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Reality TV IV Drip. STAT!

As I mentioned on The Book of Drivel, I did away with my Dish Network. Which doesn’t just mean I cancelled the dish and switched to something else. It means, I cancelled cable altogether. All I have now is DVD’s and Videos if I want to watch something.

So let’s first look at the process of getting rid of it and then we’ll discuss further the why and now what of the situation. I called Dish Network and told them I wanted to cancel my service when the month I had already paid for ended. They asked me assorted questions such as, “Why are canceling? Can we offer you a better package? If this is about money, can we give you a smaller package?” To which I responded with, “I want to save money, sure, but mostly I just don’t want TV anymore.” The woman on the phone didn’t seem to understand this concept.

    DW: “Well, I can offer you the smaller package which is only $29.95.”
    KT: “I don’t think you understand. I DON’T WANT TV. No matter what the cost. It’s rotting my brain.”
    After offering me a few more options to which I refused, she said,
    DN: “Well we can put a hold on your account so when you want to turn it back on, you won’t have to pay the install fee.”
    KT: “I won’t be turning it back on.”
    DN: “Well, see how it goes with it turned off and when you start to miss it, we’ll have this hold on it.”
    KT: “Yeah, you’re right. I might do something crazy like get stuff done, start reading, spend time with my friends and family. God that would be horrible.”
    DN: “I’ll put you through to the cancellation department.” Cue Hold Music.

Good. Done. That was a month ago. So Thursday was the big day. I have been really excited for this day to come. Dreaming about all the reading and blogging and socializing and cleaning I could get done if I just didn’t have TV. (Sidenote: a friend said, why don’t you just unplug it while you are waiting for it to go off. Whatever. I don’t have that kind of self-control and I want to get my money’s worth. Which subsequently sparked this marathon of TV watching on my part. Especially since I needed to get through all my TIVO’d stuff.)

So Thursday morning I get a phone call. Guess who. Dish Network.

    DN: “Is Mr. or Mrs. Toft there.”
    KT: “This is Ms. Toft.”
    DN: “This is Dish Network…I can offer you a smaller package…blah blah blah.”
    KT: “I don’t want any other package. Nothing.”
    DN: “May I ask which channels you watch when you do watch because some of the smaller packages have those channels.”
    KT: “It doesn’t matter. It’s an addiction. I have to quit cold turkey. You could give me one channel and I’ll watch it all night long.”
    DN: “Well, we do have our smallest package…”
    KT: “If I were an alcoholic would you offer me a drink?”
    DN: “Okay ma’am, I’ll put a note not to charge you if you decide to come back. Have a nice day.” Click.

Jesus Christ, people. Seriously. I told her it was an addiction and she kept pushing it. I was actually starting to get angry because I was thinking of America in general and the pressure she was putting on, a somewhat strong-minded, stick-to-my-guns kind of person. I do think TV is an addiction, just like porn or cutting yourself. Am I wrong?

So, here we are. My first weekend without TV. You wanna know what I’ve done this morning? I’ve been going through my DVD’s and finding all the Hidden Features. (Baby steps, people, baby steps). My good friend Dave taught me about Easter Eggs. You go to the Main Menu of a DVD and with a certain up or down or over of the arrow you can sometimes find extra treats. For example, on the move Saved! there is a hidden feature of Michael Stipe doing a interview where he offers a limited opportunity to get saved. Pretty cute.

So go check out the webpage linked above and it will tell you where there are Easter Eggs on your movies. How fun.

And so begins my life without Cable and perhaps more blogging.

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Portland. The city that makes you wanna quit your job.

As you can see I have a new format for my blog. You may recognize the layout because it is the generic WordPress layout as you can see on Joey’s blog. I’ll be personalizing it soon.

A great trip to Portland and our cult leader KB brought about:

    -a transfer from MT to WP
    -a subscription to metafilter
    -two pairs of great pants from REI only to discover I had a $100 dividend I didn’t know about.
    -consumption of the best oatmeal from Kornblatts
    -cheese tasting at the gourmet City Market followed by purchase of great cheese and a bottle of 2001 Tedeschi’s Capitel Dei Nicalo Valpolicella which I consumed myself
    -the traditional new cd that I let Kris pick out for me
    -my first viewing of Kill Bill (awesome!)
    -the popping of my Halo2 cherry (I suck at it)
    -a personal one on one tutorial in PhotoShop from the guru himself
    -and of course the obligatory trip to Powell’s where I walked out with some great books including “The Phantom Tollbooth” which Kris bought for me (thanks Kris!)

Ah yes, a great visit as usual and much needed. But speaking of childhood books and memories (Kris bought me the book because he couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it and I can’t believe it either), I found out something interesting regarding an old childhood song I used to sing all the time.

