finally

ok, so, back when i was raving about how awesome my hazmat training was this winter...i finally got some of those pix.
here's a forlorn sabominator waiting for the incident commander to get his ass in gear and get some help to the decon line.



more priceless photos of the training exercise in the gallery

and the word on the street is that i passed the exam (unrelated to above training; i am already certified as a hazardous materials technician), so one of these days i'll be receiving my actual chemical hygiene officer national certification in the mail.

weekend fun

and damn, that sucks...

had a fun time with kz and dano at lime rock seeing the grand am cup, formula BMW, and rolex GT races yesterday. what this picture doesn't show you is that it was hot as balls out there. so hot, i didn't even want a beer at the end of the day. wtf is up with that?

shiny objects

so check it out, my first-ever attempt at waxing mein auto steve, by hand - he may be 13 years old but he sure is a looker.

throw in an oil change and a functioning stereo system (courtesy of macdaddy), and steve was strutting his stuff like a spring chicken today.

occupational hazards

so last night's true foray into the melee of the search for the perfect bridal gown was a lot more fun than i anticipated. i guess i should post this on omfg t3h weddingz, but i don't have much to say about the dresses themselves; i only want to thank e$ for her blissful companionship, humor, tact, and extremely helpful commentary. i arrived at david's with a pounding headache, choking down an overdose of naprosyn and advil to silence the menstrual gnomes, having gotten lost on rt 9, feeling overly full, and errantly locked my cell phone (for which i had no unlock code). it was not a good state to be in (and oftimes, i feel this way about massachusetts as well); but by the time we left i felt happy, pretty, chill, and much in anticipation of our chow and beer to follow.

as for trying on dresses, i will say this much. remember as a kid, making forts of down comforters in the living room, stringing pounds of bedding between sofas and crawling through plush tunnels in some weird subconscious draw toward being back in the womb? well it's like that, a lot like that. only the tunnels are hotter, heavier, and cost 1200 dollars. it's like your refrigerator box clubhose, only covered in beaded sequins and scratchy lace.

and this morning, to add insult to injury i needed even more pre-school vaccines. my hep B and measles serology came back negative (wtf?), so i needed the hepatitis booster in one arm (NOT the tetanus arm, thank god...as i have described to friends this week, it feels as though really bony models are humping my arm. all day. you may think this sounds kind of nice but i assure you, it is not) and an MMR booster in the other. i still have a small hematoma in my inner arm from getting blood drawn and my TB mantoux test site is all red and pissed off due to a probable albumin allergy. everything is covered in bandaids, except for my scowl.

so basically i look like tank girl.

thievery corporation

every time i go into victoria's secret i feel dirty afterwards. is it really a big surprise? and no, i won't call it "vicky c's," do i look black to you?

so my experience with this store is limited. when i was younger my cans were way too huge to shop there so i merely pawed at the glass with my sweaty teen digits for years. gross. then all of a sudden every 12 year old girl grew huge boobies overnight due to all the phyto-estrogens leeching into our foods from plastic. and so suddenly, chicks half my age have twice the cleavage, and all those 40 DD's in pink polka dot and black lace, which i would have loved to have been able to buy in my youth, dominate the scene. i mean so finally having reached 36 C, there's fucking nothing in it anymore. thanks guys.

but i've attempted to buy stuff there a few times. may i emphasize the "attempted." i went there with kz several months ago to pick out some "fun things" to wear around the house and i guess like, do dishes in or something. the moment we stepped into the store it was as if kz had huge "omfg get me out of here" male porcupine quills which were visible only to me. tipped with anti-slut poison too, if i recall. the whores, i mean salesgirls, were so saccharine and evil that my hand subconsciously made the 19th century sign of the devil as they approached. but we had a mission; i pushed on.

things went ok as we perused the demi bras, lace-fringed boyshorts, push-up satin balconettes, and so on...we were quiet and reverent as though in a museum, but in reality our strained murmurs and "umm hmms," and occasional "oh, isn't that soft? feel this," were the result of the most unholy sphincter-clenching discomfort and desire to bolt as soon as the fem-bots looked away. but the fragile resolve shared between us was shattered when i dared to ask if kz could accompany me into the try-on room. simply aghast, the salesgirl barked orders like a prison warden, informing me i could come out of the dressing room to show him any of the ensembles we had picked out. none of which, i confess, would i let any soul on earth BUT kz see me in. she spun on her heel and i felt her eyes burning a scarlet "P" for "pervert" into my forehead.

jesus, like i was really going to get it on with my boyfriend in the mall dressing room? i can think of better places for illegal fornication.

so today i waltzed in, and enough time had passed since that incident that the terror was merely a stain on my memory of undergarment shopping. now i realize i really don't like the use of "stain" and "undergarment" in one sentence, but let's press on. i was determined to try on this miracle "best bra ever" apparatus advertised on tv recently. for 50 bucks, i hope it is the best bra ever. i won't ever know.

