Monthly Archives: July 2009

Maybe I Don’t Have A Job After All

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Yesterday Zack took me out to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner.  I had been having a bonafide craptastic day and he wanted to make it better by taking me to a place where I could get one of the greatest margaritas that ever existed on this planet.  He’s a nice guy that way.

My craptastic day, if you want to know, stemmed from the fact that I got a phone call from my new employer regarding my salary at the job.  I had been told by 3 different sources my my salary would be X.  Then I was informed that since I have experience in education, my salary would be X+! If I just did this paperwork! Then they would tell me what the + is!  So I did all the (miserable, exhausting, ridiculous) paperwork, turned it in, and waited.  Then someone called me (on Friday) and told me that my salary, with experience considered, would be NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR LESS THAN THE AMOUNT ALREADY QUOTED TO ME. NO BIG DEAL.

I was like, no no no.  That’s wrong.  Me and the guy went around in circles for a little while, and he finally agreed to call me back when they got it sorted out.  YESTERDAY AT 4, I finally got a call back from someone asking if, “anyone had contacted me about the salary discrepancy.”  I was like, NO. NO ONE HAS. TAKE YOUR SWEET EFFING TIME, PEOPLE. IT’S ONLY MY LIVELIHOOD. (I really just said “no.”)  That’s when the lady lays it on me that the first salary, the one that was NOT bordering on MINIMUM WAGE-ESQUE, was quoted incorrectly.  By all 3 sources.  And the actual salary for this position is 3.4 cans of pinto beans/year.

I couldn’t believe it. No apologies, no nothing.  I was in shock.  I have turned down other job interviews because I didn’t need them! I had a job! No big deal!  I have spend an entire Summer sitting around on my laurels, hanging out, because I knew that I was going to start work in August and make plenty of money.  By the time I got off the phone with the unapologetic lady who treated me like I was a stupid 3rd grader, I had to pull my car into a parking lot.  I felt so incredibly worthless and disposable.  I pulled the keys out of my ignition, preventing myself from ramming my car into a brick wall, or launching it off a bridge.  I was infuriated.  I called Zack and told him all about it.  He offered to come get me, but I was feeling less impulsive after talking to him.  I called my dad and told him about the whole situation.  He was just as shocked and enraged as I was.  He quickly told me how close the actual salary is to minimum wage, and I wanted to scream.  Dad was like, “Well, how are you? You know, other than this UN-EFFING-BELIEVABLE STRING OF BAD LUCK YOU’RE HAVING?”

So that’s why Zack took me to get a margarita.  And as the waitress set the frosted mug down on the table, lighting the  151-soaked sugar cube on fire, she said, “Don’t forget your wish!” I closed my eyes and wished, “Please let this bad-luck streak be over.”  Then I opened my eyes, blew out the flickering flame, and used my finger to bump the sugar cube into the margarita.

THE HOT FREAKING SUGAR CUBE WITH BUBBLING, MELTED SUGAR THAT HAD JUST BEEN ON FIRE.

As I was cooling my burnt finger on the side of the margarita glass, I informed Zack that I had never had a more swift answer to a wish, but unfortunately, the answer was “No.”

I Haven’t Asked, but He Was Probably A Hall Monitor, Too.

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Zack is concerned with our safety.  Zack has always been a cautious person.  He’s never been one to flippantly put himself in danger; he’s the kind of guy that goes to great pains to remove “anything that even looks like it’s valuable” from the car before we leave to go into a store/movie/etc.  This is not new news.

