Mishaps and other haps

Someone was saying this morning that they closed the Madison schools for just the second time in twelve years today. Well, to clarify, the second closing in twelve years due to hazardous snow conditions. It wasn’t because the commute would have been a problem early this morning, but because snow is expected to continue throughout the day and make travel more difficult as the day goes on.

It wasn’t snowing when I drove to work this morning, but by 8 AM, large, dense flakes were falling heavily. Now the flakes are tinier and closer together– visibility is such that I cannot see the road that wraps around our office complex.

People, I am not spending the night at my desk. I may head home early to mitigate what could potentially be an hour-and-a-half or two-hour commute. I’m not kidding. I have driven at rush hour after a heavy snowfall before and it’s not happening today if I can help it.

I’m so glad I live within the city limits. I don’t think I could deal with the un-plowed ramifications of living in rural Wisconsin.

BTW, I highly recommend cuteoverload for your one-stop stress-relief needs. Here is my current wallpaper at work:

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

We are gaming as normal tonight, since it is Tuesday (actually, we might be more focused on gaming than we have been in recent weeks). I’d better hurry home after work and level my monk …

Saving the romantic dinner (or perhaps just a silly dinner) for later in the week, when the restaurants are less crowded. This worked out really well last year and was much more enjoyable than going out on the 14th, so we’re going to repeat this tactic.

What are other people doing?

Be sure to incorporate some chocolate into your diet today!

– Played Teqnoq and Minni late Friday night, made it to Thunder Bluff and Minni picked up her professions (Tailoring and Enchanting). PhysOrg exhibited a huge amount of patience with me as I figured out how to enchant and disenchant items. We picked up a couple of green items (swords) while questing that I disenchanted into materials for my first enchants. Also of note, we had a few minutes of good, fun RP with an undead character in the Wind Rider tower in TB.

– Made a seitan curry thing early in the evening on Friday. PhysOrg claimed that he liked it and would eat it if I made it again, so I am happy about that. Seitan has a lot of protein, but it is more closely related to bread than meat.

– We gamed (D&D) all afternoon and into the evening Saturday. Mostly hung out at a market and did some shopping/RPing, but we haven’t finished this (waiting for some input from Viriquo next session).

– Couple of new bits of music came my way this week and there are a few more songs I should look for this afternoon while I’m hanging out in front of the computer. Richard Cheese is hilarious. I would totally hire him to play at a fancy dinner party.

– We played more WoW Saturday night– primaries this time. Five of us went to Mauradon in Desolace. We were all on TS, so I actually got to hear the real-life voices of Opis and Yagyu (Opis wasn’t actually with us in the game, just hanging out on TS with us). I discovered that I really need to buy a spiffy headset because that would make my TS experience better and I wouldn’t have to borrow PhysOrg’s good set.

– Slept in late this morning. PhysOrg has run out to help Terry with some things, so I have been catching up on laundry and making chili (which might turn out surprisingly well this time).

I don’t know about a life of solitude, but Capricorns are always described as saturnine and solitary.

Your Life Path Number is 7

Your purpose in life is to find truth and meaning You are very spiritual, and you are interested in the mysteries of life. You are quite analytical and a great thinker. You have many theories and insights. A life of solitude is perfect for you. You need time to think and do things your way. In love, you are quite charming. You attract many with your confidence and wit. While you enjoy being alone, sometimes you take it to an extreme. You can become too isolated, shutting out loved ones and friends. Express yourself a little bit more, and you’ll be surprised where it takes you!

Ever have mornings when you wake up and squint at the alarm clock and realize you should have woken up at least a half hour ago since it is now time to be leaving for work/school/other-important-place-that-drags-you out-of-bed-at-ungodly-weekday-hour?

Unfortunately, you didn’t wake up on time because you switched your alarm clock off when it dared to disturb your sleep an hour and a half ago.

I’m having one of those mornings. Hate that.

It must be that time of year.

If you have watched any television at all lately, you will have noticed that every second or third commercial has featured diamonds and jewelry store purchases as a prominent part of heterosexual romance. This is a strong indication that Valentine’s Day is coming up pretty quickly.

Now I know that people have mixed feelings about the appropriateness of Valentine’s Day as a true “holiday.”

