Yesterday was a whirlwind of packing and travel, even though I’d known about the trip for a full three weeks. My sister (stunning, amazing, and single most giving person I’ve ever met) is giving a kidney (her left) to our Uncle (really our Mom’s cousin-in-law). He has spent the last 5 years on Dialysis, and finally found a match in my little sister.

Today was a mostly full day of tests at the Texas Transplant Institute, for both my uncle and my sister, that ended in all ‘”this is good news” (only holdup is waiting for the uncle to drop another 10-20 pounds) and “we’ll let you know what we find”. We went on a boat tour in downtown to wind down, post-anticipation.

Tomorrow morning is another 5 or 6 hours at the hospital, then we fly back to Michigan in the afternoon. Then more waiting. Always the waiting. But we’re so close. So. Very. Close.

Two things you need to know, to understand #MismatchedMonday

#1: I am a simple creature.

#2: I don’t wear white socks.*

Long sock season: Labor day to Memorial Day

With those established, it shouldn’t seem like too much of a leap to understand why I do a thing every Monday that I call #MisMatchedMonday.

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I found out on Wednesday that the position I’m in at LW (Quality Control) is being dissolved, so I was given a few choices: Support Supervisor, Monitoring Tech, and Support Tech. After lots of debate and hemming and hawing, it looks like I’m gonna do some support for a while. I’m actually kind of excited, which will probably make many of you think I’m crazy. A month or so ago I came in on a Saturday night, and spent a good 6 hours just doing tickets. It was the most fun I’d had at my job in quite a while. I miss the daily challenge and the weird stuff. I still have a lot of technical knowledge, but it’s slipped quite a bit from where I was when I stopped doing Monitoring full time (you know, three years ago).

I’ll have another week to tie up my loose ends in this spot, and then it’s back to the phones and helpdesk. I’m sure I’ll tire of it shortly, but I welcome the challenges.

Ani suggested we set up a cage match for the department heads, and let them fight over who gets me. Think we could make some money on that one?

Today one of my very favorite people is leaving the company that we have worked for, fought for, sweat for, cried and sacrificed for together. I’ve been here 4.5 years. He’s been here about a year longer than me.

Most techs don’t deal well with emotions. The longer I’m in this industry, the more I’m convinced that a lot of us are boarder-line alcoholics because we both don’t know how to deal with our stress levels, and don’t know how to deal with our emotions. (That’s probably true for a lot of professions, but this one I know for sure.) And my eyes are wet. So I’m gonna write it out.

Jay was an amazing mentor when I first hired in. I knew almost nothing about Linux (which is crazy to think about). All I had was customer service, and even that waned when I got so frustrated at not knowing what I needed to know. Jay took very good care of me in those first few months. He talked me through fixing so much, and fed me information as quickly as I could gobble it up. … and he wasn’t even in training yet.

As he and I both worked up through the ranks, and worked together to make this company better than it thought it could be, we started taking trips to get coffee. It was a small thing, but it ended up being one of the defining moments of our weeks: coffee together. We bitched, we problem solved, we discussed, we congratulated.

More than that, though, we supported. If there was a question to which I didn’t have an answer, Jay was my man.

I have been touched by Jay’s kindness, his genuine-ness, and his enthusiasm. Even though he and I do not interact as much as we did when we were in the same building, I am scared that without him in my day-to-day life I will fall short of what I can achieve. Now that he’s moving on to bigger and better things, I’m wondering how many people will fall short because he’s not around as much.

To avoid it negatively affecting people, I am going to hold myself to a higher standard: I will be as kind, genuine, and enthusiastic as Jay has always been to me, to everyone I encounter every day.

<3 you Jay. Let’s coffee soon.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that my nephew is absolutely the cutest baby on the planet, and that I’m not shy about telling you that.

DJ (David James) or deeje.

…okay fine. I may be a bit biased. But he’s still pretty damn cute. Last night was the first night he’s stayed with me. He was awesome, as expected. In November (at ~2 months old) he took his first family road trip with us to Texas. He only fussed the entire time was to tell us something was wrong. Wet, hungry, hot. Other than that he would just hang out, sleep, watch the sky go by, or play with his ma. (more…)

From Ariel, noted to make later.

Cake
1 18.25 oz pkg yellow cake mix
1 pkg vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1.5 C strawberry mix

for the strawberry mix
1 pkg frozen strawberries, thawed
.75 C water
Put this through the blender

For the glaze:
the rest of the strawberry mix
1C sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

mix cake ingredients, pour into bundt pan prepped with Pam for baking. Bake at 325 for an hour. While that’s baking, cook the glaze on medium until reduced, the entire hour (gentle boil for the last 5 minutes).

Stab cake repeatedly once out of the oven with a skewer. Spoon on the warm glaze. Enjoy!

