Bad Day 212--Still Slumpin'

Today was definitely a purple day which even included crying at my desk and then hiding it badly from my office. I told them all I was really tired. The sad thing is, otherwise it was a pretty good day. I finished most of my paper, and then life came full circle. See, I was an intern in DC years ago for a non-profit for whom I organized a big conference in return for which they paid me a pittance and let me hang around when they invited important people to come talk to them. And now, today, I became one of those important people that they invited to come talk. It was really, really cool and I wanted to jump up and down and I was still purple. What is wrong with me?

OK, small translation for people who don't remember or haven't followed this blog that closely. Purple comes from a Dr. Seuss book and is a euphemism for depression which I think is highly appropriate and very descriptive of how I feel, regardless of the fact that purple obviously is one of my favorite colors because I have three purple purses, one of which I bought last week. And the most infuriating thing is that I haven't had a purple day in a long time and now today it just hit me like a blast of cold air.

OK, maybe that was actually a blast of cold air because maintenance came to fix my vent and told me it was blowing out air that was 64 degrees which would be nice in the summer when it is 100 degrees outside, but when it is freezing, then blowing cold air into a cold office only makes it unbearably cold. Oh, and they said there was nothing they could do because when they divided up the office space, they smartly put the control box to my vent three. offices. away. So it will be a while before they figure out how to fix it, and by a while they mean never. Thankfully, I learned from my friend "Sparrow" that snuggies come in an Elvis pattern.



This congressional staffer is having a worse day than me. See, he was watching the Superbowl and this commercial came on.



And then he tweeted "me likey broke girls" which is a reference to the show in the commercial, and is a pretty dumb tweet. But what made it even dumber, is that he did it using his congressman's account. So of course the media picked it up and mocked the congressman, but it wasn't the congressman who tweeted. So thank you, Mr. Former Congressional Staffer, for reminding me to keep only tweeting poetry although I really don't tweet much at all, and that when I do, I shouldn't use a work account. Seriously, use some judgment! And those girls are way, way out of your league.

Bad Day 211--All by myseeelllf!

I am on my own tonight, which actually means that I am spending the evening telling The Dog to get off me. It could be worse. She is obsessed with Child 1's pants and keeps licking them. I do not let the dog lick anything of mine, especially not my pants, so she knows to at least not do that. But being on my own means that I can do things like have a peppermint shake and tortilla chips for dinner, which I totally did.

Now I'm watching bad TV while under the covers because I am freezing. I have been cold all day because my office is freezing. It was so cold today I wore a wool skirt and I still had to wear my coat and two scarves. I have called maintenance twice, but there is apparently nothing they can do about the cold air blowing into my office. See, it's not lack of ventilation or poor ventilation that is the problem. My office has no window and is on an inside wall, so by all rights it should be a sauna. But there is a big vent right over my chair and it is blowing cold air right on me. I wore thick itchy wool today and it wasn't enough, so I'm convinced this is my next step.



There is nothing in that stupid dress code about wearing a snuggie and if anyone says it's unprofessional, then I will make them sit at my desk wearing the warmest wool suit they own and when their fingers turn blue and they are shivering like a bowl of jello, I will ask them if now it is OK for me to wear a snuggie and I will deduct it from my taxes as a business expense. Along with all the cold medicine I am going to need from getting sick from sitting under a freezing cold vent, which I can only assume will blow hot air during the summer. I love working at the Department, but it is a really old, really cranky building and there is no money in the budget to fix it.

Children in Australia are all having a worse day than me, at least on their birthdays.



See, this lovely tradition of blowing out candles on a birthday cake at school is now banned because the Australian National Health Council says it spreads germs. This is not just for classrooms that have children with immune deficiencies but for every single child in every single class. So my question for the National Health Council is, have they actually ever met any children? Because if they have, then they would know that eating paste and dirt and picking noses and using the bathroom without washing your hands are all happening at every moment of every day in elementary school and those are just a fraction of the things kids do to spread germs when they're not really trying. So thank you, entire country of Australia, for reminding me to be glad that I am not a helicopter parent hovering around my children swatting away imagined danger. A little germs on birthday cake is a small price to pay for happiness and oreos saved from the floor taste even better.

