FYI

Just so you know... If you send me a document for my approval, and I send you a notice stating what needs to be revised or added to the document IN A BULLET-POINTED LIST, it is REALLY irritating when you send me back the EXACT SAME document you sent the first time, attached to an email where you're asking me to tell you exactly what needs to be corrected.

THAT'S WHAT THE BULLETED LIST WAS FOR. And it doesn't help your case when your "what needs to be corrected?" email is in reply to and part of the same thread as my "here's what needs to be corrected" email.

I'm just saying...

Give me a break...

Let me preface this by saying my roommate is a nice guy. He means well... but if he doesn't get a clue, AND FAST, we are going to have major problems.

Now, as far as females go, I'm not the neatest girl you'll meet. I can be messy, so my house doesn't look like page 37 of the Pottery Barn catalog. But I try to at least be clean, and keep my house below the level of catastrophe. Bear in mind that I work a pretty demanding full time job and go to school part time, so when I get home I barely have the energy to clean up after myself, let alone clean up after my tenant and his guests. I've let a lot of things go. I understand that he's young and fairly clueless about some of this stuff. But after almost 2 years of living here, and various requests for him to help me maintain the house and keep it clean, I'm starting to get fed up.

Over the last 2 months, I have had 3 stand-offs with him - all seemingly unbeknownst to him:

1. The Toilet Paper Stand-off: Whenever the toilet paper needs to be replaced, rather than putting a new roll ON the dispenser like a normal person, my roommate puts it on the bathroom counter ABOVE the dispenser (and yes, we unfortunately have to share the bathroom). It drives me CRAZY. Absolutely bonkers. I think it's so stupid. So I left it. I left the toilet paper roll on the counter for 3 whole days. I just kept tearing off sheets from it, while leaving it there. But at the end of day 3, it made me so mad, I HAD to put it on the dispenser.

2. The Bathroom Trash Stand-off: So, sure, the bathroom trash can is not very big. All the more reason to take out the trash when it starts to get full. I'm as lazy as the next person, so I'll jam as much in there as I can before taking it out. But when I come home, and my roommate has had guests, and the trash can looks like this, I draw the line.



So I left that, too... for another 3 days. I even completely avoided putting trash in that trash can. The guy went down to the trash room a few times. I know because he had some recycling that he took down there. Did he bother taking out any of the other trash? No sir.

3. Stand-off #3, currently in progress, The Dirty Plate Stand-off: He and his girlfriend decided to make a peach cobbler or whatever yesterday. But they didn't have half the ingredients they needed, so I graciously allowed them to use my baking ingredients, as well as the baking pan. When they were done, his girlfriend just piled all the dirty crap into the sink, despite the dishwasher being ready to be emptied. Okay, fine. Whatever. At least it's in the sink, right? Well they shared a serving of said peach cobbler and then got ready to go out. I walk into the kitchen an hour later, and...



It's now the end of day 2, and that fork is practically GLUED to the plate from all the sticky, sugary syrup that's on there. Now, seriously... Are they not capable of cleaning this up? Trash what's on the plate, put the plate in the sink/dishwasher. It's not difficult. And this kitchen is not so big that this would be an onerous task. I woke up this morning and the plate was still on the counter. I left the house at noon and got home an hour ago (midnight), and guess what... Yes, my dear friends, that plate is still there. I REFUSE to clean it up. He's already in bed, but I promptly sent him a text, asking him to clean it up STAT. What pisses me off the most is that he was clearly in the kitchen while I was out... There are newly used utensils in the sink, and things on the stove have been moved around since I left this morning. So I KNOW he saw it there. He can't possibly be so blind as to NOT have seen it.

You know what? Maybe he thinks I'M gross. Maybe he thinks that I'm messy and leave shit everywhere. Maybe he feels like, since I'm gross, he can be gross too. Well guess what. I don't give a shit. Whether he thinks I'm gross or not, I own the place and I can do what I want. But don't make it worse. And don't expect me to clean up after you. And CERTAINLY don't expect me to clean up after your guests.

