doomy doom

I follow Design*Sponge’s blog because it has all sorts of wonderfulness that appeals to me on many different levels.  Yesterday it was the food level.  They had a post about a banana bread recipe!  My mom used to have two recipes in her cookbooks that I was fond of for banana bread.  The one was cake-y and not my favorite, but the other.. oh man.. the other was moist and delicious.  I could never remember which was which, so I would try the one and hope it was the Right One.  No longer do I have to concern myself with this dilemma.  Besides, my mom’s cookbooks are far, far away.  Yesterday D*S posted a delicious banana bread recipe that I made this evening and am a total fan of!  It’s easy, and while my ingredients may be a bit different, it’s totally worth trying out.

Banana Bread recipe (for cooking conversions, click here)

1 stick + 1 tablespoon butter (125g)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

4-5 ripe bananas

1tsp vanilla essence

1/2 teaspoon of Salt

(Bake using a 9×5×3 or 8×4×4 loaf pan)

—

Beat butter and sugar until creamy

Add eggs

Add dry ingredients (including salt)

Add mushed up bananas and vanilla essence

Bake at 350F/180°C for 1 hour.

Now, I didn’t have regular flour, so I used 100% whole wheat flour, raw sugar, and just kinda guessed at the salt since I didn’t write down how much on the scrap of paper.  I also added a big dash of cinnamon (since I can’t bake much without adding it).  Pretty friggen delicious.  I highly recommend it.  Tomorrow I will take over a couple slices to my best friend and his girlfriend and see if it passes.  I have high hopes!

Bake on, people!

Forgive the camera phone pic. I couldn’t find my other camera in time..

…in time to take a picture that wasn’t half a loaf or less.. muhahaha..

While December was fraught with disappointment and unease, January and now February have held anything but those feelings.  Instead I now feel more hope and peace than I have in quite a while.  I had dinner with a friend recently who remarked that I seem brighter and more relaxed than I have in a long time.  Honey, I feel it.

The move into a new place went well, though I dragged my feet a bit in getting everything moved over.  It’s hard to motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning when you have nothing substantial for which to get out of bed.  Regardless, I am now settled and living a quiet, solitary life out on a ranch in the country.  I’m ever so fond of it.  There’s a ranch cat who will occasionally grace me with its presence.  A Great Pyrenees lives out there as well, and she, Regret, will on occasion stop in to check on me.  The mule and horse that live there pretend that I don’t exist, but I think in the end we’ll become friends.  I might just have to make it my mission.  The other four horses that are staying there now know me fairly well and we’re all on good terms.  I end up feeding them more often than not, so what’s not to love about me?  So let’s see… quiet place to live? Check.  Acreage to roam and hike around?  Check.  Animals to befriend and converse with?  Check.  As few people as possible?  Check.  Gosh, it might just be ideal.  The biggest downside?  No internet.  Yes, dear Reader, I have no internet out there, hence my lack of timely updates.  It was called to my attention recently that I left you hanging with the depression that dripped from the last posting.  My apologies.

The job situation has been handled.  I am now working for a friend, or for someone who has now become my friend, and am enjoying it rather well.  I can only hope that I can maintain such positivity for long periods of time.  I do enjoy how resourceful I can be when I put my mind to it and am quite glad I was blessed with such will power.  I am also glad to have wonderful friends with whom I can share my life and my skills with in order to benefit them as well.  I never exactly expected all my random skills to come in handy, but I tend to surprise myself with how forward thinking some part of my brain is, however hidden from the forefront it may be.

I spoke with Linda a week or so ago to keep in contact.  She decided to quit after all.  They had continually disrespected her and she felt no need to keep herself in such a situation.  It was affecting her health, her mental state, and her life; it wasn’t worth it.  Too often people will sacrifice themselves for money and wonder why their life isn’t as satisfying as they think it should be.  She wasn’t one of those people, but it is a common thread I see among most people.  I am only glad that her integrity was able to withstand the poison and allowed her to free herself and move on, hopefully, to better things.

Say what you want and keep moving forward.

