This introduction is long overdue.  On April 2, Charlie the La-Chon, officially joined our family.

When I met him, it was like a scene out of a cartoon or a Disney movie or something.  Like when there’s a bunch of dogs in a pound, and People are coming, and one particular dog is showing off, so he gets picked?  That was Charlie.  Pick me!  Pick me!  Pick me!  He was practically pushing his litter mates out of his way to get to me and show off.  When I went to leave, he tried to climb in my purse.  He wouldn’t fit, so he started trying to pull things out of it to make room.  I was pretty smitten.  But he wasn’t old enough to go home yet and I didn’t know for sure what my work schedule was going to be, at this point I was just window-shopping. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him!  I knew he was “the one”.  I had already named him before I even knew for sure I was going to get him.

Anyway, I picked him up on April 2 and he’s been an excellent addition to our family.  I asked Tarzan a week or so ago if he was glad we got him, and he said, “Oooooh yes.  You’re a lot less crabby now!”

Ha!  I didn’t take offense.  I don’t think I realized how having a loving pet around impacts your stress levels.  And we’d had our Delilah since before we were married (we shared custody of her before we moved in together), so we had never really been without a pet.  I realize now that Delilah, in a way, made us a family.

Charlie is a bit more attached to me than Delilah was.  Delilah loved everyone, but she didn’t really love any one person more than anyone else. Delilah didn’t necessarily have to be in the same room with me at all times – sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn’t.  For example, because of the robe hook that I have over the door of my bathroom, the door doesn’t really close all the way (unless you really force it, which I never do).  Delilah wasn’t bothered if I went into the bathroom and closed the door.  Charlie, on the other hand, pushes his way in.  Delilah lived here almost ten years and never even tried.

Charlie will follow me around the house.  It’s particularly funny when I’m doing something that requires me to be in and out of several rooms in a short period of time, like folding and putting away laundry or something.  He wants to be wherever I am, but he also wants his toys with him.  He’s constantly carrying his toys into whatever room I’m in, settling down to play, then just about the time he gets situated I go into another room.  He’ll jump up, grab his toys, run after me.  Get settled into that room.  Then, when I move again, a few minutes later, he’ll kind of *sigh*… and draaaaag everything to the next room.  Settle in, and kind of give me a look like… “Don’t you ever sit still, woman?”

He’s a very good boy.  We love him.

 

 

Today, I was an “extreme early riser”.

For the last several years, my work schedule/commute required me to get up before God.  This let me off the hook when it came to things like Morning Workouts or Morning Meditation.  I was already getting up at 4:30 a.m., no reasonable person would think I should get up earlier.

Now that I’ve settled into my new routine off working (sometimes) from home, it occurred to me that maybe I, too, could become a Morning Exerciser.

My Fitbit One died a few weeks ago.  I’m pretty sure I lost it at Wal-Mart, which coincidentally is where I think I lost my last Fitbit One.  I had a Fitbit Zip for a while, which, while cheaper, was a pain because you have to replace the battery every few weeks.  And I was always losing the little battery-removal tool, and I was worried about the ensuing domestic violence that might occur if I continued to have to seek Tarzan’s help getting the back off my Fitbit to replace the battery.  (Domestic violence on my part, just in case you somehow stumbled across this blog not knowing… well, not knowing… ME.)

(This is relevant, I’m getting to it.)

I decided I was tired of losing Fitbits at Wal-Mart, and did not need further temptation to abuse my husband, so I invested in a Fitbit Alta HR.

OMG.  I love it.  The feature that’s relevant to the story is its “silent alarm” feature.  You set an alarm and it buzzes on your wrist.  This is particularly handy if you are sleeping with someone who does not need to get up before God, and would really prefer that if you are going to set an alarm clock to go off that early in the morning (or late at night, whichever) that you please not hit snooze 12 times.  So anyway, with the silent alarm feature, it buzzes on your wrist, which does not wake whatever non-God fearing person you’re sleeping with… you can even snooze it, if, in your sleepy, God-fearing state, you can remember the magic combination of taps that will snooze it rather than turn it off…

For reasons I can’t explain (well I can, but it wouldn’t make sense, and face it… you don’t really care) I decided I needed to get up at 4 a.m. this morning.  And miracle upon miracles… I actually DID it.