besides having my rack analzyed by the salesgirl as though it was the udders of a cow producing blue ribbon cream, i was also not too keen on her directives on what cup size to choose...been wearing them for about 12 years; thanks, i'm good.

and i was just a little weirded out by how well these odd armor-like things approximated the shape of a woman when free-standing - like some girl was just in them and zipped off for coffee so quickly, and they were just left hanging in the air with perfect imprints of boobs, all wiley coyote-like and cartoonish. once i'd donned the thing, i felt like i could simultaneously stop a bullet and smother someone who stands about 4'11".

not altogether terrible, but not worth the pricetag either. i had a hard time focusing on the whole on/off procedure because salesgirls kept shouting "you doing ok with that bra?" "need another size?" "still in there?" and i swear to god i was in there for under 5 minutes. my door was knocked upon 3 times before i even got my shirt off. and they marched the halls, rapping on each door, shouting orders and making veiled threats to buy, buy, buy or else.

i'm tired of being treated like an inmate, a slut, a crazed nympho, a compulsive shoplifter, and an uptight mormon all in the space of 10 minutes. what about "i'm sorry, it was indeed very soft but i don't think i would ever wear anything low-cut enough to take advantage of this bra" do you not understand?

no sale.

as usual.

chemical spill lolz

yes there are tractor trailers on RT 9.
this was at 2.15 pm.



i saw that and decided to leave an hour early. isn't that what sick time is for?

the news story for you non-NE people

thankfully i had my trusty emergency response guide, and knew that methane (UN1971) is under guide 115: gases - flammable (including refrigerated liquids). and this, coupled with my now 30+ hours of hazmat training and 25+ hours of chemical hygiene officer training, told me to stay off the fucking highway. which was closed anyway.

happy friday!

forilla

seriously, please

help me make an important preliminary decision

whether you are interested in this sordid affair or not, before i go mad with overplanning. danke.

i wish

so this is kz's adorable little 4-year-old nephew dale:



dale was looking at kz's laptop background, which was a great picture kz took last year at the montreal F1 GP of felipe massa on track in his sauber:



dale pointed at it and asked, "is that aunt sabrina?"

and that totally just made my day.

asstastic

so i have run literally hundreds, possibly close to a thousand, gels in my career thus far. i have never broken one, until today.

sure, they crack sometimes while drying. but literally, i was the jedi master of SDS-PAGE; i was the jam master J of gel electrophoresis. i never broke a gel while transferring it from cassette to staining tray.

natch, today this happens as i'm prying the cassette open:

not like this is a time-dependent drug release study or anything!!! not like i'm taking friday off and have to have the purity results reported by tomorrow!!!
not like i totally lost 3 hours of work and came in at 7 am for nothing. and not like i have a huge report to write instead of re-running the same damn samples.

are you sure it's not monday? cause today fucking sucks.


good thing there's a pub with guinness on tap round the corner.

consumer therapy

so it's friday. i snuck out a little early, with the intentions of finding shoes to go along with the great dress i get to wear in one of my best friends' wedding this august. here's the dress:


and i've been on the lookout for shoes for about a month now; the ladies in the wedding party and the bride-to-be had been discussing something "silvery, strappy, open-toed." unfortunately all the discount shoes for gargantuan feet are like gold or bronze and covered in fake turquoise this season.

when i'm this lost i go to TJ maxx. lo and behold, i found THE shoes (chinese laundry, natch). for 20 bucks. see below.

yeah, holy crap. i'm excited. all told, i spent 65 bucks exactly. and in addition to those shoes, i got 10 pairs of puma socks, EO shampoo and conditioner, 3 different colors of aromatherapy lip gloss, and these awesome shoes (i am sporting the price tag for you a la e$):

you think i'm done?
nope.
i also got these absolutely freaking awesome sunglasses:

i am so happily spent, and that's the only useless closet fodder i have purchased all month so i don't even feel bad.
i'm still on the "omg new shoes" track, so i think i'm going to go paint my nails on the balcony and watch last night's OC episode.

then i will faint from the estrogen overload.

odious olfaction

this morning i was really looking forward to a large iced french vanilla coffee with extra milk only, which i get every single morning unless i am ill or...ill.
they never mess up my morning order at my dunkies, but i am starting to notice that at all dunkies, in all lands, there are times when french vanilla is not just french vanilla. i think sometimes they run completely dry on the bags of flavoring uber-concentrate, which are probably loaded up into machines like udders of manna. so i think on those days, they drain the dregs of all the flavor compartments and mix them together with magical things to make this special, occasional flavor called berries-and-pavement.

i do not like this flavor so i was not too impressed by my coffee this morning.

