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Monday, October 19, 2015

Jury Duty

Nothing like forced sense of obligation and duty with a threat of jail time for non-compliance to throw a kink in your routine.

This was my first time ever being summoned for Jury Duty and it was a very interesting process. There was a lot of sitting around and waiting. First you sit in a large room with 150 people and watch a welcome video about how great it is to be a juror (two hours later I had to pee so bad that I was about to run out of that room and probably be in some kind of contempt of court, who knows.) Then you wait around to see if you will be assigned to a possible case. Once your name is called, you are given a colored badge with your number that corresponds to a case. In my situation, there were only 34 other jurors with me for this particular case, but the bigger ones can call up to 60 people.

I can't even imagine this. 60 people. I'll tell you why.

The next step is to wait some more until the courtroom is ready. Everyone gets ushered into the pews and you're facing a judge, a prosecution lawyer, a defense lawyer, and the defendant. First you have to introduce yourself; Where do you live? What's your job title and where do you work? Are you married? kids? What jobs do your kids have? Basically at this point, they're trying to find out if there is any conflict of interest with the current case. They tell you the bare minimum about it (in this case, possession of a firearm). They were interested in anybody that said they loved to read (like crime novels), or people that had a bias opinion for or against cops etc. And for a couple of hours these lawyers go back and forth asking questions about what it means to be a good witness, or if any one of us would have a problem with applying the law to a case if we had a personal feeling involved. They went through the people that had "hardships" on green slips that told them about doctors appointments or how it will hurt them to not get paid their wage and mostly, they were excused or exceptions were made. There were 35 people total and only 14 spots available. I, obviously, was chosen as one of the lucky 14.

It was The State of Washington v. Jeremy James. The charge was unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree. As it was a criminal case, we knew that all 12 (2 alternates) jurors would have to be unanimous in the verdict.
Mr. Horibe was the prosecution lawyer. He was as smooth as silk. The man was tall, handsome, and suave. He obviously knew what he was doing and was very confident in his ability as a lawyer to convince us that Mr. James was guilty. He also seemed to have some kind of habit of scrunching his nose up every few seconds like he constantly felt a booger he wanted to pull out of his nostril.  
Mr. Katiyama was the defense lawyer. Actually there were two. Mr. McDonald I would call a greenhorn (this is a shout out to anyone that's seen Deadliest Catch or knows about commercial fishing) and appeared to need more experience about cross-examining a witness on the stand for sure.
The Judge, Mr. Costello, seemed like a very nice man. I don't have much else to say about him, as we were technically never allowed to talk to him. All questions would go through his Judicial Assistant, and I can't seem to remember her name! Megan, or Michelle. I think it was Michelle. Let's call her Ms. Boobs. The dresses and shirts she wore, with a lanyard falling down the middle of her chest, kind of accentuated that... area. 
And then there was the Court Reporter. You know, the person who types verbatim all the stuff that goes on in the courtroom? I actually managed to sneak a picture of her:



Seriously, she was in constant state of frown like everything in the world annoyed her. So I will call her Grumpy Cat. Because I can.

Now, I will try to summarize all of the court happenings here:
There were 4 witnesses: Officer Moody, Officer Criss, Officer... tow truck watcher, and a detective whose job it is to examine evidence for fingerprints and such. There were a number of articles of evidence, including: a single bullet found at the scene, a gun (with a magazine of bullets), pictures of the gun in the vehicle, and most importantly, dash cam video sans audio of what went down that night.

Basically, a car was pulled over for not having transferred a registration within 45 days of a sale. They discover the driver, Mr. Aroyo (sp) had a suspended license and when frisked, they found a smashed pill encased in a burned pouch of aluminum foil. They also found a man with a warrant out for his arrest. There were two women, and then also Mr. James. When officer Moody searched the car (with consent from Mr. Aroyo), he found a single 9mm bullet in a blue jacket, in which Mr. James stated the jacket was his, but the bullet was not. Due to this and the fact that the women had not consented to have their purses searched, they booked the car in order to serve a search warrant on the vehicle. It was towed to the police station.

