Average Jane

Blog

  • Average Jane Starts Catching Up

    Yesterday was a day of tying up loose ends. I received an official offer to go full time at my job, which I eagerly accepted. I got the final word from my accountant on last year’s tax bill and, while it’s a lot of money, it’s not as earthshatteringly high as last year. We also discussed figuring my first quarter 2004 taxes now – what a concept! – so that’ll be under control as well. Heck, I’m even one laundry load away from having a full complement of clean clothes and linens. It’s been a great week!

    Tonight: pedicures after work with a friend, after which we’ll meet up with our husbands and go to dinner. Then my activty-o-rama weekend begins and it’ll be a rollercoaster through Sunday evening. Please secure all loose articles…

  • Average Jane’s Weekend Looks Up

    If I may quote the immortal words of George Peppard, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

    After I thoroughly screwed up and double-booked this Saturday evening while underbooking the afternoon, yesterday everything magically worked itself out. My sister e-mailed to invite me to go horseback riding right after I’m finished gardening. Then, the evening birthday party had to be rescheduled, so I no longer look like the mean, selfish wife who can’t help her own husband celebrate his birthday. Life is good!

    I’m very much looking forward to the horseback riding, even though I’m told it’ll be a short excursion. My sister and I grew up riding ponies and then horses, so we’re both very comfortable in the saddle. We make a point of seeking out riding opportunities as often as we can.

    The last time we went riding together was on a trip to Mexico about five or six years ago. We stayed at the Rio Caliente spa. The spa offered quite a variety of activities, so we managed to schedule in some horseback riding around our massages, yoga classes, pedicures, hikes, etc.

    Wow, was it fun! Clearly the concept of “liability” did not have the same resonance for our innkeepers as it so often does for their litigation-shy neighbors to the north. The horses were relatively young and frisky – definitely not the shambling plodders you so often find on trail rides in the U.S. Toward the end of the ride, my horse decided that a little cantering was in order, which quickly developed into a gallop. My sister’s horse followed suit, and we were having a lovely time until we realized that the less comfortable riders in our group were right behind us, clinging to their saddle-horns in white-knuckled terror. We reined our horses in and resumed a more gentle pace.

    That was a great vacation in general, except for one thing: the spa serves only vegetarian food. When we booked the trip, it sounded like a fantastic way to get rested and healthy, blah, blah, blah. Maybe it was just their chef, but the sameness of the meals became apparent after two days, and we quickly got to the point where we were skipping some of them rather than face yet another salad with fresh sage leaves lurking amongst the lettuce. Breakfast was the high point, mainly because they had good granola and fresh fruit, but after nearly a week of no caffeine, sugar or meat, we both started craving all that is evil about American cuisine.

    The instant we made it through customs in Houston on our way home, we made a beeline for the Wendy’s at the airport and stuffed ourselves with hamburgers, fries and Diet Cokes. I’m pretty sure we followed it up with something containing alcohol once we’d caught our connecting flight home. The spa is very close to the town of Tequila, but we had made the unwise decision to forego outside trips and remain at the resort throughout our stay. Sigh.

    So with that tangent fully explored, and my weekend plans secured, I’ll move on and start getting ready for work. (And yes, I believe I have seen every episode of the A-Team. But then again, if you’ve seen one…)

  • Average Jane Goofs Up Again

    After all that happy talk about my dazzlingly well-planned weekend schedule, it seems one vital portion was based on incomplete information. My husband’s co-birthday party with his cousin turns out to be in the evening, not the afternoon. Part of the problem is that nobody ever came out and said what time it was going to be, although I distinctly remember discussing whether I’d have time to clean up after my planting project that morning. Something made me think it was in the afternoon, although my husband claims he never implied any such thing.

    So, in short, I can’t go to the party. My niece and I will have to do a gals’ night out by ourselves. It’ll be just like going out with one of my girlfriends, but without the martinis. Oh, and I don’t ordinarily hold my friends’ hands when we cross the parking lot.

    Speaking of martinis, tonight I’m going to happy hour to help a friend celebrate her birthday and enjoy her first post-partum martini. That’ll be my second drink of the week after a mojito with dinner on Monday. I’m such a social butterfly all of a sudden!

    So that’s it for now. I need to make a breakfast shake, take a shower and hit the road. I’ll try to think of a topic that will return me to my regular essay form tomorrow.

  • Average Jane Lags Behind

    I know I’ve already set a bad posting precedent this week. I’m actually quite busy (what a surprise!) and I haven’t been spending a lot of time online (gasp!). The problem with doing a lot of work is that it’s boring and nobody wants to hear about it. [Clarification: My job isn’t boring to me, but I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t be interested in hearing about the details.]

    I’m looking forward to this weekend, though. On Saturday morning I’m going with my community service club to a women’s shelter to plant flowers. Before then I need to drag out my small roto-tiller and make sure I can get it to start. I also need to shake out all my work gloves to make sure spiders haven’t nested in the fingers over the winter – that would be an unpleasant surprise.

    On Saturday afternoon I’m going to a party to celebrate the birthdays of my husband and his cousin. I suppose I’ll have to start thinking of gift ideas between now and then.

    After that, my four-year-old niece is coming to spend the night at our house. We’re taking her to see Home on the Range, although we’d probably see it sooner or later even without the accompaniment of a child.

    My niece is the ultimate Disney consumer. Almost every time I see her, she’s wearing her Cinderella costume, or at least a tiara. Her upcoming birthday (she’s not officially going to be four for a few more weeks) will feature a Disney Princesses bouncy-castle and an elaborate castle-shaped cake. Even this time last year, she was reported to have said at daycare after tripping over something, “The Princess fell.” Three years old and already referring to herself in the third person! That girl’s going to be a candidate for a new “Who Wants To Marry A European Prince” reality show in fewer than two decades.

    So that’s my life: working hard all day and looking forward to an event-packed weekend. Just like every week!

  • Average Jane’s New Computer

    The highlight of my weekend was that my husband set up my new desktop computer. Yay! It’s a Pentium 4 (replacing my Pentium 3 laptop), has a huge hard drive and a ton of RAM (no, I don’t remember the specifics right offhand), and came complete with a CD burner and my husband’s old scanner (which actually works, unlike my old one that – d’oh! – I forgot to put out with the trash this morning).

    My husband originally built the CPU to use onstage with his band, and it’s fantastically loaded with features. Perhaps a bit TOO fantastically loaded with features. For lack of a better term, it’s completely pimped out. It has multi-colored, lighted exhaust fans. The side of the case is clear lucite, and through it you can see glowing blue cables. The on/off button is shaped like a jewel and cycles through a rainbow of colors every few minutes. There are even glowing blue LEDs framing the front panel. In short, it is the extended disco remix of a computer. I actually kind of like it, except that the cheapo lighted fans are noisy. It cries out to have a lava lamp installed next to it.

    From a performance standpoint the computer is HEAVENLY! My old computer had been turning into such a dog that I could hardly get any work done. I haven’t tried the scanner yet, but everything else seems to work wonderfully.

    Best of all, unplugging and moving everything forced me to finish cleaning off my desk (I even vacuumed the shag carpeting underneath). I have perhaps one more hour of filing before my entire work area is clean and tidy. I’ll fix the room’s feng shui yet!

  • Average Jane Welcomes A New Pet

    Last night my husband and I went to Petsmart (which always makes me think of the line from Army of Darkness, "Shop smart – shop S-Mart").  But aaaanyway, we were there so I could buy another in a long line of gigantic, expensive bags of Feline Science Diet for Ancient Cats.  (Have I mentioned we have four cats?  And yes, that is too many except when you consider them individually.)  This time Petsmart had a kind of cat food that promised fewer hairballs and less shedding (read: less puking), which sounded like an excellent benefit to me.  For the past few days, the cats had been subsisting on a box of Meow Mix from the local convenience store that I’d purchased so they wouldn’t starve after their good food ran out on Monday.  Since that’s pretty much the equivalent of feeding a human McDonald’s at every meal, I thought it was high time to switch the cats back to something healthier.

    So we walked into Petsmart (at this point, the order of events is all scrambled, so just work with me) and immediately came upon a big display of beta fish, the fish formerly known as Siamese Fighting Fish.  My stepmother has two of them, and I’d been considering getting one for quite some time.  I mentioned as much to my husband, who was suddenly seized with the desire for us to get one now!  I knew I had a fishbowl at home, so I told him to pick one out, get some food and gravel, and meet me at the checkout.

    By the time I emerged from the cat section with the aforementioned cat food and 20 pounds of kitty litter, he’d selected a blue beta with a purplish-red head and some red details on his fins.  An employee had assured him that our filtered water at home would be safe for the fish right away, but my husband wasn’t convinced.  In five minutes, he had already thoroughly bonded with this particular fish, and he wasn’t about to take any chances.  Of course, I was thinking, "Well, if this one dies, we’ll just keep getting new ones until we get it right."  I could see that it would be insensitive to say so out loud…more than once or twice anyway.

    We took the fish in its little plastic cup and set it in the cupholder of the van while we ran our other errands.  As soon as we got home, I began searching for the fishbowl that I had last seen at Christmastime filled with pinecones.  It was nowhere to be found, so I moved on to Plan B, which was to take the cats’ toys out of the big, recycled glass jar near the front door and clean it up for the fish to live in.  The added bonus of dumping out the cat toys was that the cats had a big old party, especially when they came across the catnip toys that had been out of their reach for some time.

