Author: Heather Meadows

My cuticles are falling apart, and my face has never felt this oily. It’s been like this for two days now. What is going on, body?

My day started out, well, terrible.

First, I had trouble sleeping, because I was going to (dun dun dun) Traffic Court for the first time in my life. I was worried about where to go and what to do. I finally woke up 15 minutes before my alarm and decided to stay up. I checked the ticket for the address and checked Google Maps and took a shower and blow-dried my hair and almost forgot my suit jacket on the way out the door.

When I got to the approximate area of the address, I discovered that street numbers were not listed on any of the buildings. So I drove through the parking lots trying to figure out which one was where I needed to be. Court time was rapidly approaching and I was getting desperate.

Finally someone opened up the building where I’d parked, so I got out of the car and locked it, thinking I’d at least go in and ask someone where I was supposed to go.

Then I looked down at my purse and saw that the zippered pocket where I put my keys was open. So I looked into the car…where the keys were still dangling from the ignition.

I didn’t really have time to panic or deal with that particular situation. Instead, I asked a man going into the building if this is where I was supposed to go. He said no, I needed to be next door. So I walked through the rain-sodden grass and pine straw to the adjacent building (did I mention it was raining?) and went for the first door I saw.

That turned out to be the wrong one, so I went outside again and reentered through the correct door. From there I was able to follow the signs to the courtroom.

It looked just like those courtrooms on TV. A lady sat up next to the judge’s bench doing paperwork. After a time she called out names to see who was there. There were only three other people in the room, and one of them ended up getting to leave because the defendant in their case had already settled.

Time ticked by, and I wondered when the judge was actually going to come out, and whether or not the police officer in my case was going to show up. I started to imagine giddily that he was detained and couldn’t make it, which would mean my case would be dismissed. Then, finally, the door to the back offices opened, and in stepped the officer.

He called my name, and we went outside the courtroom. “I don’t like taking people’s money at Christmas,” he said…and then he made me a very fair deal, which I took.

From that point it was just a matter of walking back to the first door to settle up. Feeling much better about life, I asked the lady at the desk if anyone could unlock my car for me. She called a dispatcher who found another police officer who kindly popped the lock.

And I still had an hour before I had to be at work!

So I went to Sunrise Grill for breakfast, and after that I went to Wal-Mart and bought myself some jeans so I wouldn’t have to wear the suit skirt anymore. (It has a slit up the front of the left leg that makes it difficult to sit, well, modestly.)

And I still made it in early to work, early enough that I had time to post all this. :)

“Cyber Monday is for people who never use the Internet,” I said. “It’s unnecessary.”

“So it’s for the rest of us.”

“The Internet is 24/7. It’s not about being online at a particular time. That’s Old Media. That’s TV.”

“Well sold,” my boss said. “…except for that Old Media part. That hurt a little.”

;D

U.S. Bans Sale Of iPods To North Korea

The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim’s swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

The new ban would extend even to music and sports equipment.

[…]

Responding to North Korea’s nuclear test Oct. 9, the U.N. Security Council voted to ban military supplies and weapons shipments – sanctions already imposed by the United States. It also banned sales of luxury goods but so far has left each country to define such items. Japan included beef, caviar and fatty tuna, along with expensive cars, motorcycles, cameras and more. Many European nations are still working on their lists.

This has brought out quite a number of emotions in me.

Amusement, of course, because this is hilarious. But also outrage, because it reminds me how well Kim Jong Il lives at the expense of his people. If any country is always at war with Oceania, it’s North Korea.

I have no idea if this will work at all, but it does bring me some grim pleasure to think that Dear Leader won’t be able to easily or legitimately attain his favored luxury items.

And let me just say that I am very, very glad to have that walk over with.

Man, I am really out of shape. My body has gone so downhill since the fire.

In my first dream, Gabe and Tycho worked at the TV station with me, and their content was expanding into television. I was all excited; I think I said something like, “As a commodity with continual content production, it’s only natural to expand into other media.” Tycho mentioned something about the search for a new reporter, and I thought he meant the station was looking for one…but then he corrected me, “No, a reporter for us.” So apparently Gabe and Tycho would have their very own gaming news reporter, hired by the station. Whack.

