Merry Christmas!

I spent Christmas, as usual, at my parents’ house, in New Mexico. My brother is nearby, so he and family were there, as usual. For the first time, however, my sister was able to make it out during Christmas. She brought her kids, but not her husband. My flight west had a layover in O’Hare, so I was delayed two hours, and got to Mom and Dad’s at midnight. A number of people were already asleep. I visited with Dad for a bit, then headed off to bed. In the morning, the bathroom was occupied when I woke up, so I left my bedroom door open and waited. When the bathroom door opened, a strange woman walked out and said, “Hi, I’m Dee.” She was a friend of my sister’s, who wanted to visit that area, so tagged along. After much drama (my sister had specifically told her that if she came along, she had to leave us to our family holiday, and not interfere), Dee left for the airport in a huff early early on Christmas morning. She declared she would never speak to my sister again; my sister was OK with that. You can imagine my confusion, however, at the concept of my sister bringing a woman along with her for Christmas. It would have made for a humorous scene, had I brought a male friend along with me! As it was, the topic never came up, so my sister is still uninformed.

Also as is standard, my mother had food covering every surface of the house, and I spent most of my time awake eating. And chocolate, pies, cookies, and junk food were heavily accounted for! As it is, I now weigh 171 again. Five days for Christmas, and I’ve gained back all three pounds that I spent three months losing. As I mentioned earlier, at this rate, it is going to take a really long time to get those 10 pounds off.

Everyone made out well enough in terms of loot. My gift from my sister is always uninspired, so I did not feel guilty that she was less than exuberant about what I got her. My nieces and nephews were thrilled, and that’s the important demographic.

One more point

I forgot to mention the other day that I am now down to 168 lb. Oddly enough, I met up with Ronny, and Brad and Cris, and Ronny asked if I've lost weight. He said I look "too skinny". I've managed to lose a grand Three Pounds since the break-up (yea, it's going that slowly), and he thinks I am too skinny. Another three pounds and I'll be down to where I was when I first met him.

And, I have another job interview scheduled. Call me Audrey Hepburn, 'cuz if I got the job, and ate my morning meal at work, it would totally be Breakfast at Tiffany's! That's right! I (may) end up in the New Product Development group at Tiffany and Company. Wouldn't THAT be cool!

Fun with Nietzsche

Here's a fun little web site to check out:

www.losanjealous.com/nfc

Saint G

I had a job interview this afternoon at Saint-Gobain performance plastics. It was the first time I'd interviewed for a job while I was still working, so it felt a little wierd to ditch early and go to an interview while technically still being paid to be at the first job. They think I had a car-service appointment. I said my check-engine light was intermittently coming on. Vague health complaints for cars are just as good as ones for people.
The interview seemed to go exceptionally well. From what the plant manager said after I was done talking, it sounded like I hit all his targets right on. He wanted a cultural fit. I knew that everybody is always looking for the 'fit' when you are interviewing, so I had chosen my responses to keep everything upbeat and positive. (He asked what I dislike about my current job, but I refrained from bad-mouthing anyone!)
They want to make the hire very quickly, so I should be hearing back from the HR lady pretty soon, I guess. If they want me to come in for Round Two, I imagine I'll have to pretend to fall ill to get the time off for that one.

Meanwhile, no new showings, no word from the agent. Lowering the price (again) has done nothing to stir up activity (again). There were lots of internet hits, but no showings... So, it's shaping up to another couple years in Worcester. But at least it would be happier!

Kissing anyway

Well, I came out and asked the new Brazilian on Sunday if he was top or bottom. I had a feeling it would be bad news (as I mentioned in the last post, I didn't see it working out). I was right. I need a top. He's not. Very much not, apparently. Sigh...

So, Monday I called - no answer. He finally called back on Wednesday. We agreed to be friends. I suggested we could also make out more, just for fun! He is hot, and a great kisser - why pass that up because of a little old long-term compatability issue?? He seemed to be OK with that idea, so it looks as though I have a Friend With Benefits! And when he brought up wanting to go to Brazil, I said I'd love to go along, and he thought that was fabulous! Who knows, my "Hawaii in 2007" plan may have to morph into "Carnivale in 2007" and "Hawaii in 2008"! Fair trade, I think!

Meanwhile, the realtor is getting starry-eyed about selling my condo again. And Saint-Gobain called to schedule an interview! They are 3 miles up the road from here, so I have the local advantage on this one. If I got a new job, that would eliminate the job-from-hell issues, so I could stick around a 'little' longer. And if I'm at a HUGE French multi-national, the transfer possibilities would be great for when I do leave. That would mean pulling the listing and refinancing my mortgage.

I should add that I haven't had too many in-person interviews in my life, but nearly every time I do get to the face-to-face point, they offer me a position. I'm not sure I want to stay in the cold and snow, but if that job opportunity came along, I would need to take it!

Still the 169

I meant to post this item earlier, but was derailed by a corrupt broadband provider (see post below).

I weighed myself on Monday at work, and was 169! I know that is the same as the previous report, but it was immediately following Thanksgiving weekend. And I did NOT diet over the weekend. Between pizza, cheeseburgers, three Italian restuarants, and more pumpkin cheesecake than I should have, there was ample opportunity to gain weight. So, the fact that I made it out with no change is actually a good thing!!

That date went well, too. He is an excellent kisser, and we could make out for hours... Seeing as how this is almost a week later, though, I should also add that I don't think it's going to work out. Which is a shame, because he is hot, is a great kisser, and is evidently smitten with me. Such is life, I guess.

Delay

I have been off-line for a few days, thanks to our pals at Charter High-Speed.

When I first signed up, they installed all the stuff, and left a little white modem box. Very soon after, I had connectivity issues. They insisted the modem was fine. I called back a few weeks later with more problems, and again insisted the modem was fine.

This week I had no internet again, so I called their customer service. They accessed the modem through the line, and discovered that the modem was malfunctioned. So, they told me to take it to the local office and swap it for a new one. After waiting in line behind the trailer trash who wait until they have $200 bill with late fees accumulated, I get to the agent, and she informs me that the modem is WELL beyond the warranty period, and she can't swap it out. Turns out the free install package includes a free crap modem that you 'own' from that point on. So, they brushed me off while it was new, so they wouldn't have to pay for a real one. Now that the warranty is "WELL" over, they are more than happy to sell me another (better) one.

If you ever have issues with your cable modem, make sure to get it swapped out RIGHT AWAY. If you wait, they will be glad to tell you it's a piece of junk once you are then required to pay them more for a decent replacement.

Weigh-in 2

This Friday I was down to 169!! Measureable progress is always encouraging.

I also have a Match.com derived date scheduled. Take a wild guess what nationality he is... I'll give you a hint; dark hair, brown eyes, speaks Portuguese. The photos look decent, though nowhere near Mateus-level hotness. But I'm nowhere near Mateus level either, so it's all good!

Jobhunt

I was browsing Monster on Monday, and saw a posting for a QC position here in town with Saint-Gobain, a large French multi-national specializing in materials. So, I figured I would submit my resume, and see what happens.
Wednesday, I met up with my friend Joe. We ended up at the gay townie bar to 'have a drink'. While we're there, beginning round two, his friends Luther and Keniah showed up. I've met them before, and know them a little bit. I also kind of like Luther. I get the impression that Luther kind of likes me, as well. At one point this particular evening, he ended up sitting in my lap.
More to the point, I mentioned my loathing of my current employer. Joe joked that I am not leaving Worcester. So, I said I had just submitted a resume to Saint-Gobain. Luther mentioned he was having a meeting the next day with a rep from S-G. He offered to put in a good word for me, if I was any good. I did the 10 second run down of my resume, and Luther got this "oh really" look on his face. He asked if I had submitted a resume to Staples. I hadn't because I was sticking to manufacturing, not retail. He kind of rolled his eyes and said he works for their product development group and works with a whole bunch of QC people. He gave me his email address and told me to send him my resume.
We also exchanged phone numbers, and he invited me to his and Keniah's Christmas party. We'll see which offer proves more fruitful!

Uh DUH

(Please read yesterday's post before this one.)

So, I lived through the experience Saturday, and wrote about it Sunday, but it wasn't until this morning that it dawned on me what was going on. When Mateus said "It was nice meeting you" he was playing along in the "Hey, what's your name" game that I had started when I walked into the club Saturday night. It was just an opening line for me to make the 'nice butt' comment, and then I forgot about it, but apparently he was paying attention.
I feel a little silly for not realizing it...

Addicted to Brazilians?

