Weekend catchup and Wednesday Update

I have been out of it for the past few days, my psuedo tumor has come back with a vengeace and between the headaches and the dizziness I have been able to function at half of my normal human capacity.

This weekend (3 day holiday weekend in Utah-Pioneer Day) Mr.3 and I went down to my parent's house. We were having some friends from our days in Texas come to visit. It was nice to see them, but a little stressful as they were on a family trip so there were 4 adults and 7 kids. It was really nice to see my friend Sharon though, we share the same birthday,but are like 30 years apart in age. She has been a family friend since I was 5 or so, and I haven't seen her for 3 or 4 years.

Mr.3 and I returned home on Monday afternoon and later that evening we walked to the end of 7th east and were able to watch the Pioneer Day fireworks being set off at Liberty Park. It was nice but we didn't watch the whole thing as we were getting eaten alive by bugs.

Yesterday evening, we went for a walk...which we try to do everyday. We live only 2 blocks up from the governor's house (we're neighbors!) and we walk down there a lot to see his dogs...their bulldog just cracks me up ... so as we were walking down to the governor's, the governor and his wife were walking up the street towards our house. I thought that it was pretty cool that we got to see them as we were walking, and I made sure to wave and say "Hi" to them. the Governor's wife, however, was wearing the worst shade of pink lipstick that I had ever seen in my life! I think that it was an instance where she doesn't leave the house without fresh lipstick...and she should probably rethink that policy. The governor is, surprisingly, really that tan in real life as he looks like on TV.

Let's see, other things...I normally have dark circles under my eyes (it's genetic) but this weekend it looked like I had 2 black eyes they were so bad, so yesterday I did some research into undereye concealer and special eye moisturizers. I found what I needed, but the fact that the cream says "for mature skin" doesn't make me feel any better. I turn 26 on Saturday but apparently my skin is "mature"...it is a little depressing. I am taking this Friday off...my drivers licence expires and I need to get a new picture taken for it (and yes, part of the reasoning of wanting to get the circles gone), so I am going to take Friday off to do that. And get a car wash...the inside really needs to be cleaned and I am just too lazy to do it myself. And on Saturday we are going to go to a movie and dinner somewhere, but I haven't decided where yet. But I have some time to think on that.

and lastly....I have been at work for 3 and half hours now and have done nothing yet work related except answer the phone...I know, that's bad.

Putz Example Number 10 and Hall of Fame induction

Last Friday we had a delegation of Iraqi diplomats visiting the office, high ranking enough that there was a 6 man secret service detail with them. So the team swept in and guarded all entrances...well the bug, hearing activity in the hall (I swear she waits to hear people in the hallway and then comes out to join them) comes over to the main office to "make a cup of tea". While she is there she not only berades me that I didn't offer anyone coffee or tea, never mind the fact that she hasn't caught on yet (and she has been here like 7 years) that our office doesn't run like that, but I told her that they were our boss's guests and if he wanted to offer that to the visitors that I would make something, but only under those conditions....but she also...and this is the worse part...thought that it would be funny somehow to make a pretend gun out of her hand and take aim at objects around the office and pretend to shoot and blow the smoke off of her "hand"gun in front a fully armed secret service detail! And this wasn't for one instance, but she did it several times and for a minute or two each time...I am not sure how I can classify the embarassment that I felt, and thank god it was only the security detail that saw her do it and not the visitors.

So for this action alone she is named as Putz Number 10, and seeing that in one week she has won 3 awards (she has been pretty active this week) I hereby bequeth you the shiny staple crown of PUTZ to the Highest Degree...I am sure that the sun will never set upon your reign.

Putz Example Number 9

The bug has earned another Putz award for this week with her ever so skillful way for telling someone (Mr.3) that they were in the running for a scholarship (that they had no idea they were in the running) but that they didn't get it but came in second. How helpful is that? Not at all...she did the same thing to me in the essay contest...you didn't win, but will you make the awards...besides telling someone (in the case of Mr.3 who has a 3.98 GPA) that their GPA wasn't good enough, it not exactly nice...
what a....

PUTZ!

*Maybe we need to make a hall of fame award for her?

Putz Example Number 8

Any numbnuts who seems to think that on a holiday weekend (yes, in Utah the 24th is a state holiday and we have Monday off paid), during the summer, that you can just walk in and get anything done right now. Our AA is gone today to make her 3 day weekend 4 days, she is the ONLY one who has access to the financial accounts. One of the professors just called, wanting a campus order to buy a bunch of computer stuff that he wants to do TODAY. He wasn't very happy when I told him that I didn't have access and neither did anyone else here today...I apologized but he hung up on me anyway, because apparently having a PhD means that you can act like a child...
what a....

