I'm enjoying my morning coffee and having house-cleaning avoidance. Do you know that this is the first weekend in forever that 1) I don't have to work on Sunday, 2) I'm not going to Memphis , 3) No one is coming to stay with me, or 3) there are absolutely no big plans whatsoever? It's kinda nice. Even the house cleaning is small. Only some dirty dishes, a week's worth of accumulated laundry, which I determined to keep up with, and the usual weekly things like changing the cat litter and vacuuming. I'm almost not sure what to do with myself....
I bought some jeans, because I ended up with $20 for being chaueffer to the boss and her husband, and they were on sale at the Gap for $9.99. The strange thing is that they are an "ankle" size, which is the Gap's odd way of saying "petite." I am not lacking in the leg department. I'm not exactly tall, but my legs are long. But for some reason, the cut of the jeans is such that the petite fits. Which is good, because they make me look really slim. They're also a little more tailored than what I have, and will look nice for work. I also had another idea for the boy for his birthday. Rather than one big present and a few little ones to go with, I think he's going to get a small cluster of "medium" presents, which will have to do.

Huh. I just went to Gap.com to link a pic of my jeans, and they haven't even got them on the web site. No wonder they were only $9.99.

  ¶ 7/13/2002 12:03:00 PM

  I got through.

And, I have a whopping $7.54 in my checking account. So much for getting paid early...

Maybe it'll go in by this afternoon. I mean, I'm already going to Memphis, where there are boundless shopping opportunities (Ok, not really. But compared to here, it's like the Disneyland of places to buy stuff). I don't want to have to go back next week, on a weekday, after work... ugh.

And then there's the Me factor. I need stuff, too. Like, a second pair of shorts. I currently have only one pair that I'm willing to wear out of the house- the other pair has either shrunk to hootchie proportions, or my ass has become gargantuan (I'm thinking its the latter). With vacation coming up, a second pair of shorts... especially a pair that isn't white... would be a good thing. And a denim skirt, dammit. I have been on the prowl for the perfect denim mini lately. And then maybe a top or two more. I've been re-cycling through all my sleeveless tops lately since its so cursed hot, and I'm sick of all of them.

And last, Coraline. I can't believe it's been out for two weeks and I haven't gotten yet, but the pocket book says "NO." But it's Neil, and it's a lovely book, and when you hold it in your hand it sits just so, and has the right smell, and I WANT IT.

Waaaa. I want to be paid. What difference would it have made to the world at large for them to pay us today instead of Monday? Fuckers.   ¶ 7/12/2002 10:39:00 AM

  I am trying to call my bank to find out how much money I have, if any. Technically we aren't supposed to be paid until Monday, but sometimes it goes in a bit early. My bank's 1-800 number, however, has decided that it's going to stay busy.

It's an automated service. Unless it's flooded by thousands of callers, I don't see how it could be "busy." Certainly not for 20 minutes.

I'm taking my boss to the airport in Memphis this afternoon, and I thought, while I was there, I'd do a bit of shopping for the boy. Birthday coming up and all. And then afterwards, I'm going to meet my Dad for dinner and chatting. If I haven't got any money yet, then I need to come up with something else to do in the inbetween time.   ¶ 7/12/2002 09:00:00 AM

  So much crap to do. Yesterday was just awful. It was the last transfer orientation, and there were very few classes and a whole helluva lot of kids. And then the student info system, which houses everything that has anything to do with students, courses, and students registering for courses, went down. It eventually came back up, but I'm still picking up after that catastrophe. My boss is leaving the country tomorrow, and I have to help her with everything that has to be done by tomorrow. And there are phone calls waiting to be made.

In other words, I should be doing all of those things instead of typing this.

I think I'll go have a smoke.  ¶ 7/11/2002 01:59:00 PM

  If I died this very moment, I would die happy. Someone brought in a bucket of cherry tomatoes from their garden today, and they are absolute perfection.

Mmmmm.  ¶ 7/11/2002 12:07:00 PM

  And now. Focus, the bane of my professional existence, has decided not to work, and I have to restart this slow ass computer that I keep around only for the sole purpose of having Focus.

Although. I almost made an IM haiku, entirely by accident. Wouldn't that have been neat? But almost isn't really, and isn't that just a sign. I want to go to bed until Christmas.

  ¶ 7/09/2002 02:31:00 PM

  Today is ASS. I hate hate hate hate hate hate today.

And it started off so well, too.   ¶ 7/09/2002 02:16:00 PM

  I had two thoughts on the way to work this morning. (Well, several. But two that I'm going to say something about).

I can no longer listen to "The Greatest Song in the World" by Tenacious D. When it comes on the radio, I begin belting out the lyrics in my best Jack Black impression, and then I'm suddenly transported back to my dad's deck. Leaning over the railing. Laughing and belting out the lyrics along with Jazz and her girlfriends in the pool. Ryan is riding around on the four-wheeler. And then I freeze up, because I just know that as soon as the song ends, he's going to wreck. And so I have to change the station. And I thought to myself, as I was driving down the road this morning and reluctantly mashing the next button, what a DAMN shame this is. I really do like that song.

The second thought is this- Radio personnel who TALK over the END OF A FREAKING SONG should be shot.   ¶ 7/09/2002 08:33:00 AM

  The long weekend has officially ended for me. Back at work. But the good news is that this is the last Sunday that I have to work until next summer. So, whoo.

The barbeque was great. I don't know why I was so worried about a tablecloth. You couldn't even see the damned thing under neath all of the food. I think we will be eating potato salad and baked beans for the next year. And hotdogs (I told Ryan that we didn't need to buy 30 hotdogs. If you count the one that the boys rigged with firecrackers and tried to blow up, then we used 5).

The fireworks were better. We went to the community fireworks show, which is far better than you might expect from a small town. Although there was quite a lot of debris. Some of it flaming (but thankfully not the bits that landed on us). That was a little disturbing, but still. Big pretty colors in the sky and BOOOM- that's a winning combination in my book. Dave and Brad made "da bomb," which consisted of nearly 900 bottlerockets going off in rapid succession. I was impressed.

And the rest... The little sis has been staying with me since Friday. She goes home today. We played Tony Hawk 3 and watched movies and played dress-up. She has long, georgeous hair that I can twist up and make weird Final Fantasy-esque hairdo's out of. No one gave me fantasy hair when MY hair was long and pretty (except one, on Halloween, when I was Tinker-Mikkie. That was cool), so I can re-live my long-hair having days vicariously through her.

And that's all I've got now. I've been up til way late every night since Wednesday, and yet I've gotten up pretty early nearly every morning. There's laggage. Plus, it's time to have a smoke before Random Freshman Number One shows up for his 1:00 advising appointment.  ¶ 7/07/2002 12:45:00 PM