catheroominations

In honor of National Grammar Day, I thought I’d share with you some of my biggest pet peeves regarding grammar. I realize these sound accusatory like I’m scolding you (yes you) for committing these heinous grammatical crimes, but these are directed toward no one in particular. I’m just venting. Here they are in no particular order (despite the numbers on the list):

1. Please, please, spell definitely correctly. It is not definAtely. Spell it right. With an i.
2. It’s is the conjunction of it is. Its (with no apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Also, other pronouns have possessives. It’s yours (not your’s), ours (not our’s), hers (not her’s) and his (not hi’s).
3. There is a book on the table. Not their is a book on the table or they’re is a book on the table. Their is possessive. They’re is the conjunction of they are. If a book belongs to more than one person it is said to be their book. There is their book that they’re very proud of. Got it?
4. Your is possessive. (Damn, these possessives give people all sorts of trouble.) You’re is the joining of you and are. You’re being incorrect in your grammar use when you use your instead of you’re.
5. Now this one is tricky. I don’t know why the rule is this way, but it’s by accident and on purpose. It is not on accident. (Funny, I never hear anyone say, “I did it by purpose.”) Example: I smashed into the ASS UV by accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. I understand the confusion here because why is on OK for purpose, but not OK for accident. I’ll tell you why. Because. That’s why.
6. This last one is not so much a grammar peeve, but a peeve in general. If you sign your emails with BRGDS, it does not at all convey the same sentiment as if you sign it Best regards. Because, you most definItely are not conveying your best regards if you can’t even take the extra keystrokes to type out the entire TWO WORDS. Do not shorten it to BRGDS. For all I know you could be signing it Bitchy Ridiculously Gassy Dip Shit.

This concludes my rant on grammar for the day. Until late this morning I didn’t know today was even a “holiday.” But had I known, I would have stood on the street corner holding a large piece of cardboard with grammar lessons such as the ones listed here. Maybe I could have made some extra dough.

*Today will also be forever remembered as the day that Brett Favre announced his retirement from the Green Bay Packers. Which, by the way, I would not have cared about before I met my husband. But because I married into a Packer family, today I’m sad.

I am not patient. I am an emotional fidget and feel a general unease when I am expecting something. I don’t wait well. If I am told I’ll have an answer/thing/test result by a specific date, and that date passes, I get very…very…well…impatient. I become agitated even before the specific date comes. It’s the waiting. It drives me crazy.

The mail at our house usually arrives by noon. If I’m home on a weekend, and I hear the mailman I will wait until I hear him slam the mailbox doors, and immediately go see what has arrived for me. Even if I am not expecting something specific. There might be a random check in there from someone or something, you know? My husband doesn’t usually bring in the mail. I remember walking with him to the mailbox before we lived together and he had days’ worth in the box. But for me, it’s the First Thing I Do when I get home. I gotta see it! Now!

I regularly order my lunch online from this place, so that when I arrive, it is ready and waiting for me on the pick-up shelf, with my name on the bag. Why order ahead when you have to wait in line once you get there to pick it up? And God forbid having to talk to a person to make the order. I don’t have time for idle chit chat. More waiting for my food! Gah!

I am a busy person. OK. Sometimes not really terribly busy, but I still hate waiting.

Here are four things I am currently waiting for (erm…I mean four things for which I am currently waiting”):

