I Dream of Ginger

I have long been fascinated by dreams and dreaming (the kind you do when you are asleep, not the ones involving winning the lottery or getting married or living in Anderson Cooper’s laundry basket (that last one might just be me, though)). I’ve taken classes on dream analysis; I have four dreamer's dictionaries on my night stand; I used to keep a dream diary; and I’ve watched countless TV documentaries on the subject. (I think it is pretty obvious that I am enamored of dreams because my waking life is so downright uneventful and on the whole pretty sad - I’ve been slim in dreams; I’ve been loved; Sammy can go outside.)

But recently, I’ve had dreams in which particular words have stood out. The dreams have not been about that word per se, it has just made its presence known. And then I formed the notion (and I do not know if it was when I was awake or asleep) that these words were the names of horses taking part in horseraces. One morning after such a dream I went online to see if I could find a listing of horseraces taking place that day but I got distracted by a video of a cat, and never got around to looking up horse stuff.

That was until this weekend. I cannot remember anything about the dream itself, just that the word ginger was important somehow. I already had plans to go to the Champagne brunch at the casino next door as an Easter treat, so I decided to stop in the sports book while I was there. OK, so, wow, there are lots of horseraces in America! There were about 20 lists of races! No way was I going to read through all of them so I decided to pick three. I chose Golden Gate Fields (because gold is a color, like ginger is); then Hawthorne Race Course (because Hawthorne is a plant, like ginger is) and Penn National because I used to live in Pennsylvania. That one was the last one I chose but the first one I read. This is the listing for the seventh race:

O. M. G.

This is the result of that race:

Holy eff, right?

I bet $5 to win. A co-worker looked up the odds or the numbers or the form or whatever it is and calculated I’ll probably get about $23 back.  (I don’t plan to go cash in the ticket until after this post is published, because I want to get it in before the end of March - I’ll let you know if it is any more than that.) Not enough to retire on or employ my own chauffeur, and I lost more than that at the Blackjack table after the buffet, but still, how flipping cool is that?

And kind of scary too, right? Because, well, cue, Twilight Zone music, I dreamed of ginger and a horse named Gingers Hero won. Is this not freaking you out? Because it is freaking me out big time.

Bonus Day, but not a Bonus Post...

I am literally only writing this post because, as I mentioned before, I do not want there ever to be a month without at least one posting. But I really can’t think of anything to write about, nothing good or bad – but I guess I will take having nothing to write about over having something bad to write about any day.

 

But there has got to be something… Oh! There was that horrid Superbowl (the Steelers have six rings, by the way). And I did my taxes and am getting back a pretty hefty hunk of change, which is nice, way more than I expected. And Idol’s back.  I might write about that occasionally, especially as this is the last season. My early prediction is Dalton for the win, but I guess the smart money would be on the chick with the pile-of-dog-poop hair. What else? Oh, as I mentioned on Facebook, I found out that some of the people with whom I work are Republican, but better Republican co-workers than no co-workers at all.

 

That really is all my February produced. Further proof that it is impossible to die of boredom.

One down, ten thousand and eight to go…

So I replaced the first of the many items I sold during my unemployment: a dining table.  Isn’t it sexy? A neighbor was selling it. He wanted $60, I got it for $55 and he delivered it too. So once I re-acquire two dressers, a big screen TV, a Crock Pot, a wok, an electric griddle, a blender, and a Magic Bullet (some of the tangible victims of my long term unemployment) I will be back to square one. Those items and $10,000, that is.

 

Yep, I finally did the math and I now have exactly ten grand less than I did this time two years ago (two years ago today, in fact), when I was laid off. I guess considering all I went through, ten grand really isn’t all that much. It could have been a lot worse, and I should be thankful that I had ten grand to lose. Except I didn’t, really. Because that was my retirement savings.

 

“Welcome to Walmart, how can I help you today?” 

 

 

Year in Review – 2015 Edition

Despite finally learning to accept the fact that I might never know why my first Year In Review post is so popular, I still feel pressure to produce a great edition, so here goes my 2015 effort:

It’s been a strange year, to say the least. It started off on a hopeful note, with a new, full time job. But it quickly went downhill when I was once again out of work. Then two part-time positions followed; one crappy, which I voluntarily quit to take on a better one, which I then lost, making it the fourth job I lost in a 16-month period. Then - oh miracle of miracles! - my current position comes along. What did I do to deserve such a wonderful job? Oh yeah, that’s right – I suffered through the worst (I hope, anyway) 18 months of my life. It is not ideal but oh how I love it, for many, many reasons, not the least of which is it was directly responsible for one of the best nights of my life.