Thursday night Ronny called to say he was heading over by Cris to wish him a Happy Birthday and asked if I wanted to come along. I declined. A few minutes later, Brad called to say they were having a party for Cris on Saturday, and invited me to come. I, of course, said yes to that.
Psycho Ex from a long time ago was also invited. He was there, but he ignored my existence, as well as Ronny's, and we ignored him. Juvenile, yes. Easier, Oh yes. Some of the other people there said to me that they wished he would ignore them, too!
More importantly, Mateus was there. (I've had some back and forth on whether it is Mateo or Mateus, and I'm back to thinking it's Mateus.) He looked really cute again last night. Maybe it was the very tight, three-buttons open, perfect hot-guy length shirt he had on, and the accompanying occasional glimpse of those little cuts over the hips that point toward the abs, such as Usher has and is so proud of. Or maybe it was the half hour he spent talking to me... At one point, Ronny went over to Mateus's bf, Claudio, put his arm around him, and started chatting. So, Mateus came over by me to say I should keep an eye on my husband. I said we broke up, so Mateus should be more concerned about his bf. He said he isn't the jealous type. I said I am not either, and asked if Claudio is. He said Oh yeah. We then continued to talk for a bit. There were a whole bunch of Brazilians there, since it was Cris's party. As the evening continued, a group them left to go to the club in town. Ronny mentioned that one of them liked me, but I was unable to figure out which one. There was one that I thought was rather cute, but didn't know if he was Cristiano, Alberto, or Junio (they were introduced at the same time).
Shortly after that, the rest of the group decided to head to the club, as well. Ronny rode along with me, and mentioned that Mateus had said he was interested in me. When we got to the club, I went up to Mateus and said "Hey there, what's your name?" as though we'd never met. He said "Marcus"! So, I said "You have a very cute butt." (Oh dear lord in heaven, did he get a nice 'bunda'!) He attributed it to the jeans. I said it wasn't the jeans...
The group then headed out to the dance-floor. Claudio, the muscle-bound gym-rat type with bear-paw hands, predictably doesn't dance. Mateus does, and spent the whole time on the floor, dancing with all of us in the group. As the evening progressed, I guess they had 'another' fight that related to Claudio's jealousy. Brad had told me that those two fight a lot (a 5-week old relationship) and isn't expected to hold out much longer.
Meanwhile, the one cute guy from the Cristiano/Alberto/Junio group kept dancing with me, and I really got the impression he wanted to lean in for a kiss. I played it off as dancing away, not noticing anything... (Imagine my head bouncing like a ditzy blonde when you read that.) That may have been the one that told Ronny of his interest in me. As I said, I thought he was kind of cute. But aside from the Mateus stuff, there is also that nagging thought that I need to stop with the Brazilians. Altho, I had modified that to "no skinny Brazilians" because I didn't want to rule out the drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian I had met at the gym. And Mateus would fall into the disclaimer!
So, I kind of got the feeling that there was a mild flirtation coming from Mateus, and I did my best to throw subtle flirts back. Claudio was standing on the side, watching the whole thing, so I didn't do anything too noticeable. I have already mentioned they had a fight over Claudio's jealousy, so he must have gotten upset about something, but I don't think he would have singled me out. Mateus seemed to be having fun with a lot of us, including Cris, Ronny, and the C/A/J group.
Meanwhile, another guy shows up that all the Brazilians know, and Ronny ends up spending a good deal of time talking with him. The guy was the total twin of my friend Russell's hottie brother. This guy was a bit shorter, though. Still pretty cute. Ronny did not introduce me to him. I'm not sure if that means anything. Ronny's car was still at Cris's house, so he rode back with Cris. Mateus and Claudio also left their car at Cris's, as well as C/A/J. So, Cris's Grand Cherokee was rather crowded. I had my own car, and a 3 minute drive home. As we left, I wished Cris a 'feliz aniversario' and said good night to Ronny. Mateus said good night as well, and followed it with "It was nice to meet you." It threw me off a little, but I replied in a you-big-silly voice that we'd already met before. (Back at the party we had specifically been talking about when it was that we had first met last year.) We had talked a lot more than all previous times combined, and it has that first-date ring to it, so in retrospect, I'm wondering if it means something more along the lines of "I'd like to see you again". Maybe not. He wasn't drinking, so it wasn't a drunken mistake. He speaks very good English, so it wasn't a linguistic mistake either.
If I do end up hookin' up with Mateus at some point, you can bet there'll be pictures taken of him. (Yummmmm) So, stay tuned.

Which SATC girl are you?

I was watching Sex and the City on TBS last night, and was once again reminded that I am totally a Miranda. I was having trouble ignoring the cupcakes in the kitchen, while Miranda was eating chocolate cake out of her trash bin. The episode was about relationships versus sex.

As I was getting ready for bed, the thought crossed my mind that despite the title, the show really is about relationships. The four heroines depict the four possible control situations in a relationship. Miranda is the one in control. Charlotte prefers to have the other be in control. Carrie is more of an equality type. Samantha doesn't really DO relationships, so she doesn't have any control scenario. Extending my "Miranda-ness" in this thought means I am the control freak in my relationships. That, of course, is not a common thing people like to admit. Which makes sense that everyone wants to say they are most like Carrie, but most aren't. I would want to. But I know I am too much of an organized anal-retentive perfectionist to be Carrie.

Reflecting on my relationship with Ronny, and the complaints I have had with him, I realized how tight a grasp I can have on relatively pointless things. Even cooking dinner was often an exercise in control. Use the right pot, not that spoon, the heat's too high, why are you adding so much oil, oh my god that's a lot of salt, stir less, don't forget to rinse that afterwards, and stop using the vent fan because it's totally pointless. We didn't cook together. Either I did and he watched TV, or he cooked and I watched TV. It was easier that way...

For some reason, my mind then went on to my friend Russell, who is a Carrie, in my opinion. His girlfriend is an evil Charlotte. Their relationship totally doesn't work, and it fits the pattern. He wants to be equals, while she is expecting him to take care of everything. So, when he assumes she will contribute, the gaping hole in her expectations sets fights in motion.

It would seem to me that two Carries would work, and a Miranda/Charlotte pair. Two Samanthas would have a lot of fun together, but not be LTR material. Any other combo is going to cause a lot of tension, anger, and frustration. Going back to my earlier comment about wanting to be a Carrie, but not actually being one, the essence boils down to a lot of relationships are one in control and the other happy with that. My parents are a classic example. The 1950's image of the working dad, Stepford-ish housewife, and 'traditional family' structure all but worshipped that type of arrangement.

So, should I make myself into a Carrie, or should I just look for a Charlotte??

My Husband

Have you seen the current Dockers commercial? He is SO my type. There is a portion of it on their website (www.dockers.com click USA click What's New). Yummy yummy yummy. And a nice bounce in the package! (I can't help it, almost the entire commercial is close-ups of his crotch...)

Weigh-in

Due to another weekend of broadband outage (thanks, Charter!) I was not able to check email or post updates to things online. I would have included a brief update on my Celebrity Fit-club progress. After a month of (weak) effort, I have lost a pound!! Yes, one whole entire pound! That may not sound like much, but I still celebrated with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Just kidding! I know it is pathetic progress. My sole consolation is that it is actually two pounds, since two weeks ago when I weighed myself, I was up one. You can imagine why I didn’t post that announcement. Factoring in the up-coming holidays, I figure about a year and a half to go, at the current rate! Ughhh. I need to find a motivator.

Our #1 Holiday

I read an article about Halloween spending today. This year, estimates are at $1.3billion for the holiday, up from $850million, most of the increase in high-end decorations, costumes, and food/alcohol. It’s not the trick-or-treaters, it’s the parents. There were the predictable comments from the one woman they found who spends more on Halloween than on Christmas. The worn out statistics on college kids who use the holiday as a reason to party. The author was trying to imply that Halloween will overtake Christmas as the biggest holiday here. Of course, the article also included the comment from the above-mentioned woman that she goes all out on Halloween because her mother already rules the Christmas celebration. This afternoon one of the guys at work was whistling “Deck the Halls”. I asked him why he was whistling Christmas music. He said it’s almost Christmas. I replied that it isn’t “almost” Christmas. His response was “Well, I don’t know any Halloween songs.” Other than the theme riff from the movie "Halloween" and the spooky first bar from Bach's D-minor toccata, what music can you associate with this holiday? Seems to me that Christmas is going to be safe for quite some time, yet!
(Incidentally, the Toccata and Fugue in D-minor is a beautiful piece of music. The fugue especially is graceful and elegant, sounds amazing on a good pipe organ, and really has nothing to do with Halloween but a minor key.)

Spooky

The remote for my stereo can control the basic functions of my TV, as well. Power, volume, channel, and input selection are all available on the stereo remote, so I keep the TV remote stashed behind the TV. I only need that one for more complex tasks, including menus. One such task is turning on or off the captions. Ronny could understand the dialog better with the captions on, so for the past year I have gotten used to having the captions on the TV. Last night I was playing a little game at my computer, and had Project Runway reruns playing in the background. Around 7pm, the thought crossed my mind that I still had the captions on, but didn’t need to anymore. I had the stereo remote with me, but didn’t feel like going over to the TV to grab the other remote, and went back to playing the game. At 8pm, I wanted to switch to Daily Show, so grabbed the remote. When I look down, it is the TV remote in my hand, not the stereo remote. I just stared at it for like 20 seconds. How in the World did that remote end up in front of me???

PR3

Olympus fashion week in New York was a couple weeks ago. I read an article about it that included a quote from Jay McCarroll (spelling?) predicting this season’s Project Runway winner would be Jeffrey. That was kind of a spoiler… On the episode last Wednesday, Uli and Laura were the top two, leaving Michael and Jeffrey on the runway. Of those four, my pick is Michael, so knowing Jeffrey showed meant Michael was out. Then they pulled out the biggest surprise of the show; all four are going to fashion week! Season one was won by a flaming homo. Season two was an Asian woman. Michael is my favorite, but as far as I can tell both he and Jeffrey are straight. Jeffrey has a girlfriend and a son, so that’s easy to tell, but Michael has not let on any personal info besides growing up in the ghetto in NYC. Last season was crawling with ‘mos. This one was a lot tamer. Kayne was a big queen (makes pageant gowns for a living), and Robert was obvious before his recycling ex-boyfriends comment. Bradley was obviously straight (didn’t know anything about Cher). Keith was the cutest, but not around long enough to find out much info on. I’d guess gay, but could be wrong. Malan was creepy Euro-trash, and Vincent was just cuckoo for coco-puffs. So, I’m not sure about either of those two. But there’s a chance this season will be won by that rarity in high fashion, a straight man!

My Big News

The other fun and excitement this past weekend was that I broke up with Ronny. It started Friday evening, and finished Sunday afternoon. Several cycles of “I don’t understand” and “You will never find happiness” and “I am strong, I’ll be fine” and “How could you do this to me” and now we are just friends. I still need to get a bit more of my privacy back. We did discuss it, and he agreed to come over under invitation like other friends, instead of unannounced like a significant other. Well, he usually wasn’t completely unannounced, it was either “I’ll be there in 30 minutes” and then some time in the next 4 hours he would randomly show up, or it was “I’m at the stoplight, I’ll be there in a couple minutes” (literally two minutes). He will gradually move his clothes back to his house, but he still wants to go to IHOP together, or have me help him study English. I don’t mind, really. This way I have somewhere to dump excess belongings when I move, and in a couple years a willing host for a lengthy visit to Brazil. I joked that if we went to Carnival in Salvador we might bump into Sergio. He looked at me quizzically and said there’s no way we would see him in a crowd that size. Then he said I’d find lots of other Baianos there to be interested in! (Probably true. Cris is also a Baiano. The super super-hot guy from the gym is half Baiano.) He did suggest I learn better Portuguese before going. Considering that about none of the Brazilians in Massachusetts spoke English when they got here (and most of them still don’t), I doubt “Voce fala Ingles?” (“Do you speak English?”) will get me very far.

Joe's Progress

St. Joseph has been buried head-first in my philodendron for over three weeks now, and I still have not had an offer submitted. So much for that hyped superstition. I had a showing this past weekend, though through a miscommunication on the part of the showing agent, I was at home at the time. (She was unsure how to use the lockbox, so asked that I stay home to let them in, then used the lockbox and was Surprised I was at home. Those realtor licenses must be Very difficult to obtain.)

