Floating Leaf

Lord, I am such an idiot. I was so frustrated by all those hours of pointless waiting yesterday that I decided I just couldn't face another day of this, and that I'd much rather be at work. Besides, I was sort of hoping the plumber might come in anyway while I was gone - it has happened before on occasion. The rental company does have the keys, and they once asked me if it was OK for workers to come in and patch up a hole in the ceiling in my absence. So I figured maybe the plumber guy was too busy yesterday, but today he just might let himself in and fix the problem, without me needing to take another day off work. Also, last night, after I made the ranty post, the leak seemed to have slowed down again; I wrapped the pipe in a kitchen towel and some plastic bags, and the bucket was taking quite a while to fill up. So I was actually able to get some decent sleep (I did wake up briefly around 2 a.m., but then slept again until six). In the morning, the situation didn't seem too dire - the bucket wasn't even half-full - so I convinced myself everything was more or less fine, and went to work. I did exchange the bucket for the big garbage can, though, before I left - which turned out to be a brilliant move. As you may be guessing by now, nobody has come in while I was gone - and the massive garbage can was very nearly full when I came back.:/

Incidentally, I had scheduled next Monday off, because on Sunday I am going to visit my parents. So I thought, well, if the plumber doesn't come today or tomorrow while I'm at work, I'll call the rental office again on Monday. And that's what I told my boss. But right now I'm pretty sure it's NOT a good idea to leave this hanging until Monday. I had wrapped the pipe in more plastic bags, but that can only do so much. If it gets any worse - and in a few days it might - I will not be able to leave the house, or fall asleep, for more than 2-3 hours. If even that. So I HAVE to get it fixed tomorrow. Which means ANOTHER vacation day. And I've already used almost half of my PTO for this year... *sigh*

I can't even remember the last time I took a day off for something fun. It's always either a sickie, or an errand day, or an emergency repair day, or a cleaning/laundry day, because I can't seem to fit those momentous activities into a regular 2-day weekend.:/ And let's not even mention taking several days at a time. I think I haven't done that since... 2011, probably? And even then, it was just to attend a few shows at a local film festival. So when my LJ friends talk about going on 2-3 week vacations - either actual trips, or just "chilling out" at home - every year, I get very envious. To me, that's just not viable, even though "technically" I have over 20 days off per year. It seemed like so much when I was younger, too (and had even less). Now it's barely enough to cover my basic needs...

It is warming up slowly. I actually have the window open at the moment, since it's gotten a bit stuffy in here. But there is more rain coming and the air is quite humid, so "airing out" the place isn't helping much. I keep forgetting that the only way to "feel a breeze" inside my apartment is to turn on an electric fan...

Today I dragged my Nook Simple Touch out of the cabinet where it had languished unused for the past year or so. I still have a stack of unread books in paper form on my shelf, so I felt no urge to buy more - but then I was sort of tricked into it, LOL. See, we have this little "library" at my workplace where people bring used books and magazines, and a few weeks ago someone brought The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I had seen the movie, which absolutely floored me (there is a post about it somewhere in this journal, can't be bothered to look for it now), so naturally I was curious about the book - and so I started reading it during my lunch breaks. Unsurprisingly, I found it absolutely captivating. It became the highlight of my day at the office... LOL. And then, one seemingly unremarkable afternoon, I walked up to the shelf in the break room and - to my utter dismay - found the book GONE. ( Read more... )

So, I was feeling sort of blah today, but then I popped over on Tumblr and found this. ( The best summary of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles ever. )

Today was another failure of a day. Again, it took me several hours to decide what I needed from the grocery store - and when I finally put myself together and went there, I got drenched in buckets of torrential rain on my way back. Of course, minutes after I got home - looking like a wet rat, I might add - the rain stopped. But when I changed all my clothes and went out again, to the other grocery store, the skies opened for the second time. Now I had an umbrella, though, so I only got soaked from the knees down.:| Anyway... I had been planning to cook tonight, but somehow lost the will to do it after this little adventure, so I decided to spend the evening making a long LJ post instead. Except the long post never materialized either, as you can see. It was the usual "OMG I have so much to say I don't know where to start", and then "OMG why is my brain a blank now???" syndrome.:/

And now it's late and I just want to sleep. Gahhh. This is so pathetic I can't even. How do people manage to actually DO STUFF on weekends, like go to clubs or the movies or see friends or whatever?... I barely seem able to cope with the basics. Is it just me, or is this what "middle age" feels like? If so, then I don't want. I need extra 12 hours added to each day - otherwise it just doesn't make sense anymore. I might just as well die now, because I will never do anything worthwhile again. Unless I hire someone to take care of all my daily chores for me - but then I would need to work two jobs so I could afford it, which would defeat the purpose. Anyway, I'll stop babbling and go to bed. No need to make this overwhelming feeling of futility worse by wallowing in it.:/

