Dead Birds and Rain

   
I had a dream last night.
You were there.
My hair was longer.
You were smiling.

You said you wanted this.
I thought we would lose it.

You said you would fight for me.

I walked up the stairs.
I wanted you to come.
To follow.
You wouldn't.
You watched me go.

You said you would fight for me.

I fell.
I got lost.
In the rooms.
On my own.
There was a dead bird in my bed.
I cried.
I wanted to find you.

You said you would fight for me.

I walked outside.
Along the path.
In the rain.
Everyone was there.
I couldn't find you.

You said you would fight for me.

I awoke.
I realized.
I don't believe.

You're not the fighting kind.

Banana Pancake Bliss

 
It's hard to be bitter when there are banana pancakes in your belly.

"Give me back by money!" *

    

I have two credit cards. I rarely ever use them, and when I do, I always pay off the balance. As a result, I have no credit card debt. I'm very proud of this. Despite this example of financial responsibility, I must admit that I am very lazy about checking my monthly statements. I receive paperless statements, and the monthly email notifications tend to pile up in my inbox. I know they're there, and I always have the best intentions of looking at them, but if I'm short on time, and I know I haven't used my card, it's not a priority.

For whatever reason, I was inclined to immediately read one of my statements today when it showed up in my inbox. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I mysteriously had a balance! I owed $1.00. What? How can this be? My card doesn't have fees (please note, that while I had been hearing for weeks about the changes being made to credit cards, I really didn't believe that this would affect ME!). 

Turns out I was being charged an interest fee. Interest on what? I haven't used the card in months! While pondering this perplexity, and scanning the statement for any sort of explanation of this fee, I saw something that nearly floored me. My late fee has been jacked up to $40! So, if I hadn't felt mysteriously compelled to check out my statement today and had just let that thing sit in my inbox with all my other statements, I could have, most likely, in the near-future been looking at a $40! late charge on a $1.00 balance? What? How is this even right? In whose world is this ethical?

I'm definitely going to be calling the company about this interest fee nonsense. If this turns out to be some new fee that I can expect to see every month, someone's going to be hearing about it.

* paraphrased from Mary Poppins. Or quoted. I couldn't remember if these were the correct words or not.

Dream talk...

 
tround...
he is weird,
but I don't
know about
tround

Sometimes, I just want to be left alone.

 
It's true. In fact, it's quite frequently true. Like tonight, for example, when my plans were canceled yet again! (this time with no obvious intention to reschedule) And to this, I say, I quit! I give up. I'm throwing in the towel. How many times does this have to keep happening before I realize it's just not meant to be?

{sigh}

The fabulous mood I started the day out in quickly began to sour. Especially after, in all my splendid genius, in an attempt to forget about the broken plans, I chose to work on... my thesis. What the hell was I thinking? That just put me in an even fouler mood which could only be remedied by Magic Hat and bad Netflix haunted house movies (yes, I'm trying that approach again).This time, low and behold, Netflix is working! [cue the glorious trumpeting angels]

Well, the Haunting of Winchester House was a bust, which I anticipated, based on the poor rating, but I had at least hoped it would be one of those good bad movies. Alas, it was not. I quit about 40 minutes into it.

At this point, all I want to do is curl up in bed with my beer and a tolerable movie and forget about my life for awhile. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to hear anyone. I certainly don't want to listen to anyone. I turn my phone off. I pop open another beer and I just hope, against all odds, that tomorrow is better.

About last night...

   

So, last night pretty much blew. I had some last minute plans in the works that I was pretty excited about, but just as I was finishing prettying myself up*, they got canceled. Or rescheduled. Whatever.

Not the end of the world, I guess. I did just pick up that case of Magic Hat, after all, so I guess I had that. And there were some haunted house movies on Netflix I was eager to check out, so, I thought, maybe the night wouldn't be a total loss.

So, over to Netflix I go to chip away at my instant queue, only to be greeted by this lovely message:

We're sorry, the Netflix website is temporarily unavailable.

Our shipping centers are continuing to send and receive DVDs , so your movies will be processed as usual. And you can still instantly watch movies via your Netflix ready device.

Our engineers are working hard to bring the site back up as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and, again, we apologize for the inconvenience. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-636-3079.

Ugh! And I was so looking forward to watching Haunting of Winchester House (the low rating had me really excited. I love a bad haunted house movie).

Well, some friends of mine have been talking about Hulu, so maybe it's time I check that site out. I click on the "movies" link, scroll down to 'H' in search of something haunted house related, and I stumble upon this little gem...



Well, now! My first immediate thought is, half naked people, this movie is going to be great! Wait, I don't remember posing for this...

I check out the summary...

Ghosts from a 19th-century love triangle haunt a couple and a guest in their Japanese home.

Alright! I check the tags...

nudity, adultery, 1840s, 19th-century, Buddhist monk

Interesting... (incidentally, I was quite curious about the absence of the tags haunted or house). Well, sign me up! Apparently Hulu thought I meant literally, because that's exactly what I had to do, sign up. Ugh! Why does every site require me to create an account? (I was amused that '1900' was an option as a birth year. My alternative title for this post was "110-year olds love to watch Hulu.")

All right, account created... time to watch me some ghosts! And... I'm kicked back to the home page. Damnnit! Now I have to find that movie again. Click on "movies," click on "Filter by Channel," click on "Horror and Suspense"...