Bad Day 210--Down in the slumps

This will be quick because it is late and I have to go to bed because I have to be up in 6 hours to start all over again trying to ride a tornado. I feel like Pecos Bill. (Google him if you don't know who he is.) The mid-tour slump has arrived and today I realized we only have 5 months left and then I remembered how long five months is and I almost started sobbing at my desk again. Luckily, I only cried a little bit and not enough to remove all traces of mascara, so I don't think anyone noticed.

Things got better later in the day, though because I went to dinner with some friends from China, one of whom is actually from China and it was so fun to see her again and catch up and I ate Pad Thai in the Vietnamese restaurant because they told me that was the only thing they made without soy sauce. It was yummy and it was fun to be social again. I'd forgotten how much I miss it. In China, we went out to lunch together a lot and laughed and joked with the local staff and generally were very social. Then I got to Korea and nobody ate lunch together. Well, I fixed that because I started taking people to lunch with me. But then here in DC, everyone eats at their desk with their door shut, as I mentioned. Last week, I ran into people from my new office where I will start in June at lunch, and they not only remembered my name, they invited me to sit with them! It was amazing, and I thought, oh yes! This is what it is like to have office camaraderie! So it was fun to have a taste of that again tonight.

Then I got home and the trash can ninja had struck again and I didn't have to take the cans to the curb. My sweet Child 2 has apparently made that her goal to get to them every week before I do. And the homework ninja had also struck because Husband woke up really early and helped Child 3 with her homework via Skype so it was done when I got home! Miraculous! And not to be left out, Child 1 was really sweet to me today and I am so very lucky to have such great children and that made my slump day bearable.

These Iditarod sled dogs are having a worse day than me. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Iditarod, it is 1,000+ mile race in the snow across Alaska.



The problem is, this year, there isn't enough snow. In Alaska. Seriously! They are having to cancel or postpone the qualifying races because it is raining and melting all the snow and racing on rocky ground is too hard on the dogs' paws, not to mention the fact that it's hard to pull a sled through mud. The Dog will never be a sled dog because she is too small, and also too fat and lazy. But the children have in the past hooked her up to their scooter and made her pull it by running in front of it with a treat. So maybe Alaska can do that instead of the Iditarod--have a scooter race. It's a thought. But thank you, sled dogs, for reminding me to care for the environment because it would be a sad thing if Alaska runs out of snow and you have nowhere to race.

Bad Day 209--Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts

I am watching Man vs. Food  and Bizarre Foods on the Travel channel because I like to torture myself and plus they eat a lot of things on those shows which I never want to eat so it's not as hard as watching, say, "The best chocolate desserts ever made with wheat flour." I don't think that's a show yet, and if it is, I will never watch it. I ate the tiniest piece of bread at church during what we call sacrament meeting and other churches call communion and I have been sick ever since. I was literally up all night and got about an hour of sleep and that entire hour was filled with nightmares. And when I woke up at 5:30 to walk the dog, I was so dizzy I literally fell down and it felt like the room was spinning. So I stayed home from work and slept all morning and I still feel awful.

But one good thing was I made chicken noodle soup for dinner with potato noodles and it. was. amazing! Better than the original IMHO (which isn't very humble because I fully admit I am a really good cook) but it was delicious. Potato noodles, I have discovered, take longer to cook than regular noodles but end up tasting a lot like dumplings which I am very fond of and also miss.



I couldn't find a picture of the potato noodles, which I admit are a little weird looking because when cooked, they are clear around the edges, but they are delicious and I am so happy to have found a substitute for egg noodles which have been a staple in our house for years. They go amazing with Norwegian meatballs which we will now eat with potatoes and will probably be more authentic. So the noodle find is an exciting thing in our house. Plus the soup got two thumbs up from Child 2 and Child 3 and I think Child 1 will like it when she finally gets home from her many activities.

Speaking of children, the mother of this six year old girl in Pennsylvania is having a worse day than me. While she was sleeping, her daughter, who is tall for 6 but still, decided she wanted to go see her father who lives across town so she got into the car and drove. Seriously. And of course crashed the car into several other cars and a telephone pole.



The girl was taken to the police station where they called her father, so she got to see him after all. But I can just imagine the phone call the mother got saying her daughter had been arrested for reckless driving and her car was wrecked. If she is like me at all, she will be afraid to go to sleep for years. So thank you, Pittsburgh Mom, for reminding me to be grateful that my children are not stealing airplanes to go visit Husband in Afghanistan. And also that Child 1 has a license and can drive herself places. And that I have never had to pick up any of them at the police station. May that record continue forever.

