Countdown

The date is getting closer!

We have now shipped out 2 boxes with one more to go. The first box is almost there (it's at least in the same state now). The other is sitting at the FedEx place we brought it to, and I think I'm going to be obsessively checking its status for the next few days. It's a pretty important box, as it contains all of our wedding clothes!

Slowly, everything is getting done. Crossing things off the to-do list feels good (and at this point, is necessary). It's at that point people always talk about getting to - if it's not done by now, do we really need to do it? Some of it (like hair and makeup styles) would be yes (but we're doing that when we get there), and some of it (like the guestbook) just isn't going to happen (because we don't have enough days for them to publish it and mail it to us, even on next day shipping which itself would be like $20). Plan B, here we come!

Off to put the last box together. So much to do, so little time!

ABDC Top 3

We're finally getting around to watching the top 3 episode of ABDC. I have had a problem with ABDC this season. It seems like the teams the voters keep putting in the bottom 2 consistently have the better performances. For example, this time Afroborike was the safe team, but the other two teams both had better dances! I can't complain that much because I don't watch the show on time and don't vote, but there's something messed up if the safe teams are consistently the worst ones.

At least TPTB will finally have a girl win this show. Too bad it isn't one of the girls from Rhythm City instead.

Weekend Update

We were really productive this weekend! We had a DIY crafting weekend and can now cross a lot of things off our to-do list, which makes me really happy. We did escort cards, table signs, photo sharing cards, reserved signs for ceremony seats, and tags for our welcome bags. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it really is!

On a negative note, I have been dealing with some sort of GI issue all weekend, ever since the weekend officially started on Friday night. I am working from home sick, and it just sucks.

Stupid

To the Idiot I Met on 45th Street Today:

 

You are an inconsiderate idiot.  The sidewalk was crowded.  It was raining.  People were holding umbrellas.

 

You had room on the other side of you to walk around my umbrella.  I am sorry that I couldn't walk further out of your path, but it would have put me in the path of other people.  You, sir, had a clear path.

 

Instead of being kind and considerate and going around my umbrella, you chose to push into it hard.  This pushed the pole of my umbrella hard into my glasses and pushed my glasses into my eye.  It hurt.  A lot. 

 

You suck.  What is it about the rain that makes people act even more like jerks?

 

Love,

Crayon

Unhappy

Dear Thai Restaurant In My Neighborhood That I Actually Somewhat Like,

 

I ordered delivery tonight from your restaurant.  I have been to your restaurant and I like eating there.  But I am very unhappy right now.

 

If you are going to include broccoli in your dish, please put it in the description.  You listed the onions, the basil, the peppers, but no broccoli.  Basil, tomato, chili, egg, onion, scallions.  That's all you listed.  I just checked.  Am I supposed to assume broccoli is in it?  That would be an unreasonable assumption since you listed broccoli as an ingredient to the other dishes but not this one.  That would lead one to conclude that broccoli is not an ingredient or you would have listed it the same way as the other dishes.

 

Due to your omission, I cannot eat my dinner entree.  I am really glad that (a) I'm not personally paying for this, (b) I ordered 2 appetizers so at least now I have something to eat and (c) I have someone at home who can eat this.  If I didn't, the entire thing would have gone in the garbage, and I'd be even more pissed.  What a waste.

 

But, no, I'm not going to call you and have you send over another one because I don't want to wait around for it.  I don't want to waste my time.

 

Please fix your *%$&# menu!

 

Love,
Crayon

More on the Inbox

I realize that this is an entirely useless thing to blog about, except anyone who has followed this blog for a long time (and I would love to know who you are and how you found this and why you keep reading, out of curiosity) knows that I like to blog about things to try to keep myself accountable. I am really trying hard to get my inbox under control (all of them, but concentrating mostly on work and gmail), and I don't know how else to make myself do it! It's so time consuming, which really means I just get too many emails (which is true), but I also need to be better about taking care of it.

So I am proud to announce that after a lot of work today, I am down to 3962 messages in the gmail inbox! I would really like to keep the inbox under 4000 (and really, I have no idea how there are that many thousand messages in the inbox still - what ARE they?), so let's see if I can do it!