At this time, I would like to point out that a lawyer's job is to beat a dead horse. Repeatedly. Each lawyer would ask the same question of a witness. And each lawyer would reiterate statements until they bore it into your brain like a botfly laying an egg. Now, I would also like to point out that every move they made was verbalized, probably for Grumpy Cat to make sure it all ended up on the court record. "I am stopping exhibit 8 at 14 minutes 39 seconds. I am fast forwarding exhibit 8 to 15 minutes, 12 seconds."

After the search warrant was issued, Moody and Criss searched the car and found a glock 19 handgun - a 9mm hand gun, with a fully loaded magazine and in ready-to-fire condition, found under the front seat where Mr. James was sitting in the rear. I won't bore you with all the details about how and why, but basically the law states that possession of an item is not just owning it, or holding it, but having held it at one point, even if just to say "cool" and hand it back. It's also about being able to have control over the item, being able to stop someone else from taking it. The law also states that you must know that it's there. That was the main point of contention. Did the state prove - because they have the burden of fault - that Mr. James knew the gun was there?

After officer Criss found the gun and booked it into evidence, he ran into Mr. James a couple of days later, arrested him, as as he was in the backseat in handcuffs, Officer Criss asked: "Would I find your fingerprints on that gun?" Mr. James paused, and then said "I don't know." That clinched it for most of the jury. To most of us, this infers that he knew the gun was there, and he probably had touched it, but long enough to leave prints? He wasn't sure.
(FYI: no fingerprints were found on a gun, nor did it have a registered owner).

In my opinion, and the opinion of many other jurors, the defense did a horrible job actually trying to defend Mr. James. They had nothing to go on besides trying to redirect the jury into discrediting the police officer's testimonies, and possibly trying to infer that they may have planted that bullet and they were trying to frame Mr. James. They did a decent job on one of the jurors, though. We had an 11 out of 12 vote for guilty, and one guy just could not say he was guilty without more evidence. He kept talking about the blue jacket, where was it, what happened to it? Because tying the bullet to Mr. James would indicate that he had to know the gun was there, and therefore was guilty of possessing it. And we kept saying that it didn't matter - the blue jacket was not submitted into evidence, nor did it need to be, and so it could not be used in our decision one way or the other.

In reality, we only deliberated maybe 2 or 3 hours, but the one guy finally saw reason. Mainly because we were given a sheet that specified the law exactly, and explained what 'possession' and 'knowing' was.

Just for humor's sake, I wanted to talk about a juror that had been dismissed prior to deliberations. His name was Lee, and although I don't know his age, I believe he said he graduated high school in 1955. I don't really understand why old people constantly make noise. They constantly suck on their teeth, or hum, or make other such noises. As jurors, we are not allowed to whisper among ourselves or ask questions or make any kind of real motions while we're watching the case; Lee completely ignored this. He was always humming (this seemed to make Grumpy Cat more grumpy), and actually whispered to one of the others about something. That afternoon, Lee was dismissed. Lesson: don't piss off the judge or break his rules.

In the end, I was glad that I wasn't the only one who felt the way I did with my personal verdict. I really was the perfect juror, not discussing the case with anyone, nor did I ever really think about it outside of the courtroom, even over the weekend we were on break. We had learned that he'd had a prior conviction of a serious offense (not detailed) which caused him to be forbidden from possessing firearms - this was not given to us until after our verdict, so we wouldn't be biased against him. Now that it's rendered guilty in this case, his sentencing will be on Thursday but I'm not sure what it will be, and as jurors we couldn't concern ourselves with his outcome if he were to be found guilty because that might sway our opinion. We rendered our verdict, and now Mr. James will have to pay the consequences.

This is a picture of the Pierce County Armory Building next to the courthouse. 
Just because it's awesome.
credit goes to spaceworkstacoma.com



Sunday, June 21, 2015

My First Parking Ticket

I had a busy and fun last couple of weekends!! I'll start off with Sunday, May 24th. I decided to destination trip (as opposed to road trip!) with my boyfriend David, down to Portland, Oregon. I wanted to stop at a place called The Grotto, and I'd also been craving some Voodoo Doughnuts. David wanted to visit Powell's Bookstore, which apparently was as large as an entire city block.
David is the kind of person you read about on the internet.


