:smack: Now I get it, Haze! I thought you were talking for real about a vampire job…ack,
Sign that #2 son might be playing too many computer games: “look Mom! the bunches of snow [he means drifts] are JUST like in Age of Empires 3!”
:eek:
You used to work at NASA? That’s hot.
rigs, I feel that way about The Sims and real life; sometimes I’ll walk into a messy room and be like, whoa, my Environment meter just totally went down! When I used to play Diablo II my friends and I would twitch whenever we went to karaoke and saw the lyrics highlighted in yellow - yellow letters in Diablo II meant the item was a Rare Item.
I’ll post more essay gems if I find any. Which I’m pretty sure I will.
I was talking to a male co-worker today and I saw him sneak a glance at my legs (I’m wearing my boots and a skirt that some people say makes me look like a schoolteacher and other say makes me look like a schoolgirl… take your pick). Normally I might be offended but he did it in such a cute and apologetic way that I forgive him. 
(Not that he’s cute per se, but the gesture was.)
Life imitating “art” I suppose. I am in from spending a splendid hour + outside shoveling and putting up (some) of the outside decorations. I love it outside–it’s warm, the sun is out, the snow is sparkling. It feels great.
And now off to do grad school work. <sigh> I had my fun, so now comes work.
:eek: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Darnit! I forgot to put my wedding rings on this morning. :mad: Makes me feel nekit.
I hate all the enforced overindulging that happens this time of year. Last Friday was one of several “festivals” we have at work and there will be another for each Firday before Christmas. Today is a lunch for an intern who is leaving. There’s another one of those on Firday. Some time before the holiday will be our departmental holiday party. And finally, the company party which is offsite next Saturday night. I won’t be going to the company party and try to remain mindful at all of the other events, but just how many salads and veggie dips can one endure??? 
Congrats, snowbunny! I did a bit of the ski resort employment myself back in the day. Lots of fun!
Sorry about the vampire gig, haze. If they penalized you for that bit of humor, you are better off.
bobbio, I recommend you sugarcoat your nuts for the NASA party. You’ll be a hit! 
Assorted other commiserations as appropriate.
Toodles
Tupug
MT, I know us locals can get better deals than that on passes, but I haven’t priced them. Besides, there’d be no point in my getting a season pass unless they handed it to me. A day pass, now, that’s more my speed! I should get free ice skating, though. I can’t believe I forgot to bring my skates! Outdoor ice skating. Wow.
I’ll find out the details on what I get Monday. My new boss wasn’t entirely sure since I’m part-time. But I get some, I know.
yawn Must caffienate some more.
It is cold. Still -10 at eleven in the morning. It will make the walk to work to have another argument with someone fun. It seems that although I haven’t received my vacation pay yet, they sent me in a pay stub for it. :rolleyes: They went to direct deposit a week after I left, so the blasted new payroll company is probably screwing up. Because I never had direct deposit with them. Aargh.
Aside from that I think it’ll be indoor chores today. I might start the candymaking for all the people who’ll be getting candy-and-cookies. Let’s see:
Driving Husband’s family
Lazy Husband and family
Attacks Husband and family
Work (don’t want them to forget that I am the Bringer of Delicious Food)
The two family friends who always come to Christmas dinner
Mr. Lissar’s godparents
Our RCIA sponsors
That’s manageable. A couple of batches of caramel and brittle, a few dozen cookies, some truffles, and maybe a repeat of the peppermint bark. Bread for Attacks Husband’s family. Cinnamon buns for my Dad.
Okay. I’ll let the chihuahua live. It probably hasn’t done anything wrong.
You are merciful. I’d kill the chihuahua just for being a chihuahua. Nasty canine rats.
I really must go do work. Bye!
Hey, MMPers, how much should I expect to pay for an eye exam and new glasses without insurance? Cloud Maiden stepped on mine a few days ago. 
I don’t wear them around but I do use them when I read or have to stare at the computer screen for extended periods of time. They were pretty cheap back home but I’m guessing they’re more expensive here, especially without insurance. Blech.
Haze, it really depends on where you go. You can get some really cheap ones places. What seems to cost the most (at least for me) is the lenses.
I went to Pearl Vision last night for my annual eye exam and the actual exam was $80, but I had to have my eyes dialated and the glacoma check and everything since my perscription is so bad.
I got one pair of glasses and one pair of sunglasses and after all was said and done it was $571.
Oh and I have no vision insurance. Hope that helps. 
So this means you want me to send you your ice skates, along with all the other stuff you forgot? :dubious:
Oh, and be sure to ask if you get free access to the Olympic swimming pool on site, which I saw on the resort map. That’ll save paying for the Y, right?
It’s stlil snowing here, and it’s so pretty! Of course, Papa Tigs said that he got to work just in time – people who were coming in 20 minutes after him are still out there on the roads. :eek: I’d love to see the folks in D.C. cope with the kind of snow snowbunny gets. I’m sure the stores are full now of people frantically buying the Holy Trinity – milk, bread, and toilet paper.
ETA: Yay! First on page 4!
Bleh. It’s been one heck of a half a week here so far. Monday was just crazy busy, yesterday sucked with super confusing work (It took 6 of us to figure out how to implement a test, so I didn’t get started actually running stuff until mid-afternoon. Which left 6 stressed-out people all worried that we’d be here until 7pm while the snow was falling like crazy and the roads were getting worse by the minute.), and today involved major database issues. The IT issues, at least those involving the databases, have been just horrible for the last month. ARGH!
