Spaz Attack: Losing the Car

Last night Salsa Boy went out in the evening while I opted to stay at home. This morning at 8am, I went to the parking lot behind our building (which is fairly small) and realized that the car wasn't in sight. I walked to the other side of the building and it wasn't there either. At this point I started to panic because what if a friend drove him home last night and what if I have to call a cab to take me to work? So I dashed back up the three flights of stairs (miraculously in heels, without hurting myself) and burst into the apartment to demand where the car was.

Me: SALSA BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~hears shower noises~
Me: SALSA BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Salsa Boy: AH! What?! What's wrong?!
Me: WHERE THE F*CK IS THE CAR?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Salsa Boy: (~looking sheepish and apologetic~) I'm so sorry! There were no spaces! It's in the parking lot behind building X.
Me: WHERE?????
Salsa Boy: Calm down. ~Gives directions~
Me: GAH! Why didn't you tell me this earlier?????????????

Anyways, so I finally found the car, got in, started it...and realized that I couldn't see out of the windshield. That's  right, it was 31 degrees and I had frost on my windshield. Salsa Boy does not have an ice scraper though he does have that defroster function. However, I didn't know how to leave the car on while the clutch isn't in so it could defrost itself while I scraped....with a piece of cardboard from the backseat. While recounting this story to my mom she pointed that if I put the car in neutral and pulled up the parking break it would work. ~head desk~

I managed to make it to work with 2 minutes to spare and everything was okay. Unless you count the fact that 2 major lights were out on my drive home making the lovely busy intersection treacherous as hell. Also, my break light went on.

I really miss walking to work. Driving is stressful.

Grocery Stores in America

Growing up, my father and I went grocery shopping every Saturday morning at our local IGA. It has 4 aisles. Not 4 super long aisles, just 4 small aisles. 

It's the type of place where they know my name and who in my family is allergic to what. When I was home for 2 weeks in December, they special ordered my favorite type of vanilla soy yogurt for me. 

The store where I do my grocery shopping in Texas is huge.  HEB seems to have more floor space than the local Costco.  (This is not my HEB, I did a google image search.)

When I realized I forgot to get Cheerios it meant walking for a few minutes before I could get back on track. It's completely overwhelming. The only positive side is that reading the aisle signs only takes me a second as opposed to a minute like it would in Korea. 

I have so far refused to go to HEB alone. 

Life Spaz: 

My food processor refused to turn on last night...right after I put the peanut butter and butter in to make peanut butter cookies. Salsa Boy beat the batter by hand for me but STILL IT WAS SO IRRITATING. I'm going to have my dad talk me through how to play with the wiring. I think it's just the connectivity in the back, nothing that some pliers and electrical tape can't fix. 

Not much else. It's actually kind of nice when I can go a few days without causing bodily harm to myself. 

The Spaz Chronicles Continue

Sometimes, I think that I should change my blog name to the Spaz Chronicles.

Yesterday, I was sitting innocently on my couch when I went to move my leg to sit cross legged. All of a sudden I had an incredibly sharp pain in my foot. Luckily, Salsa Boy was home on his lunch hour and came quickly to my loud cries.
Me: AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I got a splinter in my foot!!!!!!!!!!!
Salsa Boy: But...our floors our vinyl. And you are sitting down...on the couch.
Me: IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!! GET IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Salsa Boy: Right. Tweezers, where are the tweezers?!
Me: CUP! In the cup!
Salsa Boy: ...in the cup? In the kitchen?
Me: NO THE BATHROOM WITH ALL OF THE MAKEUP STUFF. ~loud moans/whines of pain~

He managed to find the tweezers and even get what turned out to be a chunk of glass out of my foot. That's right, I got a chunk of glass in my foot while sitting on the couch. I was really confused by this, after all we've only had the couch for a week and all of our glassware is still intact. Then I remembered that our couch came from a movie set and something probably broke on it during the movie. At least the glass bit didn't get lodged in my butt. Note to self: In the future, thoroughly vacuum all second hand furniture before use.

Despite the bleeding and shouts of pain it didn't turn out to be too bad once it wasn't actually in my foot. Then poor Salsa Boy got to go back to the office after his much more lively than expected lunch break.

As my dear friend Bambi* would say, "Oh, Alex."

*Obviously Bambi is not his real name as Bambi is not a stripper or porn star.

A Sneaking Suspicion...

I have the sneaking suspicion that being unemployed really just means more hours of the day in which I'm free to be a spaz. Yesterday was a rather good example. Since there are only so many hours you can comb the internet for job opportunities I decided to make the most involved dinner I have ever attempted: the pot roast. When I went to put the pot in the oven I failed to notice a serious design flaw where there is a sort of heated lip that is very easy to knock against if you aren't careful. Fortunately, I discovered it by placing my thumb against it and getting a very large, painful blister. Why do I say fortunately? It didn't need any further attention until 3 hours later--by which time Salsa Boy was home and willing to spare my poor hands and take it out of the oven for me.