It was in early December. There were some Facebook posts concerning it, but nothing on this forum. And I am not going to go into too much detail here (it really is best told verbally) but it revolved around a Strip-based company event. My partner in crime was a co-worker, whose drop-dead gorgeousness literally opened doors or, rather, got velvet ropes lifted! We paid for only one drink all night, our first. At least eight others followed for me (that’s the ones I remember). There was a lot of my saying “She’s got a boyfriend” to guys inquiring about her; and me asking the one guy who didn’t but instead actually talked to me if he was part of a hogging event. And telling him that if he was, he’d definitely win with me.

And whilst it will literally go down as one of the top ten best nights of my life, what makes it even more remarkable is the fact that it was followed by four days of my not drinking any alcohol. I will pause a minute to let that sink in. Yes, for the first time since maybe the age of 16, I voluntarily did not drink for four whole days (I am surprised Franzia did not declare bankruptcy). It was only after a 7-Eleven Big Bite (onions, relish and ketchup) and a Big Gulp (Pepsi) did I finally feel in the mood to imbibe again (those Big Bites – kill or cure as far as I am concerned). I mean, I have gone longer not drinking (way longer), but not on a voluntary basis. And as a matter of fact, there are two nights a year when I purposely do not hit the hooch - January 1 and December 30. Because I always plan to get smashed the following days (birthday and New Year’s Eve) and so I want to give my body a break, to recalibrate, and prep for the onslaught (I drink especially heavy on those two nights).  

What else?

·                 Still no sex (that is three and a half years now).

·                 Saw five movies in the movie theater – the most I have seen in one year since I moved to Las Vegas.
·                 Lost six pounds.
·                 Spent 14 hours away from Sammy, the longest I have ever been away from him; he didn’t care, though, because that was the week JTV was visiting so he had someone around to bite (all human flesh is the same to him).
·                 Left the Las Vegas city limits for the first time since I moved here eight years ago; yeah, it was only 33 miles away and I was gone for less than 10 hours but still.

So, all in all, not the worst year of my life (2014 still holds (and I hope will hold forever) that title), but not the best either (don’t really have a contender for that title; maybe 2009 when I met Sammy) but not bad at all. Hope your 2015 was great and your 2016 will be even better!

Sammy’s 4th Annual Holiday Message

 

Although after having done some research on previous posts in this series, “message” is kind of an exaggeration. It is usually just Sammy’s annual holiday photo and a brief shout-out to his human fans. Although last year I did go on a bit of a diatribe about my then 11-month unemployment stint. All better now, though: gainfully employed and back to having access to office equipment!

 

Happy whatever it is you celebrate, humans!

Comments & Questions for the person or persons unknown who stole from my car last weekend

You suck.

 

Your god will punish you.

 

Because I am a better person than you, I hope someone never does the same or worse to your mother/sister/aunt/niece/wife/daughter/granddaughter. Yes I can lay claim to being only a daughter and niece (because all my grandparents are dead and I have no siblings) but still.

 

You owe the bum outside Smith’s a dollar. He approached me shortly after my discovery of your crime and, under normal circumstances, would have gotten a dollar from me, but instead he got a shocked look on his face when I gasped “My car was just broken into!” I am sure he would like to have a car that could get broken into.

 

Did you think the Godiva bag contained chocolate? Because as you have discovered, I used it as a trash bag. All those gum wrappers and used lint roller sheets covered in cat hair must have come as a nasty surprise. But count yourself lucky you did not steal from me back in the day when I had a life - because there might have been used condoms in there then.

 

If you are not an ABBA or Frank Sinatra fan you’re going to have to become one if you keep the CDs that were in the holder you stole.

 

Your actions will make me a liar to my mother. Amongst your haul was one glove (why did you leave the other one?). My mum hand knitted those for me. When I ask her to knit me another pair she is going to ask what happened to this pair and I cannot tell her the truth because that would upset her. Yeah, I know it is not unusual for me to lie to my parents (they still do not know I was out of work for 18 months) but those are lies on my terms.

