Like an 18th Century Invalid

About 3 months ago, I decided to hang an IKEA shelving system in one of our Guest Room closets.

No problem, I thought, I've done this many times before. How could anything possibly go wrong?

After climbing up and down a stepladder all day, I went to bed, and awoke the next morning with a terrible pain in my left foot.

I considered going to the ER - you don't mess around with feet! - but was dissuaded from going by my husband. "Maybe it's just a sprain, or something, or a cramped muscle. Just keep off it for a couple of days, and it will get better, I bet," he said.

I didn't go to the ER. I waited a week, and then went to a doc-in-a-box clinic, where they took some X-rays.

Nothing showed up on the X-rays, so the doctor told me it was probably a sprain, and - like my husband suggested - told me to ice it and not walk around too much.

I like to be busy. If I feel well enough to be up and about, then I will be up and about, damn it, because days where I feel great are not ones to be wasted.

I went to IKEA the next day.

My foot hurt horribly that night. And for the next week.

I waited another week, and made an appointment with a podiatrist, because "walking it off" was obviously not working.

I chose a podiatrist whose website stressed conservative care, versus the ones I saw whose home pages discussed their cutting edge surgical skills. Surgery should be a last resort, in my not-so-humble opinion.

The podiatrist took X-rays, and nothing was visible. After quizzing me about my activities, and hearing that I'd been climbing a stepladder, he said that he thought it was a stress fracture.

He, being a foot expert, told me that if it was a stress fracture, it might not show up on an X-ray film for a few weeks, if ever, which explains why the doc-in-a-box didn't see a break. He gave me a choice: he could either give me a boot/cast to wear for 3-4 weeks, and we could see what happened, or he could have me get an MRI of my foot to determine 100% if it was a stress fracture.

I went for the boot. Sure, 70% of the MRI would be covered by insurance, but that's still possibly a few hundred dollars, and the boot cost $30 (after insurance).

After three weeks, I walked around without my boot/cast and felt great. No foot pain!

At least, while I was walking around sans boot, there wasn't any pain. That night, however, I was in a lot of pain.

I hadn't worn shoes while walking around. The doctor had neglected to mention that I have to always wear padded shoes while walking on hard surfaces, like our wood and tile floors.

Oh.

I re-fractured my foot.

Ow.

Another 6 weeks passed, and I felt secure enough to go sans-boot, again. I wore some comfortable, sensible-heeled boots for a day, and felt fine.

Then, I wore my adorable leopard-print ballet flats, and all (foot) hell broke loose.

I immediately put the boot back on, and called the podiatrist again.

A second round of X-rays showed that there was definite healing where I'd fractured my metatarsal - the bone there is thicker, now - but there were no visible breaks.

"Maybe there's just a spot that hasn't healed yet," he said. "It's been 10 weeks since I first saw you; insurance won't cover a bone growth stimulator until 3 months, give or take a few days. Let's give you a new boot" (mine was worn out, and the cushioning air bladder no longer held air) "and see you back in two weeks. Also, you might want to try to completely stay off of it, if possible. If you have to be up and around a lot, try using crutches or a knee walker."

Determined to be careful, I rented a knee walker, and I've been using it if I have to walk a long distance. Mostly, though, I've been camped out on the living room sofa, with my foot elevated and an ice pack strapped to my foot, trying to keep it from swelling too much.

Meanwhile, my poor, wonderful husband is doing what he always does: stripping old latex paint off the woodwork throughout the house, patching cracks in walls, and generally slaving away to make our house a home.

While I lie on the sofa. Drinking La Croix and playing games on my phone.

Yes, I feel guilty.

But, you know.

Doctor's orders.

Round Two

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about being put on unpaid leave. I wasn't laid off, per se, but was just put on "unpaid leave" until the work in the office picked up again.

This morning, around 9:00 a.m., I received a phone call from Mrs. Robinson, saying that I needed to come in to get my chair, and that the guys needed my CAD license key back, etc...

In other words, I was laid off without actually being told I was laid off.

Kind of crappy.

I immediately got up, got dressed, and checked the internet for what I'm supposed to do in regards to health insurance. Our firm - er, my former firm - was under 20 employees, so no COBRA for this gal. However, the State of Texas requires that firms grant me up to 9 months on the group health insurance plan, so long as I reimburse the firm.

Whew. I went ahead and applied for unemployment benefits - which I can't receive until the last week in January, even though I haven't received severance pay or anything - and then awaited the arrival of my sainted (and tired) mother, who was loaning me her minivan so I could clear out my stuff at the office.