Not even gonna lie, this was written about him.

So we stopped there first and I tried not to look bored. Okay, I failed at that. I then tried to find a seat at the coffee shop and when I failed at that too, I came back and stared at a wall of books until David was done enough to be pulled away.

Now don't get me wrong; I love to read, but I'm a kindle-chick through and through. I don't browse random books at a bookstore. I have a specific set of books in mind and I will do my browsing on Amazon. I'm just too picky and lazy to gaze over lines and lines of book spines.


After we were done with that, we went to check out the McMenamins that took over the old Kennedy School. I'm not much into history but that place was pretty neat.

First we stopped off at the gift shop and I bought a shot glass and learned that the Detention Bar serves tasting of the brandys that are made locally so I made plans to do that after we ate. We had lunch at their restaurant, and the food was pretty good. After that, I spent fifteen dollars to try 3 brandys. Now had I known they were going to charge me so much I wouldn't have done it. The gift shop had told me it would only be a couple dollars. Fifteen is not a couple. It's not even a few. That's insane. I could have bought 2 whole drinks with the brandys in it - and it would have tasted better!















Anyway... after lunch we needed to burn off some calories so we went to check out The Grotto. I knew it was a Catholic shrine thing, but since I'm not religious I didn't go for that reason. I wanted to see the cool cave in the side of the cliff, and visit the gardens up top and see the view of Portland. What I didn't realize was how... Catholic the whole thing was. Expecting to find a shot glass in their gift shop is now laughable after walking in and seeing crosses and statues of Saints everywhere. I paid $5 pp to ride the elevator to see the gardens up top, and discovered that we could have gotten in for free because the ticket-taker was nowhere to be found -_- . The gardens were pretty, but every few feet there was a statue of Jesus being crucified so it kind of took away from the whole experience. We didn't spend too long up there before we decided to go.


Is there a word for "too Jesus-y"? Cuz that's how I'd describe this.

After the Grotto was when I guess I decided I was too good for the city of Portland. See, I'd parked there before, last time I'd gotten doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnuts (they have this amazing ability to make milk-flavored glaze, and with a cereal topping I just can't resist!) 


I'd parked across the street and been fine. I hadn't seen a sign saying that I had to pay. So, after standing about an hour in line for our doughnuts (which was per usual for that place) I came back to a $44 parking ticket. Dammit. What a great way to top off the afternoon, huh?

At least I had doughnuts. 

Friday, May 22, 2015

Cancer Dinner

5/9/15

It sounds kind of horrible, doesn't it? Like the food I ate had given me cancer. That's not exactly the case; so let me explain.

Here's what happened: our manager comes up to us as a group and says "This never happens, guys. They must really love you."

And all I'm thinking is Did I get a free trip to Hawaii?

Well no, but because Dr. Bidus was a keynote speaker at a cancer charity/auction dinner thing, he and Dr. Saffari bought our office a table that cost $250 a plate. Yes, you heard me, $250 a plate. Nobody in our group had ever eaten anything amounting to that much money, so as you can imagine, we were all pretty excited. It was cocktail attire luckily, because I wasn't about to go ballroom dress shopping for a dress I would never touch again in a million years.

It was me, Mary our manager, Misha, Amanda, Andora, Stephenie, Dora, Pauline our old manager, and Sarah our old supervisor. Stacy couldn't make it, unfortunately. Sarah and I get along really well, so naturally I sat next to her. She was excited that her dress had pockets, and I was envious. 



