I'm sorry, can I get less intense stamps, please?

Today, I went to the post office to mail my rent check and also buy some stamps (Unemployment Accomplishment!). Usually, I just get my stamps from the automated machine, and out pop the "FOREVER" stamps with the Liberty Bell on them. This time, however, I had to go to a teller because I was going to pay with a bunch of dimes, and I assumed the machine did not accept coins. The teller gave me these:

Ok, they're the latest stamps. Fine. And ok, Mother Teresa was pretty cool and stamp-worthy, no matter what religion you are or aren't. But, this was the conversation I had in my head with the teller...

Me: Um, can I just have the Liberty Bell stamps?
Teller: Oh...ok...
Me: It's just that I don't want to send any message with my mail....not that it would be a bad message, but...I feel guilty enough on a daily basis without thinking about all the good deeds Mother Teresa did. And what if the person I'm sending this stamp to, i.e. my landlord, has some sort of weird problem with her?
Teller: Problem?
Me: I dunno, maybe my landlord just renounced Catholicism and I upset her and she decides to evict me? Or, maybe my union's business manager decides to delay my dues payment just because she doesn't like any additional Catholic guilt?
Teller: I can't imagine any of that would happen...
Me: But what if it does?!
Teller: Um...
Me: I'm a big, dirty Jew. Just give me the Liberty Bell stamps.

Of course, I said none of that. I stood there and watched the teller count out 4 Mother Teresa stamps and give them, as well as both Jewish and Catholic guilt, to me.

Oy vey.

In Which Amy Refuses to Talk to a Potentially Crazy Person

I was on my way to the post office (Unemployment Accomplishment!) when I encountered a potentially crazy person. I was at the stop sign on the side street by my apartment building, and I saw a woman crossing the side street. I wait there to let her go, but she just...stops...a quarter of the way across the street. She looks down at a piece of paper and then up at the number on my apartment building, back at the paper, back at the building...and she's still in the street. Now there's another car trying to turn onto the side street, and this woman is holding up two cars. She finally starts to finish her trip across the street, allowing the other car to finish its turn, when she walks up to my window and tries to get me to roll down my window. Usually, I'm used to giving random people directions. I actually enjoy it. But, my thought process in this case was, "There's no way I'm talking to this woman who was standing in the middle of the street. No. Way. I don't know what the hell she's up to." So, she makes the "roll down your window" gesture, and I mime, "Nope, sorry." She got a little pissed, but actually kept going (instead of hitting my car or worse), looking lost and crazy.

The moral of the story is if you're going to ask a random person for directions, don't look crazy. I'm one of the nicest, most patient random-direction-givers I know, but I draw a line somewhere. Part of me feels a little bad, but the rest of me is going, "Stranger Danger!"

Accomplished.

Things I accomplished today:

- Picked up a friend from the airport and dropped her off at her apartment
- Finally got my Costco card activated
- Bought enough TP to last me the rest of the year (at Costco, of course)
- Cooked successful Chicken Pad Thai for The Boyfriend and myself
- Avoided getting stuck in traffic jam caused by local hip-hop band's impromptu concert in the middle of one of LA's busiest freeways (That seriously happened.)

Tomorrow...getting new glasses???

Chocolate House: The Finale

Right now, I'm trying to free up some space on my hard drive, since every time I try to play a video, it sounds like an auto-tuned, echo-y mess. I'm fairly certain the Amazon video preview for Earth (The Book) wasn't directed by T-Pain, although it would be awesome if it were.

So, here I am.

Oktoberfest was fun. We intended to camp close to the convention center, but then we learned that some other friends of ours had rented a cabin in nearby Sugarloaf (an awesome name for anything, especially a town) and were gracious enough to invite us to stay there instead of being outside in the cold weather all night. (To his credit, The Boyfriend did, in fact, bring enough blankets that we would have been fine, but still. Cabin. Sugarloaf.)

And now, we're all back in the L.A. metro area, and I've finished two Unemployment Accomplishments today.

1. Finally made an eye doctor appointment - boring, but important.
2. Finished eating Chocolate House!

Chocolate House was easy to finish because the piece I had left was pretty small and melted easily. Also, there was/is a Cake Boss marathon on, and I could pretend that I could taste what Buddy and the gang were making. I could pretend...it doesn't mean I did pretend. (It does.)

Cat-iversary!

Three years ago today, I brought my cat home! We're celebrating by...well, doing what we normally do. She naps, I go online, she gets bored and crawls on my lap, I pet her, she gets bored and jumps off my lap, we play/chase each other around a bit, and so on.

Also, this weekend, I'm heading up to Big Bear, namely Oktoberfest at the Big Bear Convention Center. I went last year with The Boyfriend, and now this year, we're bringing his best friend/roommate and said friend/roommate's girlfriend. It promises to be good times!

Chocolate House.

I'm currently "on hiatus" from my job (read: unemployed), which is not as much fun as it sounds. It can be, sometimes, but there's only so much talking to my cat I can do before I admit to myself that she has no idea what I'm saying (although sometimes it seems like she does...maybe).

So, I'm currently working on a project I call "Chocolate House." You see, a while back, The Boyfriend received a model of a house molded entirely out of chocolate. You know what he did? He gave it to me. This is why we're still together. Sure, there are other reasons why we're still going out, but mostly because when he obtains large pieces of chocolate from the heavens and/or co-workers, he gives them to me.

I've been spacing my Chocolate House consumption out over a couple weeks. I gnawed my way though the roof, then the second floor, and now I only have the living room left. I'm gonna go ahead and call this an accomplishment - an Unemployment Accomplishment.

(Cats, boys, and chocolate? I'll try to get more substance in here as time goes on. Or maybe not. Who knows?)

New Blog

I'm starting up a blog yet again, this time on Blogger. I used to have a Live Journal, but I wanted to start fresh.

Here goes nothin'.