally fought, especially me and my brother Michael as we were closer in age and therefore much more likely to be in competition for things in life.  When our fights turned physical, it was not to hitting, punching or slapping that we turned.  No, it was usually hair-pulling, biting and scratching.  The hair-pulling was mostly him.  The scratching was mostly me.

On many occasions, I utilized my fingernails to gain dominance with mixed results.  The main advantage to scratching is that it is truly painful and can be a powerful deterrent.  The main disadvantage is that scratching leaves marks.  Sometimes it draws blood.  Both outcomes are difficult to deny to one's mother who has come to stop the fighting.  End result?  Megan gets in trouble.  No matter that I did not start it or that my scalp was still numb from the severe yanking that was done. 

It also did not matter if scratching was not my intention.  The most famous incident took place when we were visiting our cousins in Texas.  While playing in their pool one afternoon, I found myself floating comfortably on the inflated inner tube.  As flotation devices were limited, we were taking turns.  I had only been on the tube for a few minutes when Michael decided that he did not want to wait his turn and approached me menacingly, threatening to flip me off of my perch.

In what I will only justify as self defense, I reached out to hold him back.  In my attempt to push him away, I misjudged the distance and only was able to swipe at his exposed chest.  With immediate horror I realized that my nails had made contact with his skin and that my maneuver had drawn blood.  As I knew the outcome, I ran.  I believe I hid behind a fence while my brother triumphantly raised his voice to tattle on me. 

My mother was again less than sympathetic, but I do not think that I suffered greatly in punishment.  This was probably because we were guests and she did not want us to look bad in front of extended family.

Even though I was not punished (aside from losing my turn on the tube), this story has been brought up over and again throughout my life whenever my family wishes to demonstrate my violent nature. 

So they will only find it fitting that today I have wounded and drawn blood from my own hand unintentionally.  Although I doubt anyone will send me to my room for it this time.

Reasons or excuses?

I really should make an effort to be a better blogger.  As of late it has become my habit to write long and (in my opinion) boring entries, lose interest and then let them languish in post purgatory forever and ever.  Amen.

While it is probably open to discussion as to why I have not felt like my work of late is good enough, my opinion is that it may be due to several top reasons. 

1.  Weather.  Late fall is always a bit dreary.  Don't get me wrong, I adore these temperatures, but all the grey can really bear down on one's soul.  Oh, and the fact that Daylight Savings is late is probably also not helping much.

2.  Work.  This is a twofold reason.  First, my current job continues to drag severely on my soul.  I have known that this saga is coming to an end for a while, but now that the end is near, it has become more difficult to withstand current conditions.  Second, the new era of my career is still up in the air.  I do not have any super promising leads, so I am left to wonder about where I will go and what I will do.  Or if anyone in the big wide world will ever want to hire me.

3.  School.  Truthfully, my workload this semester has not been onerous.  I have had no difficulty completing assignments thus far and I do not anticipate a problem with any assignments remaining.  While I have been a bit frustrated with one of my instructors, I know that the semester is almost half done and her effect on my life will be over.

4.  Other.  There are some interesting and some frustrating things going on right now in my life or close to my life.  I am not at liberty to discuss them, but they are influencing me nonetheless.

Now that I look at these things, they really are excuses more than they are reasons.  I should resolve simply to get on and write as much as possible and just hope that nothing I say is too crass, offensive, stupid or boring.  How about we start tomorrow?