Bad Day 208--A closet full of realities

We are watching the Superbowl. Yes, it's a house full of women, but this is our yearly ritual so we're watching. Apparently, we are routing for the 49ers because apparently the Ravens are evil and their fans are not allowed in our house. At least according to Child 3. The rest of us do not care because the Cowboys (whom we love and will always love even if/when they stink) are not playing and neither are the Redskins who are the very embodiment of evil and people who like the Ravens at least do not like the Redskins, so they are OK in my book. But frankly, the real reason to watch the Superbowl is the nachos and potato skins.



Child 1 is now texting people because she is bored because the trailer for the new Star Trek movie has already aired. Child 2 is napping in between commercials which are the only reason she consents to watch, and Child 3 is yelling because the Ravens are winning and she doesn't want to go back to school to face the Ravens fans if they win because "they are really obnoxious." She just told the 49ers to kick it up a notch.

This morning, when I was looking for something to wear to church, I went into the "closet of things that might fit me someday." Yes, I know I said before that it was just a drawer, but I actually have an entire rack in one of the closets that is full of things I can't get rid of because I like them too much and the secret optimist in me always believed someday I would lose the weight. And I actually have. Everything in the closet fits. Seriously. I was almost late for church because I was so excited to be able to zip things up. Well, everything except my wedding dress which I don't need to wear again anyway. The only thing left that I haven't tried on is my London Olympics T-shirt that you will remember I bought in London and was way too small because the British apparently have their own sizing rules and they are not the same as America's and are rather mean because when I found out what size I really was in England, I almost had a heart attack it was so large. See, Americans are much nicer. But I'm almost ready to try on the T-shirt. Almost. Maybe in a few weeks after I'm down a few more pounds. It's an odd feeling, because I'm not used to success in weight-loss and also I haven't given up potato chips or sour cream. In fact, I have eaten way more chips than I have in years since I gave up wheat and I still lost weight. Imagine what I could do if I gave up the chips which I might do when Husband comes home. But right now since chips are one of the only indulgences I have left, I'm not sure I have enough willpower.

Any child who receives this toy for a present is having a worse day than me. OK, there are a lot of bad presents in this slideshow, but the absolute worst is this.


The Swedish company says they are meant to help with potty training. I have to say, that teaching a child to love and hug a piece of poop is a very, very bad idea. The same goes for pee. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea and how on earth is it supposed to get your child to use a toilet because now they are traumatized by flushing because their best friend is literally going down the drain. So thank you, Swedish toy makers, for reminding me to be grateful that my children are way beyond the potty training stage. It was my least favorite parenting chore and I am glad no one ever inflicted these dolls on me because that would have made it way, way harder.

Bad Day 207--Do all bags go to heaven?

You may remember (or probably not unless you are Child 2 who remembers everything I have ever written in this blog) that I bought a fabulous pewter-colored purse to commute with not long after Husband left for Afghanistan because shopping can help dull the pain. Not to mention that I also sort of have this thing about handbags and own far too many for my own good. But I love them all and I'm not giving up a single one. Well anyway, the pewter bag is slowly dying. The stitches popped out on a couple of pockets, but I could live with that. What I can't live with is that the leather on the inside of  the straps is cracking and peeling. It is obviously too thin and I am not happy about it because I really like that bag. So in order to make it last longer, I bought a second commuter bag which I found on sale at Marshalls. I confess. I didn't know Marshalls, but now I totally get the commercial where the woman would rather shop there than leave for the airport. I haven't been in very often since I couldn't really fit into the sizes although I definitely can now, and I knew they claimed they had designer clothing and accessories, but I didn't know they carried Kate Spade! I totally would have bought a Kate Spade bag if I had found one big enough. Sadly, the only ones they had were pretty tiny and wouldn't work for my commute. But I found a purple Badgeley Mischka. This one, to be exact. And it's even prettier in person! And I could afford it even on my tiny federal government salary because Marshalls is cheap!



I don't know if it's "professional" enough to pass the ridiculous dress code because the "unprofessional" purse they showed on the slide was gorgeous and looked like Michael Kors to me. But I think this one will do. It won't go very well with my olive green coat, so I'll just have to wear the navy one. Nothing goes with the ugly dirt/mushroom coat, so it will be OK with that anyway.

