A Eulogy

Today has been a long day. Maccy had an appointment with the Genius Bar this morning, something I figured I'd take advantage of while in the DC area with our plethora of Apple Stores. I knew the diagnosis would be bad, but was still somewhat hopeful they'd be able to perform their Mac voodoo and he'd come back to life. But it was not so. His diagnosis was more of an autopsy.

There is, I learned, a little chip around the qwerty section of MacBooks that is responsible for relaying information to outputs: monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. His was fried; that chip was responsible for the burning smell that occurred whenever I turned him on. The man at the Genius Bar was able to hook Maccy up to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard and he worked well enough. The repair cost was $750. Oh goodness, that number hurt to hear. I struggled to keep myself composed and talked over my options with Genius Bar Guy. I could buy a refurbished 2010 MacBook for $850. I could get a 5% discount on the warranty because I'm a government employee. It wasn't that bad, he promised. It just wasn't worth repairing a five year old computer when I could get a new one for $100 more.

I told him I wanted to think it over, and went to visit Brother at his coffee shop to drown my sorrows in a latte and read some Wall Street Journal. I discussed my options with OfficeMate, the parentals, and a handful of friends. My loving parents offered to front the cost of a new machine until I get a real job and can pay them back. I then made my way to a different Apple Store where I had them wipe Maccy clean, so I can recycle him without the possibility of someone getting my files. This process apparently takes forever, because I was waiting for well over an hour. I just ordered a new computer, who will probably be named Maccy Jr, in honor of the computer who came before him.Dearest Maccy,
You were by my side for almost five whole years. You stood by me in my awkward eyebrow stage. You edited so many awful cliche college photos. You didn't shudder that time I installed AIM on you (I'M SO SORRY!). You traveled to Spain with me where we enjoyed many a cafe con leche in Bar Alberto. You helped me skype so many people. You were there for me when I videochatted Brother and his dog, Holly, in class. Maccy, you endured my writing some seriously bad papers on you, but also were the reason I wrote some of the best analytical pieces of my life. You let me put embarrassing music on your iTunes, and helped me find this job. Let's be honest, I finished my first grant proposal with you. You will be followed by a 2010 MacBook - he'll be a lot like you, but larger (250GB to your 60GB), faster (I don't even know how much RAM you had...), and won't be held together by tape. I'm sure Maccy Jr. and I will have many great adventures and memories, but you, you Maccy, were my first Mac. You were there for me for college, studying abroad, and beyond. You were an amazing computer and I know that had it not been for this water incident, we would have many more years to compute together. Thanks for five fun years (and sorry if I ever bored you with excessive facebooking).
Sincerely,
MV

When I'm a Real Adult...

So my computer gave up. Last Monday, he just refused to turn on anymore. Awesome, right?

Luckily, I was Charleston-bound last week yet again, because my brother graduated! This also means that my parents were able to bring brother's old (and I mean old) laptop - an iBook from 2004 that shall suffice as my computer until I have a real salary and can invest in one of my own. They keyboard pops out. I don't know why. Apple, what were you thinking?? So I apologize for the lack of blogging last week - I just had no computer. But check out my new, sweet, top-of-the-line-seven-years-ago gear! (Stock photo since I'm afraid of asking this one to open a jpeg)

In addition to using a seven-year old computer right now, I am also driving the world's most sneaker-like Kia Soul, which I had previously only associated with hamsters. When Mr. Merlot got hit back in February, I played many a fun game of phone tag with various insurance companies, and last week the whole situation was finally resolved. Mr. Merlot is in the shop getting his bumper fixed right now. Fingers crossed that he'll get a new T out of this whole situation!

This Kia though... oh man. I've always mocked people with particularly boxy cars. The Nissan Cube, most Scions, and now I'm in one. A friend asked me if the Soul had any redeeming quality, and I told him the key fob had a beeper lock thing. That's sad for two reasons: 1, Mr. Merlot doesn't have a fancy key fob and 2, that's the best thing I can come up with about the Soul. Thankfully, it's only until tomorrow when I can be reunited with my ghetto Corolla.

It's not uncommon to hear me utter the phrase, "When I'm a real adult, I'm going to have (insert whatever I'm kvetching about my lack of at the moment)." The past week's events have swelled up the urge to write that list out. And so I bring you...