In my second dream, Sean and I went to Athens Restaurant and Taverna, which is being sold (if it hasn’t been already). While we were there Sean got the idea to buy the place. So we toured the facilities and talked about the pros and cons. I was excited about the prospect of owning our own business, and I couldn’t believe that Sean was actually for it, but I also had some reservations–it’s very difficult to run a restaurant, and I knew the initial cost would be high, and there would be no telling when we’d get a return on that investment.

Sure enough, we eventually discovered that the asking price was $79,300. I spent the rest of the tour pondering how crazy it would make us to take out a loan, and wondering if Sean really wanted to do that. I also considered other uses we could make of the space, like turning it into a bellydance studio for Mari.

Sean and I have this deal with our parents. We spend Thanksgiving with one set and Christmas with the other, and trade off each year. It was my idea, and everyone agreed it was fair. (Well, mostly everyone. But no need to go into that.)

This year’s circumstances are a little different, though. We were due to go to Kentucky for Thanksgiving…but due to various family issues on both sides, we didn’t go there, and we didn’t do Thanksgiving with Sean’s parents, either.

Instead, we stayed home, and I cooked a feast for two (with plenty of leftovers).

I made:

• Turkey breasts seasoned with rosemary and thyme
• Corn casserole
• Green bean casserole (had to substitute cream of chicken for cream of mushroom soup, but that apparently didn’t matter)
• Mashed red potatoes
• Berries-in cranberry sauce (I opened a can, woo)
• Rolls Biscuits
• Pumpkin pie
• Cherry pie

I also did three loads of laundry and cleaned the bathrooms!

We spent much of the day watching Lois & Clark seasons 2 and 3, and after Thanksgiving dinner we passed out for the night. At 8:30 p.m. Man, we’re old.

(Sean actually went to bed around the same time tonight, but I refused to give in and instead stayed up to catch up on pictures and posting.)

It was a lovely day, and so was today, and I’ve still got two days left of my fabulous four-day weekend :)

(…and now I’m caught up!)

This past Tuesday, Mayor Deke Copenhaver lit up the city’s Christmas tree at the Augusta Common. I couldn’t go, as the lighting took place while I was still at work, but I did swing by that way after work on Wednesday to take some pictures of the pretty tree.

Thanks to Dariush, I’ve learned more about my camera’s controls, so I was able to get night shots with more detail than I’ve ever managed before. They’re still terrible, but I can tell they’re less terrible than my previous night shots ;)

More starting here.

I mentioned before how I like to take some measure of control over a changing situation, and that when my officemate left for a new job I decided to rearrange the office. Here, finally, are pictures of what I did to the place. (To see what the office originally looked like, check here. Not so many great views, but you get the general idea.)

The madness begins here. Basically all I did at this point was shove desks away from one door and towards another.

Then I went batshit loco.

See that dirty-looking arc on the floor? That’s the mark left when the cleaners buffed the floor around where that second desk used to be. As you can see, I rotated it 180 degrees. I also shuffled the contents of that desk with the contents of the white table I put in its place.

So now I have something of a cubicle:

With my desk moved away from the previously-unused door and the second desk right next to mine, there’s a free and easy walkway through the office from door to door.

There is the danger that my office might become a hallway, but I figure I’ll just leave a door shut when I’m not feeling particularly sociable.

All in all, I like the change. It’s different, but it feels comfortable and usable.

One of the office ladies looked in and said, “Wow, it’s so nice and neat and clean!” Granted, there was a lot of dust around before I rearranged (and left a note for housekeeping), but I think organizing and storing all the clutter really made a difference. Instead of piles on top of piles, there are open surfaces and clean lines. Very feng shui :>

There are still things to do, but on the whole I’m happy with how it’s turned out.

I do want to get rid of that penguin, though. It annoys me, for some reason.

In my dream last night, I was having a very passionate argument with someone. It was a man, but I can’t remember who it was, except that I know it wasn’t Sean. I get the feeling it was a fictional character, or maybe a coworker.