The pot roast was absolutely, freakishly delicious. I'm not sure how often I will be home long enough to make a pot roast but for an occasional treat, I'm a fan.

This morning I also managed to slam my foot into the corner of my bed, crushing 3 of my poor toes. However, that's pretty much par for the course for my mornings.

Up next, an interview for a real estate job! We'll see how it goes.

The Job Search

Somehow, when I'm required to be professional I manage look put-together, avoid coffee stains, and even tripping. It's as if the adrenaline and nervousness kicks in to give me extra coordination skills or something. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm able to actually find a job.

This morning I had an interview that was absolutely terrible. I mean, I charmed plenty but when we talked salary it was a disaster. $8 an hour for a starting salary? For that, I might as well work retail and at least get a discount on something useful. Of course, customers are not nearly as cute or fun as children but that's another issue entirely.

I suppose the question is whether I just want something to tide me over or hold out for something that won't make me want to be stabbed with cacti plants intentionally.

Cuts, Cacti, and Curbs

Cuts

The first of the year turned out to be one giant spaz attack. I somehow managed to cut my fingers 3 times while dealing with the laundry. You might not think that laundry is particularly dangerous but it is when it involves coordinated movement between two hands. I just kept somehow cutting my fingers on my own finger nails. They aren't even long or jagged! I really have no idea how I managed that. Since none of the blood got on my clean clothing it wasn't a big deal until I started coking dinner. Onion in open cuts is decidedly irritating. 

Cacti

Salsa Boy and I just moved into a very nice apartment complex. I haven't had much of a chance to explore so we decided to go on the walking trail for the afternoon. It was really beautiful. This is my first time in this part of the country so there are all sorts of plants I'm not familiar with. Not to mention that the Texas version of winter requires a hoodie instead of 20 million layers. Soon we came across a large bunch of cactus plants. I got really excited. In the north, cacti are rather small and are generally found in pots in offices or homes of people like me who are terrible at taking care of normal plants. This was the real thing, growing all over the place just like we studied during the desert unit in the third grade. I asked Salsa Boy if I could take a picture with his iphone. He said, 'Sure, but wouldn't you like to be in the picture?' In retrospect, this was a terrible idea. 

First, I stood a safe distance away and sort of pointed at them. Salsa Boy, being the clever film maker that he is thought it would be cool if I got behind them. No problem. I could crouch down near them without getting near the prickly bits. And look at this lovely picture. I'm deceptively close and there is no stabby action occurring.

Only, when I went to stand up I had all sorts of stabbing pain in my leg. Lo and behold, some of the sticklers had somehow jumped onto my clothing and into my leg. 

This is me, attempting to pull them all out of my body. I failed, miserably. I thought I had gotten them all but when I tried to walk away I kept getting really sharp pains behind my knee. No matter what I tried, I couldn't seem to get whatever was bothering me out. We decided to turn around and go home. I bravely walked about 20 feet before I whimpered pathetically and gave up. Salsa Boy had to carry me back to the apartment. Once home, I discovered that I had a seriously giant splinter thing lodged at an angle behind my knee which took us a minute to get out. And by us, I mean that I breathed heavily and winced while Salsa boy worked it out with a credit card and some tweezers. However, being used to spastic injuries I got right back up and decided to get dressed again and continue our walk which continued without incident. I stayed far away from the other pretty cacti that I saw. 

Curbs

So learning how to drive a manual car is a whole sort of other spaz attack sort of thing. Salsa Boy claims that I am doing extraordinarily well, since I am already starting on hills and what not. However, driving around an empty church parking lot is not exactly getting me 100% road ready.  After practicing reversing out of a parking space a few times, he suggested that I pretend it was full of cars so we could work on controlling my reverse speed and precision. A good idea, no? So I pull into a parking space, put it into reverse and perfectly execute the maneuver. I got so excited that I forgot to keep an eye on what was going on behind me and drove up onto the curb. My last vehicle was a pick up truck--curbs aren't a big deal in a truck but they certainly are in a little 2 door car. There was a rather ominous noise and then of course, I got startled and stalled. To Salsa Boy's credit, he burst out laughing with me instead of freaking out about his car (which was fine, as soon as I put it in first and got off of the curb). I had to turn off the car and sit in the parking lot laughing maniacally for about 5 minutes before I could start driving again. It was just the last ridiculously spastic event in a long day of running into things, banging elbows, getting cut, and getting attacked by plants. 

I hope the rest of 2011 is less spastic but on the plus side, it will make for good blog posts.