It was an old couple; I knew immediately they would not be interested. They harped on not having in-unit laundry hook-ups, because “you know” women don’t do their unmentionables in public laundry areas. (She must not have attended college.) Then they pooh-poohed my wood floors, because they could just buy a cheap unit and put floors in themselves. Then the old grouch started complaining about Elgin toilets. She had her husband check what brand the toilet is because Elgins “don’t flush.” The agent was even saying that being on the sixth floor, it probably wouldn’t be a problem.

To my horror, I had forgotten to clean the little space between the seat and the tank, which is usually where the name is stamped. It was nothing tragic, but a few stray hairs. I did get a sinking feeling in my stomach, as I pictured them studying my toilet. I had cleaned the bowl, the seat, and the tank, but somehow missed that part. This was the only tour I had been included in, and it gave me NO reassurance.

And to answer your burning question; it does not say what brand it is.

Hearing Aid

For those of you who don't recall, two years ago (almost exactly) I was in a car accident. My little PT Cruiser was totalled. I was making a left turn, saw an on-coming car, stopped. The retiree in the other car drove full speed into my car, despite the red light 20 feet in front of me. According to state law I was automatically at fault because I was making a left, so I filed an appeal. My insurance went up anyway, so I looked it up. The appeal form just starts a process where they schedule you for a hearing. I apparently missed my hearing; but I know for a fact I would not have missed that notice in mail. So, I've been paying about $700/year extra because of the accident on my driving record.

Tonight I got the hearing notice in the mail. TWO YEARS LATER! It's scheduled for late October. Are you kidding me?!?!? Of course, this is organized by the State of Massachusetts, and the hearing is at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Luckily, they do schedule it for the department in your own area, so it's walking distance, not 3 hours away... I sure hope I qualify for a refund on all those insurance premiums I've been paying.

Assuming, of course, that they believe me when I tell them that it's not my fault the old fart wouldn't stop.

Celebreality

It is official - I need to go ona diet. I had a dream last night that I was a 'contestant' on VH-1's Celebrity Fit Club. Now, I realize that as thin as their definition of celebrity may be, I still do not count as one. But the fact that my subconscious mind placed me in a weight-loss competition means that something has gone horribly awry.
So, to follow the main technique of televised weight loss, I will announce my starting weight and track the progress. (Amy's tantric reading is more fun to follow along with, but I gotta start somewhere.) I weight myself at work. The scales are calibrated every six months for accuracy. I weight myself (obviously) fully dressed. This is not a problem since I'm looking at the delta, not the absolute. Today I stepped on the scale to read 171 pounds. My goal is 160. Doesn't sound too bad. But it has been my goal for almost two years, and I am practically unchanged.
Here we go...

Not Smart Enough

Ronny and I went to dinner last night. Somehow the conversation drifted to him asking if there were things he did that I didn’t like. I mentioned that I don’t like biting, and it annoys me that every time he smells something foul he accuses me of farting. Both of these are things we’ve discussed, and he hasn’t tried biting in quite some time now. He responds with one or two things about me that are inconsequential, then says that I am not smart enough. He wishes I were more like Brad. This is Not inconsequential. I reiterate in disbelief, “I’m not smart enough for you?!” He says I misunderstood; he didn’t say “for me.” He said I wasn’t smart enough, but he loves me anyway, so he doesn’t care. After some stunned silence, I sort ask for explanation. He often rips on random strangers walking by, and I almost always react with “Ronny, be nice.” He wants me to join in on the jokes. He also thinks I don’t notice things going on around me, like him checking out some guy or another. Brad calls him on it, but I don’t. I explained that I am not the jealous type, so I notice, but I just don’t care. (Brad is quite the jealous type, and I am occasionally asked to be an accomplice in Cris’s cover-ups.)

When we get home, he apologizes “for saying things he shouldn’t say.” He adds that I don’t talk much, so he sometimes talks too much. He asks if I forgive him. I reply, “How can I forgive you for thinking I’m stupid when you still think that I am?” He gets all affectionate and apologizes over and over. He says that he really only meant he doesn’t like that I’m too serious and don’t join in on his joking. He claims random strangers make comments about his appearance, accent, or job, so he comments on strangers to make himself feel better. I said that if someone insults me, it makes me feel bad, so I shouldn’t insult others because I don’t want to make them feel bad. He apologizes some more, and says he didn’t mean like I thought he did; he thinks I am very intelligent, and a very nice person. I said I could forgive him. He wanted me to be all happy and affectionate then. I said it was like banging your knee on the table; I’d need a little more time to feel better. Then he tries to get me to have sex with him, and I wasn’t going along. He was like “come on, I haven’t had any since Sunday!” (He didn’t come over Monday or Tuesday.) I was just not going to accept. He asked why not. I said I wasn’t happy. So, we watched Project Runway instead (the return of Angela! Ahhhhh!). I’ve been suffering general unhappiness lately, so this really didn’t help my mood much. We’ll see what happens.

PT

Ronny and I pent the weekend in Provincetown. It was his first time there. I hadn’t been in a while. I rented a hotel room at a guesthouse pretty much right in the middle of town. Drove up on Friday night; between construction and a rather nasty looking accident, it took 3.5 hours to get there. Had dinner; Ronny didn’t like the food (too dry). Wandered a little bit and called it an early night. Saturday had breakfast; Ronny didn’t like the food (too bland). Did a little shopping, had some ice cream (no, he didn’t), headed to the beach. I didn’t know exactly how to get there, so it took over an hour to get it down. Ronny refused to wait for the bus, which added to the confusion. He was getting kinda grumpy. But we got there, and the weather was beautiful. Sunny, 80, nice breeze, not humid at all. Probably the nicest day we’ve had in a month, and we were at the perfect location to take advantage of it. Went back to town, washed up, went for dinner; Ronny didn’t like the food (various…). Took a nap, then had plans to head to the club. Ronny didn’t want to wake up, so he was grouchy for the next half hour. The place was relatively dead, but the DJ had the treble turned up way too high. Ronny didn’t like the bathrooms, so refused to go there. Between bored, having to use the bathroom, and his ears hurt, and he had a stomach ache from the lousy dinner, he was complaining in full force. I asked if he wanted to go back to the room, and he said we could go if I wanted to leave. We ended up leaving just after last call. We walked a little bit, then went back to the room. He wanted to buy a bottle of water, so we headed back out. I was aiming for the burger shack, but he insisted on heading to a bar. I tried to explain they were all closed, but he seemed to think he could buy water, anyway. I dragged him to the burger shack, and he got water. In the morning, we had breakfast; Ronny didn’t like the food (too spicy). Did a little more shopping, went through the museum at Pilgrim Monument, had more ice cream (not too bad), and headed home. On the way, Russell called to invite us over for dinner, so I said we’d be there in a little while. Rice, salad, veggies, and grilled pork chops; Ronny didn’t like the food (too healthy). I asked him if he had a nice weekend and if he liked P-town. He said oh yes, it was great. He asked if I had fun. I said yes. He asked if I did every minute. I said yes. I think we both glossed over the causes or effects of the complaining.
He has no patience, and doesn’t like it when things progress any differently than his pre-imagined script. I am way more laid-back, so he especially bristles at my lack of apparent concern when things aren’t going as planned. (Regardless of whether I am aware of ‘the’ plan.) I don’t do running commentary on my thought processes as I try to evaluate and correct a situation, so he just boils over as I am working on a solution. Then he perceives his boiling as the force that created my action. It creates a no-win condition for me, but I don’t think to babble until the boiling has exploded. I think we are just not suited for each other. He seems to see it as I am difficult and should feel lucky to have such an understanding boyfriend. Incidentally, I loved the food at every meal.

Joe

I planted St. Joseph on Thursday. It’s been 8 months with no offers, and 2 months since the last showing. Oddly enough, two months ago was when I chose NOT to bury St Joseph, so I figured it was worth a shot. There’s a little superstition about burying an icon of St Joseph in your yard to help sell your house (or a flower pot in my case). Out of sheer desperation I bought one of the little statues. Nothing else is working, I may as well try. My mother’s prayers must need an amp…

Name Change

I just deleted a prior post. My brother is now a father again. Little baby boy.

I had posted that they named him Jeremy. That news was conveyed to me by our mother, on her way home from the hospital.

I spoke with my brother. He was unsure where that idea would have come from. My new nephew is named Christian Isaac. They had never thought of naming him Jeremy.

Oh well. I'm still an uncle!

Twinkimisu

Some of you may be aware that I do not drink coffee, but I love tiramisu. I make my own, and it is very good. The traditional recipe says to use a splash of brandy or cognac, so I used brandy. Then one day, I saw “amaretto tiramisu” on a menu. We, of course, were too stuffed to get dessert, so I didn’t try any. But the next time I made one of my own, I subbed DiSaronno for the brandy. And it was divine! Since that time I had only made them amaretto style. Earlier this year I was at Disney with some friends, and the Pop Century hotel dining room made a dessert called “Twinkie tiramisu.” Once again, we never had the opportunity to order any. (We didn’t eat much at the hotel; mostly at Epcot’s world showcase.) This past weekend we were having Brad and Cris over for dinner, and I couldn’t come up with a good dessert idea. I asked Ronny if he wanted tiramisu again, and he excitedly said yes. So, I tried my hand at Twinkimisu. I cut the bottoms off the Twinkies, and scooped out most of the cream filling, so I was left with primarily golden sponge cake, with traces of filling. I was, unfortunately, out of DiSaronno, so I was figuring we’d be stuck with brandy again, when I got the bright idea to use the Razzmatazz raspberry liquer in the freezer. If the last one was divine, then this one was rapturous! The raspberry doesn’t overpower the other flavors like the amaretto can, so it was a very subtle taste. And the Twinkie cake worked amazingly well, too. It costs a bit more to do it that way, and it is quite a bit more work. Though, the cutting and scooping may be overkill on my part. But it is definitely worth a try!

Why

Yea yea yea, I know. I haven't posted in a while, and it's another dream...
Well, three, actually. I've been having some rather sexually explicit dreams again.

Some time ago, I had this dream that Ronny and I were on 'vacation' at some resort. Ronny, of course, had to work all day. And we were sharing a room with this hunky straight guy. Kind of imagine Hugh Jackman only a little less pretty and a bit more construction worker. After a few nights of subtle hints, we ended up having sex. The thing was, Ronny was already asleep. So, he was in the room at the time. I woke up rather horny, but figured it would be rather rude / bad karma to wake him up to have sex when I spurred on by a dream about cheating on him.

