Ah, Back To Normal

I go to a small gym in my town, but the big plus is that it has a heated swimming pool.  That's actually why I ended up switching gyms, I wanted to swim in the Master's classes in the morning.  I thought it would be better for my poor broken body, what with the no-impact cardio and all.

So starting sometime last Fall I began dragging my butt up at 5am to go to the hour long class Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Let me emphasize I am NOT, repeat NOOOOOOOOT a morning person.  Never have been.  And I'm going to go ahead and say it, I never will be a morning person.  Don't try to convince me otherwise.  I don't believe in mornings for anything other than sleeping.

I drive the 7 minutes it takes to get to the gym at 5:30 in the morning, go into the small locker room to change out of my sweats (I wear my bathing suit underneath), put on my goggles and cap, wrap a towel around myself and then go brave the cold.  Because despite the fact the pool is heated, it is not indoors, so it is fraking cold outside.  Your best bet is to banzai into the water and start swimming as fast as you can to warm up.  I have found no other way.  Pansying around and dipping your toe in first is not the way to go, trust me.

When I am done with my swim I run into the locker room to change and head back home.  Starting on the first day and every single Tuesday/Thursday after that, I have opened the door to the locker room and have been confronted with a naked woman.  The same naked woman.  Right in front of the door.  Free bird.  I realize that it is a locker room and of course people change in there, there are even showers.  I just wasn't expecting blatant nudity just hanging out right at the entrance.  Like, the lady just chills in her birthday suit and greets people.  The first couple of times was a bit shocking, but then after that I just found it hilarious and it sorta became part of my routine.  Get up, go swimming, see a naked lady, go home and shower.  Morning accomplished.

It got to the point where she would greet me when I came in.  She now recognized me as a regular.  One time she even asked me to make sure the door was shut on a windy day...NOT because she was afraid it would blow open and give everyone a peep show, but because it was "creating a draft" (her words) for her unclothed self.

So then about 2 months ago I really messed up my hip and I wasn't able to swim until last week.  Tuesday and Thursday I go swim, no naked lady.  WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO?  It threw off my routine.  I didn't know where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing anymore.  Then this morning--ah...back to normal--I opened up the locker room door and there was my naked lady to greet me.  The world has righted itself once again.

She has V.D.?!

But let me give some background here.

I work in a lab with a lady who is from Mexico and although her accent is very slight now (you're welcome for all the tutoring) this wasn't always so. 

Way back when I stared working here miscommunication was much more frequent (and much more fun!) either because of the accent or because of translation mishaps. Now, I am usually very good with understanding accents, but when you work in a loud lab (white-noise from equipment), you aren't paying close enough attention, or the other person is facing away from you...things happen.

After a particularly hilarious episode in which I was trying to explain "Chick-Lit" (ex. Bridget Jone's Diary) to her and she thought I was talking about the gum "chiclets" we have henceforth dubbed all funny misunderstandings by yelling "chiclet!" and giggling like school girls afterward. 

Then there was the time when she told me that her son (who at the time was about 6) was dressing up as a "ninja" for Halloween and I swear on all that is holy I thought she said "midget."  I was like...well...he's still small...so I guess that will work...but it's a little avant garde isn't it?  Is it a social commentary?  The poor kid, who is now approaching his teen years (almost) is still called "midget" to this day.

The latest misunderstanding didn't even involve us directly, but two different people in the labs.  But it was still awesome!!  Said Mexican lady was home sick with food poisoning issues.  Someone else asked where she was and the other lady in the lab told them (in a complete over-share) she had V & D (which would be vomiting and d---, you guessed it).  The response to this was, "SHE HAS V.D.?!" Which was then answered, "NO!  I said V AND D, not V.D.!!"  At which point we all turned on our hearing aides...  But, I gotta say...this made for a much funnier conversation.  Chiclet!!  *giggle*

The List

 

I am a list-maker.  It's what I do.  Typically, on any given day, my list looks something like this little guy's.  Sad but true.  Usually I have more than one list going at once and that is because I think of more things to do when I don't have the original list on me.  That's when the Post-It notes come into play.  Post-It notes are like manna from Heaven for me.  What?  I have a thing about office supplies.  

I just ordered my new Franklin Covey planner pages for the new year and I am inexplicably happy about it.  Why?  Because I can organize things with it!  I know, I know, it's all part of my OCD.  Hey, at least I am not a candidate for Hoarders...that show scares the crap out of me.  I watch it, and then I have to clean something.  So really...good motivation.

Tonight is the first night I will actually be home to accomplish things on my to do list.  I need to be productive tonight.  Plus, it will be a good night to be indoors considering it is supposed to be 100 degrees out today.  Happy Summer Solstice! 

Maybe, if I am really good, by the end of tonight my list will look like this...

Safety First

I just couldn't resist this little guy running for his life while his arm is on fire.  STOP. DROP. AND ROLL.  Dude, didn't you learn anything in kindergarten...or college?

So we had to have "safety training" for work last week.  Three hours of mind-numbing explanations like "if you smell smoke, pull the fire alarm."  Really?  You don't say.

The only way I could stay awake for the whole 3 hours was to 1) bring coffee and 2) pretend to take notes while really making snarky comments on the back of the agenda.  They are as follows:

Time into the meeting: 0 minutes

OMG!!  This is going to be 3 hours?!?  Kill. Me. Now.

Topic: Safety/Injury Prevention
-"Hi, my name is Bob and I am a safety engineer."
   -Me: Hi Bob.  What exactly is a safety engineer?  Do you have a degree in...something?

-About workman's comp; "Serious injuries are expensive."
   -Me:  That is, don't get your arm chopped off, it will cost us a bundle.  Thanks for caring.

