some short stories

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2010/04/jolene.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2010/04/just-something-i-felt-like-writing.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2012/02/30-day-writing-challenge-day-3being.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2012/02/30-day-writing-challenge-day-3being.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2011/04/folded-note.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2010/11/dead-eyes.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2010/10/thoughts-ona-rainy-drive-home.html

http://thefidge.blogspot.com/2010/09/working-at-night-can-be-creepy.html

though my record will say it, no one will play it

Because, you know, sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year.

I saw this user generated article on Cracked.com about life statistics and I thought I'd like to generate some statistics for my life.

My life:

• 11447 days old (1635.3 weeks)
• 1,052,800 grains (weight) see what I did there with my water math?
• Number of times I've contracted parasites by choice: 2
• Years spent in school: 19
• Cost of 19 years of school: 
• k-12 in a public school system (averaged)=$54,963 (Thanks tax payers)
• 2 years part time at a community college studying Japanese = $2000
• 4 years plus 2 summers at a state college = $40,000
• How much of the college I paid for myself (including grants) = $40,000
• Grand total cost = $96,963
• Average pay before graduation: $6.78 per hour
• Average pay after College graduation: $13.13 per hour
• Age entered the work force (under the table): 14
• Age entered the work force (legitimately): 16
• Number of jobs I've had to date: 14 (alpha, subway, walmart (x4, pharmacy manager, jewelry associate, cashier, customer service manager), NAS, davey tree, college researcher (aquatic invertebrates and neurobiology (x2), leafguard, sea world, water supply, perkins)
• Number of jobs I've been fired from: 0
• Longest stint at any one job: water supply, 5 years

Other stuff: 

• Number of science fiction movie marathons attended: 14
• Number of haunted houses I've visited: 88 (fuzzy math)
• Times I've moved: 11
• Cities of residence: Akron, Ravenna, Streetsboro, Kent, Bedford, Northfield, Twinsburg/Hudson
• Number of homes I own: 2
• Number of homes I want to own: 1
• Pets owned: 
• Dogs: 5
• Cats: 3
• Horses: 0 (I had a major problem with this when I was younger)
• Fish: 25 (fuzzy math)
• Birds: 4 (I hate birds)
• Snakes: 1 (I also hate snakes)
• Cows: 8 (by proxy)
• Guinea Pigs: 1
• Number of nerf weapons currently owned: 10
• Nerf wars (official) held at my house: 3
• Highest level attained in Dungeons and Dragons starting at level 1: 12
• Number of songs I own that are uploaded to the internet: 14,578 

Places I've been (ohio doesn't count): 

• San Francisco/San Jose/Mountain View
• Napa Valley, CA
• Gilroy, CA
• Yokohama, Japan
• Tokyo, Japan
• Kyoto, Japan
• Hiroshima, Japan
• Maui, Hawaii
• Grand Bahama Island
• Orlando, FL
• Pittsburg, PA
• Middle of nowhere PA
• Covington, KY
• London, KY
• Nashville/Clarksville, TN
• NYC/Queens/Brooklyn
• Lake Chataqua, NY
• Niagara Falls, Ontario
• Toronto, Ontario
• Washington, D.C.

This was fun but I'm sure you've had enough.  If not, though, let me know what other statistics you'd like to know. 

There's a path running under the city

Science Fiction Movie Marathon was pretty awesome.  I think it was the warmest one on record, 50 degrees.  So weird.  Today is like 8 with wind chill, I think the weather got the invitation to the event late.  It' usually much more like that.  Also, if you haven't seen my facebook post about it, surprise wedding in steam punk.  Ry and I considered asking if we could get married at the marathon but then thought better of it when we remembered our families would never ever forgive us.  I kind of wish we had ignored that and done it our way.  I was a little jealous.  Good for Brooke and Christian.  And...there was cake, so you know I was happy.

So, that was fun.  I have no idea what the formatting is going to look like with these, it looks way wonky in my workspace.  Oh well.  We could only come for a few movies this year, we were there for about 10 hours or so... Next year we are going to take Asher for a few movies and then drop him off and come back.  I think he will like that.  He told us this year that we went to see a bunch of boring old movies that smelled like dust.  Where do kids come up with this stuff?

