Tagged!

A great blogger, Jasmine at An Experiment in Poverty, tagged me for this one. I was thrilled.

Rules to follow... if you're the kind who follows rules: Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own. Tag five other un-tagged people.

What is your current obsession?
I guess it might be our new cat, Marbles. He’s freaking adorable. We just learned that he loves to play the blanket game, where we put him under a sheet and poke at him, and he fights back. So cute.

What are you wearing now?
I’m wearing my forest green sweater with the thin, horizontal grey stripes, my grey pinstripe pants, and my black argyle socks. It’s business casual, baby. But only because I’m at work. At this time of day at home, I’d be in my birthday suit.

Do you nap a lot?
No. Almost never, actually. Napping leaves me feeling groggy and disoriented for days. I must never have inherited that one from my mother. It’s about the only thing we don’t have in common.

What would you like to learn to do?
Cook. I’d love to learn to cook. I’m a terrible multitasker, so timing and doting on more than one thing on the stove is really hard for me. I always end up with cold noodles and sauce and hot bread. Or…you know…But I make a mean grilled cheese sandwich.

What’s for dinner?
I don’t know. I don’t usually cook. It’ll probably be something fast, since we have to eat between when I get off work at 6:15 and church at 8:15. I know it’s two hours, but I won’t get home until 6:30 and then it’s changing and playing with the cat and playing with the boyfriend…you know, time consuming stuff. We might just eat out.

What was the last thing you bought?
Yesterday I went to a thrift store in town and bought One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, a book of random facts for Robb, and Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS. Grand total? $10.83. I love No Strings Attached.

What is your favorite weather?
I love sunny, 70-80 degrees. Anything that makes for great picture taking. Cloud cover washes everything out…no fun at all. Although, I love a good rain, provided that I have nowhere to be.

What is on your bedside table?
I don’t sleep in my own bed. Mine is basically a guest bed in our apartment. But on the table is a drunken Homer Simpson lamp, three books (To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Thinking and Being, Best American Short Stories 200#, -- 8? Is it 8? – and Bearing an Hourglass), my checkbook and car payment booklet, my alarm clock, my change can, a box with all my random foreign coins in it (I should blog about that), a box of Kleenex (currently empty), and several small things I should probably throw away.

What is your most challenging goal right now?
Making enough money to pay my bills. I need a full time job. Working part time at a bank for under ten dollars an hour just isn’t cutting it for me.

Do you have a blog you read daily even when there are no updates?
I used to look at See Kyle Draw (kyle-cummings.blogspot.com) all the time, but now that he’s stopped posting artwork as often, I don’t go there as much. Other than that, Bent Objects (bentobjects.blogspot.com) is a great one.

What would you like to have in your hands right now?
Adam Levine, the lead singer of Maroon 5. Or twenty thousand dollars to pay off my loans.

What would you like to get rid of?
The extra body fat around my midsection. I need to start running or something…the abs I do crunches twice a day for are somewhere under that extra poundage. And, admittedly, it’s not much. But it’s enough.

What language(s) do you want to be able to speak?
I would love to speak German. Or Russian. I adore the German language.

What's one thing you're looking forward to?
See previous blog. VACATION!!!!! Although, admittedly, I'm a little bit freaking out about the cat being there without us for almost two weeks. I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about it. I need a cat sitter.

If you were to pick up a pen right now, what would be the first thing you'd write?
Probably the date. I always date something if I write it. Who knows when I’ll look back at it again. I had a great idea for a poem last night, and I let it get away without writing it down. Grr.

Who was your childhood crush?
Well, in my childhood it was the older brother of a boy I played with (with a last name like a gun). When I figured out what I actually wanted, though (read: high school), it was Jordan Swanson…oh man. I spent way too much energy thinking about that man.

What do you want to be... when you grow up?
A writer, a teacher, a librarian, a clerk at a bookstore…something. Maybe a cartoon voice actor. I’ve been told I’d be good at that. What I don’t want is to be defined by my career. I just want to be able to pay the bills and have a little something leftover to do what I love during my free time.

What (and when) was the last book you read?
I just finished reading On a Pale Horse a little over a week ago. It’s the first book of the seven-book Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. I read five or six of them waaaay back in the day, when I was into fantasy and sci-fi, and I have always wanted to go back and read them again, if only to finish the series. They’re not as good as I recall them being, but nothing ever is.

I liked all of these questions, so I didn’t delete any of them. But I did add one of my own at the end. Now, to tag…

How about:
A Human Kind of Human
All Is Fair
Melissa

All right, then...

Viewtiful_Justin...Out

The Fabulous Adventures of Five and the Birthday Weekend...

