Interplanet Janet

I've been making lots of phone calls to Argentina recently. This week I had to call a teeny tiny little airlines and get some plane tickets for folks traveling down there. Though the airline customer service line said to press 2 for English, only Spanish speakers that continually said "Yes" and eventually hung up answered that line. So our travel agency asked if I could call and book the tickets.

I did and the transaction went smoothly until the customer service agent asked for my name. No one can spell my name properly unless they've known me for years. I never expect anyone to spell either of my names correctly and am accustomed to spelling both out. So when she asked for my name I said my name with a Spanish accent first then last and also spelled both names in Spanish. "Rene: ere, ah, ene, eh, eh & Estewart: ese, te, eh, doble oove, ah, ere, te." First name went fine. There was some difficulty getting the spelling of the last name. I repeated the spelling several times. Finally, after we did some letters in Spanish and English, she got it. Then she says: And your first name is Janet, right?

Janet? Janet?

Here's hoping those poor people actually do have tickets from Rosario to Buenos Aires on the date and time requested. Janet from Ranee? Seriously...how does that happen?

Thank Sephora!

Wow! When someone you haven't seen in over a year says that when they first see you, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Could be: "Wow! You sure have porked up over the last year, did you leave any food in your wake?" Or: "Wow! Where'd you go? There's nothing left of you, you're so thin!" Or even: "Wow! You married Mr. Sark?"

Tonight, I saw a former co-worker that I hadn't seen at all during 2008. First word out of her mouth: "Wow!" Then a slight pause. Of course, as a human and a woman, I filled the slight pause with what I thought the next words out of her mouth would be..."What brings you to a Daycare Fair (like a Bridal Fair, but for day cares)? Did you get a boyfriend, get engaged, get married, get pregnant and have a baby in the 12 months since I saw you?" Completely plausible question, I am Mormon.

But no...what followed her "Wow!" was: "Your face looks great." To which I followed with: "...[quizzical look]..." And she said: "The acne. It's all gone."

I was so confused. Because I was thinking...have I ever looked like the Before on a ProActiv commercial? Has my nickname ever been "pizza face"? I really don't think so. I mean, my face has always been a bit more red than I'd like. And the fact that I am over 35 and get any acne at all drives me crazy. Now I do have the errant pimple here or there occasionally, but nothing that someone would think "Man, that Ranee should wash her face once in a while." In fact, not often, but on a few occasions, other women have told me they like my skin. Nothing like the way this girl must be remembering me: pocked and infested.

I had no idea what to say, because I had no idea what she was talking about. Still don't. But boy am I glad my face looks better, cause a year ago I must've been disgusting.

P.D. And I was at the Daycare Fair cause my friend wanted company and Hey, what better to do on a Wednesday night than walk around a convention center trying to avoid the super happy daycare workers by saying: No thanks, I don't have kids. Yeah, I know...awkward. I'm sure they've put me on some creepy watch list.

Whiskey Tango...

A very nice person left me this cute little box of Salted Caramels on my desk at work. Love the ribbon. After lunch yesterday I decided to give one a try. Those little buggers were glued into the box! The paper fake doily thing? Yeah...glued to the bottom of the box. Couldn't get the chocolate out. O.k..I'm smarter than the average bear, so I go right for the actual chocolate...chocolate stained fingers and then papers that I later touch be darned! But NO! The maldita chocolate wouldn't come out of its paper doily thing. I got chocolate all up under my fingernails trying to dig it out. What is that about? Am I only to LOOK at this chocolate? Is it just pretty?

Yeah, like that'd ever happen. I finally managed to pry the first chocolate out of the box and boy was it scrumdiddlyumptious....all melty and caramel-y and salty. Mmmmmmmm. The second came out much more easily about an hour and a half later and the third even more easily about 4 minutes after that.

Dee-LISH!

Sneezes, Hiccups and Coughs...Oh My!