When I'm a Real Adult, I'm Going to Have:

-A car that's not a Kia. I love Mr. Merlot and he's allowed to join me in Real Adult land.
-A laptop that both works and is younger than 7 years old. This computer is older than brother's dog.
-A garbage disposal. No more peeling carrots over the trashcan and getting sad when they slip into strawberry stems and moldy leftovers.
-An ice maker, because making ice one tray at a time is sad.
-A dishwasher, because nothing sucks more than making a big meal and then having to wash every damn dish by hand.
-Central air conditioning, so that when it's 90+ degrees outside, I don't have to hope the itty bitty window unit can reach my bedroom.
-A toilet with a balloon in the tank and a handle that isn't held together by a rusting paper clip. Yes, you read that properly. I don't even know how my toilet is able to flush without exploding.
-DVR. Because no one should have to choose between House and How I Met Your Mother.
-A gas range. Not only do they cook more evenly and ensure you can cook after the power goes out, food doesn't get stuck on them and then later set off the smoke detector when you try to boil water.
-A double oven. I've never had one and can't help but imagine they'd be so helpful.
-A ceiling that doesn't leak onto my electronics. Or really, one that just doesn't leak at all.
-More than two chairs at my dining room table so that if you have a third person over, you don't have to drag over a chair from the living room. And if a fourth person comes over, they don't have to sit on the armrest of the third living room chair. As for five or more people... that's when we eat around the coffee table.
-A shower that doesn't go cold for 2-5 minutes while you still have conditioner in your hair or shaving cream on your legs.
-More counter space than the pittance I currently have.
-A washing machine and dryer in my house/place of residence. Laundromats with men who talk to themselves and machines that eat your delicates are just unpleasant, awkward and expensive.
-Windows that don't allow huge breezes in, forcing you to tape plastic bags over windows in the winter. (Our sail came down about a month ago, and our window is back!)
-Windows that don't shatter when you try to close them, forever scarring you and making you rethink shutting the windows in the future.

All that being said, I realize this is the time in my life to live with a leaky ceiling, tape plastic bags over my windows, and warn visitors about the toilet. "Don't be frightened if it sounds like jet engine when you flush it, and you don't forget to jiggle the handle after the bowl drains!" In all of the ghettoness, there's a level of endearing charm.

Baking

Baking can go straight to hell.
I've always hated baking, but it's also always bugged me that I can never seem to get it just so.

I don't mean boxed cakes and brownies because, not to brag, but I make a mean funfetti cake. I mean baking from scratch, like my mom's Christmas cake or my neighbor's homemade fudge. I just... I can't do it. I've tried and tried but it's always in vain.

In sixth grade, I told myself I would be the queen of shortbread. I made batch after batch for these "market" things we had in math class (to learn how to use money, if I remember correctly), and everyone told me they were great. I liked the compliments, like any insecure 12 year-old, but deep down I knew they were lies. My shortbread was too crumbly. My parents bought margarine instead of butter, ruining the entire concept of shortbread. I knew I could do better.

In high school, I set out to make the ultimate oatmeal raisin cookies. However, my recipes only came from allrecipes.com, the Better Homes and Garden cookbook, and the Joy of Cooking. I never sought to tweak these, I just rotated through the three, hoping by some miracle, that the ultimate chewy raisiny goodness would just happen. Of course, it never did. I got batch after batch of dried out, crumbly, bland starch. Once again, my deflated ego and I stepped away from the baking world.

College came, and I was determined to bake properly, but laziness generally won out and boxed cakes reigned supreme. One miraculous day my senior year, I realized I had let a big bag of apples get unattractively squishy and decided to try my hand at baking again. I made apple muffins, and they were delicious. However, I wrote the recipe on a post it that I promptly threw away.

Fast forward to current day. There was one apple in the fridge that I had forgotten about for approximately two weeks. I bought two more apples at Kroger with the intention of making apple muffins - if I was able to make them once, I could do this again. I got home from a very "meh" day at work feeling all sorts of the Mondays and I knew that a successful baking experience was just what I needed to cheer myself up.