I always end up seeing some news or magazine article with the same title.  It’s silly, but I’m using it.

This year was the year for traveling.  I got to see Grand Cayman Island.  Quite a lot of fun there.  I flew out to Chicago to visit with my sister and then drove over to Indianapolis to see my friend graduate from Purdue.  Both wonderful trips.

This year has left me with a nice sense of peace about myself.  Sometimes it takes our whole lives to feel comfortable within our own skin.  My skin is finally starting to feel comfortable around me.  I’m a fan.

This year has also been a bit painful.  My cat, my furry daughter, died a couple weeks ago, which is quite devastating.  It’s not something I can really explain to anyone.  No one would take it seriously if I said it was like losing a child, but that’s exactly how it feels to me.  After 15 years together, she was my child, my partner, my gypsy companion.  She grew up with me through the tail end of my childhood, into my teen years, and then my adulthood.  I felt more closely bonded with her than I have felt about anything or anyone else in my life.   She will be sorely missed.

This year has been difficult at my job as well.  There were moments where I couldn’t see the reason to stay working at that place anymore, then I would have days and moments with the boys where I couldn’t imagine a cooler place.  I made a lot of friends there, had a good time working with the menfolk, and toward the end, met and worked with Linda, a wonderful woman that I can’t possibly say enough good things about.  Earlier this week I was ‘let go’, so I suppose now I don’t have to worry about experiencing the bad days with the evil woman at the top of the hill.  While not having a job is a bit unsettling at the moment, it’s also a refreshing feeling.  The past couple months have been tense and unnecessarily hard at work and I can’t say I’m not a bit relieved to have been let go.  I am resourceful and intelligent; I see this as a starting block, not a stumbling point.  I have been called by a couple people at the company to be reassured of how much they appreciated me, and told that I will be greatly missed, but not forgotten.

I am also in the middle, or at the tail end, of moving, so between the work stress, holiday stress, and moving stress, I’ve been rather quiet and reserved, trying to keep my sanity and my head above water.  Now with the addition of not having a job, I might lose my mind while I try to figure out the money situation, but I have luckily been squirreling away as much as I can the past couple months, so I should be able to keep paddling for a while.  My feelers are already out for a new job or opportunity, and I have a couple ideas already brewing in my head.  The next couple weeks should give me a good indication of what options might actually be realistic.  When I find out, so will you, dear Reader.

The next adventure is around the bend and I will greet it with open arms and an eager mind.  Keep moving forward.

Child of my heart, I miss you.

I realize it has been quite a few months since I have last written here.  I apologize for the delay.  Usually when there are delays as long as this has been, I don’t have a good reason.  It’s all on the fault of laziness.  Not so, in this case.  I have been waiting for things to settle down.  I have been waiting for them to even out so I don’t launch into some pre-ejaculatory diatribe only to find out that the whole situation has changed a day/week later.

As it has been a couple months, things seem to have settled into the concrete blocks.

Bucket of Tears has taken back her “lost” fiance.  Though now he is just her “boyfriend”.  As far as I know, anyway.  I haven’t spoken with her about life lately.  This is me washing my hands of that whole situation.  It caused far too much drama and financial strain for me to want to maintain it in my life.  There comes a time when you realize you can’t help someone anymore.  You can give them all the good advice in the world, but when they continue to bang their head on the wall after you’ve shown them countless medical research documents about the detrimental effects of banging one’s head against a wall, you reach a point that you soon realize is the End Point.  I reached that and have moved on.

Colorado was a fun trip, as much fun as driving 32 hours in three days can be.  The wedding was simple and lovely.  The DJ was horrible.  The weather was perfect.  The backdrop was the Rocky Mountains with lovely, humidity-filled clouds lounging above enjoying the procession.  Luckily it didn’t rain.  There was an awe-inspiring (why can’t people say “awesome” anymore without sounding childish?) lightning storm just over the ridge that, as we drove to the wedding, we hoped would stay over the ridge. It did.  After the wedding was much dancing and merriment.  We left early the next morning before the sun whispered it’s wakeful light on the mountains.