    Meanwhile, my husband hit the Internet for beta care information and worked himself up enough about our water quality to refuse to put the fish, by now dubbed "Angel," in the new container until more supplies could be purchased.  I thought the fish looked pretty miserable in 8 ounces of water, but the decision was clearly out of my hands.

    It was really rather cute to see my husband start acting like a nine-year-old with a new animal buddy.  Sure, he loves the cats, but the fish deserves only the best!  By the time I got home this evening, Angel had been installed in his new bowl, along with a filter ("so we won’t have to change the water so often"), a thermometer ("to make sure his water’s warm enough") and some silk plants in which he can hide.  The fish looks much happier now, so I guess it was all worth it.  And the cats?  No yakking today as far as I can tell.  Everybody wins!

  • Average Jane Loses Sleep

    I’ve been having a devil of a time getting as much sleep as I want lately. There are few things I enjoy more than a solid night’s sleep, although my schedule does not permit many “sleep in” days. Right now there are three factors working against me when it comes to sleeping until the alarm rings. Two of them occur all the time and the other is, fortunately, temporary.

    First there’s the temporary factor: the antibiotics I’m taking for my latest bout with bronchitis. They’re giant yellow horse pills that leave a lingering bitter taste in my mouth and include in their list of side-effect warnings, nightmares and hallucinations. Luckily I’m not experiencing any hallucinations, but I’ve been awakened by vivid and strange dreams almost every morning since I began taking them last week. Last night, for example, I dreamed that I’d moved into a new house with lots of windows. People kept pressing themselves against the windows to look in, so I had to race around closing all the blinds. I wouldn’t go so far as to call that a “nightmare” because it wasn’t particularly terrifying, but it was definitely freaky enough to wake me up. That’s where the two permanent sleep-denying factors come into play.

    Once I’m awake, my chances of going back to sleep are incredibly slim. One reason is my husband’s snoring. I can ignore it through my deepest sleep thanks to a noisy bedside air cleaner that I run solely for white noise (in fact, it doesn’t even have a filter in it anymore). I’ll admit right now that his snoring is not even all that loud – it’s just random and startling enough to shatter any chance of my regaining sleep. Just as I’m drifting off, he’ll emit a snort or grunt that thoroughly reawakens me. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t fleetingly considered smothering him with a pillow from time to time. I usually settle for growling, “Roll over!” Sometimes this is accompanied by a sharp elbowing.

    The second sleep destroyer is the presence of our cats. Our male cat takes turns sleeping next to us and on us all night long. If it’s my turn when I wake up, his shifting weight on my side or chest makes it very hard to fall back asleep. He’s a big klutz, too, so if he’s moving around he can cause a great deal of discomfort with a misplaced paw. Another of our cats has decided that her morning mission is to scan me for any trace of consciousness so she can immediately greet me with glad cries. Never mind that it may be a false alarm – she leaps onto the bed and races across our sleeping bodies to make peeping noises at me as soon as I stir even once. Not relaxing!

    The good news is that after today, I only have two days left of this course of antibiotics. I’m hoping that ridding myself of the strange dreams will help me stay asleep at least a bit longer. As for the snoring and the cats, well, they’re just a small price to pay for companionship.

  • Average Jane’s Hair Looks Terrible

    These days I no longer sport the curly hairdo worn by my doodled younger self that you see to the left. I abandoned perms after a trip to San Francisco where a combination of weather and water quality left me looking as though I were wearing a giant Brillo pad on my head. That was also the trip where one of my eyes got so irritated that I had to wear my Coke-bottle-bottom glasses for a week. Not pretty.

    I was born with blonde hair that gradually darkened as I got older until it became a mousy brown around the time I was in junior high school (the height of my geekdom, judging by photos of the era). Since then I’ve had just about every hair color you can imagine, including a shade of purply-burgundy that can only be explained as a severe lapse in judgment. Eventually, though, I realized that no matter what color my hair actually was, I always saw myself as blonde in my mind’s eye. Thus, I’ve been blonde again for the past few years.

    Of course, as any bottle-blonde can tell you, maintaining your roots is a big issue. It was bad enough having brown roots, but these days my brown roots are shot through with an ever-increasing number of silvery-grey strands. With all that grey hiding beneath the blonde, my hair has changed texture quite a bit, which makes it more and more difficult to keep it looking well-conditioned. However, I discovered a new Tigi deep conditioner called “Chocolate Head” that does a pretty good job on my hair and, as an added bonus, makes the shower smell like downtown Hershey, Pennsylvania.