Then a few nights later, I had a dream I was at a party. All gay guys. Nice house. There was this hunky guy wandering around naked with an 18" hard-on. He'd approach someone, ask to have sex, and the guys would all chicken out. He caught me checking him out, and came over. I couldn't resist. So, next thing I know, I have a portion of that WMD in my mouth. After some fun with that, the dream morphed into us watching a Dateline special on TV about him. He was married and had two kids (which he had told me about; he mentioned she was just tired of trying, and was unable to deal with his dick anymore). They went into some detail about how terrible his life had been because nobody would want to have sex with him. (I know, typical Diane Sawyer topics.) They then started talking about his son, who was just hitting puberty. Doctors were anticipating that the son would outsize his father... In my dream, I woke up from that, and had sex with Ronny. Then I really woke up, and had sex with Ronny.

Last night, I was at the grocery store. There was this really hot guy there. About 5'6", blonde military buzz-cut, really well muscled, yummy yummy butt. (Not that I was checking him out...) So, last night I dreamt I was having sex with him. It was that intense, we'll-die-if-we-stop kind of impassioned making-out, gettin' busy. I was Really enjoying it. We finished off by making a big mess all over each other. Then I woke up. Rather horny... Went back to sleep. Had sex with him AGAIN. (I think that's the first time I've repeated a dream hook-up.) Made an even bigger mess on each other. Woke up again Really horny. Contemplated waking Ronny, but decided he needed his sleep.

For those of you who are unsure, the main reason I am willing to end things with Ronny when I leave is that I lack that all-consuming passion. When I was with Sergio, we would look at the clock and realize we'd just spent three hours groping, making-out, kissing, having sex. It was so much more engulfing than what I feel for Ronny. It's hard to keep the relationship alive when there is too little passion driving things. I want what I had with the dream guy...

Hey, it could happen...

As Tropical Storm Beryl headed up the eastern seaboard on Thursday night, the forecast was for a fairly heavy hit out on Massachusetts’ more exposed areas. Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Cape Cod were in a direct path. Worcester, of course, is about 2 hours inland, so we were supposed to get some rain, possibly thunderstorms. In a cinematic turn of wish-fulfillment, however, my dreams brought the storm closer to home. Thursday night I had a vivid dream about being at work on Friday as the storms rolled in. I happened to look out the window at one point and saw dark clouds, an angry colored sky, and lots of churning winds. I commented that it looked like tornado weather. I grew in Wisconsin, which sees plenty of tornado weather. Massachusetts, however, gets minimal twisters. No sooner had I said that, though, and a funnel cloud started forming, pretty much right across the street. I started herding everyone away from the action. We basically made it into the production area and then couldn’t figure out where to go next. There really is no safe place nearby. The sounds of wind and turmoil began to die down, anyway, so we headed back to the Quality office.

Looking out the window this time showed a different scene. The tornado had ripped clean a perfect path of emptiness, including half of our building. The front building, which houses the offices, was completely gone except for the back wall that adjoins the production building. We didn’t get touched, but Sales, Engineering, Purchasing, HR, the owner / president, et cetera, were all GONE. We were just kind of staring blankly in disbelief at the wall, while ill-formed thoughts about unemployment drifted through our minds. Then I saw my car. From this side it looked OK, but the top was down. I was Positive I hadn’t left it down, and was rather upset that the interior got soaked. Going over to the car, I noticed the other side was completely mangled and the top had been ripped off, not lowered. There was even a stray wheel lodged in the door. It was with planning of insurance forms and unemployment checks that I realized I could now move south! Paychecks while not working relaxes the stress of the condo sale, so I was free to pack up and leave. (Yeah, sorry all those people died, but wuhoo!!!)

Car Trouble

Ronny had a rather beat-up old Saturn that was slowly dying. He decided he worked too hard to not have a better car. So, we would occasionally stop in at used car lots. I fairly hate used car shopping. The slimy salesmen, lemon risk, and general sense of predatory deception combine with memories of spending countless hours following my father around used car lots. I would find myself expressing the same whiny “I don’t wanna” with Ronny that I had with my father. Sunday we were heading to the car wash, and Ronny wanted to stop in at the lot next door to it (“Dallas Carboys” – in Texas that is probably as tired as anything, but in Mass I guess it passes for clever). There we stumbled upon a 2000 Neon with only 30k miles. He said it was $5,900 but offered it for 55. I told Ronny to play up the poor immigrant bit and go for $5000 even. The sales guy was trying to hold at 52 until Ronny waved the “cash” lure. (I had picked up a couple things from my father.) Kelly blue book lists it at $5100 to 6440, so Ronny either got a good deal or a juicy lemon. Mass has a lemon law, so Ronny’s not stuck with it if it is too citrusy.

Now the dilemma. Ronny has a few immigrant-related document issues, so he asked his brother-in-law to help out. The b-i-l has a MA driver’s license, so can get insurance, so can register a car. The b-i-l said sure, he’d sign the forms, so Ronny used the b-i-l’s name when buying the car. Now that he has the car, with the wrong name on it, the b-i-l has decided not to get insurance for Ronny. He’s caught in a tight spot now, because he can’t register the car, and he can’t change it to his own name without transferring, but he can’t transfer it out of the b-i-l’s name until it’s registered in the first place. Ronny already sold the old Saturn, so is now freaking out about driving an unregistered, uninsured car. Ronny seems to have a history of getting screwed over by his brothers-in-law.

Still Don't

This is a Part Two. Please read "I Don't" (right below) first. Thaaaaaanks!

Monday night Ronny came over right after work, and was acting as though nothing had happened. He wanted to run some errands and then go look at used cars for sale. There was one dealer in particular that supposedly got in a Focus that he wanted to see. After looking at cars for a while (the Focus was not there), we went to the Brazilian place for dinner. As we finished eating, he brought up the discussion again. When we got back to my place, we sat in the car and hashed it out. He was still convinced that he meant “nothing” to me. I tried to explain that was not the case, while still maintaining my stance that I will be moving away (sometime) soon. I had to agree with his interpretation that I didn’t love him enough to not move, but objected to equating that with using him and not caring at all. He said he thought it would be best to break up now, rather than wait for me to dump him when I left. I had to agree that was fair. But then when we went inside (his keys were on my table), he decided that he wanted to break away gradually. He couldn’t go cold-turkey. I said we would do whatever he wanted. He said if it got too hard for him that he would cut it short. Then he kind of broke down and said that he is so alone, and if I leave him then he has nothing here. He said he’d have nothing to stay for and may as well go back to Brazil. I asked what he came here for to begin with. He said, “My dreams.” Then he added that I had become those dreams, and I was killing him by taking it away. Tuesday he sent a couple emails asking me to reconsider. I gently replied that I wasn’t changing my mind. He came over that night. But other than saying “I love you” a few times, it didn’t really come up. He did say he’d had a very bad day, thinking about me the whole time.

I Don't

(This was supposed to post on Monday, but I wasn't able to.)

Saturday I went into Boston to meet my friend Jennifer for the Chocolate Buffet at one of the Boston hotels. It was good, and very decadent. I thought some of the items were poorly done, though. The tiramisu was a cup of mush floating in weak coffee, and the chocolate crème brulee tasted like burnt pudding. For the most part, though, it was enjoyable. It did consist almost entirely of desserts, of course, so we left with that mildly nauseated sugar-rush, lack of protein feeling. We wandered down to Quincy Market area and Haymarket. Did some minor shopping. After a while, grabbed corn dogs (protein!), headed over to Filene’s Basement, then headed back.

Ronny came over when I got home, and we visited with some friends. Sunday, he and Cris went off somewhere. He claimed they wanted to go swimming at a pool, but it was like 71 and drizzling. He said he’d be back around 4pm, so at 4:15 I called. He was at Club Café (in Boston). He worked at 6, so he said they were leaving soon. He stopped by on his way back to change into work clothes, and give me my birthday present (he apologized for being late). He got me a shirt at Armani Exchange. It is nice, and fits well, though it is something I would never have picked out myself. When he came back from work, we were chatting for a bit on the couch. He brought up again the question of whether I would marry his sister so she could get a green card. I again said I was not comfortable with that. Then he switched to a hypothetical, and asked if I would marry him if they allowed green cards for that situation. I had to say that I would not. He got rather upset, and accused me of feeling nothing for him, and doing nothing to help him. I said he was taking it as too much of an all or nothing. I did have feelings for him and have done many things to help him, but marriage was just too big of a step that I could not say I was ready for. After some debate, he said he was tired and was going to bed. He did not say good night.

This morning when he got he got up, he did not say a word, and did not give me a customary kiss good-bye. Every couple months he seems to convince himself that since I haven’t left yet, that I must not be leaving. The reminders are always painful. According to the pattern, however, tonight he will apologize for over-reacting and tell me how much he loves and appreciates me.

Rag, rag, rag

Another example of why I hate working for the people I do: They use a uniform service. People can rent work clothes. So, they change here, leave the dirties here, and once a week, the service comes and does the laundry. The service also provides shop rags. Eight cents each to buy the rags, and four cents each to clean them. Dug, the owner’s son, and miserly cheapskate, switched to a new company. So, all the employees had to pay new set-up charges for new shirts. Dug wanted to force people to pay for the company badge on each one, but we avoided that one. The rags also got switched. The old provider used red rags, and the new ones are green (and not nearly as good). Dug felt there were too many rags being used for ‘inappropriate’ purposes. As an example, the ladies in Assembly would use a stack of about ten of them attached to the cheap chairs to provide some sort of cushioning. This was outrageous, of course. So, Dug only bought 500 rags for the whole company, and is rationing them out. It is now even more of a hassle to do the work because they wanted to save an extra $80. Seriously…

It's the Network

I was visiting with Russell last night, and he is contemplating two job offers again. The thought crossed my mind that he has advanced his career quite well, and that it is largely due to the networking advantage. He became friends with some important people at earlier jobs who have helped present opportunities along the way. The disadvantage (well, one of…) of working at a small family-run business, where most of the employees stay until retirement, is that it lacks outside contacts. The only network I developed would keep me here. Then I remembered the one network contact I did have, and the job I turned down. The guy who hired me at GE Power Systems had transferred to GE Medical in the Milwaukee area. I was in Wisconsin at the time, and he offered to get me in at Medical. If I recall, I turned it down because I didn’t want to be in Wisconsin for however much longer. In retrospect, that was probably a really dumb idea. After being in a nowhere job at a nowhere company in a nowhere town for 4 years now, I would have been much better off climbing the ranks of GE. I would have Six Sigma certification, medical requirement experience, and be in a large organization with facilities ALL over the place. In other words, as I look through job postings now, I would be qualified for many many more of the good jobs in cool locations. “If I knew then what I know now…”

Drama Pride!

