vel's journaly thing

To all of my friends in Japan, I hope you and yours are all safe and okay!! I stayed up late last night glued to the news. The tsunami footage is terrifying, I hope you were all well inland...same to everyone in the coastal regions of the Pacific.

Here they've closed the Pacific Coast Highway and other coastal areas, but it seems to be more to keep people from GOING TO WATCH the tsunami waves hit! What kind of idiot would want to run TOWARD a killer wave? *facepalm*

I shudder to think of the enormous loss of life and damage the earthquakes and tsunamis have already wreaked, with more to come as the aftershocks are still going on now, 11 hours later. I live in earthquake country, but what Japan is being hit with is on a much bigger scale than any of the ones I've been through, even the one in 1989. The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is put together an emergency preparedness bag; I haven't had one since I was a kid, which is unacceptable. This is just another reminder that Mother Nature can make us all her bitch at any given moment and not to take anything in life for granted.

I dropped by Verizon today with the "new" phone they had sent (too late) to replace mine. It turns out by "new" they actually meant "refurbished." If I'm going to go to all the hassle of moving all my contacts and photos and media and whatever else to another phone, it should at least be to an acutal new phone! =P So instead I just had them replace my car charger with another one that worked and returned the "new" phone and kept mine.

After work I went out to get replacement corn oil and more fly traps for the horse. I looked at the mouse traps/poison there, but you know what? I can't do it. I can't kill some poor little innocent rodents who are just looking for something to eat and have as much (or more) right to be there than I do. The thought of me being responsible for littering the barn with rat and mouse corpses makes me sick. They didn't have any humane traps, but it wouldn't have done any good to get them if they did because the rats and mice are already living outside and would just come back if released. Also, who's the sick bastard who invented glue traps?? D= That psycho should be dragged out into the street and shot and those horrifying torture devices banned! Anyway, I decided rather than resort to killing animals, I'd just put all the horse's other foodstuffs in my metal garbage can with the grain. That way they can't get to it, and there's nothing in my tackbox that smells tasty for them to destroy, plus there won't be any real reason for them to stay in there.

Quick note to say sorry if I end up commenting on your posts like a week late, I'm slowly working my way through my FL from the day I left for LA.

Also, to the rats and mice in my tack box: IT'S ON. I had no problem with you sharing my space and coming and going as long as you weren't being destructive, but after chewing holes in my giant FULL jug of corn oil and flooding the floor of my tack box with oil while I was away, you have got to go! You also chewed through the (mostly empty) jar of MSM supplement and spilled that everywhere, WTF...

Had my 90 day evaluation at work today. I hate evaluations, they are so scary to me! I don't handle criticism well, even when it's minor. Oh well, just got the same thing I always get: "You're doing a great job, but smile more!" Dude, my face just doesn't work that way; believe me, it's been like this my whole life. I'm just not a smiler! I don't sit around grinning for no reason, my face is just sort of neutral at all times. At least it feels completely neutral to me, people tell me I look like I'm frowning or something. And apparently my idea of smiling must be on a much smaller scale than everyone else. Sigh. This is how I smile, just deal with it! =p

Went to the Sharks' fifth playoff game of the first round with my brother last night, and they KICKED ASS!! It was SUCH an awesome game! They absolutely dominated and were finally able to get the puck past Colorado's goalie, clobbering them 5-0. Woohoo! So glad I got to go to that one! It was the first game in this series where they've led by more than one goal. One more win and they move to the next round of the playoffs! GO SHARKS!! =D

( Pics from the game )

Then last night as I was driving home, I saw a freaking big spider crawl across the INSIDE of my windshield!! D= Aaaaauuuuggghhh! Spiders freak me the fuck out! Normally I don't mind them, as long as they stay the hell off of me and out of my space! And inside my truck is definitely my space! I was nearly home when I saw it and had to stop for gas anyway, so I pulled into a station to fill up and try to get the damn thing out. Well it FELL off the windshield, and I had no idea where it went! I looked all over with a flashlight trying to find it without any luck. So then I had to get back in with the mysterious missing spider and drive the rest of the way home (about four blocks). >_< I damn near had a panic attack on the way, thinking about it coming crawling out of my steering column or something and was driving with one finger on the wheel and jumping at every movement out of the corner of my eye. I'm such a freaking sissy. I made it home safely, but the spider is still missing. ARGH.

