Creepy Bored Lori

Creepy Lori

I have nothing to do.

They've taken away my computer.

Sure it's because I am getting a new iMac mini (!) next week, and yes, they've provided me with a laptop in the meantime, but I can still complain, can't I? I mean, I've got no PhotoShop, no Macromedia Suite, none of my pictures (they are backed up though, fyi). I'm b-o-r-e-d. So I've used a Flickr photo that's already been uploaded - one that I created at another time when I was completely bored - to a)post on my blog and b) show how bored I am.

Bored.

But boring has its advantages. I've spent the whole day getting on the ball. I've been wrestling with my insurance company all day about cancelling my policy (it's outrageous, ya'll) and paying bills and looking for new deals and getting quotes. I feel so organised.

Those who knew me 'before' (the move to Scotland thoroughly split my life into two very complete and distinct halves - the Lori Arnold half and the Lori McFarlane half - two totally incongruous people) will remember me (probably) as organised, neat, anal, manipulative and in charge. Those who know me now would almost certainly NOT label me with those adjectives. I've been the polar opposite of organised, neat, anal, (maybe I'm still manipulative) and in charge.

But ya'll, that's all about to change. I've taken the bull by the horns (a phrase I must've used about eighty times today). I'm taking control. I'm firing Scott - or more like making him redundant - in the bills/utilities/search-for-good-car-insurance department. He was the one who hired me in that department anyway, and upon seeing my utter failure had to replace me, but I'm back, I'm ready, and I'm relieving him of his responsibilities. Not that he's done a rotten job - it was me that was rotten in the first place - but I know now that I have the ability (finally) to do it better.

Or anyway, we'll see about that.

So, Lori Arnold is making a comeback, or perhaps she's just trying to merge into Lori McFarlane to become one whole person, replacing the two imperfect halves. A whole imperfect person, of course, is the plan. I don't intend to reach perfection, which is something Lori Arnold was never able to accept. See? I'm merging already. I'm on the slip road, and ya'll on the motorway better move over and let me in!

(I started driving today, maybe that's obvious?)

With only three faults - that's two less than Scott did!

My American Weekend

Robert and Devon's Wedding Program Design

Even though I am entirely swamped with work right now, I feel I can’t leave my adoring public (yes, you are adoring, yes, yes, you are) without a good, thorough update of my weekend trip to the North American continent! So, in a compromise with you and work, I will write a brief (maybe) summary, including only interesting details. No! In fact, I’ll list the interesting details! That will make a boring summary more readable, right?


1. The programs looked great. [Link of picture to follow]

2. Devon was a beautiful bride.



3. Robert was such a sweet groom (though I can think of one groom who was sweeter!)

4. It was great seeing some old friends, like Heather, Sarah, Zac and Andrew. It was also nice getting to know some of Devon’s friends better, like Kernesha and Nikki. (Sorry, I don’t know how Nikki spells her name.)



5. My camera bit the dust. Luckily Zac works at Best Buy, where I bought the camera and its four-year warranty, so he’s gonna see about getting it fixed (or replaced). *Crossed fingers.



6. I ate Mexican food, Taco Bell (not the same thing as Mexican food), Wendy’s and McDonald’s breakfast. Mmm.

7. I did not get any Dixie Café, however.

8. Mom took me shopping, and I got loads of new stuff. My favourite is the new coat – it’s white with a gold paisley pattern. Love it.

9. I finally got to see RENT! I watched it twice in a row on the plane. I cried like a baby at all the sad parts. I laughed out loud at the funny parts. It was great. A fan of the stage show must go into it understanding there will be changes, and if one does that, one will very much love the movie, too. Can’t wait to buy it.

10. Speaking of all this buying, I also bought the Felicity Season 3 DVDs. I don’t have any of the other seasons, but since I’ve seen all of Season 1 and 2 and only a few Season 3 (and no Season 4), so I decided to start with 3, move onto 4, and then backtrack to 1 and 2. I’ve been watching Felicity non-stop since I got home.

11. Robert’s dad has some awesome art in his house. He gave me and Amanda the grand tour. It was tres cool.

12. It was so good to see my whole family. I miss them. I’m glad my mom, dad, Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Betty Sue are coming to visit in two weeks. I have a splendid fam.

13. Speaking of fam, I totally threw my grandma into hysterics with my wit. Okay, wit may be the wrong word. But I got my hair done while I was at home (and by the way, I love it. My sister-in-law Charity’s sister Christine did it), so when Mamaw arrived, my aunt said, "Go see Lori’s new hair!" and I walked out of the back with this huge Tiny Turner wig on. My grandma took one look at me and burst into uncontrollable giggles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her giggle so much. It made me feel so happy to be able to make her laugh like that. Like I said, I have a fab fam.

14. I called Scott one day, but he couldn’t talk right then because my cats were running around inside the walls. They’d found a hole under the bathtub (how they got under the bathtub we don’t know) which led to the pipes, which they thoroughly enjoyed jumping into. Scott would try to scoot them out from under the tub, when they would jump in the hole, and Scott could hear them running all over the house. I can’t be getting this right. But that’s what he said. So he called me back when he managed to get them out, several scratches later.

15. Scott picked me up at the airport and took me home to a clean kitchen and living room. Too bad I’ve, in two days, destroyed it with my open suitcases I can’t be bothered dragging up the stairs.

Back

Sorry for the lack of postalation. Tomorrow I'll try to get some wedding pictures and commentage of my weekend in Arkansas up. Until then, I'm gonna watch Felicity on my DVD player on the couch with a box of Girl Scout cookies. I know, even after lamenting about how fat I look in all the pictures of me from the wedding (and after ceremoniously throwing the candy bar I was eating in the trash upon viewing said pictures), I still can't resist these dang Girl Scout cookies.

Thin mints.

This Just In!

Jonathan and Sarah went off to hospital last night. Geeehwhlkeja;e!!!!!!!

[edit] Stella was born at 1.24 this afternoon. We're really happy for our friends Jonathan & Sarah. Go see how cute she is.
Scott [/edit]

Millions of Snow!

The snow started last night as Scott and I drove back from seeing The Weather Man (ironic, no?)(Excellent film, by the way.), and it hasn't stopped since. Up here on the hill we've got a good foot and a half or more. It's great! Like a child, I dragged Scott out of bed and out the door to play.


That shadow in the corner of each picture isn't me being a moron and covering the flash with my thumb. It's proof that my camera has more or less bitten the dust - the shutter doesn't open the whole way anymore.

Ok, and lest you think Scotland is actually that bright, here's a picture not revitalised:


So anyway, church was cancelled, which is good for two reasons: 1) We got to play in the unadulterated snow before the neighbourhood kids destroyed it and 2) We bought the wrong kind of magnetic tape for the Sunday School craft.

Since we don't let the cats outside and they seemed fascinated by the strange scenery through the window, we decided to bring the snow to them. They couldn't have gone in it anyway, considering it would have engulfed them. So we put snow in a tuperware and set it on the floor for them.

They were utterly terrified.

Remedios shot off like a rocket when she saw it. Right behind the washing machine. Wouldn't come out. Claws out, back raised. Clementine was a little less frightened but still highly dubious. We made a tiny snowball for Clem to play with, which she did cautiously. Finally we put cat treats in the box to coax them into the snow. Clem fell for it. Rem didn't.



We were meant to have lunch with Scott's parents who just arrived back from Spain, but no. Andy (his dad) tried to convince us to walk down the hill. Yeah. Right.

I hope this lasts through the night, thus rendering me unable to get to work. Though I kinda need to go in tomorrow to put Devon's wedding programs on a disk and drop it off at the printers. Because, you know, I do leave in THREE DAYS! So anyway we'll see.

SNOW!

Dreams

I had a dream last night that one of my close friends was undergoing a major surgery called... a dichotomy!

The great thing about being off work for three days (besides the obvious) is that when you come back, you actually have work to do!

Ok, maybe that's just me in my situation. But let me tell you, I felt so for real today having a full load of work to do. It was amazing. I came in at quarter to eight and worked straight through the morning to lunch, went to lunch, worked straight after lunch to an hour before the day was over, at which point I turned my focus to Devon's wedding programs which need to be done in Lori Personal Time, ie work time. (But seriously, I mean, I have to do them at work, I don't have PageMaker at home. And yes, I know I didn't need to use PageMaker to make a 4 page A3 spread, but so what?)

Yeah, so working today was awesome. I'll need to do two-day weeks every week.

Like next week! Monday and Tuesday - then weekend! Yes, folks, Wednesday morning, bright and early, I board a KLM cityhopper to take me all the way to - Amsterdam! Which will then take me all the way to - Memphis, Tennessee! Where I will be met by Devon who will take me all the way to - Cabot! Yes, folks, if you've never been the exciting town of Cabot, Arkansas, you really must go. NOTHING more exciting than The Cabot Family Fun Park, CabotZones, the Silver Screen Theatre (which disappointingly did not manage to get the word 'Cabot' in it) and - hold on for this - WENDY'S! AND A WAL-MART SUPERCENTER. AND A DIXIE CAFE!

(All joking aside, Dixie Cafe f'ing rocks.)

Anyway, I've gotta go eat this takeout curry we just ordered.

Sick. Again.

Well, I'm on my second sickness of the year. My boss made me go home yesterday because I was infecting everyone with my minging germs, and since yesterday I've been wallowing in used tissues and self-pity. Man, I hate not being able to breathe. I really hate that dry feeling you get in your throat when you've been breathing out of your mouth all night. I slept for three hours in the bathtub last night, yeah, I mean actually slept, because it was the only place I could breathe. (Hot steam, lovely. Only woke up to let cold water out and put hot water in.) I felt like a saturated sponge after, but man, I breathed.