This weekend was the Providence pride. I had forgotten about Providence, but Nish called Friday to ask if we’d be interested in going. Ronny said sure, so I told him to come back to my place right after he finished work on Saturday. Nish called at 3:45 to see what we were up to. Just as I told him Ronny wasn’t back from work, yet, he beeped in. I switched to over to Ronny. He was at the mall with his sister and was asking if I wanted anything from the food court. He said he’d get the food and by right over. So I told Nish to plan for 4:30, and I’d call back in like half an hour. Ronny showed up at 4:10. I told him we were leaving in a few minutes, but I wanted to eat in RI anyway. So we put his McD’s in the fridge, he took a shower, and I called Nish. Nish was late, so we got on the road about 4:50. Ronny complained to me that I made him hurry up, and we waited anyway.

Nish dropped us off at the Providence Place mall and then headed off to meet someone for a first date. We ate at Cheesecake Factory, and wandered around the festivities. Caught Kristine W’s live performance. She sang, played guitar, and wailed on the sax live. No Ashlee mix-ups for this dance diva! She hit Feel What You Want, so I was happy. Nish kept calling to say he was on his way, which turned out to be a darker-than-white shade of a lie. He was basically stringing us along (we had ridden in with him, so needed to meet back up). The parade was about 8:30 to 9:15. Nish showed up around 10:30. (The date went very well.) Ronny was getting extremely petulant about wanting to go home. Nish wanted to go out. I wanted to go out, too, but figured I shouldn’t fight Ronny too much. Plus, I had seen Sergio at the parade. He didn’t see me, so nothing happened, but I had a strong feeling if we went to the club, we’d bump into him. And I really didn’t feel like going through that. Ronny’s getting angry, and Nish says it’s really all my fault for suggesting we ride together when I ‘knew’ this would happen. Yeah thanks. In the end, Nish found some friends who could give him a ride home, so he let us take his car back. Ronny would not even speak to me the whole way home. I tried a kiss good-night, and he just turned away.

In the morning, he gets up, starts getting dressed, and still isn’t speaking. I ask him where he’s going, and he just says “home.” I ask why. He wants to watch the soccer game (Brazil was playing at 11.) He couldn’t watch it at my place because he wanted the announcing in Portuguese, and I don’t get that channel. Though I do get Univision, which has Spanish announcers. He came back over around 3:30 and wanted to go to Sears to buy an air conditioner for his room. I suggested Best Buy, but was shot down. I asked why he was so mad at me. He said we wasn’t mad, he had just been too tired to talk on the way home. I mentioned the kiss part, and he said, OK, he was a little upset, but not mad. I didn’t get any more than that.

Drove to Sears, he didn’t like the ones they had, so we wandered the mall a bit. I was kind of hungry, but he said he was not. As we passed a vending machine he decided he was thirsty. I suggested the food court instead, so I could get some food. When we get there he decides he wants a salad, so I showed him the make-your-own-salad place. I said I was heading to Arby’s to get a sandwich, and he gets all grouchy again, he wanted me to ‘help’ him. After showing him the scale at the register, I again said I wanted to head over to Arby’s. He snaps about why I won’t stay by him. So I snapped back that I was the one who was hungry in the first place, and I wanted to go get some food while he was getting his. He must have realized I was right because he dropped that one. After eating, we stopped at Best Buy (the guy locked the door after we came in – it was 6:10). They have their display models plugged in, so you can see how cold or noisy they get. After listening to them, and feeling the air, we picked a little Fridgidaire unit. The sales guy stops by, and Ronny asks how noisy they are. So the guy goes through the whole spiel about turning them on and listening to them. I still don’t know why we went through that twice. He seems to think stores always have additional items or information or pricing or sales or whatnot hidden away in a secret room that you can’t access unless you ask. Maybe it’s a Brazilian thing… But he bought the Fridgidaire. So, I was right. We could have gone to the Best Buy near my house, rather than go all the way to Sears, but I suppose he’s happier knowing he looked there. Incidentally, Sears would probably sell more units if they ran some power and let you turn on the air conditioners, like Best Buy lets you do.

Next weekend is NYC pride, and I had been trying to get ahold of a friend who lives there, but have been unsuccessful. I had told Ronny a month ago to take that weekend off. So, if NY doesn’t work out, I was thinking of doing Chocolate Buffet on Saturday and Six Flags on Sunday. On the drive back from A/C shopping, I ask if he still has next weekend off. He says he didn’t ask yet. Then complains that I never make any plans to do anything fun. I point out that I made plans this weekend, last weekend, and even for next weekend, but things never work out right. I also point out that it’s hard to make plans when he works all the time. He replies that he doesn’t work All the time, and we can do things on Saturdays. I bring up the night before (lightly). He doesn’t see how his work schedule had anything to do with that. I mention that if he didn’t want to be asleep by 9pm, we could have had more fun. He grumbles about how he needs to work, missing the starting point of the ‘discussion.’ I let it drop. Tuesday he starts at 4am, so Monday night I will try to follow up on weekend scheduling, but may not get a chance.

Tikka

Nish took me out for dinner the other night, in honor of my getting old. Ronny was at work that night, so I took advantage of the opportunity to get Indian food. The food in India uses a lot of spice, and everything has some degree of heat. Ronny is allergic to hot spices (capsaicin, I believe), so the one night we all went for Indian together was a bit of a disaster. But I totally missed Tikka Masala, so jumped at the chance! Mango lassi is also quite yummy.

Nish and Mark broke up recently. I think this is the third major break-up, among many little near-break-ups, but I think this time it is for good. It was the first that neither one was all weepy and questioning and wanting to get back together. (The time apart from the previous break-up changed them enough to make this past attempt more difficult.) Anyway, Mark is still roommates with Sergio, so over the past year and a half, Nish has spent a fair amount of time over there and had become better friends with Sergio. (Mark kind of hates Worcester, so they were usually in Boston.) Nish didn’t bail from the parade last weekend like we did, and apparently kept bumping into Sergio there.

Our dinner conversation, therefore, seemed to drift into Sergio territory a lot. Mostly about how he smokes too much pot, dates all the wrong people because he’s looking for superficial things, isn’t mature enough to understand the true bonds of a real relationship (i.e. “he’s hot” is not one of them), and on occasion still asks about me. In an ideal world, I would be able to discuss things like that with about as much emotional investment as discussing the weather. It is not an ideal world, however. I could feel my stomach tighten as the conversation rolled along. He apparently even stayed at Nish’s place for a few days one time when rather distraught over getting dumped. The immediate reaction in my heart was along the lines of “he was three blocks away and I missed it!” For the time being, Nish and Mark are not associating (the healing-distance phase), so there won’t be more vicarious connection with the Baiano. (That’s the term Ronny uses if he refers to Sergio. The term means someone from the Brazilian province of Bahia, so there are millions of ‘baianos’ in the world. Cris is technically one, too. But Ronny uses the term, heavy with disdain, as a reference to one specific person. They’ve never met, but there is still something akin to jealousy involved.)

Wet and wild

I made plans to head into Boston for the weekend. Boston pride parade was Saturday at noon. (Though I heard it was delayed until 1pm.) The weather did not cooperate, though. Rain, cold, wind, cloudy, ick... Standing outside watching a parade in that is just not that enticing of an idea. Plus, with that kind of weather, there won't be any half-naked hotties on the floats!! So then, there's just no point! ;)

But we did go out Friday night. Went to Machine with my friends Mike and Joel. Ronny and I headed onto the dance floor (Cris was possibly there, but he couldn't get ahold of him on the phone, so wasn't sure). I saw Brian, so I went up and said hello. Then the guy next to him turned around, and it was Adrian. (Brian and Adrian had made out with me once on nearly exact spot on the Machine dance floor a couple years ago, which led to a 3-way...) The two of them started in on a three-way-kiss, but I kind of pulled back a little and introduced them to my boyfriend. They lost a little bit of the glint in their eyes after that. Oh well. Wandered around. Little bit later, bumped into Mark (roommate of my ex Sergio, and recent ex of my friend Nish who was scheduled to be in the parade that I didn't end up going to). Said hello to him. Then his friend Chuck came over to say hello, and did that annoying "Do you remember me?" thing. It's like, yes, I do remember. It's just that I never liked you... Well, I didn't say the second part.

Ronny didn't seem to sleep too well when we got back to Mike's place. In the morning he took some aspirin from the bathroom cabinet to ease his headache. It turned out to be a PM recipe, so he spent the rest of the day napping.

Last weekend, we met up with Brad to see X-men 3. Okay movie. Not as mind-blowing as it had the potential to be. Cris didn't make it. Brad was more than a little upset, since Cris wasn't answering or returning his calls. We went back to Brad's house after the movie to hang out, and Cris was there sleeping on the couch. Brad tried to wake him, but he was not budging. So, he stopped trying. I think he went to the bathroom. So, Ronny tried waking Cris by reaching down his shorts and grabbing his dick. I was a little shocked. Told him not to. He did not seem to think it was a big deal. Cris didn't wake up. Ronny made the comment "it's so soft." I still am not sure exactly what he meant by that. But I tried to say I didn't think was very nice for him to do. Didn't sink in. I will admit that I may have been more bothered than I should have been because part of me wanted to be the one grabbing. Which may have led to the following dream sequence. I finally had dreamsex with Cris. The four of us were all on vacation together (again). Ronny and Brad were each off somewhere, and Cris was sleeping. I got in bed next to him. He made the first move, I responded positively, and things happened. It was just a dream, but it was still fun! I'm so horrible...

