Sometimes I have friends

I have one friend outside of either of my jobs. Her name is Nikki and you met her a few posts back.

A few weeks ago, we went for a drive and ended up at Fossil Creek Creamery. My love of goat cheese started that day. Obviously all the cheese I got from there is now long gone, eaten with delicious crackers. Well she went there a few days ago and got more cheese, so we are going to have a wine and cheese and movie night. I'm excited! I'm going to go have an adult evening with a friend I made as an adult!

ADD

Sometimes I have trouble concentrating. I've learned to deal with it, but it gets annoying at times. Sometimes it's just my braining flitting from thing to thing, and other times I want to do too many things at once so my concentration can't stay on any one thing until I get really absorbed in it. Like right now I'm trying to look for Dark Angel fic that I read in the past (aka 11 years ago, how does this even happen!!) and either didn't put into my favorites in ff.net, or has since been deleted. I hope I just didn't favorite the stuff, because I'm really looking forward to a memory lane trip. But I digress (see what I'm dealing with here!); I'm trying to find stuff, but I'm trying to listen to this song at the same time! SO I listened, and now I will listen to something that I can fade to the background of my concentration, and I will give you the video so you can hear what's distracting me!

Trip into my past

I'm revisiting my high school days, watching Dark Angel. Good times! Think I'm gonna have to read some DA fic later! Woohoo!

 

Aaannd Theeeeenn

After mom and I spent, what, 2 days? in Chicago; she LEFT ME!! ("He left us, he left us!"  "But that's not what I'm gonna do!" name that movie!) All ALONE!!! In the big city of CHICAGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To wait for Lindsey to come pick me up! :)

We had already checked out of the hotel (because those crazy places make you leave my like 11am, in what universe are people awake by 11am on their vacations? ...Oh yeah, this one.) The hotel people were nice enough to let me leave my baggage in the storage area so I didn't have to lug it around while exploring on my own and waiting for my ride. With just my purse and my jump on/jump off bus card, I took mom to the train station, cried a little, and rode the bus all by myself (look mom, I'm a Big Girl Now!) around the city till I decided what I would do. Unsurprisingly, I decided to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo.

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that Chicago has one of the nicest bus systems I've ever had the pleasure to navigate. I didn't use the L-train while I was there, but the buses are fantastic.

For those of you not in the know, the Lincoln Park Zoo is in Lincoln Park in Chicago just north of the Miracle Mile. It is huge and free to get in and parts of it are coaxingly nice, and I think that other parts will catch up eventually. I had my camera (when do I not) and took pics. I even recorded a bit of video of my talking to/for the animals like mom and I do so I could show her later when I go home. Yes, mom and I are those people.

They have a fantastic ape house with chimps and gorillas. I tried not to use my flash, so most of my pics from in there ended up blurry.

The big cat house needs some serious work, but they have lots of different cats, which I LOVE!

He's in a box! Like a house cat!

This tiger was so cute, it was like he was posing!

After I shot these, I took the bus back to Miracle Mile and found a place to sit and have a coffee while Lindsey was fighting traffic into the city. After she made it, we drove back out to the zoo and looked around for a bit since she had never been there before. While we were in the cat house, the male lion started roaring. He walked into his outside exhibit and continued while we watched (and while I filmed it). It was awesome! I love lion roars!

He tired himself out with all that effort and had to take a nice nap!

 After the zoo closed, Linds and I took the bus back into the city (it's a few blocks) while leaving her car since we found a free parking spot next to the zoo. We were going to go eat at this one place, possibly pizza, but we were starving! and the wait was like an hour, while standing outside in the COLD! So we went to the Hard Rock and ate.

After dinner was the long drive to Peoria, where Linds lives. The next day, we went to another zoo!!!

Chicago

A while ago, before I moved this godforsaken place, Mom and I took another trip to Chicago. This was partially and mom/daughter trip, and partially getting me to Chicago so my friend in Peoria IL could come pick me up and we could hang for a few days. I have known this girl since I was 16. She worked at my first job, but you'll hear more about her later when I write about when she came to visit me here. This post is about mom and me.

We went to the Hard Rock for dinner the first night we were there. It was a busy evening, and there were a lot of people that out waitress was taking care of, but the service didn't seem bad to us. When we were near finishing our dinner, the manager on duty came up to us with a dessert tray and asked us to pick dessert as an apology for poor service. Well, as stated above, we thought the service was fine, but since there were a lot of needy/roudy teenaged people in our section that were taking a lot of our waitress' time, I guess she felt we were jipped. So we decided on two of the dessert shooters. They were delicious!