 

What are you going to do with the owner’s manual? Those things are useless to those of us who own the actual car so I can’t see what use you will get out of it.

 

Don’t think your taking the proof of insurance card and registration is going to cause me too much hardship because I had another insurance card in my desk and getting a replacement registration was a piece of cake (all done online and it cost just $6).

 

Didn’t you see the first aid kit? Yeah it mainly contained some plasters and out-of-date antacids, but there was one pill in there, a good one, I think, a Loritab, if I am remembering correctly. O. gave it to me a couple years ago after surgery and I have been meaning to take it sometime but just never got around to it. Do those things lose their efficacy? Maybe that is what I will do on Thanksgiving, because I have no other plans.

 

I hope you went to the casino next door and spent that $10 in quarters I always have on hand (just in case I ever find myself at a toll booth) because it certainly was your lucky night, wasn’t it? I mean, what are the odds that you do actually come across an unlocked car? How many handles did you try before you got to mine?  Yes, this whole thing is entirely my fault, I forgot to lock my car when I got home after a physically and emotionally tiring day, stood outside for five or so hours in the frigid (for Vegas, anyway) temperatures dealing with privileged white people bitching and moaning about having to pay an entrance fee to a work event that I was staffing.

 

But… maybe you should have avoided the casino because, as a matter of fact, you were not that lucky. Because I made a last-minute decision to take up to my apartment the heavy, bulky and unlocked cash box, inside which was a bank bag that contained the takings from that day’s event. That bag contained $970. Cash. OK, yes, it was in one of those bank-issued bags that have its own lock on it and is made of some super-tough material that I am sure cannot be cut by just any old household cutting tool but I am sure that somewhere there is a chop shop for those bags (and I would really like to go online and find out, but I don’t want that kind of search history on my computer!) So, yeah, you weren’t so lucky after all.

 

And in fact, I am the lucky one because, man, it could have been so much worse. Because you did not steal the car.  And I do not think any of the paperwork you stole (the insurance, registration and some receipts from the dealership when I got oil changes and new tires, etc.) contain any information useful in identity theft (but I could be wrong). All you took was possessions. No physical harm befell the car. Or me. Because there have been a couple of armed robberies in the apartment complex recently so it could have been a lot worse. It was just stuff. Stuff. I was lucky. So why do I feel so shitty then?

Fruit that looks like Cheese & Other Eating Adventures

 

This is what I ate and drank yesterday:

Breakfast, in the office, with co-workers:

• One Einstein’s sesame seed bagel with plain cream cheese
• One lemon curd iced pastry thingie from Costco
• One can Diet Coke

Lunch, at a Thai place near the office, with a co-worker:

• All the carrots, some of the lettuce, none of the tomatoes (tomatoes are yucky) from the tiny salad that came with my combo lunch
• Some of the soup
• All the chicken, all the potatoes and some of the onions from the yellow curry
• Some of the plain white rice
• All of the crisp fried thingies that came with the lunch (not exactly sure what these were – perhaps a wonton wrapper or something of that ilk?)
• A tiny green candy (apple flavored, I think, although it could have been lime) that came with the check
• Iced water

Afternoon snack, at my desk:

• The thin layer of chocolate fudgy topping that was on the brownie that one of the catering staff working an event in the same building gave me (he has a crush on one of my co-workers and he is always bringing in stuff for her. I have guilted him into including me on some of his giveaways but not all (although she did once end up giving me the stuff he gave to just her one time, so there)). I didn’t eat the brownie because it had nuts in it and I only like nuts when they are salted and eaten alongside a cold beer. Oh! Is that where the name beer nuts comes from? Talk amongst yourselves while I do some online research. (Doo-dee-doo-dee-do-dee-doo.) Nope, it is just a brand name that came about because the nuts were sold in bars. Where there is beer.
• Iced water

Dinner, at Del Frisco’s (yeah, you read that right – Del-fricking-Frisco’s!!!)

