Imagination Vacation and the Dishwasher of Doom

Things are looking pretty dismal today. I'm at work, waiting for simulations to run, and trying to look busy in the meantime. Work isn't that bad, but I think I'm just a bit burnt out. I've been really busy since I took my qualifying exam at the end of April. Summers in graduate school are usually pretty relaxed, but I'm getting ready for a conference and that has been stressful. Plus, I'm traveling all over the place this summer (Florida, Germany, North Carolina) and every weekend seems packed with seeing family and friends. Plus, I'm training for a half marathon and that means running more than I'm used to doing.

All of that taken together means I'm just plain tired. Not sleepy tired. Not physically exhausted. Not mentally spent. Just sort of tired. I think I need a vacation. Unfortunately, I'm not getting one, at least not today, so I'll take a little mental vacation...

Ahh...my perfect day. Well, I'll pack up my things just before lunch because I won't be coming back this afternoon. It will be 65 and sunny outside, so I'll need pants and a long sleeves to eat outside. After lunch, I'll go home and pick up my knitting bag before I head out to a bookstore or coffee shop. I'll buy a delicious, steamy cafe au lait to sip while I knit. After an hour or two, I'll get bored, so I'll flip through a magazine. Then I'll head home, have a snack and go for a delightful run. Of course, now the temperature will be dropping to about 50, so I'll probably need running tights. After my run, I'll take a shower and put on comfy pants and a fun race t-shirt. For dinner, I think a big bowl of chili with sour cream and cornbread would suit me perfectly. After dinner, Husband will take me out for a sugar-free soft serve ice cream with Oreos on top and then we'll go home to watch a movie. We'll have the windows open when we go to bed, so we'll have to climb under two blankets because the night air is so crisp.

There now, doesn't that sound nice? Thanks for joining me on that little mental exercise. I think I'm feeling a little more refreshed already.

And now, today's "Why can't people just do things my way?"

WCPJDTMW -- Loading the Dishwasher
Of all my (many) pet peeves, this one is arguably the worst. I hate it when people load the dishwasher in a disorganized fashion. My husband comes from a family that throws things into the dishwasher every which way, with no thought for space-saving efficiency or ease of unloading. That works for them, okay, whatever...not for me. I like to see cups, glasses, plates, bowls, silverware, and all of those annoying plastic storage containers arranged according to size and shape. I put things into the dishwasher the same way every time. The same glasses go in the same row of the top rack EVERY TIME. Yet, we've been living in our house and using our dishwasher for three years and my husband still puts things in there in different spots. I should mention that my husband is very diligent about actually putting his dirty dishes into the dishwasher. It's just that he doesn't do it my way and that bothers me. I don't mention it anymore because I don't want to be a nitpick. I simply rearrange his cups and bowls and satisfy myself that all is well because the dishwasher is in order.

Short Pants Man!

This morning we went to sip coffee at our favorite little bagel place. Our comfy seats on the couch by the window afforded an excellent view for people watching. I love this sport, and I especially enjoy nicknaming the people I see. For example, you have:

The Dog Couple--Every morning she comes out of their apartment building to walk their enormous rottweiler, Moe. Actually, Moe's friends call him Tiny but he doesn't like it if you bring that up. After the walk, Moe and Mrs. Dog Couple go back inside and she comes out with Mr. Dog Couple about 10 minutes later. Mr. DC always carries the same shoulder bag and thermos and it seems that they walk to work, or at least to the nearest parking garage.

New York Times Guy--NYT Guy buys a coffee, a buttered bagel, and a New York Times, which he reads methodically, starting from the front page.

Mr. Buffness--Mr. B is a trainer at the gym up the street. He has the shoulders-forward waggle-walk so common to beefy guys. He buys a small coffee, which looks ridiculously miniscule in his hand. I think they keep extra-small coffee cups on hand for this guy.

Sketchy Cowboy--Cowboy always looks a little under-showered and mal-nourished. He shows up and walks behind the counter, pours himself a coffee, and leaves without paying. He's very friendly with the staff. I think he must have either A) serious dirt on the owners, which he uses to extort free coffee (highly unlikely) or B) an annual coffee subscription, which sure beats carrying small bills and change with you in the morning.

Loud Tie Guy--I spied Loud Tie today for the first time. He was wearing a sad paisly shirt with the most shocking American flag tie. I think he was trying to be patriotic and he sure seemed pleased with himself, judging by the big grin on his face. Oh, I can only imagine what his wife was thinking when he walked out the door.

And finally, the most exciting one of all...

Short Pants Man--I don't know where he buys his shorts, but they short. Indecently short. Shorter than fingertip length! And he has them in all colors. Today they were bright blue. To top it off, he's got skinny old man legs, which are nearly hairless, and he wears brown loafers with no socks. He buys a small coffee and sits outside to sip and think. I assume he's thinking because his mustache waggles up and down. He must be wondering how much it would cost to buy a new dryer that won't shrink his shorts.

