The Longest Schlep – Still Schlepping

My mom told me that when I was in elementary school, after my class read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day we were given the assignment to write about our very own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days–mine ended up being all about my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mom…and, so far, she hasn’t let me live to forget about it (not that I even remember writing it in the first place). Well, today the theme remained the same, but my mother will be happy to know she is in no way culpable for what was one of the worst overall days I’ve had in recent memory. Now I shall proceed with the melodramatic whining…

Everyone has those days when nothing seems to go right, and I’m sure that we all feel like we get more than our fair share of these particular days…but I’m convinced that this actually is the case for me. I’ve decided that my life’s equilibrium settles at a frustrating, yet seemingly manageable level of crappiness, interspersed with brief periods of excitement and/or happiness. My one comfort is that I’m fully able to appreciate those moments of happiness because they are so completely out of the ordinary for me. But as happens in science, equilibrium is eventually reestablished, and life reverts back to mediocrity and mundanity, sprinkled with encounters with incompetence for good measure. Queue the government workers.

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I can hardly believe it’s July already. That means I’ve been at my job for a month now, the World Cup is nearly over, and the next holiday I have to look forward to is Possum Day. On the plus side, I now have full health coverage in the event of an accidental death or dismemberment…always a good thing.

This past weekend I spent my half-birthday nearly the same way I spent my last real birthday—drinking with Kelly in a bar full of English people. We went down to the Cricketer’s Arms, our favorite overpriced Orlando pub, to watch England play Portugal in the World Cup quarterfinals. We had to pay $5 just to get in, which was a bit annoying considering the match was being broadcast on ABC and anyone with a crap TV and a pair of rabbit ears can get it for free. Or maybe we were paying for the ambience…I’m not sure, but we got there early enough to get seats in front of the giant screen, so we weren’t complaining. I can honestly say we got our money’s worth out of the game, although it was a heartbreaker when the match remained scoreless at the end of the extra time and Portugal went on to win in penalty kicks. There was enough déjà vu in that pub to make you want to cry.

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When Kelly and I went out to the Riverfront Saturday, Kelly mentioned that one of the clubs we went to, China White, had been shown on The Real World: Key West when the housemates had evacuated to Fort Lauderdale to avoid Hurricane Wilma last fall. Apparently, they had spent the night before the storm slurping cocktails and having a merry old time while everyone else was home boarding up windows and counting their provisional cans of Beanie Weanies. So when I was flipping through channels last night and saw that episode was on again, I set my DVR to record it so I could see what it was all about.

So tonight, after working late and having to do more work at home (what is that about?), I turned it on for some mindless, wind-down evening entertainment. I haven’t seen that show in ages, but I wasn’t surprised to see the same archetypal characters were still there…the dumb blonde, the hot jock, the even hotter gay guy, etc. In this episode they had to evacuate Key West and head to Fort Lauderdale because Hurricane Wilma was heading for them. It was actually quite cool to see Las Olas on TV and the clubs Kelly and I had been to! If it’s good enough for the kids on Real World, then it’s pretty good indeed. It just continues to amaze me how much I’d underestimated Fort Lauderdale! I never knew much about it so I just assumed it was like any other beach town, albeit bigger than most, but it has turned out to be a pretty incredible city, and I’ve only been here a short while. I’m looking forward to getting out there and finding out all the other cool stuff that I haven’t discovered yet! Which is actually quite a lot I suppose…

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After getting used to coming home to a quiet apartment and spending my evenings with only my TV and the odd glass of wine as entertainment, it was a welcome relief to have ma-Kelly come down to spend the weekend with me in Fort Lauderdale. That alone got me through a week of technical training at work that had my brain completely fried and had me wondering why the heck I’d ever been hired in the first place. Here I was thinking I was out of college and done with formal learning, and now I’m being completely re-educated, complete with classroom instruction and eventual examinations. On the plus side, I’m getting paid for it!