What I didn’t expect, though, is for his cautiousness and penchant for safety to grow at a notable and consistent rate for the rest of his life.  Whereas Zack was reasonably reserved when he was 18 and 21, now, at 27, he’s borderline obsessed.  For example, Zack is always saying that when anyone goes for a walk/run/bike ride, they should have some form of ID on them.  Not only is this the law, he painstakingly explains, but it’s a good idea.  You never know when you’re going to get hit by a car, you know! Then what would you do?  You’d be in the hospital laying around for DAYS before anyone figured out who you were!  To him, however, the rules do not directly apply.  What does he take with him when we go on our road rides?  A large knife.  The knife, ironically enough, isn’t even the greatest testament to his desire for road-riding safety–because not only does he take a knife with him (“We could get jumped!”), he also takes one of my rubber bands and wraps it around the tip of the knife, so that it doesn’t accidentally fall open while he’s carrying it in the waistband of his spandex bike shorts.

That’s right, He safe-guards his safe-guard item.  It’s borderline outrageous; I have to carry a cell phone and and ID, and he carries a weapon.  According to him, we’re prepared for any situation.

Another way in which his “Safety-First” attitude has materialized in our lives is his new interest in (and obsession with) ‘Home Invasion’ statistics.  According to Zack, home invasions are on the rise.  A home invasion, for those who don’t know, is “the crime of entering a private and occupied dwelling, with the intent of committing a crime, often while threatening the resident of the dwelling.” (via) It’s just a fact of life that when the economy is bad, crime goes up.  There are more cases of robberies, burglaries and shoplifting now than there were two years ago.  Apparently, there are also more cases of a couple of jack-asses feeling like it’s a good idea to bust into your house and try to take all your stuff from you while holding you at gunpoint.

This idea, while not very bothersome to me, (we live in a decent neighborhood, we don’t have super nice stuff, I can’t imagine how anyone would ever target us) makes Zack insane.  He is constantly preparing for such an occasion.  If a door in the house locks, he locks it–even if it’s an interior door.  Remember that door that always used to lock me into the laundry room?  It has an old key, and Zack locks it every night before we go to bed.  All anyone would have to do is a.) kick in the door, or b.) break the glass and unlock it, so I never bother to lock that door.  Also, to get to that door they’d have already gotten through a.) the back door and b.) the glass door, so I figure HEY. I’ll already be awake. But Zack doesn’t care.  He thinks of that as just “1 more buffer, 10 more seconds,” that will alert him and allow him to, I don’t know, whirl open the gun safe for me so I can grab the shot gun?

All of this is a lot of work-up to say that there is now a new safety device in our home.  If you were to try to kick in, say, our FRONT door, you would be S.O.L..  Because now, our front door has a massive, almost 1″-in-diameter deadbolt on it.  That deadbolt, however, isn’t 40″ above the floor like a normal deadbolt.  No, no.  This deadbolt is drilled into the floor.  The floor of our Rent House.

Zack, with the help of a drill and a dremmel tool, drilled a MASSIVE hole into the floor of the door frame so that this huge, silver, state-lockdown-looking piece of metal can slide into the hardwood and protect us from any unwanted visitors.  Ever since he did this, I’ve been giggling at him.  Don’t get me wrong–I really appreciate the fact that he cares for me so deeply that he’s willing to risk our rental deposit.  I really, really do.  It’s just funny, though.

Yesterday as Zack lifted the deadbolt to let us out of the house so we could run a few errands, I just started laughing.  He said something to the effect of, “You’ll appreciate it some day,” or, “You make fun of me now, but home invasions are on the rise!”  I can’t remember exactly what he said.  I said back, “I’ve never discouraged you.  I’ve laughed at it, sure, because it’s kind of funny, but I’ve never said, ‘No, Zack, probably not a good idea to drill that 1″ wide hole in the floor of this home that we RENT.’” He said, “Yeah, you laugh now, but Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get us.”

Scenes From Life

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In the house:

Me: “Zack, I have to go to Walgreens, do you want to come?”
Him: “Sure.  What do you have to get?”
Me: “Oh, I have to pick up a prescription. (Whispering) And a pregnancy test.”
Him: “And a what?”
Me: “And a pregnancy test.”
Him: Stunned Silence. “Really?”
Me: “Yeah. I’m pretty late.”
Him: “Dear God, If you love us, please, let Sarah be barren.”

