Tyler's Birthday

You know what I love?

Birthdays.

Not just my birthday. And not even for the gifts. I prefer two things: 1) a ton of friends to accompany me to a restaurant (Dave & Buster's is a recent fave.) and 2) some sort of lunch/dinner meal with family and pie.

Angel food cake is also perfectly acceptable.

I have the added benefit of my birthday being on or almost on Thanksgiving, and if you know me at all, you know this is pretty much my own personal heaven. Because FOOD.

Anyway, I love birthdays in general. They're like their own holiday. The sprinkles, the sparkles, the mood, CAKE. Can I get a woop woop for some neatly or not so neatly wrapped gifts? Y A Y !

Maybe you think birthdays are childish. To you, I say stop harshing my mellow. If your heart doesn't sing at a chance to celebrate life, maybe you should find your inner child and realize that birthdays are for everybody!

So, my good friend Tyler turned 21 on Monday. Woo! *fist pump* His ID was expired, so we spent most of the day trying to renew it. Such a long story. We ended up not getting it renewed, but AS IT TURNS OUT, only 1 of the 3 places we went even looked at the expiration date. (They wouldn't accept his birth certificate. I asked.)

The grainiest photo in all the land.

We went to Cheesecake Factory, his restaurant of choice. Others may hold different opinions, but I think this place is the bomb. (It should be noted that I exclusively order pasta here.) We get the oh-so-delicious guacamole and some surprisingly stellar mojitos for which they didn't even ID us. I'll forgive them for it, though, because first of all, I don't want to look like a minor. Second, our server was the best server probably ever.

My blueberry mojito. *swoon*

He also had an Asian pear martini which he says is awesome but I'm just going to take his word for it. And OF COURSE we got cheesecake, which is arguably the best part of the whole thing.

We met one of his sisters at Edna's, which we learned is totally in a weird and awkward place. The walls and ceiling and basically the whole inside is covered in dollar bills. Some new, many very old and gross, but apparently the fun is to find your last dollar each time you go. Tyler and I decided we prefer to spend our dollars instead of staple them to the walls, but in honor of his birthday and experiencing something new, he put a dollar on the wall.

We didn't stay here long. We followed up with a visit to Henry Hudson's for the free t-shirt, but this dude was definitely doing his job and saw that Tyler's ID was expired, so that was a short-lived experience. The guy was "killing our vibes" anyway, as Tyler put it, and we only went there for the free t-shirt, so we couldn't be mad, really.

Watch out, World, this crazy is totally legal and now has access to all your favorite hang-outs. Unless your favorite hang-outs are places like Dave & Buster's, in which case, all of us have always been allowed in there and we've probably had a blast together already.

I am Susie Homemaker

When I'm laying -- lying... whatever -- in bed at night, I just shut my eyes and think. I'm not that tired, but then I get a text. Suddenly, I'm the most exhausted I've ever been, and simply opening my eyes would use up the very last fumes of energy I have. It's not about the time, it's not about who. It's the fact that my brain decided to sleep already. Sorry, I don't call the shots. Brain does. So I lie, eyes closed, havin' a good ol' back 'n' forth with my brain to decide of it would be worth it to just wait and open the text in the morning, when my eyes don't weigh a zillion pounds and my arms aren't so perfectly snuggled under the warm covers. Last night, that happens. I answered the text, except then I had to get up and pee, and my scalp was throbbing because my hair has been in a bun all week, and I could taste toothpaste in my mouth, which was surprisingly unpleasant.

And really, I'm not lying in bed, I'm lying on the couch. Because that's where we've been sleeping lately. We have a mission today to go to my parents' house and retrieve our bed and dresser. The bed we have been using was left by the previous homeowners (we're tenants here, not owners) and let me tell you about this bed. IT'S HORRIBLE. The box spring is broken and the mattress has to be the first mattress ever made. It finally got to the point where I couldn't move my neck even to drive, and the couch looked preeeeetty comfortable. So here we are, today, finally getting our big, awesome bed from my parents' garage.

To make room for this, though, I've spent the last three days fighting in the cleaning war I waged on this house. It was overdue for a good cleaning anyway.

I won't go into all the gruesome details, but just know that I am amazing and I should have been a stay-at-home wife much sooner. My brilliant plan is to make myself invaluable as Susie Homemaker so Justin will see I am much better off here than at any 9 to 5.

That probably means it's time I got on the cooking train.

...Hahahahahahahaha I'm not getting on the cooking train. I'm Susie Homemaker, not Betty Crocker. Let's just be honest with ourselves. If I get on the cooking train, all my loved ones need to host an intervention, because I'll either like cooking suddenly and the real Reghan has been abducted by aliens, OR I'll weigh 400 pounds and everyone else will starve because I have a habit of eating all the food as it cooks.

