Maribel’s Neighborhood

Things I Love:

• Brian announced what he would like to get me for Christmas: ANOTHER KITTY.  You can imagine my excitement.  It is such that I'm beyond even being about to use exclamation points and I have to revert back to using plain ol' periods.  Also, this will be great for Fritz, who we think is getting pretty lonely, especially at night--we don't let him into the bedroom and he's taken to howling at all hours of the night.
• SHOPPING FOR KITTIES ZOMGZ CAN WE HAVE THEM ALL
• How affectionate Fritz has been lately.  As we speak he's sitting in the chair with me, purring away.
• Brian, who despite claiming to have no idea how to get gifts for people has come up with an untoppable gift the second year in a row.
• Threadless, and online shopping in general.  In the last week I have: ordered a Threadless shirt, ordered something from Woot (a WootOff, to be precise), pre-ordered a video game from Amazon, and ordered yet another Threadless shirt.  The first one's already come in:

"The Ultimate Combo"--JUST CALL ME CHUN-LI, YO

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• The PetSmart employee who I suppose didn't want to risk getting off even a few minutes late, so she lied to us and told us they don't do adoptions after 8pm.  (They close at 9--we got there right at 8:30.)  I called another PetSmart to confirm this isn't a company policy.  We were going up to look again at a kitty we'd played with and loved last night (AFTER 8).
• My decreasing ability to control my RED IMPOSSIBLE ANGER!  (That phrase is only going to be funny to me because I am a loser who has inside jokes with herself.  I'm aggravated and will cheer myself up however I please, damn it.)
• Procrastination.  Sigh.  I cannot get myself to stick to a reading/study schedule and as a result, have something like 300 pages of (textbook) reading to do in a week before two tests next Tuesday. 
  

Dear Douchebags,

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you backed into my car--which was at the time the only car in that particular row in that particular parking lot--and were courteous enough to just leave.  I can only assume you knew how upset I would be, and being the sensitive douchebags you are, I suppose you just didn't think yourselves emotionally capable of seeing me so distraught.  Bravo.

I'm sure it was out of your control anyway, since my car apparently has a first rate magnet stuck in its bumper.  Only that could explain why it would be struck again just a few weeks after it was hit in the parking lot at work.  (Of course, that damage was nicely repaired just in time for you to redamage it.  I'm glad I provided a tidy bumper for you to smash.  And kudos on the extra damage to my trunk!

Anyway, good thing you just drove off--the hassle of exchanging information and taking responsibility for your actions really is just too much to ask.  It's much better that my family and I have to pay our insurance's $500 deductible to get my car fixed (since we don't have your insurance info) than that you be inconvenienced with a minor increase in your insurance rate.  If you even have insurance!  O-ho!

Well, thanks for your time, Douchebags.  I'll think of you when I have to go pick up the police report on my birthday next week.  I can't imagine a better gift!

Best,
Joie

I'm in a great mood, and thus I bring you Things on Tuesday: The All Love Edition.

Things I Love:

• Knowing that if I find Fritz's giant plush ladybug stuffed in a corner somewhere, I can put it out in the middle of the floor and when he finds it, it will be like a whole new discovery to him.  This includes war cries/meows, adorably vicious attacking of the giant plush ladybug, and apparently dragging its carcass off somewhere.
• I kicked some major ass on my first test as a psychology major.
• Coffee and vanilla lattes.
• My professor gave an extra credit assignment to those of us who stayed for the second half of class--eat that, people who left when he announced that we'd be watching a video when we returned from the 10-minute break.
  
• Today I wandered into Belk to find a skirt/outfit I fell in love with in May on clearance and in my size.  I got a three piece outfit plus shoes that would've totaled $211.24 for $43.80.  THANK YOU, BELK.  The fact that this is clearly a summer outfit might be a problem if not for the fact that...
• ...I live in Alabama where summer clothes can easily be worn into October.  BOO-YA.
• 

  I have surprisingly girlie tastes, sometimes.
  
  
• Thunderstorms!
• Celebrating the first day of fall with my manfriend by getting some O'Charley's potato soup.

This evening a music theme popped into my head, and I realized it was from this past Sunday's episode of Mad Men, "The Fog."  I knew when I heard the music I recognized it, so I assumed it was some famous classical-something-or-other I'd heard in school or on NPR.  A little research, however, revealed that in fact it's called "Me voy a morir de amor" from the score of the movie Lucía y el Sexo.  If I recall correctly, I think I saw this movie three times in a one month period (which is not as pervy as it sounds)--I watched it a second time to try to understand it better and a third to show it to Brian.  (I gave a brief review after the first time I saw it--you can read here.)  I found this video someone made featuring the music, and it reminded me how beautiful the movie was... I suspect I'll be seeing it a 4th time soon.  Hey-o!

I actually have things today, and I know if I wait till tomorrow I'll either forget them or forget to blog entirely.  SO DEAL WITH IT.  But out of respect for TonT, I'll switch the format up a bit for TofM.

Loathe:  Ordering what was clearly supposed to be an HP-brand battery from what looked like a reputable seller... only to receive a knock-off (RECGARGEABLE BATTERY, as it was labeled).  The seller's customer service tried to convince me (in terrible English) that the battery comes from a "manufactory" authorized by HP and that because the battery only works in HP laptops, HP did not have the "manufactory" put the logo on it.   Yes.  That explains why my original battery has a giant HP logo.

Love:  Getting hassle-free refunds and being able to leave bitchy negative feedback, completely guilt-free.

Loathe:  That people leaving seller feedback do not seem to understand they are reviewing the seller, not the product.  I NEED ACCURATE INFO, PEOPLE. 