Kelly drove down Friday night, bringing with her a slew of trashy British magazines that Mark had sent her from London. We pretty much spent the night flipping through, laughing at and making catty comments about unfortunate C-list celebrities. Not unlike many evenings spent together in Acton! To round out the night of British-ness we watched a movie Mark had also sent over—a dodgy DVD he’d probably bought from a guy in a trench coat on the Tube, called Football Factory. However dodgy it was, it at least was in a multiregional format so it worked in my DVD player. It was actually a pretty good movie! I needed subtitles for part of it, but other than that we had a good time watching it and learning even more about the passions and motivations of Englishmen…namely violence, sex and alcohol. Oh yeah, and football. 😀

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I promise, this will be my last comment about lizards (maybe)…they are so unbelievably HUGE down here! I was at Home Depot yesterday wandering around the garden section and I saw this little lizard, like the cute green ones that are all over the place back home in Gainesville. So I bent down to look at it closer and then this other massive one runs out in front of me and stops. It was HUGE! Not as big as the iguana, but all the same…this was like one of those lizards you see on Discovery Channel documentaries shot in Africa, with its hind legs about three times longer than its front ones and windmilling as he ran. It was the funniest thing! I tried to chase after it with my phone to get a picture but it ran under a pallet before I could get a good one. When will the lizard wonders cease to amaze me?

I managed to get quite a lot done this weekend around my apartment. It’s been arts and crafts and other random tasks as I’ve tried to piece the place together one part at a time. So far things are coming together nicely! I’m still short two end tables, but the coffee table came Saturday morning and the others should be here in a week or so. I’ve been getting pictures printed, hung, picture frames painted, shelves decorated, fake trees bought and potted, and patio furniture polyurethaned. That was no fun task. I started last week, and was halfway done with the first chair before I started feeling something funny in my nose. It turned out that the polyurethane fumes I was breathing in were beginning to seal my nasal passages shut! Oops! I also managed to get a nice plastic coating on my arms and legs while I was at it. I finished the job tonight and thought I was being really smart by tying a bandana around my face to protect myself from the fumes. I thought it helped, but that was just until my noxious fume-induced high wore off and I realized my lungs were coated in plastic once again. So now not only are my chairs protected from the elements, but my lungs are as well.

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I feel like such a man lately. I’ve watched more sports this week than in the entire last year probably. Every day it’s go to work, come home, get something to eat and watch whatever World Cup match it was I recorded for the day. ESPN and ESPN2 have quickly become the only channels I watch anymore. I should’ve waited to upgrade my cable package after the tournament is over. Who needs Encore Love when the World Cup’s on? Girls, that’s who.  

It’s been quite an exciting/depressing/hopeful/maddening/desperate week for Americans watching the world’s biggest sporting event this week. It wasn’t looking too good for us, but then when Ghana beat the Czech Republic yesterday we finally had something to hope for! I think we played really well yesterday against Italy, and I was happy with the draw, considering we were down to nine men. I blame Floridians for that–specifically the old, rich senile ones living in Palm Beach County. Because those old bone bags don’t know how to fill out a voting ballot, George W. became president and subsequently proceeded to destroy public relations with every other country in the world, which is why all foreigners hate Americans (for sake of argument…no comments on the issues of obesity or stupidity), causing referees to be biased against the American World Cup team, albeit even if it’s only subconsciously, and leading them to give red cards undeservedly in one of the most important games we might play. Obviously, the only solution is to deport all people in south Florida over 65 to New Jersey, from whence they first came. Then maybe our national soccer team will get a fair shake in future.  

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Oh…my…god. There are freakin’ lizards in my apartment!!! I know I was excited about seeing my first wild iguana down here a couple of weeks ago, but tonight I’ve discovered that I’m really just not a lizard person.

I was just winding down for the evening, brushing my teeth and getting ready to go to bed. I came into my room and noticed an annoying little moth buzzing around and I was trying to shoo him out. When I turned the overhead light on to get a better look, I found the moth flitting towards the far wall…and beyond it, clinging to the wall with its hideous little slimy feet was a two-inch long, pale, nearly translucent horrible little lizard! Don’t get me wrong, I love lizards. I really do. But not in my bedroom!

