this evening's financial advice: buy stock in green tea, coke, and pepsi

it's been over a month, and i've had the chance to write, well, pretty much zip. 

actually, i suppose that's not quite correct- i guess i have had the chance, but doing paperwork for job #3 and sleeping have been taking up my otherwise free time because:

1) it's important to pay the bills and 

2) it's important to sleep so one can function well enough to work to pay the bills. 

there was an interesting development yesterday that affects both of the above. it wasn't really what i'd planned on writing about this evening*, but sometimes one must just go with the flow, right? 

you know all those studies that have come out recently regarding working third shift and the effects on one's health? no? look here.....and here.... and here.

i mention this because i've been promoted to working overnights full time, which is a raise of a couple of bucks an hour, but i'm a little worried about the new health risks. i mean, i've been covering two overnight shifts a week since i started this job back in september, but by the end of the weekend, the nap/work combo usually leaves me completely wiped out. 

i'll be covering five nights a week in this new position. so far, i've asked for thursday nights off (it's the night i hang out with my friends each week), but i still have to determine what my second night off will be. i'm leaning towards friday nights (it's really hard to talk myself into running in a saturday morning race after being up all night- especially when i have to be at job #2 by 11am), but after reading the articles above, i'm not sure it wouldn't be wiser to take maybe sunday or monday night off so i can catch up on sleep. thankfully, i have a few days to make up my mind. 

actually, i guess "a couple of nights to make up my mind" might be slightly more accurate. 


*remind me to tell you sometime about a recent conversation regarding wyoming and class disparity.

write on.

after seeing a very close friend persuing a dream of his, i'm starting to think maybe it's time to start working on my future best-selling memoir. (the fact that i made one of my resolutions to knock a few things off of my "40 before 40" list, on which "write future best-selling memoir" appears might be another piece of motivation.)

i just have to figure out where to begin......

something festive i borrowed from post secret....

i keep forgetting to share this with you. i didn't submit it, but the stocking fits, so i'm wearing it:

i'll be laying low for a few days after this, partially because i have a bunch of paperwork to do for job #3 (and christmas just hit my credit card and i need to get it back off again asap), and partially because i've felt a little "off" since getting back to town, and i think my free time may be best spent both horizontal and unconscious.

if you haven't heard from me by mlk day, send a scout- preferably gerard butler. 

home again, home again, jiggety jig

where did i leave off? had my life flashed before my eyes as the winged tin can bounced around in the air? was it before, or after the mass consumption of fudge? was i making snow angels on a square foot of snow surrounded by dry grass, or was there enough snow that passers-by didn't automatically think i was having some sort of a seizure?

none of that had happened yet?

well, i guess we have a little catching up to do, don't we?

my second flight last sunday was on a winged tin can (also known as a cessna). aside from the pilot, rob, and his copilot, whose name i didn't catch, there were four passengers on the plane, including a guy from chicago who had zero experience flying in such a vessel.*

after the pilot introduced himself, he told us to "feel free to ask any questions".

my inquiry regarding whether or not we'd be dusting crops during the flight did not go over well, with my question regarding the stewardess bringing around the beverage service faring only slightly better. (i thought it best to save my query about the "in flight movie" for the return trip. you know- assuming i survived this one.)

aside from some rather, uh, invigorating, turbulence, the flight was relatively uneventful, although our approach for landing resulted in a definite shift in priorities upon landing.**

before i go on, i should mention (especially to those who don't know me well) that i am not a passive vacationer. when i travel, i try to explore as much of my surroundings as possible. going someplace exotic only to get drunk by the pool and catch up on back issues of "people" magazine is more suited to people who have more money than imagination. when i travel solo, i tend to be up at first light, down after dark, and out and about in between.

however, there is one exception to this rule: the annual holiday trip to see mama in maine.

something about being there causes my system to switch to autopilot. i catch up on weeks' worth of sleep. i finish books i'd started reading months before. i brush up on my scrabble skills. fudge is procured from our favorite store an hour's drive away, and if there's any left by the time my departure date rolls around, i declare victory. if we don't plan on leaving the house, i don't plan on leaving my pajamas.

this vacation was no different, except with a surprise extension, due to a moist breath of cold air from mother nature, beginning a few hours before i was supposed to board another winged tin can for the first leg of the trip home. (winged tin cans don't do so hot in high winds or snowstorms, as i understand it.) 

i believe i may have been responsible for this little development.

during my annual visit, i always make at least one snow angel. always. 

given the lack of snow this time around, i did the only sensible thing. i plopped down atop the tiny remnants of last week's storm and made my snow angel.