My birthday weekend was super-fun. End of story.

Not really end of story, actually.

Friday night my family and Robb and I went out for Chinese at Yen Ching. Yum. And my mom decided that leftovers in their fridge would just sit there, so she sent me home with SEVEN chinese takeout boxes. Seven! We're down to five, I think. But we had lemon chicken, two plates of happy family, twice-cooked pork, and two plates of Hong Kong chicken steak...oh, and Yen Ching Fried Rice that my mom ALWAYS orders and NEVER eats. And now...we're out one happy family and one lemon chicken and one twice-cooked pork. Holy hell...rice is coming out my ears!

Oh, and speaking of being out one happy family, Sunday was a delight. Note sarcasm. We crashed at Robb's dad's house Saturday night after hanging out in Chicago with his friends Amy, Erin, and Cari and going to thrift stores and finishing at Nookie's for dinner and dessert. Sunday morning we got up and showered, got ready for church, and Robb's dad was making breakfast. Robb asked who was coming over for Easter dinner, and his dad said that hateful brother-in-law and sister were coming with their kids. We expected that.

What we DIDN'T expect was Robb's dad suggesting we leave before they got there, so as to avoid trouble. Because apparently one side of this disagreement can't be trusted to be civil to each other over Easter dinner (although he never said that specifically, it's what the message meant). And I don't really fault Robb's dad for saying that. He doesn't know what to do about this while situation any more than we do. He's just trying his best to keep everyone happy and, well, up to now, failing miserably at keeping us happy at all.

So...we were both pissed off, and we packed our bags and left before church or brunch or anything. His dad wanted us to stay then, positively pleaded for us to stay. But really, the damage had been done and the day had been tainted, so...Robb and I left.

I called my mom and asked if they were doing anything for Easter, and she said no until I told her what happened. And then we went over there and had a delicious steak dinner. So...something was salvaged out of this while mess.

Ugh. Crappy Easter.

And the worst part of it all is that Robb is so torn up about this. It just makes me sick to see him hurting.

So...yeah...until Sunday morning, my birthday weekend was amazing! Blah.

Out

Above the Law...

Today I had a young customer at work who we've had problems with before, although I've never been the one to deal with him. In fact, I've never actually been there when he's come in with a problem, like the time he yelled at us for using his name. Today, however...

He mumbled something from the fourth lane of the drive up, something I didn't quite hear due to the rain and wind and train going by. I heard the words "money market" and "deposit in to checking." I thought he'd asked me to cash his check against his money market account and deposit it into his checking account. We don't cash checks and then deposit the cash into the account. It breaks policy when we do that. AND, when we DO do it, it's only with checks drawn off of our bank, since we can make sure the funds are available before cashing out the check (although we're asked not to even do that...). But when I looked at the check, it was drawn off another bank. We never cash out checks and deposit them if they're drawn off another bank. It's just bad business, easy fraud, etc.

So I figured I misheard him, and I deposited it into his checking account. He drove away, and a minute or two later, he sashayed into the lobby and flounced up to the counter. "I was just in the drive..."he started to tell Debbie when I walked up, "and he [pointing to me] was supposed to cash this check against my money market and deposit it into my checking account."

So I had heard him correctly.

I stepped in and told him that we don't cash out checks and deposit the cash, so I just deposited it into his account, and since it was drawn off another bank it would be available tomorrow. And then he threw this big hissy fit about how we were the only branch that gave him problems and how the people in Palatine did it for him all the time (totally breaking every rule we have). "This is ridiculous," he must have lisped at me across the counter four times.

My manager just explained to him that we don't do that. And he tried to explain to us how to do our job, how it was okay for us to break policy, and how he was above the law.

Umm....no.

And when he went in to talk to the manager, I counted my till and went home, since it was time for me to go.

I don't know what ended up happening in the end, but this little incident got me thinking. Why do we each think we're above the law? Why do the rules not apply to us? I'm sure there are places where you get special favors from the people there who know you, but do you then expect them? And do you expect them at other places, too?

At my favorite Chinese restaurant Yen Ching we almost always get a free egg roll or fried rice or something when we get take out, and we don't get charged for it because they love Robb and I there.



We're above the law.

At Pizza Hut I used to get free pizza because a friend of mine worked there. I was above the law.

But I don't expect to walk into any Pizza Hut and tell them I know Eric and they should give me free pizza. I know it's a courtesy and a favor because I have a relationship with someone that works there. I am not entitled (there's that word) to anything. I am not REALLY above the law. And I am not a pompus enough ass to think that I am, unlike my swishy "friend" from the bank today.

Are there places where you are above the law?

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