Enjablog

At the airport right now. Overslept this morning, but fortunately, I had to take a cab here, so I got a wakeup call and was able to throw some clothes on and stumble into the car in time to catch my flight. Yay for free wifi!

Will need to go shower in the gym at work, but that’s no big deal. I’d rather catch my flight than be clean. Can’t say that my seatmates will feel the same way. Whatever.

Just got my morning phone call from my coworker on duty. Things are looking good and our calc last night predicted fairly accurately what he measured this morning. So, I’m all set.

Boarding starting!

I arrived home last night to find myself locked out of my apartment. This is particularly noteworthy because I live by myself and have 2 deadbolts on my door.

One can only be locked from the outside with a key. The other has a punch code, so I don’t ever need a key.

So.

I typically use the top deadbolt with the punch code. It’s also a standard lock on all the units in my building, so when building maintenance comes around, they can just unlock that bolt.

Except I didn’t request any maintenance.

Apparently there was a water leak somewhere and they were trying to trace the pipes and find out where the leak originated from. This meant that the building engineers had to go check an entire tier of apartments and that was why the mean front desk lady couldn’t call and let me know that there were going to be people in my apartment.

She would have had to make 16 phone calls. 16! She can’t handle that. I work out in the world, so I should know what it’s like. She’s fielding phone calls, signing for packages, answering the door… All from a desk. With a phone! She just can’t be expected to be able to call each person like that.

16.

Really?

She said the engineers were supposed to leave a note, but I looked and there was no note. So she kept trying to blame them. “Oh, well, I will speak with the building manager about that, then. They really should leave a note.” Really? They should leave a note, but you can’t be expected to call me?

Then, she said that it was policy for the engineers to “secure the unit.” They lock all the locks that they have keys for. But when I got home, I first noticed that someone had been there because when I went to unlock the top lock, I turned it and nothing happened. I thought maybe, somehow, I forgot to lock the door on my way out that morning. But then the other deadbolt was locked.

So, if their claim was that it was policy to secure the unit, mine was left unsecured. Then she claimed that if they had locked the top lock and not the bottom, I could complain too. They just can’t be expected to know which locks people use. I should really carry all my keys with me at all times.

Right.

That’s what the evening woman at the desk said. Right before she told me it would cost $60 to have the engineer come back out to get my key out of the master box.

I laughed. Hysterically, and a smidge maniacally.

Then she said the building manager would be back for the board meeting that evening and I could wait for her because she has access too. Like I have a choice?

So, the building manager came in and got my key for me… along with a piece of advice that I should carry my keys with me. I took my keys and walked away.

I just don’t think I should have to carry keys for a lock I don’t use. I also don’t think people should be barging into my home unannounced.

I like my apartment… and it’s not like I could afford to sell my place right now anyway. But I cannot convey how much I hate the people here. Hate.

“Oh, it must be difficult raising a special needs child all on your own…”

“Hm? What do you mean? My child doesn’t have special needs.”

“Oh. Then why can’t you get him to stop disrupting the other 51 people on this bus?!”

To child: “It must be difficult having a French woman for a mother, n’est-ce pas?”

Ooh, such a good mail day today!

I got:
- 2 checks from Fairfax County paying me back for the money they stole
- my official, frameable P.E. certificate
- my new voter registration card, including application to be an Election Official.

Too bad my voter registration card was pre-torn and crudely taped back together. That was a little disappointing. And in order to be an election official, “You must be ‘people oriented.’” Oh well. ;) I would also have to be without phone and internet for the day too. Horrible, right?

I should just volunteer instead. My company is giving everyone the day off on election day to encourage people to vote. I know plenty of my young colleagues are going to waste away their day off, neither voting nor being productive members of society. I really don’t want to be like them…

I went in last Tuesday to get a patch test put on to find out what I was allergic to. Went back in on Friday and the results are in: Thimerosal. (As illustrated by the square reaction in the picture.)

This is often found in vaccines, contact cleaning solution (fortunately, not the one I’ve been using the past few years though), and makeup — specifically, eye makeup and lipstick. I need to start researching makeup before buying it. I only own foundation, 2 types of lipstick, and some eye shadow. But I have had trouble with the lipstick before and just stopped using it (hence the second one that I own). So, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the problem.

Haven’t been able to find anything that I use regularly that specifically calls out this ingredient though. So, I have no idea if this is the cause of my life-long skin irritations. Will have to be more cognizant from now on though.

It’s here! It’s here!!

Unfortunately, they forgot to include the stamp pad I ordered, so you can’t actually see something stamped, but I’ve been embossing things like silly. It’s so fun. And I can’t imagine it getting old. This is one of those times in life when you achieve a goal and it’s just as awesome as you thought it would be. And I am so much more excited about stamping things now than I was about the officialness of becoming a PE. So awesome.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Ian and I spent the day over at Anna’s sister’s place with her, Sonny, and Anna watching an X-Files marathon. Lots of fun and it’s always entertaining to hang out with Aurora (Anna’s giant dog). Watching these old episodes really made it clear the running theme they had with Ben Franklin. I can’t believe I missed it the first time around. But, then again, I was 12 when these episodes originally aired and had to wait a whole week between episodes.

I’ve had eczema as long as I can remember. And every doctor I’ve been to has told me that people “just grow out of it” and that it’ll go away eventually. That hasn’t been the case for me. The last time I brought it up with my doctor, I asked her how old people usually were when they just magically grew out of it (minus the sarcasm) and she told me around their late teens, but it varies by person.

Um, I’m not a teenager.

This isn’t one of those things that I’ll probably grow out of when I hit puberty because, you know, that already happened.

So, Ian finally convinced me to go see a dermatologist about it. I’ve been to dermatologists before and they usually prescribe a steroid cream and it helps briefly and then it ends up being too harsh on my skin. And it’s all back to the same old thing.

But.

I went to see this dermatologist a few weeks ago and got put on some new stuff (steroid cream, of course) and within a day, my arms and legs stopped itching. Followed by decreased scratching and my skin actually getting a chance to heal!

And today, I noticed that I have hair sprouting on the inner part of my elbows. Is this normal? I assume it is because I have hair on other parts of my arms. But I’ve never had hair on that part of my arms before. Wacky.

Ian and I went with a few friends to go see Wall-E this weekend and it was fantastic!

The first half hour had no dialogue and was phenomenal. Pixar did an amazing job with the animation, music, everything.

I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone, so I’ll just give away this one thing… ;) My favorite throw-away joke in the movie was a scene with a robot with one appendage pecking at a keyboard. They pan past the keyboard and you can see that all the keys are 1s and 0s. Haha! Binary is funny!