In the car on the way:

Him: “What’s with all the baby clothes in the trunk?”
Me: “MP was giving them away, so I grabbed them to give to Sarah1 and the girls.”
Him: “Oooooh.”
Me: “I guess it does look weird, me taking you to Walgreens for a pregnancy test with a trunk full of baby clothes.  I bet you were all, ‘Woah, she’s thinking ahead!’”
Him: “Hardly.  Babies don’t even need clothes until they’re 2 years old. Before that you can just dress them in paper sacks.  It’s not like they’re going to remember it anyway.  And if they do, when they turn 2 and you start dressing them in real clothes, they’ll be all, ‘I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE THE BEST FOR GIVING ME THESE SNAZZY CLOTHES!’”

Back home again:

Him: “How long ’til we know if we have to start saving up paper sacks?”

(for the record: not pregnant.)

Home Again/Bridesmaid Fail

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Back home again. I’ll upload my pictures today (which, sadly, there aren’t as many of as there should be) and post them in the flick account soon.

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In other news, today I tried on my bridesmaid dress.  Zack’s brother, Jared, is getting hitched to our friend Jenn in August and she asked me to be in her wedding party.  As you probably know, Zack and I acquired some weird-ass tan lines a few weeks ago on a long bike ride.  Ever since, I’ve been trying to get rid of those tan lines.  While in Georgia, we visited a place called Callaway Gardens where I proceeded to get a lot of sun in my strapless swimsuit.  Believing that my arm stripes and halter-neckline tan lines had gone away, I slipped into the dress to inspect the progress.  That’s when I realized that this dress, this dress that I ordered in March, is so desperately too-small for me that I can’t even almost breathe in it.  Shit. Tan lines really don’t matter that much if your dress doesn’t fit to begin with.

I can not figure out why I am still gaining weight, but I am.  So I called David’s Bridal, inspected my dress’s hem (looking for extra fabric that could be used to let the dress out), and am weighing my options.  In the mean time, while recovering from my incredible embarrassment and overwhelming sense of failure, I am spending the rest of the day formulating and implementing A Plan.  A Plan With Capital Letters And Everything.  This problem, unfortunately, is a problem that Spanx alone can’t solve.

Manners of Speaking

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We’ve been in Georgia for about 3 days now and, despite my best efforts, I am sounding like a true southern bell. 

After leaving church Sunday morning, we went to lunch in a little place in downtown Columbus.  Amy, the kids and I piled into the car and drove to the restaurant, giving the kids a pre-meal pep talk on the way.  Sadie and Seth, like most kids, only have about a dozen dishes that they will eat between them.  The pep talk was more necessary than normal because we were going to a new restaurant and neither Amy nor I had any idea what was going to be on the menu.  After big sweeping reminds about “using manners and words,” I turned around in my chair and asked Sadie if she was going to be a Good Girl and eat all of her Suppa. 

She said, “What’s SUPPA?”
I was like, “Oh, right. I meant lunch.”

I swear, since that moment, my internal narrator has gone southern.  Every thing’s all “I do declare” and “that is MAH-velous” and “these green beans are exquisite!”  It’s providing a stark contrast to the modern British English that had overtaken my internal dialogue before I left on this trip as a result of reading a Nick Hornby book.  Soon after I read the Hornby book (SLAM), I picked up my well-worn copy of Middlesex and I, not knowing the true depths of confusion that lay before me, thought I was all messed up.  I lamented the fact that every time I was reading the self-proclaimed Homeric Ramblings of JefferyEugenides, I was reading all sorts of “bloody”‘s and “crickies”‘s between the lines.  You can only imagine how scrambled I am now, reading Sandra Cisneros’s La Casa en Mango Street by day while watching Harry Potter and/or The Antique’s Road Show by night (depending on who’s in control of the remote), and engaging in conversation with the most sterotypically southern accented family that you can possibly imagine.  My internal dialogue sounds something like this: “I do declare, gov’ner, it is bloody hot on the porch esa manana.”

