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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

Perpetual Exhaustion

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It's nearly three am, and while I could use the excuse that I'm up this late solely to leave a wee-hours witticism in [em I am]'s OD, the truth is that I'm too tired to sleep.

Am I the only person who gets this way?

When I stumbled into the house at 10:00, after a long day at work (productive, but too long), I could easily have slept the night through, if I'd just gone directly to bed. But I didn't do that. Instead, I checked email, chatted with a couple friends, checked MUSH-mail, thought about RPing (decided I was too brain-dead to be coherent), made a late-late dinner and got wrapped up in watching The Patriot on DVD with Fuzzy, and now am sitting here after reading a chapter of a novel called Last Chance Saloon while in the bathroom. (Hey, at least I multi-task.)

And now I'm sitting here, babbling to an online journal that probably no one will read anyway, and wondering if I am, in fact, a note whore, or if I'm just in a deadly dull period.

(As I wrote that last paragraph, I suddenly flashed on the Doldrums section of The Phantom Tollbooth)

Things I accomplished today:
-Submitted two loans
-Submitted conditions on two other loans
-Ordered docs on three loans
-Called out an approval on the purchase loan for my own client
-Sent 17 appraisals to the borrowers who paid for them, as their loans have closed.
-Watched a movie we rented from Netflix.com over eight weeks ago.
-Learned that Zorro and Cleo are just as fond of lime tostitos as I am.
-Fed-ex'd the bank draft for the rental house in France to the homeowners, in England.
-Received the funding check on my very first loan origination.

Things I need to do tomorrow:
-Submit, submit, submit (Loans. Submit Loans.)
-Laundry. Especially as Fuzzy's leaving at dawn on Saturday, and is out of whites.
-Reserve a car for him in Toronto (I'm not sure why this is my job, but apparently, it is.)
-Cancel the dog sitter, and arrange, instead, for regular service where she walks both dogs during the afternoon 2x/week, since we're working insane hours and can't, always.
-Order the books my mother asked me to order two weeks ago. Not that there's a rush. She won't be here till July.
-Pick up the book I special-ordered at B&N (Thanks to for the recommendation)
-Mail a long overdue Book Group book to Editor Plus
-Set up a new server at the office, because the machine currently acting as server is dying a painful death.
-RP, if I get home early enough
-Send a birthday present to Moonness@OD
-Breathe

But I need to sleep in order to have the energy to do anything, and I should've slept last night, but was up till four because I was wired, even though I was exhausted. I've cut way back on caffeine, and I'm trying to avoid antihistamines, and still I'm not sleeping in hours that were normal for me.

Actually, this morning, both Fuzzy and I slept through the alarm, which is – pardon the pun – alarming, because that thing can be heard blocks away. Usually.

*sigh*

I think I'm back in the sleep zone. I'm going to go find out.

Sweet dreams? I'll let you know.

No Canada.

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Not for me anyway.

My workload is such that I'm not going tag along with when he leaves on Saturday after all. But it's not all bad, really. For one, I'll have a weekend to putter in the garden, which I've been meaning to do, and never gotten around to. So I can do things like clean the grill and the hot tub, and stuff.

And then, I'm still taking a summer vacation. A friend of Fuzzy's from college told us over the weekend that he's getting married July 5th in Minneapolis, and really, if I'm going to have vacation time, I'd rather miss work for a friend's wedding than a business trip. Besides, one of my dreams has been to spend a night at the Nicolette Island Inn, so maybe we'll get to do that, this time.

*sigh*

Work's insane. It's a good kind of insane. And I really like the guys I work with, but I sort of miss being able to MUSH in the afternoons, and I can't do much more than lurk right now, and I /hate/ lurking.

Oh, well.
Time to do a Good Faith Estimate for a guy in Southern California.

Sick. Blech. Ugh.

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So, the weekend began on an up-note. I got to leave work at a decent hour, and we went home, and had dinner, and then Fuzzy had to go back to work. Ugh. He so doesn't get paid what he deserves for this job.