Goldfield

I had the day off Tuesday, and so did my friend Nikki, so we decided to take a little trip. I had found this ghost town online that was only like 35min from here called Goldfield Ghost Town. It's this little tourist trap kind of place. The guy who built it did so in an area near the Superstition Mountains where a lot of people had discovered gold in the rush. He built very near the original town site, but most of the town an disappeared years before. All the buildings are built to look like they're from the early-mid 1800's.

There's a narrow gauge train that takes you on a circuit around the town and the conductor tells you all about the area and why this was built, etc etc. Since it was summer, the reptile house that I really wanted to see was closed for the season. I'll  have to come back in the winter. There's also a mine tour and a mystery house. We didn't do either of those things. We wandered around and looked at the shops.

Nikki and I in front of the train.

Hurry Up Ernie giving the tour.

Goldfield from the train.

This was just cool.

Superstition Mountains

After we left we went to see this housing complex that Nikki is thinking of getting a house in. Looking at that house made me want a house. I am tired of renting, but I also don't want to buy a house and have that keeping me here. I want to leave Arizona in a few years and don't want to have to sell a house.

After that adventure we went to Sweet Tomatoes for a late lunch, vegged out at my place for a while, and then parted ways. I then took a short nap, and watched 8 episodes of Criminal Minds. It was a good day off!

Outside the Bordello in a Go-Go dancer cage

Took this pick just for mom!

                                                                      We're in elevators!

Deep thoughts before bed

Sometimes, I wonder if things don't happen for a reason; if there's something or someone out there helping stuff along. Like, at some point, there is going to be a change in your life that will lead you down some path, and if that's the wrong path, something happens that you can respond to in some way to either continue down that wrong path, or alter it correct again. It's when stuff like this happens that I think there might be some higher power, or at least some other power. If you're wondering what has brought about this bout of existentialism, I'll tell you.

This evening, after working at PetCo, I ran to the grocery store to pick up some essentials for the next day. Mind you, it's about 10pm when I'm shopping. I was listening to my iPod in the car, and I liked the song that was playing, so I put my headphones in and listened to it while shopping as well. I was in the self checkout lane, checking myself out...like ya do, and after I was done, the lady in line came up to my register. I still had my headphones on, but I acknowledged her, and she started talking. I took my headphone off and she was asking for help using the self checkout, she didn't know how. Now, there are obviously people around for this very purpose, but I know how to work them, and I was standing right there, so I helped her. We got her all checked out and we went on our separate ways.

Now, I'm a thinky think sort of person, as anyone who knows me could tell you, so I started wondering. Did she want me to help her because I had my headphones on, off in my owl little world, cut off from the rest of humanity going on in the store? she could have gone to an empty register and asked an employee for help, or one of the other patrons checking out, but she asked me. I saw her let a guy go ahead of her, presumably so I could help her. Did she decide this on her own, to pull me back into the world, or did something put the seed of this idea in her head. If she hadn't asked for my help, and I had walked out of the store, still listening to my music, would something else had happened? Something bad right then, or further on down the road. Maybe this one act of keeping myself apart from others would have started me on a path of recluseivness that I wouldn't be able to stop. Maybe this woman saved me from myself in some little way. Or, maybe she just liked the look of me, I was the only woman at the checkout, the rest were guys. I guess we'll never know.

Lent is a four letter word

Today, I decided to give up something for Lent. This is the first time I've ever done this. I'm not really into giving things up, especially when I like them. And what's the point of giving something up for Lent if you don't like it in the first place? This one is gonna be a doozy too! Are you ready for it?

Are you SURE!?

Well, here it is...

...

...

CHOCOLATE! Yes, that's right, I am giving up chocolate for Lent. She of the constant having of chocolate chip cookies, the near daily mocha, the lover of all things chocolate (especially dark), is giving up chocolate for Lent. Really, the largest downside to this plan that I see is that I'm going to have to find a new caffeine delivery system, because I NEED my caffeine! So, I figure that when I walk into Dunn Bro's Coffee in the morning, and the person behind the counter asks me if I would like my usual small skim mocha with whip (yes, they know me there, what of it?), I will have to politely inform them that for some crazy reason, this crazy woman decided to nix chocolate 'till Easter and ask instead for a small chai latte.