PUTZ!

Putz Example Number 7

The goofy people who decided that it would be a good way to advertize jobs for the environment (lobbying for the Sierra Club) by posting the notices with a staple gun to the trees on campus.

What a....

PUTZ!

Putz Example Number 6

Anyone who apparently thinks that having me scan their personal photos it part of my job and somehow a great use of my time. Anyone who under those circumstances who proudly proclaims that they "have a task for me" is a...

putz.

Putz Example Number 5

Yesterday I was waiting for some furniture men to deliver some furniture for a friend that is away in Canada. She wanted me to call her to tell her when everything was finished but the number connected me to some man who lived in Quebec (!) (I add the ! for emphaisis because he was very exicited about being from Quebec(!). Rather than just say no, that person wasn't there, or just a no would have been fine...he went on to tell me that he doesn't speak English and is from Quebec(!). Then we wanted to know if I was feeling well, he was feeling well, if I spoke French, if I liked people from Quebec(!). This was my first encounter with anyone from Quebec(!) and if people who are from there are as obnoxious as this guy, it isn't saying very much for the people of Quebec(!).

Mr Quebec(!) is therefore a....

putz.

Putz Example Number 4

Anyone who constantly advocates that you should go back and edit your comments on a blog or post because they don't like how you said something.

I read and re-read everything I post before I hit the send button, it is called proofreading, if I need to re-clarify later than I will, but I refuse to edit anything I said in the original. I meant what I said, and I will stand by it. There is no edit button in real life and you need to understand that there are consequences for your actions and statements. Anyone who believes otherwise is a...

PUTZ!

Putz Example Number 3

this one is going to be a general one, and I will not name names, as there are several and knowing my luck they will start to send posts saying that I am attacking them somehow. However this is my blog and my putz list.

3 or 4 specific members of the KBU forum are driving me up the wall. I am fine with opinionated as long as you can back it up, but I am tired of being told that I am wrong but not why. I am more than willing to explain myself in detail on a variety of issues, but their agruementation stays the same: "I'm right, you're wrong" and I honestly think that it is because I am a woman. (And for those that know me well I abhor all of that feminist shit, so you know it has to be bad) For example, someone started to compare Ataturk to Hitler. I got upset, not because they were slamming Ataturk but because they had to use the "hitler card",which does nothing for their cause. I had numerous comments on this issue and no one seemed to be understanding what I was saying. Basically (to make the agruement as short as possible) people use the Hitler card so much that it has become cliche, or in some cases an absolute joke because the comparision is so farfetched. Only ONE person finally got around to what I was saying (past the Hitler is bad thing) and made a wonderful agruement that comparing someone to Hitler should be ok if they went into further explaination as to how and why. So i took his agruement and made a synthesis of ours and said that comparing someone to Hitler is ok ONLY in the circumstance that it is the foundation of your arguement and that you explain it further, it is NOT OK if you use the Hitler card as your ONLY arguement. "Ataturk is like Hitler!".....and....what else?... But what irks me is that the guys who weren't understanding the agruement started on me about how I should have just asked the question of "why should we compare anyone to Hitler"? Which one: wasn't in any part of the exchange at all, and two was a patheic attempt to pat me on the head and dismiss my agruements because they couldn't answer them themselves.

The main problem with these particular people is that English is not their first language and they think that they are understanding things correctly and they aren't. (Don't get me into the meaning of "humble" because one of them apparently thinks that making a statement such as "well I know that I am the better person" makes him humble in some way). Plus the use of emoticons (oh how I hate them) somehow also makes their agruement stronger. The other problem is that they obviously have never had to deal with a strong woman who is smart and opinionated. Even though they want to say that they are enlightened now that they are living in the west, this is still a breed of man who believes that leaving Kurdish women uneducated in the villages is somehow preserving the culture. Of course, I have been branded as a snobbish intellectual for my views.

For this, there are many who I would like to call a.....

PUTZ!

Putz Example Number 2

Yesterday evening I am driving to the store and talking on the phone with my Mom. Out of the corner of my eye is the bug waving at me as she drives by.
Currently she and her husband are sharing a car, and he was driving her home from work, here is the kicker, the bug was sitting in the backseat. It was like Driving Miss Daisy Junebug style. All her husband needs is a chaffeur hat (which we are considering buying and leaving somewhere in her office). She says that she just can't stand to be in the front seat with how he drives, but I think that it is something deeper. They can't stand each other, haven't slept in the same room for years, why ride in the car together under those situations....plus I think that she is using it as a way to make him feel inferior...

for this, I have the same name for them...

putz.