I showed up at the office, and the first words I said, right after, "Hey, Mrs. Robinson!" were "So I'm assuming this means I'm actually laid off, now."

She said yes, that until that morning everyone in the firm had been working on different assumptions.

Oldsmobile and our book keeper - not the most competent woman - were dead certain that I had already been laid off. Mrs. Robinson was instructed last week to write a letter to the insurance company telling them to cancel my health insurance benefits.

Ahem.

Radio, Scooter, and Pacman were all working on the assumption that I would eventually be back in the office and that my unpaid leave was temporary.

What we have he-ah is failyuh to communicate.

I informed Mrs. Robinson that, pursuant to State of Texas Regulations, I had the right to 9 months of insurance, so long as I reimbursed the company. I didn't mention that, seeing as they failed to go over all my health insurance options with me at the "exit interview" (which never happened), I could file an official complaint with the Texas Department of Insurance.

I'm nice, though, so I won't file a complaint... unless the book keeper tries to tell me that they're going to defy State of Texas regulations.

I cleared out my physical possessions (including my Ice Age III action figures, aluminum desk accessories, and wireless mouse - both of which were purchased by myself) and loaded them onto my Aeron chair, which served as a handy dandy cart for transporting all my stuff.

I will return on Wednesday to download the digital files showing all the work I performed at the office (I took the extra copies of Specifications I had, since the firm already has record copies).

Because of some rumored hiring going on at my former employer's office (not Oldsmobile's, but a different firm... the one that laid me off in 2008), the guyzos all thought I would have a brand spanking new job to go to all wrapped up and tidy in a little bow.

Heck, I was pretty certain I'd have another job, but wasn't really getting my hopes up. I'd been talking with the former employer every week about the possibility, after they first approached me to discuss my coming back.

About thirty minutes after I returned to my apartment, my cell phone rang.

"That was XYZ Firm," I said to my mom, who was napping on my sofa. "They don't have a job for me, right now." I shrugged. I wasn't really certain about getting the job in the first place, and as time dragged on (almost a month) I got the feeling that it just wasn't going to happen.

My feeling was right on target.

So now I'm looking for a job. One I won't have to move to take. There's plenty of great design jobs out there. They are all, however, in Baltimore, or Shanghai. So tomorrow, I send out resumes, and a letter of introduction for my little entrepreneurial venture (which is now up and running), and we'll see how things go from there.

Once again, I'm back to playing it by ear. But this time, I have rent to pay.

A Day In the Life

I read the news today, oh boy, while I was waiting in the doctor's office.

Okay, so it isn't quite as catchy as the Beatles' original, but I do what I can.

I started my day, shivering on a construction site, with mud clinging to the hem of my $180 jeans. I don't put my jeans in the dryer, so I hang them by their hems to dry because it usually prevents wrinkling (if the denim is soft and/or has a high lycra content). Unfortunately, this tactic also stretches the pants legs after a few washes. After you've had them hemmed. And that 1-1/4" lug sole on your ohsostylish steel-toe boots doesn't do diddlysquat when the mud is 2" deep. At least.

And Superdeeduper informed me that I should have called him over with the forklift to take the envelope containing the contractor pay-applications, seeing as it weighed more than I did.

It was a beeeeeeeeg envelope.

I stopped at Starbucks en route to the office from the construction site. Okay, it's not really on the way, and it added a good 10 minutes to the trip, but I was freezing, and I can't stand the coffee the guys in the office drink.

I was the only woman in the Starbucks who did not have at least shoulder-length hair, bleached blonde and with a straw-like consistency, and who was not dressed in yoga clothes, or something resembling yoga clothes. Half of them had cell-phones glued to their ears, and were shrieking about shoes, and organizing their closets (one thing we have in common) and how little Madison has ballet at one.

And the Uggs. They were every where.

Ugh.

I caught a couple of odd looks, standing amidst them with my cropped brown hair, voluminous paisley shawl over an aubergine turtleneck, and mud-encrusted boots (and pants hems). I smiled at the women when I caught them looking, and they looked quickly away.

Back at the office, I got to work picking up redlines for an enormous project we're doing just across the Dallas North Tollway from my little apartment.

It's a project I'll be managing next week, while Scooter is on vacation.

I meet the clients, contractor, and construction superintendent tomorrow, so they have the chance to get acquainted with me and comfortable before Scooter flees for the tropics.

Unlike Pacman, Scooter tells me before he up and vamooses, and I'll also be going to the Friday morning site meeting. It's at 8:30. I will be setting twelve alarms to make sure I get there on time. With an Egg McMuffin in my belly.