Saturday we were lazy, staying in bed until the disgustingly indulgent hour of 4:00 PM. Then we showered and did some shopping. Fry's again, because Fuzzy's Vaio came down in price by $100, and because I'd promised to buy transfer paper for my mother, and DHL it to Baja Sur. Oh, fun. Then B&N for music and movies. Harry Potter, Hitchhiker's Guide, and The Mists of Avalon on DVD, and an Anita Baker cd for my stepfather. Every time I send them stuff I wonder if other people stretch the definition of 'documents' to include 'cd's' on their customs forms.

Sunday was lazy, too, though we did go out. I bough a pair of black and blue plaid pants last week, and after they were washed to remove the sizing, I realized they're as soft as my new purple pima cotton sheets, so today I bought two more pairs (well they were buy one, get one for half, so how could I resist?) in other colors. Then we drove to Blossom Hill so Fuzzy could look at Gateway laptops. I was not impressed by the clarity of the video at all. The Sony's may not have floppy drives, but the video is damned impressive. Somewhat ironically, we ended up answering questions for other shoppers. Frightening that even though neither of us has been a Gateway employee since 1998, we still know their products better than the sales folks. And we didn't even do notebook support!

But I felt queasy all day, and tonight, shortly after Fuzzy had to go into the office at 1 AM, queasy became actually sick. I'll spare any readers the details. I just emailed work and said I wasn't coming in. I'm thinking of not going to Toronto, but then I'm thinking, you know, I work more hours than any of them, I deserve it.

On the up-side, we did have a nice walk with the dogs this evening, and Cleo is doing wonderful recalls, even without food rewards. And we got to have a late lunch/early dinner at Willow Street, where King Raffi from Mix 106.5 was at the next table. The dogs enjoyed the leftover burger with melted gorgonzola that Fuzzy didn't finish, too.

So, it's 5:30, and I just whined to Fuzzy that I need something carbonated to settle my stomach – the only soda we generally have in the house is his noxious orange stuff, which glows in the dark. Well, it doesn't. But it should. (It also tastes like liquid pop rocks, and he drinks it warm. Ugh.)

I have to remember to call the kennel, reserve a car for Toronto, and tell the water folks to skip a cycle and just deliver bottled mineral water. And I need to try to sleep.

*sigh*

Sleeplessness and Pink Alien Parts

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It's just acouple minutes before two in the morning, and instead of sleeping, which my eyes are telling me I should be doing, I just finished downloading Trillian, because I'm really tired of having eight thousand different messaging icons and this way I only need one. Simple is good, and this seems to work, at least with ICQ and Yahoo! which are the two I use most frequently. At work, we're all on AIM, but all but one of us has a spiffy Nextel phone, so we use the radio features, like kids playing with walkie-talkies. We could use the intercoms built into the phone system, but that wouldn't be much fun.

* * * * *

This weekend we, well I, gave Cleo-dog a pink plush alien toy because we went out to buy stuff, and blatantly forgot to bring our barking bitch a new toy to keep her quiet. Tonight she decided that merely carrying around the now-disemboweled carcass of the thing wasn't enough, and she needed to play tug with it.

So I grabbed, and she started doing the Doggie Death Shake on her end, cuz, a pink plush alien is meant to be 'killed' over and over and over, after all. And then there was this hideous *rrrrrippppp* and the alien doll was missing a leg and an arm. I'm hoping the parts don't decide to spontaneously breed.

Oh, Olallieberry

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[HazeyDaze] posted an entry about Memorial Day that mentioned a co-worker's search for Olallieberry Pie, and it's made me think about how much that dessert has come to mean summer to me.

The first time I ever had it was in 1990, when Santa Cruz was just beginning to recover from the Loma Prieta quake. My friend Jen and I had joined my mother and her friend Diane for a chicks day at the beach, and we spent a lazy hour at an outdoor table chattering and eating pie, and drinking iced lattes.

Later, as Jen and I walked along in our USF t-shirts, one of the local homeless guys stopped us, not to beg for a handout, but to ask what USF stood for. Giddy from sugar and a summer day, we challenged him to make something up.

“Unique Short Females,” he suggested, and we giggled, more because the situation was amusing, than for any other reason. And because both Jen and I top out at five feet tall. “Up Standing Flirts,” he added, then shook his head, “Naah. It must be Union of Soap-bubble Fillers,” he decided, and because we appreciated the absurdity of that definition, we agreed. We chatted a bit, asked if he'd lost anything in the quake the previous fall, etc. And as we walked away, he called, “Tell Father Lo **** says hey.” He was referring to Father Lo Sciavo, of University of San Francisco, which is, of course, what the letters emblazoned on our t-shirts really meant.