In fitness news, I went running 3 of the 4 days this weekend (counting Friday), and by running I mean, alternating running with walking since I am still a beginner. It's really difficult to go during the week because of work, but hopefully I'll find some alternative during this week to keep the good progress going!

Inbox Update

My gmail inbox is down to 4255. I spent a LOT of time today deleting emails. I hope I can keep it lower than this number, because it feels so cluttered and hard to manage otherwise!

Dreams Repeating

Have you ever repeatedly had a dream one night based on the same situation but ending differently each time?

That happened to me last night. I was dreaming about this little girl, about 8 years old, who wanted to get help for her little sister who was sick. She wanted to see a Chinese doctor and the address she kept showing me was in my parents' neighborhood. For some reason, it was difficult to help her and I felt terrible.

I think one time I tried to give her instructions but she couldn't find it. Another time I somehow didn't know who the person was or how to get there. Another time she confronted me with the paper with the address when I was in a store where for some reason people were giving me bridal shower gifts even though I thought they already did (plays into my real life anxiety about thank you notes going to the right people) but I tried to help. She just kept coming back. In the last segment before I woke up, we had gone to the address and she found the doctor, who was trying to help her sister and either intentionally or unintentionally created an earthquake solely in that room.

It was really bizarre. Has that ever happened to you?

Wedding Dates

Once upon a time, there was a couple planning to get married. They chose a date, they chose a location and they chose to make it a destination wedding. They told their family and friends and invited a small number of people. They told their extended family about their plans for the small wedding and a larger reception next year to which everyone would be invited. They found out about the dates other cousins in the extended family were getting married, and decided to plan around those dates for their at home reception.

The couple struggled to plan a date for their at home reception. They knew one of the cousins was planning a wedding for that month, and they didn't want to step on anyone's toes or make it difficult for the family, since two wedding receptions very close together are a bit of a strain both on time and finances. They tried to find out details about the cousin's reception - where it was, what type of reception it was, whether the whole family was invited - so they could plan accordingly and not create any family drama. The couple doesn't believe in drama if they can help it.

A little more than a month before their wedding date, the couple found out that the cousin that was to get married next year has decided to get married this year. In the same destination state. In the same month. The same weekend. And quite possibly the same date.

The couple recognizes that this isn't catastrophic because they don't really know the cousin well, and the cousin wasn't invited to the destination wedding, but the couple still feels annoyed. They had publicly discussed their plans to get married that weekend in that (small) destination state, and now another couple in the family is getting married at the same time and virtually the same place. Maybe, ten years from now, no one would even remember that this even happened, but somehow, it just felt less unique, less special, to have someone doing the exact same thing in the exact same family. No two weddings are the same, but did they really have to do this the same weekend? Maybe they have a really good reason for moving it up, but no one told the couple why they are now sharing their wedding date.

Is the couple crazy for feeling this way? Are they more annoyed by this because they went out of their way to get details about the cousin's wedding so that they wouldn't step on anyone's toes since it's not great etiquette to get married the same time as another family member? Is it crazy for them to feel like someone stole their thunder a little bit because they're doing the same thing? It's always said that everyone only gets a day, but what if, in your extended family, your day isn't even just your day anymore? The couple has read lots of posts online about people's reactions to hearing about friends or family getting married near their wedding dates, and thought about how they would feel, but never thought they would be in this situation themselves since they thought they had talked to everyone and knew everyone's wedding dates.

To add to the madness, the cousin is having her reception this year and the couple is having their at-home reception next year. So the couple with the original idea and the original plan is going second, and it's going to look like they copied the first couple's idea even though they did it first. Weddings always create so much unnecessary drama, and the couple wants to just let this go, but they feel annoyed. Many people share wedding dates, but do you really have to do that within the same family?

Dinner

Tonight, instead of coming home, forcing myself to work out and eating a small dinner at home, I wanted to go out to eat. We originally set out for Thai since it has been awhile since we have had larb together, but the place was packed (as were many others). So we decided that since we haven't had Indian in awhile, we would try the neighborhood place we liked.