At work things went from normal and boring to odd and tense.  One morning I get a visit from the Purchasing/Asset/Inventory Manager (PM).  She’s an older lady, early 50’s, polite and clean-cut.  I have never had any issues with her and haven’t heard too much ill spoken of her.  I wish I could say the same for my supervisor in the Accounting Department. The PM asks if I’ve heard any talk of being moved to her department, and her assistant being traded to my current spot.  I hadn’t.  She asks me what I think of the proposal.  I let her know I think it would be a great switch.  I confess to her my occasional slacking off because of my incredible boredom from a job lacking in rocket science.  She is surprised and amused, but heartened to hear that it wouldn’t be against me to have such a move take place.  After this surreptitious meeting I spend the day imagining the joys of being out of the accounting department and instead being dirty and busy in the pipe  yard with the PM.  I imagine, if this were to ever happen, that it would take months to come to fruition.  Things don’t work in my favor up there.  Around 3pm, close to the time I’m wrapping up my day, my AD supervisor comes in and tells me to come to her office for a talk.  Great.  What have I done now?  I walk in to an office full of women.  The AD Sup (ADS), her sister (the other AD lady), the PM, and her assistant are all present.  o.O  The ADS tells us that we’re going to be “cross-training” and that she is going to take the PM’s assistant and put me in her place for a while.

I’ll give you a peek between the lines on that whole encounter and what she means by “cross-training”.  The assistant is the ADS’s stepson’s girlfriend.  So now the Accounting Department consists of the supervisor, her sister, and her stepson’s girlfriend.  She also gets rid of me, the bane of her existence since I don’t bend to her feminine wiles and catty backstabbing.  In other words, I think for myself.  So, in one foul swoop she gets the Accounting Department full of women she can control, and gets rid of the one she can’t.  Win-win.

What she doesn’t realize is that it was a huge win for me as well.

1. I now have a supervisor I can respect.  The PM is full of integrity.  So full of integrity it would shame the ADS if she only knew.  Instead the ADS just lords over the PM and treats her like crap (the ADS treats everyone with enormous disrespect, except when she wants something.. and she always wants something).
2. Since I have aligned myself with the men in the field at the first show of the true nature of the ADS and her sister, I can now speak freely without fear of eavesdroppers since she has put me directly in their midst.  She could not have known what this means.
3. I am no longer bored with my job.  It is that simple.

Background for hierarchy of supervisors.  It goes Superintendent (SI) – Field Foreman (FF) – PM – Me.  Superintendent – ADS – her sister – new lackey.

Now, the first week I was down in the pipe yard (PY), the PM tells me the FF was pulled into a conversation with the SI.  The SI was asking him what he thought of me.  What prompted this?  The ADS’s new lackey couldn’t get my old computer to work right; she couldn’t log into the accounting system.  The ADS told the SI that I “sabotaged” the computer.  I was livid.  The FF, however, stuck up for me and told the SI of my greatness, and told him to consider the source.

There is speculation.  The SI and the ADS.  If you bring up the ADS in unflattering light to the SI, he’ll jump on you about it and tell you not to speak of it.  Touchy.  Over-protective.  I’m not the only one with a raised eyebrow about that.

Last week of October.  The PM has a sinus infection and has lost her voice.  She hands me her work cell phone and has me make a couple calls on her behalf, and tells me to answer it if necessary.  She walks out to the PY to go put parts away and organize.  I sit inside and decide to have lunch before I get back to my work.  The cellphone rings.  It’s the ADs.  This begins a big long ordeal in which she feels I’m rude, and in which I get yelled at.  She then berates me to the PM as well, which appalled the PM since she’s quite fond of me.  When the PM tried to bring it up in a private meeting with the Superintendent, he shut her down and told her, “That wasn’t the way I heard it.”  Indicating that the ADS had gone up there, slandered me to him, and turned him to stone.  Crazy medusa-lady.

For about a week or two after that she was after me.  She tried to get me fired.  The Foreman was called in again and again he spoke of my good-nature and great work ethic.  “She’s replaceable,” was the response.   Yeah, we’re all replaceable, but that’s not the point.