I just finished up tagging all my entries, almost 900 of them. It just seemed like this journal has gotten to the point where I need them if I ever want to go back and find something.

I started on Sunday and didn't stop until 1am. I thought I might be able to get it all done, but I had about a year's worth of entries left to go and was just too tired to finish. Or so I thought. I went to bed and tossed and turned for hours, unable to sleep. I didn't want to take my sleeping medication because it was already so late, and if I did that I wouldn't be able to wake up for work. So then I got back up and tried to sleep on the couch with the tv on, because I often fall asleep this way when I'm really tired. Nope, nothing.

I ended up awake all freaking night for no reason at all, and it caused me to watch one of the most awful movies ever created, I Know Who Killed Me. I thought it'd just be a lame horror movie, but it went WAY beyond that! How can something be both predictable (I knew who the killer was within the first ten minutes) AND make no sense at all?? The "plot" was so full of holes and mixed up that it was impossible to follow, and the whole movie was really nothing more than an excuse for Lindsey Lohan to parade around in stripper outfits. Ugh, I think this was even worse than Batman Forever! Still not quite as bad as Kazaam, my ultimate worst movie ever, but it sure came close!

Anyway. I got no sleep at all, and hence felt horrible, stomach aches, sneezing and coughing fits, so I ended up calling in sick to work. Felt like crap all day and still couldn't get any sleep until it was late enough for me to take my medication and knock me out for the night whether my body liked it or not. Can I not sleep without medicinal help now? I wouldn't think so, I still fall asleep for naps all the time. It was just really bizarre.

ETA: Since all I did over the past few days was tag my own entries, I'm now waaaay behind on reading all of yours. If I comment on something a few days late I'm sorry, I'm trying to catch up on everyone!

I HAVE A TATTOO!

I didn't do this in haste or on a whim. For at least a decade now I've been contemplating getting a horse-related tattoo of some sort. Maybe five years or so ago I came across an image online of a beautiful ink painting of a horse head that absolutely I loved. It's simple and elegant and just amazing; for some reason it just spoke to me. I saved it and thought it might make a nice tattoo someday.

( Someday is today )

Today I helped my parents clean out our storage space, and I brought home my stuffed animals that had been in there that I wanted to keep. I wasn't sure what to do with them, though, so now they occupy the top of my dresser. How many characters from the '80s can you identify? ;)

( Childhood collection )

Tagged by lurath

List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.

1. I can only chew with the left side of my mouth. I have a rare condition in which the molars on the right side never fully erupted; I have a large gap between the top and bottom molars, so I can't chew with them.

2. As a child I had an imaginary horse named Linda that I would "ride" by skipping around in the backyard. I was destined for horses from the beginning, haha.

3. My normal body temperature is about 97F. I'm always cold!

4. I have naturally strong nails that grow quickly. In middle school and high school I used to keep them really long, even while working around horses, and they wouldn't break easily. I also used to keep them painted in odd colors like blue and silver and purple. Most frequently asked questions were "Are those real??" and "How do you not break them?" I keep them short now for bowling and typing and rarely paint them anymore.

5. I hate gum chewing, it makes me sick to see or hear. This is kind of odd because as a kid, I chewed gum all the time; I almost never chew gum anymore. If I do, I try to only do it where I won't be seen. When someone chews gum all I can see now is a cow chewing its cud, and I find it incredibly irritating and rude. Loud smacking chewers, people who snap and crack their gum, and people who chew with their mouth open are the worst, I just want to choke them all! Actually this goes for any food or drink, not just gum; I do not want to see or hear what's in your mouth! But gum chewing is the worst because it keeps going and going and going...

6. I can make three loops with my tongue instead of just the usual one.

7. I love insects; when I was little I wanted to be an entomologist. I used to spend a lot of time catching butterflies, katydids, ladybugs, moths, junebugs, etc. Sometimes I would bring them in the house and let them loose in my room, haha. I also raised caterpillars into moths and butterflies numerous times.

I just bit into an apple and my lips and tongue were instantly set on fire. I may as well have been biting into a habanero! I spit the damn thing out and rinsed my mouth with water for a good while; the pain is dying down now but still not gone. What in the hell could have gotten on that apple?!

*mutter* need a Snow White icon now...

Can this year just be over already?