On a less southern (or at least less mannered) note, the That’s What She Said moments for which Sadie and Seth are so famous have returned today with style.  I won’t tell on them on the blog, lest they grow up to hate me some day.  I will tell on Amy, though.  Today when we were getting the kids dressed for bed, she was trying to convince Seth to go potty before he got zipped up into his footie pajamas.  She said, “Seth, do you need to go potty?”  Of course, he said no.  So she tried again, saying, “Seth, are you sure? You might as well give it a try.  You know it’s always so much easier to do it when your pants are already off.”

Destination #2

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Amy, the kids and I arrived safely in Georgia today after spending most of our waking hours traveling across the South Eastern United States.  We have landed in one of the most hospitable homes you can imagine; we were offered Sweet Tea and Chopped Barbeque sandwiches upon our arrival. 

Needless to say, after a day of driving, I don’t have much news to report.  Amy had to use the bathroom a lot, and I continue to impress people with my bladder and its endless expansion abilities.  Sadie and Seth watched a record number of movies on the trip. I ate two nectarines and a McChicken.  I already miss the fact that there is not going to be a bike ride in the morning, but I think I’m going to survive.  Perhaps I’ll temper my sadness tomorrow with a Mojito while hanging out at the country club pool.  It’s a rough life I’m living here in the Eastern Timezone.

Back to the guest suite for me.  The saga of The Little Mermaid 2 is playing out on the big screen and I have just GOT to find out what Urcela’s sister does to Ariel’s daughter, Melody.

Sometimes I Can’t Think of Titles

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For the second day in a row today I took a nap that spanned an entire REM cycle.  Needless to say, I’m not exactly roughing it out here.

I mean, I’m tired, sure, but that’s because of all the self-torture.  Having learned that The Trails were a tough bit of cycling to chew on that early in the morning, I let Crystal take me on a road ride this morning.  When she mentioned that the out-and-back path that she does in the mornings was 18 miles long, I didn’t tell her that 18 miles was about 8 miles farther than I rode, even when I was doing a “long ride.”  I just grinned and told myself to bear it.  I felt pretty dang accomplished this morning when we arrived home from the ride.  I survived and I didn’t even slow them down.  We averaged about 14.6* miles/hour (*only 20 miles an hour of the Tour de France’s Peloton speed!  We were practically flying!) and my max speed was 34 miles an hour! I was breaking the speed limit on two wheeeeels! 

Last night Amy and I crashed into our bed at about 10:3o and then proceeded to chat like 7th graders for the next hour.  During that hour we realized that there was no light on in the living room, and we needed to fix that situation in case any little ones needed to make their way across the house to find Amy in the middle of the night.  “We” in that situation means “Sarah” because Amy is 6 months pregnant and that is exactly the kind of task I am here to complete.  The turning-on-nightlights-after-we’re-already-in-bed kinds of tasks.  (I’m also really stellar at finding DVDs in the center console.  I am a priceless addition to this travelling circus.)  On the way to turn on the lamp on the piano I kicked my suitcase, bumbled into my camera bag, then over corrected into the bench at the end of the bed.  It was really dark.  I got from there to the living room okay, but then, whilst trying to avoid the large mahogany table leafs hanging out behind the couch (in the make-shift hallway to the baby-grand), I practically punted the two bowling balls that were beside the piano in (what I now know to be) the Goodwill pile.  It felt like I was in a Three Stooges routine by the time I finally got all the way to the lamp.  I made an audible “oof” sound as I crammed my left foot, then the right, into their respective bowling balls.  Amy called out in a whisper from the bedroom, “What was that?!”  I said, “A bowling ball.  Cause I TOTALLY keep my bowling balls in the living room by the piano.”  My witty bowling ball commentary was all she needed to be sent into an endless and delirium-driven giggle fit.  As I crawled back into our bed she, still laughing, re-lived every single collision I’d made, noting how each impact made the following impact that much more hilarious.  I couldn’t even be mad that I’d just crashed into 2 bowling balls 3 pieces of furniture and every personal belonging I have with me on the trip.  Seeing her silhouette, hand cupped over the mouth, trying not to laugh so loud that we woke anyone up, was easily worth the bruised pinky toes.

