Kate

Yep. Second spam post of the day.

Do you ever read something random and have a very personal reaction to it? Today I pulled into the parking lot at work and the car in front of me had a license plate that said 'LKYNLUV'. Completely unbidden, my mind supplied, 'Screw you, braggy bitch.'

*cough*

No, I'm not bitter. Why do you ask?.

In other news, I didn't get to work until one o'clock today because this morning I noticed my tire was really low. I don't change tires. I just don't. Make fun if you like, it's still not happening. Becky and I have a long standing tradition of her looking at me with incredulity and saying, "You can't change a tire?" and I respond with, "So what, you can't do your own taxes." It's a priorities thing. And kind of a girl thing. There are boys who can change tires generally within easy distance, I don't need to know how to do it. I don't want to do it. So I don't.

Anyway, this really was not meant to be a rant about my lack of automotive skills. Back on track.

So, I decided that there was enough air in the tire to drive it the mile up the road to the tire shop, since I knew the tires were in pretty bad shape anyway. In the end, I bought two new tires and front brakes, spent ~$350, and watched the last half of a Jimmy Stewart/Audie Murphy movie and the first half of The Searchers while I waited. Gotta love old westerns. An older man who was waiting for his car, too, told me that Jimmy Stewart used to have it included in his contract for westerns that he'd get a certain amount of time to play his accordian during the film. I don't know if that's true or not, but he did play it in this one.

And I don't really want to be at work this afternoon. It's snowing. It's supposed to continue snowing for most of the week, I think. Off and on, of course, but enough that it'll make traffic a bear. Good thing I already have the milk, bread, and eggs at home. Everybody knows you can't get through a snowstorm without french toast fixins. Woohoo! White Death 2008 Part III: Tundra of Terror! (James and I like to make up bad horror film titles for each snowstorm in mocking tribute to the morons who flock to the grocery store like we won't be able to get out of the house for weeks. His favorite is White Death (pick a year) Part (pick a number): Arctic Armageddon, while I prefer Tundra of Terror. Seriously folks, ever heard of a snow plow? And this is Northern Virginia for Pete's sake, not North Dakota! We don't get a lot of snow.)

Also, my lateness to work means I missed out on the Project Control lunch at Famous Dave's. I'm irritated that I missed a free lunch, but beyond that I'm apathetic. I'd really rather be home in bed, or staring at my own computer. Or watching The Notebook, which I rented on seegrim's recommendation. Stop gasping, I know you've all seen it already.

In Caliga world, I'm excited about the Romy/Terence scene I have to post. Their relationship is unusual, to say the least. Romy's an odd girl. She keeps relationships very compartmentalized. I like her, and other people are starting to, too, which is kind of nice. Now that I have Miles, I really need to figure him out. He's not acting like I think he should. I suppose he'll take awhile to get to know. Susan... Yeah. I'd like to rent her a room in someone else's head for awhile. And one of these days I'll finish my Sam audition and get that turned in.

This morning I pulled into the parking lot and promptly realized that I'd left my laptop at home. *headdesk*

After driving home to get it and driving back to work, I realized I left my cell phone and my yogurt (breakfast) in the car.

Screw it. I'm not going to go get them.

I had an email from my mom waiting for me when I got in the office. My grandmother is still in the rehab facility/nursing home. At this point they are telling my mom that she probably shouldn't live alone - at least for the time being. They think she needs either an aide or to live in a nursing home full time. We'll see.

My brother Chris, who lives in FL, apparently has the flu. Hopefully he'll be recovered by the time I head down there because I like hanging out with him, but I'd rather not get sick.

It seems that my uncle is in Florida right now, too, staying at my late grandmother's place. So, maybe I can finagle a night or two over there if Grandma Brown's apartment gets too cramped. (Ok, so maybe I'd rather stay at the large waterfront house than in a retirement community one bedroom apartment with three other people. Sue me. I'm selfish.)

I need to email my friend Cynthia and let her know I'll be in town. Hmm. I ought to bring her some kind of gift, too. I never sent her a present when she got married last year.

I've found someone to take care of my mom's cat while I'm gone, so WOO for that! It's $18/day for the lady to come out and feed her (also get the mail, play with her, clean the litter box, etc...), but her vet wanted $38/day to board her in a little cage, so I figure I'm still getting a decent deal. For my entrepreneurial friends - dog walking and pet sitting is big business. A lady Becky knows from the Chamber of Commerce just bought out 5 dog walking businesses, and employs something like 50 people to handle all the work. People love their pets, and will spend boatloads of money to care for them - especially if you live in or near an area with a lot of white collar professional types. Personal concierge businesses are good, too.

It appears that Meredith is just getting the entire month of February off. No school today due to the snow. Never mind that the roads have been cleared and it's supposed to hit 45 today. Oh well, she'd probably be out sick anyway, at least this way she's not missing class.

James is sick, too. He just has a bad cold, though. Thank God I've got a good immune system. For realz.

I talked to my dad briefly today for the first time in several months. I didn't ask him for money. Yay me. You'd think he could call me once in awhile. I'm not that hard to track down, you know?

I need to pay my car note and the water bill. *nods* I'll do that today.

I suppose I should do some actual work now. Meh.

(In less than 72 hours I will be on my way to mynuet's. :D)

First things first, I've posted the answers to the last lyric meme. You can see them here: http://mugglechump.livejournal.com/104412.html

I will be so glad to finally reach the weekend. For the third time in the last two weeks, I was at work until 8:30 or later. There have been several other nights where I've been there until after 7:00. I get home at 8:00 or 9:00 or later, eat , and end up sitting in front of the computer until 12:30 or 1:00 because I can't go to sleep until I've had some time to unwind.

Most of the rest of this paragraph will probably make no sense to laymen, and will probably bore the heck out of everyone, but I feel like ranting, so feel free to skip ahead. Tomorrow is the end of our fiscal year, so we have all the close-out crap going on from that in addition to our regular work load. Most of for contracts I work on just had rate changes go into effect, so I had to open all new charge numbers for everyone who works on them. I had to do a program review with some of the higher level managers to explain a $78K reduction in fee on one of my projects. I had to make up this really inane training module that I was supposed to have completed by the end of December, but never got around to. It's annual review time, and I'm supposed to have my portion of the review turned in by COB tomorrow. I haven't started it yet. Fortunately, my boss is awesome and is fine with it being turned in a little late if necessary. And in the middle of all this, we moved from one office building to another. I really need to win the freakin' lottery.

My monitor started making a very high pitched whine a week or so ago. It's very annoying, and I may need to go to Best Buy and demand that they make it stop. Ves, I have already tried percussive maintenance.

It's very cold, and it's been flurrying off and on all day.

I downloaded quite a few songs from iTunes last night. I got some stuff by Babyshambles, The Libertines, Whtie Stripes, Kaiser Chefs, Gene Loves Jezebel, and Blind Melon. Pete Doherty may be a drug addled twit, but he can sing. Since I'm a goober, I got an immense amount of joy from the fact that, when Pete D. was with The Libertines, they did a song called 'What Katie Did', and now, with Babyshambles, he's made a song called 'What Katy Did Next'.

I think that's all for now. Soon I'm going to try to convince myself to motivate into the bedroom and go to sleep.