Smoooke

Trippy

Oh yeah, and also for those concerned - this was normal tobacco not 'wacko tobacco' and it is 100% legal and above board. Though I have nooo idea what this place'll do when the smoking ban comes in at the end of March.

And also, I only post another picture because, one again, I have to blog through the Wonderful and Ingenious Flickr.

The Zen Room

Michaela and I had a good time yesterday in Glasgow. We took the underground to Tchai Ovna, and because our planets were in alignment with the stars and we had such good karma and all that- the zen room was empty. So we took off our shoes (no shoes in the zen room, you see) and settled into the many pillows covering the floor for an evening of getting-to-know-you and spacey music and awesome zen.

We had a lovely meal. Michaela had the yogi yogi chai and a vegetarian calzone. I was boring and got green jasmine tea. For my meal I intended to get the vegan pumpkin jalfrezi but they were out so I also had the vegetarian calzone. Mmm, aubergines. Afterwards we shared a shiska with Two Apple tobacco.



For those concerned, like my parents or other family members - I am not a smoker. I do not smoke on a regular basis. I am not addicted. You need not worry. If I die of lung cancer though, blame the guy who walks in front of me EVERY SINGLE MORNING getting off the train who blows early morning disgusting smoke in my face. Cough, cough! Gah, I can't stand that guy!

May I just stop here and say, at the risk of letting my lesbian skeleton out of the closet, that Michaela is absolutely beautiful? She's beautiful. Beware of her zen-powers with a hookah and a yogi chai, fellas.

For those concerned, I am not a lesbian, nor is my skeleton.

Anyway, it was a great, relaxing time, full of great, relaxing hippie music and great, relaxing zen. Though I think the hippies hated us, at least me, because I'm sooo not zen or hookah, and I totally don't have dreads yet, and I kept saying the word 'zen' over and over because it's so awesome and not using the preferred term 'shiska' but instead calling it a 'hookah', and at the end we so nearly destroyed their hookah collection as we tried to pay. They probably didn't hate Michaela though because she used to go there quite often back in the day (like when she lived here the first time) and also because she's beautiful.

We then headed down to a pub where we enjoyed a lot less zen and comfortable seating but the same good conversation (the usual Reformed folk talk inevitably made an appearance). Before we knew it, we were pushing it to make the last trains/buses to our respective Scottish cities/towns. We walked through the creepy 'Kelvin walkway' and made it alive to the subway and hence the night came to a close.

Almost.

At the risk of saving Michaela's coolness, I won't say exactly what it was that we both discovered we'd both done in high school, but if you're familiar with funny looks that say, "You studied dead people in high school?", you know what it was. Yeah, me and Michaela are both familiar with those looks. My, my, the more you know.

This and That

Scott and Lori

Let me just say, I Flickr. I’m sure there are other good ones out there too, but all I know is that Flickr lets me blog from work, and in doing so, results in a picture for almost every post I make now. That’s gotta be good for the readers, right?

I’m not full of interesting banter today (ha! because I usually am, right?), but heck, that’s never an excuse not to blog, is it?

We studied the Johari Window in COMM1313, so hurray to Ashley for finding this! (Go)

By the way, it’s bleepin’ cold around here. I can’t wait until two weeks from now when I’m lounging in sunny Arkansas, sipping on pina coladas under an umbrella in my bathing suit. (So I like to make my vacations sound more exotic than they are, so what?)

It’s been a muffin-tastic day here at work. Lynne brought me in a massive macaroon muffin this morning for breakfast, and the school nurse just brought in a huge bowl full of mini chocolate muffins (I only took one). I should be saying no, but dang, muffins! I need to be careful because I need to fit into a hot, sexy bridesmaid dress in two weeks, and no one wants to see a gross, podgy muffinface in a strapless after-five, do they?

Look at my cute cats:

(Like I’ve said before, Clem is a little starlet and Rem really, really hates pictures of herself.)

My tea tastes like dirt. With all the money this school has, you’d think they could afford decent tea. Yet I drink.

On the other hand, Lynne’s off to pick us up some broccoli and cauliflower soup, which is usually excellent. And she’s totally going over to get the soup because the Scotland rugby team is brunching there in the Stand. I’d rather it were the Scotland football team, even though they’re crap, because I’d like to hug Kris Boyd and Chris Burke for being so freaking awesome for Rangers. I’d get a picture, too, to flickr/blog.

*JINXES* My driving test is in three weeks on the 23rd March. I also mailed off my first ever submission (5 poems) to a poetry competition. A year and a half after graduation… yeah, that’s not good. But I’ve done it and I will speak no more about it because I am putting it out of my mind, I am not expecting to win, and the results won’t be acknowledged until June anyway and that’s that. The End. I don’t care. Who cares. Yeah whatever, poems, yeah. I’m not thinking about it anymore. It’s so out of my mind. You win some, you lose some. The End. It’s out of my hands. No big deal. It really doesn’t matter to me. It’s all based on one judge’s opinion anyway. No biggie. I’m so done thinking about it. Yeah. Screw ya’ll.