In my experience, I have seen the following emotional associations with this day:
1) Cynicism—it’s a Hallmark holiday, another made-up occasion to spend money in the name of capitalism/retail.
2) Bitterness and Depression—it’s an exclusionary day since it’s primarily a celebration of romantic love (or, if you are in grade school and send paper cards and stuffed toys to your classmates/sweeties, a popularity contest)
3) Happiness and love—Yay, love!
4) Jealousy—usually on the 15th, when office worker Stephanie and office worker Janine (not their real names) are comparing various gifts purchased as the only true indication that their significant others are devoted to them.

As many of you know, it was way back in 2003, when I was experiencing emotional reaction #2 on the list above, that I decided to officially become vegetarian.

This may seem illogical, but in truth, it was a way of completely re-writing what the day meant to me. I had been dragged through the painful death throes of a long and emotionally-damaging relationship during much of the previous year and a half. A new love interest briefly emerged, but fizzled in January 2003, so I was completely bummed out by February and every advertisement or other visible sign of the approach of Valentine’s Day felt very much like a personal attack. Moreover, I was just kind of down in general—I had left grad school a year earlier, I didn’t really like the job I was working at, and I was stressed about money.

I decided that I should do something for myself. I had been living alone for five or six months at that point (for the first time in three and a half years) and had once again completely eliminated meat from my diet. On February 13th, I made the official decision to be vegetarian. This cheered me up quite a bit and gave me a focus for getting through the next several months, which involved a lot of change in my life. Eventually, by the last third of 2003, my life was somewhat back on track: I had a new job and a new love interest. The vegetarianism has continued and just seems kind of right.

So that is my veggieversary story.

Lately I had been considering the idea of going back to the life of an omnivore. It’s a really convenient lifestyle, particularly when your friends are all omnivores and you order, cook, and share food sometimes.

I never went through the phase that some new vegetarians call “craving meat” because I gradually shifted toward vegetarianism over about a decade. I could eat what I wanted, but toward the end of this period, I preferred not to eat meat and discovered that I really wasn’t eating much of it.

Apparently the “craving meat” thing is a huge stumbling block for a lot of people who would otherwise consider becoming vegetarian for health, ethical, or ecological reasons. Perhaps it is more of an issue if you really don’t know what/how to cook or don’t otherwise have access to tasty vegetarian food when you are starting out.

Still, I have looked at friends’ meat pizzas and steaks and things recently and thought “I could probably eat that occasionally.” It is convenient and also there are times in life when, say, the best steak in the world is being served and you think it would suck to miss out on that.

But I am thinking it is not going to happen. I would like to say it’s entirely out of concern for my health, but there is a repulsion factor involved.

For half a week now, raw, marinating chicken has been sitting in an uncovered bowl in my refrigerator. This is not my chicken. It belongs to my roommate. But every time I open the refrigerator door, there is a smell and it reminds me that there is something that I feel a strong repulsion towards sitting in a bowl in the refrigerator. I think it should probably be covered and I will probably do that later if it has not been cooked.

But if you ever want to gross-out a vegetarian and make her more adamantly vegetarian than before, leave an uncovered bowl of raw meat in the refrigerator for a few days.

Incidentally, my veggieversary is coming up next week. Three years. I should write a separate post about that.

EDIT: I should point out that my friends and family have always been extremely supportive (and accomodating) of my dietary choices. I really appreciate that.

Federal and state taxes have been filed electronically as of 8:30 PM tonight and the returns will be deposited directly into my savings account.

What could be better than that?

Well, um … this morning I also realized that we will be receiving our corporate incentive (bonus based on the company’s performance) this week.

And payday is Friday.

So if nothing else, this should be a good week monetarily.

But so far, so good– on all fronts.

The cooking karma was much better in the apartment on Sunday. I made a very tomatoey vegetable soup early in the afternoon. It was tasty enough for two bowls, so I wasn’t hungry for real food for the rest of the day. I missed out on my roommate’s frittata later in the evening, but there are leftovers.

Curled up with PhysOrg a little after 5, watched lots of Monk episodes, baked chocolate chip cookies, and hung out with Inle and Mlitiagrl when they dropped by a little later.

Quiet, happy day!

Got home after gaming tonight and pulled up the paper to discover that Betty Friedan has died.

I guess I was expecting those second-wave feminists to live forever.

You know, I can’t really think of too many individuals who have been as important as Friedan in changing society and shaping the world I was born into– just a few years before I was born, in fact.

It is amazing how much of a difference one person or one generation can make sometimes.