The recipe I found claimed these were simple muffins. All the reviews were positive. They didn't take too many ingredients. All signs pointed to "YOU CAN'T MESS THIS UP!" I put on my apron for fear of getting my yoga pants dirty (right?), and got to work. I remember thinking the consistency looked off. I remember thinking there were too many apples. I remember thinking 350 seemed way low for the oven. I also remember thinking, "I own one muffin tin with space for six muffins. This is going to take forever." But I shrugged, excited for my perfect muffins, and introduced the filled muffin tin to his new friend, preheated oven.

As this is happening, I start dinner. Black beans and rice; a latino no-brainer. I can do this with my eyes closed, in my sleep, hands tied behind my back.

25 minutes later, my muffins didn't look like the ones in the picture. They were, in fact, underdone and horribly lumpy. I put them in for longer and kept checking. By the time we reached like 40 minutes, I butter&floured my loaf pan and threw the rest of the batter in.

By this point, I've become so distraught and distracted with my damn muffins-turned-loaf that I've messed up my rice. I messed up my rice. I'm so ashamed.

Right now, I'm waiting on my non-bread-looking-loaf-thing to finish in the oven. I have six sad looking we-wanted-to-be-muffins-but-we're-just-lumpy-apple-things on my counter. I'm eating my overly-sticky-yet-burned-on-the-bottom rice and beans, and weighing the pros and cons of wine vs. chocolate milk.

Baking can go straight to hell. I'll stick to cooking.

Things I'm Thankful For (in general, and while ill)

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I spent the holiday with family in Philly, after many hours of sitting in a car. There was much food, more wine, and overall quality family time. I am so thankful for such a phenomenal family, honestly. Alas, reality does not lie in Philly, and I had to return to Roanoke this morning.

Now, while speaking of things I am thankful for, let me explain that I awoke sick this morning. We're talking worshiping the porcelain god, clammy hands, no appetite sick. (No appetite is the tell-tale sign of my illness.) Ergo, I am thankful for the following:

Mr. Merlot, who returned me to my abode in Roanoke in one piece, to reunite me with my electric tea kettle and my taco-shaped bed.
My Taco-Shaped Bed, who embraces me every night and is ever-so-soft.
My Tea Kettle, who, every night, makes me some chamomile, and every morning heats up some H20 for my french press. He is currently assisting in my tea consuming endeavors.
Garrison Keillor, for knowing that in the last leg of my trip, what I needed to hear more than anything was A Prairie Home Companion. Thank you.
Glasses, for allowing me to see without the hassle of contacts.
My Yoga Pants, for being the best pair of pants a girl could ask for. I apologize for never doing yoga in you anymore, and really only wearing you to eat and sleep.

Hopefully I won't have to use a sick day tomorrow. Although, sleep would probably help this whole illness thing. Come on, body, fight this!

Roanoke Hazing

I would like to begin this post by exclaiming my love for Roanoke prices. I dry cleaned five pairs of pants for $20. It's like Disney World for people with too many pairs of business casual pants. ...I'm just saying. Onto more important things...

Tailgating and Football
My family is not athletic. Hopefully Brother & Sister will not take offense to this statement but I think it's safe to say that I was definitely the most athletic of my parent's offspring (which is not saying much). While my siblings gave up on soccer by about 4th grade, I stuck it out until 8th and even tried my hand (legs?) at cross country for a hot season. That didn't work out so well, because I have a bum knee, and my genetics were like, "Psh? Athleticism? You're deranged." Thus, I gave up.

Athletics here are like a way of life. I'm on team for a high school retreat here (religious retreat. I do not mean "team" in any way that could imply sports), and every single high schooler on the team was like "I go to this school and play these three sports." I would have died had I spent my childhood here - they would have eaten my non-athletically-compatible self alive. Even the people who you don't think would play a sport still did. The local news covers high school football. I kid you not. Their slogan is "News 10 - On Your Sidelines." (Correction: OfficeMate has complained about my improper statement here. The News 10 slogan is "On Your Side." But they do use "On Your Sidelines" when covering high school football.)

So when OfficeMate invited me to go with him to a Virginia Tech game, I wasn't quite sure what to do. People are serious about their football here, and my family only gets serious about football when we're playing croquet at 3am in the summer with a glass of wine and you're trying to cheat by kicking your ball through the hoops you can't see. (I really hope someone followed that sentence.)

I get football - no really, I do. I understand the concept behind the game and more or less what the various positions do. I can even watch football and enjoy it. It's just not something I do on a regular basis.

