Flying-Solo Friday

So, here it is Friday evening, and I'm blogging. WTF, you ask? Shouldn't I be at happy hour? Why yes, in fact, usually I would be. In fact, I can't remember the last time I stayed home on a Friday night. But frankly, I'm exhausted. Work has been kicking my ass lately--not in a bad way, and in fact it's kind of exciting, but it's tiring. Also, I'm kind of happy-houred out tonight. Currently, I've got . . . let's see, about five different happy-hour groups going on, and so I've been going out a lot during the week. (We don't all go out every week, but it adds up.) Despite this, I still make it a rule to walk my dog for about 45 minutes a night (every night! Seriously!), so that adds to the tiredness. And it's not just physical tiredness--I'm also worn out on social interaction in general. So, I'm staying in tonight. And it's going to be awesome. The evening's plans are as follows:

1. Walk Josie (of course). We've been going on our walks a little later recently, now that it's light out til late. This way, we avoid the bulk of the other dog-walkers. I like them and all, but we want to walk, not stand around chatting. (This alludes to a whole other theme, by the way--the way a lot of people do not actually walk their dogs, but instead stand around at the park for a while while their dog maybe runs around and maybe just lies at their feet, getting no exercise. But I digress.)
2. Come home and fix myself some roasted garlic and chicken ravioli and drink wine.
3. Maybe blog again??? If not, read the awesome novel I'm into right now. (Review to come.)
4. Watch the season finale of my favorite show, which is, as we all know, Law & Order. (Just to clarify--I am not staying home in order to watch Law & Order; it's just a happy coincidence that the season finale happens to be on tonight.) While watching, I plan on eating some dark chocolate M&Ms, which may very well be the greatest invention of the last year and which I take total credit for.*
5. Play some online poker, hopefully while chatting with my male BFF, who also plays online. (I have a male BFF and a female BFF. They know who they are. Hi, you two!)
6. Go to bed at a decent time in order to get up and actually get something done tomorrow, for a friggin' change.

So, that's the plan. And now, I must go execute the first part and walk the dog. But first, before I forget . . .

Today I called the vet to schedule an appointment for one of my cats to get his shots. My vet's office is always extremely busy and so, of course, I was put on hold. When you're on hold with my vet, you get treated to this woman's voice talking constantly, plugging the various services the vet's office has to offer. Two things about her spiel today struck me:

1. She was going on about how, if your pet is over seven years old, a lot of shit (not her word) can happen that you're not even aware of. And so, you should bring your pet in every six months for a checkup. Um, right. This struck me as a scam in line with the three-month oil change, and it just ain't gonna happen. Are you kidding me? I have three pets--I would be bringing one of them in every other month! I don't get checkups myself that often--not nearly that often! These people are insane.
2. Need further proof of their insanity? She was also extolling the virtues of their new website, which is--I'm not kidding you--http://www.caninesemenbank.com/. Let me set the scene. I had the recording on speaker phone at work, and I was doing some other stuff and not really paying attention. Then all of a sudden, I hear this woman talking about how they were changing the course of reproduction. Since I was on hold with the vet, this naturally caught my attention. It's not as dramatic and freakish as it sounds, of course, but apparently, you can now freeze your male dog's semen and/or have your female dog impregnated by previously frozen semen. There are so many things wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin. First and foremost, I guess, is the question--what the hell is wrong with breeding dogs the old-fashioned way, i.e., just letting them have sex with each other as they will no doubt do if given the chance? (Although I must go on record as saying that, officially, I am against any kind of dog breeding at all until every dog and puppy in every pound and shelter in this country is adopted. Please adopt animals, people!) And second, there are so many things going on here that I do not want to think about--e.g., How do they collect this semen? How do they impregnate these dogs? What is wrong with these people? You know, stuff like that.

O.K., speaking of dogs, I'm off to do a totally normal thing and take mine for a walk. Enjoy your Friday night, whatever you may be doing.

*I take credit because I wrote to the M&M people about a year ago suggesting that they make dark chocolate M&Ms, and voila! They have. Yes, my narcissism really does run this deep at times.

Drive By

So, I was off work one day last week and driving around doing errands, and on a whim I decided to drive by my ex's house. When we first split up a year and a half ago, I used to do this frequently, because . . . well, that's what you do, right? Or maybe that's just me? I'm not sure why I was doing it--I was the one who left, after all, and I didn't want to get back together, and I didn't really miss him either, because he was being such a jerk. I was just curious, I guess. Also, it was easy, because I pass so closely to the house anyway on my way to and from work. But I stopped doing the drive-by thing a long time ago. It's kind of pointless--I mean, yeah, there's the house, and yeah, it looks the same . . . now what? But I wanted to drive by last week just to see if he was still living there. I haven't heard from him in a few months, and for all I knew, he had sold the house and moved, as he had mentioned he might do. But no, it looked like he was still there--there were the same curtains (the ones I picked out and hung) in the front window, and there were the curtains my mom made in the kitchen windows.