When I was a little girl my mom would teach us songs and sing with us a lot. At least I remember doing this before I was old enough to go to Montessori and maybe a little after. One of my favorites was “Aloutte” which was in french but I managed to learn it anyway. Of course now upon reading it I realize that I had butchered the language and in my head it looked entirely different. 🙂 Regardless, the bigger shock was what the translation was. Check it out.

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What kind of girl do you think I am?

Alright all. This is pretty cute. Check it out. There are two quizzes. One for guys to see how they can snag the girl they like by figuring out first what kind of girl she is and then being able to take that information and run with it. And then a quiz for girls so we can see what kind of girl we really are.

My results?

I am Progressive Girl

Click on the picture below to read more:

Progressive Girl


Take the ‘What Kind of Girl Are You?’ quiz or the What kind of girl is she? for the guys.
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In a word, Mental Health, my mental health, your mental health, other people’s mental health…

I’ve been working in the Behavioral Health department at work this month and I have to say that it is by far my favorite place to be. The providers are almost always great to work with because they take everything in stride. “I have to learn an entirely new computer system? Well, I guess I’ll just work on my breathing and calming exercises.” 🙂

I park myself in a pass-through between hallways so everyone can find me and I basically stand there all day at my laptop. Actually, most of the time I can be found in various offices helping people because they have a lot of questions. Medical Records in mental health are trickier than other places because they need to only be visible to the Mental Health department and not the entire staff of the clinics. Makes it fun and gives me a lot to troubleshoot.

So I find myself wearing a path in the carpet as I wander from office to office answering questions and advising on work flow. Last week I noticed a divot in the carpet at one point in my path. My foot sunk down into it and I thought, “I don’t remember this being here before.” Today my foot fell into it again and I wondered if I had caused it to form. Did I walk too hard and often on this path that I have sunken in part of the floor? Was this here before?

First I found myself trying to avoid stepping into it out of fear I would make it worse or, even better, trip myself. Now I notice I am purposely synchronizing my steps to make it so I walk right into it because I find it comforting. A little blip in my day that makes me feel like I’m someplace familiar.

I think I’m starting to lose it. You don’t think so?

Example #2: While assisting a therapist in her office, I noticed the Game of Sorry. Do you remember that game? At first when I saw this in her bin of therapy games I thought “Why would she have that game? What could that possibly teach them?” But then I suddenly flashbacked to playing it as a kid and realizing it was completely horrifying to knock somebody off their path and send them back home. The game requires that you say, “I’m Sorry” when you do it and we always complied.

Example #3: I also realized that the only reason I liked playing the game was because of the way the pieces felt in my hand…and my mouth. Man I sucked on those little suckers all the time.

So, shall I make an appointment?

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Just me and my Guacamole

I saw that on Amy’s blog she had a ticker time thing for losing weight. I love that. So I made one for my vacation. It’s clunky and off center, but I’m going to use it anyway.

My sister Marie talked me into going to Los Cabos. I said, “Let’s take a vacation in February,” and she said, “Someplace warm!” I responded with, “Well, whatever, let’s just go somewhere.”

So Los Cabos it is. I’m excited about the food, the drinking, the reading, but I’m not really a lie in the sun kind of person. We’ll see how I feel when I come back a lobster. Anyone been there? Any recommendations?

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Love Bomb

Sometimes I think I’m reading The Onion and then I look up and it’s a normal news source. I still am not sure if I believe this “Love Bomb,” but my friend Jennie sent it along to me and I couldn’t stop laughing. It also made me wonder, why not made a bomb that just made everyone Love each other and stop fighting. Like an Ecstasy bomb or something.

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Waxing Nostalgic

I was playing around with Picasa as Kris recommended because my pictures were huge when I sent them to Flickr. Then because they used up 48% of my allotment I retracted them without realized the allotment was referring to bandwidth, not space. So I removed the pics without realizing that putting them back there was going to take more bandwidth. I’m an idiot. I told Kris and he tried not to laugh. His exact instant message response was “Jesus.” I concurred.

So, back to my point. He recommended I get better acquainted with Picasa (which I had installed on my laptop months ago and never done much with). When I browsed through my pics to see if there was anything I felt like shrinking, I found my trip to Hawaii with my family. Strange. The trip was sort of a disaster. Family fights, hard rain, lots of visits to the military base which caused more fights. But let’s get something straight here; I was not one of the people fighting. I just drank my beer, or my strawberry volcano, or my mailbu bay breeze and read my book.

My point is that I rather enjoyed the trip since I blocked out the inane fights and was pleasantly surprised that the island which initially I had no desire to ever visit turned out to be breathtaking. Not to mention that I love crazy weather. I get sick of Seattle drizzle and yearn for sudden drowning rain storms.