Well, we have week-long shifts called “hitches” up there.  Mid-week the hitch changes and the other group of guys come on to relieve.  One of the Lead Operators (SI – FF – LO) was just coming back from vacation and was filled in on what was going down.  Here’s the part where the ADS couldn’t have the forethought to realize.

Since I’ve aligned myself with all the men in the field, I have a better ratio.  It’s about 30:1 men to women.  I’m nice, friendly, helpful, and intelligent.  Things the Accounting Department girls have to actually make a mental effort toward.  Asking nicely for things goes a long way, but only if it’s an honest, consistent sort of niceness.  I’ve been there a year and a half.  My “nice” hasn’t faltered, no matter how bad of a day or how crappy things are in my personal life.  Now, by putting me in the pipe yard I have more access to more men to befriend and be helpful toward, which is exactly what has happened.  Also, the PM allows me, without any insecurity or loathing, to help them to my full potential and actually appreciates it when I do.  (She and I have conversations in which we tell each other how much we appreciate how awesome the other person is.  I kid you not.)

Back to my story.  The Lead that came back heard of my plight and imminent dismissal and was very upset (I’m using light language).  He was so upset he told the Foreman he was going to talk to the SI about it and “go up to bat” for me.  The Foreman advised him against it because of whatever  else was going on that week.  The Lead was determined.   He took the SI out back and talked with him for about 45 minutes about the whole thing.

The result?  The ADS was told that she can’t fire someone just because she doesn’t like them.  “As a supervisor, [she] needs to learn to control [her] emotions.”  Hah!

A year or so ago my Grandpa told me I’d be running the place in a year.  The day I heard that result, I told a friend of mine about it.  He told me “one day you’ll be running the place.”  I replied, “What makes you think I’m not already?  I don’t have to be on top to be in control.”  That was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

The moral of the story:  Be good to people and you will reap what you sow.  It’s true.

While I don’t really celebrate holidays, I’m taking today to recognize my thankfulness for other good people.  People that stand up for what is right.  My PM told me, her husband, and her supervisor that she had every intention of putting in her Notice if they fired me.  How can I not respect this woman?  She would rather leave her job than stand around and accept injustice.  Right now, above everyone else in my life, I’m thankful for her.  She’s someone I can respect, admire, and embodies a standard of human I hope to achieve.

Colorado, 2009

Long time no see.  So far this year has probably been the busiest year in quite a while.  Life has been fairly dull up until now.

Week 1:

At the beginning of the month a good friend of mine lost her fiance.  By ‘lost’ I don’t mean misplaced.  I mean he ran off and decided he didn’t want to get married… two months before the wedding.  How tragic.  I moved in with her to help alleviate some of her costs and get her life back in order.  Yep, you read that right.  My life is more stable than someone else’s.  I know, crazy, right?  Either way, she’s back on her feet to some degree.  It’s causing a bit of an issue in my own life because I now have to figure out what I’m going to do after the end of next month.  Y’know, besides try to recoup some of my lost savings from this whole debacle.  Eh, we’ll see.

The thing to take away from this is the following:

• Men:  Don’t leave your bride after she and her bridesmaids have bought their dresses.  Not cool.  They will all inadvertently hate you for this.
• Women:  Don’t take him back.  Unless he has some really good reason, and I doubt it’s really that good.

Week 2:  A friend from Indiana came to visit!  He’s pushing up that 30 hill and wanted to check stuff off his ‘things to do before I turn 30′ list.  Take a bus across country?  Check.  Go to California?  Check.  Stay with some strange girl and help her entertain her distraught best friend/new roommate?  Check.  I doubt that last one was on his list, but he did it anyways.  What a trooper.