    I called yesterday to make an appointment to get my 2+ months’ worth of roots taken care of. As soon as the receptionist answered the phone, I completely blanked on the name of the hair stylist I’ve been using for years. I finally managed to stammer my way into an appointment for this Saturday, so at least I’ll be presentable for the client meetings I have next week. I’m very much looking forward to hair that’s roots-to-tips blonde again. It’ll also be nice to get my overgrown bangs out of my eyes – I’m starting to look like an anime character.

  • Average Jane Loves Easter Candy

    I’m doing my utmost to ignore the giant Easter candy displays that have already overtaken every grocery store and drug store I frequent. Of all the holiday candy offered throughout the year, my favorite is definitely the Easter selection.

    First of all, I absolutely love Peeps. Sure, they have them for all the holidays now, but the classic chicks and bunnies will always be the “real Peeps” to me. The little sugar-coated marshmallows have quite a fan following, as evidenced by the huge number of websites devoted to them. There’s a site devoted to various experiments you can perform on them. There’s even a site wherein The Fellowship of the Ring is reenacted using Peeps as characters.

    And just so you know, I prefer my Peeps stale. If they’re not tough and chewy, they’re just not ready for consumption.

    As delightful as Peeps are, they don’t hold a candle to the ultimate Easter candy – Cadbury Cream Eggs. As a purist, I’m not interested in the chocolate or caramel varieties, only the original ones with centers that resemble real, raw eggs. I know that Cadbury Cream Eggs gross some people out, but those people have not given the delectable confections their proper due. If you think they’re too gooey and messy, a little refrigeration does the trick. A few years ago I discovered that Costco sells Cadbury Cream Eggs by the dozen! I believe my last bout of weight gain may have dated from that period.

    Other Easter candy honorable mentions:

    • Malted milk eggs
    • Bunny-shaped circus peanuts in pastel colors
    • Cheap jelly beans
    • Flat chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs, the cheaper the better
    • Solid chocolate bunnies, especially white chocolate ones
    • Russell Stover coconut nests (Deserving of extra special super duper honorable mention)

    Sadly, my Easter candy consumption must be curtailed if I wish to maintain my newly-svelte figure. I’ll have to be satisfied with just one Cadbury Cream Egg this season…and a package of Peeps…and maybe just one coconut nest…and…

  • Average Jane Watches More TV

    I went through my copy of Entertainment Weekly the week before last and set the TiVo to record all of the new TV shows that caught my attention. Here are my impressions of the new shows I’ve watched so far:

    Game Over – I thought it was kind of a cute concept, but pretty cheesy. The smoking/drinking/swearing character (a la Bender in Futurama and Baby Stewie on Family Guy) meant to offset the “normal” characters has been overdone to death. The first episode had way too much of a gooey happy ending wrapup. Casting bonus: features the voice of Patrick Warburton, a big fave of mine especially since he played The Tick.

    Century City – I’m hoping the cheese-o-meter ratings of the first episode subside. It’s wise to play it as a lightly sci-fi version of a regular lawyer show, and it’s possible that things will calm down once all the characters and plotlines are established. I like the “today’s ethicists’ hypothetical questions as tomorrow’s legal cases” approach. Casting bonus: another alumnus of The Tick, Nestor Carbonell. I’ll give it at least one more shot.

    Deadwood – I think I’m really going to like it, and I’m not offended by the incessant swearing. The reviews I’ve read say that it doesn’t really get going until the fourth episode, and I’m more than willing to put in the time.

    As for the other shows I watch, I’ve become so disinterested in what happens on Friends that I’ve actually cancelled the TiVo season pass. My favorite new(ish) comedy is Two and a Half Men, believe it or not. It’s funnier than you’d expect. I’m watching a lot of cable these days: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Chappelle’s Show, lots of stuff on TechTV (which should be its own blog entry – and probably will be someday), Trading Spaces, and even South Park occasionally. I’m enjoying this season of The Sopranos, and I predict a great deal of bloodshed for the rest of the season.

    I am also looking forward to the return of Carnivale, even though the pacing of the show exasperates me sometimes. When I first began watching it last year I meant to give it up after the first episode or two, but I was hooked and continued watching until the end. I’ve had other friends tell me the same thing happened to them, so story must be more compelling than it seems at first glance.

    Without the TiVo, I might very well have stopped watching television at all by this point. Last night was the first time in as long as I can remember that I actually watched two shows in a row as they were being broadcast, rather than later in the week at my convenience.

    Still, there’s one thing that cuts my TV watching down more than anything else: web surfing time. Since you’re reading this, I’m sure you know what I mean.