Two of the children caught the whirlwind and cleaned up their rooms, did laundry, and redecorated their bathroom which is now the prettiest bathroom in the house. I'm a little jealous and now am making plans for my own. I just have to decide on a color which will not be purple but will probably be green because I do love green, so much that every room in our house used to be decorated in a different shade of green, but now the children's bathroom is lavender and the kitchen is cobalt blue even though you can't tell. Also, the former murder bathroom is now blush. (We had to paint it sort of pink because I was afraid the blood-red color would bleed through like in some horror movie.) That leaves my bedroom, the living room, the family room, Child 1's room (although that is just apple green accents,) and my bathroom which are all shades of green. And I really have no real desire to change the decorating scheme, so I'll probably keep the bathroom green. If it makes me happy, why change it?

This fake police officer in Maryland is having a worse day than me.



He apparently was making a nice living pulling people over and shaking them down for money in return for not writing them a "ticket" which he is legally not allowed to do since he wasn't really a police officer. And then he pulled over a real off-duty policeman who called his bluff and then called his friends who were on duty. And then the fake policeman got to see the inside of a real jail cell. So thank you, Mr. Fauxlice (rhymes with police, not lice), for reminding me to always ask to see the badge of the officer should I ever get pulled over which isn't likely since I'm an excellent driver. And to be grateful that Child 1 is, too. Makes it much easier to sit up at night and wait for her which is something I will gladly hand over to Husband when he comes home because I am extremely tired and it is only 9 pm.

Bad Day 206--Liar, liar, hair on fire

My new clothes that I ordered online have arrived and I now own the cutest navy blazer ever. Ever! And it fits like a dream. OK, it is from that one British designer that I like and as I have admitted before, those Brits do know their blazers. I now own four from this particular designer and every time I wear one someone compliments me on my outfit and the new navy one is the best of them all. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the skirt I bought doesn't fit. I ordered it a size smaller than I used to be and it is too big. I should have realized because my skinny pants are all now my fat pants because they are all too big, so I am going to exchange the skirt because it is way too cute to not own and it will look amazing with my blazer, if it fits. Being too large, it just makes me look frumpy and I am not a frump.

Speaking of not being a frump, I have mentioned before that it is one of my goals to be the most fashionable person in the Department without being a fashionista because I can't afford big name designers on my federal government salary. Thank goodness the foreign service doesn't have uniforms anymore because I would so not look good in this, although it might be fun to carry a sword at work.



But just because the federal government doesn't require uniforms for everyone doesn't mean there aren't those who want to impose them on you--the black pantsuit brigade, for example. I think some of these women are trying to emulate Secretary Clinton, but I will have you know that I saw her giving speeches twice and once she was wearing a jacket that was robin's egg blue and once it was white boucle. Hmmph. But one federal entity which shall remain nameless but was not the State Department published guidelines for a dress code that was ridiculous in the extreme. Apparently, women should all wear heels, make-up is a must, jackets are required, and you shouldn't have red hair. (Wish I were joking about that.) And if you are blonde, no bright colors. Also hose with open-toed shoes is a no-no. So as I was reading this dress code wearing my turquoise sweater and peep-toe heels with black nylons and of course red hair, I cracked up. Because obviously this dress code was written in 1946 by an idiotic old man who thought "Vogue" was a Russian/communist word and who doesn't know how to spell "faux pas." (He spelled it "fopas".) Break the rules at the peril of your career. I wish I had a copy of the dress code to post here, but I don't and also, I can't say which federal entity published it. But take my word for it. It was hilarious. I sent it to Artemis who told me at that very moment she was wearing cowboy boots, so both of us were breaking multiple rules and have no hope of every advancing in our careers. Since Artemis was recently promoted, you can see how ridiculous that assertion is. I need some cowboy boots.

This man in California is having a worse day than me. He thought he was letting this woman test drive his car.



She asked him to take her to a bank where she could get some cash, and get some cash she did because she came out with a bag full. What she neglected to tell him was that she was robbing the bank and using him as the getaway driver. They didn't get very far before the police caught up and she was arrested. Luckily, they believed the driver's story and didn't shoot him. So thank you, Mr. Inadvertent Getaway Driver, for reminding me to take my car to Carmax when it's time to sell it and to be grateful that I have never accidentally robbed a bank. Now excuse me while I shop online for some career-killing cowboy boots.