Indiana’s major requirement was to go to the beach.  Well, shucks, that was easy.  I took him to my favorite beach in the area – the Guadalupe Dunes.  It’s quiet, pretty, and doesn’t have good ‘playing’ waves.  In other words, it’s not a beach for families to let their children play in the water.  Awesome!  I used to go there and just sit.  The beach for me has always been a spot of contemplation.  If I’m having relationship issues I go to the beach.  If my best friend is having relationship issues, I take her to the beach.  Though this last time the beach was out of the question because that’s where he used to take her.  The creep.  How dare you taint our beach-going activities with your ineptitude!  Anyways, Indiana and I had a good time lounging about and generally burning the crap out of our skin [read: my skin].  Yeah, I’m from California, but I apparently had a brain fart and forgot to put sunscreen on.  I could barely bend my legs from the pain behind my knees.  Yep, I burned the back of my legs.  Ugh, hooorrriiibllleee..

Other than beaches we went out to some nice restaurants that I never get to go to.  I took him to my favorite Mexican food place for fish tacos.  He ended up eating a 35oz. steak at another place.  Holy crap, right?!  He felt maybe it wasn’t the best idea about 3/4 of the way through, but then they brought out the snazzy t-shirt he would get if he finished it.  That sealed the deal.  He took home a giant t-shirt that was at least three sizes too big.  The waitress told him they’re used to “bigger” guys usually taking on the task.  They didn’t have a “medium”.  Hah.  Us little people can put it away when we set our minds to it.

Trying to come up with ideas to keep Bucket o’ Tears occupied, we all decided to go bowling.  Indiana, BoT, Hardcore and I all graced the bowling alley with our presence.  We were thence known as Hat Sass, Pretty Princess, Fuzzy Panda, and yours truly, Mushy Wonton.  (I figured “Bucket of Tears” wasn’t a good nick name to come up every time she went to bowl, so I settled on Pretty Princess.)

Oh, and I introduced him to the wonders of frozen yogurt (fro yo) in every town.  We finally figured out the best concoctions and pranced up and down the streets nom’ing on our fro yo.  Success!

His last day in town he was flying out of Santa Barbara, so we decided to just spend the day there.  More beaching and wandering around ensued.  We walked out to the end of the wharf and ogled at the beauty of SB.  Having enough ogling, I located a fro yo shop in town via my snazzy GPS thingy (yeah, technical, I know) and we traipsed into town to enjoy the sights and feast, once again, on delicious yogurt.  We decided it was probably time to walk back and find the truck eventually so we headed back.  Wanting to be sure we could actually find the airport, we drove to it and checked him and his luggage in.  Having still nearly two and a half hours before his flight, we decided to go find food.  Freebird’s!  Sally, my GPS, took us to Freebird’s, but what was it I saw in my rear view mirror when we pulled in?  That’s right, a police car!  Zoh Noes!  Begin adventure:

Wait, backstory:  The registration on my truck has been expired since last August since I’ve failed to get a smog check until very recently.  I needed a couple parts under the hood and it took a while to locate them.  Mind you, it did not take a full year, but I wasn’t exactly working very hard to find them.  After getting a parking ticket for god knows what, probably my registration, I decided I needed to get those parts.  I got them… and they sat in the back seat of my truck for a while [read: two months].  About a month ago I got pulled over by a real police person and he gave me a ticket for my registration and gave me a very stern look to go with it.  Shucks.  I then hired a lackey for a day to take my truck, put the parts on her, get her oil changed, and get her smogged.  My lackey was successful, so all I had left to do was go do the registration thing.  Back to the adventure!

Cop lady walks up to my window and gives me a very curious look because my registration is so very out of date and I’m driving my truck around so very illegally.  She at one point makes a comment that my truck is “golden” to be towed.  I show her the smog paperwork and that I’m actively trying to get this whole thing taken care of.  She writes me another ticket and advises me that I need to go to the DMV asap and get this taken care of.  She even tells me where the nearest DMV is and again tells me to get on it.  I thank her profusely for not towing my truck and for not being a big meanie.  She leaves satisfied that she’s done good by me and that I’ll be the responsible young person I so very much haven’t been.

Indiana and I get out to get our tasty burritos from Freebird’s and eat them while discussing what just happened.  I ask him if he’d mind much if we stop by the DMV for a bit to see if I can get this handled right away.  “If there’s a line, we’ll bail, but otherwise.. would you mind?”  “No prob.”  What’d I say?  A Trooper!

