Everyday Stupidities

Was at the DMV to get my driver's license renewed. (Don't have a photo to show you yet; Washington is cutting down on driver's license forgery by having them printed in Olympia then mailing the finished product out.) There were at least eight signs saying "do not use your cell phone in here"... and in my fifteen minutes there, no less than three women who were on their phones, with no employees complaining. There was a poster on the wall with a stern-looking cop in khaki telling people to buckle up or be fined into submission. This would have been more powerful had the model not looked exactly like California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop Officer Poncherello! Who knows, maybe that was Erik Estrada in the picture, though the last time I saw him in a cop outfit it was in "fake highway patrol" advertisements for Jenny-0 Turkey... (And what the hairy hell are they doing making a movie of the show?!)

So I'm driving home from work the other day around 5 p.m. [foreshadowing?] and I can't get in the carpool lane because that designation doesn't change until 7 p.m. The traffic is sludgy. The "Check Engine" light has come on, as it does without a reason (then turns itself off sometime a hundred miles later). I look past the cars and notice there is a sign on the median that says "Speed Limit 60 - Strictly Enforced". And I'm thinking that this should mean people must speed the hell up already or risk a ticket! Okay, I know they really mean you're not supposed to go faster than that, which obviously is a moot point since getting to 45 miles per hour would be a big accomplishment, but a boy can dream. They have put similar signs, but with drawings of cop cars with red and blue lights, on the highway from my house to the main artery recently... which I find amusing because no one drives under 68 on that stretch. I think it's a "Big Brother Is Watching You" ruse to make people slow down of their own volition. (Psst: Not working.)

The true major honking stupidity of the week, and the month, is that when I walked into work on Wednesday, my birthday, my supervisor said the call center manager wanted to talk to me. I asked her if it was going to be a short meeting. Call center manager informs me that the corporate overlords didn't like how I handled a call from a confused idiot the day before (I don't remember the call well, but I do know that she and I both wished to speak to someone more intelligent) and ordered him to terminate my employment effective immediately. Oddly I didn't have any fight or spite, and figured someday he'd be giving me this same dialog someday after he padded his dossier some more; he got lucky and had the decision made for him. So I shook his hand, just because I knew it would make him uncomfortable for me to be cavalier about such a grave matter, told my supervisor "I guess that was a short meeting!", and assisted the two gentlemen who were packing up my desk into a box. Anyhow, once out of there I took a leisurely drive to the office of the agency that had gotten me the job (and I got a birthday card from them at the beginning of the month, and I hadn't worked for them in year!, so I knew they still cared about me), and found that they'd closed that location so I'd have to call them from home. I can't say I'm relieved or that I'm highly upset; I didn't necessarily like going to work because of the bureaucratic nonsense and telephonic rigamarole, but I had no plans of leaving either. I guess the timing for such an announcement worked to my advantage; I was in my usual birthday weird frame of mind, so this softened the blow. And this meant I got my birthday off afterall... not that this was of any use to me. When I'd arrived at my desk, there was a package in Sesame Street wrapping, with a yellow Post-It on it saying "You are the birthday!" [a reference to the "You are the Expert" club, the previously-mentioned mutual admiration society of which I am one of three members so far -- gotta wonder how THAT works out, if "the expert" got canned yet his sign stays up] and "open outside please". Once I got home I opened the box... Illiterate had given me a flask of Smirnov vodka. (You know I have never had a mixed drink in 39 years?) Oddly appropriate. He told me later that when he saw me being walked out he realized he should have given me a bigger bottle. Betcha had I opened it at my desk, I would have been walked out anyway.

(I'm fine, by the way. Job recommendations I haven't thought of are welcome.)

So today, Thursday the day after my birthday, my Kodak Z650 camera arrived by UPS. It's a pretty neat camera and I have plenty to learn. So below are the After photos I really intended to take during the bathroom remodel, resized to 25% of original. (Wish I could have gotten the Befores but...) The captions for them go like this:

1) The door from the window (dig the trim and handles!).
2) The window from the door (new towel rod, towels, and unfinished sill mosaic).
3) The new showerhead and curtain rod (with twelve sexy inches of hard flange).

4) The rest of the plumbing (and we need to change the chrome handles sometime).
5) Look down: The vanity and the toilet (oops, obscured by the shower curtain).
6) Look up: The medicine cabinet and lights (photographed off, for once).

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