This should be an interesting few weeks. I'm going to have to stock up on fruit flavored hard candy, because I need something sweet!

How long is it 'till Easter???

love, hate, as long as there's passion!

Were The World Mine

Make The Yuletide Gay

I have a love/hate relationship with romantic movies. I love them because they make me happy and feel good. I hate them because they remind me that I don't have anyone, and I would really like to have someone!

This post brought to you by the viewing of:
Make the Yuletide Gay
Were the World Mine

Yes, I am a straight female getting sappy and boyfriend wanting over two gay movies, what of it, they're sweet! And Were the World Mine has some great music!

OMG, if you haven't seen it, you must, and then you should watch the guy who plays Timothy, oh so gay, esp while dancing. Love It! So very Hay Gurl Hay!

I tried to go without, but I really like living!

You know what, food is expensive!! I spent $100 today on groceries! Well, about $85 was groceries, I also needed body wash and I bought this teal/aqua colored pashmina that was on clearance at Target. It's pretty, it can keep my cream one company! But back on topic: OMG!!! I've never spent that much on groceries! I have cost my mom that much on shopping trips when I was in college and such, but I personally have never bought that much. Oh man, I better not need food again for a long while!

In addition to groceries, I also went to Home Goods and Barnes & Noble today. At Home Goods I picked up two bowls and a matching mug for $1.99 each, and a set of 4 glasses for $4.99. At B&N I got a book, Th1rteen R3asons Why by Jay Asher, and a box of Godiva chocolates because they were 50% off and I couldn't resist. This new box of chocolates can join the box I got from the Godiva store the other day. The one from B&N is the Gold Ballotin 19pc, the other is a 27pc Dark Chocolate Assortment. I rarely ever buy yummy yummy chocolates like that, so I decided to treat myself when my mom and I went out for dinner the other night.

I'm really excited to start my book tonight. In fact, I might just have to put on hold the fanfic I just started on and go read this! Yay for books!!

GrrArgh

I am looking for a new place because the roommate of doom is getting to be too much to deal with. I really really hate looking for apartments. What's online on these apartment search sites can not possibly be all there is, but it's the easiest thing to look for, and I hate having not enough money. But I do have more money than I had, so that helps. Where do you people look when you're trying to find an apartment?

I either want a studio for just me, or a 2 bed for me and the roommate that I like and also can;t stand anymore of the roomie of doom. Good roomie doesn't want to spend much more than we're spending now, so it just might be me all on my own, though I think she has it in her head that the only place we're gonna be able to find it gonna be like $2000/month each or something. Wish me luck, and give me advice please! Also, Cindy, wanna live with me?

Wanderlust

So, I was going to write about how I got a freaking job, but I'll leave that till later. Right now I'm going to write about the crazy that is my head. (and seriously, could I start more posts with "so"?)

If you know me, you know that I'm crazy. Not certifiable, but bad enough. One of those crazy aspects is how...not contrary, but I can't think of the right word right now, I can be. But I like things that are opposite of each other. I like black, but I also like very colorful things, for example. I'm a homebody, but I love to travel. I want to stay in one place for more than a year, but I'm always looking for a job somewhere else.

The thing that got me posting this was looking at this picture on Dooce's website. When I was in Oregon last summer, I couldn't wait to get home to flat land. And the instant I got home, I wanted the mountains back more than anything. I wanted to go back to Arizona and see the red rocks, the high desert, the beautiful mountains of Colorado, the dry heat and wonderful scrub of Santa Fe. God I miss it! And the whole time I was in Oregon, I was yearning for green. I wanted green grass and rain and leafy trees and green grass! Everything was dead and tan/brown. But when we got through California and into Arizona a little way, I started to fall in love. It was beautiful! I loved driving down a mountain pass into a valley and seeing it all stretched out before me. What I wouldn't have given to have been able to pull over and wander off to take rolls and roll of photos. Black and white that I could develop in the darkroom I don't have. I wanted to set up the perfect shot, swim in that pool we found (but was too cold to go in).

I wanted to stay in Sedona and Santa Fe for days, weeks. I want to move there and drink in the dry heat, bake in the sauna of the desert. Explore and live and run away from giant bugs and complain about the heat and work and play. I want to go back so bad! I want to see the rest of the desert, take pictures of rocky outcroppings miles past where Jesus lost his sandals.

