Vanity

Yesterday morning I was home alone, sitting at the computer, working.  It was a beautiful day, so I had all the doors and windows open.  I heard leaves crunch right outside the door, which made my heart start pounding.  Then I heard the door open, which was terrifying, because Noah wasn't due home for at least another hour.  I've always wondered how I would react in this situation, knowing that I was about to die.  Well, now I know.  I whipped off the ugly glasses I wear when I'm working, because I thought, "When someone finds my body, I don't want to be wearing these glasses." Then I stood up and faced my killer, who turned out to be Noah.  His class got out early, which had never happened before.  My heart rate didn't return to normal for a good 20 minutes after that.  When it did, I put my glasses back on and finished the job I was doing.

The unglamorous life of a Color Guard mom

Behind every gorgeous girl in the Color Guard is a mom who has spent the whole day (and her entire paycheck) running around buying the required makeup, bobby pins, undergarments (which must be smooth and flesh-colored), clear deodorant (the lovely princesses do sweat, and they can't be leaving yellow stains on the pits of their beautiful costumes), etc.  Last night Sarah informed me that I would be required to purchase all these items for tonight's dress rehearsal and drop them off at the school before said rehearsal.  She announced that I would NOT have to buy the special underwear, because she already has it, BUT it was in the hamper so I would be required to wash it before I go shopping for the rest of the stuff, so it can all be delivered in a timely fashion.

My first stop was Ulta, which is a hellish place that I haven't been in since last year at this time, when I had to purchase the required makeup for last year's show.  I have never worn makeup and have no idea what all of it is or why it's so expensive.  There's a dizzying array of brightly-lit options, none of which I understand.  Last year Sarah wrote down the exact things she had to have, including brand names, product names, and color shades.  I still messed it up, as I recall, so this year, she sent me a video, detailing the exact specifications and showing me the product.  That was helpful, because I went directly to the counter and showed the video to the sales person, who went right to the spot where the thing was, and assured me it was the right thing.  I followed her back to the counter to spend my whole week's wages paying for it, and this is what happened.

Clerk: Phone number?
Me: (gave her my real number, while thinking, "Why am I not giving her the fake number I use just  for occasions like this?"
Clerk: Hmm, that's not coming up. Could it be under a different number?
Me: Oh yes, it's probably under the fake number I use for occasions like this. (I proceeded to give her the fake number, and she typed it in and frowned.)
Clerk: I'm still not finding  you. Have you been here before?
Me: Yes, once. A year ago.
Clerk: Is it possible that you didn't sign up for our loyalty program at that time?
Me: It's more than possible. I definitely wouldn't have.
Clerk: Well, let's get you signed up now then! It will only take a few seconds...
Me: Oh no, no, no.  Let's not.  I'm definitely not loyal to makeup.
(Really, look at my face. Do I look like I would be interested in a loyalty program at a place like Ulta?? NO.)

So she gave me my treasures, and I was off to the next store to purchase the bra, whose specs Sarah had given me last night (but unfortunately, she didn't send me a video).  I spent an absurd amount of time trying to locate the proper color, size, and style, spent a small fortune on it, proceeded to purchase the rest of the items, put them all in a bag with the underwear I had washed early this
morning, and arrived at the school right on time.  I proudly handed the bag to her, and she reached in and pulled out the makeup first.

S: This is wrong.
M: No, it's not! The sales person said it was right, and it was the only one they had.
S: No, it's the wrong color.
M: It can't be. It looks exactly like what you sent in the video.
S: No. It should be oranger.
M: Well, it's close enough. No one will ever notice.
S: No, it has to be the exact right color. Did you go to the Ulta out by the mall?
M: No, I went to the one in East Peoria.
S: Well, you'll have to go to the one by the mall.

Then she pulls out the bra, and all hell breaks loose.

S: This is wrong.
M: What?! It's exactly what you told me to get!
S: No, it's not.  You weren't listening when I told you what to get.
M: Yes I was!
S: You weren't.

And there you go. That could have gone on forever, but I took the high road and peeled out of there before she could criticize the rest of the stuff.

Embarrassing moment

Yesterday I was in the middle of a transcription job when the phone rang. Caller ID said "wireless caller" and a number I didn't recognize.  It looked like something scammy, so I answered in Korean.  The caller seemed to be thrown off by that, and she stammered and fumbled.  I can't speak Korean very well or very fast, so I just made up some high-pitched Asian sounding words and spewed them out in a jumble.  The caller was pretty quick to end the call.  Mission accomplished.

A few minutes later, I got a message on Facebook.  It was from the vet tech who was supposed to be coming to give my babies their rabies shot. This is how it went:

Hi Janel I tried calling you but I think we have the wrong number. I wanted to see if you’d like to move your appointment to tomorrow morning. We just had an unexpected kitten visit and of course it has an upper respiratory virus. I would not like to spread it to your kitties!!

Janel

No virus for us, thanks. Tomorrow is great. What time?

By the way, did a crazy Asian person answer when you called?

Yes yes they did lol

I panicked

Janel

HAHA! No way! I'm so sorry. I thought it was a telemarker, so I put on my "I don't speak no English" act.

YOU ARE A MENACE

I WAS PANICKING

Janel

Ok, now I'm a little embarrassed. Sorry.

Dr. Campbell is dying right now

Janel

Did she hear it?