1. My car. I want my baby back, and now would be a good time to return it to me. Cuz remember when you said I’d have it by the 26th? That was last week, Mister. And you had an extra day last month to finish the work, and I still don’t have it. Please hurry. Kthanksbye.
2. An email from JPG Magazine either congratulating me for my outstanding photo or rejecting my sucky-ass photo I submitted for the upcoming issue. In one case, I shall jump around the house and clap and laugh and dance in circles and think I am the Most Awesomest Person Ever in the Whole Wide World. Should the email begin with “We at JPG Magazine regret to inform you…” I will pout and stomp my feet, think my every photo I ever took was a steaming pile of crap, and vow never to take another photo again. Until…ooh, look! Kitties!
3. Confirmation that I am one of the 20,000 registered runners to Run Like a Girl. This even has become so popular, they had to set up registration as a lottery system this year and the chosen few thousand runners will be notified on April 1. It’s completely moronic that I am waiting for this right now because I cannot even register for the lottery drawing until tomorrow. But come ON! Can’t we move this process along? (tapping toes madly)
4. About 35 pounds to disappear from my body. This is taking forever. Possibly because I have not made any changes to my eating habits to facilitate such. (I have no trouble waiting when it comes to starting a diet. Isn’t that funny?) But really, is it that bad that I can’t order my daily sandwich without throwing in the fresh-from-the-oven, big-as-my-face chocolate chip cookie for dessert? I mean, in the grand scheme of things? I only eat ONE per day. It’s not like I scarf 20 of them or anything. Gawd. What do you want from me???

So, where do you put yourself on the patience/impatience spectrum? Are you sitting by me bouncing your knee and biting your nails in nerve-wracking angst? Or are you way over there at the other end (Hello over there!) with the Zen folks, doing meditative breathing and reciting passages from the Book of Buddha?

Someone has taken my brain, placed it one of those mesh metal baskets and dropped it into a vat of boiling oil. It’s fried, people. To a crisp.

My week-long class was intense. It was so unlike any “seminar” I’ve attended. This was like a college course packed into one week, complete with writing a paper and taking a final exam on the last day. 10 hours a day of instruction, daily quizzes, reading assignments, and workshops kept me from eating even remotely healthy foods and getting enough rest.

Last night, while I slept in my own bed, visions of my final paper and exam answers danced in my head and I realized where I messed up, and what answers I got wrong. Not-so-sweet dreams. There’s nothing I can do about it now. But if I don’t pass, I will cry.

I’m still not done with this damn cold that caused my sinus infection and that is pissing me off. Had I bailed on the training (and lost the $1,700 course fee), I probably could have called in sick to work and gotten rest and fluids last week. But I couldn’t get out of taking the class. So I am still sick.

My half marathon is THREE WEEKS from tomorrow. Today, my Team in Training group is doing another long run at a beautiful location and I have to miss it because my head is so full of snot and phlegm, I could probably only make it 1/16 of a mile. I haven’t run much in the last three weeks so I was really looking forward to getting back into it once class was over. But I can’t yet. Worse, I’m afraid all the training I did before Christmas will be out the window. I have not run a distance longer than 10 miles, and the one time I did that in mid December, I was miserable. I want to try 10 miles again before the race on SuperBowl Sunday, but I don’t see how that can happen.

Usually, being sick doesn’t bother me so much. But I don’t usually have a half marathon to run, and I can take the time required to get well. If I miss work this week because I’m sick, I do not care. I need to get back to my normal clearly breathing, not sneezing, not stuffy-headed self. I like that person much more than this one.

FYI: having a sinus infection on an airplane is HIGHLY UNPLEASANT. Also, sinus infections can cause toothaches. This is good news I was happy to learn because I could not endure that for much longer and I wouldn’t be able to go to the dentist until a week from tomorrow. I will be in a class for 14 hours (yes 14 hours) a day starting tomorrow. It starts at 7 am and ends at 5, but then afterwards we have evening workshops that last until after 9 pm. Fun times.

I’m sick and I need rest and I want my own bed. Although, a deluxe room in a hotel in San Francisco could be nice too. Especially because it comes with a Bath Butler. Someone will come and actually draw me a bath. This drawing of the bath will have to happen at 11 pm or so though, so I might need to ask him to stay in the room and make sure I don’t doze off and slide underwater.

I don’t have time to be sick right now. I’m supposed to focus in this training class, do group presentations, and pass a final at the end. All with a pressurized head full of phlegm. But I have my antibiotics so the pressure should subside soon (I hope).

So, when should I rest to get over this sinus thing? Maybe when the class is over on Friday. That will be beneficial, I’m sure.

