Ugh.

I am very tired. Turns out when you work at a shelter during the holidays, you can get a lot of phone calls. Also donations. I'm not going to say it burnt me out on Christmas, but I am very tired. It definitely made my personal Christmas prep seem like nothing in comparison to the to-do list to prep for work.

"It's Really Busy Tonight For Some Reason" and other lies

So I got to go to Urgent Care tonight because I needed to get a prescription refilled and... well, it's a long story and frankly none of your business. So butt out. But when I got there, the guy was all, "oh, it's a really long wait tonight for some reason," as though normally he could have slipped me right in, but people were just feeling extraordinarily sick or something this evening. I half expected him to then start talking about the latest outbreak of the flu, or how something really nasty was going around... but he didn't. And as I sat for like an hour in the waiting room, and then for half an hour or so in the little room they put you in to wait to make you feel like something is happening even though you're not anywhere near seeing the doctor still, I thought to myself, this is always how both nurse- and patient-friends of mine describe it when they have to go to urgent care or the emergency room (or work there). I'm sure there are slow times, but I never hear, "they just whipped us right back and wrote a prescription and we were done in 20 minutes!" That would be why one family went across the street, got Teriyaki, and proceeded to turn one of the tables into their family dinner table. (Toddler saying YUM! loudly after every bite=precious! Reminds me of Little Brother, who also loudly expresses approval, like at my birthday dinner when he kept yelling something along the lines of, "I like this pizza!")

So what other lies do people tell that are fun like the waiting room lie?

1. "I'm on a diet," to the little Camp Fire kid they can't just say no alone to when they pass them outside the store trying to sell their mints. Also "I'm diabetic."

2. "I'm sorry, I have no cash on me," said to the homeless person they are certain will buy alcohol (which perhaps is a justifiable theory, especially if said person is weaving or slurring, or smells like a brewery. I advocate giving food or contributing to your local shelter. In other words, just call me. I like donations. :) )

3. "I have a pre-pay policy for cleaning," said by the despicable dry cleaner guy near our shelter who totally profiled my friend, who is African-American, so he assumed she was most likely homeless or just not good for the money. We asked other people if they had used them, and found that his policy changed for people of different... appearances. She is going elsewhere. We don't like him. That is putting it mildly.

4. "The owner just dropped the prize on this unit." The statement I got from almost every unit I looked at when I was moving. It's possible it was sometimes true, but it sounded more like a sales pitch, because, shoot, if you're offering me a deal, I better snatch it up!

What else am I missing?

In An Effort to Be Less Cranky

I am cranky. Not as cranky as I was earlier, but I can still feel myself festering. So I am taking Dizzle's advice and thinking about things that I am grateful for. She actually suggested a gratitude journal, which I might do, but for right now, because I don't feel like getting up off the couch, I'm going with gratitude blogging. Plus I think you need to do a gratitude journal too. See, look at me not limiting my gratefulness to the month of November!

I am grateful for...

1. Cute nieces and nephews! I was shown love in the form of stickers, tackles, hugs, fist bumps, and smiles on Thanksgiving. Too cute.

2. My cute apartment. I'm mostly unpacked. It now just qualifies as a mess. I even have pictures on the walls, thanks to Alice and children!

3. A job I love, even if I did want to squish a couple of people today. They were trying to help me, so I should not have wanted to squish them. Fortunately there was no ACTUAL squishage. And they didn't squish me, even in all my crankiness.

4. All the new things I have learned from my job. I'm a much healthier and smarter person for it.

5. Amazing friends. I heart you guys! My life would suck without you. Call me and I will sing to you about it.

6. Youtube. Where, when I have a sudden yearning for Air Supply, I can just type in "I'm All out of Love," and, voila! Hours of sing-along fun!

7. My new boots that SusieQ got me for my birthday. :) Thanks!

8. Living in Washington. Especially for living in the Seattle area. Purtiest place I've ever seen!

9. Books. I love reading them. Also, I like the smell of a library book. And I love having lots of them around me.

10. My laptop. I can talk to my friends, stalk people on MyFace, blog, compose a lovely Christmas letter, listen to music, and watch TV shows. All in one nifty device. I want to marry it.