Scientologists are Evil

I saw the Family Guy episode last night of Stewie's first birthday. The subplot was Meg being invited to join a cult, complete with cyanide punch. I think this is what spurred my dreams last night, but I had a rather detailed Sci-Fi channel style movie to watch while I slept.
I am not a Trekkie, but I saw one of the Patrick Stewart Star Trek movies with some roommates back in college. The enemy was this race called the Borg. Little nanotech machine stuff would turn people into cyborgs. Once you were 'infected' it also took over your brain, so you blindly followed the collective mind, and could infect more with your now-infected machine-generating body.
I had a dream last night about the Borg invading Earth. Only in this version, they didn't have little metal thingies growing on their faces. So, you couldn't tell who was and who wasn't. Except that Borg couldn't laugh. Anyone who did laugh was immediately known to be still human, and any Borg in the area would try to infect them. A little wrinkle here, though, is that when you become Borg, one of the machines you develop is a pair of little blue darts. These darts are how you infect others. One dart can be thrown at will. Removing both darts from yourself will kill you. So, the infection rate is a little slower than it was in the Trek movie. But it led to a world of Borg and Human living side by side, but nobody laughed anymore out of fear of conversion. The Really cool part my mind added was that the official religion of the Borg race was Scientology. (I learned about Scientology from South Park, but I've read a few things elsewhere, and it seems South Park was right about the weird alien invasion beliefs of the Scientology crowd.) In a somewhat creepy way, it almost seems plausible in the real world...
Another odd dream-aspect that is somewhat realistic is that the religion is so homophobic that men are not allowed to tough each other for any reason, including handshakes. (Again, with the South Park - "Tom come out of the closet!!")
The part I remember starts with me (still Human) and a woman (still Human) being chased around a medical clinic by a Borg nurse. She was luckily a bad aim, and after missing either of us with both of her darts, she died. (The darts looking like bright blue insulin needles.) So, we were able to escape. And for some reason, we were going by city bus. Get on the bus. This was the scene mainly illustrating how dreary the world had become simply because half the population couldn't laugh, and the other half was afraid to. I get off the bus, and walk home. As I'm coming up the driveway, my neighbors come over. They are very distraught, and show me a letter. As I'm reading the letter, a Scientology missionary stops by to visit.
The letter is from the neighbors' son. He had just killed himself out of fear of being turned into one of the Borg. It's very hard on the parents, and as I am trying to console them, I give each of them a hug. The missionary, of course, gets rather upset when I hug the neighbor husband. He, of course, looks like a stereotypical Mormon missionary: young, cute in an average way, white shirt and tie...
There was so much more detail in the dream, it seems kinda short in the retelling. But it just creeped me out a little bit because of the strange way it seems like if a race of Borg really did exist, I think Scientology would actually be their religion!

Coincidence

When Ronny comes over, he's usually fairly tired, so we don't do anything grand. Often just watch TV for a little while. Friday nights, the choices on TV are quite pathetic, and on a few occasions we ended up watching the Dog Whisperer. It's this kind of hispanic guy (Cesar Millan) who helps people bring their dogs under control. The shows all have the same feel, in that it takes like 3 minutes for the dog to calm down, and the next two days to train the owners how to handle the dog properly. Ronny and I have commented in the past that his sister should use some of those techniques to keep better control of her 4 year old son. (The son is getting out of control because she is too inconsistent and can't bring herself to actually enforce any discipline.)
So, last week, South Park apparently took our idea and made a show out of it. After burning through a couple nanny reality shows, Mrs. Cartman brings in the dog whisperer to help Eric. It is a funny episode, made even funnier if you've ever seen the original show. And when it parallels thoughts you've already discussed about crossing the show with problem children, it is hysterical!!
But the best coincidence of all happened this Saturday. Ronny just LOVES the chinese buffet down on Park. So, we've been going there WAY too often lately. Ronny also wears clothes from the boy's department. (As did Sergio...) Men's department smalls are still too large for him, so he gets some shirts from the boy's department. Some of them are passable, but some just really look like boys' clothes. This Saturday, we were heading once again to the Super China Buffet (in my mind it always sounds like "Sooooooooopah China Buffet" in a kung-fu flick accent). As we got out of the car, it just really struck me how boyish the shirt looked, so I commented on it to him. He's like, "No, you can't tell." I told him you could. The little cutesy rhino emblem embroidered on the chest was part of the give-away. We walk into the restaurant, and the lady seats us at a table. In the table right next to ours is a family with an 8 or 9 year old son wearing the Exact Same Shirt. I laughed. And then laughed a little more. Ronny thought it was funny, too, though not as much as I did. I told him it was even funnier because we had Just talked about it like 20 seconds earlier.
The interesting part comes in when you analyze the reaction shot. Ronny seemed to shrug it off, didn't care. I would have been beyond embarrassed; I probably would have wanted to turn right around and leave. In retrospect, I can agree that it is embarrassing, but my response would have been over-reacting. And when did I get that image-conscious, anyway?? The only reason to leave would be worrying about what the other diners were thinking. Under normal conditions these are people I would mock as sartorial errors to begin with, and disdainfully comment on the Wal-Mart-ishness of the clientelle. But that sure makes me sound like a snob, now doesn't it! As Stan and Kyle would say: "I think we learned something today. Having more Calvin Klein, Polo, and DKNY in your closet doesn't make you a better person." But I think Versace does...

Brokeback

A while ago, I was at Disney with Ronny, and went to a club called Mannequins. There was a guy on the dance floor who looked SO much like Sergio it was freaky.
So, the other night I had a dream that I was on vacation with Ronny. We went to some sort of film festival. There were a bunch of events that we went to throught the day. That night there was a documentary about Brokeback Mountain. I'm not sure if it was like a making-of documentary, or a real-life stories of the same theme. Anyway, Ronny suddenly remembered something he left behind in the hotel room and had to go back to the room. I waited around a while, he wasn't coming back. All of a sudden, I bumped into Sergio. Ronny just wasn't coming back, and the movie was about to start. I headed over to my seat, and Sergio came along. We were talking. I started wondering about whether or not I would want to take him back. As the morning broke, I woke up from the dream. The wondering carried over, in that half awake, kind of still dreaming state. I had been doing so well, but now I keep having the recurring thoughts pop back up again.
It's not so much that I -do- want him back, but I have come to accept that I will probably never be fully over him. Which is why even though he wants to be friends, I will never be able to.

Auughhhhh

Another example of why my job sucks… We received a customer complaints that some welded parts we sent them were falling apart. I went into inventory to check our stock, and found parts sitting in the box that had fallen apart. The welds were done so poorly that it basically amounted to burn marks, not welds. Everybody’s first reaction, as usual, was “How could the inspector have let this happen?” Nevermind that someone sat at the welder and made these pieces and put them in the box this way. Let’s just blame the inspector who is supposed to stop by every 40 minutes to see how it’s going. In speaking with production, I am told that these parts are resistance welded, but they should be projection welded. The resistance welding is taking way too much heat to do these parts, and ruining the welder tips. Engineering, however, says NO. The chief engineer claims we’ve Always made them this way, so this way should be fine, it’s simply a problem of poor inspection. (Root cause analysis at its finest!) I am also told that the reason we never did these with projection welds is that the tooling was too expensive for the small order quantities on this part. In other words, the real root cause is (as Always) that the owners are too cheap to provide the proper equipment. As always, I am not going to get away with saying this on our forms, let alone tell a customer. So, fine, I suggest shortening the inspection interval by half. It’s a poor excuse for a fix, but about all I can arrange. I discuss it with the plant manager, he understands, and agrees to it. For some reason I ask him to sign the form to show he agreed.
Now, the paperwork to change the inspection interval routes past the chief engineer. He blows a fuse. This is a Horrible idea, not solving the real problem, how dare I, why didn’t the inspector do a better job, this isn’t an inspection problem, I’m not addressing root cause… (Yes, he really did blame the inspector while saying it’s not an inspection issue.) He refuses to allow the change. I mention that in the arena of root cause, using projection welds was suggested. Again, no way, no need, always did it resistance before and never had a problem… (Production’s take on it is that we’ve always done it that way, and always had a ton of problems with it. But they are used to being forced to struggle through inadequate processes with no support.) He says he is going to talk to customer service, and storms off. Some time later, he comes down to my office and tells me to call a meeting. Not that he can’t do it, or ask his secretary to do it, but whatever.
Meeting starts with the chief engineer reading the ‘inspection interval’ plan off the form with arrogant disdain. The plant manager then says how horrible, how could I do this! I point out he signed off on it, so he mumbles something about not knowing what it meant. Right. The production supervisor again mentions we should projection weld these. The chief engineer says “Yeah, OK, we’ll look into it.” Then he starts complaining again that this addresses production problems, but we still need to address the inadequate inspection. I just want to strangle someone… To make it worse, I then hear that after the meeting the chief engineer questioned why nobody looked into projection welding earlier. More strangling fantasies…
Let’s recap. When I tried to solve the problem, engineering said no. Then when I tried a second-best approach, engineering said no. Then engineering made me call a meeting so they could discuss it, at which they agreed to my first suggestion when someone else brought it up, and expressed horror that I would even suggest the second idea. No matter what I did, I lost.

WDW

Went to Walt Disney World last week with Ronny, and Brad and Cris. It was a really good trip!! he weather was gorgeous, we went to all the parks, and I feigned the flu to get two of the days as sick time instead of vacation time! Ronny and Cris were really fun to go to WDW with because they were just awe-struck and impressed by everything. We have around 800 pictures total among the group.
We headed out on Thursday. It was a direct flight, so we got to the hotel by about 3:30pm. Decided to spend a little time at Epcot, since we had dinner reservations there. (We signed up for the Disney Dining Plan. It was about $250 each upfront, but our food was then comped. So, rather than have cheeseburgers for dinner, we went all out. We were spending about $40 to $50 per person on dinner each night. Epcot's international showcase is the place to go for dinner. Sit-downs at the Magic Kingdom not so fabulous.) Relaxed for a bit after dinner, then headed to Downtown Disney. Mannequins dance club is gay night on Thursdays, so we checked it out. They have these two dancers up on a high stage dressed in disco-ball suits. Little mirror pieces all over them, head to toe. Well, head to ankle - the hands and feet were not 'sequined' at all. Then the spot lights shone on them. The disco ball 'spray' changed as they moved. It was just SO cool! Mannequins is also the home of the rotating dance floor. As we headed onto the floor, we worked our way into the crowd. Ended up right next to this guy who could very nearly have been my ex, Sergio's twin brother. It was a little distracting. I had to check a couple times just to make sure it wasn't actually him. (Wouldn't THAT have been a coincidence!!)
The only other experience during the trip that doesn't happen to your typical Disney tourist was the Haunted Mansion hard-on... IF you've been on the ride, you remember it's very dark, and you sit in these little egg-shell tilt-a-whirl type cars. In other words, nobody else can see you. So, Ronny and I kept kissing during the ride. I think it was the thrill of making out on a ride like that which made me get a little more excited than your average rider. Can you imagine if we'd been down during Gay Days!

