Surgery Update

RedRat's baby's surgery went well. They hope things are on the upswing, but they're still not out of the woods, yet.

Many of us shall continue to pray for him and his parents. I really hope they're doing ok.

Snap

I snapped at Sweetheart yesterday. I can't take her self-involved depression any more. She gets depressed for weeks at a time and clearly wants to talk about things, but then refuses to. It's amazingly frustrating.

Yesterday after Women's Conference she was sitting next to me looking depressed and distraught. I asked her what was wrong, and she replied, "Nothing. Just life." Then, she turned her head away, tears welling up.

"Really, what's going on?" I pressed.

"Nothing. It's nothing," she replied again with the same angst-filled expression. We repeated this a couple of times, then I was done.

I understand depression. I understand life is hard. However, if you're constantly finding yourself depressed maybe you should see someone. Is her problem a chemical imbalance? Beats me. All I know is, her life isn't that bad (Yes, I realize I don't know every facet of her life. If there are things so deeply buried that she can't talk to me about them, she really should see a professional (actually, she needs to see one to deal with childhood trauma, but I doubt that's what's bothering her these days—she'd talk about that, at least.)). So, she's 25 and not married and has no prospects. Well, la-tee-freaking-da. Welcome to the club, sister. I don't mope about every little thing that isn't happening according to my ridiculous plan. Life is what happens when you're making plans. Maybe she should get off her self-involved butt and do something about whatever it is that is making her depressed. I know that she's a very emotional person, and external forces impact her far more than they impact me, however, one should be able to control the depth of impact they have on you.

"Fine." I said shortly, "If you don't want to talk to me, don't. I'm not going to sit here and make you. I'll just leave." With that, I stood up, picked up my bag, and left her sitting there by herself in her pity puddle.

You know what? Life is hard. Around every corner there is a new challenge. If you let it get you down, or control you, then you'll never grow, you'll never be truly happy. I'm sorry that whatever is depressing her is having that heavy of an impact, but I'm willing to bet that if she got out of herself things would improve dramatically. I, of all people, understand not wanting to talk about emotional turmoil, but she's not one of those people. She wants to talk about it—but she refuses to.

Whiplash-less

We've had a new bus driver for the past two days. You may remember my complaints from a few weeks ago. These developments are more than welcome! So far I've enjoyed 2 blissful whiplashless days. I almost want to kiss him in thanks.

I said "almost".

And Then There's That Line

My boss' boss' boss (yes, really) signed up for facebook last night. How do I know this? He asked to add me as a friend.

And, then, there's that line where work bleeds into private life. Usually fine when it's peers, but my boss? I accepted, I'm not ashamed of my "professional" or private lives. But, um, yeah... odd.

It's a Boy

My bestest friend in the whole wide world (RedRat) had a baby last week! It was a high risk pregnancy, and the baby has to have surgery tomorrow.

Pray for him, will you? No. Pray for them.

Institutionalized

The Church Education System has set up classes for in depth study of the scriptures. These classes at the College and University level are called "Institute." I don't go to our local Institute class. Why not? I'm not particularly a fan of the teacher. However, I determined that this semester I should probably start attending Institute classes, and so, I promised myself, I would.

Tonight I went, just like I promised.

I don't like the teacher, as I don't enjoy his style of teaching, and I certainly don't like the way he conducts his class. Tonight was no exception. In fact, tonight typified why I can't stand him.

He started out the class with a "quiz" for which all the answers were completely subjective. They don't get more subjective than "True or False? Members of the LDS faith esteem the Bible higher than members of other faiths." Um... some do, some don't. You certainly can't tell me that there is documented proof of either of those. After that exercise in offensiveness we started discussing The Creation. I figure you can't really screw up The Creation. We have, like, three accounts in the scriptures of The Creation. It's pretty straightforward.

I thought wrong.

He asked what we know about The Creation, and after getting many responses he asked, "What else do we know about The Creation?" I figured at this point he'd turn to the best sources we've got: Genesis. Once again, I thought wrong. We did turn to the scriptures, and read "The morning and the night were the first day." Yeah, that's it. Nothing new. In fact, something so not new we could all quote it from memory.