I workworkworked until 1:00, then scrammed and drove helterskelter up to Plano for a neurologist appointment. I have another one in two weeks (lucky me). I've had 10 days of migraines in 14 days (I think, I need to check the migraine Excel), and my neurologist is slightly freaking out.

But just slightly.

So now I'm tapering off my current migraine medicine (woohoo!) and will start a new one Friday night. She wrote me a prescription for a new "acute migraine" medicine (although must of my migraines are a-ugly. Sorry, I had to), but I can't take it, yet, because:

I'm starting a new migraine medicine to try to stop the cycle of migraine violence. I was exposed to lots of public awareness ads as a child, can't you tell?

The medicine is the same one you receive if you're hospitalized for migraines. The difference is that, in the hospital, they give it to you via IV. I cannot haul an IV bag around on a construction site with me, though, so I'll be taking it through the nose. Every 8 hours. For three days. And then we see if it has worked its magic.

"But what do I do with the migraine I have now?" I queried, squinting to shield my eyes from the light, even though we'd turned off the fluorescent lights to spare my poor optic nerves the strain.

"Dr. Pain gave you pain medicine, right?"

"Well, yes, to take at night."

"Snow yourself."

"Um, I'm not really supposed to do that." Visions of DEA raids danced in my muddled head.

"I'll call him."

"Okey dokey."

Granted, I still can't take my prescription pain medication during the work day because I might have to drive Oldsmobile somewhere, or drive myself somewhere, or be driven out to a construction site where I'm expected to be able to dodge flying wood pieces, if need be.

Oh, and I'm supposed to start acupuncture. Stat.

Back at the office, everyone wanted to know how the appointment had gone. I reported on my progress, or lack thereof, and shrugged.

Radio suggested I have blood work done, a full chemical workup, to make sure everything's okay.

Yeah, okay. But that will have to wait until next year. I'm flat out of vacation days, at this point, and I've still got doctor's appointments (okay, I will be out of vacation days once all the appointments are taken care of).

And now I'm in bed, writing a blog post, my belly full of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because it's the only thing that sounded good to me, and waiting for 11:00 to roll around so I can take my last dose of migraine spray (but without inhaling; it's not like sinus spray, and if you inhale , you taste it, and it tastes awful).

If you are still reading at this point... my goodness, you must be easily entertained.

About to Whine About Things Not Worth Whining About

It's getting a bit slow in the office. We were given the go-ahead today on a project (hooray!), but there's nothing for me to do on it, yet, and it's a little project, and I don't know how much we'll have to do in the way of construction drawings and millwork details, which happen to be my specialty.

I finished my assignment for Radio. He had no more tasks for me.

Pacman? Nada.

Scooter? "Uhhhhh... Yeah, but I need about thirty minutes to mark up the drawings. Do you have something to do for thirty minutes?"

Chortle. "Surf the interwebs."

"Sounds good. Go to town."

Hmmm...

I already spend about 30 minutes each day brushing up on design blogs, making sure I know what's going on in the world of millwork details, interior finishes, and the newest soft-furnishings offerings from companies I cannot afford (are you listening, Century, Henredon, and Hickory Chair? Okay, I know Hickory Chair is listening, but Century and Henredon?)

My daily blog perusal is why the guys were astonished when they said wistfully that they wished we could do interiors and I squealed and cried, "Oooh! Pick me! Pick me! Mrs. Robinson and I can do it!"

So I went back to my desk, with Scooter's blessing, and proceeded to venture into digital worlds hitherto unexplored.

I tell you, most design blogs - that is, blogs devoted exclusively to interior design - are depressing. They're cutesy and try to be hipsterish, riding the wave of zombie mania currently sweeping the pop culture beaches... or something

or they look like Z Galerie threw up all over them

or they have terrible grammar and sentence structure.

I know that my proofreading skills occasionally fall short of the mark or that I end a sentence with a preposition. I know I am definitely guilty of the rampant and irresponsible overuse of parentheses. But I also know that my sentences do not sound like a fifteen year old wrote them, and that I don't egregiously capitalize words in questions submitted to my inexplicably wide readership, the answers to which I will never respond or even read.

And I know that, although my dream house looks like the result of an Andy-Warhol/Billy-Baldwin/Dorothy-Draper orgy fueled by Dr. Pepper and lightly salted roasted almonds, I would never feature an apartment on my blog, billing it as something that is wonderful when in fact it is straight-out-of-the-Ikea-box boring. Unless it is as an example of an apartment that is boring, like so:

The above apartment was featured recently on one of the most widely read design blogs in a post entitled "Why does Barcelona have the best apartments?"