7:39:25 PM Ariel: It’s simple, and with no oil, relatively healthy too
7:39:28 PM me: So simple, and so awesome.
7:40:26 PM Ariel: I took a rum cake recipe I had, and just played with it until it worked
7:40:57 PM me: Can you do essentially the same thing with all fruits for the glaze?
7:41:03 PM Ariel: As one of my friends is allergic to alcohol, and as such I had to figure out something to do for her birthday that’d be awesome
7:41:23 PM Ariel: Yep. Normally I use peaches, but you could probably try cherries too, or raspberries
7:42:14 PM me: my mom has a thing for cherries. the boyfriend has a thing for mangos. Both of those came to mind. :D
7:42:42 PM Ariel: *nods* Mango would probably work quite well
7:43:06 PM me: that’s what I’m thinking.
8:15:20 PM Ariel: Apple and pear, probably not. It has to be a more liquidy fruit, although if spiked with apple cider it might work
8:16:11 PM me: That makes sense. I was thinking of replacing the water with mango juice, too, with the mango idea.
8:16:32 PM Ariel: *nods* Yep. Bolthouse farms mango lemonade maybe?
8:16:44 PM me: oooooh, that’s a good idea!
8:16:57 PM Ariel: I could drink that stuff by the gallon :D

Next week the boyfriend and I are taking a trip to Kansas City, MO for a concert. We’re stopping Thursday on Saint Louis for a night with my Aunt Lisa and her awesome husband. I’m stoked. I’ve been craving a road trip, and the boyfriend is stoked because we’re going to see his very favorite musician (on his birthday).

This is what our trip will look like (so far).  This week Zeus gets an oil change. And a good deep cleaning.

He knows me from my Pagan days. Knows me as a child of Draconis and Eris. Knows me as someone to poke fun as Christians in specific, and religions that believe in a single god in general, and not really care that I’m stereotyping.

“I don’t believe in God.” He says, after hearing that I go to church every Sunday, and have for more than half a year. I immediately want to defend myself. Don’t lump me in with all of the rest of your Christian friends! I haven’t reverted! I’ve gone forward!

Instead I say “Why not?” and hear exactly what I hope to, and it tells me we’re still in sync, he and I.

“I believe in a power greater than myself, but I won’t call it God because I don’t presume to be able to comprehend and contain in a single word something so much bigger than me.” (<3<3<3)

Yup. All of that. And so much more.

There’s a huge whirlwind of thoughts in my head that cover everything from religion in general and my faith in specific, to my thoughts about what removing the emphasis on streamlined beliefs and belief systems could do for humanity. I think I’ll let it percolate a bit more before bringing it out for public discussion (which is as much a part of how I operate as anything else).

But man. What a ride the last year has been, inside this little head.

This is my response to Ipstenu. I thought it would be interesting to you folks:

“Funny enough, I had a very similar situation. I’m dating a boy who is very traditional with these sorts of things (which is a first for me).

I work a shift that is typically 2-4 hours earlier than him, so I am almost always up before he is. I took a snow day the day of the blizzard, but the next day I had to the office. I got up, bundled up quietly, and headed for the door. The boy’s older sister was at the house that morning, and gave me the most incredulous look when I told her my plan to shovel my car out. That set the tone, alright.

I went out and cleaned out the snow and drifts around my car and the ~15 feet out to the alley, went back and showered and went about my day. While I was shoveling a couple of the older guys (both mexican) around where he lives expressed disdain because I was out there, and the boyfriend wasn’t. “He takes care of me, but I’m certainly more than capable. I don’t need him or any other man to take care of me.”

That night, the boy tried to yell at me for doing it myself. “You should have gotten me up! I would have taken care of it for you!”

I tempered my inner strong-willed woman, and came at him with logic. “Listen, we need to get this thing straight. I will never be the kind of woman that asks you to do something because I’m ‘not supposed to’ according to society’s gender stereotypes. You can do all the ‘taking care of me’ that you want, without being asked. You open doors for me, and take the trash out, and protect me from the crack heads without being asked. That’s awesome. But I insist that I always be able and willing to take care of myself, too.”

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “Okay, fine. But you don’t have to do it alone. Next time wake me up, and we’ll do it together.”
__

It’s definitely bred and cultivated into many cultures, still. The boy is second (maybe third) generation, but the predefined roles of women and men in his family are still very strong. “

4:21:32 PM me: I may be a bad person.
4:21:35 PM ani: oh really
4:21:47 PM me: I just caught myself chair dancing to Ace of Base.
4:21:50 PM me: Is there any hope?
4:21:51 PM ani: HAHAHAHAH
4:21:54 PM ani: no.
4:21:57 PM me: damn.