The Jas Says. . .

I will not be posting a freshly-taken pic courtesy of The World’s Worst Web Cam in this entry. Why? Well. . . because I’m sitting here with no makeup, in a wife-beater, too-short and too-small shorts, and I’ve just spent a good hour working up a sweat in the privacy of my own bathroom.

Whoa. It’s not what you think.

See, for the last few months or so, our shower has been a little. . . funky. Funky as in “Jas doesn’t like to clean the shower so oh to hell with it, it gets rinsed with soap and water every day, right?”. So. . . as apparently will happen when showers aren’t cleaned on a regular basis, all the caulk turned black with what I call Shower Rot but what is actually (probably) mildew. If you’re me, there’s only one response to this: “Ew, YUCK.” If you’re having a particularly nauseous day, it’s “*hork* that needs to be fixed.”

A few weeks back I proudly went to Lowe’s and picked up a nice tube of caulk that says it’s supposed to be used on showers and tubs. I brought it home, showed it to The Man, and he said “Oh, cool. Guess I can fix the shower now, huh?” You see how that statement would seem to indicate that the shower will be fixed NOW or sometime in the near future? Yeah, well, it’s a lie. The caulk has been sitting under our sink for about a month or so. Today I got tired of looking at Shower Rot and decided to do something about it:

Step One: Remove old caulking. Sounds easy. I can’t find the putty knife, so I guess a flathead screwdriver will work. Wow, this is hard. Wow, this is REALLY hard. God damn, there’s a lot of caulk here.

Step Two: Clean surface with mild detergent. Clean mildew with diluted bleach. Ugh, bleach. Guess I’d better put on some crappier clothes.(Enter wife-beater and horrible shorts)Yeah, these clothes fit the bill all right. I wonder how much bleach I should use. Oh well, I’ll just – GLUG GLUG GLUG WHOA that’s probably enough bleach! Wow, that stinks. . . . Hmmm. . . . I’m tired of scrubbing. I wonder if this is clean enough. Well, I can still see some Shower Rot, but I think it’s stuck to some leftover caulk.

Back to Step One: Yep, still a lot of caulk here. Wonder how I missed all this the first time?

Back to Step Two: Yep, this still smells very bad. And my skin is starting to crack open. That’s probably a sure sign that my bleach solution is too heavy on the bleach. Oh well I’ll live. . . I think. GOD DAMMIT that black stuff still is not coming off! To hell with it! It’s clean enough! It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Step Three: Allow to dry. That direction reads strangely similar to “Go smoke a cigarette and try to get your hands to stop bleeding.” I can’t argue with a tube of caulk, I guess. . . . . . Hmmm. . .still not dry. I wonder if this means “drip dry” or “towel dry”? I don’t want to be doing this all day.

That’s where I stopped. This is fast becoming The Worst Idea I’ve Had Lately.

Also I probably shouldn’t have chosen today for my adventure in caulking, because I didn’t get a lot of sleep and had an active morning. We had the two nieces last night, and Anna woke us up BRIGHT and EARLY with her small little ‘whine’ of “I wanna watch a movie. . . ” The kid is really cute, and whenever she has to ask for something (like a drink, or help going to the bathroom) her voice gets very soft and very high pitched. It actually makes it hard to understand her and I have to ask her to repeat herself several times. The rest of the morning was spent trying to herd two toddlers around our very small trailer. We put on a movie, threw some crayons at them, and just made sure they didn’t kill themselves or our cats.

Now I’m tired. And wrestling with caulk. Could life get more perfect?

I’m kind of worried about my sleeping habits. For the past several days, I’ve slept at least eleven hours. That’s usually not too big of a problem for me, but the later I sleep, the worse my throat hurts when I get up. I don’t know why. It just does. So for the past couple of days my throat has been KILLING me in the mornings, and sometimes well into the afternoons.

I don’t even know why I’m sleeping so much. It’s not like I’m really all THAT tired. I think I’m missing the part of my brain that causes me to wake up, and I have to rely on outside sources like The Cats, or the phone or The Man. The problem is that The Man likes to let me sleep in, so he tries to control outside stimuli to the point where I end up just laying in bed until my stomach forcibly demands food. (This morning my stomach ejected the rest of my body from bed just by growling “Cinnamon toast!”)

No kids last night. Instead, Michael came over to watch the Director’s Cut of “Legend”. And I have to say. . . I’m not sure which cut I actually like better. I know that’s all sacreligous to “Legend” fans anywhere. . . I know I’m ‘supposed’ to be a purist and just scream with delight over the Director’s Cut, but really it was unnecessarily long, and in some parts, I didn’t care for the score as much as the Tangerine Dream score on the US release. Oh well, I guess I’m not cool enough to be a movie purist.