fortunately, she does not live in the middle of a major metropolis, so it's not like her neighbors were likely to pass by, wondering who on earth was having a seizure in the middle of her lawn.
apparently, such an action is the winter equivalent of a "rain dance", as there was about 4" of snow covering her lawn less than 24 hours later, with a stiff wind blowing it into drifts of 6" or so- conditions that, as i mentioned before, are not ideal when one is trying to fly a teeny, tiny aircraft. 

while i suppose some would have felt inconvenienced by the delay, i was actually pretty thrilled. my next shift at the full time job was still a couple of days off, and there was fresh snow to play in. the only thing that would make the day better would be the addition of scalloped potatoes and ham (which mama happened to be making a batch of for her lunches next week).

play was balanced with a little shoveling, mostly to keep mama from doing it all herself, though i must admit i had ulterior motives- i'd consumed mass quantities of fudge over the past few days, and i was a little concerned the my jeans and i might not be such a good fit for each other upon my return home. (it didn't help that mama defrosted more fudge as soon as she'd learned my flight was cancelled.)

by the time i was asked yesterday morning how much i'd weighed***, i was fairly confident that i'd only gained a pound or two. (thankfully, the ticketing agent/gate agent/baggage handler/little orange baton wielder at the augusta airport didn't shatter the illusion by asking me to hop on the scale. then again, i suppose it was pretty close to the truth by the time we boarded, since i went to the restroom at least twice while we waited for the pilot to free himself from his driveway and arrive at the airport.)

(as you will note, unlike those magic growing sponges, water did not make this thing any bigger.) 

the first leg of my return trip was much like my previous experience on the winged tin can, except this time the question that didn't go over well involved the in-flight movie. oh- and i became seriously concerned as we headed into boston that we might be in for an unscheduled water landing. that would have been a very bad thing, not just because my swimming skills resemble that of a dog with a couple of broken legs, but also because i seriously doubt the extra fudge mama threw into my backpack would float.

*had mama not found this out from his mother, i probably still would have figured it out. we kept grabbing the seats in front of us at the same time. if "synchronized panic" were an olympic sport, we would have gotten the gold, for sure.

**"hi, mama. where's the can?"

***a question that was just as unsettling then as it was a few days prior

hopefully not the last you hear from me....

"please tell me i'm going to be flying on one of the larger tin cans with wings out there," i said.

the ticketing agent looked at me as if i were insane, then said* "you are on a nine passenger plane."

sh*t

(that's not in quotes only because i barely managed to keep it in my head. it was a close call , though.)

"so, that's a "no"' huh?"

instead of answering my very important query, she responded by asking about my weight.

"well, it was 117 yesterday." 

i thought about pointing out that i'd eaten since then, but i figured it might have been balanced out at the other end during the course of the day. (my love of cheese is well-known, but i didn't have that much yesterday.)

for the first time ever, my carry ons were even weighed.**

now, don't get me wrong- i'm not normally a freaked-out flier. i love airports, from west yellowstone (my favorite little domestic airport), to kulusuk (my favorite tiny foreign airport), to bwi (long live the stained glass crab of my youth), to salt lake city (my favorite place to spend a long layover), to charlotte, my localish airport (though i cursed them this morning, when i couldn't get connected to their wireless internet to save my life.)

i also have come to enjoy flying, which is, let's face it, the most convenient way to travel between airports. 

however, when mama said a few days ago, "you know you're going to be on a tiny plane, right?", i was not filled with the warm fuzziness of happiness and contentment. 

dear reader, i'm afraid i uttered an exclamation that would require multiple asterisks to shield your delicate peepers from its vulgarity.

now, when you also take into account the very rough landing we had on the large plane coming in from charlotte***, you can probably understand why the news that i only have 9 other people with me is not comforting. in fact, i was strongly considering turning around and boarding the bus to bangor, but then i saw this:

i don't normally engage in "retail therapy", but my new swatch is pretty sweet- and waterproof to 100 feet, just in case of a water landing. 

*with more than a hint of attitude, i might add.