Major overhaul cleaning happening next week, and after that, I expect the house to STAY clean. If I have to hire a maid, he's paying for half.

My Regrettable Lunch

I stuck a fork in it, because it is DONE. In case you can't tell, this unfortunate specimen is a Hot Pocket - a LEAN Pocket, to be exact, and one more example of a reduced calorie/low fat/high fiber/whatever else food that I hate. Admittedly, I used to like Hot Pockets, but only the chicken, cheddar, and broccoli ones (which this one is supposed to be). But over the last year or so, whenever I go to the frozen foods section looking for something quick that I can keep as my "just in case I forget to pack a lunch or am too lazy to go out" lunch at work, I have looked for the regular Hot Pockets with chicken, cheddar, and broccoli. For some reason, though, they seem to only offer that flavor in the Lean or Croissant Pockets, and so I haven't bought them in a while. This time, I decided it was no big deal, and that it couldn't possibly taste THAT different.

Now, I don't know if it's because it's a Lean Pocket, or if maybe they've changed how they make Hot Pockets in general, or if they've changed the recipe of the filling. And I know that Hot Pockets are not exactly the most reliable food, and humans probably shouldn't be eating them in the first place. But I DO know that I paid $3 for a box of two Hot Pockets, and what I got was a cardboard burrito-ish thing filled with nastiness. I took two bites and I'm ready to trash it. The first bite was the gross surprise. The second bite was taken just to make sure the first bite was as gross as I thought it was. I guess you get what you pay for. Add this to my list of "Foods I Must Remember Not to Buy": Hot/Lean/Croissant Pockets.

Pretend the door actually exists...

My office doesn't have a door. No, I didn't Hulk out and tear it down, and it didn't fall off the hinges. It never existed. Don't ask me why; it's just the way it was built. But my lack of a door is not an invitation to come into my office whenever you please. In case you haven't been able to tell, I am grumpy. A lot (see title of this blog). And I am even more grumpy at work because of some of the idiotic things I have to deal with. So it's beyond me why anyone - outside of the people I'm actually friends with at work - would want to come and talk to me. Is it the scowl on my face, or my office being in general disarray that invites people in and makes them want to tell me about their uneventful drive home? Maybe it's my refusal to acknowledge the person standing in my office that tells that person, "I should tell her about the dress I helped pick out for my son's girlfriend!" Maybe it's my being on the phone, literally talking to someone, that gives a person the unrelenting urge to come to my office and start asking me why they haven't seen me all day. It might be because I've been in my office, doing work. What a novel idea!

What more can I do to show someone that they're an unwelcome interruption in my day?? Next time, I'm just going to them to get the hell out of my office.

A Lesson in Email Correspondence

What's the object of emails? It's written correspondence, right? I write something to you, you READ IT and write something back to me, I do the same, and so on and so forth. It's like IM, only slower... or letters, only faster.

Anyway, the only way one can effectively respond back to someone is by - say it with me, children - READING the received email first. Otherwise, what are you responding back to??

Now, I thought this little tidbit was common sense... that it was just the natural order of things. Nay. Rather, I find myself having to remind people who reply to my emails that they should go back and "carefully read" my original message, and then "respond accordingly." I'll give you a good example, generalized for the protection of the stupid:

I receive a document from a colleague that requires revisions. I send said document back to the colleague, outlining the revisions that need to be made. The document comes back to me, missing various requested revisions. I send it back, outlining which revisions still need to be addressed.

Email from Colleague: Please see the attached corrected document.

Email from me to Colleague: Xxxxx, I already received this document yesterday, but the requested revisions have not been made. I sent a follow up request to your office yesterday afternoon. Please see the request, which I have attached here.

Email from Colleague, 15 minutes later: Please see the attached document, which was also sent to you yesterday. Is it still incorrect? Please advise.