Anyways, I guess we’re supposed to watch the kids TODAY, which is actually cooler, because since it’s Monday, places are open later so if I get bored I might just take them out of the house and down to the store or something. Not like they can protest too much. Muahahahaha.

Last night before Michael came over I persuaded The Man to let me take a picture of us on The World’s Crappiest Web Cam!

Aren’t we cute??

In some ways, I am (unapologetically) the stereotypical girl. For instance: jewelry. I love jewelry. It doesn’t even have to be good jewelry or expensive jewelry, as long as it’s pretty. I’ve gotten four new pieces of jewelry in the last two days. On Friday I got two silver rings, same style but with different stones. . . I guess they are “stack” rings, or at least that’s how I’m wearing them. Yesterday we went to the Ren Faire and I got one of those hand things. . . a ring with a chain that connects to a bracelet? I don’t know what they’re called. . . and a ponytail wrap. You can kind of see the wrap in this picture (courtesy of The World’s Crappiest Web Cam!). It’s a metal spiral thingy with a charm hanging off the end of it:

The Ren Faire was so fun. We were there for about 3.5 hours, saw the Ded Bob Sho, shopped, listened to music, ate, did the typical Ren Faire stuff. I couldn’t find any jingly jewelry though, like bracelets with bells or anklets to wear with my gypsy costume. Oh well, guess I’ll have to order off the Internet.

Anyway, I guess we’re going to baby-sit the nieces tonight, so I’m trying to clean up the house a little bit. I’m trying to decide what to do with them, I don’t want to just plop them on the couch and let them watch “Cats” again all night (Anna’s favorite pastime at our house). Maybe I’ll take them to the park.

After today, I’ll be on vacation until September 3rd, so updates might be sporadic or non-existent. I’m sure everyone is crying in their beer!

What is the plan for vacation, you ask? Well. . . the first few days will be dedicated to sitting on my butt! We are planning on going to the Ren Faire this weekend, I think, but other than that I don’t have a lot planned until Thursday, when we’ll leave to spend a few days with The Man’s mom up in the Upper Peninsula. She lives hella far up north, so the drive is going to be a killer. Like ten hours or something like that, I think. That reminds me: Get “Fellowship of the Ring” on CD for the trip.

Tonight Michael is coming over to grill, so that will be fun. Maybe I’ll stop and raid my sister’s garden for some sweet corn! She said that I could. Fresh sweet corn is good!

Yet another experiment in getting my hair to behave: take my shower at night. When I shower at night, I braid my hair while it’s wet, so in the morning it’s merely damp instead of soaking or bone dry. Then I slather on the styling products and hope for the best. It looks like I had a bit more success with the Bed Head stuff today than yesterday. My hair isn’t QUITE so frizzy. Wanna see a picture from The World’s Crappiest Web Cam? I knew you did!

Wow, that’s actually a pretty good picture! Go me! You can just barely tell that I’m wearing my Diary-X t-shirt. Because I love me some Diary-X.

Good news today: My tuition reimbursement was approved. Sah-weet. That’s one less thing off my mind. All I have to do now is worry about getting at least a “B” in my classes. Shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Bad news yesterday: Our Human Resources department passed a new rule that any relatives cannot report to the same director, or in the absence of a director, the same Vice-President. The Man and I currently report to the same VP. In our current status (engaged) we are “grandfathered” in to the rule, which means we are okay. But, once we change our status (get married) we will lose our protection and be subject to this rule. Granted, that’s a year away, and a lot of things can happen in a year, but it’s still worrying. That means once we get married, one of us (me) will have to look for a new job. That really sucks.

Last night we looked at another house. And man, were we disappointed. First of all, the sellers were asking $159,000. Around here, that’s the high end of middle range priced homes, so I was expecting a relatively nice house. Nope. The place is — and I’m not exaggerating — a shithole. All the walls were cheap panelling, the carpet was probably 20-25 years old, the windows all needed to be replaced, and to top it all off, it smelled like urine everywhere. And, at one point, the house had been converted to apartments because there is another kitchen upstairs that would need to be torn out and converted. Our late, lamented Dream House was on the market for $134,500 and it was BEAUTIFUL inside and out. The only thing that the Shithole had going for it was a bit of propery, a paved driveway, and a brand new garage. The Man and D– estimate that they must have dumped $40,000 just into the driveway and garage. If that money had been spent on the house instead, it might have been worth the asking price.

The search continues. . .

It’s a Friday Five!

1. When was the last time you laughed?

Last night while watching “I Love the 70′s” on VH-1.