So...due to it being Dr. Zhivago at my house and the airport shuttle company being fresh out of sled dogs, I had to hike down the hill in 2 feet of snow with all of my luggage to meet the shuttle van at the entrance to my apartment complex. The weight of my luggage practically pulled my down the hill once we hit the pure ice portion of it. When I spoke with the shuttle company about 14 hours before they were to pick me up, they told me that they could not pick me up due to their vans not being able to get up to where I lived. As much as I told the guy that my street wasn't "up" from anywhere and I'd be happy to meet them on the street, he wasn't going for it. Kept telling me I'd have to get to a hotel parking lot at 3 am for them to take me to the airport. So here's my question: If I had someone to take me to a random hotel parking lot at 3 am, I wouldn't very well need the shuttle company to take me to the airport, now would I?
The only way I could get them to take me to the airport was to agree to have them pick me up 7 hours before my flight took off. So I had the wonderful opportunity to sit on the floor outside airport security and go through my email for 4 1/2 hours. There were many people still stranded from the storms the days before. Lots of people taking naps on the floor, on chairs, anywhere they could.

Continued the Tara/Tausha tradition of going downtown for HoCho and a visit to the Capitol Christmas Tree. They are still doing contstruction on the Capitol building this year. Taush says it's never-ending construction. So instead of a tree on the Capitol steps we again get the large tree just across the street decorated. Same bulbs though. But no opportunity to ding-dong ditch the Liberty Bell replica.  Darn!

New Year's Eve we went tubing in Garden Valley. Six runs with turns and jumps. Two hours of great fun. Run number Six was supposedly pretty scary and dangerous, so I nixed that run and decided to go with run number Five, which I stupidly thought was less dangerous. I followed directions and drug my feet the entire way, went as slow as possible (which wasn't very slow) and went up the side of the run, my tube kept going and I fell on my right arm. I heard several cracks when I landed. Knew I was hurt pretty badly and was completely scared I had broken my back.

I thought that if I'd broken my back, I'd better stand up as quickly as possible. Why? I don't know. Perhaps I thought that if I stood up quickly enough my broken back wouldn't get the news that it was broken. I stood up so quickly that I had yet to catch my breath, what with the wind being completely knocked out of me. I had to bend over and try to breathe until my lungs filled back up. Which then hurt like the dickens. Deep breaths and movements involving my right side were extremely painful. I climbed back up the hill, went down the hill 2 more times and decided it hurt too much to keep tubing and took fotos. Over 300 of them. A lot of them of strangers. I couldn't tell if I knew the person as they came down the hill, until they got closer to me. I'm sure they were probably wondering, "Why is this strange girl taking fotos of me?" Oops.

Went to the Doctor and besides him saying "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" He told me that I didn't have cracked ribs, but they were severely bruised. I got some Vicodin and muscle relaxers that didn't help as much as I thought they would. Serious pain, especially when I tried to move in bed. Ouch! Today I'm a bit better, not us much pain, thank goodness.

I happened to get this cute moment of my nephew and his wife on Christmas Day. It was actually a foto of my other nephew, the cute couple didn't know they were in the frame, and I didn't realize it until I'd loaded the fotos onto my computer. I love it.

It's Doctor Zhivago at my house...

So my musings the other day about how there wasn't THAT much snow and Washington just needed more plows? Mostly true. But then we got even MORE snow. And what Washingtonians

 need is a lesson on how to clear walkways. Above is the walkway leaving my apartment. This poor girl is trying to manuever a stroller through the 4 inch semi-packed snow that was never shoveled from our walkay. She ended up just picking it up and carrying it (no baby was on board).

What I'm trying to decide is which is worse? The next building over has their walkway mostly shoveled...but all to the end of the walkway, in a nice pile. It's like winter hurdles. Who can jump over that thing in heels?
I have no winter jacket and no snow shoes/boots. Seeing me walk down the street/sidewalk in my trainers is quite the site. I'm slip sliding away with each step. And if I move to the unshoveled sidewalk, I sink with every step. So the choices are either fall on my bum or get snow up my pants. It's great to have choices in all things.