So... what's the best way to clean a mattress?

On Food: Panera Pickup

I am not a spokeswoman for Applebees or anything, so I don't know this for sure, but I'm pretty positive that their secret ingredient in everything is jalapenos. I'm pretty sure it's a fact. I don't mind a little bit of heat every now and then, but I hate jalapenos. They're hot, sure, but they don't even taste good.

Justin (husband) thinks that Cracker Barrel's secret ingredient is brown sugar. I have no idea why this thought would be repulsive in any way. I love the Barrel. Used to work there, even! If their secret ingredient is brown sugar, then I must love brown sugar even more than I thought I did.

Justin is super sick right now, and for lunch I went to Chick-fil-A to get him some chicken noodle soup. Their chicken noodle soup is second to none. I love soup, so I got myself a bowl as well. It was amazing and delicious, so when he wanted more for dinner, I was all about it. Turns out, they were out of soup. WORST DAY EVER. It was probably a couple of jerks who ate it all for lunch! So, instead, I decided to go to Panera for soup. Problem was, I had my dog with me. He loves car rides, whatever. He was there. I didn't want to leave him in the car, so I called in the order on my way to drop him off at home so I could just run back and pick up the food. The timing would be about perfect. Problem is, I didn't want to search for the number while I drove, so I did the ol' 411. She mentioned a few locations, and I thought I recognized all but one, and I knew they weren't right, so I went with the one I didn't recognize, assuming it was the one I wanted. I put in my order, all was good.

They close at 9pm, so I made it back to Panera in time to pick up my order. They didn't have an order keyed in for me. Some guy from the back came over and was all "GAHH!" and threw a "Sorry about that, ma'am," over his shoulder as he went back to work. LUCKILY I was making my order all over again, because this time I got the very last apple crunch muffin which is straight from Heaven. They didn't have sweet tea, but NO BIG DEAL because I recently made the difficult decision to drink unsweetened tea if I'm going to drink tea, and they have unsweetened açaí berry tea that I'm sure is also straight from Heaven. Even more so than Texadelphia's raspberry hibiscus tea with lime.

SO. As I waited, I sat down next to a poster that advertised their autumn squash soup, and I kicked myself for not having seen it sooner. I watched a chick mop the floor, which turned out not to be a total waste, because the mop itself actually broke off the handle mid-sweep, which is probably the most exciting thing to happen there since that one time when a chick walked in to pick up a to-go order that hadn't even been keyed in. Crazy day! I got my food and was able to walk out of there pretty much right at 9pm. I don't even get out of the parking lot before I get a call from... you guessed it, Panera!

"You placed a to-go order with us. We close in two minutes. Will you be picking up your order?" When she asks this, I wonder if this girl was hidden behind all the baked goods somewhere and just missed the whole thing. I explained that the order wasn't keyed in, they made me a new one, I just left with it. She starts to ask me another question, and it hits me: I called the wrong location.

"I am so sorry. It's totally my fault, I called the wrong location, which explains why they didn't have it keyed in," I said.
She replies, "No, I think you called the right location, you just picked it up at the wrong place."

...What? No. Hold up. First of all, this is absolutely a 6's scenario. I'm all, "It's 6!" And she's all, "Actually, it's a half dozen." Second of all, screw the 6's scenario! I'm totally right! I knew exactly where I'd pick it up, I just called the wrong place!

Then she says, "Did you pick it up at the one off of 40?" Yes. "By the steakhouse and the Petsmart?" Yes, that's where I went. "Strange," she says, and we end the call.

I then realize that both of the locations in question are off of 40 and are by a steakhouse and a Petsmart. Freeeeaky. She probably thinks I'm the dumbest customer alive. Maybe I am, but at least I got my apple crunch muffin and at least I got to see a chick lose half her mop and at least I got to discover the wonders of new exotic teas - however short-lived, because I drank half of it and spilled the rest as I pulled it out of the fridge for a "midnight snack" of sorts. No caffeine this late, I suppose.

Cats & Interviews

Imma give you a little insight into the psyche of a cat. "Hey, I'm a cat. I'm gonna pee on this plant here until it's dead, then I'm gonna wait until 11:30 at night and start loudly eating one of the dead leaves of the pee pee plant. I'm going to also climb on you while you're trying to sleep and take my shank-like paw and step right on your boob with all my weight. I'll be standing just like that for at least five minutes, kneading you and rubbing my fang into your face and tickling your nose with my whiskers while you try to sleep."

Honestly, cats are freakin' weirdos, man.