Perhaps due to that dream argument, I spent the morning wondering how people see me. For the most part people react to me the way I expect them to, but sometimes they don’t and I can’t figure out why.

Years ago, when I applied for a job at Wal-Mart, I expressed interest in working in the stock room. The lady I was interviewing with discouraged me…but encouraged another girl, who was skinnier and–in my opinion–wussier. I have never been able to figure that out. First of all, wouldn’t you want the skinnier, and therefore closer to the current arbitrary model of beauty, girl out on the floor? Second of all, wouldn’t you want people in the stock room who are tough? Does this mean that people don’t think I’m tough when they first meet me?

People at work were surprised when I recently moved two large desks and heavy computer equipment around all by myself, but I don’t think that’s the same thing. After all, people here know me as a desk worker and don’t expect me to do physical labor. But that Wal-Mart lady had just met me, so what made her think I couldn’t make it in the stock room?

Maybe I wasn’t tall enough?

I guess I’ll never know.

It’s sleeting across the area. Makes me want to be home with a cup of cocoa.

What if we could elect people every day? Micro-elections, if you will? Instead of a huge shebang that took attention away from the issues, every day a person would evaluate their elected officials and their decisions and decide if they were happy or not. Over time, that cumulative impression could result in an election, if, say, “disapproval” votes reached a certain percent. And people would throw their names into the hat to replace them whenever they felt like it–“Don’t like how Steve’s doing? Vote him down this month and I’ll run for his spot when the election comes!”

I don’t know, it’s just a thought. I’m tired of how ridiculous elections are. Things either don’t get done during that time, or get done without anyone paying attention to them. And can a person who has to focus a great deal of energy on re-election really make informed, proper decisions?

Maybe there could be a pool of politicians, and elected officials would be chosen from that pool. To get into the pool you’d just have to meet certain criteria (education, experience)–it’d be open to anyone, regardless of how much campaign money they had. People in the pool would put out opinion statements that would be published for them, with no frills. No mudslinging would be allowed. And if people liked someone in the pool better than their current elected official, they could start voting that official down and voting that pool guy up.

Or something else. Whatever. It just seems like technology could seriously level the playing field if we’d let it.

A woman was pointing at some printed text going through a machine, trying to make a point to the girl running it. The girl wasn’t having it, though, and grabbed the woman’s arm. Soon she was shoving the woman’s arm into the machine, which chopped it up into bloody stumps that fell to the floor.

I hid my eyes and screamed.

The other day I remembered a diary entry I wrote when I was pretty young about going shopping on Black Friday. I said something like, “We got up early today. Mom says all the stores have their best prices the day after Thanksgiving.” And then the entry is just a recap of where we went and what we bought. I probably listed what food we ate, too, since I have been a big fan of food my entire life.

Anyway, I always liked that entry. Whenever I’d come across it when rereading my diaries, I’d smile to myself.

Can you guess where this is going?

Before all my diaries burned up in the fire, I did type up a few notable entries. I posted them here. When I remembered this particular entry the other day, I went looking for it.

It wasn’t there. I guess I never got to that one.

The girl who shared my office at work has left for a new job. Her workstation will become kind of a catch-all for other people who need its resources, and for the rest of the time remain open and empty.

This office is big. Having it empty will be pretty lonely.

But it’s not the lack of a body in the chair behind me that’s on my mind today. It’s the fact that someone I’ve grown to like very much won’t be a part of my daily routine anymore.

I’m really going to miss her.

When change happens in my life, my way of dealing is to exert as much control as I can. In this case, since I’m losing an officemate, I’m taking the opportunity to rearrange the office. There are two doors, and now both of them open; previously, the one leading towards the newsroom was blocked by my desk. I’m not done, but I’m liking the change so far.

Except for the added noise.

Also, people tend to like to congregate in this office. It’s in a central area in the station, at the junction of many hallways. Today there have been far too many people in here. I can be pretty sociable, but today…not so much.

I finally closed the door leading to all those hallways and just left the other door newly open.

Even though I have some measure of control over the things around me, I can’t control the events…so my coping isn’t working out as well as I’d hoped.

In other news, when I’m sad, I’m perceptibly stupider. I need to remember that so I can keep my head down in the future.