and now i'm 0 for 2; i just bought, and got excited about, a new protein smoothie from bolthouse farms flavored cappuccino-mocha-ish-ness. i was thinking it would be a great mix with some lowfat milk, ice cubes and a banana in the blender - a healthy snack with a new england coffee-milk inspiration. but it just tasted like unripe banana.

i'm discouraged; i think i'm going to go take a nap and wait for food to make itself taste good again.

to the universal clockwatcher

every office or lab has one. a pole up the ass, liver spots, the invisible "i live to be downtrodden" sign. there's the frequent sighing, the swan song of passive-agressive "it's not me, it's you" statements, the vocal self-flagellation and poor attempts at sarcasm and wittiness when you've gone too far.

you, i really hate you sometimes. i hate how you discuss my comings and goings with my coworkers, and then how you turn around and fabricate times on government-regulated logs to make it appear that you were at work early, when in fact you never are. i don't care what you do. why do i have to minimize my gmail window when you walk by, despite your searching for online soulmates on company time? why is my coffee break unjustified, when your complaint-riddled bitch-whisper sessions are sanctioned?

if i had to work with you forever, i would wish evil things on you. a failed marriage; a yapping dog; early menopause and sterility; no friends or hobbies. sneaky thing that you are, you managed to take care of all these items yourself and leave me with nothing to feel but pity. and pity you i do.

but, i'm not putting up with your shit anymore and you'd better watch what you say to whom. because guess who has an exit interview with HR in a few months? that's right. and while i'm off earning a degree and looking ahead toward the future, you'll be watching that same grey wall clock and tsk tsk-ing at my replacement. how excited you must be.

the underclass, part II

on sunday a brazilian man without a driver's license backed into my car.

there is no point in beating around the bush to come out with the punchline here; this is not latin class where i save the verb, and hence the climax of my story, for the very end of the sentence.

A FUCKING BRAZILIAN MAN WITHOUT A LICENSE BACKED INTO MY CAR. driving his friend's car with brazilian spawn in the backseat. and i'd been behind him, cruising along at 15 mph down the one-way road in my complex, for about a minute. he stopped, i stopped, and waited... and i was about to give him the "move your ass or pull over" horn when his reverse lights came on. though i was about a car length behind, the alarm bells rang and i shakily tried to throw my shifter into reverse (where it never wants to go) while simultaneously coming off the brakes, bracing for impact and leaning on my horn and screaming some massacred conglomerate of 'motherfucker,' 'cocksucker,' 'what the fuck,' 'asshole,' and 'douchebag.' it probably went something like "MOTHERFAAACOCKSUWHATTHEFAASSHOODOUCHEBA!" and my voice cracked a lot cause i screamed that loud. but i still heard the crunch of bumpers colliding and my car was kicked back a few feet, because the bastard never looked behind him or lifted off the gas.

i didn't just get out of my car, i GOT UP OUT of my car, still streaming variations of "fuck" words and glaring at the children, and this short little pissant brown man sporting a goofy "oopsie" smile. he tried to tell me there was no damage, ok, no problem, ok...i will spare you the broken verbal exchange it took for me to ascertain that he not only had no insurance, but had no driver's license. and never had; apparently this fine citizen-to-be is getting his US license out of a cracker jack box in 3 weeks. i tried to convey "well you can't drive until you have that, and judging from this you ought not to anyway," but the finer points were lost on him.

i don't know if "i give you cell phone, you call me, i pay" works in brazil, but i'm not too trusting. i asked for whatever brazilian photo ID he had, and proceeded to copy every last number off it onto my gym progress tracking sheet with a blue sharpie. so it probably looks like "bicep: 2x10 noticia para el mundo 453675 leg extension cuidado el piso mojado A2358Z237" etcetera. the guy looked like he was trying to squeeze out a turd whose diameter increased with every question i asked him and every detail i wrote down. i was like, so this is your friend's car? he's gonna be pissed. and he goes, "yeah, i know."

so i hated brazil, brazilians, and even portuguese sweet rolls, which are so good, for the entire day. then this morning i was reminded how awesome all the brazilian kids are at the dunkies i stop at every morning. those little brown brains (just kidding!) never get my order wrong...they always have my coffee waiting for me, and are so friendly, and never run into my car. so i am over my 24-hour xenophobia.

having gotten the rage out of my system and slept on it, i agree that the damage is practically invisible to all but me. a very bent license plate, a scratch in the bumper, a bulge on the top of the bumper, and some worse paint spidering (there had already been some from this mishap involving a fire hydrant and a midget. but that is a story for another day). i have not yet decided what to do with this heap of personal information i have on hector, but i am quite tempted to go scribble "for a good time, call" with his cell number in some less savory male bathrooms. i might even look up how to say that in brazilian portuguese, for real.