Boo... or whatever

Sorry, I've never been one to get all excited about Halloween. Plus I have a headache because of the stupid disrupted sleep I had last night.

Or maybe it's the Toronto office's fault. Didn't I say that it was time to blame the Toronto office for things like that?

I don't know. Either way, I'm not exactly in blather mood.

Oh, and if you're wondering what costume I chose for today, I happen to be dressed as a Nature Centre Interpreter.

It works for me.

If you need something a bit more Halloweeny than Yours Crankily, well... try this. Hey, I liked it.

Going now. Try not to eat too much sugar tonight, ok? I can't deal with you people when you're all hyper and annoying.

Sooo helpless... and that's not annoying at all

Right from the top I'll say excuse me if this gets snitty quickly. I had a bit of a gwk (that'd be Gimpy the Wonder Klutz, for those new to the program) moment this morning (and personally I'm blaming the Toronto office for bringing up the whole gwk thing last night. I'd been doing fairly well in the clumsiness department until she reminded me of my old internet moniker. It's all her fault, then, and I'm going to keep saying that until she actually responds in some way. My counter tells me she hasn't been stopping by the blog too much lately, so this blame game may go on for a while...) and right now my throbbing ankle's telling me that I probably should have put a brace on before I came to work.

Oops.

Ah well. I'll just try to walk carefully, that's all. Not that it worked out so well this morning, but whatever.





Um, anyway.

I don't have much on the brain at the moment, but I did want to address something I saw while waiting at the garage (for two effing hours, did I mention?) earlier in the week. Now, to set the scene a bit, this garage is a fairly busy place. It also has a little drive-through thing where you drop off your car for servicing, and the drive-through is visible from the waiting area. Those of us with short attention spans (i.e. me) spent a fair amount of the two hours we were there watching people drop off their cars.

At one point a woman pulled in, obviously without an appointment, and wanted something looked at right away. Something to do with the back end of the car. I was intrigued.

Ok, honestly? I was just really bored. I watched because it was about the only thing to watch.

The next thing I knew, the guy at the service desk headed out there with a screwdriver and started to take the thing apart right in the drive-through. That's when it dawned on me. This woman had come all the way to a busy dealership garage to have someone replace a burned-out tail light.

Seriously.

And then she had the nerve to ask (or more like threaten) whether they were going to tack on a labour charge on top of the cost of the bulb.

Geeeeez.

They didn't, for some reason. I would have.

You see, the thing is that changing a tail light isn't hard. You generally need a screwdriver and a bulb. Sometimes the hardest part is just finding the right screwdriver (I need a torx head for mine, and that can admittedly be a bit of a pain in the arse in a pinch). And if you don't know how to take apart the mount to get to the burned-out bulb? Well... hey girls, that's what owner's manuals are for. Most cars have them in the glove compartment, you know. Just turn to the part that says tail lights.

It's just that simple.

Now, I know that it sounds like I'm making a big deal out of nothing and that the folks at the garage see that kind of thing all the time, but that's sort of my point. They see that kind of thing all the time, and there's no reason for it. I just don't get the whole helpless femme act that seems to be the regular m.o. for a large part of the female population. I'm a girl. I couldn't possibly fix a minor problem with my car (house, lawnmower, insert other objects ad nauseum) all by myself.

Gah.

Hey, I'm a girl too. I'm not terribly mechanical. I know enough about how to read instructions, though, to at least ATTEMPT to figure minor things out. I know when I'm out of my depth, but I'm willing to give something a try before deciding that it's beyond me.

All right. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that ages ago when I had to take some aptitude tests as part of a career workshop -- back in the days when I thought that I might like to have a career someday -- I scored much higher on the mechanical aptitude test than I would have expected. That's just aptitude, though. It doesn't mean that I actually know how to do anything mechanically-related.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that most of us are only as helpless as we want to make ourselves. And when you want to make yourself helpless for no good reason, that's juuust a little bit annoying. Both to the people who get stuck helping you and to the people who are rolling their eyes after discovering yet another useless twit in the world.