The place was full of random people that were there to support St. Anthony's cancer infusion services. I knew nobody and nobody knew me, so I was perfectly happy to sit at the table the whole time while others participated in the silent auction. I wasn't about to bid against doctors; I don't make as much in a year as they probably do in a month, so it wasn't really worth the heartache. On the plus side: open bar. An actual open bar. Not one of those fake open bars that look all inviting at an event and you think it's free and then you find out its not. This was the real deal. Except when I ordered a Sex on the Beach she gives me something more like Oral on the Beach because there was no peach schnapps. I apologize if this invoked random thoughts into your head but I didn't name the original drink okay? :P

There was a four course dinner with wine pairings, and unfortunately the food was not as awesome as $250 a plate would suggest. Not that I'm complaining, as that $250 was a charity amount, anyway.

The first course was a bitter salad with not enough dressing.

Frisee & Radicchio salad with manchego cheese, serrano peppers, 
caramelized pineapple, and prickly pear vinaigrette 
Served with: Zuccardi Serie A Torrontes (It's a white wine. It was okay)

The second course was this white fish thing.

Poached red snapper with chimichurri compound butter and 
black beam tomato quinoa
Served with: Zuccardi Vida Organica Sparkling Chardonnay (Too dry. Yuck.)

Please tell me someone didn't pee on my plate.

The third course was an Empanada that I forgot to take a picture of because it wasn't that impressive. It was served with Vina Cobos Felno Malbec which was pretty good.

This was the best course of the night. As you can tell by the fact that I took a bite before I remembered to take the picture. 

Coffee encrusted flat iron steak with cotija cheese, paquillo pepper sauce, poblano polenta, and grilled asparagus

Served with: Alma Negra "M Blend" Bonarda-Malbec (yuck)





Second best course. Ignore my lack of photog skills here with these pictures, I was trying to be quick about it as not to get any stares.

Equator cake with coconut mango mousse, raspberry passion fruit coulis, and coconut dacquoise

Served with: Zuccardi Malamado Malbec Port (not bad)




PS: I still got stares

Also, Chrome is telling me half these words are spelled wrong but I'm taking them straight from the sheet so I know it's lying to me. These are actual words, believe it or not!

Anyway, Dr. Bidus made his speech, which some rude-ass people were talking through so loudly that our table almost got up and told them to shut the f*ck up. They did an actual auction after that, which was kind of cool because I'd never been to one before. Dr. Saffari's wife started bidding on this package for 2 couples at some resort thing, and our whole table cheered when she won. That was pretty much the highlight of our night. That and the free alcohol.

All 'n all it was a good night, and I am very blessed to have such caring and sweet doctors in which to work for!

I will leave you with Andora and a pic of all her accumulated alcohol




Tuesday, April 28, 2015

I Accidentally Made Caramel

I found this "healthy" Chocolate Oaties recipe online with the title of "sugar-free chocolate oaties" and the first ingredient was 3/4 cup of honey.

Um.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my revised version and how I accidentally made caramel.

In a large saucepan with the stove on med-low, combine:

3/4 cup agave nectar (or honey)
and
1/2 cup coconut oil (pre-melted to make it easier to measure)

Then, add one full scoop of casein* protein powder

and 1/3 cup cocoa powder

Blend well using a stick blender, as the casein likes to clump up

add 1/4 tsp salt and 1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

then add 3 cups of quick oats and mix well. Add to cookie sheets with silicone baking mats (why doesn't everyone have these?!) or parchment paper and freeze for 15 minutes. Then put in a container and store in the fridge.

I know, that doesn't look very appetizing. Blame my phone and its lack of wanting to be cooperative with the flash. They really are tasty.

*Casein is amazing stuff. Unlike whey, which is a pre and post workout quick protein boost, Casein is a slow-digesting protein. It will thicken up like a malt when you make shakes with it, and will thicken even further in your stomach when exposed to heat. When I made this recipe, I added the agave, oil and casein and when it reacted to the heat, not only did it thicken up but it started to get toasty and brown, almost like a caramel sauce. It was pretty cool. I used Optimum Nutrition vanilla flavored casein for this recipe because that's what I had, but I would recommend chocolate or chocolate peanut butter flavored casein. If you make large oaties (about 15 of them) they come out to be almost 2 grams of protein each and add only 8 calories per oatie.



Friday, April 3, 2015

I Hit a Dog

The title kind of says it all, doesn't it? 30 years old and I have never hit a thing, except maybe a bird once or twice.