No but I just told her. I wish you could have seen my face after.

Janel

I'm changing the contact in my phone so it now says "vet" instead of "wireless caller" so you will not hear from crazy Asian lady again.

I’m seriously cracking up. How about 9:30-10:30?

Janel

Sounds perfect. Thanks.

I promise I will attempt to be normal.

We need things like this to happen in a day because sometimes we seriously need a laugh.

Janel

Happy to amuse you. Come in through the garage like you live here. Don't know, or the cats will scatter.

*knock, not know

Okay no problem. Also, we don’t like normal. Normal is boring.

Losing our minds by degrees

I'm the youngest person in the water fitness class at the gym by at least 20 years.  Today I stayed in the pool to do a little extra work after everyone else left.  I saw that someone had left her water bottle by the pool, so I took it to the locker room to catch her before she left.  I've been going there long enough to recognize people's water bottles, and I was 99% sure whose this was.  I saw her towel outside the shower, so I put the bottle next to her towel.  I thought I'd better make sure, so I yelled in and asked if she'd left her water bottle by the pool.  She yelled back, "No, I sure didn't."  I said, "Oh, then I don't know whose this is."  She opened the shower curtain and pointed to the bottle that I had just put there and said, "Well it's not mine, because that's mine right there. I'm not losing my mind yet."  I smirked to myself and said, "Yep, you've still got it!"

Then I went to the locker room to get my stuff, opened the locker I thought I had left my stuff in, and it was empty.  Immediately I thought, "Who stole my ratty Tshirt and stinky shorts?" but then I realized I didn't use that locker today because it was already full when I arrived.  So I opened another locker that I sometimes use when my favorite one isn't available.  It was empty too.  I stood there staring at the rows of lockers with absolutely no clue where my stuff was.  I started opening random ones, and then noticed the young person (looked like early 20's) standing at the sink, apparently smirking at me.  She said, "Did you forget which locker you used?"  Right then I opened the correct one, so I said, "No, this is the one. I'm not losing my mind yet."

Whales, evolution, and getting dropped on my head

I was having a conversation with Sarah, and for some reason, I broke into whale sounds.

Sarah: What?
Me: Sorry, I was speaking whale.
S: I don't speak whale.
M: Doesn't everybody speak a little whale as a remnant of when we used to be whales?
 [I was testing what they're teaching her at public school about evolution].
S: We didn't evolve from whales, Mom.  You didn't come from a whale.  Come to think of it, I don't really know where you came from.
M: God dropped me straight down from heaven.
S: I think he must have dropped you on your head.

My new career

For several years, I've been praying about and thinking about what I'm going to do for my next career.  Now that my homeschooling career is drawing to a close, I was starting to feel a little desperate about my next step.  But God revealed it at the perfect time, of course.  Last month, I applied for a freelance transcriptionist job.  The only requirements were good typing and English skills, which are pretty much my only skills.  The application involved grammar testing, word usage testing, and transcribing an audio file.  It took me about an hour to complete the application process, but I felt good about it when I submitted it.

About thee days later, I heard that I got the job.  I was considered a rookie for the first several jobs until I proved I could do it.  Rookie pay is very low, and the jobs aren't great (mostly transcribing collect calls from prison inmates).  At first, I was pretty slow and not very accurate, but after several jobs, I started getting the hang of it.  Yesterday I got promoted to full transcriptionist, so now I'm making more money and getting better jobs. 

It's the perfect job for me, because I don't have to get dressed or talk to people, but I get to use my skills and learn interesting things, and I can work as much as I have time to spare.  Noah says I like it because I'm nosy.  I never considered myself nosy; I just have a well-developed sense of curiosity.  But I do enjoy hearing the juicy details of lawsuits as I transcribe the lawyers' audio dictation.  My favorite job was transcribing a Holocaust survivor's biography.  Very interesting, but difficult, because he had a Polish accent and I had to look up a lot of cities in Poland and Germany and learn to spell them. 

As soon as I graduated from rookie status, I became eligible to apply for video captioning, so I applied yesterday.  More grammar and word usage tests, plus learning the system for closed captioning and then actually captioning a video.  That was more difficult, because there are more rules and the additional step of syncing the words with the video.  But if I get that job, I'll have more interesting opportunities. 

So for now, I'm going to try to pick up a quick transcription job before I start teaching for the day.

Indiana Dunes--last day

Friday, May 31, 2019
I was eating breakfast with Sarah when I had a genius idea about how to get all our stuff from the room to the van (the elevators were still broken).  There were two luggage trolleys in the lobby, so my idea was to position one at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor and one at the top of the stairs on the second floor (loaded and rolled from our room) and we could run stuff down to the first floor one and roll it out to the parking lot.  Sarah spotted a problem with this idea immediately.  She asked, "How are we going to get the first one up to the second floor?"  I thought that was smart, and I felt dumb.  While she finished breakfast, I went upstairs to the room and told Mike and Noah about my idea.  Mike thought it was a good idea.  Noah immediately had the same objection Sarah did.  Smart kids.  I parked the van by the door, and we had it done in only a few trips.  We left at 10 a.m. and arrived home at 1:20 after an uneventful, but slow ride home with lots of construction and traffic.  Everyone was very glad to be home and have privacy and space. 
Sarah's favorite part of the trip was Zao Island, and everyone else's favorite was the hike.  We all agreed it was a really nice trip.