Gentlemen, the lunchbox has landed

And by lunchbox, I mean bed. Yes, dear reader(s), I have now joined the ranks of people who sleep on actual matresses. Woohoo! Eat my dust, people who sleep on the couch! Darren and Kim ordered a futon matress not too long ago, and it came yesterday. Darren, being the excellent brother that he is, hauled the thing up the stairs and into the guest bedroom, where he and I unwrapped the matress and set it up. I have a bed now! A permanent one I don't have to fold up every day!! It's comfy and smells exotically (if weirdly) of cedar, which I'm told is something the factory does to make the matress and its immediate surroundings smell nice. I gave the matress a test run last night and I've reached the conclusion that it's a good matress. Pi likes it; she was curled up on it earlier today, so she must like it, or maybe it's just my Captain Jack Sparrow blanket that she likes- he is pretty irresitable.

Oh, before I forget it again, June 9th was Johnny Depp's birthday. I felt like such an idiot when I forgot it, so this is my attempt at an apology. Happy Belated Birthday, Mr. Depp!!

In other news, work is going well. I pretty much ran solo on Friday because the girl I normally shadow was sick to her stomach and couldn't work, and the other girl I normally shadow was out on vacation. Flying solo was pretty fun, until it came time for me to weigh the filters. I run a test that detects Strontium levels in surface or ground waters, and the test basically involves aliquoting out samples, treating them with chemicals, running them through drip columns, filtering the eluates and then weighing the filters to get detect the level of strontium recovery. We have an acceptable range of weights for recovery, and all of the filters but one that I weighed were extremely low. Really really low. Below 50% recovery in most cases, except for one, but what I think and what two team leaders think is that the resin in the colums was bad and that I didn't do anything wrong. That's a relief, especially since I messed up pretty badly on Wednesday when I started eluting a 24-sample batch before I had tubes under the columns to catch the eluates. Whoops!

I'm not sure when my hours are going to switch, but I think (based on the other new person's input) that this next week may be my last working 8-5. Pretty soon I will be 4am-noon, but that will be fine. I'll get off work with plenty of time to get to the beach or, more importantly, to run errands that I'll need to get done during business hours...like finding my own place, buying a car, getting a passport, getting insurance...life can be such a headache.

Oh! I got my checks today! I now no longer have to use starter checks! After I get my next few paychecks, and have some idea of what my steady income is going to be, I will apply for a credit card, which I probably won't use because I'll be too petrified of getting myself into debt, but at least it will be handy in emergencies!

Kim and Darren will be out of town starting Tuesday morning, on vacation in the Dominican Republic, lucky bastards that they are (just kidding, Kim!). I get to stay at their house by myself with the two kitties, Pi, who likes me, and Hobbes, who sometimes likes me and mostly does not. We'll see how this works out. Dun dun dunh! I do know how to get to the vet in case of emergency, and I know where the hospital is, and I know how to get to Calvin's, to Shaun and Laura's, to Darren and Kim's work, and somewhat to Susan's. And, most importantly, I know how to get to a movie theatre, and I will go see The Happening sometime soon and I'm almost certain it's going to be good. I'm hoping to get some painting done while they're gone - namely the bedroom I'm in, which might need a little plastering before it gets a new coat of paint, and a bookshelf that needs a fresh look and that I've been told is going to be my art project. Woohoo!

At some point, I am going to start writing again. I've sort-of hit a wall with my characters and my plot, and I'm quite sure my readers have abandoned my story by now, but I will get some new chapters written as soon as my inspiration returns. Maybe I'll watch the movie it's based on again (Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly) to find my muse. Maybe I'll just pick up the threads of the other stories I was brainstorming on...oh, I miss my muse!

There's plenty more for me to write about, but none of it is very interesting or amusing. There was a funny incident at Tsunami's I didn't write about. Shaun asked me that if I moved in with a guy, would I sleep with him? He had to yell it across the table because it was pretty loud in there, and I thought he was referring to me moving in with Darren and Kim, and I said something along the lines of, "Eeewww! He's my brother!" That, of course, was not at all what Shaun meant when he asked me, and he was pretty shocked by my answer. Picture this:
Shaun: "You move in with a guy...you'd sleep with him, right?"
Me: "Ewww! He's my brother!"
I think I can understand Shaun's cry of "What is wrong with you?!" So I clarified my answer, and then he clarified what he meant when he asked, and so I gave another answer which brought instant uproar at the table and several guys' exclamations of "Sold to the Highest Bidder!!" I guess saying that of course I'd sleep with a guy if I moved in with him, and that he'd get it at least twice a day is a pretty rare commodity.

Hmm. That's not really that funny now; I guess you had to be there. The other funny mis-hearing was yesterday night, when I bent down to pet Pi and Darren asked me if I wanted to go set up the bed (remember, the futon matress had just arrived). I thought he asked me if Pi stuck her butt up (like most female cats do when you pet them), and I said no, she just walked away. The look of confusion on Darren's face was priceless. Imagine:
Darren: "Do you want to go set the bed up now?"
Me: "No, she just walked away."
As Darren said, for the record, my response didn't make any sense whatsoever.