New license, new plates, and a sucker stuck to my ass

It's official. I am a Minnesota resident. I made a trip to the DMV today to take the driver's test and get my Minnesota plates. I was actually surprised at how much nicer the DMV at Chicago and Lake is than the DMV that I went to in Illinois. Well done, Minnesota. The DMV I went to in Illinois was truly hellish. It was in a seedy strip mall and it smelled like cheap plastic chairs and body odor.

Unlike in Illinois, the DMV attendant let me approve my picture before she submitted it although I wasn't picky. I've been told that my Illinois license photo makes me look like an asian man with a black eye. Anything is an improvement over that.
I accepted the first one she took.

I stopped at a mechanic on the way home from my adventure at the DMV to get a long-overdue oil change and get my new plates put on the car. The mechanic put his hand on my shoulder as he was giving me the keys back and politely told me, "Umm....you have a sucker stuck to your ass". We all had a good laugh and they comped me a few bucks off the bill. I love Minneapolis.

Looks like I'm sticking it out here for the long haul.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

So it's set. The theme this year for our haunted house room is "Haunted Forest". It may not be as conventionally scary as our vampire room last year or the zombie room the year before, but I'm super excited. Each year we do it, we try to break the record set the previous year for the number of people we make cry going through our room. Now it's time for me to think of how I'm going to interpret the theme for my character....should I be a haunted tree? A witch? I was also thinking of being someone who was hanged...now THAT would be pretty scary, if I could pull it off without actually hanging myself.

Decisions, decisions.

If any of you are interested in participating this year, let me know and I'll give you the details.

It's really fun...and this is coming from someone who personally hates getting scared.

Plant euthanasia

About two years ago, my grandma dug out an offshoot of one of her many aloe plants when I went down to Florida to surprise her for her 90th birthday. She insisted I take it home with me because she found out that I didn't have any plants in my apartment. She wrapped it up in a piece of newspaper and told me to hide it in my suitcase. The aloe plant survived for four days wrapped up in a piece of newspaper and smashed in the bottom of my suitcase.

At it's peak, my aloe plant reproduced and made four more aloe seedlings in the pot but lately it has been looking pretty sad. The original aloe that my grandma gave me mysteriously became dislodged from it's root base and died. Then the babies began to slowly but surely lose steam. I didn't want to throw out the plant because it was a gift from my grandma so I kept trying to care for it hoping it would one day spring back.

Today, I came home from work to find that my cats had moved their scratching post over right next to the pot and ate each and every remaining seedling. At least the poor plant is out of its misery now.

I'm actually pretty surprised it lasted this long to begin with. The lighting in my apartment sucks.

Meow

It dawned on me that I haven't taken any pictures since my Peru trip. So how could I resist documenting this cute moment?

Brace yourself

I saw the most amazing thing driving home from work just now---- an albino squirrel!! At first I thought it was a weird looking cat, but then I realized that it was indeed a squirrel. It wasn't just light grey, it was freaking snow white!

My life feels just a little bit more complete now.

I has skillz

So after the rest of you bailed on Musical Bingo, Aaron and I went anyway. After sitting through an 8 hour conference on Social Security benefits I needed a drink. Bingo wasn't quite cutting it last night so we ended up playing Scrabble. I won albeit it was a VERY close game and we ended up pretty much combining our efforts at the tail end. My retribution was served, however, when it later came out that I have no drawing skills whatsoever. I love to paint, but I'm limited to abstract. I cannot recreate objects or figures for the life of me. I can draw a great triangle, a pretty good square, and an adequate hexagon but I seem to lose it when I advance to the octagon.
Stars? Forget it.

I found a great tool online: (thanks to akidsheart.com)


It's pretty hard to read, but if you look closely you can see rows of very amusing dotted-lined shapes that you trace. Once you feel comfortable enough, you can move on to drawing them free-form.
It's pretty intense.

I think I'm going to print it off and spend some time practicing with my box of crayons. If I do well enough on this worksheet, maybe I'll get to advance to rhombuses and trapezoids.

"Sick Time" Addendum

I spoke to my client today. The hospital told her she had gas cramps.

So I guess she wanted her sick time

Today started off on the wrong foot. I arrived at work way early (7:00!) because I had a ton of stuff to do before my 8:30 meeting with a new client only to realize that I left my new security code on my desk and had no way of getting into my new office until someone else showed up.

Later in the day I was paged because another one of my clients was in the nurse's office complaining of chest pains. Now I know, chest pains are a potentially serious issue and I respect anyone who feels that they may be having a heart attack; however, this woman has an extensive history of attention-seeking behavior and, generally, one must take everything she says or does with a grain of salt. The nurse checked her vitals and everything was FINE. She went to take off her sweater and a boat-load of candy fell out of her pockets and spilled all over the floor. The nurse and I started to question the candy and her story started to change. Over the course of our ten minute consultation, my client's story changed in whatever way was necessary to deem her "officially sick" and allow her to leave early. I told her that she didn't have enough accrued sick time to use if she left early, but I couldn't prevent her from going home; she would just have to take unpaid time off if she was feeling sick.

My client left the nurse's office to call home for a ride because she wanted to leave. Ten minutes later I got paged because my client had called 911 instead of calling her guardian. An ambulance was rounding the corner to pick her up. My client gathered up her belongings and practically skipped out to greet the paramedics. Her parents are going to be thrilled when they get the bill for her $4000 ride home.

One of these things is not like the other...

Guerrilla Reorganization Tactics

So I'm trying to use this new job of mine as a turning point in my living habits. Along with "Business Lesley" comes "Reorganization Lesley". I recently helped out at a yard sale and loaded up on a bunch of items that I've been meaning to purchase for my living quarters for quite some time. Among other things I got a small table, some additional seating, and some cute storage thingies to put random crap in. I am also in the beginning stages of building some funky shelves in my bedroom using antique ammunition boxes that were given to me. Unfortunately, my body is still adapting to the dazed feeling I have returning home from work after 8 hours of listening to my clients discuss their paranoias or their bodily functions, mediating conflicts, and attending meetings. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I love my clients, but my body has to kick into overdrive in to return to a feeling of coherance at the end of the day.

Needless to say, my apartment is a total war zone right now and I feel a bit like I'm in a catch 22. I find it a bit redundant to clean when I know I'm going to be moving the shit around right away, but I have no place to do my arranging because my apartment is too cluttered. Once my guerilla reorganization tactics make my plans come to fruition, however, my apartment is going to be freaking sweet.