parsley, unions, robert frost and tummy aches

this morning i drank milk out of a white plastic cup. i really dislike drinking milk out of a plastic cup but a white plastic cup is the worst - it makes my milk look yellow and sour and just generally unattractive. plus, this particular cup was really bad because once i drank enough milk to see the bottom of the cup, i realized that there's a big green thing stuck down there. yuck. i'm pretty sure it was parsley and not a booger, but it did kinda gross me out. and no, i don't make a habit out of drinking from dirty cups - my theory on this is that this is the result of the bee refusing to rinse dishes before he puts them in the dishwasher. so the spaghetti i had last week (with parsley in the sauce) probably found its way into my glass, which is why my milk wasn't really yellow-tinged this morning, but more of a greenish, mossy color.

yummy.

so the bee and i have done some discussing lately. most of our conversations have related to money and bills and preparing for the arrival of baby wal-mart. and we talk about my job and how i'm technically sort of overqualified for it and how i don't make enough money for the crap that i do and how i could be making more money if i'd just apply myself (those are all his words, not mine.) i talk mostly about how much i hate my job - and oh my goodness, i really do hate my job. the only challenge to my job anymore is either trying to find a good enough reason not to go or trying to find little things that i can do during the day to keep myself awake and presentable should the boss walk behind my cubicle.

basically that means that i'll stay home over something as exciting as tackling that dog puke stain on the steps with our new carpet cleaner. or if it happens that i've already used that excuse, then i'll see just how many people i can hang up on over the course of a day. i'll sign up for all the automatic dialer time that i can get during my shift and then not speak to a person, i'll just sit there and breathe into the phone.

anyway. i'm off track. so yeah, i hate what i do. the thing is - as it turns out, so does the bee. he's miserable in where he's working right now and somedays that boils down to a specific location and other days it means that he hates the company he works for.

have i ever told you that the bee is a union employee? (bring on the jokes about the breaks and the way long lunch hours - most of them are true.) yup, he's a union plumber and steamfitter. and he works for a good little company based in des moines. his benefits are awesome, his pay is awesome, and up until recently his job was pretty much the cat's pajamas. (i wanted to say the bee's knees but it's kind of overkill...)

but lately, he's been getting restless. the bee is a fifth-year apprentice in a union program and this is the year he "turns out" (to speak a little union-ese) and becomes a full-fledged journeyman in his trade (woohoo for raises!). and at that point he can pretty much work where ever he wants. for real. he could work in iowa and stay with the same local or he could move east or west, north or south and not have to worry about his rate of pay, benefits, what have you. its a pretty interesting thing they've got going, these union guys.

but the point of all this is that in a few months time, about the same time as the arrival of baby wal-mart, a whole new world of options is going to open up for him. almost literally. the timing isn't the greatest given that we'll have a brand new baby to contend with, but i can see in his face when we talk about this that he's really considering some changes.

i know what you're thinking. from the way i've carried on about the bee over the last year and a half, you think that he's never going to leave this place or his job or his mom. but to be perfectly honest, when i met the bee he informed me that we probably shouldn't get too involved as the time was coming when he was going to move to alaska and weld pipes in the great frozen tundra of the 49th state. and he was serious as hell, having completed most of the necessary paperwork and preparing to leave. (plans obviously changed last fall but there was talk of us moving to anchorage.) so i know he's got an itch to travel and to see and to experience things that he's never had a chance to do before.

and i think that's okay. it's never been my goal to live my life here. i've always wanted to live somewhere just a little bit warmer or maybe a little closer to a large body of water (saylorville lake just doesn't cut it for me anymore). and maybe i'm naive and stupid, but i truly don't think he's going to let us starve or live on the streets or have to panhandle to get milk for the little one. maybe moving would be good for us.

and then i reread all this and add in baby wal-mart and think that we've got to be crazy, to leave our support system and all our families and friends and the security we have here for the great unknown.

but it kind of seems like a wasted opportunity not to try, don't you think?

what's that quote? "two roads diverged in a wood and i-- i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." but somehow i don't think asking myself what robert frost would do is going to solve this issue. (now maybe a solid "wwkd" - what would kathy do? that might work. sorry, inside joke.)