“A Quick Morning Ride”

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The people here at The Compound are Bike People. 

Sam and Amy have been telling me for years that their cousins in Arkansas are bike people.  The trick is, you never really know what someone means when they say that they are ”bike people.”  That could mean a thousand different things.  My family and I, for instance, have deep roots in the BMX world, love mountain bikes and torture ourselves on road bikes on a fairly regular basis.  Some people that are “bike people” are just one of those things.  Or even still, they might be into just one thing, and that one thing might not be one of the things that we’re into.  They could be velodrome nuts or dirt jumping enthusiasts or, if they’re really weird, into trials.  You, dear readers, may not have any idea what any of those things are.  And that’s okay.  All you have to know is that there are just as many ways to ride a bike as there are to skin a cat.  You get the drift.  It didn’t take long to figure out, though, that these kind of people are damn near the same kind of bike people that we are. 

I got up at 7:00 this morning and set out on a 29-inch mountain bike to ride with Crystal, our lovely hostess.  She hauled my ass back into the trials behind the house, about 5 miles of quality single-track that she and her family  have cut into their hilly, densely wooded, creek laden property.  I was really glad that she took the initiative to lead me through the trails, because I would have been downright embarrassed to have anyone close enough to hear the not-quite-an-asthma-attack that I had for the duration of the time  I was chasing her through the woods.  I thanked God in Heaven every time she had to stop to remove a branch (or small tree) that had fallen across the trail.  Even though I was much to exhausted to help with the trail clearing, one time I feigned like I was going to get off my bike and assist.  She must have seen how exhausted I was; she simply held her hand towards me, palm up, signaling that I should stop and perhaps take a sip of the neglected water bottle on my bike.  Apparently I looked as bad as I felt.  Regardless of my huffing and puffing, she never asked me if I wanted to quit early.  We bobbed and weaved through the first trail, and I was feeling really good about myself when we popped out of the woods and started riding down a dirt road.  I patted myself on the back, congratulating myself for surviving the whole mountain bike trail experience without breaking down into tears or having to stop. 

We had only been riding for about 25 minutes at that point, though, so I should have known that it wasn’t over yet.  As soon as I got done with my internal gloat session, Crystal pointed out the next path that we were going to take to go back into the woods.  I grinned.  She turned away from me on to the trail.  I mouthed cuss words at her, myself, and then Amy for telling them I was a bike person.  I even cursed Lance Armstrong and his stupid cancer for making me look like such a wuss.  Then I followed her onto the next trail.

She gently informed me, (while not looking back to see my face the color of a red crayon, about to pass out from exhaustion) that this was the beginner trail!  It’s a nice little trail, she continued, that you can take a person on who’s never ridden a trail before, and it’ll give them a good idea of what it’s like!  I thought to myself: VICTORY.  THIS MUST BE THE TRAIL HOME.  Surely, I reasoned, this was the first trail that they made, before they knew about switchbacks and climbing and all the misery of hairpin turns!  I goes straight and flat from here to the house and Life Is Good.  I even went so far as to convince myself that it was a SHORTCUT.  This must be the FASTEST way home! Faster than the road!  I was allowed to continue with that train of thought for four glorious minutes.  That’s when she hollered around a corner at me, “Okay, this is where it starts to get harder again!”

Super.

I love it when it gets harder again.