Ummmm... I'm not sure which part of my email was unclear. Was it the part where I said I already received the document yesterday? Maybe it was the part where I said the requested revisions had still not been made. Maybe the attachment is what confused her. Or maybe she didn't read my GD email. I'm pretty sure it's the last one, since I responded back to her, asking her to read my previous email, and she has not since replied back.

Final note: I know we all like to skim emails, especially long ones. But if you're in a work environment and don't want to look like a moron, please remember that READING IS FUNDAMENTAL.

Revival

Okay, so after a (close to) 2 year hiatus from my blog, I decided to revive it. Mildly random, yes, but then so is this whole blog. I was reading Paul's earlier today, and it reminded me of how much I actually liked writing in this thing, so now I'm back. And you wanna hear something really pathetic? I was reading some of my old posts and they were cracking me up. It made me realize how many ridiculous moments I have on a day-to-day basis... and how easily frustrated I am.

So what to write about now? Oh, right. Let's talk about how I cracked my AFO today.

AFO = Ankle-Foot Orthotic. I wear one on my right leg because my foot is paralyzed from the ankle down. I can still walk without it, but really only around the house. Anyway, for those of you who don't know, this is what they typically look like:



So today, my boss' son was in the office. He's 8, and a total sweetheart. We had been bonding over barbecue chips and his hunt for the mice that seem to be infesting our office building. (Yes, I know, it's problematic.) At the end of the day, they're getting ready to go home, and he's in his mom's office with this back to the door. I think it might be funny to kind of sneak up behind him and try to startle him. (I never said I was terribly mature.) So I took a mini-leap into my boss' office, but my left/good foot kind of trips on the wood in the doorway and I land a little awkwardly and hear this snapping sound. I thought I might have popped the strap of my AFO, but I started walking a little bit, and everything felt fine. Well, I started walking back to my own office and something felt a little loose. I sat down and looked, and I had managed to crack my AFO, starting from the right side of the ankle horizontally across and just past where my Achilles tendon is. And when I say "crack," I mean "break". It looks kind of like when you break a fingernail.

So my dumbass now has to make an appointment to be plaster-casted and fitted for a new AFO, which may take a day or two to actually get. I may or may not be staying home from work tomorrow because I am afraid to walk around and completely snap the thing in half. And my mobility is now even more impaired than it was before. The lesson here? Don't try to sneak up on children for your own amusement.

I really do love this city

So apparently, DC has something called "Foto Week" where various photography exhibits are on display all around the city. I am evidently totally out of touch, because Christina had to alert me to such an event. Anyway, we went to one exhibit called "A Disenchanted Playroom" at the Goethe Institute. This German photographer basically sat kids in front of a TV, watching cartoons I think, and took pictures of their facial expressions as they watched. The result was 13 children, all with blank stares, just totally deadpan. It was a pretty interesting experiment, ending with 13 really kind of creepy photographs. I suppose the idea is to spark a discussion about what we're putting our kids through, and how desensitized the next generation is becoming. Pretty cool.

But the next exhibit was really awesome. It was at the 6th & I Synagogue - an exhibit called "Soul Cages" by Joshua Cogan. His background is in anthropology, and his work has obviously taken him to some really interesting places where he's been able to take some amazing photographs. His photos really capture moments and places, helping the viewer to feel like he or she has been there, too. And besides what his photos can teach you, they're beautiful specimens of color and composition. If I had an extra $400 lying around, I'd totally buy a framed print for my house. Here's an example of one - Masai women of Tanzania:



The exhibit also included photos taken in Ethiopia, India, Washington DC, and Jamaica. Check out more of his stuff at http://www.joshuacogan.com.

I really wish I had the time to hone my photography skills... Anyway, if you have time in what's left of this week, I highly suggest checking out an exhibit or two. See the events at http://www.fotoweek.org. Happy photo viewing!