People tried to comfort me by saying they've hit skunks or squirrels etc, but this was somebody's pet. Granted, they were out loose and running around carefree in the middle of traffic, but still.

The sun was in my eyes and before I knew it or could even react, I'd hit something. In a split second, I saw a flash of a black dog run out into the street and then disappear back into the neighborhood and I realized that I must have hit his companion. The horrible part was when I was trying to get into the other lane and pull over, I actually ran over it in the process. I pulled off onto a side street and there he was, in the slow lane, not moving. It looked like a brown lab/pit bull mix, maybe, with slightly longer hair. I was shaking, but not panicking. I walked over to him and traffic was going around him. 19th is a busy street and I was a bit worried about him getting run over again.

He was breathing, but barely. He wasn't bleeding anywhere but his eyes were glossy and he was obviously in pain. Unsure who to call, I just dialed 911. They got all of my information, but during the call, the dog had died. He wasn't wearing any tags, but he was wearing something over his neck that looked kind of like this:


Only much more old-school. The lady on 911 told me that it might be an invisible fence collar, which was extremely unfortunate because it had obviously failed to work right, and now the dog was dead because of it.

They promised to call Animal Control and told me not to remove him from the street. But then a car stopped and honked at me; told me to move the dog otherwise people were going to run over him again. I tried, but he was probably 80 lbs and I couldn't get him over the curb. The lady looked at me like I was just being lazy, but it's not like she offered to help. A guy crossing the street picked up the dog for me and put him off to the side and the 911 lady and told me that I didn't have to wait there any longer so I didn't.

I felt guilty for leaving, but there wasn't anything else that I could do. His black lab buddy was still running loose out there somewhere and I hoped he'd be all right. There was also some slight damage to my car but not worth calling my insurance company over. 

Now I get to pass that spot every day and think about the life I ended. It's not an easy thing to get over. I just hope the family secures that other dog so he remains safe.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

What I'm __________ March Edition

EATING: Chia seeds. At this point would I be considered a health nut? Looking back at my previous posts, most of the things I list here seem to be "good for me". The thing of it is, though, (and I try to explain this to people and have a heck of a time) is that once you start eating healthier (that doesn't mean you're all salads and veggies, though) it becomes really easy. I don't crave things like deep fried or fatty foods. I still have issues with sweets. But I just choose to eat these things not because I feel that I have to, but because I want to. Chobani Greek yogurt tastes good to me. The veggie burgers do too. And adding Chia seeds to my morning oatmeal, I can't even taste them, and they add nutrition that I didn't have before, so why not?


DRINKING: $22.99 for a bottle of Stoli Salted Karamel Vodka, $12.99 for a bottle of Smirnoff Green Apple Vodka, add mass amounts of tax, and that's $47 for a very expensive martini. Add a little sour mix because I'm a wuss, and it becomes a drinkable martini. Plus I decided to try my hand at making caramel by boiling sweetened condensed milk for 2 hours on the stove to make it a fancy drinkable martini. Now that's some good stuff!
(Ingredients: 1 shot each of above named vodkas, and 2-3 shots of the sour drink mix, and as much caramel as you can stand!)

WATCHING: Wow, Once Upon a Time sucks this year. I was already unhappy with them jumping on the Frozen bandwagon, and now they're pulling Maleficent, Cruella DeVille, and Ursula? Okay, Maleficent and Ursula I can understand, but DeVille? She's nothing more than a rich bitch who wants to make coats out of puppies. I'm really thinking that this is going to be the show's last year. They're ideas so far are just... not good. Which is too bad, because it's one of only two shows that I watch. Agents of SHIELD being the other one (which is doing excellent, as always! Coulson <3 )

LISTENING TO: I've discovered a couple new songs, like When We Were Young by Dillon Francis, All Over Again by Big Time Rush, and Starlight by Don Diablo and Matt Nash. But nothing that really stands out as being truly awesome.