So I stumbled upon this picture and got all choked up. It was a miserable day. One sister had already left for the mainland. We had eaten McDonald’s for lunch (ick)! But I felt like it was old days when my parents would take us to some historical site and my dad would tell me stories about the past and paint a vivid picture of what happened. He really should have been a history teacher. I would have fared much better in school.

The other thing this picture reminded me of was a student of mine with the last name Gaylard. She always referred to herself as “HappyFat” instead. I liked that. And looking at my dad and me in this picture the first thing that popped in my head was HappyFat. And I giggled.

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Julia Child’s got nothing on me…now that she’s dead

Lately I’ve been cooking at home a lot. My sister loves this because when she gets home from work around 8pm, I have dinner waiting for her. First night, I made Lemon Chicken Linguini with a Tomato Basil mixture tossed in. Second night, I made a New York Roast Beef with sides of rice and broccoli that I cooked in a parsley/garlic/shallot butter. Yummy.

Something you have to know about me is that without a recipe I really don’t know much about spices, portions, and timing. I have been watching Jay cook for the last six months and have been picking up a lot of great tips. First thing I learned is that I don’t know how to cut vegetables in an efficient way. Second thing is that I should become better acquainted with cumin, tamaric, and sage. Three spices I had never touched before. (Sidenote: Being around Jay always made me giddy and I think it’s because he smells like these spices all the time. A true cook.)

Tonight I made Tofu fajitas for Dave. I plan on making this again this weekend, but figured I could always use the practice. I had purchased this fajita powder pack, but when I opened it the smell was horrible. I tossed it in the garbage and headed for the spice rack. I picked up the cumin, opened it, smelled it, and realized it smelled exactly like Mexican food. Ta-da! Anyone who has cooked is probably laughing at me, but remember that this is all new to me.

I decided to have a little fun so I made spanish rice. First I cooked the rice. Then I saut�ed chopped onions and carrots with some olive oil and cumin. Then I tossed in some canned diced tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Finally I tossed the rice in and let it sizzle up a bit. I also added some Tabasco for good measure. The tofu fajita part was amazing as well with onions, red pepper, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots. Yummy! Dave was impressed.

Here’s my rice. Isn’t it pretty?

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My lack of willpower is my only interesting trait

What is it about my blog that keeps me from writing anything? I used to love this thing but now every time I think I have something to blog about, I sit down and discover…I am the most boring person I know. Furthermore, I think I’ve already blogged this exact sentiment before.

The few things that excite me these days are what I’m having for dinner (wait, I’ve always been interested in that), curling up with my sister’s cat, and my new Jeopardy calendar that quizzes me every day. As a matter of fact, my new cube mate at work has to help me exercise restraint when checking the calendar because I just want to keep ripping off days and answering questions. Someone is always helping me with my lack of willpower.

I should say I have plans for the year. Not resolutions. But some plans I’ve had for a while that just happen to coincide with a new year on the calendar. So here is a short list of some thoughts.

1. Take guitar lessons (really, seriously, find someone, get a referral, anything)
2. Learn to sew (Jay is good for this sort of thing, I already stole my mom’s sewing machine)
3. Sew the quilt for Jay in time for his October birthday (which means the last week of September Maria or Leah will be telling me, “I told you it would take longer than two weeks, forget it.”)
4. Check out the local pool in order to do cardio during the winter (the beauty of this is that I only have to check it out, I don’t have to commit).
5. If pool falls through, check out local aerobics classes (or yoga, or pilates, or just stop sitting on your bed watching tv for a start).
6. Get the Book Club Review Web Site up and rolling (this is really just a motivation to relearn web design and css).
7. Visit Kris in Portland to have 1on1 Photoshop lesson (and eat Kornplatz oatmeal while there).
8. See if you can’t make that room in the basement something workable for guests and a getaway.
9. Or maybe just save some more money and buy your own damn place.
10. Come up with one more thing so you can have a nice list of ten things.

I will be spending the next month going to and from Bremerton on the hour long ferry every morning for work. I am not happy about this. The upside is that I am working in the Behavioral Health building/department and they are always more fun. Or maybe I just like being that close to people who are more messed up than I am. Then again, are they?

Lastly, for the record, I am content. I may sound down and out, but life is good. I love living with my sister Marie and I know my job is a relatively good one as jobs go. I miss my walks with Michelle, but as soon as the weather warms up a bit we’ll get back to them. I had an amazing visit to Boston and saw Kamala and Jennie (separately). And I think I may have mentioned that I went to my 10 year high school reunion and it was one of the best vacations I’ve had in a while. And to think I hadn’t even wanted to go.

So life is good. I’m just bored.