Bolo prestigio

Sunday is Ronny's birthday. He told me Monday he wanted a party. I invited some people over. But, I have a horrible track record for getting people to attend parties, so it will probably about 5 or 6 people. Ronny apparently ordered a wedding reception's worth of food... I offered to make the cake. I was thinking something I was familiar with. He followed "OK" with "I want bolo prestigio"! It's a Brazilian recipe. I looked it up online. It's a chocolate cake with coconut filling. They LOVE coconut!! Now, Ronny has told me before that he doesn't like American cakes because they are too dry. The Brazilian cake I've had was basically soggy tasting. Being the baker has given me the insight into how this all works. The cake part is rather dry. The batter has no butter or oil. The only fat content is the eggs. It has water in it. The cakes come out of the oven rather dry. But then you take a can of soda, pour it into a spray bottle, and soak the thing down! Voila! Instant moist. I had little pieces of stuff left over, so made a mini-cake on the side that Ronny got to taste last night. He said it was better than some Brazilian-made versions. (If you know me, you should not be surprised at that.)
Ronny told me the other day that Cris doesn't love Brad as deeply as Brad loves him. Kind of like me and Ronny. (He pointed that out himself!) It lends an odd overtone to my preceptions of Cris. (See the dream sequence below.) Ronny once jokingly suggested we should all have a 4-way some time. Somehow I think that would be a BAD BAD BAD idea... People do notice when you react more favorably to some than others, and feelings get hurt easily. Doing something like that with people you are already friends with can just open all sorts of Pandoran boxes. And we're all going to Disney together!
That trip is this coming Thursday. Wednesday I get to play ill at work all day so I can take two days off as sick time instead of as vacation time! ("Ughhhhhh, I need to feel bedder before the trip tomorrow...")

Whoopsie

This can get a little technical, so I’ll try to keep it jargon-less. I had a little goof-up at work. Luckily, not too many people were involved before I cleared it up. It could have been a big mess if I had handled it differently.
We have a customer in Germany who buys our bearings. Years ago we sent them a batch that was heat treated badly, and they were failing. The customer sent everything back and stopped ordering from us for about 5 years. Shipping about 1600 pounds from Germany is expensive, so the owner here was not too pleased. As part of winning orders from them again, they required us to life test our parts before shipping them.
(Bearing primer: Two metals parts rubbing against each other create a lot of friction, which causes heat, which melts metal, which causes the motion stop, the friction to stop, the heat to dissipate, and the melted metal to cool back down as one solid lump. Not good. If you’ve known someone who never checked their engine oil and seized the engine, you have an idea… Putting little balls in between the two parts so that they roll against each other reduces the friction. Using a lazy-susan is SO much easier than sliding things around the table. The simplest bearing is two rings of metal with a little groove in them called raceways. This holds the balls in the right place, kind of like with toy slot-cars. The top ring will now spin quite easily on top of the balls. The bearings we make for Germany are just like this. You put a “jacket” over them to hold everything together. Fill it with grease - I trust you understand the Lube concept - and away you go. If you bake steel, you can make it harder. Harder rings are less likely to wear out, making the bearing last longer. Life testing means to put a bearing in a machine that puts a LOT of pressure on it, and spins it for several hours. The excess pressure makes it wear faster, so you approximate a longer life in a shorter time.)
I am in charge of running the life tests. When the parts come back from our heat treater, I wanted them tagged so people would Tell Me the parts were here. I was told this was a horrible idea, it’ll happen properly anyway. Well, I discovered two weeks ago that we had Thousands of parts in inventory from last October that were just put away with nobody telling me they were here. I was too angry for a proper “I told you so” response. But I started hunting down lot numbers, and testing parts.
Friday I put the last of the samples in the test machine. This morning I went up to take it out of the machine. The computer screen showed this one FAILED. I took the bearing apart and saw one ring was all chewed up and cracked. Not good. Worst case would have been that we shipped a whole batch of parts again that would fail, and it would be a repeat of the 5-years-ago situation. But I seemed to recall this batch showing up after we were done building bearings, and just going into inventory. The engineer suggested testing a second sample. I went to go take another piece. I couldn’t find them. Looked everywhere! Asked the material handler for help. Nothing.
I sent an email to the heat treat place asking for some info on the heat treat lot number. I wanted to verify that these were made after we finished the bearings, so there would be no chance of having sent them to Germany. He wrote back and said that lot was a completely different part number than what I was looking for. Uh oh. I took my one sample piece and measured it. He was right. I had the wrong part number. This part was larger, wasn’t supposed to be tested, and didn’t even fit right in the test. So, of course it failed! Grabbing the wrong part was all my fault, too. I thanked the heat treater guy for his help, told the material handler everything was OK, and then had to fess up to the engineer. Luckily his boss wasn’t in, so he hadn’t told anyone else. If the alarm had already been sounded, it could have started boiling a lot of hot water that nobody needed to be in. But mostly, it just made me feel (and look) like a dumb-ass!

Actor Waiter

I know I have withheld retellings of my dreams from you for a long time now, and I apologize. But I had one last night worth capturing!!
First, a little background:
1) Back in the Alberto days, I met his friends Brad and Cris. They are dating, Brad is from Mass, Cris is from Brazil, reminds me a little of Sergio, and is quite attractive. I have a little bit of a thing for Cris. But he is with Brad, so is off-limits. Turned out that Ronny and Cris are good friends, so we spend a fair amount of time hanging out with them. In fact, the four of us are going to Disney in about a month together, for a week. It may have been my imagination, but I thought that (pre-Ronny) Cris was a little flirty with me - WHEN Brad was not around.
2) Last night I caught Sex and the City on TBS. It was the episode where Samantha meets a waiter/actor-wannabe and they have a lot of role-play sex. That is also the episode where Carrie's boyfriend (the guy from Office Space) introduces Miranda to the "He's just not that into you" theory. The waiter guy was not that cute in the face, but had a nice body.

Second, a disclaimer:
This is just a dream I had. Please do not confuse it with anything that I or Cris or Brad have done, would do, or will do at any point in real life.

Now, on to the dream:
I was on vacation with Brad and Cris and my friend Amy. Amy and I were both single, and in Will&Grace mode. I'm not sure where we were, per se, but we were staying at a hotel, yet it was road-trip distance.
There was a really hot guy who worked downstairs at the hotel. Kind of a concierge, bartender, belhop amalgam. Really hot, tall, dark hair, muscular. I was being a little flirty with him, and he was being a little flirty right back. This went on for a bit, to the point that I thought that maybe there actually was a chance of hooking up with the guy.
Then, I'm back at the room. Which is apparently more like a suite, and all four of us are staying there together. Brad is taking a shower, I'm in the living room area, and as I'm about to head to one of the bedrooms, Amy says not to go in because Cris is having sex in there.
"But Brad is in the shower."
"He's not with Brad..."
"So - uh - who?"
"That hot guy from downstairs."
Oh My God. I went in the room "accidentally" but they were playing around underneath the sheets, so you just saw gyrating bedsheets. I headed back out. In a little bit, the shower ended. Brad eventually came out and headed into the room. I didn't want to miss out on anything, so I headed into their room, as well. The bed is made. Cris and the hottie are sitting there, fully dressed, on opposite ends of the bed, just chatting. Apparently they had been going at it every time Brad wasn't looking for most of our trip. Brad had no idea...
The thought runs through my mind that I guess I didn't really have a chance with the hottie.
Little bit later, we're heading back home. I drove separately from Amy, or Brad and Cris. As I'm going along, my car dies. So, I start walking home. I have NO idea how far that would have been. All of a sudden the traffic starts backing up, horns are honking, something's wrong. Walking up a bit further, there's a big pickup truck that had been pulling a trailer with some farm equipment on it that overturned in the middle of the intersection (Hwy 165 - wherever that is). As I'm walking by, trying to decide if I should try to hitch a ride, I see Brad. He had pulled over to help out. On the OTHER side of the mess, there's Cris and the hottie (who apparently came along with them, for Some Odd Reason) goin' at it right on the side of the road.
May I point out that when TBS showed Samantha doin' the hottie, you didn't see penis. My dreams are not so censored!
As I walk past them, Cris grabs my leg (yea, he's on the ground). I stop and turn to him. He starts saying something in choppy English about when we get back home... I say "Nao falo com Brad" which means literally "I don't talk with Brad" but was meant to say "I won't tell on you." Cris says thank you and starts in on something relating to how Brad would be really upset if he found out. I reply "Eu sei" (I Know) and head out. But Brad catches up with me, and invites me to ride along with them. But the cops are still dealing with the overturned farm stuff, and we end up inside some house. As I'm looking for a cup to pour a glass of milk, the thought crossed my mind that Cris wasn't staying faithful to Brad, so he wasn't avoiding me out of courtesy to Brad. He just wasn't that into me...

Just Super

I invited a bunch of friends over to watch the Super Bowl. Technically, I invited them to watch the commercials, but you know what I mean! By Saturday morning, I had three confirmed Yes’s: Rob, Tim, and Nishith. As I was looking through recipes that morning, I settled upon Green Stuff and Bagel Dip. Green Stuff is a total trailer trash concoction based on Cool-whip and mini marshmallows. Bagel Dip is slightly classier, but still a little hick. Sour cream, mayo, and dried beef are the base ingredients. Sliced up chunks of bagel do taste really good dipped in it, though!
I should have made a half batch of the dip. It’s an extremely easy recipe to halve, and I knew the confirmed list was pretty short. Stupidly, I made a full batch. Sunday I got a cancellation from Rob, who said he was sick. I was counting on some of the Maybe’s to show up, or this would be a pretty boring party. As it turned out, one did. My friend AJ lives right around the corner, so he came over. (I always thought it was “AJ” but Nish said “Ajay” is a common name in India, so he was convinced I had it wrong. Since then, I’ve gotten emails that were signed “AJ” so I guess I was right. Or, he Americanized it to prevent hassles.) Turns out AJ is being a vegetarian again. Apparently, it has a close tie to his weight more than anything. If he wants to lose weight, he goes veggie.
For anyone who saw the Steelers/Seahawks match, you already know how boring the game was, except for some intriguing calls that helped Pittsburg win. And the commercials were just as tiresome. Last year seemed a lot more exciting, though I was doing jello-shots. This year was pretty quiet. Maybe with one exception…
I had the food set up on the table, and we were casually munching. Shortly after Nish came over, he wanders over to the food and starts nibbling. I’m on the couch, watching the TV. Then I hear Nish say, “Ooh, this dip is really good.”
I replied with a polite “Thanks” followed briefly by a rather emphatic “Shit!”
Ronny gave me a fairly harsh what-was-that-for look. I continued, “Don’t eat that!!”
Nish got a little confused, and asked why not.
“It’s got beef in it.”
“Really??”
Uh huh. I made a quip about going to hell. Then the thought ran through my mind that Hinduism doesn’t really do it that way. I asked if Hindus have a hell, and Nish said no. Catholics used to be told they would go to hell for eating meat on Friday, but I guess the sacred cow thing doesn’t have quite the same punishment system behind it.
So, for those of you who missed the Super Bowl, the most exciting moment of the game was when I tricked someone from India into eating dead cow! (ABC bleeped it, though.)