Putz Example Number 1

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my brother...but he is a putz.
He and my mom were in town and Mr.3 and I just got back from having lunch with them.
While I am not going to into exactly what he said, it was in bad taste and was meanly meant to be a snide attack/jab at Mr. 3. When he said it both my mom and I were flabbergasted and I was trying to kick my brother under the table but my legs were too short to reach effectively.
Mr.3 kept his cool and calming replied that if he wanted to talk to an asshole he would have farted, and asked my brother if he would like to discuss it further outside. Wisely, my brother said no. However his comment kind of ruined the nice atmosphere of lunch and have left my Mom and I profusely apologizing for his behavior.

Putz.

Putz!

So yesterday I wanted to tell just about everyone that they were a putz, but I didn't because I realized that I was cranky and had very little sleep, I thought that I would give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Now that I have had a good night's sleep and I am feeling much much more cheerful than yesterday I realize....

I was right to begin with...everyone is still a putz.

Insomnia Sucks

So last night, I couldn't sleep. It wasn't that I wasn't tired I was, which was the worst part, but I just could not get to sleep. I was tossing and turning for a while but forced myself to stop as I didn't want to wake Mr.3 up. I could have gotten out of the bed and watched TV or something, but everytime I get out of the bed Mr. 3 wakes up as well. So I laid there, jealous of the sleep that Mr. 3 was getting until about 3:30-4am where I passed out. I say passed out because, oddly enough, because Mr. 3 couldn't sleep from 4:30am onwards and all attempts to wake me did not work. So when the alarm went off at 6:30, I was not a happy camper, I was downright pissed.

I tried to get up but it didn't work, and I ended up being an hour late to work...not that I have been worth anything at work at all today. I have a half hour let and all I want is a nap.

My Harry Potter book was delivered this morning...but I am so tired that I can not even bring myself to open it...that is how tired I am...ughh..

Oh the turtles seem to be doing better since we moved their tank out of the path of the air conditioner...Zippy seems to be a little off still...but I will give him some time, I think that he will improve.

Turtle Dementia?

I have 2 three-toed box turtles as pets and while we have owned them the past 7 to 9 years, they were handed down to us from someone else. They both had some sort of birth defect and it is surprising that they both have lived as long as they have. Scooter (3 legged but damn fast) is about 20 years old and Zippy *short for Ziploc and his attitude towards meeting new people) is about 25. Which 20-25 years is about the average life-span for healthy box turtles. So it is only natural that they will decline and die in the not too distant future.

Early in the week I dreamt that Zippy had a cold, and so yesterday I gave them a bath and checked them out. They both appeared healthy, no respirtory problems (you check by pressing your thumb to the underside of their throat, bubbles will come out their nose if they are sick) but I did notice that Zippy was slow and not as strong with his reflexes as he normally is. I thought it was odd but didn't think too much of it. It is the first time that I have let them run around the house since we have moved...turtles and hardwood floors and not a good match, there is no traction for them to walk with. They both struggled on the floors but both found a nice corner to hide and go to sleep with. When we left for school this morning, both of them were in the same place that we left them the night before.

When we had returned in the afternoon, Scoot was still were we had left him but Zippy was on the other side of the apartment hiding behind a box and sleeping. Normally when you pick Zippy up when he is sleeping, he will automatically close up into his shell, but he didn't, in fact he just continued to "hang out" so to speak. He would slightly react to my pokings and proddings, so I know that he was alive, but he wouldn't open his eyes. I tried to get Scooter to interact with him, but Scooter was acting strange as well...he was fighting to get away from Zippy. In fact he went behind the TV and promptly peed on the floor....this is incredibly unusual for him. I must have spent an hour on the floor with Zip trying to get him to wake up. As I was beginning to panic Mr.3 suggested we just leave to go to the grocery store and try to get him to respond when we came back.

When he had come back Zip had moved, only a few inches but he was awake and responding normally, slugglishly, but still normal. When I picked him up he started to zone out again with his eyes closed like before, and then a few minutes later he was wide awake and full of energy wanting to run around. I managed to get both of them to eat, which is a good sign.