READING: A book called Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand. I'm not far into it, but it's got an interesting concept and I like it so far. We'll see how it fleshes out. My friend Matty wants me to read the Percy Jackson series. Swears up and down that it's the most epic thing since sliced bread, so I'll probably give that a try next.

WRITING: Still as dry as a desert well on this one.

DOING: I've got a boyfriend! This is my first one since my divorce, so I'm pretty excited. David is a great guy and I can't wait to get to know him better. He's super sweet, attentive and caring. And he's an old-school gentleman. They're hard to find these days!


Monday, March 9, 2015

Edible Inevitable Tour

Everyone who reads my blog knows that I am a huge Alton Brown fan. The man knows how to make cooking entertaining, and he got me interested in the craft by explaining the why behind it. It wasn't until I discovered his show that I even realized its what I'd been searching for all this time.

So, as you can imagine, Alton has changed my life in more ways than I can even list. So, when tickets to his so-called "variety show" hit the booths for Seattle back in June of 2014 (for a Feb 21st 2015 show!) I was ready. Well, I thought I was. The VIP tickets had sold out in less than 2 minutes, so I had to settle for regular seats. Not only regular seats, but the first 20 some-odd rows were already sold out within 10 minutes. My friend and I (who I hadn't determined at the time but I knew I wanted someone to go with me so I was buying two tickets regardless) had to settle for row S on one of the sides of the theater.

As it turns out, the seats were still pretty good. And either Seattle loves Alton more than any other city on his list, or the Paramount Theater is absurdly small, because the first show had sold out so he had to add another, earlier show as well. But to our amazement (my second half now being Monica as I figured she would enjoy going. She is just slightly less obsessed over the man than I am.) No one had bought the seat next to Monica, and I had two empty seats next to me. Score-sauce!


The show itself was the funniest thing I have seen in ages. Maybe even ever. Monica thinks I'm biased. After all, I do crush on him pretty hard. But I really don't think I am. That man is fucking hilarious. He knows how to write/tell stories, and gives enough delicious detail to be able to get his audience to picture it all. Stories about him and his daughter are always a riot. One of the funniest parts was Alton teasing the sign language interpreter in the corner. He broke the 4th wall on more than one occasion trying to talk directly to her, putting off a couple hilarious jabs in the process and making her laugh.


****WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD****


He also had two demonstrations. The first one required a fire extinguisher, three ten-gallon jugs taped end to end, and chocolate ice cream-base. He made a gallon of ice cream in under 30 seconds. And shared none of it, except to his helper that did nothing but pull the trigger and let go at the appropriate time. Lucky bastard.

The other one probably cost the theater a fortune in electric costs, as he took several stadium lights and plugged them together in a steal frame around a conveyor belt. Deemed the Mega Bake, it would cook two pizzas in under 4 minutes. The helper he chose this time was female, and a fairly sassy one at that. She knew about food, but I think she was nervous as he was explaining the process of making the pizza dough. When he asked her what kind of flour that was, she said "white". But when he asked what kind of corn meal that was, she said "yellow" and at least that was mostly correct! lol One of Alton's best comedic features is his ability to think on his toes and always has a witty comeback, which always makes for an entertaining outcome. One of the best lines came from the lady though, I think her name was Michelle. Once the pizzas were done, he asked her which one she wanted to try: his or hers. "Yes." was her reply. The cheese was so stringy that Alton was pulling it off several feet at a time. He put one end in his mouth and to everyone's amusement and amazement, picked up the other half of the string of cheese and handed it to Michelle, who immediately began the Lady and the Tramp moment. Lucky! Unfortunately, he cut that off real quick lol. Oh well.

The only slight disappointment were the songs. Yes, they were clever and witty, but for all of Alton's good points, singing isn't really one of them. He can play the guitar, which is sexy as hell, but that's about it, unfortunately!

The show was still worth every penny though, and was definitely worth waiting 8 months for! (Technically, more like a year and 8 months, as he'd done a tour previously but had come no where near Washington the first time). If you're still waiting to see it, you surely won't be disappointed!