Here's some cool pics of frozen grass I saw when I was working last week.

I have to go with Seiry alone to get vaccinations today because I messed up the schedule for my day off.  Ry and Asher are at the dentist now....wish me luck, I suck at this, I feel guilty and have a really hard time holding her while she screams bloody murder.  It fucks with my nerves, you know?

And then, fussy baby all day long.  Gonna be a fun one.

You kiss your mother with those lips?

I have been experiencing a good deal of depression lately.  Which is surprising to most people because I am still mostly upbeat.  It's my natural defense, kind of like a skunk smells bad or possum playing dead to avoid being eaten by sharks or dinosaurs or whatever their natural predators are.  I kid, I know that their natural predators are cars.  Duh.  Everybody knows that.
So, I am upbeat and chipper, and then I am really down and I get really depressed alone.  Then I'm upbeat and chipper.  And then I'm sad again.  I guess I'm still hormonal (I bet you say that to all the girls) and sleep deprived (I thought babies slept all the time?  Who made up that bullshit? Cause I am an expert on children, obviously, because I have two of my own and that makes me a freaking expert.  I'm a professional!)  and other stuff, too.  I don't know.  I don't want to air it all out here, partially because you really don't give much of a fuck. I know this.  I won't hold it against you.  If I could, I would give no fucks about it as well.  I would give negative fucks.  Less fucks than 0.  Imaginary numbers worth of fucks.  I'm not sure I made a good analogy of that.  Sorry, like I said, sleep deprived. 

But not really too much.  It just seems like every time I get some good sleep then when it gets interrupted again it is almost worse than if I just kept on trucking with no sleep.  Why is that?  I also have the theory that the closer to just before my alarm goes off that you wake me up the worse it is for me.  You would figure it wouldn't be so bad with all that extra sleep behind me but I am the most pissed off at 5:15 when you wake me up... It's like a bell curve.  3 am...kinda sucks.  4 am....WTF.  5 am...aw, hell no.  5:15 am....unintelligible angry grumbling, so mad I can't even form words.  5:45 am...eh, I was waking up in fifteen minutes anyway.  6:25 am....oh my god, I love you so much for sleeping in. 

So yep.  This weekend is the sci fi marathon and I am super stressed out about it.  I want to go.  I don't want to go.  I really want to be there.  I am stressed about the amount of work it will take to get there, then the stress of wondering if my DD is ever going to stop crying for my aunt.  Then the stress of figuring out where I'm going to go to pump the milk out of my engorged cow at the fair teats.  And then the sleep deprivation, of course, even though we aren't even going for the whole thing (only 8 hours of it probably, so sad...). 

I'm sorry, I'm sure this just sounds like whining. 

I'm going to go buy running shoes.  Gonna start running at water supply.  And I give an imaginary number's worth of fucks about anyone who makes fun of me for running. 

FoodieCLE Deck, Brewsters

So, our first outing for our foodie deck was kind of a cheater one, Brewster's is in our neighborhood and we go there occasionally.

We went with Dave and my brother Shig and both of the kids.  Unfortunately my phone freaked out and did not save most of the pics I took, it allowed itself to reset and then wouldn't load for like 10 minutes.  Not sure what happened, perhaps it didn't like the atmosphere.  Or was jealous of how good it was.  Cause it was pretty awesomely good.

Here's a pic of the card we used and the menu, the only pic my phone didn't eat...

I ate the Drunk as a Skunk Beef tips, they were AWESOME.  So tender, cooked perfectly (medium rare), flavorful and just overall really perfect.  I did ask for no onions and they didn't care, onions marring my beautiful button mushrooms, making them taste a little oniony but not ruining it for me.  And the mashed potatoes....chunky and garlicy, perfectly complimented the steak and mushrooms.  A real "man's mans" kind of dinner.

Ry got the philly cheese steak pizza, which he wasn't as pleased with.... his words: Eh...it was okay, I mean, it wasn't bad.