The only thing I see that this apartment has that apartments in Dallas don't have is a radiator.

That's it.

There's the cheapo flat-screen. The Panton chairs. The boring Ikea-ish white chairs. Boring rug. Minimal wall art on a boring beige wall. Light-tone wood floors (boring? Check). Why is this one of "the best apartments?" Why was it even in the running?

I save pictures I find striking to folders on my desktop at work, then email them to myself at home (compressed into zip files) where I print them off and paste them into my little OCDesign collection.

It seems like lately, there are fewer images for me to save, to collect.

Am I just becoming more discriminating (my word) or picky (in the words of an ex-boyfriend)? Or am I jaded after wading through all the cutesy, un-chic garbage (see Little Augury for a lovely tirade against overuse of that particular term)

Cut and Paste

Pacman returned to the office, today, and immediately expressed his satisfaction at how I'd been running our current project. He then left me to continue running the project, while he and Scooter deal with some tricky questions and needy contractors who are bidding a church addition. Let's hear it for earning more Intern Development Program hours for Contract Administration! Woohoo!

I decided to celebrate by... treating myself to a shower caddy. And a little plastic organizer thingy for my medicine cabinet so my tubes of face cream and tweezers don't rain down on my head when I open it to pull out my toothbrush in the morning. I threw in a new cutting board as a prize, too.

Once my shower caddy was installed, and my tubes and tweezers and extractors were all safe and sound in their cubbies, I cleaned my makeup brushes, and decided I'd indulged in enough obsessive behavior for one evening.

Let me rephrase that: enough non-creative obsessive behavior.

Shall I explain?

I'm a scrapbooker. Now, before you decide Ms. Strainedconsciousness has turned into a suburban mother of twelve, I should clarify that it is a highly curated design scrapbook, encompassing multiple facets of design: interiors, architecture (the two are inextricably linked, in my not-so-humble-opinion), fashion, and product design.

My "scrapbooks" are Moleskine A3 sketchbooks and/or watercolor books. They can fit a full 9x12 magazine page, or a multitude of tiny pictures. Recently, I've been arranging - carefully, methodically - the latter.

The pages containing multiple images and are arranged similarly to the salon walls of 18th and 19th century manor houses, with one central painting/image surrounded by smaller ones that are more or less related. I tend to related things by color. For that reason, this lady:

(okay, dame) is surrounded by interior images, all of which have a decidedly orange or red tinge, like so:

And an image of Iris Apfel - who wears the world's most amazing jewelry and spectacles - is accompanied by images of a marine hue. As long as that marine area is not Galveston.

Are you catching what I'm throwing, here? It's a wonderful exercise in the study of interiors and architecture and how they relate to individuals' tastes. In addition to Great Personalities, I also collect images off The Sartorialist website (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/), firstly to help me in expanding my personal wardrobe horizons and in targeting my wardrobe goals, but also because the way people design themselves can have an impact on the way I design interiors and architectural spaces. The following images are all from the above website.

And I'm in good company, it seems. A collection of Cecil Beaton's scrapbooks is slated to be published in the near future - November, if memory serves. He created his scrapbooks from magazines, movie posters, and snapshots to help him in his studies of lighting photography shoots and how to pose people, and to study how they interacted with their surroundings.

Ms. Strainedconsciousness and Cecil Beaton. Whodathunkit?

That Answers That Question

I went into work this morning, and the first thing I did, okay, the second thing I did, was discuss my current health issues with Oldsmobile. (The first thing was deposit my purse and my can of root beer at my desk, but that's not important). Since I cry like a French futbol player, these days, I teared up, and my voice cracked while I tried to explain to him in the least embarrassing way possible what's wrong with me and that it's causing pain.

His response? If I need to work from home where I can lie down, then work from home. If I need to take a few days off, that's fine, they won't dock my pay.

"The most important thing, Ms. Strainedconsciousness, is for you to get well." He assured me that my job was secure because I'm a vital asset to the company, I'm so professional with clients, and because I'm so adaptable within the company. They need me for all the little things that spring up that Radio, Pacman, and Scooter aren't available to do (or, as is more often the case, just don't want to do, because it's boring).

So I've just finished up a bit of commercial specification writing, prone in my bed, and I'm about to make myself some lunch and read for a few minutes - but nothing so mentally taxing as The Economist, because I am still on muscle relaxers, so I'm kind of spacey - and then I'll return to my specifications for the rest of the afternoon, feeling less stressed about work than I have in a long while.