He launched into a rather deep doctrinal discussion of The Creation, and after 20 or so minutes of un-sited commentary (and some side discussion with the girl next to me on how a discussion like this really should have lots of scriptural references) I raised my hand and asked, "Do we have cross-references for this?" "Yeah," he replied flippantly, "It's called 'the scriptures.'" Annoyed, I responded as politely as I could, "Yeah. Which ones?" He laughed at his 'joke', and didn't answer my question. He didn't even attempt to answer my question with any degree of seriousness. I was livid.

The lesson went on, and he continued to teach without ever turning to the scriptures. As the class wore on I nearly walked out a number of times just because of his inane and incorrect teachings. Near the end of class he asked if the Church has an official stance on Evolution. There were a few murmurs of 'yeses' and 'noes,' and I just knew he was going to say something totally wrong. The Church's official stance is 'we have no official stance.' Which I proclaimed loudly from the back row. "No," he said, and proceeded to quote from a declaration from the First Presidency given in 1909 in response to Darwin's On the Origin of Species. What it boils down to is this: The Church says we were made "in the image of God." Fair. But to rule out all evolution based on that? I don't think so. I mean, we are evolving that is without dispute!

I barely made it through the class without walking out. I can't believe that he has been allowed to teach for more than two years. I'm very much tempted to go next week, record his "lesson" and quote heavily from it in a letter to CES to get someone to address his lack of teaching skills. I wonder if it'll work?

Bus Observations Part I

It's decidedly impossible to look bad-a in a beret.

Accepting

Since I know you're dying for an update on Blue:

He has finally signed into the social site we email each other through (myspace, facebook, it's all the same, really...). He didn't reply to either the email asking him out, or the question of the day. Which means, ladies and gents, that we have a resounding 'no'. Tragic, but oh well.

Now, on to bigger and better things. ldsSingles? Am I that desperate? Nahhh.

Social Impact

I have this driving need to save the world. The problem is: I don't know how. This week my sense of urgency has been almost overwhelming. I spend my spare time thinking up ways to make huge impacts. I want to go to Africa and set up computer networks in Zimbabwe. I want to go to Romania and work in orphanages. I want to go to Argentina and build homes for the homeless. I want to make a change. I want to make a difference.

The reality is: I need to make those changes and be that difference here, where I live. We should all feel that social draw, the urge to make a change—to better our world. And, we should start here. If we want to world to be a better place, we've got to make our community a better community, so those living near us can impact those near them who can help those near them. And on and on and on. Tides of salvation rippling out from our tiny drop in the massive bucket of society.

I want to change the world.

Buy how? What I'm doing is not enough. Will it ever be? Can it ever be?

Complex

There is a woman who catches the bus at the same stop as I. Each day I see her and think disparaging comments about her (assumed) superiority complex. Today I wondered, what makes her superiority complex worse than mine?

It's the over-sized glasses. I hate them.

Thank You For Not Killing Me

My morning bus driver sucks. I think his goal is to give each and everyone of us whip lash. I'm betting he has 98% of his goal complete. Each day as I get off his bus I thank him for the ride with a simple "Thank you". Well, I thank him; maybe it's not for the ride so much.

Bravery

I asked Blue to join me for dinner when I'm over in his neck of the woods. I haven't heard back from him yet. Not really a surprise—I don't figure I'll hear back from him for a couple of days.

Wish me luck?

Mormon Mafia

The less than brilliant management company is having our parking lot resurfaced tomorrow. Which means: I had to move Willie. Yes, the big white van that has gone nowhere for the last year. I went down to start it, and not surprisingly (but still frustratingly), it wouldn't start. The battery was totally dead.

I decided to take the opportunity to get it in to the shop. Sweetheart recommended a place, so I called them up. They gave me the number to the tow company they use and I placed yet another call. The dispatcher took my number and told me that she would have her driver give me a call when he got close. He called, and as I was giving him final directions to get here he asked about my area code. Since it's still Utah I get asked that a lot.

I told him I moved from there and he asked if I was Mormon. I said yes, and was surprised when he said that he is, too. After he got here we jumped the car, discussed my options, and decided to just pay for the jump and move the car to the church parking lot. Since my tags are expired Sweetheart said she'd follow close behind me. The driver said that would be a good idea, and if it died between here and there to give him a call on his cell phone and he'd come jump the car for me. He was sure to mention to not call the company, or else he'd have to charge me a second time.