Yay on the job snowbunny. I’m guessing it’s at a ski center/mountain/resort? What will you be doing? Sounds like fun. I love the mountains. And the snow. But we’ve got plenty of snow here. If not mountains. I have to laugh at what the locals call “mountains” around here. They ski on these little mounds of earth that we’d probably cross-country ski up and down at home (upstate NY, just south of the Adirondacks).
Sorry that Mr. Rebo got his shift switched. Good luck to him on finding a new job soon.
How’re you enjoying our recent snow, McUne? It’s so pretty out and really makes it feel Christmas-y.
It finally looks like Christmas out there! It still looks pretty here too. I love it. As long as I don’t have to drive in it, lol. At least this last snow didn’t have the ice in it. The ice sucked.
MamaT–send her her ice skates (is she not going home for Christmas?). Be nice!
I am DONE with one class entirely! Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
Unfortunately, that class is NOT cataloging. <sigh>
Off to have a break for now. Yay!
Thanks, McUne. Blech, I can so not afford this right now. Cloud Maiden’s offered to pay but it was partly my fault for leaving the stupid things lying around. If I told my parents they’d send me money in a heartbeat but then I’d feel guilty about it.
I’d actually already thought of sending her skates, Rigs, before she got the job at the resort, just because of where she is. I just hadn’t actually gotten around to going over to the storage unit and digging them out. I need to get over there and pay the bill, though, so I’ll pick them up then.
And no, she won’t be home for Christmas. <sniffle> Not that we do much, but starting a new job at a location where lots of people vacation over Christmas? I doubt she’ll get any holidays off this year, for sure. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you, when it means employment. Which means $$.
My brain is trying to explode. Too much going on at once. Last night was a break through for me, which was totally unexpected. So I’m feeling overwhelmed today, but hopeful. I’m just having a really hard time concentrating on work. At least I don’t have any immediate deadlines, and there are some mindless tasks that need to be done.
Plus, I have dinner with **swampy ** to look forward to! Yay! I brought my camera, and charged up the batteries and everything.
The only way I would get Christmas off would be if the weather was so bad we lost power, I think. People do go on vacation over holidays, which means some of us get to work them. But it’s not so bad, really. If I was really unwilling to work holidays there’s no way I would have applied there! Working holidays in retail bugged me a hell of a lot more, actually, because it seems much less necessary for stores to be open than for the lodge to be.
Yes, it’s at a resort – I’m in reservations, part-time. I’m not sure whether I should actually say the name, though if you know where I live it’s pretty obvious.
I want to have dinner with swampy!
Too bad you’re so far away, but I’d only be able to manage popping out at lunchtime to meet you if you were in the downtown SF area.
Do I want to know how you came to know this about Gilroy? Actually, what’s really fun is in August and September when they harvest the garlic, the roads around the Gilroy Foods plant look like it’s been snowing with all of the white garlic husks blowing around.
This is in stark contrast to the roads around the southern end of Sacramento, where the freeway ramps can look like the sites of various bloody crimes. The farm trucks bound for the Campbells Soup factory are overloaded with tomatos in the field and tomatos go flying off when the trucks go around a cloverleaf too fast. Also unlike Gilroy, where the garlic smells good, the making of tomato soup on a mammoth scale stinks to high heavens. I think it’s just the spilled tomatos rotting in the streets, and/or mountains of leftover tomato skins and seeds waiting to be taken to the landfill or composter, but it’s a rancid reek!
The house EMTs at the Dickens Fair were being kept busy again this weekend. Someone fell off a stage and literally broke a leg, various people have fallen ill to the Cow Palace Plague and either left voluntarily or were given the hairy eyeball and sent home to recuperate and not infect everyone else, and someone else gave DH a cookie without mentioning the life-threatening nuts. Fortunately, he was just a few feet from his epinepherine and was able to spit it out before swallowing any of it, so it was just his mouth that got rashy and swollen. This isn’t the first time they’ve had food allergy incidents, so now they’ve got a rule about labeling goodies with what’s in them.
It’s amazing what people can be allergic to. For DH, it’s pecans. One of the guys I’m working with is allergic to ginger and peanuts, (so he has no idea what Thai food is like) and someone else in DH’s cast is allergic to coffee. :eek: On the plus side, this means you’re probably not more than 50 yards from someone carrying an EpiPen at the fair.
Other than that, life toddles along. DH hates his job and is trying to get laid off if the headhunters don’t call him first. (He has some sort of insurance above and beyond state unemployment that only pays off if he’s fired or laid off.) He’s also got enough dirt on his employer to entertain the state of California, the IRS and the building owner for quite a while.
Yay! **Rigs **for finishing with that class!
Haze, I’m not in the same place, but my experience here in Israel is similar to McUne’s (also a wonky prescription) – So I’m going to assume prices for glasses are pretty much constant in the Western World. Which means, IME, that if you take a simple (plastic) frame and you don’t need special or extra-thin lens, you may be able to get away with paying about half that (around $300). If you split with CM, it’s still a dent in your pocket, but hopefully one you can survive.
**Goti **-- :eek:
**Rebo **-- can they force Mr Rebo to work nights? Is it in his contract? What line of work is this? This royally sucks Although I agree with him and everybody else that it will make job-hunting easier.
**SnowBunny **and all you miserable MidWesterns – I don’t care how you feel about it, I’m jealous about having snow on the ground!