Well slap my ass and... oh, you already did that?

Last night afforded me the opportunity to make an ass of myself with my co-worker and partner-in-crime, Shelly (not my uncle's wife/aunt - there's more than one, you know).

While walking out of the office, she managed to stop suddenly, and I (not looking mind you) kind of ran into her. Well, not exactly. Actually it was my hand. And it smacked her really good right in the ass. This lead to a series of renditions of "I can't believe I slapped your ass" all night, followed by laughing. To be fair, it was the side of my hand, so it was more of a smack than a slap, but I don't think the difference matters all that much. It happened. So at least it was an interesting start to the uneventful night.

I have to admit that I'm pretty lucky to work with her and Krissy (day accounting office associate extraordinaire). They made coming back to that miserable excuse for a job a lot more bearable. Or at least ended the dread. (Please excuse the comments here. My job is tedious and sometimes extremely boring, but by no means a completely horrible job. If anything, I'm lucky to have it all things considered. If only it weren't at Wal-mart...)

What is up with the people who flock to the break room during our mandatory fifteens? They are so loud. I wonder if they feel the need to stretch their vocal chords to keep from passing out. Entirely possible. However, this makes it damn near impossible to enjoy reading my book on break. What the hell?! It could be worse: I could be one of those poor schmucks who are chained to their smoking habits and have to congregate outside to get their deadly, yet calming cigarette fix. It's f-ing cold out there folks. I'd rather not.

By the way, bad news my friends. It seems I will not have access to my niece until March. So, I'm afraid I will be a little melancholy. In all honesty, the road trips to MN were taking their toll on my days off. But I miss her all the same.

I have some truly cute videos of her. On one of them, she's looking at a bug and says, "Ta-da! I peeking!" Too precious.

In other unrelated news, I am on the brink of veganism. Sadly, I will say "adios" to cheese, ice cream, omelettes, and other tasty pieces of heaven that animal products can create. The cancer and heart disease in my family was the ultimate kicker. It's a rampant problem - rampant! And weight issues aside (and they are profound by themselves), this is the overriding factor. Plus, after reading The Kind Life, I don't think I can justify what eating these things does to the Earth. If you don't think that you're casting a vote with every grocery purchase, think again. The processed foods and refined sugars will be making an exit as well. There may be occasional visits on this variety show, but they will be by no means regular cast members.

I have to dig out my treadmill too. It's become the de facto resting spot for all the Christmas wrapping paper of late. I need to knock that shit out. I never let it happen before. This last year has been really bad with the treadmill abuse. Oh well. It's in there somewhere.

Alright. So, that's the update for now. Sam out.

Revenge of the Blubber

Funny how I thought that I could just start working at the store again, and no one would notice that I had gained weight - a lot of weight.

Most people were polite - one of my managers said, "Oh, you look so different." My response: "Well, I just highlighted my hair." "That must be it." (I'll come back to the highlighting fiasco.)

But I forgot just how ghetto my store is. One of my co-workers decided to be oh-so-blunt: "Girl, how did you get so chunky?!" My excuse is the lack of activity, which is conveniently true, in conjunction with eating whatever I want (and I mean, whatever I want). Another was, "Man, you've gained a lot of weight." Thanks. I think I'd like to thank Ben and Jerry for that one.

I thought I'd be safe in my little office on third shift. No one would notice me. I'd be back, but without the excess hassle. Ugh. Totally wrong. So now, there really is no pretending that I didn't get fat. I have to accept the fact that people I have a history with are going to notice.

On the upside, I think all the added movement is working to my weight-loss advantage. Most people gain weight on third shift. This is due to sleeping issues more than anything else. (There's some statistic about this, but I've managed to forget it.) I don't have this problem. I get home and within a half-hour, I'm asleep. I might get up a couple times to pee, but otherwise, I don't seem to be having any trouble sleeping during the day. And I've been eating more after I get up, but I'm still adjusting to eating lunch at 2 AM. Suffice it to say, I've been eating less overall. With the comments by my "beloved" co-workers, it might be time to get serious about the treadmill. And the healthy eating.

So, now the highlighting. I haven't cut my hair since March, and it's driving me a little nuts. At the same time, I've been hesitant to go get it cut. (I have trust issues.) Anyway, the roots were ever-present, so I picked up a box of Colour Experte (from L'oreal - love the stuff). I did the overall dying first, per the instructions. The highlighting was more tricky. The last time I used this particular dye, the highlighter applicator was this wand that looked like a giant mascara brush. It worked out really well. They still have that, but they also have another applicator that I thought I would try. I have to say, it was actually harder to work with, and the highlighting didn't turn out as well. (Note: It doesn't help that I got caught up with something and had the mixture on a "hair" too long and then it was extra light.) This particular applicator made it harder to get close enough to the scalp, so some of it looks weird. But, now that I'm seeing it everyday, it's growing on me and I actually like it. I just do a pseudo-part to compensate for any strangeness.

So, the first week of work was fairly painless, only minute amounts of hurt pride. I'm re-learning my job pretty efficiently, and I think I'll be fine on Thursday when I go back and work by myself (which is still a scary thought so soon after coming back). I'm just grateful I survived relatively unscathed.

I think this will help my diet.

So, I'm going to be setting up my own vegetable garden in the back yard - hopefully completely organic. I know absolutely nothing about gardening, so this should be an exercise in seeing exactly how many times I can fail with plants in one lifetime. Plants are tricky - and Sam doesn't really do tricky.

Anyway, ultimately, this means that I will be eating better. I hope this means I'll be eating better. Lord knows I'm probably the only fat vegetarian on the planet (okay, maybe not, but there are only a few of us).

There are, apparently, some easy tricks to keeping weeds out of the garden if you start it off right. Like, putting down wet cardboard or newspaper and then topping it with organic mulch. Wait a couple weeks, then punch through the decomposing cardboard/newspaper with your trowel and start planting. This is the article I found this info in.

Maybe this won't be a completely hopeless endeavor. Stay tuned for more on that.

On the same note, I've been waiting impatiently to see the new documentary Food, Inc. It looks like it will do the same for the food industry what An Inconvenient Truth did about global warming. It hasn't arrived in my market yet, so I'm waiting for the wider release. It would be totally unfair if I had to wait until it's on video. I understand that it's harder to market documentaries to theater chains, but still, this is important people! Get with it!

Any-who, I thought y'all might want to see the trailer. So, here you go:

Happy Independence Day! May yours be filled with family, good food, and fireworks!