Sweetheart and I got in our cars. He headed to his truck, then told me he'd follow me, just in case. Well, I ended up needing a second jump, but then, we got to the church just fine. He looked over my engine and gave me some suggestions on what repairs I could probably make myself, and which I could probably skip for a while. Nice. All told we probably spent an hour dealing with the car.

To think, I probably would have received exactly what I had originally asked for (a tow to the garage) had we not discovered that we were both LDS. And, once again, the Mormon Mafia comes through. Excellent!

Post-it T-shirt

Have you ever noticed how video games have the most scantly clad women as heroines. The men, mostly clad. The women, barely clad. Generally I can overlook this. However, one of my coworkers has a wall calendar from one such video game. The month of September has a three very intimidating looking women. The woman in the center, while looking like she could kick my trash while hog-tied, is hardly clothed. I have rapidly become tired of looking at her endowments, so today, while he was away from his desk, I strategically placed a post-in note cut out in the shape of a t-shirt in the middle of his calendar.

When I walked by later he was there, and so was the post-it note t-shirt. I'm glad he got the message and I didn't have to be awkward about it. Frankly, I don't care about the calendar, I don't want to make a big deal about it, I don't want him to, necessarily, take it down. I just want to not have to look at that chick's boobs every time I walk down the hall for the next month. Now, I don't have to.

New Hire

Nope, we didn't hire someone new. Tragic, since we've been looking since I started. We did, however, barely escape hiring someone. Someone, who I don't think was particularly qualified.

In today's post-interview meeting my boss sat there for 20 minutes attempting to convince the other 10 people in the room that we should hire this guy. The question on the table was: "We know he doesn't meet our expectations. With a lot of mentoring, could he? And, if so, do we have the person-power to spend training him?" My boss was adamant that we did; I was adamant that we didn't. Why? Because we already have 3-4 people on the team would need mentoring; and only one person doing any level of mentoring. That one person? Moi. Naturally.

After we finally told him that we weren't going to hire this guy I was grousing in the elevator to another co-worker, "I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to mentor anyone else! I'm not even supposed to be mentoring these people, and yet I am! Why is that, anyway?" "Because," came his observant, but simultaneously annoyingly accurate reply, "you're the only one who can put it into words they'll understand."

Excellent. The person who can't stand stupid people is responsible for mentoring the under achievers because, why? She can speak stupid-people-ese. I need a new job. Or at least one where I'm appreciated (by my own boss, that is).

Massage

Finally! I have managed to find another massage therapist who I like. I went tonight to get a massage from this woman recommended to me by Ninja. She truly was good. Tres wonderful! I shall be going back, sooner probably rather than later. Also wonderfully, she takes insurance!

Bourgeois

"You went to college?" I asked the attractive welder sitting across the campfire from me. I've know him for a few months, and one might say I'm mildly interested. Learning that he had gone to college, I was curious how he ended up as a welder.

"No, I didn't go to college! I'm not as privileged as all you little bourgeois rich kids! My family couldn't afford college!" He replied with more than a hint of bitterness in his tone. He tends to tread on the sarcastic side, and I tend to let people assume whatever they want about how I went to school, but there was something so angry and while jealous, also condescending. I wasn't about to let him patronize me for his false assumptions.

Raising my voice I leaned forward and yelled, "I grew up in a double-wide trailer, down a dirt road, with 15 other people in the house! Don't give me that 'bourgeois' bull crap! I worked my butt off to put myself through school!" Miffed, I sat back and waited for him to reply.

His response was silence. He had nothing to say to that. Really, what could he? Some else observed, "Wow, Welder has nothing to say to that!"

Someone else leaned over to me, "Really? 15 people?"

Not feeling like explaining the various amounts of people at the various times who shared our humble home I simply nodded and said, "yes." Sometime I may correct that number for her, but that wasn't the time.

"Wow, that explains a lot of what you do," she stated.

Let people assume what they will, but the moment they look down on me for false assumptions I get more than a little agitated. Everyone at that campfire last night learned a lot more about me than any of them had ever known. I wonder how their opinions of me changed then.

Snipe Hunting

Sine has never heard of snipes, or snipe hunting. Last night at dinner I announced we should go do it. He was concerned that (a) we'd hurt them, or (2) they'd hurt us. I explained that they are very docile herbivores. Also, they're nocturnal, so we have to hunt them at night. I got the whole table in on the joke!