Are You a Bigot? Take the Test!!

I saw a news article about this test developed at Harvard that determines how prejudiced you are. It first asks you how biased you think you are, then gives you a little match-game test to see what the real result is.
It's a little intimidating to take the test, because it's timed. It's actually the timing that they use to measure your bias.
I've only taken one of the tests so far (under the non-recorded version). It was for gay/straight bias. Take a wild guess what my result was!! Turns out I have a Slight Automatic Preference for Gay People. Hmmmm. I wonder why that might be...
They have a whole list of them, from blacks, asians, arabs, ageism, weight bias, etc.
Check out how racist you REALLY are...

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit

Happiest Boy on Earth

I just booked a vacation to Walt Disney world. One week in early March. It's about $2500 for the two of us. I still have to schedule the vacation time at work. I'm thinking March may be the quitting month, so it'll be fun! :)
Ronny had mentioned that on his list of Things He'd Love to Do in America, visiting Disney is WAY up there on the list. Apparently the "going to Disney" thing is a major dream of children across the world, not just here in the US. Brazilians, anyway, all want to go there - so I'm told.
Last weekend I was talking to our friend about which casino to visit (see the Foxy Lady post), and he mentioned that he finishes his class in late February, so had just booked a vacation to Disney with Cris. When I mentioned it to Ronny as a passing comment, he immediately decided that we had to go, too! So, I called Brad and asked if he'd mind us tagging along, and he said that would be cool. I booked the exact same trip as he did (yet mine is apparently $300 cheaper). Ronny is SO excited about it. He had already taken the days off from work on Monday.
We're staying at a 'value hotel' on the premises, but to me, hotels are the kind of thing you don't splurge on when going on vacation. The trip is about everything ELSE. As long as the room is clean, and the bed in comfy, what more do you really need? On-premises is a plus, so it's costing like $130 a night just for the room, but we're skipping the rental car this way.

I noticed I haven't updated on the listing, and it's effect on Ronny. It's been about two weeks now that the condo has been on the MLS. I told Ronny about it all up-front. The day the lockbox for the key showed up on my door handle was a little rough for him, but he took it much better than I expected. The news of me meeting with the realtor threw him for a loop again, but the lockbox wasn't that bad. He asked "What is that?" as he came in the door. I told him. He kind of frowned and said it "doesn't make me happy". But that was it. Not really bad.

The other day he came over and said he had spoken with a friend of his from Oceanside, CA who told him that the southern CA area is full of immigrants, and he shouldn't worry about being down there. So, he kind of poked around the thought of coming along. But, as mentioned (see "Bettering") he got a second job because he would have nothing to do with his time after I left. So, I think that means he isn't really going to leave. His sister doesn't want him to leave, and she is his only family here in the States. I think that is a pretty strong tie for him.

The place has shown several times, and the realtor says he LOVES the place. He told me likes it more and more everytime he comes here to show it. I'm sure it helps to sell a place when the agent is bubbling over about how great it is! But no offers, yet. It's only two weeks, so I'm not worried. The thing that does annoy me, though, is that people don't take their shoes off when they visit, and the floor is actually getting scuff marks on it for the first time. Showing the place for sale is of itself going to make it less attractive. I'm sure I'm the only one anal enough to even notice the scuffs, so it probably won't affect the sale, but it does annoy me.

Foxy Lady

Two Saturdays ago, we were at my place, and Ronny said he wanted to go to the casino. He has never been, and I haven’t been to the ones near here. Having never been, I would need to look into details a little bit first, so said it was kind of sudden, maybe next weekend. I meant “let’s plan something ahead.” He heard “we’re going next Saturday.”
This past Friday, Ronny came over and at one point mentioned that he took Saturday morning off from work so we could go to the casino. I again was a little taken-by-surprise, so hesitated. He made some comment about being spontaneous. I said I had an appointment to get my tires fixed (one flat and one leaking) on Saturday. He thought I should reschedule, but ditching the appointment to drive on those tires down to Connecticut just seemed like a bad idea to me. Plus, Ronny had to work Saturday night (see the ‘Bettering’ post). So, I suggested we go on Sunday instead. He was OK with that.
Saturday we ran some errands anyway. While my tires were being fixed, we had lunch at the Chinese buffet next door that he really likes. I earned points for that idea! Picked up some stuff at Target, got a work shirt at Goodwill for that night’s new job, stopped by the Jeep dealer to ogle Liberty’s. I called our friend Brad to see which of the two near-by Connecticut Indian casinos would be better for a first-timer. He suggested Foxwoods. I invited him and Cris to come along, but they couldn’t make it, so we have Tentative plans for a trip to Mohegan Sun together some day. (Though, as this story unfolds, you may agree that Ronny might not want to go.)
We wandered around the casino for a while, taking in the sights. It is a large place – has like 5 separate casino areas. Although, most of them are still all slot machines. There is a separate Bingo hall and a dedicated poker room. The rest is mostly slots with some table games mixed in. Ronny went up to a nickel slot and tried to put in a dollar. They take 5’s and larger. Just then a coin change cart wheeled past, so he asked her for nickels. She gave him a dirty look and said the smallest she had was quarters. When he handed over the dollar, she gave another dirty look and even grumbled something about “only a dollar”. But Ronny didn’t much care. Unfortunately, the nickel machines don’t take quarters, either. So four “pulls” later at a quarter slot, his dollar was donated to the tribe. I noticed they actually have some machines that have a lever on the side for you to pull, but most of them are just little buttons now. I think it speeds up the cash flow…
Next we found a coin change counter. By now, Ronny has seen penny slots, so asked for a roll of pennies. Another dirty look, and the smallest she carried was nickels. That was fine with him, so Ronny got a $2 roll and headed back into the fray.
Forty nickels do last longer than four quarters, but it was still about 5 minutes until he had made his second donation to the tribe. As we wandered some more, I pointed out the $5 slots and mentioned that the speed he burned through his $2 roll was how fast they were burning through $200. That kind of made him mad. Knowing how hard he has to work for money, and having grown up in a poor family, it just is a bit insulting to see someone pouring that much money into a noise-making machine.
Ronny asked if I was going to play anything. I told him I wanted to do a little video poker, but hadn’t seen any machines for that yet. As we continued to wander around taking pictures of Indian-themed statues and such, we eventually came across the v.p. machines. I sat down at one of the machines. It had slightly lower pay-off levels, so it was actually available. But the pay-off level was to balance out the fact that it included jokers in the ‘deck’ so you were more likely to get a winning hand. I played for a little while, holding steady, to slightly losing ground. Then I hit a 4-of-a-kind. I had started with a $10 bill, and had climbed back up to $12 thanks mostly to the 4-of-a-kind. So, I decided to cash out. I like the v.p. better than plain slots because it involves “playing” instead of just feeding coins into the machine. It takes just seconds to burn through your money at a slot, while the poker machine can while away full minutes!
Ronny wanted to try his hand at the v.p. Seeing me win $2 had inspired that gambling itch in him. He was already down by $3, so wanted to play another five. He was going to seek out change again, but I explained that he could put in his $20, then just hit the cash out button when he was ready. So, in went the 20 dollar bill…
Lady luck had been smiling on me a little better than she smiled on Ronny. He hit a number of pairs and three of a kind, but nothing that paid out anything hefty. After a while, he had dropped to $15, so I told him he had spent his five, and could hit the cash out button now. He wanted to keep going! He wanted to get back up to his starting 20! (Uh-oh) Again, played for a while, won some one- or two-point hands, and gradually worked down to $10 left. Again I stopped him, and pointed out he was down to ten. He said he wanted to keep going. This time I got a little more adamant about having him stop, so he agreed he needed to finish. Reached over and pushed the ‘bet’ button, instead of the ‘cash-out’ button. At that point, you have to finish the hand. Lady Luck seemed to abandon him again. Now he was determined to get back to $10. He actually held steady for a couple hands, then won a straight, which brought him up to $10.75. I told him he was over ten, so should push THIS button to cash out. He started to get that glimmer in his eye and said he wanted to keep going. I fairly sternly pointed out that he would just keep losing more money the longer he played, so he agreed to cash out. When he got the two fives and three quarters back, it hit him that he had lost about another ten dollars, and got a bit remorseful. I tried to cheer him up a little bit by pointing out that he won 75 cents more than the ten even I had told him to stop at! He appreciated the gesture, but was still bummed about the $12.25 he had blown that day. It is a casino, though, so it shouldn’t have been that bad to walk away only twelve down, but I think my two dollar gain made it seem worse.
Then we went on to dinner. I was a little surprised that the restaurants were more Six Flags priced than I expected. I suppose this isn’t the Vegas strip, so there isn’t much competition on drawing in the crowds, so they have no need to make the food cheap. Entrees at the steakhouse were 25 to 40, and I could see the gloom across Ronny’s face as I checked out that menu. I had been scanning menus all day, so suggested the southern-cooking restaurant Amy Ruth’s. He asked what that meant. When I said Georgia and Louisiana, he said that sounded cool. Lady Luck again turned her back on him, though. The waiter mixed up the orders, and brought him the wrong food. They brought out the correct ones after I mentioned it, and they even let him keep the side of mac and cheese that they had brought by mistake. He had ordered the fruit juice. It is their own “special” mix, so they don’t tell you what is in it, but it was very good, and Ronny loved it. He saw them bring a doggie bag to someone, and he said he wanted one of the Foxwoods bags. So, when he said he had too much food and couldn’t eat it all, I pointed out that he needed to take left-overs home so he could get a bag, anyway. That pleased him! I had ordered the chicken-fried steak. I hadn’t had that since leaving Kansas, so thought it would be nice. I forgot this was Southern style, not Midwest style. Instead of the sausage-gravy on the side like in Kansas, this was smothered in beef gravy. Which I think ruins the chicken-fried coating and turns it to soggy mush. I also got the mac and cheese and the cheese grits. (Cheese!!!) The grits were only good if the spoonful was loaded with cheese. Ronny got the potato salad. I avoid ordering that because recipes can vary SO much you never know how it will be. This version had a lot of vinegar and mustard seed in it. We both thought it was gross. Since Ronny had suffered losses at the slots, and I had my wallet full of winnings (OK, so it was two whole dollar bills), I offered to buy dinner.
We walked past the Ben & Jerry’s on our way out. I was very tempted, but I was comfortably full, and that would have made me uncomfortably full. And I need to lose some weight (yes, it was my new year’s resolution), so we headed right on out the door. On the way home, Ronny said he had fun! That is the point of going there, so I guess it was OK after all. Still, I’m not sure if he’ll want to go to Mohegan Sun.