**a good thing this isn't a regular occurance. my heavier bag weighs 29 pounds. i'd packed light, for once.

***while i did not toss my cookies, i cannot say i had completely ruled it out, either.

though it's cold and lonely in the deep, dark night....

it's officially the 22nd here in columbia, south carolina.

i'm still here. you're still here.(judging from all of the calls i've gotten here at the answering service this evening, we're not the only ones who survived the nopacalypse.)

i also realized this afternoon that this turn of events (lack of events?) has disappointed not only the mayans, but meatloaf, as well.

on the bright side, the world might not actually be scheduled to end until sunday. i'm not sure if this is due to the mayans skipping a couple of leap days, or merely a mathematical error- i'm certainly the last person who should call anyone out on the latter.

this extension is a good thing, as i still haven't taken care of anything on this list. (not that i intend to do anything involving soccer mom porn, bright red lipstick, or online dating, but i'm pretty sure a ben & jerry's banana split is the breakfast of champions.)

i suppose this means it's as good a time as any to tell you that your outfit is fabulous, your smile is dazzling (though you probably should check for green stuff stuck between a couple of your pearly whites), and i think you have a truly dizzying intellect.

oh, and just in case i haven't told you already, i love you.*

*until the end of time, currently slated for sunday.   

my latest shameful little secret

i should probably be ashamed of myself. 

i suppose i could blame it on being traumatized last weekend (scroll down if you missed the post), though, really, when the "victim advocate" called, i assured him that i really hadn't felt too victimized, as the perpetrator was unarmed. 

i could blame it on the phase of the moon, or this head cold i keep waking up with. 

however, realistically, i have only myself to blame. (well, myself and the catchy hook in this tune, which i have listened to more times than i should admit in the two days since my copy of "now that's what i call music 80"*):

never mind the fact that these guys hadn't been born by the time the new kids on the block released "step by step"- i dig them anyway. 

*the european series is soooooo much better than the american one

having had both caffeine and adrenaline, i think i'll stick with the former.

sometimes, exciting stuff happens.

last night (well, technically, early this morning) was one of those times. 

i can only come to the conclusion that the universe knows my holiday letter is as yet unwritten and has therefore decided to give me more interesting experiences to add to it this year. unfortunately, the excitement from less than 24 hours ago was not of the "hey....i picked the right powerball numbers" variety. it was more of the "potentially pants-wetting" variety. 

there i was, minding my own business, thrilled by the fact that the incoming calls here at the answering service had finally slowed down, when i saw tail lights in between the cracks in the blinds covering the window in front of my workstation. since this neighborhood is mixed business/residential, i figured someone had merely gotten lost leaving the strip club down the road at 4am and needed a place to turn around. 

then, the banging started. 

i was 90% certain all of the doors were locked (there's one i never check, but no one ever uses it, so i trust it's secured), but after the second bang, i dialed 911.

i was on the phone with the 911 operator when i heard the crash. i assumed it meant someone had gotten in the back door- the one i never check. about a minute later, he was standing across the room from me:

he looked just like this, except he was black, a little under 6" tall, skinny, wearing black sweats, and too surprised to see me to say anything, much less "heh heh heh".

had i not been trying to determine whether or not he had a weapon*, i might have been tempted to inquire as to whether he was trying to find tp for his bunghole. 

thankfully, he was more scared of me than i was of him**, and fled back down the hall and through the window from whence he came. 

meanwhile, i was still on with the dispatcher, who was working on summoning help for me. i looked out the window to try and obtain the license plate number as they squealed out of the driveway, but all i could see was that it was a dark, pontiac grand am-sized car with a 90 day temporary tag. 

the cops showed up a couple of minutes later. naturally, i was a little hesitant to let anyone in without knowing exactly who they were, so the dispatcher had to confirm their identities before i unlocked the door. 

it took a few minutes to determine how the kid had gotten in- i could've sworn the crash was from the back door, but everything was locked. i think the officers thought i was making this up.....until one of them noticed that the air conditioner in one of the rooms down the hall had been shoved to the side and there was now a gap about a foot wide next to it. (did i already mention that he was a skinny little dude?)

after they gathered a little information from me, two of the officers left the third to dust for prints. (i was asked whether or not he'd been wearing gloves. i replied that i hadn't noticed. i was busy being relieved he wasn't brandishing a weapon.) i went back to my calls, while waiting for the owner of the business to show up. 

the last officer left before the business owner arrived, but he gave me a case number, as well as a number to call to have him redispatched, if needed. when the owner got here, he told me this was the only break in they'd had in the eleven years they've owned this building. the only other incident of any sort during that time was about a month ago, when the other girl who handles third shift was confronted by the stripper next door who was fleeing from her abusive, crackhead boyfriend. (she was pretty shaken up by that, so i can only imagine what this morning's incident would've done to her.)

the owner offered to stay if i was uncomfortable being by myself. i told him i was fine, but while he was here, i'd appreciate it if he'd unlock the back office, where the supplies were kept. 

the guy who broken in may not have needed the tp, but the roll in the bathroom was empty and i still had a couple of hours left in my shift.

*thankfully, he wasn't packing. otherwise, i assure you i would've been packing something in my pants.

**actually, we were probably about even on that