I managed several hours at my cousin's house for Thanksgiving. Actually managed longer than my parents did, but that's because I was watching a movie and wanted to see the end of it. Only got pissed off... twice, which is probably a record for my family gatherings. And one wasn't even pissed, it was just mildly irritated at Brad's aunt for being a moron. (Brad's my cousin's husband.) My aunt, however, was a bitch. She was complaining about how disorganized everything was and she shouldn't even bother to come. So I tried to joke it off about how she'd better never come if I got my own house and hosted the holidays, because it'd be chaos; I'm not organized on the average day, let alone a holiday. And she made some snide comment about how I'd never invite anyone, anyway. Seriously, WTF? I'm antisocial, my family knows that, but fuck, I'd invite family over. I may have to do it in small doses, but hell, she's hosted a holiday gathering ONCE in the past six years since I've moved here. It's mostly been my mom and my aunt Elaine. Okay, I probably won't live around here by the time I can afford a house, but that's not the issue here. Not that Aunt Sharon being bitchy is anything new, but it's been a while since it was directed specifically at me.

Oh right, I'm supposed to be thankful today. So why does my family make it so bloody hard?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Oh, I've watched Howl's Moving Castle twice since I got it Tuesday, and I still think it's adorable. I also watched Sense & Sensibility today, and reminded myself that I'm a total sap for Jane Austen films. Also, that I really, really love Alan Rickman. The man is amazing.

I have to bring a book for work tomorrow. I work outside, and the only people who check out outside are the ones who buy Christmas trees or a few brave souls trying to escape lines inside. Not that Lowe's lines are terrible. We're not exactly a Black Friday hot-spot. Still, it is busier than usual, but I'll be outside starting at six in the morning. Might as well bring a book.

Stolen from a Relly, and amusing me greatly, but that may be because my Ny-Quil's kicking in.

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
* Ann Lee

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
* Walter Wayne

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)
* Maaime

4.DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
* Orange Otter

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live)
* Nicole Homestead

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add "THE" to the beginning)
* The Purple Screwdriver

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
* Aine

8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
* Chocolate Chip

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
* Sadie Johnson-Iowa

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
* Sanya (I grew up on too many streets to remember one in particular. HEY, I'm the Madonna of porn!)

I think these strike me as funny because most of them just DON'T WORK. Though Walter Wayne would be a hilariously horrible Nascar name.

I really hate my job.

So, I'm coming down with a cold or flu or something. My voice is hoarse, I'm hacking up a lung, blowing my nose, obviously sick. So what do they have me do at work but wash windows and mop the exit foyer where the doors are constantly opening and blasting me with twenty degree air. Yeah, that's bright.

Also, I am really getting sick of one of my coworkers. Julie was okay when I only had to work with her an hour or two a day and didn't have to hear her much. But she's a know-it-all and has opinions about every damn thing in the book, most of which she's absolutely wrong on. And she gets bitchy if you try to contradict her and pulls her 'how many years of experience at such and such' card, which doesn't impress me much when it replaces common sense.

So today she was complaining about how we have to learn how to trim Christmas trees in case we're outside. Which is silly, I admit, because I can't lift a tree onto the table to do it and I'm mostly the one out there weekdays, and they'll never get the new people or weekend-only people trained on it. But she starts bitching about how it's ridiculous because we CAN'T cut it here, they have to cut it at home or it'll die. And I'm looking at her like she's an idiot, because we've done this for years and hey, people don't return the Christmas trees because they've died too early, so she starts harping on about how it has to be FRESHLY CUT and put into BOILING WATER or else it closes off, just like a flower, and blahblahblah.

While I suppose there is some truth to this and it will probably last longer, it's complete bullshit that they're going to die INSTANTLY because we trimmed it at the store with a chainsaw and it had half an hour for the sap to congeal. Because HEY, GUESS WHAT. Our Christmas trees were mostly cut TWO MONTHS AGO out at the farms and they haven't died yet. So yes, if you want a really fresh tree, you should go to a farm and pick it out and cut it, then take it home and trim it yourself. But you know, if it was going to die a week before Christmas just because we trimmed the trunk at the store then they wouldn't be able to cut the trees so long before Christmas and ship them out, then, would they? They'd wait a little longer to stop customer and store complaints about merchandise.

