Sendoff to 2011

December 31, 2011 14 Comments

If someone would have told me when I was 16 years old that time would eventually fly by so quickly I could barely catch my breath, I would not have believed that person.

Here I am, trying to get in one last blog post before 2011 expires and after being on Christmas vacation for over a week. I have no idea how it is December 31st – none.

As each year passes, the days, weeks, and months speed past me at an alarming rate. Scarier still is that while I have much to live for and much to look forward to, I believe I could be living more fully. Does that make sense? Essentially, instead of putting down specific resolutions which I want to “stick to” (and probably wouldn’t (see last year’s list)), I’m keeping it simple for this coming year and for all my years to come: be present. Live in the now.

It is so easy to get caught up in the details of life which are unpleasing. That’s what I have done in 2011 and at the year’s end, today, the first things that come to mind when I look back are the hardships. I dealt with some health issues–sometimes alarming ones–which have made me sit up and pay more attention to what’s REALLY important.

So what IS really important? Love. Family. Real friendships. Personal fulfillment. Being in the moment. Appreciating those times of joy and laughter and cherishing them for their immeasurable value.

Kevin and I spent the morning with some family members and had some belly laughs, swapped stories, and ate some delicious food. It’s such a blessing to have so much love in both our families. That’s how I enter 2012: with a full heart and more clarity on how I want to be spending my time.

The “bad stuff” is unpredictable and will always happen when we can least afford to endure it. What I am making an effort to do is to not freak the hell out when something happens now, and yes, to even try to laugh at it. This is a particular challenge for me because I have a flair for freaking out. I can really mull something over and over and over questioning, “WHY ME?” quite a bit.

For example, I’m still in the middle of unpacking from Christmas vacation and figuring out the rest of my weekend. I’m sitting here at my computer, minding my own business, and the shelf which sits above my computer monitor suddenly gives way. I had to clear off everything from the shelf and now I wait for Kevin to repair it for me. I really wanted to whine and complain about it for a little while but I took a few deep breaths, focused on the fact that it didn’t come crashing down on my monitor while I was gone for a week, and now I  simply look forward to it being repaired.

That’s some serious pivotal behavior for a freak-outter like me! (Can you tell I’m patting myself on the back about it?)

I love the freshness that a new year brings. I always wish I can hold onto it as the months pass by but it seems inevitable that by the fall, the year has become as comfortable as a well worn pair of shoes. December never feels like a full month but a couple of weekends and we’re at Christmas and New Year’s.

2011 has seen a continuing passion for blogging and an expansion into another art form, that of photography. I am so appreciative for the gift of writing and sharing with you all and am thoroughly excited for another year ahead. I’m focusing on this sensation of brimming with enthusiasm and of course I’ll be sharing more exploits. (I thought of another driving post I could do!)

May 2012 bring you a tidal wave of happy moments, new adventures, and fulfillment until you burst.

See you on the flip of the calendar!

Last of the blooms

A top favorite photo from 2011.

Filed Under: Blogging, Deeper, Occurrences Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Where I’ve Earned the Right

November 15, 2011 19 Comments

At some point during the last five years or so, I accepted the fact that I am going to be bombarded with advertisements of all kinds, during any given activity at any given moment. While I heretofore believed that the one I hated the most was watching a thirty-second ad prior to watching a forty-two second video clip online, a new one has crept into the number one slot.

The new champ iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis: ads and offers I have to decline prior to accessing my bank account online.

They kind of make me want to cut someone.

I always believed that if one places his or her money in an account at a banking institution, that institution is grateful to have that person’s money and that was it. End of story.

If you can tell I didn’t major in finance or economics, you would be right. But I can’t stress enough how uncomfortable it makes me to constantly be turning down offers from my bank, who is only trying to upgrade me in some way to get more of my money, of which I don’t have a lot.

Now let’s talk online banking for a moment. I don’t know of a single bank that doesn’t offer this service anymore. In 2011, we have become dependent on having access to our balance at a moment’s notice, and can perform all kinds of transactions that, in the 90s and earlier, we would have gone to the actual bank to do. Personally, I do love the convenience.

Yet, what I’m discovering is that while it’s a free service which banks love to inform you about (and in my case, most recently, pushed me to sign up for right away), there’s always a catch. It’s actually “free,” not free. They know people want to log on umpteen times a day to check their balance, to see whether their paycheck has hit, make transfers, and so on.

So somewhere along the way, marketing folks said, “You know what we should do, is show them offers they have to physically click yes or no to before proceeding to their account information.” This is where I see red.