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Oops! In my last post I gave away a little bit more information than I should have and the censors (okay, dismayed friend) called me out on it. Rather than delete the offending content, I’ve saved the previous post in its entirety and marked it as ‘private’ and replaced it with the edited version. And when the time comes I will re-release it happily! And since using first names alone apparently isn’t enough to protect the innocent, I’ll have to implement aliases instead.

So, I have this friend named Kelsey…just kidding! You know I love you.

After coming to the end of my first week here in Fort Lauderdale, I’ve come to notice that there are an abundance of two things in Oakland Park…furniture stores and sex shops. I’ve been loving the fact I’m in the market for furniture each time I drive by and ogle the clean-lined, ultra-chic sofas and tables in the window displays as I travel to and from work. It took me a little while longer to notice the sex shops, however. During the day they look like every other crappy strip mall store–it’s only at night, when the gawdy pink and red neon signs come on that I realize just how abundant they really are. The only theory I can come up with to explain the apparent furniture/fornication correlation is that besides having a rather high percentage of sketchy individuals comprising a proportion of Oakland Park’s demographics, there’s also quite a lot of gay men. And gay men have very good taste in furniture.

Hmm…I wonder if Seneca would come for a visit if he knew where I was living. If he thought Canal Street in Manchester was good, I’m sure he’d love Jackhammer.

I loved the Czech Republic when I visited last summer. Prague is beautiful, and was near the top of my list of the most beautiful places I’d ever been. The best hostel in the world is there, and the rowdy, nose-smashing, flower-loving Czech people produce some mighty fine absinthe, if I do say so myself! But today…you disappoint me Czech Republic. How could you do this to me?

I wanted the USA World Cup team to come in swinging, or kicking as it were. But it just wasn’t meant to be today when they took on the Czech Republic in their World Cup opener in Germany. I had my cable company come to my apartment three times in the past week to fix my DVR just so I’d be able to record this game and enjoy my country winning their first match. So when I came home today, excited about this long-awaited game, I was bitterly disappointed. Everyone in the world hates us! So how awesome would it have been to come out and stomp everyone in our group! A shut out would have been nice…but I’d imagined it somewhat differently. I tried to remain optimistic, even after I talked to Kelly at halftime and she hadn’t exactly inspired confidence by the tone of her voice, but as with everything else in life, wishing and hoping is seldom enough. But it’s not over yet, and we can still come back and prove everyone wrong! If only soccer were as popular in the U.S. as it is in the rest of the world…can you imagine Daunte Culpepper or Peyton Manning as soccer players? And all the rest of the top athletes in football, basketball and baseball? We’d be unstoppable! With most little boys aspiring to be wide receivers and quarterbacks I doubt our top athletes will be kicking a black and white ball around anytime soon. Maybe before I die, if I’m lucky!

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No, not that kind of working girl.

After four months of being a woman of leisure, I’ve finally broken the precedent the federal government set before me and am no longer running a budget deficit! That’s right, after months of steadily dwindling savings I’m finally back in the black! At least I will be when pay day rolls around…

I started my first day as a Courseware Developer this past Monday. As of yet I’ve still not developed any courses, but that’s irrelevant; I’m getting paid!!! So far this week I’ve been booked with different sessions, with HR stuff all day Monday and sales training since then…even though I won’t be doing any selling (thank god for that!). So it’s been…boring…but kinda fun at the same time. The people in my department are really nice, so in the brief moments I’ve spent with them in between training sessions I’ve really been pleased with what I’ve seen. I was a little annoyed to find out the guy who lives in Hollywood resigned and left, because I was going to confront him about his recommendation for me to move to that area! Maybe it was a parting joke on his part…jerk.

But work isn’t all that interesting…and acutally neither is my personal life lately. That rather limits the possibilities of one-sided converstaion tonight then!

So, World Cup starts Friday! Yeah…hmm…I’ll post again when my life doesn’t suck quite so much. 😉