Don't ask me to be logical.

Something unexpected happened last night. A reporter and a photographer showed up at my ballet class. Apparantly, the reporter is putting together an article about adult fitness and wanted to include dance. During class, I felt a series of contradictory emotions regarding the presence of the photographer. I will summarize these feelings as "yes" or "no" votes for having my picture taken.

No: Please don't take my picture! I'd be so embarassed if my colleagues saw it.
Yes: Good thing Aunt Flow just left because I'm definitely feeling thin.
No: I have a hole in my tights and my face is red.
Yes: The photographer is taking pictures of the new girl. He has no idea that her broken wrists and flappy arms are actually bad form. This is a technique class, not Swan Lake. Wearing nylon shorts and slouchy legwarmers doesn't make you a dancer. Plus, I'm here twice a week all year and she just showed up last week.
No: I sweat enough for the whole class put together. We've only done three exercises and I'm already dripping. I don't need to expose my sopping wet self on the world through any kind of public news media. Seriously, it doesn't matter if I have a healthy endocrine system, it's gross.

Anyway, after ballet, I went home and took a shower, read a little bit, folded laundry, and packed my lunch for today. Sounds really exciting, doesn't it? Since my life is so boring, I'll skip to today's "Why can't people just do things my way?"

WCPJDTMY #4 -- Preserving Food Packaging
This will be the first WCPJDTMY that directly targets my husband. Sorry, dear, but I have to get this off my chest. No matter what kind of food packaging is involved, my husband destroys it. He rips cardboard cereal boxes so the little tab on the top flap doesn't have a slot to slip into. He mangles cereal bags so that cereal falls down into the box when I try to pour myself a bowl. Zippered plastic bags don't stand a chance--he tears off the plastic above the zipper, so I have to use my nails to open the lunchmeat or tortillas. Last night, I was standing in the kitchen when he was packing his lunch and I watched him destroy yet another lunchmeat bag. "Husband!" I said in an annoyed voice. He turned to me and said, "Are you serious?" (Translation: "Did I really marry such an annoyingly anal rententive person?") Rather than answer his question, I sulked out of the kitchen and started plotting my revenge on this blog.

Sandwiches and the Artful Eye

I devoted most of Friday to watching the weather report and trying to decide whether or not we'd be getting hail, high winds, and torrential rain. Weather.com actually had little red boxes around the thunderstorm cartoons to emphasize how dangerous this weather was going to be. Eventually, at the urging of the National Weather Service, we ducked out of work mid-afternoon to go for a run and beat the nasty weather. Then, after all that debating, worrying, planning, emailing, and websurfing, we got absolutely nothing. No hail. No lightning. No flooding. Just a few showers. Granted, it's still raining on Monday afternoon and it hasn't really stopped all weekend, but where's the violence? Where's the carnage? Where are the flying cats?

On Saturday we went for a long run and gorged ourselves at our favorite little bagel shop. Then we had to rush home and spiff ourselves up for a wedding at 12:30. The rest of the day was devoted to eating, drinking, and doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe. We finally crawled into our PJs at about 10:30 and struggled to stay awake through two episodes of Berkeley Square. This riveting period drama follows the stories of three Eduardian Nannies living in London at the turn of the century. These DVDs are seriously good British drama.

Unfortuantely, the BBC cancelled the show after only 10 episodes and the writers didn't tie up all the loose ends. I have so many unanswered questions. Will Ned come back from Somaliland and marry Nanny Wickham? Will Mrs. Bronovski take the fall for Nanny Simmons? Will Mr. Fowler fall in love with sweet Lydia? Will Pringle get her comeuppance? Will Mr. Sinjin realize that the baby is not his? Will Captain Mason marry Isabell and break her heart? Will the Hutchinsens realize that baby Charlie is actually baby Billy? So many questions...

Now back to reality, and today's "Why can't people just do things my way?"

WCPJDTMW #3 -- Sandwiches and the Artful Eye
Some children don't like the crust of the bread on a sandwich. I have always thought these children are picky eaters, but I am beginning to formulate a new theory. Perhaps these children's parents are actually to blame, not because they coddle and spoil their children, but because they don't know how to make a good sandwich. A proper sandwich must have an even distribution of all condiments, spreads, and fillings over the whole surface of the bread. So many people, my husband included, make a half-hearted attempt to spread things around and then slap the bread together. This approach leaves the crusts dry and lacking all the good things that make a sandwich worth eating, like peanut butter or sundried tomato spread. Some parents make up for their lack of care and attention to the sandwich making process by cutting off the crusts and throwing them away, which is a terrible waste. Truly, a properly made sandwich is a beautiful and satisfying thing to behold. Such a meal rises above sustainance and attains the sublime in its mundane perfection and balanced proportions. I suggest you give it a try.

