Be Careful What you Wish For, part 2

Remember how I wanted a few days off and my car broke?

Well, this week I was thinking of taking Friday off.  It's a long weekend and the end of the fiscal year and all..  I mean, I did take 2 days off when my family visited... but a long weekend would be nice...

Then I came down with some sort of plague.  It started with a sore throat.  I chalked this up to allergies.

Then my lungs decided to be mucus machines.  Then the mucus factory got a satellite office in my sinuses.

Now I have a hot and cold running fever, cough so hard I nearly gag and my voice is completely gone.

I wanted one day off.  I'm on day number 3.  Since there is not all that much to do around the office, I'm really not sweating it.  (Though right now sweating is all that I'm doing...)

I think the big take away from this is that I'm not superman.  I have sick time.  I have vacation time.  And I'm entitled to use it.  We've now hired someone so I'm not alone in the office.  She's covering the phones.

I don't know when this whole "you are entitled to leave but we don't expect you to take any" bullshit started.  I'm just thankful that when I told people that I was ill they just wished me well.  No guilt.

Thankfully I no longer feel like warmed over death.  I just need to get over the worst of the coughing, and that's better done at home than at the office.  Tomorrow I'll go back to work (and leave early for a dental appointment).

And next week we get back to work.

Planning a Disney vacation takes lots of... planning...

We're going to Disney for my birthday this year.  As anyone that has ever gone to Disney can tell you, it requires lots of 2 things:  planning and luck.

When you reach the magical 180 days before your trip, you can make dining reservations.  I read reviews and menus.  I watched videos.  I listened to podcasts.  And I made my decision:

Ohana for my birthday dinner,

and Garden Grill for a breakfast.

Here is my trials with getting a reservation:

5:45am
Website:  Nope, not yet.

5:55am
Website:  You're getting warmer...

6am
Website:  How about this Ohana dinner, for 3:50pm NOT on your birthday.  and that's the best I can do.
Me: *grumbles*  *books*

6:02am
Website:  Oh, I'm sorry, the Garden Grill is booked for breakfast for your ENTIRE trip.  Better luck next year!

I pout.  I sigh.  And I get over it because something may open up later on.

7am
Me: *tries to see if something has magically opened up*
Website:  *is broken*

I go to work and put this out of my mind.  At lunch, I decide to do a search of ALL the places that might be available for breakfast on my birthday

Website:  How about Ohana?
me:  *squeaks like a dog toy*  *books it before I can think about it too hard*

Yes, I have a breakfast one day and then a dinner at the same place the next day.  The great thing about reservations is that I can cancel them.  In the end, I might want to cancel ALL of my reservations.


But I have 175 days to figure that out.

In other news: I'm terrified of making Fast Passes!

It's been 6 days and 7 hours since my car broke

Last Thursday, my car was towed away...

then fixed... but not quite...

then fixed again... but not quite..

and a part was ordered...

Currently, my car is at the dealership.  It's fixed, but after all I went through, they want to make doubly sure that it's fixed.  So if all goes as planned, I get my car back this afternoon.

Now don't get me wrong.  it's not like I've been stranded by the side of the road this entire time!  I've been depending on other people for rides to and from work.

What did happen for this entire week, was that I was completely off my game.  I've been sleeping in.  I haven't been working out.  Why?

I was off of my routine, and feeling lost.  I convinced myself that I needed to be ready early, and with Misty on a leash and ready to go into her kennel.  How do I do that?  By not going out to run.  Eventually not going out to run became not working out at all.

Am I proud of this?  No.

Not at all.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be cool and dry.  And I should have a car back.  I plan on running, taking the pup to the vet, and getting a haircut after!

Well, all of this after I made our Advanced Dining Reservations for our Disney trip!

Thank goodness it's boot camp next week!  I need my ass kicked!

Be careful what you wish for

For a while now, I've been looking at taking a few days off from work.

I got that wish, just not in a way that I wanted!

Thursday I got to my car to go home.  And ended up having to call a tow truck.  Acceleration wasn't working, and the car was idling badly.  The engine wouldn't even rev.  A two truck was called.  I got it to the shop.  And I ended up with a nice day off.

And I had a great day off!  I gave myself a facial. I made bread.  I took a nap.