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Google Navigation Destroyed my Career

Okay, maybe I'm over-exaggerating. But I'm still extremely disappointed in Google Nav. I know, it popped up with a warning saying it was in Beta, blah blah, but it's not like I was trying to find Mordor here!

Franciscan Vascular Associates in Federal Way is not in some backwoods country hick town in the middle of nowhere. It's on a main drag, in a big city, and Google screwed me over not once, but twice!

I have myself a whole hour to make my way for this interview, that would take 20 minutes without traffic and probably 30 minutes with some morning rush. There was an accident on North I-5 (duh, because there always is) which cut down my time quite a bit but I could still get there in time.

If Google Nav had any idea where I was going.

After I got lost the first time, as Google Nav decided to take the scenic route and plop me in the center of a residential district, I called the clinic and they gave me the address for St. Francis Hospital and said it was nearby. Okay, perfect. Plug it in and get going. I still wasn't late. Yet.

And then Google Nav plopped me in the middle of a park.

DAFUQ.

Now it was 7:30, and I was officially late for my interview. Luckily, the interviewer was the one who answered the phone the second time and had to manually direct me because obviously Google Nav was on some sort of strike and was refusing to tell me where this place was at.

The purple star was my first attempt, and the red star is, supposedly, where St. Francis is located. No, that would be the BIG F*CKING PINK BLOB NEXT TO THE ADDRESS FOR VASCULAR.

So, I probably ruined my chance at getting this job since I was about 10 minutes late for the interview. I could have found the time that weekend to drive up there and find the place, but if Monday was any indication, I wouldn't have found it anyway!

I guess I learned never to trust Google Nav again.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

I Wish I Liked Football

With the NFC Championships fast approaching, Seattle is in a fervor. They're still riding on a high from last year's Super Bowl win, and everybody is talking about the "best team in the League". I wish I could ride the wave of this enthusiasm. 

All rights go to the original poster of this image

Don't get me wrong, I love the Seahawks and I'm proud of them. They are a great team. I used to watch them with my dad when I was a kid, so I know the basics - the ins and outs of the game. Unfortunately, my like of football has been tainted.

A couple of years ago, I was married to a man who loved football. I used to watch games with him. At first it was fun, but then he decided that drinking would be a staple to watching the Seahawks play. He would become annoyed if I asked him any questions about what had just occurred during a play. He would get incredibly loud and boisterous, which is just not okay living on the third floor of an apartment. Then, as the years passed, he'd invite friends over, and they would all get drunk, loud, and boisterous. I just couldn't be in the same room as them anymore. I would tell them to quiet down and they would yell at me to shut up. I don't know if this mark on my rental history for noise complaints is related, but it sure as hell is following me around either way. I'm sure my old neighbors were extremely tolerant, but I know they were beyond loud. 

When it was just my husband and his best friend watching a game, they would often pause a recorded game for hours and argue about it, turning a 2-1/2 hour game (without commercials) into a 5-6 hour game, taking up the only TV in the house. Then, it wasn't just the Seahawks anymore. He had to watch every game of football the same way, just so he could keep up on who was going to play the Seahawks next, or whatever.  

I love you, Wil Wheaton. 

We also had arguments about the show *I* wanted to watch. The Next Iron Chef played Sunday nights at 8 or 9pm, and I would want to watch it live because Alton Brown usually tweeted along with the show. Normally this would not interfere with his "Seahawks time", but because him and his buddy would pause it and yell at each other for hours, I would complain about wanting to watch my show. It should never have been an issue, but every Sunday it was the same. 

Sometimes I would cry, because I felt trapped. Sure I had a car, but I had nowhere to go, no one else to spend time with. I was trapped in an apartment full of drunks with nothing to do. I decided then that I hated football. Okay, that's a strong word. But extremely dislike. It's very hard for me to get over all this bitterness the game created around my marriage, even though it wasn't the sport's fault. I kind of worry about watching the games with any one else (any future boyfriends) because I fear them being just like my ex-husband. 

I know it's wrong to blame football, but I can't help it. Maybe one day I can start over. But today is not that day.

Sorry, hand egg sports ball fans.