Did I mention summer in my previous post? Well, it's gone. Lasted about three days this time. Right now we're back to murky cold weather reminiscent of either early March or November. For the past three nights or so, the temperature has been dropping below 10C/50F. In light of this, you might want to ask whether my heating is back on. Um, no. It is the end of May, so of course not. And I have already put the fan in my kitchen window, right? Which means I can't even close it properly - unless I take the fan back out. Aaaarrrrrghhhhh. Btw, it's supposed to be hot again by next Tuesday. So I decided not to bother removing the fan and just quietly freeze to death instead.:/ Oh, I did take out my little electric heater, of course. I need it to warm up the bathroom before I can persuade myself to take any clothes off, LOL. I sleep in my thickest flannels & socks, with an extra blanket on top of my duvet. Today I cleaned the apartment, which was the perfect thing to do, since it kept me moving around for a few hours, and therefore I stayed warm. But now the chill is seeping right through the fleece jacket I'm wearing over my sweater.:/ Oh, the irony. With all those fans standing around. I usually postpone setting up all the fans until it gets REALLY hot - at which point it is VERY unlikely to get cold again. But the thing is, it WAS really hot. This sudden, massive temperature drop was nothing short of astounding. If I still had any doubts that there are no rules anymore when it comes to the weather, they're all gone now. "Seasons" are a mythical concept in this brave new world of climate change...:|

But that's not what I wanted to talk about tonight. My latest Netflix movie turned out to be absolutely stunning. It's called Cracks, and the story takes place at a girls' boarding school in England in 1934. I know - sounds like a cliche. But it is quite surprising, in a number of ways. ( Read more... )

So, what's new since last weekend? The weather has warmed up... then cooled down again. From a sleeveless top to a sweater and a jacket - all within the space of two days. And by next week, it's supposed to be hot again. All right. Whatever. *resigned headshake*

My knee is almost back to normal, but I seem to have developed some sort of digestive dysfunction. It's not really something I want to discuss in great detail - but lately some foods I used to eat with no problem mere months ago have been giving me a lot of discomfort. ( boring and possibly TMI )

Okay... that was the "whinging old lady" part of the post. In other news, I took next Monday off, since on Sunday I am going to visit my parents. And the Monday after that is also off, since it's Memorial Day. And the office will close early on the Friday before it, too. So it will be a nice long weekend. I should be able to finally clean this place (OMG the dust bunnies are eating me alive, I swear they are, it's a wonder my allergies haven't flared up yet), as well as do the laundry. Yes, I win at making exciting plans for long weekends. *snort*

Also, the 10TH ANNIVERSARY of starting this journal is coming up fast. What should I do to mark the occasion?... It's a momentous one, considering the amount of time I have spent here over the years. Any suggestions? :D

Again, the weekend sort of ran away with me. But I've been extremely distracted. See, I am going through another massive mp3 download phase.:D It's almost like a sudden bout of crippling disease; I can go without purchasing any new music for months, but once I get started, I often end up discovering a dozen new bands/artists within a week, acquiring endless hours of downloads and basically just getting high on it all, to the point of teenage-like giddiness and prancing ridiculously around the room. *headshake* It's a good thing Soundike.com still sells mp3's for $0.15 per track.:) (Which is definitely one of the reasons behind my giddiness - there is practically no limit on how much music I can download at one go, LOL.) Btw, it all started with the promotion they had last weekend, where they temporarily lowered the price to $0.10 per track.:D Now they're back to $0.15, but I am on a roll, and I still have nearly 50 bucks in my account on there (the more money you load into it, the more extra credit they give you, so it really pays off to put in $50 or more at once, if you can afford it).

( more music-related ramblings under the cut )

Sunny and bright today, though still very cold. My errands were uneventful - by which I mean there was no need to pray for the miraculous ability to walk on water.;P The only thing out of the ordinary that I noticed was the little river running through my neighborhood. I have never seen it so high. But it wasn't spilling onto the streets - at least not where I looked. If I walked a mile or so towards the lake, I would probably see flooded areas - but I was too tired for such experimental hikes. Going to see my chiropractor involves lots of walking as it is - and then I still had to lug in the groceries. Once that was done, I took a nap.;)

And now I know exactly what I want to do with my evening. I'm going to write the next installment of the perpetually unfinished 30-day meme.:)

( Day 26 – Your fears, in great detail )

Dear God... what a day. The weather has gone batshit. It had been raining heavily since yesterday morning - then it turned into a massive thunderstorm that raged unabated for most of the night. I barely got any sleep after 4 a.m. due to the racket it was making (and the super-bright lightning flashes). The day started out dark, gloomy and very wet. I felt like a zombie and could barely drag myself out of bed. Then it got worse. I got ready for work and walked outside... into a pandemonium of rush-hour traffic stalling for miles in every direction. I spent over an hour just standing at the bus stop, watching the barely moving cars and the lone bus looming in the distance. I called my boss and left a message saying I was going to be late (no real clue HOW late, at that point). Finally I got on the bus, but it continued to crawl at a snail's pace pretty much all the way to the transit center. Another hour or so. FINALLY I got on the train (which was faster) and made it to the other transit center, from where I take another bus directly to the office. It was around 10:20 at that point, and the next bus wasn't scheduled until 10:50. So I decided to just walk from there (it's about 30 minutes on foot). Well, I didn't get very far. The next major intersection was completely flooded. As in, fully UNDER WATER, with a lone car floating somewhere in the middle. So I figured that didn't bode very well for walking... or for taking the bus either, for that matter. How do I know the bus is even running today, or what detour it might be taking, and whether said detour includes our office location?... There was no way to tell. So I called the boss again, leaving another message to the effect that I made I this far, but now I am going to be sensible and take the next train back home. Well, as soon as I got on the train, my boss called me back, saying that she was glad I was on my way home, since there is no electricity in the building and the office has just closed for the day. She also said to call in tomorrow morning and make sure it is open before I get ready to leave. I mean... WOW. O_O

( Read more... )

Anybody remember the 30-day meme?... The one I've been doing for the past few years?... Probably not. But never mind. Here's the next installment anyway.

( Day 24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail )