It was fun having Reagan, Yeffy, Tiff and Kris over last night. It was the first time most of them had been to my house, and I'm definitely hoping to repeat the invitation sometime soon. Both Forest and I really enjoy having company. We were a little excited about it, too. I got home from the grocery store, and Forest was blasting 'They Might Be Giants' music at top volume and dancing around the house while he was cleaning. Soon I joined him, and there were many hours of general cleaning silliness.
I bought way too much food, but I had "maybes" from several more people, and didn't want to have too little. Once the cleaning was done, we started cooking. Forest made the meat version, and I made the soy version of my only really reliably tasty indoor dish. (The taco salad, of course.) As we were cooking, it turned very dark outside, and the rain began.
Kirstin came running downstairs at the first clap of thunder, mainly to avoid cleaning her room, but also to flee the storm and get some reassurance.
Soon enough, the three of us were out on the porch swing getting drenched in the thunderstorm, and laughing hysterically. We sang "Row, Row, Row your Boat", "Rubber Ducky" and other great water songs. We were pretty well soaked before we came inside, and resumed preparations for our soon-to-be-guests.
When they arrived we stopped being generally goofy (well, I guess we're a little goofy by nature, but we tried to act more sane) and started trying to be good hosts. That's when we realized that we like having company. A lot.
We gave Yeffy and Reagan ye ole standard house tour, and then served the vast quantities of food. Thankfully everyone was hungry! Forest really likes them, and we had lots of the fun kinds of conversation that I miss so much from my friends. We're a bunch of semi-intellectuals, with expensive educations and bizarre experiences, and dry senses of humor. It makes for a good time. Forest pointed out that we also had just the right number of people there for a good variety of conversation, without overwhelming noise or multiple simultaneous small groups. He's right, it was really pleasant. It's also fun to see them and not *do* anything in particular. We get together on Wednesday nights regularly, but we're gaming then, and it's distracting to get to talking about other things.
Forest made strawberry shortcakes for everyone, which were *yummy*. My tummy is growling now just thinking about them.
The only bummer was that at little past midnight when everyone was getting ready to go home, we all realized we'd all missed Andy and Shelly and wished they could have joined us. Well, maybe next time.
Today work is a real drag. All I want to do is go home and climb back in bed. This is perfect sleeping weather for me; cool enough that I want to snuggle up under a heap of covers, but not so cool that I have to run the heat nonstop. Besides, at work I feel like a moron, and I just don't feel like being a moron today.
Why, you ask, do I feel like a moron? Here's why. At work, all of the sudden I'm required to use Front Page as a web authoring tool. In the past everyone else in my company has been required to use it, but I always hung on to my old FTP/text editor methods, because I could. Yesterday FTP access was shut down, so I had to start using Front Page extensions to connect. Lovely. So what's the first thing I did? Of course, I tried to import my existing Front Page Web. I still don't know how it happened, but somehow my project's default.htm file overwrote my company's main default.htm file. Poof. Then the entire navigation structure somehow fell apart. This is the big Intranet site that everyone has been working on for about three months, which is to be unveiled on Friday. And I hosed it singlehandedly. So now there are a bunch of people stomping around, putting it back together. I tried to offer to help, but was pretty much told to go away (understandably), so I'm in my office wishing I could be anywhere else. I can't believe I'm that much of an idiot. It doesn't bother me if I screw up something that *I* was working on; but when I screw up the work of 5 other people I get a little upset.
Forest gets frustrated with me when I say things like this. I don't know why I feel this way, but screwing things up makes me feel stupid. Also, people who have information, or some thoughts one something, but won't deign to share them with me for one reason or another make me feel the same way; as though for some reason they don't feel I'm smart enough to understand the depths of their superior intellects. When someone points out to me that I missed seeing something, or misheard something they said, I feel stupid, too.
For instance, on the way back from Chicago this weekend we stopped at a huge gas station/mall place. Forest went to get the breakfast from BK, and I went to pay for the gas. As I was walking out the door, I thought I heard someone call my name, but I glanced around and didn't see anyone but the crowd of strangers looking at me oddly, so I went out the door, got into the van, and drove down to the BK lot to wait for Forest. I thought I was being considerate.
When Forest got to the van, though, he wanted to know why I drove away, when he was at the gas station trying to get my attention. I indicated that I hadn't seen him, and he said "But I called your name, and you looked right at me."
Well, I just didn't see him. I apologized, but he kept going on about it in his incredulity that I had glanced over him and not seen him. Finally I said "I'm sorry, I must just be stupid or something, I don't know why I didn't see you."
It's a knee-jerk reaction for me. It drives Forest insane. He of course got immediately frustrated with me. It really pisses him off when I say I feel stupid. Even last night he was trying to reassure me that no one but me thinks I'm an idiot. Well, I don't really think I am, I guess maybe I'm afraid of being so? I'm not sure. I think it's yet another situation where my expectations of myself are too high. Of course I'm not always going to see what I'm looking for, and of course I'm not always going to hear things exactly the way they were spoken. I'm not always going to automatically know how to do something without making mistakes first. Those are unreasonable assumptions to make. I just need to learn accept that I will make these mistakes and oversights, and that it makes me human, not necessarily an idiot.
Still, I'm longing for my lunch hour, during which I plan to hide somewhere and read a book. Then I will be longing for 5 PM, when I can get out of here, and have nowhere in particular to go until 8 or so, when I'll head to Yeffy's place. I don't even have the comfort of seeing Forest today. He's working the opposite hours I am, so I'll see him for a few minutes around 9 PM when he's coming to Yeffy's and I'm leaving to take Kirstin home. It's just an altogether shitty day.
Once I get home, though, I really need to get things cleaned up so that I can get ready for party number 2 for the week. Friday night we're having all the Tae Kwon Do people over. I'm expecting anywhere from 5 to 40 guests, and had been planning a bonfire, but it looks like it will rain, so I guess I've got to figure out a way to accommodate them all inside.
This is the most social Forest and I have been in ages. I think I'm kind of enjoying it. I'm spending way too much money on too much food, though. I really must learn to control that better.
But what I really feel like doing today is superflously spending money. I love my purse, but it's starting to fall apart, so I guess I should get a new one, and gosh I'd really like to get a camera with red eye reduction before we go to Mackinac, and wouldn't it be nice to have a light windbreaker, too? And I'd like to go to garden.com and order another couple of trees, because it was just so easy the last time, and I really want to buy Kirstin a copy of Tarzan and I want a radio for my office, so I can listen to some music, and I've been saying for months that I really ought to get something to hang on the walls in here. It just doesn't do to work in corporate America and not have any decorations. Maybe a big Darth Maul poster in a frame would be nice. While I was replacing Kirstin's bow I also saw a neat old bohdran for a good price at the music shop, and a really pretty little fife that would be fun to tootle away on.
Why is it that whenever I feel a little down on myself I want to go spend spend spend? I really shouldn't. I'm trying to save money for our trip, so we can lark about Mackinac Island for a few days without worrying about cash flow. I cleaned up one of my credit cards, and have money socked away in my checking account just for the occasion. So why is it beckoning me so?
Back, foul green devil. I will not succumb.