So yes, Julie drives me insane and I really want to tell her at times to stop being such a fucking bitch. If I didn't know that the garden center people don't really like her, I'd probably wonder if it was just me, because they seem to get along with her up front all right. But she's stepped on a lot of toes outside, and they're always glad when I come back from lunch or where ever I was while she was covering the outside register.

Okay, enough complaining for today.

So, it has been an interesting day. I got a new winter coat, yay, because my old one was falling apart. In the way that Meg's favorite coat was falling apart, except I don't hold with using duct tape to fix my coat, and besides, it was really too big. It's a nice coat. It's dark grey wool and comes down almost to my knees.

I got to talk to Kim yesterday, which was cool, since I haven't seen her on in ages because of her computer frying and my work driving me insane.

And then I got a phone call from Meg. Which was seriously WEIRD because Meg doesn't call. So I call up and find out she's ENGAGED and has been for MONTHS. We are probably the weirdest best friends ever, because how many best friends don't talk for months and still are best friends? So yes, I chewed her out for not calling me sooner and she told me to get my butt online more often or at least onto LJ to check on things, and then I congratulated her and threatened to kill her if I wasn't somehow involved at the wedding, even if it was just as a witness to the justice of the peace. (Yeah, we're definitely weird best friends.)

So that's essentially what led to this entry. I meant to make an appearance back in August after running into Miri, Adam, and Benji at AnimeIowa and I kept putting it off and forgetting. I really need to get better at keeping in touch with people.

Uh, updates on my life. Working full-time at Lowe's still, though with a set schedule now, and going to school half-time. I'll probably end up back at Iowa State once I get my gen-eds done at Kirkwood, because they actually work with community college students to get them stuff that transfers and the University of Iowa still sucks majorly. But that's at least another year off, probably closer to two. I'm trying to exercise and lose weight, because I really need to, so I'm doing aqua aerobics right now. Yes, it sounds like an old-people thing, but I kinda need that with my leg. I can actually modify most of the stuff to work with one leg, unlike a lot of regular stuff.

Other than that, things are as boring as ever.

Merry Christmas.

I slipped on some ice while out running errands on Sunday, and strained my back. It was bad enough that my boss took one look at me this morning and demanded to know what was wrong. She heard the story and told me to go home and call the doctor. He says it's acute back strain, and gave me some anti-inflammatory stuff for it. And pain pills. I love pain pills.

So now I'm avoiding writing my research paper and playing on my computer while waiting for psychology to start. On pain pills. Wheee.

LOOK. A JOURNAL UPDATE. AND, PREPARE TO BE SHOCKED, I ACTUALLY READ A FEW FRIEND ENTRIES. My LJ-hiatus is briefly over! We'll see how long that lasts.

So I'm home sick from work and I registered for classes. Next semester it's Intro to Mass Media, which is totally stupid but I have to take it to qualify for the other classes I need for my major. I'm also taking Elementary Spanish. Which I don't especially want to learn, but it's useful-ish, and people like it on resumes. Assuming I actually do learn how to speak it, unlike German that I've forgotten most of. (I might switch up to some other language once I hit a university, but for now, Spanish is what I'm taking.)

I have Christmas/Yuletide/Holiday Season cards to get rid of. If you want one, comment here with your mailing address. They shall be screened, and I'm too lazy to be a stalker/serial killer myself.

ZOMG, LOOK, AN UPDATE.

I want to have a dog and name it Menchi.

Also, Meg, I saw a girl the other day who was creepily like a female version of Zach. I'm not really sure what it was, but seriously, she just made me stare and go "GIRL ZACH!" By the way, Zach looks better as a girl.

I am back and dead tired. Whee?

Just letting those know who might care that I'm alive and home. I'll do an actual update on my trip once the jet-lag wears off. (In other words, in another week?)

The snow hasn't slowed down any, and puppy is extremely unhappy. (She hates bad weather. The wind caught against the house just right earlier and made a loud noise, and she started shivering and whining.) But it's still not really sticking, and if I wait till Dad gets home to leave, he probably won't want me to go. Then again, maybe not; he's not usually as paranoid as Mom is. But I also hate to leave Sadie home alone when she's upset. She's shivering like we'd left her out in the snow for an hour. At least she's not panting right now.

Okay, yeah, the radar's really mild. I think I'll try going in; if I get a few miles down the road and don't like it, I can always turn around and head home. I'll leave the door to the basement open so that Sadie can hide down there if she wants to. I need to get some things done.