Because I'd call to tell you that Cliff and I got engaged last night!

I've been up in Portland on another of my monthly trips for work, and when I got in on Wednesday I had a very fun game night at Adam/Natalie's place, catching up with my high school friends and their p-town news and playing Boomtown. On Tuesday, Patrick had IM'd to say that he and Jen had an extra ticket to this 6-course charity dinner at DOC in Portland on Thursday, and if I was in town maybe I'd like to go??? And of course my answer was "HECK YES I LUV FREE FANCY DINNER!" So I'd packed a slinky shirt, but then Portland was super freezing because it's December and Oregon has real weather, and Thursday I just ended up wearing jeans and a nice work shirt+sweater combo, with some jewelry to make it look like I was trying, because I know those law-type-charity dinner things have got to be fancy! Patrick picked me up after work around 6:30, and then we grabbed Jen from downtown and headed to the restaurant. We get there, it all looks super quiet, and we walk into the tiny restaurant and are standing in the middle of their kitchen, and one of the guys ask Patrick and Jen if they have a reservation. And they kind of stand there, and I look around, and I see Cliff in a suit walking up to me and I say "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE???"

At which point he says "I'm proposing to you!" and gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him.

At this point, my head is really just blinking in loud red letters "DOES NOT COMPUTE". I'm double-taking at Cliff, because he's supposed to be in SF, not in Portland, not right next to me looking all fine, not smiling at me from one knee on the floor, looking at Patrick and Jen, and at the guys in the kitchen like hopefully one of them will tell me soon what's going on, and just all around feeling like I wanted to cry and hyperventilate quietly somewhere, because I totally was floored.

5 minutes later, I think I said "Of course I'll marry you" and took the ring and put it on. It might have been 20 minutes later. And hugs were exchanged all around and P&J left with the super-spy-smiles they totally deserve, and Cliff and I sat down to the nicest 6-course meal I've ever had.

*EDIT* Apologies for the technical difficulties, I don't have the right permissions to share the youtube video, so you have to log into a youtube account to watch. Which I do appreciate for my future public office runs, but lessens the "let's all laugh at me together" fun. *

Note the differing strategies here: chipmunk, standard, and cheater.

This is now the 2nd time I've gotten into an eating contest and realized it was about speed, not quantity. Oh, and no hands. Fail!

First reaction: of course not! But I get pretty confused when thinking about politics, and then it almost starts to seem like it is.

One thing that I've learned up from spending too much time on the internet is that people really like to complain about money. The rich complain that they pay all the taxes. The poor complain that the rich have all the money. If both claims are true, what are we arguing about again? Of course the tax line with which we force income re-distribution is going to be perceived as unfair if you're on the wrong end of it, just like it's much easier to agree with Robin Hood if you're not the one being stolen from. Shouldn't there be some line that everyone can agree on?

In my ideal mathematical world, there exists a solution to the system of equations describing how government should be paid for, what it would span, and who it covered. But this world is far from ideal, and no one can say what is Fair. Arguing politics seems pretty useless to me because people simply feel differently, and there is no right answer in feelings, unlike in math. Even considering the salaries politicians get, I'm extremely glad I don't have to do it for a living.

Big version can be seen here.

Short version: Iraq war is top right in purple. Current Bailout is soft yellow in larger yellow. Pretty equal boxes.

Billion Dollar Comparison

No comments on Adam's career because I too have been questioning a career change, except I'm thinking about nursing. I figure if my job occasionally is going to make me cry I might as well at least get a deeper satisfaction from it. Not that my job really makes me cry...I just don't seem to have the motivation and/or drive. I love the perks of my job, and it's hard to argue with staying with something that enables my life, which I adore, but when I meet with my boss and talk about my 5-year goals at the company, I'm pretty hard pressed to come up with any. I'm definitely stagnating here.

I can start nursing pre-reqs at the local community college pretty cheaply. If none of my college courses count, then I need 34 units at $26 a pop = $900 total. After two years of CC classes, depending on scheduling, I'll be ready to start coughing up nursing tuition for 7 semesters, $2000 per (not sure, think it's a semester) at SFSU, assuming the state finances improve and SFSU resumes having classes. So, current estimated outlay is $15000, which is underestimating because the total with books and fees is more than I want to think about now.

But how much is it worth to me? Paying money to take a salary cut...I'm ok with that. Working towards another career that I may or may not love...how to know? I think I need some volunteer experience in a hospital anyways - maybe that's a good way to find out while getting another pre-req out of the way. I've also been thinking that if I end up having kids, I could start school afterwards, maybe once they're in school. It would certainly be easier to have the corporate benefits while popping tykes out than try to fund it on my own. But then that's pushing it out 5+ years...back to that 5-year plan again!

After pimping the laser girl so much last night at game night I feel obligated to write in and say she was grumpy today when I saw her, and it made our 10-minute appointment much less fun then the last time.

But I guess I'm not really paying for pleasant company :)

I also realized that the one I'm going to seems to have an older-looking laser...possibly the newer and more expensive places have better cooling/pain managing lasers? No idea. But the process is awesome!

To summarize my last post, we took a photo.


Couch


















At some point in the night, C's sister picked the lock - apparently it wasn't much of a safe.