Chicks want guys with skills, practical skills...

My husband and I are both getting PhDs in engineering. He's an electrical engineer and I'm a mechanical engineer. When people find out that we're getting our doctorates, the usually make a comment along the lines, "Wow, you must be so smart. I could never do that." For the record, I would like to point out that being good at one thing doesn't make a person "super-smart" or good at everything. For example, I think I would have to gouge my eyes out with a spoon before I could sit through (and care about) MBA classes. It's not that I'm not smart enough to figure it out, it's just that I'm better suited to what I do.

Anyway...back to my point. So, after the gee-whiz comments, people move on to the most common stereotype about engineers. "Oh, you guys are engineers," they say. "You must enjoy working on your house." Gah! For the love of Pete, just because I'm a mechanical engineer doesn't mean I'm good at plumbing, or fixing cars, or repairing appliances. My electrical engineer husband can't rewire a house or fix a lamp. I think he got a C in middle school shop class.

Now, to illustrate the fact that smart, educated people can be completely inept when it comes to everyday things, let me introduce today's "Why can't people just do things my way?"

WCPJDTMW #2 -- Reading Directions
My husband is handsome, intelligent, and funny, but he's terrible at reading directions. Last night, I wasn't feeling well, so he offered to make frozen pudding in our little Cuisinart ice cream maker. "Oh, that sounds good," I agreed, and off he went.

Making frozen pudding requires an understanding of two separate processes--the pudding making process and the freezing process. First, you get out the instant pudding packet, dump it in a bowl and gradually whisk in the milk to eliminate lumps. These directions are on the pudding box. Then you get out the ice cream freezer bowl, attach the stirrer paddle, turn on the machine, and dump in the premixed pudding. Fifteen minutes later, you've got a fudgsicle in a bowl.

Sounds simple, right? Not for my darling electrical engineer. I walked into the kitchen to find him staring at the freezer bowl, into which he had dumped the pudding powder and the milk without any mixing. The stirrer paddle was not attached. The machine was not on. "Aaack!" I screeched as I rushed in to assemble the machine, turn it on, scrape up the frozen lumps, and attempt to mix the powder into the milk with the machine running. For the purposes of brevity, let me paraphrase the ensuing argument.

Him: "You don't need to be here."
Me: "What? The pudding was going to be ruined!"
Him: "You didn't need to freak out, I had it under control."
Me: "No you didn't! You didn't follow the directions and I had to come along and save you."
Him: "Your way isn't the always the best way."
Me: "Try telling that to the pudding."

As it turns out, the pudding was fine (thanks to my intervention, of course). I must admit there's something about frozen pudding that makes it very hard to fight with your spouse. After all, he does have lots of other good qualities, even if making frozen pudding doesn't come naturally.

That's all for now. Peace out.

Why have a blog at all?

I suppose I wanted to start a blog for a couple of reasons.

1) If I don't start now, I may never be able to remember a time in my life when I had the time and the interest (although minimal on both counts) to do something like a blog.

2) As you are about to learn, I often find myself wanting to share my way of doing things with the world. However, my world consists of a very patient husband and a rather aloof cat, neither of whom actually care that my way really is the way.

3) My boss is on vacation and I've only got half an hour of work left, which I'm going to squander away setting up a blog that I will probably write on twice before ignoring it forever.

So, next I should explain the name. Hanione is my nickname. If you've read the Harry Potter books, you've met Hermione Granger. Now, Hermione's purpose in the books is to cleverly introduce expository information. In fact, Jo Rowling has mentioned that Hermione is a very handy character to have on hand, because the reader can assume that whatever comes out of her mouth is fact because she must have read it in a book or something (I'm paraphrasing here). In reality, Hermione is a bossy, over-achieving, know-it-all who takes herself way too seriously. And she's just like me.

Interestingly, I'm 25, so my personality was rather firmly entrenched before I ever met Hermione. Yet, the resemblance is so striking that my husband and his sister, who are both Potter fans, have lovingly dubbed me "Hanione", a clever amalgamation of my own name and Hermione.

Well, that should just about do it for the first posting. Before I go, I'll start my first little blog tradition. I'll call it "Why can't people just do things my way?" WCPJDTMW

WCPJDTMW #1 Toilet Paper Rolls
I cannot understand why people insist on putting toilet paper on the roll the wrong way. The roll should have the free end of the TP hanging away from the wall, not next to the wall. A properly oriented TP roll conveniently presents the free end for the user, without all that unnecessary fumbling and spinning. Fortunately for me, toilet paper orientation is one topic upon which my husband and I can definitely agree. Now I just have to enlighten the rest of the world.