I think ten is enough for one night. I'm going to write more specific things on a list that you don't get to see. So neener.

Don't Make Me Call You Dirk.

Since the dawn of time, people have been arguing on MyFace about when it is acceptable to think about Christmas. Some say we must first recognize and celebrate Thanksgiving. To those people, I say, really???? We need to take the month of November to be thankful, and think about food, and football?? Is that the rule? Here all this time I thought we could also incorporate thankfulness into Christmas, what with the whole Birth of Christ celebration and family time. And in what way does Christmas music distract us from the feeling of gratitude and 12th man-ness that November brings? How is this a conflict? And why must you harsh on my mellow when I say I'm feeling good from hearing me some Christmas tunes? I did not make you listen to them. Why you got to be a Christmas hater?

I had a friend who posted as her status how she was enjoying some Christmas music-listening. To which she got comments like, "yay!" and "me too!" And then some putz had to say "vomit." Um, excuse me, determined-to-be-perpetually-single-and-alone-in-your-obnoxiousness. Have we forgotten our manners? If someone puts that they are excited to go see their favorite band play, do you put "vomit?" Well, maybe you do, because you're rude, but that's called bad manners. Why do you have to be all negative when someone shares something that makes them happy. I'm not forcing you to turn to the Christmas station. I'm willing to bet said station is not your regular station (at least in the Seattle area). I'm never going to let you in my car because you are rude and clearly need more time walking to think about how you have behaved. So why must you be Dirk Downer?

Up next on the Things People Spend Pointless Time Debating on MyFace: Snow--do we want it to come or not? Um... People... it's gonna come or not come regardless of how rude you are to your Friends. Just saying.

That Clears it All Up...

I'm confused. Anyone else confused by this? Ummm... so, the whole prostitution thing, still bad, right? But said prostitutes don't have to worry about immorally wearing condoms? Because they were worried?

Amazing.

Sitting in my office today I could hear some of our clients in a room far off singing along with a song someone was playing.

When I see your face,
There's not a thing that I would change.
Cause you're amazing,
Just the way you are.

Ah, Bruno. You know how to sweet talk a girl.

Seriously, though. The voices I was hearing so clearly were singing full-out, with feeling. Because those words are powerful. And what those women long to hear. Many of these women have been manipulated and abused by people they identified as loved ones. So many people tell them, in word as well as the way they treat them, that they are broken, or not good enough. How many people tell them they are amazing just the way they are? And how many people tell them they are amazing without an agenda.

It just reminded me. We need to spend less time trying to change each other, because that's not our job, and more time reaching out with love, recognizing the beautiful spirits, and encouraging each other to nurture that beauty and let it grow. Think of someone in your life who makes you feel amazing, flaws and all. They see your inner light. And start being that person that sees the inner light more.

Someday My Food Will Cook.

So, you know that thing about cooking more in my new place? Yeah. Turns out that you have to put stuff away before that becomes possible. Unfortunately, I have been so tired/sick (he he, sick and tired) that I have not quite gotten to wiping down the rest of the shelves in my kitchen, lining them with shelf liner, and deciding where to keep things. And then there's now, where I can mostly breathe again, at least for the moment, but I still don't feel like peeling my butt off the couch and working towards finishing unpacking.

On the flip side, aiding me in my procrastination efforts has been Mockingjay, which is part of the Hunger Games series, which I totally recommend, btw. So I've been reading more. Yay me! Of course, it's a library book, so all those other books I have had in stacks forever are still... well, not in stacks, but on my new special Read Me shelf, because I could fill a whole shelf with just SOME of the books I own that I have not read. I should get on that.

Also, I have decorated my place with my own stuff. Currently it looks more like my place puked pottery, because I haven't really distributed things, they're all just kind of huddled on certain shelves, but we're getting there.

I technically know two neighbors now. Yay. And check.

And I have walked... nowhere. Because it is dark. And the weather sucks. And I was dying from a cold all weekend. So... there's always next weekend?