My brother got the Old man and the sea, a ridiculous amount of fried food from the ocean.  I had some of his fish, it was pretty good.

Dave got the Root Beer Chicken.  Their root beer bbq sauce is pretty awesome, I think dave liked his.

I think we are going out again tonight for the foodie deck, I'll let you know.  I had some really cool pictures of the dinner before I ate it.  Okay, you caught me, I lied.  I forgot to take the pics before.  I took some really good ones after I ate most of it but...I guess even phones need to eat.

My score:  Yeah, I'd eat there again.  Partially because it's so close to my house and partially because it's a decent place to eat.  Sometimes we have had not so good nights there, though, so we don't go that often.  But, occasionally, it's a good place to eat.

Highly caffeinated and the most celebrated for connecting it

Awww yeah... One night of uninterrupted sleep and I feel like a boss.  Except for the crown I broke two days ago.  Which sucks balls.  Pretty bad.  It doesn't hurt but it's sharp and it's awkward (man, awkward is such an awkward word.  I guess it's pretty fitting...) and it's annoying as all who-ha.

I wrote a little poem about it.  Eh-hem, here it goes:
Asher and Seiry refused to sleep
and that upset their mama
she bit down and broke her crown
which only caused more drama.

And who said I wasn't able to be creative anymore and that I could only (poorly) write annual reports for the EPA? Oh, wait, that was me.  My bad. Disregard the previous statement.

Also, I fired myself yesterday for not writing a better annual report draft two years ago to copy now.  And I fired myself also because WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE A SECTION ON BMPS?!?!?!?  Ah, that would be because you're FIRED.  I think that's how it went down.  It was quite a scene in my cubical.

So....yeah.  I'm funny.  Actually, the opposite.  I'm not funny.

Today ry is getting THE surgery.  Good luck to him.  Score one for glow family planning.

Anyway, I am now on the way to get my tooth fixed.  Stupid tooth.

I've been burned out living with the way you've turned out

Hello world.

Been thinking about new years resolutions.  I'm not that great at them but this is, what, I think my third year of writing this blog so that's at least one New Year's resolution I stuck with.  Should I make some type of health goal, the most stereotypical of all resolutions?  I was thinking about trying to run a 5k this year....but should that be my resolution?  Meh..... I would like to make a resolution to have no more sick children for the year but I think that's asking waaaay too much.  It could be something that I know I would be able to do, like a resolution to continue breathing for the whole year.  That's a bit easy but very obtainable, and if I failed, well, I wouldn't be around to know it... Eh, that's a bit morbid now that I re-read it.

I'll keep working on it.

By the way, the Foodie Cleveland cards came last week.  I'm pretty excited about it. :) Here's what they look like.  There's a Brewster's card, a card for this new wine bar in Hudson, lots and lots of cool stuff.  I'll try to take pictures of the cards and the dinners we order with them as we use them.  :)

I think she's ready to go

Dear lord, when do things get easier? 

The beginning of 2013 has already been stressful and tumultous.  Today is my first day back to work.  Writing this on my brief lunch break.  Why is it brief, you might ask?  Well, forgot a key component of my breast pump today.  So, in order to pump today I had to go and spend $40 on a cheap electric pump at 9 am this morning, using my lunch break. And let me tell you, you get what you pay for...Yea buddy.  And I got a stupid stupid email from someone at work which made me mad this morning (probably more mad thank i would have been if the next part of this blog wasn't also happening).  And the baby is sick. Really sick.  Not sleeping for almost an entire week sick.  And a whole week, not a work week.  She is almost sleeping now.  But I am tired.  And perhaps almost the most depressed I have ever been.  And I have an annual report to finish.  And job specs to write.  And meetings to have.  And interviews to conduct.  On top of all of the other stuff I have at work.  I was excited to come back to work today after having so much time off with whiny children.  And now I am wondering why I was excited to come back to work when I have to deal with stupid crap like childish and petty emails.

Oh well.  Here's to hoping that 2013 is like the month of march, in like a lion, out like a lamb.  That should be my new mantra. 

On the plus side, I'm getting a huge new office.  With lots of windows.  It's gonna rock.