Speaking of muscle relaxers: it is damned hard to type when you're on muscle relaxers. Thank goodness for Microsoft Autocorrect, because otherwise there would be all sorts of typographical flotsam and jetsam all over my usually impeccable specifications.

In an hour or two, I'll give myself another injection and call my primary care physician to raise a point with her about my current treatment, and a point I raised with the surgeon I'm seeing who was kind of dismissive of my point, to see if she thinks it has any merit. Maybe she'll want me to come in to see her, and maybe I can schedule it for the same day as my next appointment with the surgeon so I won't miss work on multiple days (since I'm trying to double-up for efficiency's sake).

Projected Baby Boom in Dallas

I suspect that, round about the middle of November, give or take a few days, there will be a boom in baby deliveries in Dallas. Why? You're most likely assuming it's because of Valentine's Day, but you're wrong.

The reason for the boom de bebe is the Great Blizzard of 2010.

Wait. This is Texas. We don't have such things as blizzards. And yet, as I write, there is snow on the ground outside - because it's taking forever to melt - and a slew of slushy snowmen. It began snowing Thursday and continued on into the night, knocking out the power at my own little abode for 14 hours.

I didn't have power for 14 hours! As a result, all the food in my refrigerator had to be tossed, so there are some lovely frisbee-shaped discs of frozen-thawed-refrozen soup in my trash can. After I make dinner tonight, I will be taking out the trash. Double-bagged of course.

On the upside, I didn't have to go in to work on Friday, because nobody could/would drive to the office. Only Pacman made his way to the office, and that's because he could simply take the train. Mr. Robinson was snowed in at her house and could even get out of the driveway. Radio and Scooter had to take care of their kids, whose normal daycare accommodations were closed due to the iced over streets. Oldsmobile couldn't get to the office, either - although he dearly wanted to - because his driver couldn't get to him.

What did I do with my day off? After the power came back on, I worked from home, because I thought ahead and brought some redlines home with me. Until the power reasserted its presence, however, I lay in bed in a big sweatshirt under my enormous duvet reading Dwell and The Economist. Not a bad way to spend the day off, albeit a chilly one.

You Say It's Your Birthday!

Well, it's not mine, so congratulations if it's yours. Actually, there are two awesome birthdays, today. Oldsmobile turned 458, give or take a few, and one of my friends/family members had a baby! When I told Olds that my friend had a 10 lbs. 5 oz. baby, on his birthday, his reply was, "That's a wonderful birthday gift." He seemed pleased that someone I love was born on his birthday.

As a consequence of Olds turning 543, today, we celebrated. All day long. Mrs. Robinson decorated his office with balloons and yellow streamers - he was positively delighted - and we took him "somewhere scuzzy" for his birthday, as per his request. When we told him last week we wanted to take him to lunch for his birthday, his request was "somewhere scuzzy." We jokingly told him to bring lots of $1 bills, at which point he remarked that I would need a blind-fold, since my eyes shouldn't be subjected to such horrors.

Where was "somewhere scuzzy?" Adair's Saloon, as mentioned in my May 17, 2009, post (yeah, I had to check to see which one it was. I'm not that OCD). We ordered 2 pitchers of Shiner Bock and hamburgers all around (there were 6 drinking, plus one elderly non-drinking driver - not Olds, thank goodness, but his chauffeur, who is still pretty darned old). Radio, Pacman, and Scooter seemed to think it was amusing to have me drink more than anyone else at the table because I was just doing interior elevations. Thanks, guys.

We returned to the office and ate canasta cake, courtesy of Mrs. Robinson. I think she makes her buttercream icing with Crisco instead of butter, though. It was still delicious, and we all entered a carb/alcohol coma following the meal + drinks + cake. Oy.

I actually accomplished quite a bit of work following the lunch/binge, seeing as we have marketing mailers to send out. The firm for which I work has never sent out marketing materials, before, but we are, next week. As a result, I have 100 mailers to seal after I finish writing this entry. Hooray, work! I don't mind, actually, since I can get through 50 in about 10 minutes. It's just sticking a little sticky tab over the closure. I did 150 at work, today, while I waited for drawings to print.

I'm just good like that.

Then this evening, we had a cocktail party at one of Oldsmobile's friend's homes. So we all left work at 4:45 - a full 3 hours after we finished lunch/drinking - and went and had wine and "horse dervers" at her amazing home.

Her dining room is orange lacquered. The whole thing. I covet her dining room. And, yes, I told her as much.

I met a couple of lovely people at the cocktail party, managed to make them laugh (score!) and then had dinner with Radio, because everyone else had dogs/kids to get home to. Actually, Radio has a wife and son, too, but his wife and son had already eaten, so we grabbed some food. And, because we're in the architectural profession, another beer.