Since then this uniquely northern California treat has become a sort of summer ritual. My favorite way to eat it is slightly warmer than room temperature, like a sun-ripened berry, and garnished with a scoop of coffee ice cream. Not vanilla. There's something about the creamy bitter-sweet-ness of coffee that makes the essence of olallieberry dance on the tongue.

We haven't been over the hill to Santa Cruz in a while, and the last time we were there we had the dogs, so didn't wander, didn't eat pie. Perhaps after the Toronto trip, if Fuzzy can break away from work long enough, we'll make our personal pilgrimage, and sit at the cafe near Bookshop Santa Cruz, and worship purple berries and cold ice cream on a hot summer's day.

Serendipity

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I am lucky, in that 95% of my time at work, the only folks who see me are the boys I work with. Okay, they're not boys, they're all my age or older, but they /act/ like boys much of the time, and they still dress like college students. In a sense, the guys I work with have become the older brothers I never had as a kid.

But I digress.

Much of the time, I come to work in comfortable clothes. I wear stretch-pants all too often, and baggy sweaters or t-shirts. This is all very ironic, because I love clothes, and actually have a closet full of really nice stuff, I just tend to prefer clothes I can sprawl in, at least at work.

Today, I chose to dress up a little. Not a lot, because our a/c at the office is iffy at best, and I don't like being hot, but definitely business casual. (For those who care, I'm wearing black, blue, and white plaid pants, black sandals, and a nice white cotton 3/4 sleeve top. And not golfer plaid. Nice jaunty plaid.)

And it's a good thing I dressed decently today. You see, CC, one of the guys I work with, whom I have described as 'adorable,' handed a client to me last week. A purchase loan he wasn't in the mood to deal with. We knew he'd double-dipped the app, and weren't holding our breaths that he'd return phone calls.

But he did. He called at three today and said, “Lock me! I'm coming tonight to sign stuff.” CC confirmed he didn't want the file back. So, I'll probably only make $500 for it, but that's $500 more than usual, and I don't care.

In other news, my allergies have triggered asthma reactions, so I've been kind of scarce online. The drugs make me grumpy, and groggy, and make my ankles and fingers swell. Ick!

But still, in general, life is good.

A (Year) Week in Provence

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Once upon a time, Xenobia picked up the book A Year in Provence because she loves to read about people adjusting to new places, and experience their adventures, albeit vicariously.

The book stuck with her, partly because she has a deep-seated restlessness brought on by being uprooted so many times in her childhood, and partly because, despite her tendency toward horrible shyness in groups, she's very curious, and has an adventurous spirit. And, admittedly, partly because it's hard not to think fondly of a book that goes into humorous detail about the proper method of finding truffles (um, the mushroom kind, not the chocolate kind).

Recently, she was talking to her ex-patriot parents, who currently reside in La Paz, BCS, Mexico, and they announced that they were planning to sell their almost-beachfront home, and move back North. “The corruption and the heat are bothering us. We miss California!” was their cry. “Don't make Christmas plans.”

“Well,” Xeni answered. “I'd been thinking that we should all go away for Christmas. To Europe.”

And so plans have begun for Xeni, Fuzzy, the Goddess of Loans, and Paco (as my stepfather is called in Mexico) to spend the week of Christmas in Provence – Languedoc. A quick search on Google netted this link for HomeFrance vacation rentals, and Xeni has already fallen in love with several houses, including The Tall House in St. Thibery, which rents for roughly $300 USD / week during the month of December.

The dogs won't get to come on this trip, but will spend their time bonding with the nice folks at Lincoln Avenue Veterinary Clinic. They'll likely get treats brought home, however.

Made This One Up!

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1. Name (in whatever form):
Xenobia (I still have this reluctance about using my real name on the net)

2. Your favorite time of day is…? Why?
The hour just before full dawn, on the rare occaisions I'm awake to see it. It's so full of peace and possibility.