Whoa! They have Troll! and Attack of the Puppet People! and The Dead Zone! (a mediocre movie, but we're obviously not dealing with blockbusters here. Plus, I ♥ Christopher Walkin). and The Puppet Master! and The Relic! (You know, from back in the day when Tom Sizemore was an actor and not yet a junkie?) I'm in B-movie (C? D?) heaven! (I was really hoping for some Watcher In the Woods, but alas, it was not to be found)

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

After a brief commercial from the sponsor (Hot Tub Time Machine? WTF?) the movie begins. And then it stops. And starts up again. And stops. And it continues like this until I totally give up and quit.

Sigh. I guess watching horror movies was not in the stars for me. At least I still have the Magic Hat, and TNT is playing The Patriot, so that's something (sigh, Heath Ledger, you had such potential).


* and by "prettying myself up" I basically mean brushing my teeth and pulling my hair back into a ponytail.

The Bitter Blonde burns a bridge

It's 3:30pm. I've been at work since 8:30am with no break, mind you. I'm going to be at work for another hour and a half. I've been busy all day with meetings, research interviews and scheduling. I have nearly 100 minutes of audio to MANUALLY transcribe TONIGHT when I get home from work. And I haven't eaten since breakfast. The vent is banging overhead, my obnoxious coworker is blabbering in my ear, and I'm on the brink of ripping the hair out of my head.

In walks a professor with an armload of what I can only assume are multiple drafts of the next War and Peace. She looks at me...

"Can you do some work for me?"

She does know it's 3:30pm, right? She did get my email yesterday telling her that I wouldn't be available to help her until at least mid-March since my other job responsibilities have doubled, right? And she did see in the same email that the other G.A. has literally no work to do, I mean, aside from annoying the piss out of me, right?

I laugh. She's serious. I stop laughing.

"Um, I'm pretty busy right now, but I can probably help you in a week or two."

Apparently NOT the response she was looking for.

"Two weeks!? I need these theses (that would be the plural form of thesis) scanned. It's for your class. They're examples for you all to look at."

 Okay, for one, telling me it's work for a class that I'm taking, that I'm paying to take, no less, is not going to lessen my current work load or make me more motivated to help. Further more, I guarantee no one in the class has the time nor the desire to read them. But I believe in Karma, and I try to be flexible and accommodating.

"Well, when do you need it done for?" 

I'm thinking I might be able to sneak in a few pages here and there during some down time. You know, like when I should be eating lunch, or maybe in lieu of a bathroom break.

"For tomorrow."

Did she....? Did I hear that right? Did she just say... tomorrow?

Hold the phone now, folks! This is MY professor, right? MY professor who knows that I'm THREE WEEKS behind on my research? MY professor who is well aware that a good majority of my research is being conducted over the next two weeks? MY professor who knows that I only work as a G.A. for 20 hours a week, at a measly $7.50 an hour? MY professor who has been informed that my workload has doubled this semester?

I laugh. I'm sorry; I can't help it.

She scowls. She leaves. I'm fucked, but I'm too deliriously tired to do anything about it.

I'll apologize tomorrow.

Bitter Bites -or- Macaroh-no!

The good folks over at NPR enticed me with this headline today, Move Over, Cupcake: Make Way For The Macaroon. Now, I have to admit, although I pride myself on my baking skills, I have no idea what a macaroon, or macaron, is. I was always under the impression there was coconut and condensed milk involved, and NO eggs, but alas, I was mistaken. I've been reading about these pastel treats on different blogs for a few weeks now, but have yet to check out any recipes (out of principle, I tend to avoid anything pastel colored. I hate pastels). Blogger, Tartelette, is a pro at the art of macarons, and even I have to admit, she makes pastels look good!

Imagine my dismay when I finally discovered what these little jewels were made of... egg whites! Ugh. I'm allergic to eggs, and while I have been known to "forget" this from time to time to enjoy a couple of cookies or a cupcake every now and again, my gag reflex kicked in just reading the recipe mentioned in the NPR article. 13 egg whites! Really? I can feel the hives busting out on my skin already. If what NPR reports is true, I'm in some serious trouble here.

"Macaroons are the new cupcake," said one young man in a Penn State sweatshirt at a recent class, as Bendano explained how to make rose-flavored white chocolate macaroons. "They're now the fashionable snack. We're trying to get ahead of the curve on that."

I love me a good cupcake, and hope they never get replaced, especially by something so unbelievably impossible for me to even remotely consider consuming.

The Bitter Blonde loves beer...

 

Now, generally, I have some issues with the blonde stereotype (which I'm sure you will all come to find out about in future posts). However, when it comes to beer, I'm more than happy to put my principles on the back burner.

A couple of friends informed me of some very special beers they consumed. I haven't tried either one, but I'm told they are delish!

 

(Made with unmalted wheat, coriander and orange peel to help you live smart and enjoy everyday! Beer is Good!)

(What the sailors really come to shore for...)

The birth of the Bitter Blonde blog

I was hung-over today. I was feeling all sorts of pukey and headachey and miserable. And to top it all off, it was Valentine's Day. I hate Valentine's Day (which I discuss here, as my alter-ego, One Blonde Girl).

With all sorts of negativity streaming from my pores, I realized that there is a bitter side of me that just isn't One Blonde Girl material. One Blonde Girl is positive, optimistic and hopeful (most of the time). Where can I dicuss all the things I really, truly hate in this world?

And so, The Bitter Blonde was born, because, as my heading explains, sometimes I hate life, and sometimes I just hate being blonde.