Ah. So THIS is what it feels like to be downsized!!

"Symptoms of metal allergy usually appear within six to 24 hours after exposure to metal. The only truly effective way to prevent metal allergies is to eliminate exposure to the allergen that triggers symptoms. This can be exceedingly difficult with metal allergies, because allergens such as nickel are present in so many products. However, brief contact with metals usually will not cause a reaction, even in allergic individuals. The key is to avoid regular, sustained skin contact with the allergen."

This is why I don't wear a name tag at work. I'll pop one on occasionally, if we're expecting a corporate visit or somesuch, but otherwise....

It seems like as I age, I become more sensitive, too. My fillings don't bother me (I read that it is super rare to be allergic to that metal...), but yanno the thin material in your pants pockets? Apparently my work keys are able to burn right through those puppies, as it now looks like I seared my skin where they sit.

Awesome.

{Phone rings...}

Me: Hello?
Perky Girl: Hi!, is this Aubrey?
Me: ... um, yes?
Perky Girl: Hi! I was just calling about the room you put up on craigslist?
Me: ... craigslist?
Perky Girl: Yeah, we exchanged a few emails about a room you had available?
Me: ... I haven't exchanged any emails, I never put anything on craigslist.
Perky Girl: You didn't?
Me: ...noooooo..... I'm sorry for the confusion!
Perky Girl: Okay, um... bye!

....

UNAMUSED.

I text my brother: "Um, any reason I just got a call from a girl from craigslist that I supposedly exchanged emails with regarding being my roommate?"

He calls back immediately, as I'm already trying to poke through craigslist (a site I've been to like three times ever, so I have ZERO idea how to navigate) to see if I can see a post that someone put up with my name and my number. I'm sorta freaking out, thinking someone is being vindictive towards me or somesuch. He gives me the brilliant idea to call Perky Girl back to get some additional information.

I so very much hate the phone.

I call her, she answers.

Me: Hi, you just called about rooming?
Her: Yes!
Me: Hi, this is Aubrey, I'm just trying to get some additional information so that I can get to the bottom of this. You said we exchanged emails?
Her: Yes, several emails, and then you said to just go ahead and call the number in the ad, 521....
Me: OOOOH.... I'll bet I know what happened. We just bought our Mom a cell phone, I'm wondering if whoever sent you to call the number either transposed numbers or thought that the number still belonged to the previous owner.
Her: .... but YOU said...
Me: That's the only thing that I assume could have happened.
Her: *huffy*... so you are saying you DON'T have anything for rent?
Me: No. Neither does my mom.

..... so. I call Mom and say, "So... you told someone to call me?" Apparently, her phone rang, she answered it, and the girl said "Is Aubrey there?" Mom told her "no, but you can contact her at...."

The only thing I can think of, after filtering out any paranoid thoughts of some vindictive, angry person sitting at a computer in a dark room, cackling "HEE HEE HEE, THIS WILL SHOW HER!", is that there is some girl here in Vancouver named Aubrey who needs roommates who just so happened to either transpose or mistype a telephone number to magically get a woman who randomly also has a daughter named Aubrey....

No matter what happened.... no, sir, I don't like it.

You know it's going to be a long day when the manager you're working with makes you want to drink heavily by 8 am.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I really need to get out of my pajamas and get dressed, as I have to leave for work in 20 minutes or less. Instead, I shall compose this post whilst inhaling the last of my grape nuts.

I went to bed with the knowledge that I am out of coffee at the house. Being addicted to caffeine as I am, if I would wait until I get to work at noon to make a pot, I would already be dealing with a horrible and debilitating caffeine headache. As I lay in bed this morning, I remembered that I had picked up a tiny single pot package from the canned food warehouse type place! Wooooey hoooo!

I went into the kitchen and realized I have ZERO idea where I put it. After going through everything in the kitchen, I finally found it. I literally lifted it over my head and yelled "YESSSSSSSSS!!!!..." (Picture the stance in your mind, if you will, of He-Man and his sword, and a loud statement of "By the power of Greyskull... IIII HAVE THE POOOOOWAAAAH.") I started to cheerfully make a pot of coffee: put in the filter, poured in the water, cut open the package of coffee. As I pour the little shiny package into the filter, one word on the package stood out to me...

...

....Decaffeinated.

..... WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!??!? I'M MELLLLTING, MELLLLLTING!

Well, poop. I then discovered that I had two tea bag like thingies left of my Folgers instant, so I cut those open and tossed the meager crystals on top.