The dealership called.  It was an air intake issue,  A $200 fix.  I went to pick up the car.  The guy that drove it up for me proclaimed "did you know that the accelerator doesn't work?"  Seriously??? That's why the car was there in the first place.

The last time I had an engine problem, I had to get a new car.  The fix was more than the car was worth.

Instead of panicking, I made a plan.  I went onto the website for my student loan to see if there is a lower payment option.  There is.  I went online to the Carmax website and got pre-qualified for a loan.  I went online and found some cars that I'm interested in.  But we can file this under "Things I didn't really need right now."

I spent all weekend with this ball of dread in my tummy.  I spent days trying to identify it.

Part of me almost wants the car to be beyond repair.  I'm terrified of paying all this money to have to break down again and again.  I already went down this road and the car didn't even leave the dealership.  I'm terrified of being broken down on the side of the road.

Is is possible to hide from reality?

In the last few weeks, the media has been a veritable shit show of awful.  From the President being awful around the world, to white guys being awful at home.

I've wanted to hide under the bed and ignore the awful stuff until it went away.

But I realized something today.  Hiding from reality... ignoring change in society and the world....  what's is what got us into this mess in the first place.

let's look at what has happened in the last few weeks:

• White Supremacist Richard Spencer lead a flaming torch filled march against removing Civil War monuments.  This happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Much pearl clutching happened.  (Both sides of the issue had the pearl clutching.)  Then an African American farmer called out the white liberals on their own bias.  I don't know about you, but it made me think.  It also made me want to change the way I act and react to people.
• An honest to god noose was found inside the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture.  A fricking noose.  And for everyone who says that it's a joke:  it's not.  It's a message and a threat.  There's nothing funny about it.
• And the most disturbing of all:  A man stabbed 3 people in Portland, killing 2.  These people were killed for standing up for the women of color that he was harassing.

It's the last one that made me think the most.  There's a few issues involved in this.  (What follows are my opinions!)

1. Even though the President and his government won't admit it, White Nationalistic male terrorists are a bigger threat than Islamic terrorists.  With few notable exceptions (9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing), many of the biggest acts of terrorism in the states have been committed by white guys.  The reason why it is being ignored?  Because these white guys mainly kill brown people.  
2. The guy that did the stabbing in Portland?  He's a Bernie supporter.  It makes him hard to paint into that above narrative.  (although he has reportedly been involved in white nationalistic causes in the past)
3. Did you guys notice the FLOOD of people praising these victims, and not saying much about the harassed women that started the mess?  We're praising the heroism of the people that helped to stop the attacks.  And rightly so.  But can we address the bigotry that was the root cause of this?  
4. It's that bigotry (be it overt or internal) that breeds radicalization.  Both in the right-wing white guy sense, and the Islamic Extremist sense.

I think the root of many of these problems goes back to the idea that people like things the way they were.  White guys like being on the top of the heap.  Even some of the most liberal people around may harbor a bit of prejudice when they want things to go back to the way they used to be.  And we all know that ignoring the problem doesn't make it better.  Hiding from reality won't work much anymore.

Mr. Woolery is thinking back to a time when a good chunk of everyone in the US was Christian.  (Or at least everyone who Mr. Woolery considers to matter)  He looks back on that mythical time of Pilgrims and Patriots and has Hamilton-esque dreams of the founding of this country.  (Except in his dreams, all the Hamilton actors are white)  I'm sorry Mr. Woolery, but Mr. Kruse is right.  This country wasn't founded on Christian Principles.

I think that we need to make sure that people know things like that.  We need to make sure that history is understood, before it repeats itself.

My question to White America is:  why didn't more people speak up as those women were being harassed on that train?  Why don't more people try to shut down hate speech and ethnic, racial and religious slurs that we hear every day?  Are we afraid of also being stabbed?  Are we so used to minding our own business (like our parents told us to) that we don't speak up?

I think there's been a protest just about every month since the President took office.  Sadly, I think both sides of the issue are becoming bolder, more outspoken.

I'm absolutely terrified by what I see on the news every day.  A Handmaiden's Tale is so terrifyingly close to reality that I won't watch it.  But what can we do?

Well, we do what we can.  If it it is just correcting people when they are factually incorrect or speaking up as bravery will allow.