It was really crowded but they had some tables. The food there is usually good, but the service can be hit or miss. I should have known, considering how crowded it was, that today was going to be one of those "miss" days.

We were at dinner for almost 2 hours. We didn't really order a lot - chat papri appetizer, and we split 2 entrees (chana masala, chicken jalfrezi and garlic naan). No special drinks to make or anything. Just very basic and straightforward, so it really shouldn't have taken 2 hours.

The kitchen seemed to be good about getting the appetizers out, but the entrees seemed to be stalling. I'm not sure what was going on but their timing seemed off. There were 3 people serving and taking care of the whole restaurant, but of the 3, 1 guy was hustling, 1 guy was working at a moderate pace and the other 1... I'm not sure what he was doing. He would mostly help set and clear tables, and then help out with the other tables if he felt like it. Needless to say, the food took awhile to come today. We didn't even get the free pappadums that usually come out when you sit down without asking for them, which has never happened before. Everything was just a little off.

But the wait for the food wasn't even the worst part of it. It was the fact that no one was ever around when they needed to be around, and this wasted so much time. It took over 10 minutes before someone even came and took our check once it was ready! But it's not like they just weren't there. They passed by at least 10 times and it was clearly ready to go, but they never took it. Other people had their checks finished during that time, so I don't think they were just ignoring checks. It felt like they were just ignoring us!

The water problem didn't help this perception. We were out of water almost the whole night. A number of times, we asked for water and they forgot. Then there were 2 times that I signaled to the third guy working, the one who helped when he felt like it. He saw me, acknowledged me, looked over, and when I asked for water, he just turned and walked away. I was really turned off by that. He had no problem getting the beers for the men at the next table. Was it a gender thing?

If that wasn't enough, we couldn't finish our food and asked for it to be wrapped up. They never wrapped up the naan, which wouldn't be a big deal if we didn't have to pay for it. I'm not going to pay $5 for naan when we barely ate half of it and had requested to take the rest of it home! They apparently threw it out instead of wrapping it up, so after 15 minutes or more, they finally got us new ones. I wasn't in it for new naan; I really just wanted the rest of what we ordered because we were going to eat it and so it wouldn't go to waste!

One thing after another, and it was just a really disappointing experience. The food itself is good, and it's our favorite Indian place in the neighborhood for the food (there is one I just won't go back to because the food was just bad the last time we went), but I'm not sure I'm going back anytime soon because the service was so bad tonight. Just disappointing. Took a lot of time and was kind of aggravating. That was on top of the girls who left who decided to stand right in front of the open doors smoking, blowing the cigarette smoke into the restaurant, instead of standing about six inches or a foot over in front of the closed windows. So inconsiderate! I know that's not the restaurant's fault, but all in all, just a disappointing night.

Up Late

I have been awake for about 20.5 hours. Wheee. I don't know how I'm still so functional.

I got up at 5:30 in order to grab a 6:30 car to get to the asylum office by 7:30. I got there on time, we went for the interview and now it's 2 weeks of waiting. I got back to the office around 1 pm.

Since I was out all morning, and then needed a break so had lunch with my mom, and then needed to debrief on the interview before I forgot important details, by the time I left work, I still hadn't done most of the work I needed to do today! But I wanted to work from home since I was completely exhausted. I'm surprised I haven't passed out yet but I think it's possibly (a) because I haven't taken Nyquil for the first time in a few nights and my body isn't used to not having sleepy medicine, (b) I passed out on the chiropractor's table and was so out that I didn't even realize the electric stim was done or (c) I'm too tired to sleep and will pay for it tomorrow.

So I have one more project to finish tonight. It's only almost 2 am. Wheee. I was hoping that this absurdly early day would translate into an early bedtime and then effectively switch my schedule to a little bit earlier. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. What is my problem? Why can't I sleep early and wake up early like a normal working person?

Argh

I was aiming to sleep at 9:30. Even trying to sleep at the "normal" person time of 10:30 was hard. Argh. How am I going to get up at 5:30? Why does the asylum office have to be so far away?