I don't know why I'm sulky about being the closing manager on Christmas Eve. I certainly don't have plans - the only family in the area is my mother and brother, and I live with one and will be visiting the other tomorrow. Maybe it's just the principle of the thing. It's also only a teensy six hour shift, not nine or ten like I usually work.

Huh. Apparently Brittany Murphy died of a cardiac arrest this morning.

.....

My ears are FINALLY not absolutely killing me.

....

According to a dream I had night before last, after Matthew Fox has sex, he turns into George Clooney. I also spent a lot of the dream trying to explain to Mom who the heck Matthew Fox was. "Party of Five? No? Lost? Shoot, you don't watch that...."

Ugh, my ears hurt so bad! Even just the thrum of the heater is enough to cause pain, let alone actual speaking and noises!

Okay, okay, fine, I give. I admit I have an ebil, ebil cold of DOOM. My raw throat kept me awake most of the night and I even willingly got out of bed at 5 am. I'm now drinking the free sample of Starbucks VIA I was given a bit ago (it's aiight, but feels like HEAVEN on my throat), waiting for my Dayquil to kick in as I eat cereal before heading to work. Caution: head stuffiness and illnesses may cause run on sentences.

All the way up until the time I went to bed, the weather people kept waving their fists in the air, declaring an awful storm was to hit us overnight, burying us in frozen rain and snow and gross and ick. This morning, I wake up to them all saying "Tee hee. Just Kidding." Being a pedestrian, I totally don't mind. I was assuming that my walk to work would be beyond quite miserable.

Although I'm ill, Friend Lori wants to have a girls night tonight, so Lori, Coworker Jen (who is made of 100% awesome, btw.), and myself will be eating pizza and watching movies and whatnot. Imma see if we can swing by Target or somesuch en route so that I can stock up on Kleenex and not use all of hers.

Ha, the news anchor said that they're not going to send their people out into the cold to report that nothing's going on. "We're not going to insult your intelligence like that." Makes me wonder which channel I had it on in the storm of Jan 04 when they said "More reports on weather conditions coming up, but FIRST! We take you to live footage of a frozen tree."

It never ceases to amuse me that if a cat wants to sleep somewhere, they will make it work, no matter how tiny or uncomfortable or illogical the spot may be.

It's 13 degrees outside, woo! Day... three or four or whatever of ARTIC SNAP 09. Zero moisture in the air, which means no snow. I've been on vaca since Saturday, so I haven't really had to go out in it. I love it, for the most part, especially since there's no icky snow to walk to work in.

My poor computer is getting old and grumpy, but like most long-owned clunkers, I know little things here and there that I can do to make it work, i.e. if it won't start all the way, I can remove the usb receiver for my wireless mouse and try again - ta da! If the tower is clicking alarmingly, I can turn it off, pull the plug out of the back, plug it in reeeeal good, and start it again - problem solved! (Yes, yes, I hear that the clicking just may be my power supply that is dying, but I'm in great denial about this.) I had originally thought of using my tax return to get one (now with Windows 7!), but I think I shall use it for other things. I have two thingies in the burner, you see. I don't want to talk about them so as to not jinx myself, but both, sadly, need money to do.

Thank you, snonsumr, for my first Christmas card! I think I still have boxes upon boxes of cards stuffed in crannies here and there, but am too lazy to get around to decluttering my life to find the durn things. (... oh yes, I need some serious decluttering.... oh, yes.)

Because you care oh so much about the status of my super dry skin, I finally got things back to normal by getting a moisturizer (instead of a "lotion") and ... it's quite amazing how much better it works when you put it on IMMEDIATELY after your shower (like within 2 or 3 min) instead of like twenty minutes after your shower. That is my secret for joo.

It occurred to me the other day that we're at the end of another year, which is great cause to go back over the events of the last year and to see how far we've come. Let's see.... this time last year, I was Ops Sup at the Van Plaz OMX, a pedestrian, hanging out with mainly my roommates and Lori, living in a townhome.... holy crap. NOTHING has changed in the last year. Well, yes, Lori and I are closer friends now. And yes, there was one MASSIVE MAJOR EVENT this year, which was the whole mother illness... other than that? Nothing is different.

That, to me, is sort of terrifying. I racked my brain to try to find something -anything- to be able to add to my list. Wisdom teeth removal? Nope, that was last year. Change of upper staff at work? Nope, management is exactly the same. I think I put on like 10 lbs, sadly (which VERY much needs to change...), but other than that.... I got a haircut in January? Getting my paladin to 65 isn't REALLY an accomplishment.