3. You're about to be stranded on an island. You can only bring three things. What are they?
1) A book: Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Surviving on an Island
2) Some kind of butane lighter. I refuse to sit around rubbing sticks.
3) Fuzzy. Because being stranded alone would be horrible.

4. What's the last trip away from home that you took?
I haven't travelled much this year. I spent most of last summer in NYC though.

5. What's your dream vehicle?
Appolo's chariot…oh, um, seriously? I really miss the turquoise MG-B we had when I was a kid. It was fun.

6. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Um…I stopped the mental tally at 20.

7. What'd you have for breakfast?
What is this 'breakfast' you speak of?

8. You've had the day from hell. How do you relax after it?
Hot bath, good book, steaming coffee.

9. The name of your favorite drinking establishment that you now or used to haunt?
I've never been one for bars. Sorry, just not my scene. Too loud, too noisy, ick! And I hate places that have televisions. So my favorite hangout would be Mission City Coffee Roasting Company, when it was new and Boston and his family still owned it.

10. If you could take all of your friends somewhere for two hours and hang out, where would it be?
I don't think there is a single place that all my friends would like. Oh…that bookstore in Portland that's like a whole city block in size, and that I just forgot the name of. I'd go there.

11. The numbers in your street address/apartment number are…
479

12. If it were a cloudless, super sunny day, 75 degrees and no humidity outside, what would you be doing?
Filling out this survey? :) Um, we take the dogs to the beach a lot. Always an adventure.

13. Banquet or BBQ?
Banquet.

14. Favorite “pick me up” song(s)?
Sister Hazel or Smash Mouth both have the ablily to shake my mood. But then, so does the soundtrack from The Scarlet Pimpernel

15. Any vices?
Other than the net? Carbs. And cheese. I don't eat a lot of sweets, but bread, cheese, pasta…those are my comfort foods.

16. Any weird thing about you that you don't mind sharing?
It takes me a long, long time to warm up to people, even to people I achingly want to get to know. It's not rudeness, or disinterest, it's fear. It's a combination of having changed schools every two years for almost my entire life, and then moving enough times after that the pattern was set. After a while, you stop bothering to make friends.

17. Ever been on a hayride?
Never.

18. Ever swam in the ocean?
I learned to swim in the Atlantic, nearly drowned in the Pacific, and have splashed merrily around in the Gulf of California (formerly known as the Sea of Cortez).

19. Do you separate your laundry? IE whites, darks, etc?
Yes. The crucial part is keeping reds away from everything else.

20. Ever break a bone? If so, which one and when?
Never.

21. Anything that you do (or did) that might surprise people about you?
I spent two (separate) weeks studying Shakespeare in Ashland, OR.

22. Fir tree or palm tree?
Redwood and palm. I can see both from here.

23. Favorite weather?
Cool, rainy, with patches of 70-ish sunshine.

24. It's 8 am on a weekday. What are you doing?
Sleeping. My workday starts at ten, so I'm rarely up before nine.

25. Most expensive toy you ever bought yourself?
Cars and houses don't count as toys? My collection of computers, I suppose, or, because sometimes I do leave the keyboard, my collection of kitchen appliances.

26. What generation did you grow up in?
I refuse to call myself a Gen-Xer bercause I've never felt like one.

27. What's the best driving music?
We seem to play a lot of soundtracks and pop. But it depends on the mood.

28. Star Wars or Star Trek?
Trek, please. I am so not a Star Wars fan.

29. Do you want children?
Sometimes. More often than not, these days.

30. The last person you said “I love you,” to?
Fuzzy.

31. Your favorite 'out on the town' outfit?
Summer: A white bluse with a ruffled neckling and a pale silvery straight skirt with silver, grey, and lavender paisley
Winter: Cream colored sweater and chocolate velvet pants, and my black heels with the gold trim.

32. Your favorite 'indulge myself' shower/bath accessory?
Essential Elements makes rosemary and peppermint bath gel, shampoo, conditioner, soap. It's like $12/bottle, but I love it and it makes me happy.

33. The last professional sports event you went to?
Does figure skating count? But then, that was just an exhibition. I'm really not a sports fan.

34. Ever been to a Broadway show?
Yes both on Broadway (thank got for standing in line at the TKTS booth), and elsewhere.

35. Are you a survey slut?
I am a Survey Goddess. :)