-Recommendation for safety: "Stretch before going to work."
   -Me: What the hell?  What am I, a yoga instructor?  I work in a lab!

Time into the meeting: 45 minutes

Topic: Fire Safety
-No matter how big or small the fire, call the fire department to come out and check.
   -Me: They are bored.

-Don't wear loose clothing.
   -Me: Uh...you want us to wear skin-tight clothing?  That doesn't seem professional.

-Compressed gas cylinders are very large projectiles if damaged.
   -Me: Rocket maaaaaaaaaan...

-If you smell smoke, pull the fire alarm and call 911
   -Me: Unless it is BBQ day at work, in which case you will be told by the dispatcher to stop being a  
    nervous ninny and go get a hot dog

Time into the meeting: 1.25 hours
I think my butt is going numb...


Topic: Emergency Action Plan
-There are 3 types of evacuation;
   1) Horizontal (Me: sooo...you move down a hallway...hopefully out the door)
   2) Vertical (Me: WHAT?!  Why the hell would you go UP floors on a building when you want to get  
      out?!)
   3) Stay-in-place (Me: I'm sorry, how is this an evacuation?)  


-Our evacuation place is a grassy knoll outside the building  
   -Which is surrounded on all 4 sides by other buildings...excellent...fire death trap


Topic: Ergonomics
-Contact safety services and they will respond in 2 weeks or less
   -Me: What if it's been four MONTHS? (true story)

10 minutes break 
Upon returning they made us stretch, no joke


Topic: Bio-safety Officer
-What's safe for some isn't safe for all
   -Me: We are not all created equal...


-If you work with dangerous toxins, you are only allowed a small amount at once
   -Me: Creating havoc a little bit at a time.  Wait...is this like the 3 oz airplane rule?


-Wear appropriate safety gear
   -Me: Key word=appropriate.  Lab coat?  Yes.  Face shield?  No.  And I will laugh at you if you wear 
    one.

Time into the meeting: 2.25 hours

Holy frack, I need more coffee...

Topic: Hazard Communication and Laboratory Standard
-It is required you have a "responsible person"
   -Me: Not it!


-Wash your hands, you "could be contaminated and not know it!"
   -Me: Uh...speaking from a microbiological standpoint, you're always contaminated.  Just wash your 
    hands you nasty people.


Our motto: Think safe.  Act safe.  Be safe.


I hope this helped.

BBC's "The Big Read" Top 100 Books

 Well, I must say I have done much better in the book department then the movie department.  They are once again, almost all classics.  I have crossed out those I have read...43/100.  I find it funny that 1) Harry Potter 1-3 were listed, but not 4-7, there are a LOT of Terri Pratchett and Roald Dahl (as many as Charles Dickens) and absolutely no Shakespeare...huh.  Funny BBC.  There is some other classics list out there where I am in the high 80s or 90s/100...that made me feel better about myself.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

And Ye Shall Know It's a Co-Op By The Smell of Patchouli



Don't get me wrong, I love a good Co-Op.  Who doesn't like the smell of patchouli and unwashed hippies?  I mean, come on!  It's like a Whole Earth Festival with a better cheese selection. 

Being from California, I always kinda assumed we had the mother-load of hippies along with all the hard-core Co-Ops.  I was wrong. 

I am visiting friends in Boise, Idaho right now and we went to the Boise Co-Op where it suddenly occurred to me that...now this is deep...a Co-Op is a Co-Op, no matter where you go. 

It's like Wal-Mart, go into anyone, anywhere and you will find hicks and dirt cheap stuff.  Go into a Co-Op anywhere and you will find hippies...and well, dirt.  And fruit like this:

This may look like a mutated artichoke on the outside, but it's a fruit from the Andes called a "cherimoya."  Where on earth would you ever find something like this besides at a Co-Op?  The Andes.  That's it. 

Co-Ops: making the world a more diverse place one weird fruit and tub of fertilizer worms at a time. 

101 Movies You Must See Before You Die (According to Roger Ebert)

Obviously most of these are older, "classic" films and while I have seen many classic films, apparently they weren't all the right ones...25/101.  Meh.  In all honesty, there were a couple I haven't even heard of...I guess I need to brush up on my "must sees." 


2001: A Space Odyssey
The 400 Blows
8 1/2
Agguire, the Wrath of God
Alien
All About Eve
Annie Hall
Bambi
Battleship Potempkin
The Best Years of our Lives
The Big Red One
The Bicycle Thief
The Big Sleep
Bladerunner
Blowup
Blue Velvet
Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless
Bringing Up Baby
Carrie
Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
A Clockwork Orange
The Crying Game
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoesie
Do the Right Thing
La Dolce Vita
Double Endemnity
Dr. Stangelove
Duck Soup
E.T.
Easy Rider
The Empire Strikes Back
The Exorcist
Fargo
Fight Club
Frankenstein
The General
The Godfather
The Godfather part II
Gone With the Wind
GoodFellas
The Graduate
Halloween
A Hard Day's Night
Intolerence
It's a Gift
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
The Lady Eve
Lawrence Of Arabia
"M"
The Road Warrior: Mad Max 2
The Maltese Falcon
The Manchurian Candidate
Metropolis
Modern Times
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living Dead
North By Northwest
Nosferatu
One the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
Pink Flamingos
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
Rashomon
Rear Window
Rebel Without A Cause
Red River
Repulsion
Rules of the Game
Scarface
The Scarlet Empress
Schindler's List
The Searchers
The Seven Samuri
Singin' In the Rain
Some Like It Hot
A Star Is Born
A Streetcar Named Desire
Sunset Boulevard
Taxi Driver
The Third Man
Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble In Paradise
Vertigo
West Side Story
The Wild Bunch
The Wizard Of Oz