Evildeb hates me. Actually, she just resents me. She was discussing one of the more frustrating aspects of my former job with Dr. Stevil and KK, when I chatted her … the fact that I don’t have to talk about this subject, or deal with it, makes her resent me. It is somewhat upsetting, but understandable, because she is evil and tends to feel things at a more intense level than the rest of us non-evil people. I think she just misses me. I miss her too. Apparently I left some stuff behind, so I’m going to have to stop by soon.

After a lot of thought, about two weeks at least, I’ve decided to clean the kitchen first. The kitchen, office and bedroom have to be clean before the family room, dining room and bathroom can really be picked up. Stuff has migrated all over the house and there is no place to put anything away. I described it as “teenage girl bedroom chaos dirty, but over the entire house,” to my stepmom. Anyway, I was making good progress until a song from the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer came on my iTunes shuffle. Then I found myself sitting down to watch season 7, which I never watched on disc, and so had missed all the commentary and special features. I have all the seasons on dvd now because I bought myself this a few months back:

It’s so pretty. I gave all my single seasons I did own to my cousin. The best part is, I think I finally have Wil primed to watch BtVS. He’s a big Firefly and Serenity fan, so he knows the genius of Joss. Got him hooked on Veronica Mars, so I know he can accept the premise of kick ass teenage girls who solve problems while wearing cool clothes. I’m looking forward to sharing Buffy with him.

ok… back to cleaning… i know… quit stalling.

I rode the bus yesterday. There, I said it twice. So it must be true. It is true. I know… I know… I hate the bus and public transportation confuses me. In fact, hanging out online and plotting my bus course took up most of my day yesterday. I carefully wrote down, in my little moleskin, each of the three buses I would need to take. What direction they would be heading, when they approached me, and even on which side of the street the bus would stop. And no, my IQ is quite firmly planted well into the triple digits, thank you very much. It’s just that I’m a driver. With the exception of traffic, I love to drive. I sometimes take the 9pm ferry home from Victoria, knowing that will put me on the US freeway about 11pm, free and clear to drive and think and sing for two hours.

However, I was meeting some friends for dinner and drinks, and they wanted to buy me “hey, congratulations on quitting your job you bum” drinks. Being unemployed, I cannot refuse free anything. Most anything. But I’m terribly terribly prissy when it comes to drinking and driving. As in, I just won’t do it. So I thought, why not get out of the house, and meet your fellow man on the bus? So I used the route planner and 10 to three pm, I was off. iPod in my ears, I started walking down streets in my neighborhood I’ve never walked in the 20+ years this house has been in the family. Weird.

My most reverent wish was that I would meet some real characters on the bus. I have never NOT seen something bizarre, or had something stupid happen, when I ride the bus. Like the time Lloyd, Evildeb and I tried to ride the bus to an art festival. While the driver’s head was turned, Evildeb fed the bus pass given to us by our POE into the dollar bill slot, so it would be “read.” It jammed the whole machine, and she had to drive down to the Metro office days later to pick up the pass. Oh the mass confusion as the driver explained to each new passenger that he would have to take the dollars by hand. Good times.

But the truth is, nothing happened. No one did or said anything, smelled any particular way, expelled any bodily fluids, or performed any grooming rituals, that were at all out of the ordinary. And I just sat and listened to music and read my book.

And this story sums up my current fears. Is my world running out of blog fodder?

The bandwidth hasn’t been the only issue to impede my blogging. Friday’s 50 Word Fiction was preempted due to the BIG STORM. And, believe me when I say this storm deserves all caps. It started Thursday afternoon. It took me an hour and 45 minutes to get home Thursday night. I might have made some tactical errors, navigationally speaking. But not so much that it should cost me an hour and 45 minutes. I was driving down Lk. Washington Blvd watchings sheets of water just poor off the cars around me. Those parked looked dangerously close to being stranded due to flooding, so I can only imagine what I was driving through. Torrents were rolling down the hill from Lakeside Dr. It was insane. That night the wind howled it sounded like logs were being dropped on my roof. In reality, they were only large branches, but they sound worse coming down.

My power went out on Thursday night. When I woke up Friday morning, I took a quick shower in the dark, and went out to make a path on my driveway. I know I’ve mentioned the ginormous pine tress in my yard before. I had enough to make five separate xmas trees. Then I left for work.

My neighborhood looks, and still looks, like a war zone. It was completely powerless. Not just my subdivision, but all the main streets and business as well. As it turns out, over 1.1 Million People lost power. My first route to the freeway was blocked by a large tree. Last night, I came down that road, it’s still closed to incoming traffic, and crews are still working. It’s right next to a large forested park. It took me over 25 minutes to even reach the freeway. It’s usually about 3 minutes. Once on there I sat and sat and sat and sat. Barely moving. Finally I found out, on the radio, that my bridge to Seattle, the 520, was closed. I gave up. 45 minutes later, I made it back home.

