heyyyy . . . switch!
Aaaand we're back. Betcha didn't even notice I was gone, didja? My domain
name has been renewed, thanks to
Chel. She will be transferring the
contents to her own management as of today. It's the first step in the right
direction, I think. As much as I am the coolest person in the world with my
old-school html-age, I'm getting rather tired of it, seeing as I've had a
rocking design for over two years just waiting to go up. In fact, it's been
so long since the design was up that I have made some drastic changes to it
about five or so times. Now we just need to put it in a format that Chel can
read so she can work her webby brilliance. I did it in Microsoft Publisher,
because it's a program I know well, and which is very good for delineating
page-sized presentations and manipulating blocks of colour and shapes. But
Chel doesn't have it, and I'm not proficient enough at photoshop to transfer
it over. Plus, I now have a Mac, and so don't have either of these programs
any more.
Cait found
a good download for it, but is having trouble uploading it for Chel's use. So
things are a little further delayed. I'm in no rush.
Every day this week has felt like FRIDAY. Except for yesterday, Wednesday,
which felt like Thursday. I'm also having hard core computer problems with my
shitbox million year old PC (how come everyone else has a new computer and a
flat screen monitor that WORKS, save me?), which has essentially resulted in
me not being able to use any of the programs that are absolutely essential to
me working here. I've been trying my best to solve the problems through
internet forums and whatnot, but the problem is a little complex and all the
forum stuff is in jargon way too thick for me to understand. So I have given
up. I can still take dictation and type letters and check my personal email,
so life isn't completely messed up.
I think another reason why every day feels like Friday is that we have a
ten-year-old staying with us for the week. She is the daughter of some
friends of my parents from BC, and the sister of their goddaughter. She
randomly decided she would be coming to visit us, and so here she is, a
ten-year-old staying with four adults. The problem is her manners.
The day after she got in, which was the night of the show, my dad took her
grocery shopping for every conceivable thing she would want to eat. I mean,
there is food in my house that I've never even heard of before. My dad even
MAKES her a sandwich out of said things, precisely to her specifications. He
BRINGS it to her where we're sitting in the basement. She takes one bite.
She looks at me. She asks, "what BRAND of cream cheese is this?" I shrug. I
have no idea. She wrinkles her nose and doesn't touch the rest of the
sandwich. She seems to subsist solely on Pepsi and popsicles, the refuse of
which she leaves everywhere in the house.
It's the delicate little nose wrinkle I hate the most. Anything she doesn't
like is treated with silence and the wrinkle (which looks identical to the one
her mother does). Anything she does like is taken completely for granted.
Example (and this is just the most recent of many): last night I took her to
see
Over the
Hedge. I bought her popcorn. We went out afterwards to get ice cream.
She sat silently through the movie, didn't talk about it afterwards, save to
ask me inane questions about my purse (?), and not once did she say "please"
or "thank you." Sheri, my coworker, has a daugher who is now 4, but she said
that as soon as she could string together a sentence, she was minding her p's
and q's.
My parents are not particularly enamoured with her either. My mother has
cancelled all her physiotherapy appointments this week and my father has taken
the time off work so they can entertain her by taking her on trips, to
museums, out to lunch, to our family cottage, etc. So I think they would
appreciate it more if perhaps she was even slightly appreciative of this whole
endeavor that
she orchestrated?
I have honestly never met a child who frustrates me this much. And I admit
here that I feel towards children of that sort of age the same way I feel
towards disgruntled cats - I tend to avoid them. Most of them, though, I can
have a decent, even fun time with, should I be so inclined. I can usually
answer all million and four questions they fire at me. This one? Not so
much. Her questions are - for lack of a better word - silly. I get up to go
to the bathroom when we're watching a movie. "Where are you going?" "To the
bathroom." "Oh. Why?"
WHY? And I swear she has an attention span of
four seconds. If I return from the bathroom, she'll ask me where I was, and
why I went there. (This bathroom incident never occurred, BTW, it was a
little more complicated involving dinner, but the situation and responses were
the same, so you get the idea).
And she has a huge crush on me so she follows me everywhere. She even gets up
early so she can watch me while I scarf down my breakfast and read the paper
(she won't make her own breakfast, even though my father has shown her where
everything is). She even walks into my bedroom uninvited. While the door is
closed. Now, my entire family knows that my bedroom is my refuge from
everything. If the door is shut you only bother me if it's really important
and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES do you enter unless instructed to do so. I am
rather fond of my alone time. I'm going to have to start locking my door.
Anyway, enough bitching about a ten-year-old child. It's really not worth me
worrying about. She's only here until Sunday. Nice to get it out there,
though.
Posted by Ally at June 22, 2006 12:23 PM