You know what else is weird? The job interview I went to yesterday. I found the opening through a post on Craigslist. In my experience, if they don't include their company name (first red flag) or any contact information other than the jumbled email address they were assigned by Craigslist (second red flag), then they probably aren't a real company and I honestly have no idea why they waste people's time with bogus ads for entry-level admin positions. Anyway, this particular ad actually had a company AND a street name (Bonus!), so I sent my resume.

After Googling them to make sure they actually existed, of course. You can never be too sure with that Craigslist.

So, I get an email back the next morning from the manager requesting that I come in for an interview. I am not getting awesome vibes (though not bad ones, either) but I think of all the unemployed people out there wishing they could even get an interview some place, and I decide it's better for me not to make decisions before I even meet these people.

I drive my fancy little booty up there. It was much farther than I thought. In non-rush hour, it took me 35 minutes to get there. This, my people, is a long time to drive to work. Still a good 10-12 minutes away, all I could think of was WHY AM I STILL DRIVING seriouslyIcannotdothiseveryday. It would take me a solid hour to make that drive in 5 o'clock traffic! And I don't have AC or a heater, people! These are things I must consider!

Aaaaaaanyway, I pull in, relieved I'm there early so I can use the restroom before my interview. It did take me nearly all day to get there, after all. I notice the hours on the door are 8:30am to 5:30pm. You should be caught up with me by this point, so it won't surprise you that I'm a TAD concerned about how many minutes I'll have each day between getting home and going to bed. I brush it off for now, and walk in. There are a few people in the waiting room, and the TV is way too loud for the setting. I walk up to the window. The woman there looked a little older than middle-aged. She was on the phone, so I waited. Without looking up, she scooted the clipboard with the patient sign-in sheet on it over to me. I put my name down and wrote INTERVIEW where the doctor's name would have gone if I were here as a patient. I took a seat. She soon hung up the phone, so I approached her and asked her where the bathroom was, and followed her instructions. When I came back out, she handed me paperwork to fill out. An Application for Employment. Naturally. The only part about this that made me angry is that it took me 20 minutes to fill out this sheet OF INFORMATION THEY KNOW THEY ALREADY HAVE. I don't care if this is normal, it's stupid. Can you just attach the resume to the back of this instead of have me fill out my employment history AGAIN? Because, you know, I've already taken the time to do this beforehand and send it to you all nice and pretty. No. No, they can't, and it was a huge waste of time, because the manager took me back and had my resume sitting on her desk, not my application. She seemed friendly. She had me sit in the seat across from her desk, and as she took her seat behind her desk, she asked me what made me want a job in this industry.

...I need a job. That's what. I didn't seek them out and high five all my friends when I scored an interview. It goes something like this: Need job. Search for job. Apply for job. Interview for job. Get hired. Let's skip the part where I tell you how awesome your chosen industry is and how I want what the company wants, blah blah blah. Instead, I'll tell you how I will be the best administrative assistant you have ever had, and that does not make me feel like I'm being phony or sucking up.

Of course, I didn't say any of this.

During the course of the interview, I am relaxed, personable, professional... probably the best I'll ever interview in my life, and I don't even want the job. It's not a good fit for me at all. At one point, the girl who would be training me, a student who was about to leave for some school opportunity, came in. She couldn't have been more than a year or so older than me, but her voice is really what gave away her youth. She asked if I had any experience doing admin work. Ha! She obviously hasn't seen my resume, and when I tell her of the near decade of experience I have in administrative work, she assures me that every place is different and all but says how hard administrative work is. What? If it's as hard as she's making it sound, I want to know two things: 1) what in the heck they aren't telling me about this position, and 2) why they aren't offering a higher wage to do it.

My mom told me not to sell myself short.
"Anyone with a personality at all can be taught to do admin work," I said.
"You have to remember you started at a very young age doing this," she told me.

The manager comes back in and asks if the other girl answered all my questions. I am so confused by this, I can't even tell you. Are none of you people listening to me? I'm actually over-qualified for this job! I don't have questions about how to be an admin assistant. I know what the job entails, and, in fact, I'd be doing so little there, I could do it in my sleep. I asked the other girl questions for which I wouldn't need answers until after I started work, only because she seemed concerned by the fact that I didn't have any questions!

Bottom line, I have no idea what to think. I mean, between the stone lady up at the front desk, the manager who asked me questions and cut me off mid-answer to justify why she asked them, the college chick who apparently landed herself in the hardest admin role known to man, and the sheer distance... A job is a job, I know. But at what point do you have to admit that it's just not a good fit? If I were supposed to have this job, I would at least feel peace about it.

I don't feel peace about it. Instead, I feel like I'd rather be home, getting stepped on by my cat and replacing the live dead plants with fake ones.