Yay, architecture.

In 30 Minutes

I hope to be in bed. I've spent the better part of the week getting entirely too little sleep, being absent-minded at work, and not accomplishing anything productive when at home. It's all a bit overwhelming for this girl.

The office has been somewhat in turmoil, this week, due to some missing artifacts that are highly valuable. What are they, you ask? I can't tell you, except that one of them is a key that gives access to the other, and the other is worth a ton of money, so the two combined are pretty darned important.

Aside from the key-loss stress, there's the stress of being under a deadline that has already passed, and which is not my fault for being missed. As usual, it is the fault of the client who made demands that were simply unreasonable, then set up roadblocks to those demands being met. Frustrating at best, but enough to make a girl cry, at worst.

I have not cried. Well, not about the assignment in arrears, but I did kind of lose it today when I found out one of my friends is newly unemployed. The guys in the office, poor souls, attempted to comfort me by discussing it, leading me to laughingly cryingly say ",Don't talk about it, and I'll stop crying! Jeez, you'd never know y'all are married!" They all laughed in response to this, and remarked that men as a whole have no idea what to do when women cry, regardless of their marital status.

On a completely different note, I purchased an album by Yo La Tengo, and just read the full title:

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your A*s.

I think I'm going to love this band even more than I previously thought...

I'm Working on my Post-Doc

At least, attempting to come to terms with my current life, post-doctor-appointment. I went to see the doctor Tuesday, and after a wonderfully painful exam, recounting the events of the previous day, and explaining that I'm in near-constant pain, she said those magic words: "I have no idea what's wrong."

Neat.

Actually, not so neat. I'm not presenting any outward physical manifestations that lead her to understand what's going on, so as a stop-gap measure, she's prescribed some medication and told me to call back to book another appointment to take place in a couple of weeks.

I understand that, in light of not presenting visible symptoms, she's not sure why I'm in pain. I just wish she'd said something more along the lines of let's schedule some tests to make sure X, Y, and Z are all okay. She didn't say that, however, so I'm still hurting, in spite of the medication. The one hypothesis she did offer was that I'm in a cycle of pain, or in other words, I had a physical reason to be hurting at one point that might have been visible, but it's disappeared. The trauma from that disappeared reason may have affected the tissues around it that are responding by constantly sending pain signals.

Okay, I can buy that.

Maybe.

But I'm not satisfied with it.

On a brighter note, Thursday is the office gift-exchange. Mrs. Robinson introduced us to an interesting concept in gift exchanges: instead of buying gifts for each other, we've all bought gifts for one person - whose name we drew out of the boss' hat - and the gift is something we think that person would have liked as a child.

The toys are going to a charity that provides after-school programs for children that live near Fair Park and that live in poverty. According to the center's director, the children will occasionally wander up around supper time asking if they have any food, because they're hungry and there's no food at home and no parent around to feed them, and in the middle of winter they have no jackets, no sweaters, only short-sleeved T-shirts with holes in them. As a result, I also bought a bunch of clothes that I think Scooter - my giftee - would have liked: jeans, a red shirt with blue stripes, a grey shirt with Marvel superheroes all over it, a sweatshirt, and underwear. I opted not to buy awesome Underoos, but only because there were fewer pairs in a package that cost more than the plain white ones.

I can't wait to see the look on Scooter's face when he pulls out a package of BVDs. Should be priceless.

Back In The Saddle Again

I'm back at work now, and it feels pretty darned good. I still have a hacking cough, but other than that, my illness is all gone. The steroids are finished, too, so I finally got a decent night's sleep, Wednesday night.

Wednesday night, which also happened to be my birthday.

I enjoyed my birthday, but I didn't do anything crazy or go out partying. I had dinner with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law, and watched my sister's male dog molest my male dog, who didn't seem to know what to do.

After dinner and the show, we had birthday cake - carrot cake, mmmmmm - and then I headed back to my apartment.

My coworkers were amazed when I arrived at the office Thursday morning with half a carrot cake under my arm. I told them it was my birthday, and they all got upset, as if I'd intentionally hid the fact from them. I shrugged and told them I don't make a big deal out of my birthdays. Friday, we are having a birthday lunch for me, which is apparently how things are done, but only for me (we didn't go to lunch for Scooter's birthday).

Thursday evening, in my own little birthday celebration, I chopped off all of my hair. Yup, all 3 inches of it. For a while, I had what I referred to as long luxurious tresses, which means that my hair was longer than 1 1/2 inches. I had bangs that covered my forehead and part of my eyes, and I got a ton of compliments on the "new do."