But at the same time I want to go here and here and see trees covered in moss, and streams running through forests. I want to go back to England and explore the grassy hillsides, commune with the sheep. I want to go to huge cities in the hustle and bustle, or in calmer neighborhoods of those same busy cities. I want to go to Europe and find tiny bookstores tucked in side alleys in the Italian countryside. And in any of these places, I could probably live happily...at least for a while. At lease until my feet start calling again, wanting to wader away into that good night.

But God do I miss the high desert and the mountains. I want to spend time in Colorado some day. I want to move to Phoenix with my friend, see what a sprawling city is like, instead of one that goes straight up. But the contrary part of me is, I look at pictures of the red rock mountains of Utah and Arizona and I gasp and the beauty and the longing, but I have the same result when I look at pictures of all the green in the English countryside. I don't know id I'll ever be completely content to settle in one place, if my wanderlust will ever be sated. I guess only time will tell. If would probably help if I actually wandered a little too!

i will never be without bookmarks again!

I love this whole Delicious thing! I am a bookmarking, tagging fiend over here man! It's so nice, I will never be without my bookmarks again! That's gonna be one of the worst things abut changing computers or ever just internet operating services. When I switched computers, I obviously lost all my bookmarks/favorites, and now I will always have these. It's so nice! I've been bookmarking up a storm, a STORM I tells you!

Tonight mom dad and I went to see Zed Leppelin, the Led Zeppelin Tribute Band at the Lake Harriet Band shell. Then we rode the trolley. It was a very enjoyable evening. Good music, beautiful evening, brought food along, it was great!

I still don't have a second job. I had my working interview at the doggy daycare, and expressed my interest in the job, but nothing back yet. That was Tuesday. If I don't hear anything by the time I leave for work tomorrow, I'm gonna give them a call. The girl told me to think about it and email her, which I did. And then I sent a follow up email to make sure that my first one actually got there, but that one didn't get a response either, so looks like I'm gonna have to call. I hate calling people.

I wrote up a rental agreement last night because this whole situation is getting annoying, and no one else was going to get around to doing it, so I had to take the reins on that one. Big surprise there. Oh wait, no it's not. Mandy took it to her mom to see if that would work out, but she's not back yet. Hopefully it does, in which case we will all be paying $125/month in rent, which is a massively good deal. Not as good as free, but pretty much as close as you can get, considering we're living in a house, not a puny little apartment.

I think that's pretty much all that's new in my life. Well, and my birthday is in 9 days, on September 2nd. I will be 24. One more year before I can rent a car without incurring age penalties and fees. I'm gonna go read some HP fic I found again while I was updating my Delicious. Laters!

Quite the quandary

Must sleep, would much rather read fanfic, will regret fanfic decision in the morning, much more concerned with instant gratification. This is quite the quandary; which will win, sleep or reading.

...

I'll give you a hint, sleeping never wins

Caffeine

I knew I shouldn't have had that mocha at 8:30pm. That was an all around bad idea. I have no desire, and every need, to go to bed right now. Hell, for what time I need to wake up, I should have been asleep hours ago. Mom and I are going to a few art fairs tomorrow, and we want to get an early start because it's supposed to be beastly hot. Hopefully the weather is wrong and it doesn't get to 91, but I won't hold my breath for that one. Ok, I'm off to try to sleep. Wish me luck!

Maybe I should post some actual content

I've been posting a lot of nonsense and drivel lately. Not that it terrible matters because no one really reads this except me. But if I'm gonna have to look at it, I might as well put something here about my life. I applied to a few more jobs a week or so back. On of them was at a doggy daycare called Downtown Dogs. I emailed, then got a response saying "Hey lazybones, come in a fill out a app, dork." So I did, then got called back and set up an interview. First interview time ended up clashing with work, so I called back to reschedule. Person who I needed was in a meeting, and didn't call me back that day. Just as I was going to call yet again the next day, she called back, and we rescheduled for Monday the 10th. The she called me back again saying that Oops, I have something that day and time. So NOW I have an interview there on Tuesday at 3pm. Hopefully it doesn't go more than an hour because I have to work at 5, which means I like to be out of the house and on the road by 4. But I will be a little closer to work coming from the interview rather than my house.

Hopefully I get this job. It's working with animals, and is pretty much a job I've done in the past. Well, more of a conglomeration of various jobs I've done. If they don't hire me, they're crazy. I am totally qualified! Hell, I'm probably over qualified, but hopefully they'll hire me anyway. The I can push back my JoAnn's jobs to fewer hours and not have to drive all the way out to Maple Grove quite so often.