i really don't know. i don't know what will happen, i don't know where we'll end up. i guess having options can be a good thing.

but sometimes having too many options is like having too many cookies: it just gives me a stomachache.

oh for the love.

it's only snow. we're getting three or four inches of snow and you'd think the whole fucking state was on lock-down. we're in the middle of a snow advisory, there's red alerts all over the radar, and everyone at work is in a freaking tizzy. for crying out loud - it's only snow.

and actually, it's kind of nice to look at. i know i'm the minority here, but i kind of like the snow. i like the way it looks and the way it feels, i like the way the sky smells while its snowing - it just smells clean and new. and while this isn't enough snow to 1) stick around for very long or 2) even completely cover the grass, it's pretty. well, it's pretty until it's been plowed and driven over and gets all grey and slimy and sticks to your pant legs and shoes and everything you own is covered in snow slop and salt and crap. yeah, then it's not so pretty.

it just dawned on me that i don't have a snow scraper in the car. because it's in *my* car and not the car i'm driving. motherfuckers. now i have to go buy a snow scraper.

boo hiss boo.

so the other night the bee and i got into it pretty bad. he thinks i don't want him around, i think he doesn't really want to be there and we're both pissy and being nasty and he starts packing his things to leave. and now i've remembered why i hate this living together arrangement - because it's perfectly acceptable for one (or both of us, i guess, although that would be a little extreme) to pack it up and call it quits. it's just that easy. easier for him than for me, since i'm the one with all the shit, but if our argument had continued, he could have been out the door in less than 15 minutes.

guess i'm going to have to pick and choose my arguments from here on out if i don't want that to happen. and i have been grumpy for the last few days and i don't know why. i should be thrilled - tomorrow is turkey day, and let's face it, even mediocre turkey is still pretty fucking good. i'm leery of the noodles, but i'll survive. it's just one day. i'd rather be with my family than his family, but i'm also not in the mood to drive three hours. eww... whomever decided it was a good idea to have turkey day in illinois this year obviously didn't consult these kids - because none of them are going. so tomorrow i'll be hanging with the bee's family, eating around the noodles and pretty much feeling kind of uncomfortable, because that's what the families of significant others do to me.

anyway, back to the being grumpy thing - i'm not really sure why. i don't think i'm grumpy, but i also think i'm perfect, so my line of thought perhaps is a little skewed. i think i used to use my drive home time as detox time - which was easy, when you had 85 miles to drive. now that i'm home in just about as much time as it used to take me to get to the bypass, i don't have any detox time and apparently i'm just a raging psycho bitch.

but our talk ended... okay. i got some stuff off my chest, he got some things out in the open and in general we just cleared the air. i think we're both surprised with where our path has led us thus far and that takes some adjustment. because if you remember right, just six months ago, i wanted to be preparing for work with the peace corps - i was considering volunteering nearly three years of my life in a foreign country. and instead i find myself on a familiar path with unfamiliar company.

which isn't necessarily where i saw myself six months ago, but again, how much of our lives is really ours to control? i'm asking impossible questions, i know, but i guess you have to take what life hands you and roll with it. because karma seems to kick your ass for fighting back.

i'm at work until 7 p.m. again tonight, this is the last night for a while, thank holy heavens. i'm ready to pull my hair out. it's dead fucking silent in this room, all i can hear is the sound of my typing and the dull roar of the furnace blowing through the ducts and it's still colder than crap in this room. i'm wearing two shirts, a sweater and a jacket and i'm still contemplating putting on my mittens, it's that fucking cold.

this weekend is dane cook weekend, oh how i'm looking forward to that. its been a while since i've been out with nigel and snackmaster bob - i just hope they get along well enough for everyone to enjoy the trip. four hours in the car with a spatting nigel and bob could be enough for me to just open the door and jump... after we see dane cook, of course.

i should go out and start my car, let the defrost run and melt off all the snow. that's a good idea, thanks for having it. i think i may go do that now. :)

peas out, and happy turkey day.
love,
superjanel