It was too cold, and I wasn’t the only one who did not make it in from the Eastside, so I said screw it, there is heat in the rental car, let’s head up to Mt. Vernon and pick up Lola. A thousand bucks later I was heading up to Canada, which was well powered and heated.

When I got home Sunday night, I had power, but many around me did not. Evildeb does not. In fact, a tree fell through the roof of AlmostCertainlyGoingToEndUpEvilMaggie’s bedroom in the middle of night. No one was hurt. Evildeb spends some time at the local Tully’s, which has coffee beverages and free wi-fi. She said she was listening to a woman who has been told she may not have power until after Christmas. They are hoping to get their power back tonight or tomorrow, depending on if there is any damage done to their house by the tree. I mean, besides the roof. They have a wood burning stove and a gas water heater. So they are ok. But the entire Evil family is out of clean underpants. It’s insane how much damage this storm caused. We may be declared a disaster area. If they saw my yard, they’d have no question. I will try to take a picture before Ron comes back to town and starts trying to clean it up.

1. infastructure
2. core operating plan
3. strategic operating plan
4. execute
5. ops plan
6. deliverables
7. engagement level
8. actionable
9. margin analysis
10. aggressive timeline.
Most of them have no meaning for me. However, someone answered Evildeb’s question today, wanted to make sure she was “aligned with reality” and I can see that coming in handy now and then.

Technology is a wonderful thing, kids. Less than a week after my return from Canada, I’ve already replaced my birth certificate [over the internet, rush order] and driver’s license. I’m headed back up to Victoria this weekend. KK and Evildeb have made me promise to keep my id on my person at all times.

I was talking to Evildeb about coming up to Victoria with me, sometime, meeting Wil.

Me: you love to go places, it would be fun.

Evildeb: yeah, but I hate meeting people so there’s a slight hitch in your plan

Me: i know you do. but, i’ll take you to big bad johns and you’ll have cocktails. and eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor. and lloyd, wil and i will handle being social, until you are drunk.

Evildeb: peanuts!! how long does it take to get there? can we go now?!

Me: uhh… depends on which route you take. it’s the peanuts that swayed you? you were like “oh no… not new people” until i mentioned peanuts. it’s not even the booze… it’s peanuts.

Evildeb: it gives you something to do with your hands

Me: The peanuts make you happy because you’ll have something to do with your hands? Deb, sometimes I love you. I don’t mean that in a lesbian way.

Evildeb: I disagree

So, if ya’ll ever want to meet Evildeb, and you know you do, bring something she can play with. She’s very shy and demure. And also the apparent lesbian love of my life.

I have named my new computer at work: Persephone – Part Time Queen of the Underworld. Persephone has the coolest job. Part time Queen of the Underworld, and also in charge of Spring!

Ok, for those of you who are wondering what Evildeb is up to, besides no good, an Evil Family story. You probably know that I consider AlmostCertainlyGoingToEndUpEvilMaggie to be one of the greatest kids on this planet. At five, she likes to collect bugs, knows all about snakes and is planning on being a Crime Scene Investigator when she grows up. She likes science and blood does not scare her because she sees it all the time. The same cannot be said for monsters. The other day, when discussing matters of anatomy with her mother, AlmostCertainlyGoingToEndUpEvilMaggie referred to the labia as “the lady butt.” Men have penises, women have lady butts. Labia —> Lady butt, I can see how that would happen. Had I been sipping a beverage when Evildeb told me that, it would have come out my nose. That kid is priceless!

This prompted a discussion about what we called male and female genitalia when we were little. I called penises flowers. Boys had flowers. Girls had them too, but they were on the inside. Flowers. That’s pretty cute. But not as good as lady butt.

Well, in answer to your questions, the spa trip was pretty dang fabulous. And pretty dang expensive. I’m sorry to say I wasted a bit more money on slots than I planned to. Or wanted to. I’m usually pretty careful about that. But my luck was poor and the money went too quickly.

We ate lots of food, but the best meal was at the Red Square, in Mandalay Bay. Russian restaurant with lovely plush red velvet booths and over 160 different types of vodka. I had a drink that tasted like key lime pie and had graham cracker crust around the rim of the glass. And beef stroganoff. It was heavenly. Evildeb drank an entire vodka flight by herself. Which was four shots of different types of vodka in a square block of red ice. She is going to tell you that I was druuuuunk. And maybe I got drunk first [that night] but she got drunker, continued to drink and so stayed drunker. She’ll deny it, but trust me, I switched to diet cokes after three drinks.

Another place I like, in Manadaly Bay, is Rum Jungle. They have one of my favorite drinks ever, Rum Jungle Juice. It’s next door to the Red Square and we started there. I made Evildeb write down the ingredients to the Rum Jungle Juice and made her promise to figure it out. How to make it. Mandalay Bay is pretty much my favorite casino place on the strip, tho I’ve never actually stayed there. Yet.