Mostly the reason I actually did it was because I had a semi-important self-imposed deadline that required me to get up this early (I wanted to impress somebody, okay?)… I really did want to get up this early… and I tried to snooze my Fitbit, but I accidentally turned it off, and then I had to either get up or go back to sleep and sleep until Tarzan’s alarm went off.  So it was on purpose that I got up at 4 a.m., but also… a little bit of an accident.

As a result, I had my first official experience with “extreme early rising”.  Which I think is a thing.  A new fad or something.  I don’t know.  I think my nephew is reading a book.

I have to admit, I had a really productive day!  I completed the TPS report I needed to complete in time to impress the people on the west coast that needed impressing… I felt that I was working much more on-task and focused for a greater portion of the workday than usual.  I’m thinking, there may be something to this!

Then, it’s time to do my timesheet.  At the new job, you have to include comments on your time entries.  As in, you have to provide a summary of what you did with the time.

And… when I went to do my timesheet, I realized I had no idea what I did with the last 4 hours of the day.  And I had no idea why what I did with the first 4 hours of the day took FOUR hours.  And then I realized that actually, it was 2:30 p.m. and in reality I needed to account for TEN hours.

So as I’m pondering this, I remember that I wanted to log into a FTP site to start a large download, that I realized sometime during the day that I needed to do, but decided to do it at the end of the day, so I could just leave my laptop to the downloading and it would be ready in the morning.

It’s approximately 2:33 p.m. when I first start the process, by logging onto the FTP site.

I enter my email address and enter my password.  It takes me three times before I realize I’m entering the email address from my old job.

I enter the correct email address and enter my password.  That password is not correct.  I check, yes, it’s the password I’ve written down.  I try again, maybe it was just a type-o.  Nope, still no good.  I try another common version of my password, in case I wrote the password down wrong.  Now I’m locked out, too many failed log in attempts.  I must wait 15 minutes and try again.

It’s now 2:47 p.m.

I set a timer for 15 minutes (yes, I actually do this).  I go get a snack.  At 2:50 p.m., my Fitbit buzzes with a “reminder to move”, so I walk to the mailbox.  I get back inside, I read the mail.  Enter some stuff into Quicken.  The timer goes off.

I enter the correct email address and what I originally thought my password was.  It still doesn’t work.  I enter the correct email address and the same version of the password I tried earlier (I don’t know why, I might have typed it in wrong the earlier – you can’t see what the hell you’re typing)… That doesn’t work.  I enter the correct email address and the granddaddy of all passwords that I only use when no other password will work.  Now I’m locked out for another 15 minutes.

I click to RESET PASSWORD NOW.  It tells me I cannot reset my password now, I’ve had too many failed attempts.  I must wait 15 minutes.  I wonder, is that 15 minutes on top of the other 15 minutes?  I don’t know.

It’s now 2:58 p.m.  I set an alarm for 15 minutes.

I go get a snack.  I think of something to say I did all day today and I do my timesheet.  I play Words With Friends.  The alarm goes off.

I click to RESET PASSWORD NOW.  It sends me a link to my email.  I open my email, click the link.

I have to prove I’m not a robot.

It shows me a picture, subdivided in grids.  It tells me to click on all the grids containing street signs.

That sounds easy enough.

I click on grid containing a stop sign.  Oh look, the edges of the stop sign are outside that grid.  Do I click on the grid with the edges, too?  Yes, probably.  Click click click.  Got all the edges.

I wonder if you click on the post that the stop sign is on, too?  Why the hell not.  Click click.

I hit “submit”.

I have not convinced Them that I’m not a robot.

Another grid of pictures pops up.  Again, click on the pictures containing street signs.  It’s a picture of like a residential street.  There are signs that are literally street signs, they say the name of the streets.  I click on all the grids containing those signs, and the posts.  Then there’s a sign on one of the houses, proclaiming the house number.  Does the computer consider house numbers street signs?  I do not know.  I decide no.

I hit “submit”.

I have not convinced Them that I’m not a robot.

Another grids of pictures pops up.  More street signs.  I say to hell with street signs.  I click on the “Give me another test” button.

Now I get a bunch of separate pictures, with the instructions to click on all of the pictures containing cars.  Cars.  Ok, I can do this.

There are pictures of cars parked on the side of the road.  Click click.

