A new mom living an
ordinary life in the 'burbs.
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Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Do NOT talk to me about the f-ing stove
Two months ago, our kitchen range began misbehaving. Specifically, the temperature gauge went haywire. For example, if I put something in the oven at 350 degrees the oven guage would maybe, if it felt like it, stretch it's sleepy little needle to reach 250 degrees.
Now, we could not simply fake out the temperature gauge by setting all food designed to bake at 350 to 450, thus making the assumption that the oven was 100 degrees shy of being correct. Because sometimes when we would use the oven, the oven would not heat up enough, and other times -- just to mix it up -- the oven would heat to a temeprature far beyond the temperature you'd initially set it to. Oh, what a jolly time was spent trying to crack that non-existent code.
Three times. The repairman came 3 times, each time replacing a new part. In the meantime 2 weeks have passed over the 3 visits and I do not have the use of an oven. There are only so many times you can make American Chop Suey (yes, Sandie, I know you're wincing) and soup before you bore even yourself. In the meantime, the cost of continuing to attempt to repair the oven inched toward the cost of purchasing a new one.
After it was clear that the 3rd repair attempt was a failure, I spent the next 10 days or so not talking to or about the f-ing oven. Very mature, I am.
As a middle-class suburbanite, I'm not beyond angling a brand new appliance out of what is clearly a bleak situation. But we have a baby on the way, and a gi-normous list of stuff to buy in preparation for the arrival of said baby, so the prospect of plunking down $800 for a new appliance is just beyond annoying.
Last Saturday we reluctantly headed to Sears (I know, a Republican party contributor ... but cheaper people. Cheaper is key right now) and select a new range. I won't even tell you the side-story about Fabulous Husband's ... let's see, how to word this ... disengagement with the new range shopping process. Suffice to say that it did not make an already annoying situation that much more annoying. (He is a Fabulous Husband, but he wasn't feeling well that day). Stressed out and completely annoyed at the fact that we were forced to buy a new range, we picked one out in about 10 minutes. It took 10 full minutes to become $800 poorer. And it wasn't even fun.
Fast forward to the end of this saga. Of course they could not deliver the new range for another full week. Of course you have to hire a plumber to disconnect the gas from the old range before they deliver the new stove. Then you have to project-manage receiving the new stove, then you have to project manage the plumbers' return to reconnect the new stove. Another $100: gone. And by the way, do yo know that you have to get a town permit for all new appliances? $35.00. All this over the course of another week without the use of the range.
Finally, as of yesterday we had the full use of the new range & oven. A great tide of relief washed over our little suburban home.
This morning? One of the burners does not work.
Did you get that? One of the burners suddenly DOES. NOT. WORK.
I'm trying to help Fabulous Husband understand why I REFUSE TO DISCUSS WHAT TO DO NEXT ABOUT THE F-ING STOVE.
Posted at 9:01 pm by Suburbia
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Greetings from the cube farm
Sometimes I play a game where I pretend that I don't actually know anything about my job and see if I could, as a complete stranger, read my work e-mail and my calendar and have it make any sense at all.
Then I realized that YOU GUYS don't have my job! So maybe it would be fun for you to play this game as well! Everyone likes games, right?
Actual titles of meetings I've attended recently:
1. Best Practice TW PPQ (1 hour)
2. Good/Bad Characters & error messages (30 mins)
3. Copy vs. reference discussion (1.5 hours)
4. Get (re)acquainted (30 mins)
5. CIQ spec clarifications (1.5 hours)
5. Reviewing the CIQ interface's page def screen (1 hour)
6. Client ROI on AM (1 hour)
Is it not clear that I contribute to the betterment of humanity every single day?
Is it not clear that I cannot have a meaningful discussion with anyone outside of the cube farm about the daily goings-on at the cube farm?
This list of meetings represents six and one half hours of my life that I will never get back.
Posted at 7:45 pm by Suburbia
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Sunday, January 30, 2005
Yeah, I'm getting bigger. And as an added bonus, sometime over the past week my hips appear to have turned slightly outward, an unsolicited biological trick which prevents me from walking normally. Basically what I've got goin' on over here is sort of a pregnant woman's mini-waddle.
I'm obsessed with this new development because I swore when I became pregnant that I would not be one of those waddle-footed preg-o women who weeble around the cube farm looking deeply maternal, yet I cannot for the love of God almighty force myself NOT to do the mini-waddle. I'm sure that more than one of my co-workers has watched me from down the hall in weird series of attempts to STOP the waddling, which is perhaps even funnier than the mini-waddle itself. And to top it all off, I'm not even that large yet. So go figure.
What's even more disruptive than the mini-waddle is what goes on in the master bedroom of this home these days, which includes lots of rolling around replete with grunting and groaning. No doubt these are examples of exactly the kind of behavior that got me into this fix to begin with, but that information is neither here nor there. My point is that trying to turn over in bed when you are 7 months pregnant is like trying to turn a bus around on a city corner.
To further complicate matters, did you know that there are "Best Practices" (as we say on the cube-farm) for how to sleep with you're pregnant? To quote my doctor: "Sleeping on your left side is better than sleeping on your right side, and sleeping on either side is better than sleeping on your back."
Now you probably don't pay much attention to the side that you sleep on, but let me tell you that once a doctor tells you which side you should be sleeping on, that side automatically becomes the most uncomfortable side ever to sleep on. Even though you have probably slept on that side quite comfortably up to that point, the very moment the order leaves the doctor's lips you feel constrained and resentful. Sleep instructions?! Sleep is the ultimate freedom! You can do what you want when you're sleeping! Huh! Telling me how to sleep. Who does she think she is?
I will tell you who she thinks she is: she thinks she is protecting the blood flow from your aorta to the baby by encouraging you to sleep on your left side. She thinks she is reducing the chance of undue pressure on the blood vessels located behind your uterus by encouraging you to stay off your back. Okay fine. What ever. So in an attempt not to suffocate either myself or my child, I have to monitor my sleep positions -- while I'm asleep. The good news is that there little danger I could accidentally awake to find myself sleeping on my back, since there is no longer any position change I could embark upon that might go undetected by myself, Fabulous Husband, or a Richter scale.
Because Fab Husband and I both think that getting more than 3 hours sleep might be important before the baby comes, we recently migrated into the baby's room, where the pre-marriage waterbed still resides. Today's lesson? Pregnancy + Waterbed = Full night's sleep.
That's it for now. I'm going to finish watching a Lifetime TV movie entitled Terror In The Mall.
Posted at 10:20 am by Suburbia
Link here
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