Sometimes, I don’t have time for shit like that. Sometimes, a girl just needs to do something really quickly and be about her day.

In the late 90s and very early 2000s, I would physically go to my credit union to deposit my paychecks, withdraw cash, and get money orders if need be. I actually didn’t mind. This was before my debit card allowed me to limit how much cash I needed to have on hand at all times. The tellers didn’t try to upsell me on a simple transaction and I didn’t have to listen to or watch anything prior to doing my business. Ah, the days of yore.

And while I’m grateful banks + technology seem to have a healthy relationship, the constant ads are making me wonder if I’m not better off putting my money in my sock drawer. Or at least just avoiding online banking and going to the ATM more often. (Though isn’t it only a matter of time before we have to watch an ad before seeing our balance at the ATM?)

The convenient but not smart way to bank.

Here’s how I know this is never going to stop:

I recently made the decision to sever my relationship with Citibank (“rhymes with shitty bank,” quoting Bill Maher) after four years. When I was in NYC, it served me well. They were everywhere and had good customer service. But I grew weary of having to constantly change my debit card because people try to hack into their system all the time. I had just changed my card again this summer and what arrives in the mail two weeks ago? A new card, “courtesy” of Citibank, with a note saying to activate it as my account might have been compromised recently.

That pushed me over the edge and I decided to seize the day and bank locally. It’s much more convenient and it’s not Citibank! Plus, though I liked the layout of their online account system, I was not only having to decline offers before proceeding to my account info but having to say no to something BEFORE I COULD SIGN OFF. To me, this is a dick move. If I’ve clicked Sign Off, it means I’m done and I need to leave. It’s the equivalent of someone standing outside a building and shoving a clipboard in your face, asking you to take a survey. Every. Single. Time.

(And also? What’s with pop-up ads while scrolling through news articles online? They give me a tic.)

So far, I’m pleased with my new bank and its customer service and convenient locations. I’m okay living with the ads before the account info online (despite my checking the box that says Do Not Ask Me Again), I suppose, since I really just want to be able to hang on to a debit card for the entire length of its validity. It’d be nice to hang on to one until it expires. What a novel concept.

I’d love to say that online banking is a right. It’s my account, it’s my money, I made the choice to put my money in this place. But the advertisements remind me over and over that that is not how the banks see it.

One might say, “But couldn’t you just opt out of online banking?” I actually don’t know the answer to this, though I think theoretically, one can.

When I signed up for my new account last week, I checked all the boxes for what I wanted from my account and was told a bank rep would be calling me to finalize the opening of the account. When I got the call, I just assumed I’d answer a few simple questions, go over my account options, and be on my way. But in actuality, this woman’s job was to ask me the exact same questions I answered online the previous day. If I had known that it’s moot to open an account online, I simply would have gone in to the bank to open one. It seems like such a waste of time and energy to answer the same questions twice.

But I know it’s because if I don’t remember my answers and I accidentally say yes to one of their “Protection” plans, I’ve given away more of my dough. She also reiterated quite strongly, “Make sure you sign up for your online bank access.” I didn’t really need the nudge so I thought it strange. I have also had to turn down e-banking (where you pay your bills through your bank) three times. I don’t know what the catch is with that one, but anything the bank pushes me to do, I’m inclined to just say no flat out.

This whole thing is just exhausting!

If I want to get away from the 24/7 ad placement that comes with living in the 21st century, where can I go/what can I do?

  • Head to a remote area of the country – Montana is lovely, I hear.
  • Stare at a blank wall.
  • Close my eyes.

It’s all I could think of.

While I understand there is a price for everything, there is just a part of me that feels I’ve earned the right be able to place my earnings somewhere without constantly defending it from the very institution in which it resides. But my options being “Deal with it or live a much more inconvenient life” and “Deal with it but bitch about it on the internet,” I opted for the latter.

Filed Under: Relative to Everyone, Occurrences Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Home-icide Part II: Revenge of the Former Tenants

November 8, 2011 14 Comments

Okay, I’m going to be honest. My last post about my house was rather tongue in cheek. But now shit is getting serious.

(Oh, and howdy! My apologies for the almost-two-week absence. I’ll have another post with details on that later.)

To set this up, let me go into a wee bit of back story: We had a bit of an alarming incident back in August when, in preparation for my best friend’s arrival, we were doing a deep clean of the house. Kevin even cleaned the oven and when the kitchen was just about finished, he turned it to Self Clean. Self Cleaning, for those of you not in the know, is when the oven jacks itself up to at least 500 degrees or more in order to incinerate any burnt-on debris that might be lingering anywhere on its innards.