Inside


















Hmph. Looks like beading supplies. Still room for drugs though.

(As Riad pointed out, the simplest explanation is that some kid in the building was playing spy. But that's such a let down, I refuse to believe it, even though that's exactly the kind of thing I would have done when I was a kid.)

Involving some movers and a loveseat. It involves some build-up though, so be patient. It's possibly been the most exciting story I've been able to tell for a year.

On Thursday the big move went smoothly, and now I've got mostly everything put away. Probably one of the least-stressed moves ever: I had two weeks to pack up, so C and I were just leisurely taking carloads over, though it's easy to call it leisurely now that all the heaving and sweating is over. I knew I was going to get a coffee table and end table from IKEA. (Yes, I know they're evil, but still super cheap for small stuff if you go in the exit and avoid the window shopping.) The couches we got from C's sister, where they've been languishing for at least 5 months in her apt. building lobby because they don't fit in the door to her place. Because they were on the first floor, moving them was a quick double-park and grab job for the movers.

We all get to our apt, and the movers start unloading the couch. It gets all the way in the apartment, a little dirtier for the trip from the truck, and we call it good. But the loveseat, on closer inspection, had a decent sized L-shaped tear in the back of it. The mover pointed it out to C on the way in, so they peeked inside. Inside the loveseat was a suitcase-shaped, locked safe.

This is the point in the movie where Javier Bardem walks in with a shotgun.

We of course started imagining the scenarios. Best case, $50-500 of cash, I figure, not anything worth killing someone over. Maybe someone in the apartment building wanted to stash their hidden money from the family tyrant. Worst case, drugs. The case has been used as a drop for some dealer, and there is some very expensive powder in there because it's way too small to be a worthwhile amount of pot. We're either dead or robbed at gunpoint soon. Middle case, a bomb, we all get some amount of disfigurement but at least live to tell the story of the SF apartment bomber, trying to return housing prices to sane levels. There's some stretchy plastic material coming out of the edge, which of course I pull without thinking. Nothing explodes. Maybe not a bomb.

When shaken, the safe rattles a bit, in a plastic way. C's sister knows nothing about said safe, and swears it wasn't there in March when she moved said loveseat down to the lobby.

What do you do?

The movers are coming tomorrow to get my bed, desk, filing cabinet, and torchiere. I know I could have gotten a U-haul and some day laborers for much less $, but this was easy and fast, and I am willing to pay to not move my bed down 3 flights of stairs ever again. I'll probably pile the shoe rack, silverware, orchids and remaining bits in my car for one last load over to C's. 4 carloads later, and $250 minimum for the movers to take the furniture, two heavy boxes, and grab couches from C's sister, and I will be formally living in sin. (Formally means I'll have an actual dining table, there will be a real tv that doesn't live in the closet, and there will be a guest room/office.)

It's going to be awesome. I'm going to miss my place after 2 happy years saving a decent amount of money and ridiculously cheap rent for SF, but I can't wait for the ability to run around naked, to not need to lie on the tile floor on hot days, and to leave dishes in the sink and/or the dishwasher. A dishwasher! I also am curious how C and I co-habitate, but honestly I don't think there are going to be any surprises there. He's amazing.

In case you haven't seen it, this guy really makes me wish I had a cat.

For the 3 people I know who might actually want to read the whole 9 pages about the history of graphics cards.

In other news, I'll be back in Portland in two weeks, from Monday thru Wednesday this time though. See you guys!

I miss the comics.

*cough cough*

Have you guys ever had mono? What does it feel like?

I've been sleeping 10 hours and waking up tired, which is really unusual for me. And I've been napping a lot more. But the only other symptom is a mild sore throat. No fever to speak of, and lymph nodes feel large but not swollen. And my appetite is steady, as always.

Watching the occasional House only fuels the hypochondria...it's African Sleeping Sickness that I got while cheating on my husband with a neighbor!

Today I wrote an email and then carefully went back and took out the words "omg", "totally", and "awesome".

Baby steps.

Short for Car Service Announcement, instead of the Community Supported Agriculture I'm usually raving about.

If the ebrake light and your battery light come on at the same time, the internet thinks you should already know that your car alternator is shot and your battery is going to subsequently die on you at some point in the near future.

Thursday I was driving an hour down to work to catch a flight up to Portland when all the warning lights in my car flickered on and off, twice. This plus a whine that had been going on for 2 weeks caused me to worry, but I got to the airport fine and flew away, and it was only on the drive home Friday that I started noticing my car really acting funny. On the offramp to my house, also after an hour of driving, my radio started to fade (also an obvious sign of impeding battery failure) to off, and then all of a sudden the brake light and battery light were on and my car was not responding to the gas pedal - lucky for me it was rush hour traffic and the lane was creeping at 5 mph anyways. So I put my emergency blinkers on and limped home for a grueling 10 minutes at 2 mph - the engine would skip a lot so i would have to tap the gas and wait for it to engage before slowly keeping my foot on the gas and crossing my fingers that the gas would keep working. Lucky I made it home, lucky it lasted as long as I did, and lucky I have AAA to tow it to my favorite garage for repair (thanks Car Talk!). I'm incredibly lucky. I keep thinking about what would have happened if it had died any earlier on 101N in the mist at 80mph...whew!