screw the system

i have the day off, and already at the ripe hour of 10 am i have my previous day off beat in terms of overall goodness. in other words, though i'm $260 and some change down, at least i have my car.

let me bring you back to monday night, 11 pm. i'm laying on the couch watching the station agent through my eyelids. pajamas on, face washed, contacts out. alisun calls and says i have to come meet them for a drink at bar abilene. i decline, saying i'm in for the night. somewhere between realizing i have the next day off and that greg and mike are back from playing new york, i decide to go out.

i circle around the block, unable to find a parking lot. then i realize, "why not park in the cheapo parking lot, seeing how they're closed?" i park my car and go enjoy a margarita.

fast forward about an hour or two, and we're standing in the same parking lot, minus one chevy lumina. alisun calls gopher towing and makes up a story about how we were paying customers and we just ran to talk to someone and now the car is gone. they say there's nothing they can do and we'd have to take it up with cheapo. then alisun decides to run around to the front of the store and dig through the trash to find a receipt. not only did she find a receipt, but she found one for midnight, the latest possible time. keep in mind the time frame that my car was towed at 12:30.

by this point i had abandoned hope and knew that i would be owing a considerable chunk of change. i went to greg and mike's where we proceeded to have a hardcore jam session. humorous as the early 90s songs were, all i kept thinking was "this sucks."

we stayed there till about 6 am or so and came home and crashed. alisun called cheapo and they said they'd call us back after they talked to the night manager. hours later i got a call saying there was nothing they could do, so grudgingly i picked up my car at 11:30 pm. the ultimate irony is that i talked to someone just that night about towing and ticketing in minneapolis. little did i know what was around the corner. dun dun dun...

otherwise, life hasn't been too terrible lately. i'm giving myself today to catch up on lost and netflix. i watched lost last night, and i felt like i was watching some sort of scooby doo mystery. it was pretty entertaining. i missed last week's, however, and really would like to find out how locke ended up in that dang wheelchair. i also have a theory going that the "real" sawyer, who sawyer is so desperately trying to find, is really locke's father. think about it. locke's dad is a con man who messes around with women all the time. there's got to be some sort of connection there. besides, i totally called that claire was jack's sister. i win.

i've also got le diner de cons and antonia's line to watch. i've already watched part of the first one, which was pretty amusing, so i'm looking forward to the rest. and i've got happy feet due to arrive tomorrow. i'll hold jude responsible if i don't like it, considering she was the one who talked it up so much. and after that i'm getting grizzly man, which i just saw listed just this morning and moved to the top of my queue on a whim. i'm pretty interested in seeing that one because i've read so many articles about timothy treadwell. what a creepy situation.

time to watch lost.

a hot date

...with lake calhoun. today's weather was g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s. sunny, warm, perfection. i finally got out to lake calhoun, where al, mr. kim, and i took a nice stroll around. i was extremely excited to find out the pedestrian path around the lake measures 3.1 miles. perfect for running. twice around the lake and i'll be good to go- no need for measuring or mapping or pedometers. come saturday morning the lake won't know what hit it.

finally...

a chance to update. really all i've been doing is working. and dreaming about going to school, which would definitely get my mind off of work when i'm not working. it's been crazy there lately with backed up food orders and busy weekends and missed shifts. i worked a 6 day week last week, which royally sucked. i was planning on going in on sunday, my day off, to help sell jars of peanut butter at a booth upstairs from the store. a little part of me was even looking forward to it. when i got to the store there was only one person working, so i had to join him behind the counter. thank god i didn't wear the skirt/boots i was originally planning on wearing, they would have been covered in peanut butter by the end of the day.

all in all i got extremely keyed up this weekend with lack of staff and crazy customers and lots of running around not being able to get everything done. and it's times like this when i think korea is just a plane ride away and i could be making a lot more and working a lot less. thank god grad school is in the near future.

speaking of excitement over school, a major congratulations goes to celeste, who was accepted to oregon state university to get her masters in environmental science. she'll be taking the online courses and might even move in the near future. she mentioned moving to northern california to work in the national parks or to san diego to work for the zoo. i said i would definitely move there if she did. that's all it would take to get me out west in the permanent warmth. plus there's a huge esl need out there. overall it feels good to have someone in the same boat. we're both moaning and groaning over our jobs because we know there are better jobs out there that we will soon have with diplomas in hand. plus we're both waiting to hear about fafsa and loans and such. paying for school blows.

alas, i have tomorrow off.

