In an alternate reality, I am a scientist

No, I wasn't being pessimistic.. my eyes really are worse today. I was awake off and on all night because I couldn't sleep due to the burning. So, this morning, I just looked at all the red squiggly lines in my eyes, sighed, called my boss and went to bed again, trying not to think about what I am doing to my leave time. What does one day more or less matter at this point? At least I am feeling a lot better except for the eyes.

I think using up all my time off feels like a personal insult, that's why I keep mentioning it. I have been pretty careful about not taking time off if I could help it, mainly because I wanted to see those numbers grow. But this is why I have been saving time, I guess.. unexpected illness. I'll try to get over it, and stop writing about it. At least it's Friday now, and I can stop stressing about it. Besides, I think I went back to work too soon last time, and if taking time off now helps me not get sick again next week, I'm all for it.

We have these stupid little fruit flies or something flying around upstairs, and I can't figure out how to get rid of them or what's causing them to be here. Did I tell you about the time I wanted to be a scientist when I was little? I bought a old science textbook at a yardsale, and I was reading it because, hey, what else do eight-year-olds do in their free time? It had experiments in it, and I decided that I wanted to complete some of them. So I picked out one that didn't require any fancy materials--basically, you just have to leave a banana lying out and wait for the fruit flies to arrive. Then you can study the fruit flies. Imagine my disappointment when my mom put her foot down--there would be no banana lying out on the kitchen counter awaiting the arrival of bugs. (Honestly, I do see her point now..)

Then I decided that I would hatch a chick. The instructions said that you needed to start with special eggs purchased at some special place, but I knew that my parents would never go for that, and besides, I didn't know where to buy them. But really, they probably were just saying that because they wanted you to spend money, right? So I just went downstairs and got an egg out of the refrigerator. I also didn't have an incubator or other warm place to keep this egg, so I found a little plastic purple basket to put the egg in, and set the contraption on top of my bedroom lamp. Happy times, waiting for that little chick to hatch. I don't think it was there all that long before I either figured out that it was never going to work, or got bored with the whole thing. I still have the basket, by the way. I keep my makeup in it. In retrospect, I wonder why it never occured to me that I would find it really creepy if there was a risk of the eggs in the fridge just spontaneously hatching. It's not like eggs never get heated, right?

I did have one experiment go well, actually. I filled a dark blue shallow bowl with salt water, and set it on the windowsill in the kitchen. I guess Mom was feeling sorry for me by this time because she let me keep it there for weeks. Finally, all the water had evaporated, and the blue bowl was completely covered in sparkly salt crystals. It was really pretty, actually. I think I took it to school for show and tell.

Buoyed by my scientific success, I promptly lost the urge to become a scientist. But at least I had a brief career in the world of science--you know, enough to be able to relate to my phd-in-nanotechnology friend. Ahem. Or not. ;)

Noteworthy

Thing of Note #1: I got a phone call from someone famous today. Okay, famous only in select circles, but famous nonetheless--Barbara Foster from Handy Hands, a tatting supply store. She's kind of the queen of needle tatting--which is not, by the way, what I do. It was in relation to my newsletter renewal yesterday, and the fact that I have a new address. Still, I thought it was pretty fun.

Thing of Note #2: We went on a little drive this evening just to get out of the house for a few minutes. We took Devil's Hollow (which, I'm telling you this just because I still think that it is a horrible, horrible name for a road--and also, there are just some places that I would not want to buy a house because of the address, and this is one of them--and also again, the road really is kind of creepy) and ended up downtown, but first, we took a little detour up the side of a cliff and discovered a somewhat ratty little neighborhood. (We are grand explorers, much in manner of Christopher Columbus.) There were a couple of nice houses, some average smallish houses, and a few really junky places. One of the really junky places boasted a For Sale sign in the yard. It happened to be on the cliff side, so there was a phenomenal view of the river winding through downtown, and the fading sun lighting up the rocks on the other side of the valley. Someone had taken a permanent marker and scribbled a price on the sign--$25,000. We discussed this as we continued up the road, and on the way out, we passed it again. "$25,000!" M says in disbelief. "How can it be so cheap?!" And I said, "Well, it doesn't have any doors, for one thing." And that, my friends, is the house that my husband has decided to buy. Never mind that just under the cliff, well within rock-tossing distance from this house, runs a railroad, or that the house has no doors (which I just couldn't get over, even though M claims that there were people inside and maybe we just couldn't see the door--I'm saying that the other door was missing a very large pane of glass, so it doesn't really matter.) Without regards to any of that, M keeps bringing up this house, and betting that we could get it for $20,000, and then we could end up with a house payment of like, $100 a month or something ridiculous like that, and then our cost of living would be almost nothing! (Of course, we wouldn't have any doors, either, but who cares, right, because we wouldn't have to pay rent!) I'm just saying. Doors.

Thing of Note #3: I'm not going to work tomorrow, and I'm not even going to blog about it either. So there!