In other news, my roomie Mandy's cousin had a baby girl, and Mandy's mom bought two onesies and a hat off of me. Yay! She got these three:

Songs I love

Bolero (from the closing credits of Moulin Rouge)- Moulin Rouge 2 soundtrack
Riverwide, The Difficult Kind- Sheryl Crow
My Body Is A Cage- Arcade Fire
Bella's Lullaby- Twilight Soundtrack
While My Guitar Gently Weeps- The Beatles
Viva La Vida, Lost!- Coldplay
Hands of Time- Groove Armada
Warm Tape, Road Trippin', We Believe- Red Hot Chili Peppers
When Water Comes To Life- Cloud Cult
I've Gotta Feeling- Black Eyed Peas
Here With Me- Dido
Let Go- Frou Frou
Mexico- Incubus
Lucky- Bif Naked
Wild Horses- The Sundays
Hermes Bird- Remy Zero
For What It's Worth- Buffalo Springfield
Existentialism on Prom Night- Straylight Run
White Houses- Vanessa Carlton

I was going to wax poetic about Bolero, because it is totally worthy of poetic waxing, but then I could probably was poetic about most of these songs. Some I like even more than others, but these are some of the songs that, when they come up on my MP3 or WMP playlist, I don't ever skip. I might occasionally skip one or two of them, but that's very rare. Most of these, I could just play, lay back on my bed, and breathe to. I love music, I don't know what I would do if I went deaf or music was suddenly outlawed, but I don't want to find out!!

My brain, it's all eated up

Fanfic has eaten my brain...again. I really need to stop bringing my comp over to my bed at night, it's making for more reading and less sleeping, and I really should be sleeping. Just got done reading ad AU Doom/ST Reboot crossover, and it was absolutely fanfuckingtastic! If you haven't seen either movie, then you would love or appreciate it as much as I do, but really, great writing, fantastic story, awesome ending. It was so much love. And if you haven't seen either Doom or Star Trek XI, well, what the HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Go! NOW! :D

The most fun I've had in a long while

The Murder Mystery Party was, as is stated in my title for this post, the MOST FUN I'VE HAD IN LIKE FOREVER!!!! At the very least, probably the most fun I've had since graduating college. It was just a blast! I got to hang out with my friends who I haven't seen in far too long (though, when you're 23, three weeks is far too long!), ate great food, drank some wine, played a game, and took lots of pictures.

We each had our characters, and we had a booklet that went along with each character. Inside there was info that we had to tell about other people, and info about ourselves that we didn't want coming out. There were four rounds, and then we took a guess on who did it, then in the back of each booklet there was a bit to the end of the story about who did it and who didn't and why and whatnot. It was fabulous! I can't even get over how much fun I had. We are planing to have another one, which will probably be a potluck so Kelly (and Toria and Nika, but mostly Kelly) doesn't have to pay for everything and do so much work. There are themes for other ones and it's all fantastically great fun. I can't wait till Kelly gets the pics up, they are fantastic.

Kelly and Nika made everyone place signs with their character's name on them and objects that pertain to their character. My character was Evelyn C Leigh, called EC. She was a cheerleader in high school. On my poster is says EC, and there is a mega phone, and balloons, and a chain cutout of girls in skirts and a speak balloon saying Go Team! I put it on my bedroom door, because I'm totally still 12, I swear.

After we were done, we went out in the back yard to get pics of everyone with their sign, and I did them like mug shots, it's pretty cool. The we took a few group shots of various kinds, girls pics, guys pics, and random other stuff. The we sat around and hung out and stuff until like 9pm. I had such a great time! I miss these people so much! I realize how much of a hermit I am when I get around my friends and need to be around them for a long period of time.

Still squeeing!!

I got a nibble

So I applied to some more zoos. One of the places I applied was the Lee Richardson Zoo in Garden City, Kansas. I sent in the app probably about a week and a half ago. They called me yesterday to set up an interview, but I was at work and didn't get the message till everyone there was gone for the day, so I called back today and have a phone interview set up for tomorrow at 1pm. I hope it goes well, I could really use this job. They pay well, and they have benefits, both of which I need. I would have to move to Kansas, of all places, but at least it wouldn't be Texas. I applied for a job is Texas and Tennessee both. Kansas is probably the best choice of the three. Wish me luck!!!