Everyone in the house is sick. .... okay, Jessie and I are sick. We both have massively snotty head colds, though Jess seems to have gotten the brunt of it. Alka-Seltzer Cold, I am in love with your magical abilities once again.

Hows things with yous? I miss you all!

Welp, I made it through another Black Friday with the company.

Funny how you can work for a company for oh so long, you can know where everything is in the store, you can mentally prepare yourself greatly for the event, but the very second the doors are opened? It's like I've been employed there a week. All ability to act, react, THINK, goes out the window.

Thankfully, people were pretty understanding, for the most part. I felt really bad for one lady who was waiting in line for a monitor and a guy cut in front of her and bought two of them. I hadn't seen it happen, unfortunately. Line cutters are a SEVERE pet peeve of mine, and I don't care how fast you hoof it to my register, I will so boot you to the back if you line jump. Anyhoo, by the time the lady got to me, all of the inexpensive monitors were gone.

Ah, well, it's Black Friday.

I also had the joy of today being my Super Awesomistic Fabuloso Cramp Day. There's 365 days in the year, only 12 of which are generally evil crampy days, and my uterus had to pick TODAY?!? Eesh.

Yay for Panda Express catering, though.

We finally slowed down a bit, and for the sake of saving some payroll, they asked for volunteers to go home. I waved my arm frantically, grabbed my purse and civilian clothes, and got a ride home with Aimee two hours before the time I was scheduled off, and enjoyed an afternoon of leveling my Dreanei paladin to 57 (Miss Pru), kicking it pajama style, watching Oprah, and eating leftovers. (Methinks I consumed too many yams.)

Is it just me, or is Luke Wilson starting to look odd? Granted, I never found him cute...

Don't even know why I'm going off on that tangent.

How have you all been?

R.I.P. Ken Ober. You were a great part of my household in the late 80s.

I've been pretty rotten at this whole updating thing for quite awhile now.

I'm still alive, I promise!

People are asking how I'm feeling - I felt almost as if my coworkers treated me like a mini celebrity, as no one seems to have KNOWN someone personally who had H1N1. I'm recuperating after six days of fevers and chills and LOTS of runny nostril-having. I haven't had a fever in a bit more than a day or so, but my throat is still killing me. I also have sinus pressure from HELL, but the doc said he thought I also had a sinus infection on top of the flu. I have some antibiotics that I need to get around to filling.

I had a creepy experience with a WWII vet yesterday. He came into my pen aisle (where I am currently slaving to reset 40 feet of pegged ink pens - that's 40 feet long, six feet tall, thankyouverymuch.) seeking a refill for his Navy pens. He told me a touching story about how he was on a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean when it was bombed by the Japanese. He told me about how the other men and he spent over 72 hours straight bailing water out with buckets, and how they didn't know if they would survive or not as all of their electrical equipment was damaged in the bombings and they were sitting dead in the water, unable to even call for help as their ship filled with water. He told me that he was going to a school for a Veteran's Day celebration sorta thing and how he was going to tell some of his stories to the children.

I couldn't find a refill for his pen. He did the whole adorable but harmless ancient guy flirting with a young girl sorta thing, shook my hand and said his name was Frank. He then pulled me into a hug, which was still fine. He then kissed my cheek, which was sorta okay, but kinda pushing it. I stepped away, which is when he grabbed me into another hug, told me to plant him a good one, and GNAWED ON MY FREAKING EAR. I had to very physically push him away at this point and told him "I can help you find an ink refill, but anything else is not in my job description."

SRSLY.

What has two thumbs and has a CONFIRMED case of H1N1? THIS GUY.

Okay, okay. I will be one of the ones to totally agree that vampires are TOO entirely popular lately. With news of each and every new film or show to be released featuring all that is vampire, I roll my eyes a bit more.

However.

I will be the first to admit that even with all of that overhype and such, I stupidly got roped into the whole True Blood phenomenon, and later the books.

I finished book nine of the Sookie books last night.

Let's discuss!!!

[Shallie, I'm so looking at you!]

Bored (and drunk) now. My driver is also beyond snookered. Entertain me?

Holy frack, I'm snookered! ...and happy I came.

OH, and one more thing and I'll shaddup. Extra kudos to an MST3K related prieview before the movie. Mike Nelson on the big screen FTW!

My innermets are "broken" until Friday, so the only way to contact me until then is via texts or phones. OH THE HORROR!

I watched The Knowing, Drug Store Cowboy, Tipping the Velvet, and House Bunny today. (All were for first-time viewings.) 

Feel free to discuss.