It went on like that for another 30 minutes.  So many uphills! With the climbing! And having to pedal the whole time! How do people possibly like this!?  In my defense, I continued to not cry.  I’m not sure what the difference is between hiking and biking that allows me to not weep when I’m exhausted on wheels like I do when I’m on foot, but I guess I should be happy for it.  I didn’t even get teary until the very last climb.  The trails end at the bottom of a very steep, very sandy jeep road.  She told me that we were at the end! And then she mentioned that the only part we had left was a big climb in order to get back to the houses.  I said okay! And then I turned the corner and saw that she wasn’t messing around.  She meant it when she said it was a Big Climb.  Luckily she’s in very good shape so she motored right up to the top, leaving me to climb up the hill in peace.  I cranked it down to the lowest gear possible and resolved that I was going to ride up that stupid freaking hill if it was the last thing I did.  Then, as I got to about the half way point, I crawled off my bike and resolved that, instead, I was going to walk up that stupid freaking hill if it was the last thing I did!  I AM SHOWING THIS HILL WHO IS BOSS.  Then, as my long strides up the hill slowed to a shuffle, and my throat began to produce a wheezing sound not unlike the sound the throat makes during an asthma attack, I revised my goal again. I was going to keep breathing! HAH! See this inhalation and exhalation!?  I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as Crystal crested the top of the hill and began circling around (like a vulture! I was feeling very damaged by that point) and I decided that I wasn’t going to give up on that last goal.  Not crying, still breathing, I shuffled slowly to the crest of the hill, then collapsed.  Crystal, being the kind human that she is, didn’t mention the fact that I’m the most out-of-shape 25-year old that she’s ever had to drag through her family’s trails.  In fact, she must have some experience with truly exhausted people because she, very graciously, didn’t ask me any questions either.  She just told me about how when she first started riding the trails she couldn’t get all the way up the hill either, and how accomplished she feels every time she conquers a new riding goal.  And I was happy to have the encouragement to accomplish my goals, since the my latest goals (forming at that very minute), were to muster up enough energy to move my arm to the water bottle and to continue breathing without crying.

On Being In Ar-Kansas

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As Amy and I pulled into the driveway of our destination, a collection of homes lovingly referred to as “the compound,” Seth and Sadie spotted the swimming pool right away. 

Sam, (Amy’s aforementioned husband who’s currently hanging out in Afghanistan with the Army), has a whole heap of family that lives together on a swath of property here in Arkansas.  There are four families.  These four families have been introduced to me several times, but there’s a lot of names involved.  For simplicity’s sake, Amy and I have taken to referring to the families as House 1, House 2, House 3 and House Across The Street.  We’re staying in House 2.  The swimming pool is at House 1.  Less than 30 minutes after our arrival at The Compound we were fully suited up in spandex, making the hike towards the pool.  These kids don’t waste any time.

Deciding to take this trip was something of a last minute decision.  When Amy found out that I was going to have more free time this summer than I’d previously planned, she told me that I was welcome to come with her and the kids on the 10-day Texas-to-Arkansas-to-Georgia-and-Back leg of their Annual Journey-Across-America Summer Road Trip.  I immediately agreed to come on the trip.  I am always excited about the prospect of getting to spend more time with my cousin, getting out of the house, and getting out of the state.  I didn’t spend much time thinking about the fact that we were going to be going to Arkansas.  I’ve been thinking of this trip as the “Sam’s-Fam-to-Georgia-Friends leg” moreso than the preposterously-long, state-ridden title that I wrote a few sentences ago.  It wasn’t until Dad asked me where I was going to be sleeping tonight that I realized I had no idea where I was even going.  While leaving Texarkana in the dust this afternoon, you could have found me and a 2004 United States Road Atlas becoming well acquainted as I tried to locate our distination on the map. 

So you can imagine the jolt that I had after we arrived, (having totally ignored the fact that we were going to Arkansas,) when we arrived at the pool to find a massive, dinner-plate sized frog swimming around in the pool.  Sure, the frog, (in and of itself,) was not very surprising.  What was surprising was the reaction–the 3 girls under the age of 14 practically arm wrestling each other to see who would  GET to fish it out of the pool, each one harboring her own unique gleam of speclized frog-torture in her eyes.  I stood there watching the exchange for a split second, mouth agape, when I caught Amy’s eye and her smile reminded me: We’re In Arkansas.