We head over to the DMV and are in and out of there in 12 minutes.  Unheard of in California, lemme tell ya.  I’d just like to take this moment to thank the Goleta DMV for not being a cluster F like the rest of the DMVs in California.  You’ve made me proud.

After I stuck my new registration and we loaded up in my truck, I turned the key aaaannndd.. nothin’.  The lights came on, but no vroom vroom.  *facepalm*  Really?!  Indiana looks at me anxiously.  I apologize profusely, pop the hood, then jump out to make sure nothing looks amiss.  Nothing looks amiss, so I jump back in and try to start her again.  No dice.  Angry mumbling.  (Mine, not his).  I see a young lady sitting in her car two stalls over, so I walk over to her and ask her for a jump.  Sometimes my truck just likes getting shocked.  I dunno.  Maybe it was an EMT in a past life.  Who knows.  Clear!!  And voila, she starts right up.  I thank the young lady heartily and jump back in to see a somewhat relieved young man anxiously waiting to get back to the airport and end this rather unpleasant adventure.  We got to the airport without a problem and with at least a half hour before he had to board.  Plenty of time.  Yay!

All in all I think it was a successful trip for him.  He flew back home to safety and showed off his new tan at a “White Party” – a party wherein all it’s attendees wear white.

Week 3:

Since I moved in with BoT, I need to pack up my stuff at my old place and put it somewhere.  I was planning on doing that the third weekend, but decided to spend it finishing the Harry Potter series.  I needed the mental break, honestly.  Haven’t been getting much sleep and haven’t felt rested in longer than I can remember.

Week 4:

This weekend is my company’s picnic!  Most of the supervisors and uppity ups have been absent this week, so while it’s been kinda hectic here in the accounting department, it’s been quiet on the hill in general.  Politics and tempers have made this week (year) frustrating, honestly.  I just try to keep my head down and plow through the stacks of papers that find their way to my desk.  I think there’s a homing beacon or something that calls to all of them.  I might need to get an EMP or something to knock that thing out.  Hmm..

This coming weekend includes a long drive across the states to sunny Colorado for a wedding.  I’m taking BoT and Fuzzy Panda with me as well.  BoT is a bridesmaid (who else foresees her living up to my horrible nickname for her?), and FP used to be really good friends with the Bride.  The Bride is the little sister of a good buddy of mine from high school.  He moved over there for a better paying job as a Petroleum Engineer.  As if making 80k a year at 20-something is a bad living.  Yeaaah.  I made him a beanie for Christmas last year, but finally finished it sometime in April.  I’ll be delivering that to him, as well as trying to take him up on his plan of fishing the morning of the wedding.  I may be in that boat with a full head of curlers, but dangit, I wanna go fishing!  Maybe I’ll wear his beanie.  It’s huge.  He has a gigantic head, so beanies don’t usually fit him – hence me making him one.  The thing nearly goes down to my chin and could probably fit another half a head in there with me.  It’s Large.

It’ll be nice to visit with him again and hang out with some friends.  I know there are a couple friends from here that are also going over for the wedding, so I’m sure we’ll all have a fabulous time.  I’ll be sure to take my camera and capture the whole debacle.  If I get any good ones I’ll be sure to post them up on Flickr.

My Flickr has been quiet for quite a while now because my computer has been down.  I think Windows SP3 didn’t agree with the drivers or something so it wouldn’t even boot up for a while there.  I nearly cried.  My poor baby.  Now that I got it functioning again, however, everything should be fine and I can start up with picture taking and such once again.  I’m debating whether I want to bring it over to BoT’s apartment or not.  We’ll see.  I think I’ll wait til the last minute and take it over after I get back from the wedding.  I don’t want to lose my dual monitor setup just yet (I’ll be putting one of them in storage).  I’ve spoiled myself, but I’m quite okay with this.  I figure no one else is going to.  *shrug*  I am my own sugar mama.  Whee!

Okay, that’s enough for now.  I also updated the site, so if you see anything wonky, let me know and I’ll see what I can do about fixing it.  All seems well.. but who knows.

A nice barn in Illinois.  *happy sigh*