Within twenty minutes, however, our entire house was filled with billowing smoke from the oven. The smoke alarm was going off, the dog was scared, and we couldn’t breathe. Kevin opened the oven to try to air it out but that made things much worse. We opened the front and back doors and as many windows as we could. We then took ourselves and the dog out to the backyard and sat on the back deck while the house attempted to air out. It was one of the worst smells ever – a horrid acrid, burning char smell and it made my eyes water and stung my nostrils.

I was a bit shaken but also rather pissed off, because the source of what was burning in the oven was still unknown. We assumed we were at fault (could burnt cheese cause something like this to happen?). We were pressed for time and still hadn’t showered and done final touches to the house in preparation for guests and now we had a house full of smoke and ass-like smell.

An hour or two later, the house was airing out, scented candles and Febreze came to the rescue, and normalcy resumed.

Fast forward to November 7. Time: 7:00am.

Kevin awoke and lovingly began making biscuits for breakfast. Biscuits are baked at a higher temperature, around 450°F, albeit for a shorter amount of time.

Being the bloodhound-nosed woman that I am, I immediately sensed that something was beginning to turn smokey and had a familiar awful burning smell. I warned him that this was smelling all too familiar, but Kevin plowed on, thinking that it would be okay since he was baking something for less time.

Wrong.

The smoke alarm began screaming, the house began filling up with a worse char stench than three months prior, and the dog didn’t want to go through the kitchen to go outside because of course he’s thinking, “Helloooo that’s where the smoke is, dummies!” We got him outside, threw open all the doors and windows, and I began ranting about our effing oven and how all of our belongings were going to have smoke damage, rendering them useless. I was still in the midst of getting ready for work, as well.

We pulled up dining room chairs out on the front porch and while the house attempted to air itself out–AGAIN–we had coffee and a biscuit or two, though my appetite was scant.

Kevin vowed to tear apart the oven when we were home from school and work. While the house smelled about 90% better after spending an entire day being aired out, a faint acrid smell still lingered in the air.

Keeping his promise, Kevin began taking everything out of the oven so he could see what was underneath the bottom metal layers. Our oven and stove are gas so there was no central heating element like in a toaster oven.

About twenty minutes in and forty oven parts laying on the kitchen floor later, Kevin yelled out, “Umm…I figured out the cause of the problem!” I ran in to the kitchen but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Wondering what the hell that is? Yeah. We were, too. Here’s a closer look:


We know for a fact that it’s a mix of charred and not charred dog food – about a pound or two of it, laying UNDERNEATH the heating elements and in an area where, if someone purposely put it there, they’d be giant dicks. Slightly recovering from shock, I went and grabbed my camera to take these beauties.

The other stuff  in there, the hair, is either dog hair (we know the former tenants had two big dogs) or perhaps it’s a mouse nest? Other people asked if the tenants put a dog IN the oven. (I can’t even go there.) There are different theories running rampant on Facebook at the moment.

Either way, it’s REVOLTING. We didn’t have much of an appetite for dinner (certainly not making it at home) after Kevin painstakingly cleaned all of this out and removed the broiler drawer and cleaned everything out from under there, as well. (Found more dog treats. Was someone drunk? Is this a practical joke? HOW did that stuff get there? Why? Baffling.)

The serious side to all of this is, the house could have easily burned down and/or the smoke could have been much worse and damaged the home more than it already has. We put in a call to the landlord this morning but it remains to be seen what their stance will be. If history rings true, they really won’t care all that much. They know how awful the last tenants were. Personally, I’d like a new oven, but I don’t know if that’s in the cards.

But back to the former tenants. These two guys (and a girl, based on the mail we continued receiving) left the house completely trashed and they snuck (I say snuck, not sneaked) out early to try to avoid having to deal with the cleaning of the house and other leftover bills. Our elderly couple of a landlord were scouring the place and we couldn’t even move in until a week after the first of the month of our lease. It was atrocious. The former tenants were absolute, complete slobs. And this incident obviously proves it.

The downside is, the house still smells really bad in the kitchen. The smell just will not go away and I am afraid it’s permanently etched into the mini-blinds, curtains, and possibly the paint on the walls. I’m hoping that more airing out and Febrezing will help.