But...

I never really felt that confident with my hair that long. Strange as it may seem, I'm much more confident in my femininity when my hair is really really short, as it now is. With my longer hair, and my more casual work wardrobe, I always felt vaguely like a soccer mom. Now, I feel a little edgier and more youthful.

Oh, and I look like I'm about 18, too.

Does this mean I'll look 30 when I'm 40? I sure hope so!

Just Like College All Over Again

Except not at all, really.

Today, after 5 hours of tagging details - interspersed with a few joyous minutes of designing details - I heard Pacman yell from the other end of the office, "Damn it! I need ice cream."

As anyone in my family will tell you, I am always up for ice cream.

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream!

Scooter immediately asked, "Where could we go for ice cream?" We checked the Internet to see what was near our office - Paciugo's is now closed, so no pricey gelato for us. Eventually, we settled on walking down to the CVS after Pacman announced that he wanted an ice cream sandwich.

We locked the office door - Radio, Lola, and Oldsmobile were all out momentarily - and bolted down the fire stairs and out into the stifling heat of Downtown Dallas on an August afternoon. A five minute walk landed us in the air-conditioned environs of the downtown CVS, with its throngs of homeless buying cases of Natural Light and its white collar workers picking up Band-Aids.

We stood in the ice cream section - just past the beer, which made us wonder if we shouldn't have just headed to the bar on the first floor of the building - and debated whether to buy a 4-pack of the Nestle cones with chocolate and almonds on top, or if we should buy 3 individual ice cream sandwiches. The ice cream sandwiches were on sale, so we grabbed them and headed to the cash register.

I love Downtown because of all the people there from varying social strata that you wouldn't normally find interacting. The woman in front of us - with a gold tooth, but not the whole tooth, the kind that just sort of wraps around partially in the front - had another identifying feature: a bar code tattooed on the back of her neck. I guess it was to complement the three stars tattooed on the side.

Once back in the office, we began speculating: was the bar code there for quicker processing at the county jail? What would she ring up as if scanned? Would she be expensive or cheap?

Because of the tattoo's location, we couldn't see the SKU, but I suspect it was either some significant number (to her) or a string of curse words.

Why did the adventure remind me of college?

When I was in school, we'd be up at the architecture building all night, and occasionally, we'd make a 3 a.m. run to the local QuikTrip to get a huge soda and a hot dog or some chips (or those chocolate cream-filled cupcakes). There were always hapless drivers who'd turned the wrong way en route to I-20 while looking for gas, and their Land Rover would be parked next to a Cadillac sedan from the mid-80s with 26" chrome rims, and there'd be a female "hitch-hiker" in the parking lot, asking for money.

Of course, the QT smelled much better than the CVS. There was plenty of debate about the smell, but we finally settled on:

TRASH + FOOD GREASE + CHEAP PERFUME = EAU DE CVS DE VILLE.

My Faith in Corporations Has Been Restored! Maybe...

I spoke to two competent people at AT&T Wednesday - yes two! back to back! and both apologetic when I relayed my awful experience of the day prior! - and one of them told me why my package was delivered to Fort Worth: apparently, that's the dock from where it was shipped, and that's to where they return. But why was it sent back? I asked. My UPS man ALWAYS leaves a notification on my door if I'm not home: I know for a fact, because I've had multiple large packages delivered, rerouted, etc... in the past 3 weeks.

The Poor Operator had no idea, but she had my wireless modem re-shipped to me at my office, and it should be here by Friday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, which makes typing incredibly difficult, as you can imagine. TPO also told me that there is a problem with my DSL service that is not related to my lack of having the appropriate equipment with which to access it, and she sent a request for someone to see what the heck is going on so I can be up and running ASAP.

She also reassured me that I will not be billed for the DSL until it is active. So far, it's not active, it's just pending.

So I'm holding off on whether or not I'm happy with the service I've been given until my DSL is working properly. Until it is active.

Other than that, there is no big news. Except, possibly, that Lola's son has been in the office the past couple of days to hang out with his mom prior to going back to school next week, and he's caused countless distractions.

Where should he eat lunch turned into a 20 minute lecture from Pacman on the evils of corporate restaurants.

Where should he sight-see while this close to Downtown turned into a debate on whether or not the farmer's market is too far for him to walk (yes), whether or not he should take the DART train to the Nasher Sculpture Center (me: yes; kid: no), and then a frantic hunt for Oldsmobile's Nasher membership card (in Oldsmobile's pocket - he handed it over when he got back from lunch).