There is a picture of a shiny new car in a dealer’s showroom.  Click.

There is a picture of a Hot Wheel…. Are you kidding me? 

There is a picture of what appears to be a child’s drawing of a house, with a car in the driveway.  I can’t even.

It is now 3:38 p.m.  I have spent nearly an hour and I haven’t even figured out how to log into the %$#@! FTP site.

And now I guess understand why it’s necessary to get up by 4:00 a.m. to be successful in life.

This is my testimonial.  Extreme early rising.  It might really be the answer!  And, also…

OMG! You guys…!  I MIGHT BE A ROBOT!

I understand if you aren’t in the habit of taking relationship advice from a person who’s been married three times… maybe I’d be better at writing an entry about “what not to do”, but recent events reminded me of a pretty good book I read years ago.  I think it’s worth reading, and it did change the way I looked at my relationship.  The concept is that each of us expresses love primarily in one (or maybe two) ways:

• Words Of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Receiving Gifts
• Acts Of Service
• Physical Touch

And, if someone expresses love to you in a language that’s different than your primary love language, you might not recognize it for what it is.  You might go about feeling unwanted and unloved, when in fact, the other person has been trying to show you love all along.  Thus, it behooves you to learn your partner’s love language, both so you can recognize when they are expressing love to you, and so you can return the favor by expressing love in a way they will recognize.  (It would also behoove your partner to do the same, but hey, we all know that we can only control our own behaviors, right?)

My primary love language is quality time.  Secondary, probably receiving gifts (that’s become less and less important to me as I’ve gotten older, I suspect less so in time as I’ve gotten more and more self-sufficient – nowadays, if I want something, I buy it for myself!)

My husband’s is acts of service.  He expresses his love for me by fixing things, building things, and keeping the outside of our home nice.  I once asked him how he knows I love him, and he told me because I put his medicine out for him every week.

Lately, things have just been going on.  Nothing bad, but we haven’t been spending a lot of time together (remember, that’s my love language) and I’ve been feeling a little… well, neglected!  (He of course, doesn’t notice anything wrong, because that’s not his love language.)  I suggested to him over the weekend that we go for a bicycle ride.  He didn’t want to. I slunk away, feeling rejected.  Then I thought, well, he didn’t recognize my request as an attempt to reach out in love, because… it’s not his language.  So, later that afternoon, I suggested that he teach me how to cut grass.  (Yes, it’s true, I have somehow lived to be 40 years old and never learned how to use a riding lawn mower.)

He looked at me like I had two heads, but once he comprehended that he heard me right, he was right on it!  He had to hurry up and get the lawnmower going, before I changed my mind!  We spent about half an hour with him coaching me, and then he went back to the garage and worked on his current “project” (the one that’s taking all his time away from me) while I cut a big portion of our back and side yard (we have about 4-5 acres of grass total that he cuts, so it took a little bit of time).

He didn’t complain (much) about the results, he took pictures to prove it happened, I got some attention, and (I think) he felt loved.

What’s your love language?

 

So I’m getting ready to travel to a new Big City for work, one where I’ve never been.  Everyone at the new job says they prefer Uber and Lyft rather than cabs, and it seems that management encourages that, because the cost is quite a bit less.  So I downloaded the apps.

Except, when I was setting up my Uber account on the app, I accidentally told it I want to “drive for Uber”, rather than that I wanted to be a passenger.

Now I’m getting about 5 emails and texts a day from Uber, wanting me to complete my registration to become a driver.  And telling me how excited they are that I’ve decided to become an Uber driver, and how much money I’m going to make and how this decision is going to Change My Life.  And testimonials about other Uber drivers and how wonderful their lives all are now that they’ve decided to take control of their futures and drive for Uber.

It’s all pretty convincing.

I’ve figured out how to stop the emails, but I’m still getting the texts.  I’m afraid the only way I can get it to stop, is just to sign up.  As my friend Jasmyne suggested, then, when my fares ask, I’ll have a funny story about How I Became an Uber Driver.  Maybe they’ll feel sorry for me, the way I was forced into the trade… and leave bigger tips.  I don’t know.

And then, after I make a million dollars, and my life has been changed, I can write a testimonial about how I became an Uber driver just so they’d stop sending me texts.

And I guess… this can be Plan B in case the new gig doesn’t work out.