The world has enough useless twits already.

If you choose to be one of them, then I get to choose to roll my eyes.




Sounds like a fair deal to me.

Oh hell, I don't know

I ran out of begonias. Bergenia's close enough, I figure.

So, blather. As the post title indicates, I don't know. I'm still not in the best of moods, and it was a noisy night in the apartment building yesterday. I went to bed early, but apparently not everyone had the same idea. I have a headache.

I've also had the Belle of Belfast City going through my head on an indeterminate loop. You may as well too, although this isn't the version my brain was singing. It's all right, though.

Oh, and the Toronto office needs to know that I don't charge my phone in the shower.

Apparently even the snakes get a bit out of sorts this time of year, since they're not eating worth a darn (just ask me how many four letter words came out during feeding this morning. From me, not the snakes... although maybe they were cussing too. I wouldn't know. And just fyi, the four letter frustration was under my breath. Too many children in the room at the time for a full expression of my feelings about the general stupidity of garter snakes). It must be something to do with photoperiod, best I can figure. Garter snakes naturally are in hibernacula this time of year, but since the only condition that's changed for our indoor snakes is the amount of sunlight they're getting it's got to be length of day that's telling them they're supposed to be sleeeeepy.

That's fine. I'm sleepy too. It just makes it a pain in the arse to try to take care of them, that's all.

Anyway.

I guess I should get back to not writing the newsletter.

Yep.

Any chance that taking boring pictures of grey autumn trees counts as working on the newsletter, do you think?






Yeah, me too.

If you can't say anything nice...

Yeah. I really shouldn't blather today. Got myself a bit of a mood thing going on.

And why?

Well, it could be the pestilence that seems to have taken up permanent residence in my throat (did I mention that?).

Or maybe it's the fact that my oil change/winterising trip to the garage yesterday turned into a $600-or-your-car-probably-won't-start-this-winter hit to the wallet. Oh, Dirty Moe. Do I need to remind you yet again that if I had my druthers I wouldn't even have a car? Our love affair is not only over; I don't think it ever really started.

Yep, not much of a car person, me.

What else can I tell you about my mood?

How about IT'S NEWSLETTER TIME AGAIN?

Yay newsletter time. All the joys of trying to figure out what I'm going to write about, chasing down everyone else to write something, and then trying to figure out how to make those collective somethings sound a little bit like English.

Just about as fun as it sounds, boys and girls.

Anyway. That's what's up with me. Sorry for the lack of thought (and really -- considering that I just spent two hours at a garage reading a book on philosophy because that's all I brought along with me because I wasn't expecting to spend TWO HOURS AT THE EFFING GARAGE, I should have at least a few thoughts rolling around my head. Apparently they're all cranky ones today though) or effort lately, but sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

I guess I could at least find you a clip of some sort to watch, couldn't I?

All right. Gimme a sec.

This'll do. I might have linked to it before, but I'm too cranky to check just now. It's still funny even if I have, though.

So there.

A message for the Gods of the Cold

Guys? This stopped being funny about three weeks ago. I get it. You're all powerful. Three cheers for you and all your snotty glory. However...

I really need my voice back.

Geez. Enough is enough, already.

And yes, I do know that yesterday's time in the planetarium has managed to restrain everything and that's why it's worse today. Knowing the reason doesn't make me any less cranky though.

And on that cranky note, have another begonia. I'm thinking that maybe I should just make the blog all begonias all the time. At least until next spring, when I might actually feel like taking some new photographs.

I'm going now.

Another day, another I've Got Nothing

Yeah, see post title.

And have another begonia.

Later, all.

Pointless photo of the day:

I don't have anything today. I don't even have any recent photos on my nerdstick. I'd go out and take some, but A) I don't have my camera with me this weekend, and B) right now is boring. And windy. It's going to be a wonderful drive home this afternoon.

That's it for the blather.






Seriously, that's it. I'm hungry. I need to go find something for lunch.








Go away now...