It's always a little weird to see that house, the one in which I lived for five years but will most likely never enter again. It's weird, too, to live so close by--I drive the same route to work, basically, that I always did, I go to the same grocery store, etc. There are also a lot of shops and restaurants around here that I used to go to with my ex. I sometimes think I should have moved farther away, to a different neighborhood, at least, to make more of a fresh start . . . but I love it here, and I had kind of a proprietary attitude about the whole thing, like, why should I have to move to a completely different area? And now I'm glad I stayed--I love my apartment and my little part of the neighborhood, and surprisingly, I've never run into my ex, not even once. (Of course, now that I wrote that, I'll probably see him at the grocery store tonight . . . ) I do wonder sometimes if he and I will ever speak again, though. It's been a while--I called him last, let's see, about three months ago, and we talked for two hours. Then he e-mailed me the next day to tell me something he forgot, that one of his friend's moms had died . . . and then he just had to add a little patronizing bit to the e-mail that pissed me off. And I haven't responded. So I guess technically the ball's in my court, but something is holding me back from contacting him. I'm not sure what it is--just a can of worms I don't feel like opening.

I don't know why I'm blabbering on about this. It just strikes me sometimes how strange it is, to have a person in your life for years and years and live with them, and then all of a sudden, they're out of your life completely. It just makes everything seem . . . very fragile. There's your deep thought for the day.

Bounty

A kind of strange thing just happened. Today was gorgeous--warm, sunny, lots of birds out and about. After work, I broke out the capris to wear while walking Josie. We set out on a fantastic walk--started out on the bike path, veered out into the woods right along the river for a while, then back to the bike path, then finished with a romp through the cemetery. (Not as morbid as it sounds, by the way. It was still very light out, and Josie loves to run back and forth across the cemetery path, for some reason. Also, it's peaceful--naturally.)

Anyway, we got back, and I fed her and the cats. I was starting to clean up the apartment a bit when I noticed, for some reason, something in the back pocket of these capris I hadn't worn since last fall. It was a $10 bill. Woo hoo! There's nothing quite like finding money in a pants pocket to make your day, even if it's not that much (and especially if it's more than a buck or two).

Then, however, I found myself just staring at this $10 bill, and I started feeling kind of gloopy. Gloopy, by the way, is an odd mix of nostalgia and guilt that I feel on occasion and have so dubbed. The $10 made me feel nostalgia about (not for, by the way--not like I'd want to go back) the days in my life in which $10 would have been a very big deal. And there were many, many days like that. The $10 also made me feel guilt--guilt about the fact that $10 actually doesn't make any difference to me anymore. This $10, that represents an amount more than some people in the world take home in a week, doesn't even show up on my radar, at all. Is this an American thing, this guilt? Should it be an American thing? But then, what can we do about it? Besides trying to make the world a better place by ________________________ [fill in your favorite cause here]. All this stuff was running through my head, triggered by nothing more than that $10 bill. (I have no solutions or answers to these questions, by the way--I just find the thought-triggering process interesting.)

On the other hand, that $10 will pay for lunch for a couple of days. So, woo-hoo, anyway.

I Rule!

I'm such an idiot. Remember the whining about the Allen wrench in the last post? Tonight, it suddenly occurred to me that I have a tool kit, and that such an item might contain an Allen wrench or two. Sure enough, upon inspection I found not a couple, but no less that eight different sizes of Allen wrenches in said kit. And I picked out the very one I needed on the first try, just by eyeballing things. That was pretty exciting.

So then, I went to work on the futon frame, and not to brag, but--I tore that bitch apart. It wasn't easy. For one thing, all the nuts were stripped, which I must have done myself when I put the thing together around eight or nine years ago. Also, it's difficult (for me, at least) to take something like that apart while avoiding having heavy metal pieces of frame fall on you when the screw finally comes loose. But I did it. And I enjoyed it, kind of. It's funny--whenever there's a man around--my dad, my ex-husband (not that he's around anymore), one of my cousins, a male friend, etc.--I just kind of sit back and let them take care of such "manly" tasks. After all, it's not like I have any particular fascination with such things. But it's nice to know I can step up and carry out rudimentary mechanical tasks when the situation calls for it.

Other things I learned about myself tonight:

*I can cut a lime by using another slice of lime as a cutting board.
*I can turn down a date with a really hot guy I met in Indianapolis, who is willing to drive three hours to see me, just because I don't feel like dealing with it.
*I can play online poker and quit while I'm ahead. (O.K., just because I did that once doesn't mean I can always do it. But it's a night of accomplishments--let's just go with this one.)