Last night, scented candles from Bath & Body Works were our saving grace because it helped to mask the smell and make me forget temporarily about the nastiness that resided in my oven for over a year. I mean, we regularly use our oven. A lot. Kevin makes homemade bread and biscuits, I bake once a quarter, we make frozen pizzas, etc. I’m giving myself the willies just typing this out.

Another upshot is that of course this makes me want to flee this house. Our lease is up next July and Kevin is kicking and screaming at the idea of moving, one of the most loathed things in life, according to him. But I think I’m going to be forced to check out our options (if we have any) because it’s so difficult for me to imagine staying in this place 2/3 of the way in to 2013. For me, moving > living there for more than eighteen more months.

I’m NOT asking the question, “What else can go wrong?” because I really don’t want to tempt things. Our house is clearly at a peak point of needing maintenance–okay and also the appliances. We already received a new fridge and a new dryer. We simply can’t afford to not be able to use our oven, however.

So….. Kevin and Zoe: 2 | House 0

We remain standing.

Until next time, House.

Edit: The conclusion is that after we heard back from the landlady, who was PISSED by the way, she told us that she knows the tenants did this on purpose because they had to force them to clean the kitchen. I’m assuming one of them had walked through the house to do some kind of repair and noticed it being in a revolting state.

She said she has no doubt that they did it out of spite and was furious. While we’re not getting a new oven (apparently we don’t need one, according to Kevin), it’s going to take some time for us to get the ass stench out.

Filed Under: Occurrences Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Amalgam Day

October 19, 2011 18 Comments

Hello fair readers!

For the post du jour, I’m whining writing about a couple of things that have been in the hopper for a little while but needed proper motivation to be written.

Today is that day. Hooray!

Before we get to it, an amalgam is “a mixture of different elements,” the second definition of this word according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

First things first. I have decided that instead of “Hump Day,” Wednesday should be called “Slump Day.” I mentioned this to a friend of mine this morning because I feel very strongly against using the word “hump” – gross. And also it really does feel like a slump. Is anyone really motivated on Wednesday? Anyone? I’m waiting. Or we could just call it Amalgam Day, but that wouldn’t always apply.

Next on the list:

So apparently I’m a masochist. It takes me forever to realize that something is going to suck no matter how much I want it to not suck.

<Dramatic Deep Sigh>

Today turned out to be incredibly chilly, rainy, and windy, so I decided to get myself a hot meal at lunchtime. Since I didn’t have time to go out for a real sit-down meal, I ventured to go for McDonald’s, the only fast food place close by to my office. I know, you’re probably thinking, “There’s your first mistake.” I hadn’t been to Mickey D’s in a couple of weeks and so I was ready for it to reward me for my abstinence.

I also thought that perhaps they’d be having a Good Fry Day and I would be able to benefit from it. We all know what Good Fry Days are at McDonald’s – you get your bag and these perfectly cooked golden sticks with just the right amount of salt on them await you to consume them. They become the cornerstone of the meal, though Chicken McNuggets or a Big Mac aren’t too far behind. For the record, it was NOT a good fry day. I got hot fries but they were overcooked and had a puke yellow color to them, so they were not all that appetizing.

In any case, I decided that on top of getting a regular lunch meal, I’d opt to try a hot coffee drink, since they have already begun putting their holiday beverage advertisements out at the drive-thru. (I guess it worked….)

There’s no way in hell I would try anything with “peppermint” in it from McDonald’s, so that nixed the “Peppermint Hot Chocolate” and I didn’t want a regular latte, not that I trust them to make a great one. My go-to coffee drink is a mocha when I’m feeling splurge-y, so that’s what I decided on.

I know, we’ve been here before, right? Also here. I keep signing up for the pyramid schemes and believing I’m going to make my money back.

Needless to say, it did not live up to the expectations my little heart had set.

Pros: the ‘mocha’was hot; it had whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup on top
Cons: it was mostly just espresso with not enough milk in it and was entirely too bitter; the best part of consuming this ‘mocha’was at the end when I got the extra bit of syrup and whipped cream mixed in with the last of the drink. I should have just gotten a regular cup of coffee.

Basically, I’m living out the cliché definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The hope here is that having written about these disastrous drinks on a couple of different occasions, I’ll actually like, REMEMBER that the next time I think I am going to manifest that perfect coffee drink I’m craving and I find myself at McDonald’s.

I have yet to hear from anyone that these things are actually satisfying, unless you’re addicted to super sugary stuff and go for the drinks that are all syrup with a drop of espresso in them.