2. Who was the last person you had an argument with?

Probably The Man although I don’t remember what it was about or when it took place. I don’t argue with too many people. He seems to get the brunt of it (sorry, hon).

3. Who was the last person you emailed?

My team here at work. I sent them a document I created about a project we’re all working on. Can I get more ambiguous? I don’t think so.

4. When was the last time you bathed?

Last night.

5. What was the last thing you ate?

A bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup — also last night.

It is the day of people talking me into things.

Lunchtime, and me and Michael head out to the mall to get food. . . I also am desperately in search of some product that will tame my hair frizzies. I’m sure lots of people have my problem — rogue hairs that are varying lengths that do not lay flat. I needed something that would smooth everything out. I used to have a spray that did this very well, but they took it off the market.

So, as we’re eating, I bring up that I recently bought a new T-Shirt that has a scene from the movie “Legend” on it. Michael’s never seen “Legend” so I’m explaining it to him, but I get stumped on the actor who plays the big, red demon guy. Off to Suncoast to do some quick fact checking. While we’re there, a very very cheerful man is following us around telling us about coupons and deals and savings and so on. More out of curiosity than anything, I ask if they have “Legend” on DVD. Sure enough, they do. And. . .as the very very cheerful salesman pointed out “. . . it’s not the good version, not the great version, not even the cool version. It’s the ULTIMATE version!” So, I bought it. I mean, I only have “Legend” on VHS (ew) and this ULTIMATE version has not only the US release of the movie, but also the Director’s cut with the Jerry Goldsmith score. At twenty bucks, it was a steal. That was the first unnecessary purchase of the day.

OK, one stop down, one to go. We start meandering toward the hair place and a teenager with a foreign accent pulls me toward his kiosk by asking if my nails are real or not. People actually ask me this a lot. My nails are nothing special, but they kind of naturally look as though they’ve been French manicured. So, I went to answer his question. Once he knows that he’s got me in his evil grip, he starts buffing my nails (or, well, only ONE nail), applying cuticle oil, and lotion, all the while promising that my nail will be so lustrous, so shiny, so beautiful that I will want to scream. “But you mustn’t scream, you know. Mall security asked us to keep it down. So many people were screaming when they saw their beautiful nails!” And here he gave a little devilish smile and continued massaging my nail with cuticle oil. Cute kid, he must have been about 16. Sure enough, my nail was really shiny. And smooth. Nice and all, but come on, I need to get some hair care products. We made our escape from the adorable little foreign nail buffer and once again set out to the hair care store.

OK, so there are a bewildering array of products in this store. Creams and shampoos and pomades and gels and sprays and lotions and spritzers and oils and conditioners and foams and mousses. Lots of stuff. I was looking for something that would glue my hair together into one mass of hair and not allow my little rogue strands to escape. After looking for about 10 minutes and not finding anything, a saleslady approached and asked if I needed help.

ME: “Yes, please, I’m looking for something that will tame my hair. You see this?” (gesturing abstractly to frizziness) “I don’t like this. I need a spray or something that will make this go away. I’ve tried pomade and it doesn’t work. I’ve tried some Bed Head stuff and that doesn’t work either.”

LADY: “Hmmm. . . what kind of Bed Head did you try?”

ME: “Er. . . Shine Junkie, I think? Silver tin.”

LADY: “Well, I use this stuff called After Party from Bed Head and it really works well. Smooths all the frizzies and makes my hair really soft.”

ME: (with some misgiving, since no Bed Head product has ever worked for me) “Uh. . . OK I guess I’ll try that. I’ll try anything.”

TWENTY DOLLARS for a pink bottle of lotion for my hair. Yeesh. I take it to work, slap it on my head, and sure enough it DOESN’T WORK, as I knew it wouldn’t. Bed Head is very clever at packaging water and/or air into cute bottles and promising a miracle. I know this stuff doesn’t work — I have tried a total of eight different Bed Head products (Manipulator, Rubber Head, Head Rush, Shine Junkie, Control Freak Shampoo, Control Freak Conditioner, Control Freak Hairspray, Control Freak Straightener) and they all did the exact same thing: made my hair smell like fruit. This stuff is no exception. I slathered it on, my hair stayed frizzy, and some other lady walked into the bathroom as I was staring in the mirror in dismay and said “Wow, that smells good!” Sure, it smells terrific, but I didn’t want hair perfume!

So, I’ve got frizzy hair, one shiny nail, and I smell like a Dole Fruit Cup. Just to add to the general aroma, I put on some Burt’s Bees hand lotion, guaranteed to garner compliments on the smell. I don’t really know why I bother putting on perfume, because once I’m done with my styling products you can’t smell it anyway.