Love:  ...Being able to leave bitchy negative feedback, completely guilt-free?

Loathe:  Even after a year of being out of school (in which time one would assume I'd have done some growing up), I still have the same habit of procrastination and now have a massive amount of reading to catch up on.

Love:  MY CLASSES OMGZ.  I am loving this psychology business.  My Tuesday night class is 2-and-a-half hours long, and I actually feel a little sad when it's over.

Loathe:  How hard Facebook is working to be Twitter.  Also, seeing MAFIA WARS! and FARMVILLE! application notifications filling my news feed.

Love:  ...Being able to tag people/things in Facebook status updates (you got me, FB).  Also, the "Graffiti" application, which is old as Facebook dirt but which I am just now using.

One small complaint not big enough to be a loathe is that I miss having music majors around me in classes.  The other day before class the professor's phone rang, and his ringtone was the third movement to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.  I looked around excitedly, but no one noticed, cared, or knew what the ringtone was.  It was one of those odd small moments that feels overpoweringly dramatic to the person in it.  I console myself by hoping that when I get into the more upper-level classes I'll find other psychology-nerds with whom I can joke about ... whatever psychology nerds joke about, I don't know yet.

After posting a link to my YouTube account where most of my Fritz videos go, I realized it's been awhile since I actually posted one.  Fritz got a kitty tube and tent this week and he's loved diving into them--I realized it was time for me to learn how to use iMovie so I could present the highlights of his play time.  Maybe now that I know how to edit video I'll post more of him!

I mentioned a few posts back that I'm going back to school to try on a second Bachelor's in Psychology.  I'm going to see how I feel after a semester of psych courses and decide from there whether I want to continue on or find something else to be when I grow up.  But I'm already feeling a lot better about this decision than when I decided to go for a second Bachelor's in English, something I dropped weeks before the semester began when I realized I was unhappy about it before even stepping foot in the classroom.

This morning I had my first class, Lifespan Developmental Psychology, which I think I'm going to enjoy a lot.  I love creative assignments, and a major part of our grade is a life notebook in which we'll create a fictional character and over the course of a semester describe his or her development from birth to death.  It's going to take every ounce of willpower in my body to resist starting this notebook, "My name is Benjamin Button, and I was born under unusual circumstances."

Tonight I have Social Psychology, which I anticipate will be my favorite of the three courses I'm taking this term.  As if one Benjamin Button association wasn't enough for today, while reading my Social Psych textbook I came across the Søren Kierkegaard quote "Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards."  I'm pretty positive this was a tagline for the movie, although I now cannot for the life of me find a poster with that on it.

But the real reason I'm posting now is to share something else I came across in my textbook which reminded me of something I've been turning over in my head for a while.  We hear little bits of practical wisdom/common knowledge every day, and I'm beginning to realize how contradictory they all are.  I've been thinking about how many people I hear throw around quotes that basically amount to "Live like every day is your last day!" but criticize those who live wildly, foolishly, selfishly--but isn't that how you'd act if you had one day to live?  That's maybe not a great example of what I've been pondering, but then I came across this convenient chart in my textbook that lists a number of these bits of contradictory "common knowledge":

Too many cooks spoil the broth or Two heads are better than one?
The pen is mightier than the sword or Actions speak louder than words?
You can't teach an old dog new tricks or You're never too old to learn?

And my personal favorite:
He who hesitates is lost or Look before you leap?

These were included as a way of defending against people's tendency to write off the social sciences as attempts to make obvious social behavior sound science-y.  As the textbook points out, we're all vulnerable to hindsight bias.

And now that I've spent fifteen minutes writing a blog instead of reading my textbook, I better get back to work.

Thanks, Newsweek, for teaching me about the next Y2K situation: January 19, 2038.  Neat!

I said I'd post more often and just say what I was thinking, so here it is, my own Question of the Day:  What is your favorite game show?  I've been sitting on my couch watching Family Feud for an hour and a half now, and I've decided that for me, it probably comes second only to The Price Is Right for me.  I will never stop loving The Price Is Right--I love how it's been able to stand the test of time.  Not only is it still exciting and fun, it's still got that super groovy set.

Groovy

Two years or so ago I posted about popcorn lung and challenged my Vox neighbors to find me a disease with an equally ridiculous nickname.  Without realizing it thedrummer17 has successfully done it (while commenting on another neighbor's post).  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you phossy jaw.

Now don't get me wrong--there is nothing hilarious about the actual diseases themselves.  As with popcorn lung, this disease's real name ("phosphorus necrosis of the jaw") is a much darker, more appropriate description of what sounds like a pretty awful thing to suffer through.  But the nicknames, people.  I've been wanting to use my "diseases with ridiculous nicknames" tag again, and finally the day is upon us.  "Phossy jaw" lacks the laughably superhero-sounding quality of "popcorn lung" (I imagine a man in Spandex with a popped kernel emblazoned across his chest who breathes not fire, but popcorn at his enemies--"Bad guys dare not risk the buttery retribution of Popcorn Luuuuuung!!!  BAM!  POW!  POP-POP-POP!"), but does possess a sort of adorable quality, like the diminutive nickname you'd assign a bulldog puppy actually named Phosophocles Jowlsey McMandible the Third. ("What're you doin, lil Phossy Jaw?  You drop that shoe!")

It's also interesting to note that both of these diseases affect(ed) factory workers who suffered prolonged exposure to what turned out to be dangerous elements.  I mean, is this some kind of fad?!  Who decided the proletariat should suffer not only terrible working conditions, but lighthearted nicknames for their diseases?!  Shameful!

So thank you, Nick, for bringing this disease to my attention.