I had planned to at least try a treadmill run or go outside in San Francisco and run this week while I’m there for this training. Running would have to happen at either 5 am or at 11 pm, so, I might as well be sick since running at those times is not ideal.

The good news is that ffter this training is over (assuming I pass the exam), I will be certified and will be able to perform specialized duties at work. I think I should ask for a raise. Don’t you? And a vacation. Who cares if I just got back from one on Friday?

P.S: This post is a little bit all over the place, but I’m on drugs.

This morning, while piddling about the apartment, procrastinating getting ready for work, I noticed something on the patio. It was a power cable for a laptop. And it was plugged in to the power outlet. Now, this isn’t a terribly extraordinary find, say, in August, when Matte likes to work outside, but it’s been around 40 degrees here lately, and unless Matte has Eskimo tendencies I’m not aware of, it’s too cold for him to spend any length of time writing code on the patio. Also, this power cable was for an HP and we are a Dell/Apple family.

This can mean only one thing. Well, two things. 1) someone who is not us was using our power, and 2) someone who is not us was on our patio. Our property. Where we live, sitting on our patio furniture.

Granted, they were not in our apartment, but still. It creeps me out. They have intruded on our space. Invaded our haven. I want to call Grissom to come and run a fingerprint check on the frozen cable. Ooh, better yet: Warrick. Yeah. And I would bake him cookies and just stare at his face, because those eyes. (THUD) He’s like over a foot taller than I am, so I’d have to stand on one of the violated Ikea chairs in order to be hypnotized by his eyes, and said chair would probably fold within itself under my weight and I’d come crashing to the concrete. But he would save me, catching me in his big, strong arms. Oh, and what if he needed to make sure i wasn’t trying to frame someone? That I created the crime scene? He might need my DNA. I’d be more than happy to open wide for Warrick Brown. So he could swab my cheek, I mean. And then, when he realized I had no part in creating this scene, he’d feel terrible for doubting my innocence. So we would make out.*

Uhm…so yeah. Where was I?

Oh. Yeah. SOMEONE WAS ON OUR PATIO STEALING OUR ELECTRICITY! Do not step one foot on our (rented) property without an invitation. Our abode is not your Internet cafe. There is a Starbucks just down the street, in any direction you look. Oh, and guess what, Mr. Space Invader! I took your cable from the patio, so now you are powerless. Literally. How do you like that, Assface?

*In a purely hypothetical world, of course. Love ya, Matte!

In honor of Festivus, I hereby present my very own airing of (workplace) grievances:

• Popping your gum so loudly I can hear it from four cubicles away.
• Nail clipping in your cubicle. I mean, come ON!
• Using the word “right” used when it doesn’t belong. (“I left him a message, right? And he never called me back, right? And I’m still playing phone tag with him, right?”) It has reached epidemic proportions at my company.
• Lack of articles before nouns (“customer wants a meeting tomorrow”). Unless someone has the extreme misfortune to have the first name “Customer,” use a freaking article when referring to them.
• Making phone calls using your speaker phone, in your cubicle. Unless you are performing a bris or something, pick up the damn receiver.
• Discussions that take place between two cubicles, when my cubicle separates the two cubicles housing the people having the discussion.
• Cubicles. Suck.
• Reheated fish in the microwave. Just…EW.
• Singing in the stall in the restroom. Really? Singing? Are you just so happy to be evacuating your bladder that you cannot contain yourself? At least you’re not singing about the actual act. I guess I should cut you a break.
• Also? People who answer the phone while in the stall. Every time someone does that, I flush. Even if I don’t have to at the time. Because folks on the other end of the line need to know that they are talking to someone while they are sitting on the commode.

So, in the spirit of all things Festivus, please air your own grievances (workplace or other) in the comments.

Next up, Feats of Strength!

We are destined to either 1) pay rent forever or 2) buy a house in Iowa. We definitely won’t be buying in Santa Clara County anytime soon.