it hasn't been *all* work no play the past week or two, though work has definitely been occupying most of my time. i have enjoyed some thrifting around and some nights out that may or may not end in a long jam session where i can practice my mad tambourine skills and then sleep in a bed with three other people (none of whom own the bed).

i've been having a grand ol' time with netflix, also. i just got around to watching tsotsi and babel. both were good, not exactly my favorite, but worth watching. i'm getting into a huge french kick and have happenstance and the dinner game coming next. thumbsucker, ma vie en rose, and the science of sleep are definitely my wisest selections thus far. i may or may not have illegally watched volver, also. i had to throw that in for a recommendation. it was surprisingly not very dark for an almodovar film. more reviews to come.

but for now i must enjoy my smithwicks and watch american idol.

coming up roses

today was one of those surprisingly good days. this morning al, melissa, and i headed over to the minneapolis nbc affiliate's station to help keri set up for the segment on showcase minnesota. the morning was interesting to say the least. overall the segment went very well and it was fun to be doing something a bit different for the company. not to mention i met some interesting people. rob hudson, the male anchor, was quite the character. ironically he kind of reminded me of ted baxter from the mary tyler moore show. and corbin seitz, the female anchor, reminded me of a martha stewart wannabe.

there was a lot going on in the studio, and we got to stick around to watch a lot of the show, including a creepy visit from dora the explorer, her cousin(?), and disney on ice. quote of the day belongs to the intern who was helping me with food and suddenly left, saying, "i have to go get the disney princesses." and somehow that was supposed to be normal.

michael york was also in the studio because he's on tour for camelot. rob hudson was a tool on air saying that his favorite michael york film was austin powers... pure class right there. michael york being there was a strange coincidence, because lesley was touring with this show up until december. it's too bad she didn't continue with it after their break because it would've been awesome if we could have met up here in minneapolis.

finally, i got accepted to hamline! i was really surprised to hear about it so early, but i got a voicemail from the head of the esl department. i figured it was just a message to say my application was complete, because they just got the last recommendation letter yesterday. strange to hear an acceptance over the phone. i'm feeling really good about this because they've been so on top of getting in contact with me this whole time. i might even be starting a bit earlier with summer classes, depending on how much i can get in student loans. my mind is mush right now because i've spent the past two hours filing my taxes and filling out my fafsa application. and i'm sure somewhere in there i made a mistake, but we shall see.

je travaille

i am working now. i also need to be at work in less than an hour. i feel like i've entered the twilight zone.

i've been sitting in a cafe since 11 am, plunking away on the sales spreadsheet, coming up with sales goals for the following months. my brain is starting to melt, and somehow, i have to trek over to the mall and continue to work until 10 pm. when did my life start to revolve around peanut butter and when did i become ok with this?

i actually met keri here, but she just ran up to her apartment while i continue to plunk away. hopefully she gets back in time with those dang quesadillas.

i doubt anyone from minnesota is reading this, but just in case you are, be sure to watch showcase minnesota tomorrow morning. p.b.loco will be on and al, salsa, and i are going over to help set up.

time to eat. and run.

i'll be watching you

not much time to write, but i definitely just got tickets to see the police. my bank account will surely be hurting. thank god i get paid this friday.

do it all

oh, catholic university, i am teeming with pride. really, i had no idea that antonella barba is a fellow student. her best friend is, too. i just know how the school LOVES when their name is connected with controversial pictures and ideas. according to kate, the school was loving the free advertising until her pictures came out. i wonder what their reaction will be now.

i'm sure they'll react in the same crappy way they have with everything else controversial... pretend it never happened. remember when stanley tucci came to speak at the italian film fest? no? oh that's because he was DISinvited after it was found out that he indirectly supported the pro-choice movement.

really, i'm over it.

i was surprised though, upon getting an email from mr. burns which said (and i quote) "so did you know this skank antonella barba when you went to catholic?" i had absolutely no idea what he was talking about until kate emailed about her. i personally find it hilarious.

in other news, we were hit by a snow storm AGAIN. i ended up not even going in to work yesterday because keri called and said we were best off just shutting the store down. which was fine by me, but it got a little boring after a while, having no internet, radio, or tv. at least the book i'm reading is good.

i ended up coming in early to work because, as it turns out, my neighbor works at the moa too. she couldn't get her car out of the parking lot so i offered to drive her in. which worked out well because i ended up with time to get a french press, coffee, and use my computer. let's hope the store isn't completely dead. for the sake of my own sanity. it's been a slow week.

finally, i just found out that the police are coming here in july. that would be the third and final thing on my list of life goals to cross off. tickets go on sale monday. i'm there.