There's also been a considerable amount of standing around talking, recently, and not just by me. Everyone seems to be involved. Pacman, Scooter, Lola, and me sitting around in the "lobby" talking about... I have no idea what, 24 hours later. But it was important and interesting at the time.

Today, there was an on-line hunt for a fellow for whom I used to work at a large architecture firm in Dallas. I have no idea what the man's name is, I just know that he was the only person who was nice to me during my short (3 month) tenure in the firm from Hades. Pacman wanted to know who the kindly gent was, and I couldn't tell him, so he began scouring the firm's website for information about him. None to be found. The firm's probably laid off everyone but the principal's.

In short: I feel a bit unproductive, of late. Maybe it will pick up, later on. I think part of it is boredom, because millwork details aren't that exciting, and tagging them in drawings is definitely NOT exciting. I need to snap out of it.

Maybe turning off the interwebs for a day would help.

Snarkicism

My coworkers and I stumbled upon a rival's website today while attempting to hunt down the contact information for one of his former employers. As I sat in my cubicle, all by my lonesome, updating interior elevations, I heard Radio yell, "Guys, come look at Moog's website!" Moog is not, of course, the rival's real name. Radio is not named Radio, Pacman is not named Pacman, and Scooter is not - thankfully - actually named Scooter. This is all to protect certain peoples' identities, as well as my own employment.

We all rushed into Radio's cubicle and there, on the screen, was Moog, orating to someone off-camera about his theory of architecture - which is pretty much Le Corbusier 101 - and the materials he uses ("Hey, we use those, too!"). It wasn't until the second go-round that we realized there was more to the site than just the video, which served only to make Moog look somewhat laughable in the eyes of architects, but which might seem impressive to lay-people.

What was so striking about the occurrence and its effect on all of us is that we all respect Moog very highly - he's probably one of the most talented architects in Texas, myself not-withstanding . However, the video made him appear to be an overblown and pompous ass, which I'm sure he's not. I've never actually met the man, since he is too far above my own plebeian status in the world of architecture.

Of course, the rampant snarkiness that ensued as we watched the video is just one reason that I love my job so much. The guys I work with are genuinely funny, and have the same "take no prisoners" sense of humor that I inherited from my father. They can turn anything into a joke, and the best jokes are at their own expense, typically. Today, however, they weren't forced to mock themselves as the all-knowing and incredibly impressive Moog gave us ample fodder for that.

First Day On The Job

Monday was my first day at the new architecture firm. It went incredibly well, which sort of surprised me. It mostly surprised me because I woke up every hour, on the hour, from 2:30 am Monday morning until 6:30 am, at which point I jumped out of bed, ate some cereal - something I don't think I've done since college - and got dressed.

The office opens officially at 9:00 am.

I arrived at the office building 40 minutes early.

And the only reason I wasn't 46 minutes early was because I took a roundabout way of getting to the building, via the Design District. I sat in my car and made a To Do List for a while, played a couple of games on the old iPhone, and finally decided to go in about 8:40, because I just couldn't stand it anymore.

My computer wasn't ready, but one of my coworkers, who I'll call Scooter, from now on - but not to his face - was on vacation, so I sat in his desk and familiarized myself with the project on which I'll be working using his Mac. I will be working with another fellow, who I'll call Pacman (if you can figure out why, I'll be impressed - and no, it's not dirty).

I was somewhat disappointed to learn that I won't be receiving the big fancy Mac; the senior associate at the firm gets that one. I'll be receiving the senior associate's old computer, after it returns from the computer guys that are wiping all the old files off it so I'll be working with a "clean slate." After seeing how HUGE the new Mac is, though, I'm kind of relieved: it's about the size of a 24" flat-screen TV, which is slightly overwhelming when it's 18" from your face. I already miss having two screens, like I did at my old job. I might have to remedy this by - um - imagining I have another one. Like Hades am I spending my hard-earned $$$$ on computer hardware, even if it does mean I can take it with me at a later date! Of course, in 3 months, I might rethink this position, but for right now, I'm keeping things as they are.

I'm about to start working on a couple of tutorials for the Building Information Modeling software we use. I already did one tutorial a month ago, but I just found the other quadrillion that the company posts - oops - so I spent a couple of hours working on those at the office, and I'm going to do some more tonight. It took about 2 hours to do one chapter of the tutorial, so it might turn out to be a long night. Not that I'll do the whole thing, but I do intend to do at least one more chapter before all is said and done.

I think the senior associate needs a nickname, too... I think Radio fits the bill!

Public Domain image may be found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philco_radio_model_PT44_front.jpg)