The spa was amazing. I’m ashamed of how much money I spent there. Actually, I’m ashamed of how much I spent in general. But at least at the spa, it was worth it. We basically spent most of Saturday and Sunday in the spa. Until about 3:30. Saturday we spent some time out by the pool, then got dressed and went to the strip. Sunday, we skipped the pool, got dressed up and went straight to the strip. And the drinks. With me, and vegas, it’s all about the shoes. And comfort. Because there is a ton of walking. But I actually wore my red heels. Can’t say I’m going to do that again. But it was fun.

In answer to your questions, here is what a chocolate body treatment is. They scrub you down with some cocoa exfoliation type sugar scrub. It smells delicious. Then you rinse off and they massage some moisturizing chocolate soufflé lotion into you. Also delicious. You smell chocolatey good when it’s done. Evildeb had a similar thing, but with Mandarin Orange flavor.

Over the course of one weekend, in various treatments, my hands and feets were exfoliated and massaged with moisturizer three times, in various flavors, and wrapped in plastic and inserted into warm booties twice. From the elbows down, and the shins down, I am extra super soft with extremely new skin. As opposed to the rest of me which is just super soft with extremely new skin. And my nails are painted a color called Hot Blood Red.

Can’t beat that, can you?

Sorry I’ve been a bad blogger. No time to chat now. Packing my suitcase. Then it’s off to pick up Evildeb and whooooooosh… to the spa.

More later… maybe. Of course I’m taking my laptop. But I can’t very well blog when I am out by the pool in 100+ degrees hellish sunshine, can I? My poor baby would melt. Not to mention what it’s going to do to me.

Yesterday, we had a Company Meeting. It was two hours, but I made it about 47 minutes. And then I died. I don’t know what they expected to happen when they talked about financial for over 10 minutes.

After the C.M., we had a BBQ outside in the courtyard. Of course. Don’t you do that at your P.O.E.? I had chicken, it was all very nice, and a good time was had by all. Afterwards, however, my stomach felt very rumbly. And not in a good way. You have to understand, I can eat just about anything. That doesn’t mean I will, but I really don’t have digestive issues. Not even with Taco Bell. Considering I had my gall bladder out about 12 years ago, that’s pretty cool. A lot of people have issues with certain foods after. Especially cheese and other high fat foods. Not me. I love the high fats!

Jodi: soemthing is making my tummy rumbly. not like … in a good way.

Evildeb: interesting

Jodi: i can feel my guts.

Jodi: it’s weird.

Jodi: it’s like… my guts are ALIVE!!!

Evildeb: maybe your guts are trying to tell you something

Jodi: well, it’s not “feed me” wouldn’t it be cool if i had PSYCHIC GUTS?

Evildeb: I’m not sure

Evildeb wasn’t feeling too hot after the BBQ either, and we briefly entertained a fantasy that everyone would get food poisoning and have to go home early. But the truth is, we didn’t eat the same things. So it was probably just our poor attitudes making us queasy. I asked KK and she felt fine. So I explained to her about the possibility of my guts being psychic

KK: psychic guts?

Jodi: yes, and even now they are trying to tell me something.

KK: and they see the future?

Jodi: Well, no. I mean, they don’t have eyes, KK. They are guts. Sheesh. It’s more like they intuit things.

KK: don’t they use chicken guts to tell the future in voo-doo?

Jodi: Why, I believe they do! And I had chicken at lunch! I have PSYCHIC VOODOO CHICKEN GUTS IN ME!

KK: that’s it… you’ve come down with PSYCHIC VOODOO CHICKEN GUTS!

If only I could figure out what my Psychic Voodoo Chicken Guts were trying to tell me.

Mornin’ internet buddies!

My P.O.E. is very generous with the PTO. [Personal Time Off] I enjoy saving it up and looking at my balance, reveling in the fact that I could take three weeks off if I wanted to. Or I could get really sick. One of the two. But, as much fun as that is, I’ve decided it might be MORE fun to use some of it here and there. I also decided that it would be fun to get a massage today*. And then I thought… hey, why not go ahead and get a body scrub/moisturizing treatment? As long as you getting a massage? So it’s off to the nekkid lady spa for me! Evildeb is leaving work early to join me. But before you get too excited, our differing “procedures” are scheduled in such away that we won’t be spending too much time together naked. And we prefer it that way.

* Last Saturday I cleaned and cleaned. Seriously. Those of you who have been in my car in the past … oh… two years would be shocked at it now. I had 3 other people, besides myself, in it on Sunday. Anyway, I cleaned and cleaned and I was a little sore in the back on Monday when I made this plan. I’m not anymore, but I might be doing some more chores tomorrow, so I thought a massage might loosen me up, stretch me out, get me ready for cleaning. Right?