Tragically, I just checked wikipedia, there is no entry for the traditional snipe hunt. I may just have to create one. Well, there is, but it's for a "fool's errand". There's also an entry for the bird snipe, but that sucks. So, we may just have to try our hands at encyclopedia writing. Will you edit it for me?

Linkedin and Layoffs

Yesterday I got two linkedin requests from former colleagues at BigNameCompany. Immediately, I assumed the worst and asked them both if layoffs were happening again. They said 'yes.' Argh! When are they going to realize that cutting 20% of the workforce isn't the best way to increase your profits? I told them both to send me a copy of their resume, if they're interested, and I'd submit them.

I also emailed MyBoss from there and asked him if his team is taking a hit. Yup. Majorly. I told him we're hiring, and, if he's interested, he should send me his resume, too. He may just.

Then I went and asked my director if we're hiring QA managers. Actually, it went down like this, "Hey, are we hiring ..." "Yes." "QA Managers?" "Not really, but we're always hiring good people. Send me his resume and we'll check him out." We chatted briefly about the looming layoffs and he advised me to collect as many as I could.

Really, I'd love it if MyBoss came to InternetCompany and was my boss again. I really, really would. We'll see.

I'm Blue...

Blue has gone back to emailing me. I wish above wish that I didn't care. I mean, he lives in a far off land, and the probability of me ever seeing him again is pretty small. That said, I certainly want to see him again.

I'm going home in October for a week. He lives on the far side of the state from where the folks live. I'm trying to talk Mumsy into a road trip. We'll see.

That, or talk him into one. October is the perfect time of year to visit our local National Park that he's never seen. Maybe, just maybe, he'll come up and we can check it out together. Yeah, right.

Quilting

So, I'm making this quilt for myself. It's huge. And round. And has only 1008 pieces. Also, lots and lots of points. Additionally, I made the pattern up myself, taken from a photograph of another quilt. Once I get it finished and have calculated all the correct yardage I'll post a photo of my handiwork as well as the pattern for your viewing pleasure.

It's going to take me forever.

Marriage Prep

I have made it a habit in my life to answer the promptings of the Spirit with swift definitive action. What? Move to Washington to take a random job even though I know no one there? Sure. Send her flowers? Um, ok. Take a different route to work? Done. As I have done this I've noticed I soon see the wisdom in those promptings.

This last one, though, has kind of thrown me for a loop. The last few weeks I've been feeling that it's about time I started preparing for marriage. What? Yup, that's right. The raging feminist Granola "I-don't-need-a-man-to-be-a-complete-woman" Girl is starting to prepare herself to be a wife.

Why? I honestly have no idea. What I do know is this: I can only be blessed for my efforts.

What I need to do to prepare is an entirely different matter. Anyone got any ideas? 'Cause I'm fresh out.

Not That Into You

I have come to the conclusion that Blue isn't interested. I haven't heard from him since Thursday, and, well, nothing too deep there. Tragic.

I need to tattoo a memo to the inside of my eyelids which reads, "He's just not that into you."

Also, I need to stop checking stupid facebook to see what he's updated and wonder why he hasn't emailed me. It's quite simple, really, he's just not that into me.

(Not) My Baby's Daddy

My oldest sister is getting married. Again. This is her second wedding, 4th long term partner. One of the previous 3 produced her son. This latest one has also found her pregnant (albeit, after marriage plans were in the works). My presence has been requested, though I'd rather just be there for the divorce hearing.

I think I should write a movie about the revolving door policy she has on her bedroom. I shall call it "(Not) My Baby's Daddy". Or, perhaps since she now has two babies, "(Not) My Babies' Daddies".

Contributions

I strongly resent the fact that so many in the Church believe that the whole purpose of a woman's existence is to get married, have babies, and raise a family. No matter how intelligent she may be, her responsibility still lies in the home. After all, they argue, if one woman was going to solve problem X, a man would probably have done it at about the same time, so what harm does it do to remove that burden from her. Thus freed from the need to work she can raise kids to grow up and be brilliant and contribute to society. Correction: she can raise her sons to grow up and be brilliant and contribute to society. Her daughters, on the other hand are to be raised to grow up and be mothers themselves. Where does it end? Am I the only person who notices that the only people contributing to the intellectual improvement of the world in this model are the men?! Frankly, I refuse to believe that my sole contribution to the world is my womb. I am a woman, not a breeding cow.