All of this leads me to my final point, and one I didn’t think I’d ever say:

Dear Starbucks, PLEASE SET UP A NEW LOCATION IN MY CITY! Urbana has the Starbuckses because the University of Illinois is there. We Champaigners don’t have one, unless you count going up to the mall area, which I don’t. You know what we get instead? A plethora of Espresso Royales.

Don't be fooled. It's horrible.

Espresso Royale is even worse than McDonald’s AND they charge you up the ass for their beverages and baked goods. I can’t say enough bad things about that place, and after trying them at least five times before giving up (are we seeing a pattern here?), I can say with confidence they don’t know how to make coffee OR hot chocolate.

I NEED a Starbuck’s. They may be all corporate and “everything that’s wrong with America,” but I am desperate. They know how to make a freaking mocha without screwing it up and know a little something about the art of coffee, even if they’re not everyone’s ideal. Plus, they make a damn fine pumpkin spice latte.

I don’t even need a giant Starbucks with a drive-thru. I just want a little shop set up within a mile of of where I work in the southwest corner of Champaign. Is that really too much to ask? Please, Starbucks, come and put Espresso Royale out of business!! It’s a travesty that that place is even staying afloat because they’re doing everything they can to keep people out, trust me.

I actually really like my newly adopted city but if I were appointed City Planner or whoever makes these kinds of decisions, I’d ban Espresso Royale and start getting some much needed coffee shops in the coffee-less areas for the suburbanites. It’s time to get the good coffee drinks to us coffee snobs in the farther out regions. (Some of us ninety-nine percenters have spending priorities such as I do – it’s all we’ve got! Did I say the word ‘coffee’enough in this paragraph?)

To sum up: McDonald’s keeps on disappointing and it’s annoying; Starbucks is neglecting a very important area of the country and needs only to send me an email if they want to know where to set up their next location.

Happy Slump Day.

Filed Under: Humor, Occurrences, Rants Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Arachnophobia or just being a girl?

October 6, 2011 6 Comments

I don’t know about you guys but I love to self-diagnose via the Internet.

WebMD anyone?

If something goes wrong, whether it’s mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or whether I simply need to know when Johnny Depp’s birthday is, the trusty World Wide Web is there at my service.

After today’s incident with the Spider From Hell, I am on the edge of declaring myself as an arachnophobe.

Hear me out.

Here I was, minding my own business at my desk at work, tra la la, and suddenly from behind my desk against the wall crawls a huge brown spider. This thing had a long body and creepy legs and caused me to choke at first sight. I really started to panic because I didn’t know if I could kill it with a paper towel because it was so big. (Because squishing them gives me the heebie jeebies.)

It crawled up towards the ceiling but then it started rappelling down on its silky strand things. I really started freaking out that it was going to decide to jump either on me or onto my desk, also known as the Forbidden Land, as far as it was concerned.

Practically putting a fist into my mouth to keep from screaming, I went down the hall and I asked a male coworker (who is very busy) if he could help me with a girl problem I was having. I said, “Are you afraid to kill a really big spider?”

Mercifully, he was so nice about it and happily obliged me. He came around the corner and said, “Whoa, that is a big one.” So I’m not being irrational. It was huge. It didn’t belong in an office, hovering over me and watching me with all of its eyes. And legs. And possible fangs.

In trying to smash it with my recycling bin, Big Scary Spider decided to do the equivalent of what would be committing suicide for us humans and simply let go of the wall and dropped back behind my desk. My coworker even went so far as to look for it with a flashlight but it had disappeared.

So far, it hasn’t reared its ugly head again.

Yet.

My weapons are Kleenex and a can of electronic duster spray. I know that from the movie Arachnophobia, they used fans to get the spiders to move where they wanted to, so my thought is, if it decides to pull a Terminator and comes back, I’ll be ready. I also don’t think I could keep myself from screaming for a second time should it rear its ugly head.

After I calmed down and I checked behind and under my desk no less than thirty times to make sure it wasn’t there, I decided to Google “common spiders Illinois.”

Big mistake. Big. Huge! (Sorry, channeling a little Pretty Woman there.)

I can’t even LOOK at the enlarged photos of spiders while trying to read about them. I start to shudder and get goosebumps. And, I forgot to mention this, but if I think about the spider long enough (especially if I were trying to eat), I could easily make myself throw up.

Then I decided to look up arachnophobia and while I’m not having a panic attack, I am still looking for it as I write this.

So what do you think? Am I just overreacting and being a total girl about this? Or do I qualify for my Arachnophobe Card? 

Daniel Stern's reaction is what I would do.

Filed Under: Occurrences Tagged With: , , , , ,
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