A Cruel, Cruel World

Every Tuesday for the last 2.5-3 years, I have tried very hard not to miss work on a Tuesday. I made dental or doctor appointments on any day but Tuesdays. I sometimes planned my home meals so that I wouldn't have leftovers for lunch on a Tuesday. You following?

Tuesday was an important meal day for me.

It was the day when I was able to have the most delicious lunch ever - the special at El Norte (the north cafeteria) on Tuesdays was.....

The Thai Chicken Wrap

A value at only $4.95, you got a delicious and nutritious wrap filled with yummy goodness of peanut chicken and the yellow rice that probably has a name that most people know but I do not, and a good sized serving of broccoli on the side (the pic isn't so good-sized cause I always start eating it while waiting in line to pay) and a little side container of sweet chili sauce, which requires me to have 5 extra napkins to blow my nose because I have NO tolerance for spicy stuff--but LOVE the sweet chili sauce.

BUT

El Norte changed their menu and the wrap was not there when I made the walk over to pick it up.

I am very sad.

When I was looking for a new job (was it just 14 months ago??), I actually used wrap day as one of the positive aspects of staying at my current employer. It was the highlight of my week sometimes when I had my old crappy job.

And now......................sigh.
No more wrap day.

Let's all take a minute to mourn the loss of a good thing in the world.

Goodbye Tuesday's El Norte special Thai peanut chicken wrap.

No wrap will ever take your place.

Too Much....

I'm soooooooooooooo busy.


Busy at work.
Busy at home (mostly relaxing after a busy day at work).
Busy with volunteering.
Not busy blogging obviously.....

My manager is leaving her job-her last day is Friday. I've had to learn a number of pieces of her job that weren't able to be passed on to others. I've been working overtime, which is great for my economical situation, but it's surprisingly draining working just an extra 45 min a day. I'm not complaining-I still heart my job as much as ever....I just wish I had a *little* extra day in each work day.

I've been battling whether I should move to a bigger (more expensive) apartment or rent a small house or maybe even purchase a house. I have a big list of pros and cons for all of them. I have until June 10th to really make a decision (that's when my lease is up here).

I have a HUGE volunteer project coming up-more on that later. It's on May 3rd, I'm managing about 130 volunteers of all ages.

This weekend though, I am leading a group at a Children's Day celebration in a city of nearly 100% migrant workers, so I'll get to practice my Spanish. It will be my third project with the group and I have loved it each time! It's about six hours though-that's a long time. And then on Sunday I have my regular project, Love Letters (making cards for terminally ill kids).

Tons going on!

I watched I Am Legend last weekend and I HIGHLY recommend it---one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

And I read this book this weekend:
I could barely put it down-it was really good. I'm not sure how I found it, I think it was one of those times when I was browsing on Amazon and they have the "if you like this, you might like this" section and I tend to click on one random book and that leads me on a trail of random books that Amazon is kind enough to recommend.

D-Day Tomorrow!!

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow!!!

Where they will tell me that I have a hole in one of my beautiful teeth.

Where they will totally ignore the overbite I have.

And where they will pretend not to notice the loud cracking noise my jaw makes or how I cringe every time I have to "Open Wide."

And where I will waste too much time in the waiting room, after waiting three months for an appointment just for a general checkup.

Peace on Earth

As some of you know...I'm not a religious person. Not going to go into that now, but I came across this quote from the Dalai Lama, someone I know very little about (for now) and I really think it's a great statement:

This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples;
no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness.

Very true.
I'm going to have to read more about this guy!

Three Things That Make me Cry

I'm not typically someone who cries a lot. Sometimes I surprise myself when I find myself crying...but here are three things that I remember crying about that might not be typical reasons to cry.

When Abby and Luka got married - on ER - and she said "I carry your heart in my heart..."





When my son goes to the dentist....yes, I have been evicted from his dentist's room since he was about five. Even when things are going well, I don't know why, but my eyes just start leaking. It was super-sweet when he was five and sitting so bravely in his new dentists chair and he looked over at me and said "mama, your eyes are leaking."






There was this one commercial about a decade ago or so ago that followed the life of a young girl who grew up with this cat and it showed her in all these different stages of life, with this cat by her side, up to the point of her leaving for college and the cat follows the car along the side of the fence as she drives away. Seriously...that's sad.

Once Again-Walmart Sucks

I have to be honest-Walmart is not the best corporation.
There are many reasons why...
One I particularly am against is the quality of their selections. They are the easiest place to get your product into if you have something you want to sell, because they will pretty much sell anything. It doesn't have to be a good product-they just want a product that will bring in some money.

More importantly, they do not care about their employees.
The newest story is about a brain damaged woman who was in a vehicle accident. Her family sued the trucking company that was involved and they won money, but not nearly enough to care for her for all her medical bills and long-term care she will need. Walmart demanded that her family reimburse them for medical costs, since she won a lawsuit...that somehow makes sense, if she had won millions and her family was making tons of money on it, but they don't even have enough to cover her current bills, much less her future ones.

And her son died in Iraq-sad story that has happened to 29, 495 other families, but unfortunately, this woman doesn't have the brain capability to remember it, so everytime she mentions her 18-yr old son, she has to learn all over again that he has died. That's the most traumatizing thing to ever have to deal with, for both her but also for her husband...

BUT even with this little piece of info-Walmart is demanding payment. Stellar business values.

Here are some great sites about Walmart:

Walmart Watch
Why I Hate Walmart
I Hate Walmart
Mother Jones article

I'm sure it IS great to save 60cents on a package of toilet paper, but don't we care about the company we are supporting by shopping there?
We should, but I guess we don't.

Crazy People

What is wrong with this world??

I don't understand why people act the way they do. A certain ex-wife of someone in our family asked for money for their shared child's birthday. The dad is nice and readily agreed to help out-he just wants best for his child.
They send the check and they get an angry call from the mom because they made it out to the child-not her-and she wants them to resend a new check in her name.

They told her that it was for him and they wanted it to get to him and if he wanted to sign it over to her for his car, he could do that. They really just wanted to ensure that the boy knew that his dad cared enough to send money for his b-day car.


Drama drama drama and days later, they hear from the boy and he's not even living with his mom anymore and had no idea about the check. More drama and then the argument is out there that -why are we paying child support for a child who doesn't live with you???

That lady is craaaaaaaazy. In a very bad way!

As for my ex, I have no words on him. He's not much above that crazy lady's level though. Especially where money is concerned. He truly believes that whoever the child is with, should be the only parent. If the child is with him-then he doesn't need me to pay for anything, I shouldn't ever call or contact the child, and I don't ever need to know anything they do or have planned. And as such, when the child is with me, which is 99.9% of the time, he doesn't feel that it's important to have any contact, unless it's to plan a visit. Interesting non-logic there...
How do you face yourself every day knowing that you don't' have any idea what is going on with your child's life? How do you justify not helping your child financially?? Yes, he pays child support---but ONLY because the state takes it directly from his paycheck. And trust me, it doesn't cover half of just the child's food bill a month, much less help out with anything else.

People are craaaaaazy.



And by crazy, I mean ridiculously stupid.