So I am trying to rationalize his behavior....it could be that he is just old and tuckered himself out when he was walking around, he could be sick and dying, or maybe he has some strange form of turtle dementia where he is lucid one moment and comatose the next. Scooter is obviously freaked out and appears now to have incontinence. The possiblity with Zippy is that he is going through all 3 of those options, I know that is just part of natural life but it is still odd to think that I am now running the equilvent of a turtle rest home.

Pacifism in moderation please!

Ok, so we all know that I am one of those anti-war types, however I have my limits...I realize that I may not agree with what happens in this world but I have to learn to deal with it anyway...in so saying...there are some people who are so left of the anti-war spectulum that their ideas border on the ridiculous...case in point:

One of the ladies that I refer to as "I"'s crazies, came by with a flyer for him. Now I know this woman as I used to work with her at the Bookstore, but "I" has no clue who she is and she sends him cookies, postcards,you name it, to him all the time. Well when she hands me her flyer to give to him she explains that she is giving a talk on the subject later this week.
The flyer is of a design for an International Peace Garden (which I am not opposed to) but in Iraq (a little odd). On the flyer she has a map of the middle east ( I would post it, but the resolution is bad on the copy and scanning wouldn't help it at all), on the map she has drawn a spiral from Baghdad (in the shape of a Nautilus Shell) to Damascus in Syria. Her idea is to plant trees and stuff along this line as her design for an International Peace Garden: "Trees could be planted in a logarythmic spiral with seeds and nuts saved by the populace. A herb and flower garden could be planted in the locus of the spiral. The Peace Corps, Military Services, and Clergy could assist, particularly where landmines need to be removed and negative energies released."

Ok, the problems:
1. the chance of anything being planted and flourishing in the desert between Baghdad and Syria is incredibly slim.
2. who would take care of this after someone managed to get the peace corps, the military and the clergy to plant this thing
3. who wants to be gardening around landmines anyway?

I understand wanting peace, but you have got to be realistic. Negative energies from the landmines? Do we need to send those energy-feeling hippies to the region to be minesweepers? This isn't Fern Gully it is a War Zone.

Reality is not pretty, or nice, it sucks, it is awful...and I understand that people want to change things but we can't be off in fairy land and hope to get anything done. Go back to your drum circles and moon lodges please...

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

Hopefully I am not alone in this, but I am severely worried about the state of Diyarbakir (Amed)....violence has increased in the region and the PKK (or whatever their name is this week) is more active and causing "problems". Here are just a few of the most recent headlines:

Kurdish rebels take police officer hostage, rob motorists

Kurdish rebel killed in eastern Turkey while placing bomb

Bomb blast at Turkish resort leaves 20 injured

Five civilians, three police hurt in Kurdish unrest

Three Turkish soldiers killed in landmine blast

The scary thing is that all of these are from this weekend, only this weekend! I admit that I am a hard-core pacifist (and I realize how oxymoronic that statement is), but I think that the 1980's in Turkey proved one thing...that violence in trying to promote Kurdish rights does not work.

This begs the question...why then is the PKK active again? Why is the violence starting again? The answer is that the Kurds in Turkey are backed against a wall...they see their brothers to the South gaining more independence and noteworthiness in the world media, they have the government of Turkey making ridiculous "concessions" of cultural rights which make little or no difference in the grand scheme of things, and they have a younger generation growing up with the belief that no matter what they do they will fail...and so they do nothing and just stay angry...they are trapped in a corner and believe that they have no other outlet then to resort to violence. It appears faster and more affective than diplomacy, but if my Kurdish brothers and sisters want any long-term change they have to use the diplomatic route. Yes, it is a long road, and patience is very hard to keep in those types of circumstances, but it is the only sure-fire way of achieveing independence.

What needs to be done is a region-wide campaign of empowerment to the Kurds of Turkey. They need to know exactly what their rights are according to Turkish law, they need to learn how to operate within that system...They need to educate themselves, they need to educate the village women who raise their children to believe that they have no rights because that is what they have been told when they were young...lack of education is "keeping them down". The Kurds need to unify themselves in what they want (if we were unified in the aftermath of WWI, imagine what could have been done)...there are too many groups off doing their own thing (the PKK is fighting the Turkish Army and TAK is supposedly wounding tourists), without a unified path of resistance nothing can be accomplished. The Turkish government lumps all Kurdish groups into the same category as the PKK...let's look at Leyla Zana, nothing to do at all with the PKK, yet for her belief in a diplomatic approach to gaining more rights for the Kurds she was still tried and imprisoned for being a PKK sympathizer...How much could have been accomplished in the name of diplomacy if the PKK did not exist? In my opinion, a hell of a lot more than what could have ever been imagined.