I agreed to go, because it's an experience. Having gone to a small liberal arts school, I was seriously jipped when it comes to the legitimate football experience. Tailgating? School spirit? A stadium that seats 60,000+? It's a whole different world at Tech. I even called up my father about an hour before leaving, wandering Kroger, asking what on earth one brings to a tailgate. I also reprimanded him for raising children that can pair wines and cheese but cannot interact with people who tailgate.

Tech tailgating is like nothing I've ever seen (perhaps because I had never tailgated before...). People have flat screen tvs hooked up on their tailgating tents, connected to a dish so they can watch their Pre-Game Sports shows. There are grills of all shapes and sizes, and so. much. orange. Granted, it comes with the territory of Blacksburg. But it was definitely an experience.
The game was phenomenal; Tech ended up doing some serious damage to ECU. I saw cheerleaders actually engage a crowd in cheering and learned a few cheers myself. I also decided that the turkey noise they play at third downs sounds disturbingly similar to a cassette getting stuck in a tape deck. I high-fived a stranger after Tech scored a touchdown. Twice! All in all, a solid experience. Roanoke is getting me out of my comfort zones in more ways than one, and I'm learning a lot from it all.

Altruism
On Wednesday, I was feeling good. I was getting the hang of this town, making progress on various projects at work and was already signed up to donate blood and later volunteer at a food distribution center in the evening. I was an altruism machine, cranking out happiness and good deeds like a champ, and I was feeling good.

I was late to the blood drive... because I'm hispanic. No big deal, though, because no one seems to be in much of a rush in Roanoke anyways.
Then the woman who stuck me for donating missed my vein like three times. She kept looking around nervously and asking me if I was sure I'd donated before. No, no I must have dreamt those other times. My bad. Now my arm is looking rough - all bruised and what not.
I finished donating, enjoyed a free sandwich and that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you know you've actually been a productive and helpful human being, and left to meet a friend (right!! another friend!) for volunteering.

Let me explain to you, intertubes, how great it felt to be back out volunteering. We'll ignore the fact that this whole year is theoretical volunteer service. While I know my job is necessary and important, there is still something to be said for volunteer work with a quantitative aspect to it. Say, we fed X amount of people today. The people were so grateful to have something to hold them over and I was just thankful for the opportunity to help. The children were thrilled by the idea of a single donut and were always impeccably polite. I was blown away. I intend on returning as often as possible.

So I then went out with New Friend (who's not really new, but that's just too complicated to get into on the blog) for dinner. I enjoyed some good company and some delicious sushi, my first sushi since Lord only knows when. And that's when it happened.

Fraud
I went to pay my bill. And they told me my card was rejected. Twice.
Now. I don't overdraft. Ever. I knew how much money was in my account. I had enough for dinner and then some.
I went home and called my bank. Somehow, someone had gotten my card information and essentially spent all my money. How considerate. After a long discussion with my friendly neighborhood bank teller first thing this morning, I've filed all the necessary paperwork and had all the expected migraines. I should see my money again in a few weeks. For now, I'm just living even more cheaply than usual. It's not like I had a social life for this to affect anyways.

Rest In Peace, Debit Card. Seeing you get mercilessly cut up this morning was rough. We had a good run. I hope Debit Card heaven is nice and full of fun places to be swiped, like all those places I promised you we'd one day go and never made it to.

Disappointment
For those of you who are unaware, my housing situation is in a state of limbo at the moment.
I have very limited access to what small amount of funds I now have left.
My arm is all bruised and makes me look like a heroine addict (thanks, blood donation)
Two of my three friends in the area are leaving way to soon.

For those of you familiar with the play Avenue Q, I feel like I'm rocking out to the song, "It Sucks To Be Me." Today's been a little pity party, and now that I've moped sufficiently, I have every intention of bucking up tomorrow, realizing that, while things are bad, they could be a lot worse. I have a good support system in this town (thank GOD), and I'll get through it. And you know, I'll be all the better and stronger for it in the long run.

But, for real Roanoke, what is this? Your version of hazing? I'm not down with it.

And here's some silver lining just for fun! Today, I paid for gas with cash. ...for the first time in my life. I felt so legit being like, "Oh, I'll just take $15 on 7." I bet the guy at the register had NO idea I had never done it before. I'm a pro. There. optimism. Suck it, cynicism.