Above you will see my shower curtain liner. It's a map of the world. And had been very handy the past few years. While showering I have been able to brush up on all the geography that changed since I was in school. Soviet Block countries and what not. It was in the shower one day that I learned that Burkina Faso is actually a country in Africa, not just a made up country on Alias.

Every few months I toss the liner in the washing machine with some bleach. This week, it turns out, South America was not too pleased to be cleaned (but let me tell you, it needs it! All that graffiti and random dog poop just needs to go away.). Argentina was sliced right in half and the Peruvian/Bolivian border has a huge hole in it. Sad...sad...sad...I was having such a love affair with South America, and this is what it does to me? Looks like a new shower liner is now on Ranee's Christmas list.

It's snowing and I'm peeling...

...and I don't ski. Argentina stays with me. (Until I stop peeling, that is.)

A few days ago it started snowing...little balls of snow. It looked like fake snow. There wasn't a lot of it, but certainly more than the people here are used to. Almost the entire office called in Snow Day. As I was driving to work I was completely astonished by just how bad the drivers were. Going so slow up a hill that there is no way they were ever going to make it. So they gave up, stopped the car, got out and walked away. Just left the car. Who does that?

The Seattle area doesn't get a lot of snow, so people aren't used to driving in it. And even with the threat of snow, people stay home. This road is usually back to back traffic and the shopping center is usually full of cars. The nice thing is that with people not travelling on the roads, the roads stay wintery and white. 

The unfortunate thing about the wintery roads and inexperienced winter drivers are accidents. A co-worker and I were walking down to the shopping center below and saw this big, gaping hole in the brick wall. You could see right into the restaurant's kitchen down below. If you look closely you can see a yellow/orange speck about 3 bricks above the hole. We decided a large white truck slid on the snow, jumped the curb and the sidewalk and ran into the wall and gave the Square Lotus (the restaurant) some instant ventilation. 

I've spent the weekend watching Holiday movies. I love the Fa La La La Lifetime and Hallmark movies. There's just a few basic premises to these movies, and there is little variance and no surprises. Completely predictible. But I love them. Some of them end up being very well done and bring tears to my eyes. Hooray for cheesy Holiday movies.

There's a storm expected tonight. The powers that know these things are warning of no electricity for the following week due to the gusts of wind. As long as the airport has electricity and can get me out of here and home on Wednesday, I'm happy.

Home again home again

On Sunday New Guy and I left Iguazu (after I took the fastest shower I've ever taken at the pool of the hotel we'd already checked out of, with my suitcase at my side), arrived at the domestic airport, caught a cab to the hotel in Buenos Aires where we met up with the rest of our group that had spent the weekend in Buenoes Aires and where New Guy took a hurried shower while I arranged our travel to the international airport. Once we arrived at the airport we decided "When in Rome" and most of us got our luggage wrapped. Turned out to be a life saver for me, cause the wonderful baggage handlers in Buenos Aires crushed my brand new luggage and broke it. Without the saran wrap, my precious Argentine candy would have been everywhere but in my luggage.

The flight home wasn't as painful as the flight there. Isn't it always the case? The trip home is always faster and less aggrivating. Probably because you know that soon you'll be home.

And this is what my home looked like within minutes of my arriving home. (And still does to some extent.) First order of business was to wash Argentina out of my clothes. Debbie said Rosario smelled like a butcher shop. I'm not sure about that, but it definitely didn't smell good. And all of my clothes smelled of Rosario. And for some reason were all moist. Though when I packed they were perfectly dry. Whatever. I'm just glad that washers AND dryers are standard household appliances in the Unites. If I ever move out of the Unites, I'll need to make sure I've got both wherever I decide to live.

That being said, I spent a few hours on Tuesday morning looking for info on working and living in Buenos Aires. Seriously loved the place. Turns out I'd need a Unites company to pay me Unites salary to live and work in Buenos Aires. I'm working on T-Mobile doing that for me. Fingers crossed.