• Some grapes, a few cubes of cheese, a few small slices of a salami-like meat, one cracker, and one cube of a fruit that I thought was a cheese (I had more on my plate but once I realized it was fruit and not cheese I did not eat any more (fruit, yuck). (Grapes don’t count because they create wine so they are exalted.))
• Two prime rib BLT sliders with the L and the T taken off (because I already had my share of L at lunch and I hate Ts (see above))
• One grilled lamb chop lollipop thingie with béarnaise sauce
• One and a half Philly cheese steak egg rolls (sounds like it wouldn’t work, right? Wrong – these were orgasmic)
• The bread part of a tuna tartare bruschetta (only the bread because the topping had way too many tomatoes (see above times two) and well, I am sorry, if g*d had meant us to eat raw food he would never have invented fire)
• One green jelly bean
• Two glasses of white wine
• At least two glasses of red wine (I kind of lost count when I switched to red and the waiter was filling up as he went around the tables, there was no ordering of rounds involved)

So I hear you all ask, what is so extra special about yesterday’s food intake that I thought it merited a blog post? (Apart from the fact that there was a ton of it (excessive even for me) and now you all realize why I have 17 chins, high cholesterol and an ass that will soon need its own zip code should it get any bigger.) Well, for one, I have very little to write about these days, as previously stated.

Secondly, all the meals were just fun and not one was eaten alone which is rare in my lonely life. Breakfast was during our weekly staff meeting; lunch was with a co-worker; and dinner was at Del Frisco’s after another work meeting. I have never been there (because money). It was just my co-workers (because they are pretty much the only people I know in Vegas). Various apps were shared amongst the group and it was all very casual. Well, as casual as it gets in a place like Del Frisco’s (an aside: when I went to look up their menu, Google brought up Del Taco before it brought up Del Frisco’s. Getting dissed by Google is a very painful thing).

But most remarkable of all is that, apart from the Diet Coke, I did not pay for a single thing (breakfast provided by the company, lunch paid for by my co-worker (I had partially paid for her lunch on a previous occasion) and dinner, once again, on the company). Score! And I purchased that Diet Coke about two or three pay cycles ago so technically it does not count.

 

Filler II: The Nothingness Continues

My favorite genre of literature is murder mysteries. (My least favorite? Romances, because at my age and looking the way I do I have a better chance of being murdered than I do of being romanced). Two of my favorite authors were Elizabeth George and Harlan Coben. Their last three or so books have been hugely disappointing; they have run out of stories to tell. I think the same could be said of me. I mean, I never had that many stories in the first place, what with my life being so mind-numbingly boring anyway. What I am saying is, do you think it might be time to call it quits with this blog? Because I have been sat here for the last 30 minutes or so, trying to come up with something for this, my now once-a-month blog entry. And all I have done of note in the last month is change the filter in my Brita pitcher. I know, right? Stop the presses! How is one person able to handle such excitement?

But I will take having nothing to report over having bad news to report anytime…

Filler

Nothing to report, just doing this post so there is an entry for this month. But… it is not a bad thing that I have nothing to report because at least I don’t have any bad news to share. Because I still have my new job! This is a record. I kept the last part-time job longer, but this is the longest I’ve kept a full-time job since being laid off. And I hope one day I can say this is the longest I have kept any job EVER because I surely do love it. It is far from perfect – the software system is a bitch to learn, there is another chick there who has a bit of an alpha female attitude, there is a mandatory retirement fund to pay into – but all-in-all, I consider myself blessed to have found this job. It almost makes up for those months and months of unemployment misery. Almost.

Maybe this time…

Tomorrow I start a new job. The fifth since my layoff back in January 2014. Is this one going to be any different from the previous four? Oh, I hope so very much it will be. Because it has to be. Because I cannot take any more. If this one does not work out, I do not know what I will do. It will work out. It has to. As always, I will not be providing details just yet, but suffice it to say, this job checks off pretty much all the boxes on my dream job list. Location? A mile and a half/10 minutes’ drive away. Benefits? Out the wazoo. Pay? About the same as I was getting when I left the paper, but that was my pay grade after SIX years, this is my STARTING pay. The only downside so far is that it will involve attending some off-site events. That means driving. You all know what I am like when it comes to driving. But you know what, it is about time I grew a pair and got over those issues already. Although, at the interview, I emphasized my tree-hugging side, said how I am always cognizant of my carbon footprint and “Is there ever a time when car-pooling to these events takes place?” Ha!