I can only with certainity speak for myself, but I believe that all Kurds should condemn any and all violence committed in their name. Violence is not nor ever will be the answer to our freedom.

New levels of domesticity!

I took yesterday off from work, partly because I didn't want to go but mainly because things have been so stressful as of late that if I stayed home and worked in the house I wouldn't be climbing the walls nearly as much if I was bored at work.

I almost called in this morning as well, but I had figured with the beheading of the Egyptian ambassador that we would have gotten a lot of press calls in the office. Oddly enough, not one...London has overshadowed all. Which I must say is some pretty poor planning on Al Qaida's part...the 2 things overshadowed each other...a week wait time would have been more effective for their statement...like anyone really knows what that is..Zarqawi is off in la la land doing God knows what...and you know it is a stupid move when all of the Arabs look at his actions and go "you know before I understood what you were doing and could see why but now, dude, what the fuck?" Al Qaida has seriously misunderstood what international reaction would be to recent events...the Egyptians are going to take no prisoners and the Brits have a deep memory and a history of removing problems. Hell, you know it is bad when the ultra liberal British press calls out for Arab blood.

Oh look at me, I've gotten off topic. Yesterday our washer, dryer and new freezer were delivered to the new apartment, elevating Mr.3 and I to the ranks of super couple! Able to do their own laundry with their very own washing machine and dryer...no more borrowing, no more laundramats...these babies are ours...and it is damn cool. Plus, the cable got hooked up as well as our internet connection, so no more wardriving the coffee shop and Mr.3 can get his news fixes. And last but not least, today was my LAST physical theraphy appointment! The doctor gave me a clear bill of health! Yippee!!!! That is all for the moment, till later my darlings!

Haunting the internet...

I feel like a goof lately with these Kurdish forum thingys...they provide a fairly decent distraction during the day as I seem to check them every five to ten minutes...yeah, it is silly.

Unfortuately there is not too much to report on besides that. I am in the planning stages of a massive blog about the current violence in Diyarbakir and Batman...but that is a ways away.

Oh! Tomorrow we get both cable and a washing machine! Now that is something!

Wardriving from our new place

Well after talking with the cable company we found out that we wouldn't be able to have service until Thursday...so I was beginning to resign myself to the fact that there would be no internet until Thursday while I was not at work. 2 doors down from us, and I mean that literally,is a coffee shop with free wireless service. Mr.3 and I used it on the first day that we moved in. Yesterday while using the grill Mr.3 noticed that the back of the coffee shop was literally 50 feet away from where we are, and lo-and-behold we can actually pick up their wireless connection from inside our new house. This is an excellent solution for the Thursday problem and hopefully will keep Mr.3 distracted enough not to pine for having cable TV as well.

As for the new place, it is wonderful. There is still a lot of unpacking to do, and I find myself constantly sweeping the floors with this endust floor sweeper thing...still our feet are black with all of the dirt that has been tracked in. I guess that is going to the case here with our hardwood floors until I can get the dust down and the carpets out.

Meanwhile,as I was writing this, Mr.3 finished his shower and began to read over my shoulder....apparently the internet access will not be enough to distract him from his need of cable...but maybe I can keep him busy with unpacking and all of that.

Later today we plan to go down to RCWilley's and buy a washer, dryer and a small freezer...everything that we want is on sale and we can get it all for around $700. Quite the deal if you ask me.

Tomorrow my Mom will be in town with Kelly and we will have our first houseguests, so that is a priority unpacking issue for today...actually I would like to have it all done today, but that will not happen, but I should get a majority of it finished.

Moving Weekend

So this weekend we will begin the big move from the condo to our new apartment. There is so much left to do and just sitting here at work where I can't tackle any of the stuff that needs to be done is driving me CRAZY! I will be leaving at noon today, but I am just going out of my mind with the boredom/anxiety of things and there is only an hour and 20 minutes left of my short day today.

Plus, I made a stupid call that I shouldn't have....it was on a whim and while I was dialing it I changed my mind but they had picked up with it and I had to go on with it and I felt super stupid and I feel that I should apologize for it because I stepped out of bounds that I shouldn't have but apologizing isn't really nessacary but I don't know how else to handle my stupid guilt for making a call that I shouldn't have and I know that I am rambling but I must get this out somehow....ugh. I annoy myself way too often for my own comfort. Maybe I should just chalk it all up to being overly emotional today and leave it there.